Letters / Shellfish regulating order not a SNP creation
Fiona Morton Cluness is correct to describe The Shetland Islands Regulated Fishery (Scotland) Order as “one of the best examples of devolution we have.”
But she is wrong to claim that this is a creation of her beloved SNP.
If she had bothered to look at the Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation website, she would see that the regulating order came into force in 1999.
In 1999 the Scottish Government was a coalition of Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
Such orders are time limited and have to be renewed periodically, as the Shetland Regulating Order has since been twice, both times by SNP governments.
But it is most unlikely that the centralising SNP would have introduced it if it was not already in existence.
Devolving powers away from Holyrood to Shetland, or indeed to any part of Scotland away from the central belt, is just not in the SNP’s DNA.
Instead, they suck powers into the centre, such as those over the police and fire services. And by steadily reducing the share of the Scottish financial cake passed to councils, they have reduced the ability of councils to deliver the local services they are responsible for.
I accept that, given the poor record of delivery by SNP governments of the services over which they have power, it is hard for their supporters to come up with a list of worthwhile SNP deliveries.
But that does not justify taking credit for the regulating order delivered by the 1999 Labour/Scottish Liberal Democrat government.
Is it just a matter of time before they try to take the credit for the Zetland County Council Act, claiming that it was SNP MPs, not Jo Grimond, who worked with the ZCC to deliver that very beneficial Act?
Alistair Easton
Edinburgh
