Devolution in Scotland

Debate between Chris Murray and Torcuil Crichton

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing this important debate on the 25th anniversary of devolution.

My constituency of Edinburgh East and Musselburgh is home to many of Scotland’s jewels. It is a privilege to represent Edinburgh castle, Holyrood palace and the Edinburgh festivals and fringe, although I think the performers are safe given some of the jokes we have heard from Opposition Members. However, the most important building in my seat—indeed, in the whole of Scotland—is at the foot of the Royal Mile. Not only is it architecturally a huge addition to Edinburgh’s scenery, but it is where the Scottish political heart beats. Calling the Scottish Parliament the centre of Scottish political life may sound like a bland truism, but it is not. It is a huge achievement, and not to think so would be to underestimate the achievement of devolution. Before 1999, critics of devolution said that it would amount to an overgrown town council, cause a brain drain, or be of interest only to the political class, not ordinary Scots.

I am of the devolution generation: for as long as I can remember, devolution has simply existed. That devolution generation is now reluctantly facing middle age, but for us it has become a fact of life that the Scottish Parliament is the primary Parliament in which decisions that affect our lives are taken. The community groups and local businesses that I speak to orient themselves towards Holyrood. When they say “the Parliament,” they mean that place, not this one. That is testament to the Scottish Parliament’s success in establishing itself as the fulcrum of Scottish political life.

However, we should consider a counterfactual. Imagine if devolution had been thwarted. Our health service, education and justice systems and housing policy would all receive only scraps of parliamentary time, with little scrutiny and even less reform. That would be a democratic affront even now, when the Government have 37 Scottish MPs, but it would have been an outrage over the 14 years under the last Conservative Administration, with little Scottish representation. The Scottish Parliament has its flaws, but it has undeniably remedied that democratic deficit, and in so doing, has removed one of the greatest threats to constitutional stability in Scotland.

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for organising this debate—he is as much an institution as the Scottish Parliament itself. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) speaks about the Scottish Parliament being the heartbeat of Scottish politics. Is it not time, in the next 25 years, to devolve power from Edinburgh to regions like mine and the highlands, to super-charge the Highlands and Islands Enterprise into a highland development agency, cutting out—shut your ears—those dynamos of economic activity, Inverness and the Moray firth, and to focus devolved power on transport, housing, depopulation and economic and cultural growth in rural areas of Scotland? Powers have been pulled back from them into a centralised Edinburgh.

[Chris Murray]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The concentration of power in the Scottish Parliament does not work for cities, rural areas, the central belt or the highlands and islands, because it treats Scotland as one monolithic whole and does not address the differences in its communities.

That brings me to my next point. Although devolution has been successful in establishing the Scottish Parliament, we have to be honest about where it has fallen short. Many hon. Members have laid out a litany of failures: poorer health outcomes, falling schools standards that were once the envy of Europe, a housing emergency and stubbornly high poverty, and the drugs crisis, which shames us all. We once led the world in setting climate targets, but we now lead the world in ditching them. We must understand why that happened.

If we think of devolution only as the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, we get it wrong. In 1999, another institution was created—the Scottish Government, then the Scottish Executive.

Scotland’s Architectural Heritage

Debate between Chris Murray and Torcuil Crichton

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Torcuil Crichton]

I heartily agree: the links across the Irish sea between Scotland and Northern Ireland are well known, and the influence of Scottish architecture, as I will go on to demonstrate, is worldwide.

Hon. Members have talked about other stories, but above Sauchiehall Street, wrapped in a white plastic shroud, is the burnt-out shell of the Mack. The site is sealed, like a sarcophagus, against the elements. The art school board, the engineers, the architects and the firefighters have all done their utmost and the walls are still standing, but there is no sign of a phoenix rising from these ashes.

The architectural value of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterpiece is recognised all over the world. It was built in two phases, from 1897 to 1899 and again from 1907 to 1909. There has never been a building like it, whether in Scotland, the UK or the world. It is the inspired design of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He was only 29 when he started work on it, which is quite humbling. Of course he did not do it on his own and he did not spring from nowhere. Not far from here, in west Kensington, the inspiration for a young Mackintosh can be found in the work of another Scottish architect, James M MacLaren. His towers and delicate spires find an echo in the masterpiece on Garnethill, which contains strands of Japanese design, modernism, art nouveau and sheer genius.

It was by combining three elements—imagination, engineering and art; as good a definition of good architecture as one can get—that the Mack was created. Unlike many of our other monumental buildings, it actually worked. For over a century, the Mackintosh building performed the purpose for which it was designed, combining exquisite craftmanship and design while producing an incredible production line of talent.

I never attended art school, but I was a citizen of Glasgow for many years and I did live next door to the Mack for a time. The second city was my second home, and I have many lifelong friends who are graduates of Glasgow School of Art. As the song goes,

“the art school dance goes on forever”.

The Mack runs through our personal lives as much as it does through the life of the nation.

In my constituency, I have many friends who are alumni of the Mack, such as my good friend Calum Angus Mackay, a photographer, painter and TV producer, who only recently produced a retrospective of 40 years of work since he left the Mack; Roddy Murray, the director of An Lanntair art gallery, ex-Dreamboy, local hero, actor and writer; his cousin, Ishbel Murray, and her brother Kenneth, who are both teachers and fine artists; Maggie Smith, a Harris tweed designer; Kenneth Burns, a landscape painter who has chronicled Glasgow and his native islands; Christine Davidson; and many others. Outwith the islands, there is Andy Scott, the internationally renowned figurative sculpture of the Kelpies, and my friend David Pratt, a photojournalist and war correspondent, who turned his unflinching lens on the flames of the art school as it was consumed a second time.

The impact and influence of the art school has been profound on all our lives—not just on those who were lucky enough to pass through its doors. Its structure is integral to Scotland’s identity and central to the image of brand Scotland we want to portray, and an asset to the UK on the world stage.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that the art nouveau Charles Rennie Mackintosh style speaks to a time when Scotland looked outward at the world? There are examples of that art nouveau Charles Rennie Mackintosh style in Paris in the Musée d’Orsay, and the Japonisme spoke to a Scotland that was looking outward. When we think of the art school in my home city of Glasgow being wrapped in sheets, we should remember that it is part of a group of buildings, including those on Waterloo Street and Carlton Place, that are falling into decay. Scotland is not looking out at the world and preserving its architecture. Does he agree that the new UK Government should step up to protect it, and that the Scottish Government also have a role? It is disappointing that no SNP Members are here to even listen to the debate.

[Torcuil Crichton]

I thank my hon. Friend for the point that Glasgow is a cultural lighthouse and a beacon, although much decayed in present days, as he has noted. Its buildings do speak to the world, and hopefully will again when the Mack is restored.

Winston Churchill said:

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”—[Official Report, 28 October 1943; Vol. 393, c. 403.]

The Mack and Glasgow School of Art has certainly done that. It is a 20th century dynamo that has produced some of the most talented British artistic practitioners we have seen. Doctor Who went to Glasgow School of Art in the shape of Peter Capaldi, who is my favourite Doctor. Coincidentally, my good friend Annie Grace, a piper who was also at Glasgow School of Art, is sharing the stage with another Doctor, David Tennant, in the west end production of “Macbeth”. It is not just the previous students we have to think about.