Scottish Government needs to get a grip in face of legal threats
Going to the law, is an ass.
Never was a thrashing delivered with as much courtesy as by the Supreme Court. Delivered by Lord Hodge they found - surprise, surprise - that there are just two sexes, men and women.
The Scottish Government took this case to court. This humiliating defeat is one in a series, and there are others in the pipeline.
Ten years ago John Swinney advised me when I was minister for business, energy and tourism that we as a government must never be defeated in court actions, because it would damage our reputation.
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There were no less than six judicial reviews of decisions I took. With officials I worked hard to get things done by the book. And so the Scottish Government won six out of six.
John Swinney was right then. So why now pursue useless actions, at huge cost to the taxpayer? And why put the Scottish taxpayer at significant risk of legal action in several instances, just two examples of which I will describe below?
This summer in Edinburgh the courts will hear in a proof, if the Scottish Government broke the law in their handling of the botched Deposit Return Scheme.
The company, BIFFA, that invested in staff and equipment in expectation that the government assured them the scheme would proceed, spent tens of millions on the strength of those assurances. Now they are suing the Scottish Government for around £166 million including loss of profits.
The hapless minister for the bungled bottle scheme, Lorna Slater of the Greens, issued assurances to BIFFA.
I felt some sympathy for her because, as a novice MSP and mInister, she was put in charge of oversight of a contract with an estimated value of two and a half billion pounds.
There cannot be one single business on the planet that would have put a total newby, a novice, in charge of a billion-pound project. Yet that’s precisely what Nicola Sturgeon did
Even worse, perhaps, when it all went wrong, as was plain for all to see, her junior minister did not then get help from the older, wiser members of the team - she was left herself to deal with it.
And so here we are, in the courts again.
Let me offer helpful advice to my former Scottish Government colleagues, if they want to avoid yet more legal thrashings.
First on the gender issue, and now we know there are in fact just two sexes, issue legal orders to all the 14 health boards to provide women-only changing rooms for staff who require to disrobe to don hospital scrubs to do their work.
At present every one of them is in breach of the law. If challenged they will surely lose - as will Fife Health Board in what appears to be their disgraceful hounding of Sandy Peggie, a hard working, devoted, long serving nurse. The government has the power to order them to see sense.
Second, if the minister Jim Fairlie does not rein in NatureScot we may see the government sued in the event of any tragic injury or injuries caused by the gull divebombing.
Jim has the legal power, but will Jim fix it?
They have been warned. Will they act? We shall see.
Fergus Ewing is SNP MSP for Inverness and Nairn.
