Abstract

The past couple of years have witnessed a quickening of parliamentary activity as Scotland has hastened to catch up on the reforms of private law which were introduced in England and Wales a decade ago. In the last session a major bill was carried through parliament to reform Scottish divorce law and an even more substantial measure was introduced by the govern-ment to overhaul our licensing laws. The debate on the law relating to homosexual offences was reopened by the Lord Advocate who introduced a Consolidated Sexual Offences Bill last session and has been pursued in the present session by Lord Boothby who has sponsored a reform bill in the House of Lords. Each of these measures gave rise to divisions in which members were free to vote according to individual conscience rather than by party whip and they provide an interesting insight into the social attitudes which prevail in Scottish politics now. This activity has taken place in the shadow cast by devolution which has dominated, if not the minds of the electors, then at least, the debates of their parliamentary representatives and the columns of the political correspondents. It was therefore in-evitable that parliament's handling of the Scottish law reform should become part of the rhetoric in the disputes over whether this function should be devolved to a Scottish Assembly. Indeed, it has frequently been argued that law reform in Scotland has lagged behind that in England because of neglect by the con-gested legislative machine at Westminster and that such reforms would have been more rapidly passed by a Scottish Assembly. For instance, an editorial in The Scotsman concluded thus: Should Mr Cook's Bill fail, as it almost certainly will, not because the majority of Scottish members oppose it, but just because there is no time at Westminster to attend to this simple grievance, then we must hope that our Assembly will have the power and compassion to treat it as urgent."