2026 is an election year and it looks as though the SNP will win a fifth straight term in office. With the Parliament’s performance under scrutiny, Andy Maciver suggests three major changes which he argues could make people proud of Holyrood.

As we enter a new year, we also enter an election year at our Scottish Parliament. This will be the seventh election to Holyrood, and it comes at a time when devolution is in trouble.

Public sentiment is on the slide. In days past, you would struggle to find one-in-10 people who wanted to see the Scottish Parliament scrapped; in a number of polls over the last couple of years, this proportion has risen to around one-fifth.

This is tough for someone, like me, who believes in devolution conceptually and wants it to succeed. But it is also perfectly understandable. Even as a supporter, and as someone who has been involved, on and off, with the devolved Parliament for almost all of its quarter century, the performance of the institution troubles me. I cannot unthinkingly support the claim that Holyrood has tangibly improved the lives of people in Scotland.

Indeed, it feels compelling to entertain the notion that decisions made by devolved Parliaments and Governments have actually damaged Scotland and Scots. That is not to say the rest of the UK is in particularly good shape; it most decidedly isn’t. Nonetheless, one can look at particular policy areas and see Scotland as dangerously deficient.

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