By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 16 April 2014
Scotland’s island councils look certain to win increased autonomy from Holyrood regardless of the outcome of the independence referendum, after Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael threw the weight of the UK Coalition behind their demands for more powers.
Carmichael, who is MP for Orkney and Shetland, said he hoped to have an agreement in place by mid-summer in response to a combined campaign by council leaders in the western and northern isles for greater control over their own affairs.
In a BBC interview, he said that the islands should have ‘the maximum amount of control’ and promised ‘genuine and long-lasting reform’.
Carmichael said: ‘We do very well as being part of the United Kingdom, but control is being stripped away, accountability is being taken away from towns like… Kirkwall or Lerwick or Stornoway and held by the government in Edinburgh, and that’s not good.’
First Minister Alex Salmond has already promised Scottish Government support in the so-called Lerwick Declaration of July 2013. An Island Areas Ministerial Working Group has been meeting to agree a prospectus for increased local autonomy in the islands. Labour has also backed the idea.
A joint manifesto by the three island councils – Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles – sets out a range of policy areas in which they believed the islands could exercise greater control, including Crown Estate revenues, fisheries and renewable energy.
Though they have consciously not tied their objectives to any specific outcome in the independence referendum on September 18, they are set within the context of wider constitutional reform, demanding ‘clear recognition of the status of the three island groups in the new Scottish Constitutional Settlement and within the European Governance Framework’.
In past constitutional debates, notably around the 1979 devolution referendum, there has been scepticism, particularly in Orkney and Shetland, as to whether an Edinburgh government is any better attuned to the needs of the islands than one based in London.
Some have argued that the islands might do better remaining with the rest of the UK were Scotland to vote for independence and, while this is not currently seen as a likely possibility, there have been petitions on the islands demanding a separate vote on independence.
Meanwhile, Audit Scotland has rejected a complaint by a Scottish National Party MSP that Aberdeen’s Labour-controlled council broke the 1992 Council Tax Regulations by sending out an anti-independence letter along with council tax bills.
But Audit Scotland said it would be for the courts to decide whether the action broke restrictions on political activity under the 1986 Local Government Act. The council, which previously debated banning Salmond and his ministers from entering its buildings, is also facing complaints to Scotland’s commissioner on ethical standards over the letters.
