Play your cards right: good advice on coalition deals...from one who knows - Iain Smith MSP in the Sunday Herald

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 9th May 2010

Immediately at the end of a hard-fought election campaign, exhausted after polling day, is probably not the ideal time to find yourself entering negotiations to decide the future Government of your country.

However, that is exactly where Jim Wallace, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Ross Finnie, Nicol Stephen and myself found ourselves 11 years ago as we entered the Scottish Parliament's temporary home on George IV Bridge to open negotiations with Donald Dewar's Labour Party after the first Scottish Parliament elections in 1999.

We were conscious of an expectant media pack seeking instant decisions on who would govern Scotland. We were equally aware of the many in our own Party, myself included, who were sceptical of the value of entering a coalition.

But we were surprised by just how unprepared the Labour Party were. They seemed to think that all they needed to do was ask us to be part of their Government, we'd agree and that would be that.

We, however, were clear that any coalition had to be based on an agreed Programme for Government. There would be no instant deal.

Our negotiating team was armed on that first day with a 24-page document, based on our manifesto, approved by our new Parliamentary Party and authorised by the Party's Executive and Policy Committee. The Labour Party's first attempt came to a couple of sides of A4.

Policy advisers from both sides, with Civil Service support, were tasked with drafting sections of the programme for Government on policy areas such as health and education.

These sections, with areas of disagreement highlighted, were then considered by the two negotiating teams, meeting in separate fifth-floor rooms, before going to the formal negotiation meeting for resolution and ratification.

Some particularly tricky issues required face-to-face discussion between Donald Dewar and Jim Wallace.

Throughout, the elephant in the room was university tuition fees. This had become one of the totem issues during the election campaign.

Liberal Democrats had campaigned to scrap tuition fees while Labour wanted to keep them.

Every day around 8pm negotiations were brought to a shuddering halt by a blood-curdling scream.

This, it turned out, was not the good people of Scotland wondering where their new Government was, nor was it, as our SNP and Conservative opponents wanted to portray it, the sound of us selling our souls, but a ghost tour in the High Street pends below.

But it seemed to coincide, in my memory, with the moment each day when the optimism over the good progress we had made was shattered as once again the subject of tuition fees was reached.

Time was not on our side. There was pressure to reach agreement before the first meeting of the Parliament on Wednesday, May 12 1999, with the election of the First Minister scheduled for the next day.

A compromise was reached - an Independent Committee of Inquiry.

As Liberal Democrats we had nothing to fear from such an inquiry, as we were confident in our case for scrapping tuition fees.

We were proved right.

Only after reaching agreement on the Programme for Government did discussion turn to the mechanics of the number of ministers each party would have and how new policy would be agreed, and disputes resolved.

Coalition government needs a very different approach from civil servants used to working with single-party administrations.

In these first negotiations they needed some persuasion that they had to treat both sides equally.

And procedures need to be in place within coalition government to ensure that ministerial decisions are agreed across the government, not just within a single ministry.

Reflecting back on these heady days in 1999, we all know we would do things differently now. Negotiations for the 2003 coalition benefited from the lessons we learned. Both agreements lasted the full four-year term.

Most important of all is to take time to get it right. And to remember you can make progress on many fronts even where there remain other issues of difference between the parties.

The elephant in the room this time will no doubt be political reform, which Cameron's Conservatives are instinctively opposed to.

But Nick Clegg has strong cards to play. Not just that we are right, but that there is now probably a majority in Parliament for political reform with or without the Conservatives.

MPs of all parties still have the power to deliver real change for Britain if they are prepared to do something different. To work together.

Iain Smith is the MSP for North East Fife and Convener of the Scottish Parliament's influential Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee.

From the Sunday Herald 9th May 2010

Read Iain Smith's article on the Sunday Herald website: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/play-your-cards-right-good-advice-on-coalition-deals-from-one-who-knows-1.1026383