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History

Prior to the Act of Union 1707, Scotland was an independent state with a legislature known as the Three Estates. Initial Scottish proposals in the negotiation over the Union suggested a devolved Parliament be retained in Scotland but this was not accepted by the English negotiators.

For the next three hundred years the Scottish Parliament remained an important element in Scottish national identity, and suggestions for a 'devolved' parliament were made before 1914, but were shelved due to the outbreak of the First World War. A sharp rise in nationalism in Scotland during the late 1960's, fuelled demands for some form of home rule or complete independence and prompted the incumbent Labour Government of Harold Wilson to set up the Kilbrandon Commission on the UK Constitution in 1969. One of the principal objectives of the commission was to examine ways of enabling more self government for Scotland, within the unitary state of the United Kingdom. Kilbrandon published his report in 1973 recommending the establishment of a directly elected Scottish Assembly to legislate for the majority of domestic Scottish affairs.

During this time, the discovery of oil in the North Sea and the resulting It's Scotland's oil campaign of the Scottish National Party (SNP) resulted in rising support for Scottish independence, as well as the SNP. The party argued that the revenues from the oil were not benfitting Scotland as much as they should be.

These events lead to the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, committing his government to some form of devolved government in 1974, but it was not until 1978 that final legislative proposals for a Scottish Assembly were passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Under the terms of the Scotland Act 1978, an elected assembly would be set up in Edinburgh provided that the majority of the Scottish electorate voted for it in a referendum to be held on March 1, 1979. The 1979 Scotland referendum to establish a devolved Scottish Assembly failed. Although the vote was 52% in favour of a Scottish Assembly, this figure did not equal the 40% of the total electorate threshold deemed necessary to pass the measure, as 32.9% of the eligible voting population had abstained from voting.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s demands for a Scottish Parliament grew, in part because the government of the United Kingdom was controlled by the Conservative Party while Scotland itself elected very few Tory MPs. Devolution became part of the platform of the Labour Party which, in May 1997, took power under Tony Blair.

In September 1997 a referendum of the Scottish electorate secured a large majority in favour of the establishment of a new devolved Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers in Edinburgh. An election was held in May 1999, and on 1 July 1999 power was transferred from Westminster to the new Parliament in its temporary home in the Church of Scotland's General Assembly Hall on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

Criticism

Enric Miralles' Scottish Parliament complex in Holyrood Park during construction. The building was completed in 2004. Above and behind the new parliament is the neoclassical Royal High School, which was prepared for a previous devolved Scottish parliament, but never used.

The Parliament has been criticised for various reasons, both pragmatic and ideological. Since 1999, the death in office of Donald Dewar, Scotland's first First Minister, and the resignation, brought on by an office expenses scandal, of his successor Henry McLeish, have meant that the first years of the parliament have not been easy.

The escalating costs of the construction of the new parliament building led to widespread criticism. Popular arguments against the parliament before the UK general election of 1997, levelled mainly by the Conservative and Unionist Party, were that the Parliament would create a "slippery slope" to Scottish independence, and provide the pro-independence Scottish National Party with a route to power. John Major, the Tory prime minister before May 1997, famously claimed the parliament would end "1000 years of British history", although the political entity of the Kingdom of Great Britain was still less than 300 years old at the time. The equally pro-Union Labour Party met these criticisms by claiming that devolution would fatally undermine the SNP, and remedy the long-felt desire of Scots for a measure of self-government.

Miralles' new Scottish Parliament building opened for business on the 7 September 2004, three years late. The estimated final cost was £431 million. The White Paper in 1997 estimated that a new building would have a net construction cost of £40 million, although this based on the presumption that the old Royal High School would be used, as had long been assumed. After the devolution referendum it was quickly announced that the high school, which is smaller than many council chambers, was entirely inadequate for the parliament, and negotiations began for a new building on a new site. This led critical media and politicians to claim the final building was "ten times over budget". Miralles' building was in fact costed at £109 million, prior to major increases in space.

The cost overruns of the Scottish Parliament Building further dented confidence in public opinion in the ability of the public sector to handle major infrastructure and building projects. As a result, the final £431m cost of the Holyrood building can be compared with other cost overruns in projects such as Portcullis House - a new parliamentary office block in Westminster - built for use by 200 MPs, which cost £250 million, including £100 million spent on bronze cladding, £250m for the redevelopment of the German Reichstag building, £40m for the development of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, and £800m for the construction of the Millennium Dome.

Lord Fraser's Inquiry reported on the 15 September 2004 and identified the choice of the construction management procurement route as the main factor in the fourfold increase in estimated costs establishing that a £270 million value building ended up costing £431 million, an identifiable waste of £181 million. This was portrayed as clearing Donald Dewar of any blame. The cost of the building remains more controversial than any of the legislation so far passed by the parliament.