Johann Lamont: Facing up to Scotland's 'stark choice'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/06/johann-lamont-facing-scotland-choice

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When Johann Lamont, Scotland's Labour leader, called for a mature debate on the funding of Scotland's cherished public services, from free personal and nursing care to free NHS prescriptions and tuition-free universities, the outcry was predictable.

She was accused by the SNP government of moving to destroy "shared social bonds". And some Labour activists privately questioned the timing of her speech at the end of September, when Lamont cautioned: "This is the stark choice Scotland has to face: if we wish to continue some policies as they are, they come with a cost that has to be paid for either through increased taxation or direct charges or cuts elsewhere."

With the temperature in the great constitutional debate rising two years before an independence referendum, could Lamont's musings prove to be a high-risk strategy? "Telling the truth, and confronting the challenge, is what politics is about," she replies. "People need an honest appraisal of what the choices are."

She has already raised several questions about those choices. What, for instance, is progressive about a chief executive on £100,000 a year getting free prescriptions when a pensioner has to endure cuts in a care package; or a well-paid lawyer escaping fees for children at university when one in four unemployed young people in Scotland cannot get into further education as colleges struggle with cuts, Lamont has asked.

Since becoming Labour leader in Holyrood last year, she has certainly made an impact, if the effect she is having on a normally bullish, combative first minister Alex Salmond is anything to go by. "She's getting under his skin like no predecessor," says a seasoned observer in the Holyrood debating chamber.

We meet in her parliamentary office, shortly before a debate initiated by Labour on the future of an independent Scotland in the European Union.

Lamont, 55, is relaxed, thoughtful, engaging, and determined that the independence debate will not dominate the political agenda for the next two years. "Some people define the only change as constitutional change," she says. "That's the first challenge. I've always said that Alex Salmond has the mandate to ask the question. But there is a presumption made among nationalists that constitutional change is the answer to all the questions that are problematic in our communities, and my job is to talk about what is happening in the real world," she stresses.

Our conversation begins with the community politics, dear to her heart, in her native Glasgow. She enthuses about community-based housing associations and co-operatives meeting local needs, rather than faceless, remote social landlords, then recalls with affection a rewarding, 20-year teaching career before entering the Scottish parliament in 1999. Although she taught English, her work involved liaising with social workers, and education psychologists, "largely asking 'Why do children fall out of school?'" she explains.

"I've got a very deep and abiding passion about education being far more than buildings and textbooks; it's what children bring into school with them. A lot of our job was drawing youngsters into school, working with families," she says.

Although labelled a Blairite by SNP critics after the Edinburgh speech, which received lurid headlines about Lamont demanding an end to the "something for nothing" culture, those close to the Scottish Labour leader say she could never be labelled new Labour. Rather, she is rooted to older party values, with a deep commitment to fairness. Perhaps this explains why Lamont, never afraid of the socialist label, believes that at a time of a shrinking Scottish budget Labour has to address the language of priorities. She takes comfort from a report by the commission on public service delivery for the Scottish government, chaired by the late Scottish TUC general secretary Campbell Christie, and published last year. "He talked about 'competing demands' – something we have to wrestle with. There are lots of things you aspire to, but how do you make sure they are funded? What I'm frustrated by is simply an assertion that things are fine when we know in our communities that things are not."

She volunteers one example: free personal and nursing care for elderly and infirm people in Scotland – but not, of course, in England. Her critique might surprise many south of the border. Annual costs are creeping towards £500m. "To have this, it's got to be properly funded. It can't be when you say we've got this fantastic policy … when, at the same time, the threshold to access care is increased, when you charge for things … you did not charge for in the past – community alarms, or whatever – when you drive down most terms and conditions and you've got what care workers describe to me as a job of "task and go" – go into people's homes for 15 minutes then back out the door. That's not care. Is it acceptable that someone is tucked up in a bed at 6pm because of the pressure care workers are under? We've got care workers, particularly in the private sector, who are not even getting paid for travel time."

She adds: "What I want is a much more serious debate about the scale of the challenge because I do think there's an awful lot hidden. Now if we've not got a compassionate care system – and a government that says it's so fantastic we won't even look at it. But it bears no relation to what's happening in families and communities – that is unacceptable."

This, of course, begs a wider question: should prescription charges (which cost approaching £60m annually) be free for everyone? "I think we need to ask those questions," she replies. "If I believe we need free personal care, we need an honest discussion about what it costs with a well-managed, well-trained workforce."

So charging, then, for some services that are currently free? Lamont pauses briefly. "We have said we need to look at all of these policies. We can't have what is currently the position, where we assert one thing and the reality is something different. I would emphasise again that we [the Scottish Labour party] supported the policy [originally], but, in my view, there's nothing credible about supporting a policy without the means for it to be delivered."

Lamont's further gripe is a council tax freeze launched as a stopgap measure in 2007-08 by the then minority SNP administration, pending the introduction of a local income tax. When the party ditched the local income tax proposal, fearing an electoral backlash, it continued with a freeze. The result is that local government in Scotland is arguably now more centralised than its English counterpart. Lamont says: "The logic of the SNP position, with all Scottish councils getting the same compensation to keep the tax frozen for the past five years, is that the council tax will wither on the vine. The freeze is underfunded."

Of one thing she is sure. "We will not get back to 2010 funding levels for another 16 years. The demographics of Scotland tell you there's a challenge ahead. They [the SNP government] knows already there's a gap between the policy and reality on the ground."

And if the SNP government won't address it, she will – high risk, or not. Whether Ed Miliband follows her example by addressing tough social policy choices facing a party aspiring to UK government remains to be seen.

Curriculum vitae

Age 55.

Family Married, son and daughter.

Home Cathcart, Glasgow.

Education Woodside secondary school, Glasgow; Glasgow University, MA Hons; Jordanhill College of Education, postgraduate secondary teaching qualification.

Career 2011-present: leader, Labour group and Scottish Labour party; 2008-11: deputy leader, Labour party, Scottish parliament; 2006-07: deputy minister of justice, Scottish executive; 2004-06: deputy minister for communities in Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, Scottish executive; 1999-present: MSP for Pollock, Glasgow; 1990-99: English teacher, Castlemilk high school, Glasgow; 1982-89: English teacher, Springburn Academy, Glasgow; 1979‑82: English teacher, Rothesay Academy, Isle of Bute.

Interests Running, watching football and "soaps".