Devolution is in 'crisis' warns Sir Tom Devine

He warned that unless something was done, the “aggressive unionism” of Westminster would significantly curtail Holyrood’s powers.

However, the academic – who came out in favour of Yes vote shortly before the 2014 referendum – also warned that independence could damage the economy and have a negative impact on tackling poverty.

Sir Tom’s intervention comes as the SNP prepares to table a referendum Bill, with the intent of holding a second independence vote next year.

The professor emeritus of Scottish history at Edinburgh University, who delivered his speech to Holyrood’s Scottish Politics Explained event yesterday, said there had been notable successes since the creation of the Scottish Parliament.

“The parliament is now deeply embedded in Scottish society, one might even say, deeply embedded in Scotland’s political culture. So much so that it’s taken for granted,” he said.

Sir Tom said the early executive was “blessed with very favourable economic conditions throughout the UK, which meant that the block grant coming to the parliament in the early part of the 21st-century was pretty good.”

However, he said that there was no “clear evidence that great opportunities were taken, especially in economic fields, as a consequence of that.”

Sir Tom said: “The parliament was set up essentially to deal with the democratic deficit, which existed in the 1980s, into the 1990s, whereby Scotland consistently voted against Tory governments and Tory policies were imposed because of the UK electoral system.

“The parliament was intended originally to be a kind of defence mechanism against that.”

The historian said that had “been the case for most of the last 12 years of Conservative government.”

“Scotland has continued to adhere to what I would call social democratic policies and approaches. And especially in relation to the public services, has not gone down the route of privatisation and neoliberalism.”

On the failures of devolution, Sir Tom pointed to the economy, the weak productivity, the relative lack of new business growth, and persistent poverty.

“I think one major failing of devolution, one failed opportunity, was really to get a real grip on some of the historic – and they are historic, they go right back to the later part of the last century –  problems in the economic field.”

The extent of child poverty in Scotland was, he said, “absolutely disgraceful”.

He rejected the Scottish Government’s normal response that they didn’t have the appropriate macroeconomic levers to tackle the country’s economic problems.

“I don’t necessarily think that is a convincing argument, because of the two extensions in devolutionary powers made since 1999. There have been two big ones, the Calman commission and then the Smith recommendations after the 2014 referendum.

“I take the view, it is an opinion rather than settled fact, that much more could have been done because, of course, the health of the economy is the precondition for all other policies.”

Sir Tom said he was “not convinced” that “an independent Scotland would be able to do any better”.

“It might even do worse because of the changing nature of international economic conditions,” he added.

The professor was also critical of the Curriculum for Excellence: “I would not go so far as to call it what some critics have called it, the ‘curriculum for ignorance’, but I am with those critics who say that it considerably underplays the need for knowledge and for the learning of facts, the learning of information.”

Devolution, in the run-up to the 2016 Brexit vote, had been “like a kind of complex curate’s egg,” he said. “Very good in some areas, okay in others and not very effective in a final group.”

However, everything changed after the EU referendum, Sir Tom said, when Scotland voted to remain in Europe by 62 per cent to 38 per cent.

“Everybody knows what happened. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU and the UK left, Brexit took place. 

“That to me demonstrated unambiguously that the democratic deficit still exists. The function of the new devolution settlement was to end the democratic deficit and of course, it did so, from 1999 to 2016.”

It was, he said, a “brutal lesson in demonstrating the limitations not only of the devolved settlement but of the limited power of the Scottish Parliament”.

He added: “What one has had since 2016, has been the onset of aggressive unionism emanating from Westminster, from the current Conservative government. The trend since 2016 has been to not provide more devolution but more support for the Union.

"This new aggressive unionism which has occurred is really to curtail, so far to a limited extent, but if this policy goes on it will be to a significant extent, the potential powers of the Scottish Parliament.

“The political improvements of the last 20-odd years, you can argue, are now in danger because of this. And it’s not very clear to me what Scotland or the Scottish Government can do about this, because it’s revealed a degree of impotence.”

Sir Tom said: “There’s no doubt about it, a crisis has now emerged in the devolution settlement”.