'Nothing to show' for 20 years of independence focus, insists new Scottish secretary Douglas Alexander

Douglas Alexander warned Scotland had gone “backwards” on health, education and housing since the SNP first took power at Holyrood, and hit out at the party’s stance on nuclear power and defence.

But the Labour MP stressed he was not interested in “performative disagreements” with the Scottish Government in his new role, and insisted he wanted to move beyond what he described as “sterile internal politics”.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the 55-year-old, a former minister in the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, also said he was “perturbed” by the suggestion from First Minister John Swinney that his meeting with US president Donald Trump had “put whisky on the agenda”. Mr Alexander said the UK government had been supporting the industry “long before” Mr Swinney visited the White House.

His comments came as SNP MP Stephen Gethins claimed Mr Swinney had been using Scotland’s “soft power” in an impressive way to press the case for a trade deal on Scotch whisky,

Mr Alexander took the place of Ian Murray following a UK government reshuffle earlier this month, marking a significant return to the political frontline after a decade. However, the shake-up at the Scotland Office has been criticised by some within the party, with peer George Foulkes characterising it as “disgraceful”.

Mr Alexander, who returned to Westminster last year, has vowed to ensure Scotland is at the “very centre” of the government’s work, and questioned the delivery of basic services by the SNP administration.

“If I look at Scotland today and compare it with when the SNP was first elected as the government in Scotland, on every measure of PISA [the Programme for International Student Assessment] attainment, our education standards have got worse,” he said.

“I am a proud product of state education in Scotland. We were the envy of the world and that was a working-class aspiration, our professional class aspiration.

“We’ve gone backwards on education, we’ve gone backwards on health. We’ve gone backwards on housing. So we need the power of the United Kingdom allied to a new level of ambition in Scotland.”

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Mr Alexander said the Scotland Office could play a critical role in an “era of networks.” He warned the focus on independence had come at a cost.

He said: “For 20 years, the focus of Scottish politics has been on independence. I would argue we literally have nothing to show for it. I would challenge people to show evidence where Scottish public life has got better significantly in the last 20 years, and yet, if you look at what really makes for success in today’s world, it is networks of collaboration and creativity.”

He also condemned the SNP’s outright opposition to the use of nuclear power and Britain’s nuclear defence, insisting it was focused on “the politics of the last 50 years, not the challenges of the next 50”, adding: “Who seriously thinks in an era of China’s rise and Russia’s return that we should unilaterally disarm, or oppose to civil nuclear power.