Sir Paul Grice on 20 years of devolution: 'We didn't know if it was going to work'

It was then six weeks before Donald Dewar’s stirring reminder that, “this is about more than our politics and our laws. This is about who we are, how we carry ourselves”.

The first words on that inaugural Wednesday morning were not so poetic.

They were plain, polite and to the point. But they were typical of the person who said them, and that straightforward manner has served him well ever since.

Paul Grice was the parliament’s temporary clerk when he announced, “Welcome to this, the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament established under the Scotland Act 1998.”

He is now Sir Paul, Holyrood’s clerk and chief executive.

He has had a ringside seat through every twist, turn and scandal of devolution, acting as a neutral “adviser and small-p political manager” to five First Ministers and five Presiding Officers, the resident authority on parliament’s rules and legislation.

He also oversees the day to day running of the building itself. “Everything from strategic planning to making sure the pie and chips is good in the canteen,” as he puts it.

His history with the project predates even the New Labour government that ushered it in.

After graduating from Stirling University in 1984, he entered the civil service fast stream, working in both Whitehall and the Scotland Office in Edinburgh.

In the spring of 1997 he was tasked with working up a draft white paper on devolution in readiness for Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister.

On the weekend after the election, he met Mr Dewar to discuss it. He then led on the legislation for the Scottish and Welsh referendums, then on the Scotland Act, and then became director of implementation for the embryonic Scottish Parliament.

“Donald Dewar said, ‘Somebody’s got to go and set this thing up - and that’s you.’”

So by the time the Parliament reconvened in its temporary digs on the Mound, he had been fretting over it for almost two years.

“I remember that day with a sense of excitement, a sense of relief, because we had been working so intensely,” he recalls.

“I wanted the members to feel like they’d arrived at something like a parliament.

“The truth is, for all our planning, we didn’t actually know it was going to work until it did.”

As a career civil servant, he’d seen numerous policies come and go. Did he think devolution was another idea that might fizzle out once ministers and priorities had moved on?

“It did feel different for a number of reasons. There had been a referendum. I know we’ve got a little bit more used to referendums, but it was a highly unusual thing.

“You’d had a referendum with a resounding result, close to 75%. That gave it a sense of permanence. This was something patently different from any policy I had worked on before.”

After the “difficult, rocky patch” of the early 2000s, when Donald Dewar died, Henry McLeish resigned as FM in disgrace, and Holyrood was delayed and over-budget, he says the parliament turned a corner in its second session, the so-called Rainbow Parliament.

Not only did it move into a new home at the foot of the Royal Mile, it caught people’s imagination, with new Greens, Socialists and even a Senior Citizens Unity Party MSP.

“Then it really did look very different from the UK parliament. Yet we’d also done a lot of the basics twice successfully. We’d inducted new members, we’d elected a new government. We’d done all these things and all the systems seemed to work.”

In terms of changes since, he says a key one has been the growth in MSPs’ confidence, reinforcing the sense of permanence around the institution. Another is technology.

The parliament arrived when the internet meant dial-up and mobile phones were merely phones. Now, the parliament live-streams every meeting, has its own YouTube channel, and engages with the country through social media.

He predicts the next 20 years will bring more profound technological change, with MSPs able to participate in committees and possibly debates remotely, with far more public interaction.

Right now, he’s also helping put together an old-school book of essays about the anniversary. What struck him most was the sheer variety of contributions.

“From taxation to engagement to more philosophical reflections. Because this place means so many things to different people. It’s been fascinating how many different people have different takes on the parliament.

“I don’t think anyone would claim it has been perfect, but it has been a game-changer.

“People now expect involvement in what happens in their country on the devolved areas, on health and education. That’s very different from the Scotland I remember when I came back in ‘92. That’s been a real change and I think the parliament has tried to embrace that.”

As for Scotland’s constitutional future, he’s diplomatic, but prepared.

In 2014, he and his team undertook what he calls “some serious preps” on whether Holyrood had the capacity to function as the legislature of an independent nation.

“The short answer was yes,” he says. “We worked out how much time we would have after a Yes vote to make those changes. We estimated we’d have a full parliament [four years] to do that, and that would allow us to adapt the building, make other changes.

“We were very confident that had there been a Yes vote in 2014 that we would have been able to meet all the requirements of the politicians in that time.

“We were satisfied that we’d be able to sit down with the new administration after that and say, ‘Right, in detail, what do you want and what are you going to do?’

“And we felt we’d be able to support that process. If that meant, ultimately, more buildings or more seats, we’d have time to accommodate that.”

Does he think he’ll have to activate that plan? “Who knows,” he smiles wryly.

He’s more forthcoming about what else might occupy the 2021 parliamentary session. The parties could do a lot worse than a root-and-branch reform of local government.

The last one was under John Major’s Conservative government a quarter of a century ago.

“My memory of that... is a vast amount of effort and no thanks at the end of it.

“But maybe if Brexit eventually settles down so it doesn’t become the all-consuming issue, it’s the sort of thing that you might persuade people to look at cross-party.

“And if not a Royal Commission, something quite substantial - analysis of everything from the funding to the powers, to the relationships to the electoral model.

“I think it would be welcome. I think there’s an appetite. It’s just finding the time and recognising that it probably would take a whole session of parliament from the start of that to the implementation of it.

“But that requires a lot of political commitment across parties, and there’s always a more pressing priority, and not just Brexit.”

tomorrow: First minister Nicola Sturgeon on two decades of the Scottish Parliament