It’s the first day of the fines for pavement parking in Glasgow and I’m weaving my way past all the cars parked on the pavements in Glasgow wondering why Scotland can’t do decent laws. Over and over again, half-cocked ideas for new laws either never make it to the statute book, or they make it to the statute book and don’t work, or they’re ignored or abolished or worst of all, they’re laughed at. Why does this keep happening to us?
To be fair, the pavement parking ban is not one of the very worst examples but it does demonstrate some of the issues the Scottish Parliament keeps getting wrong. Pavement parking undoubtedly causes problems for some pedestrians, especially blind people and wheelchair users, so a ban on the practice is sound in principle. But you can’t run an effective and cost-effective legislature on principles alone.
The other issues that need considering are enforcement and the chances of getting caught (laws are only as good as enforcement and the chances of getting caught). Edinburgh council was the first to introduce fines for the pavement parkers last year and it claims there’s been a downward trend in the fines that have been issued. This may show that the message is getting through and fewer people are pavement-parking, but it may just show that the problem isn’t being enforced as much as it was at the start (it all costs time and money).
The same sort of thing will apply in Glasgow, which followed Edinburgh’s example and introduced its fines the other day. No doubt, in the first few weeks there’ll be a special effort to get out there and slap as many tickets on as many windscreens as possible (not least because it’ll bring in some lovely cash). But the city’s a big place, it's costly and time-consuming, the chances of being caught are slim, and so the enforcement will be weak. To that extent, the parking law will not work.
There have been other, much worse examples of the same problem: most obviously The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act 2012. That was the law, you’ll remember, that was apparently going to tackle sectarianism in football, but from the start, fans didn’t respect it, lawyers didn’t think it would work, the police were confused by it, and most of us could see it wasn’t enforceable. So people shrugged, ignored the law and it was repealed to skulk away into the corner in considerable embarrassment.
You may be thinking by now that criticising well-intentioned laws as unenforceable or unworkable sounds like defeatism – trying to make the world a better place is just too much effort so let’s not try. But a law that’s unenforceable or unworkable really isn’t worth doing, like the Law to Make People Nicer, otherwise known as the Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2024. In the first six months of the act, recorded hate crimes in Scotland increased by 63% but only a tiny number have resulted in conviction and most of those related to race or religion which was already covered by the law anyway. And are we nicer now? Log into social media and tell me, nicely, what you think.
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The hate crime law is one of the best demonstrations of the problems we’re dealing with here: it’s a law that isn’t robust and it’s a law that hasn’t been properly thought through. The same applied to the dreaded gender self-ID legislation, and this week another proposed law keeled over and died when the government announced it was scrapping its plans to make homeowners switch to greener heating after a house sale. The Heat in Buildings Bill, as it’s more formally called. Drafted by Patrick Harvie, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, as he’s more politely called.
The important question is why this is happening: rubbish law after rubbish law. According to the net-zero minister Gillian Martin, the reason the Heat in Buildings Bill is being shelved, ditched, forgotten about, whatever, is it didn’t “significantly take into consideration” the fact it would increase fuel poverty i.e. make people poorer. This is basic stuff and something the Tories were saying ages ago. But one of the other problems with how laws come into being in Scotland is that criticism is sidelined and the government is unwilling to engage intelligently or reasonably with its critics, many of whom have got a point and should be listened to.
In retrospect, this was perhaps most obvious with the gender self-ID law whose critics couldn’t get meetings with ministers, were smeared as bigoted and so on, and were left to shout their arguments outside the parliament; I know because I was there watching them do it when the self-ID law was passed. We know now, of course, that the protesters were right all along. But the system, dominated pretty ruthlessly by the SNP, couldn’t and wouldn’t include them.
Some of this stuff isn’t actually the fault of the SNP to be fair, it’s systemic. If you’ve seen Holyrood’s committees at work, you’ll know they aren’t set up to properly scrutinise legislation because of the in-built SNP majority and the unwillingness of many of its MSPs to challenge and question the government. I can still see, through my fingers, the horror of the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints when Alex Salmond gave evidence. If nothing else, it demonstrated just what a good politician Mr Salmond was and just how bad a committee can be when it’s packed with government yes-men and yes-women.
There are other systemic problems that need tackled – such as the lack of a second chamber perhaps – but a system for producing laws will only work well if the government is prepared to engage properly with the people who have an opposing view and might have something enlightening to say about the law the government’s proposing to pass. They might even stop you making a fool of yourself.
As you know, the SNP hasn’t been willing to do this, but until they are, I fear that Holyrood is going to produce more laws like the self-ID plans and the sectarianism football act and the hate crime law and the heating in homes bill. We know that good laws can come from good intentions, but that isn’t enough. It also requires the good sense to realise that listening to all sides of the argument produces better results. Propose, listen, change, park the stuff that doesn’t work, and then proceed.
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