Recent polls have put the SNP just ahead of Labour on both the constituency and list votes for this May’s elections. Why are Scottish voters deserting Labour for the SNP?

In some ways the polls have been helpful, as they have alerted people in Scotland to the fact that this is an important election, so I’m not dismayed by the polls. To have a real election contest we have to have the SNP taken seriously, and the polls are producing that result. So from that point of view, the polls so far have been a good thing for our campaign.

The reality is that this election is taking place in the middle of a third term. Any political party faces a challenge winning an election in that set of circumstances. And I’ve been very clear since early last year that, in order to win an election in those circumstances, first of all, we have to convince people that the election really matters, and the polls are helping with that. Secondly, we have to have the ideas and the policies that secure peoples’ support, and convince them that it is worth not just sticking with us, but believing in us.

Is the SNP’s support evidence of a growing tide of nationalism in Scotland? Or are voters supporting them out of disaffection with the current government?

The SNP are trying to portray themselves as a vehicle for disaffection. I think they have placed themselves in that position. So rather than be honest, and establish themselves as a positive movement for independence and secure support on that basis, they have tried to become almost a repository anyone who has had any disagreement with the government, or feels like it’s time for a change. That poses a challenge for us, and that’s why our programme has to be positive, as well as pointing at the negatives of what the SNP would be doing.

Why has devolution not killed off the nationalist cause?

The relationship between Scotland the rest of the UK has been such an issue for debate for such a long time that it’s not really surprising that the debate continues. The real reason for SNP support at the moment is to do with their attempts to hide their main policy, rather than about support for their main policy. If people in Scotland consider the implications of separation in any detail at all, the vast majority would rapidly come to the conclusion that for Scotland there is a dividend in being part of the United Kingdom, and it would be wrong to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK. What the SNP are definitely trying to do is to minimise the amount of time that people consider that and instead simply try and use other policy differences or disagreements with what the government is doing, in order to inch towards constitutional change, in a way that I think is a bit slight of hand, on their part.

Despite the hopes of its supporters, devolution has not seen a significant increase in public participation in politics. Why do you think this is?

I’m not sure that’s true, actually. If anything, in Scotland, there are complaints at times that there’s almost too much consultation, and too much participation, and we need to get over that. And clearly there’s a balance to be struck there. One of the great benefits of devolution to Scotland has been to significantly improve participation in what government is doing in Scotland, but also get government much closer to where people are, understanding problems much more sharply, reacting to issues by bringing people together, finding solutions, and then implementing those solutions more speedily.

The smoking ban is a great example of that. Three years ago, there was no consensus in Scotland in favour of a smoking ban, but in the course of 18 months there was a debate, a firm decision made, based on judgement, and then the development of a national consensus and a determination to make it succeed. But I think it’s a good example of what can be done in that participatory style of politics.

That is obviously contradicted to some extent by the lower turnout in elections, although a lower turnout in sub-state elections is natural, in certainly every country that I’ve studied. And I also think that is partly a result of people feeling in 2003 that there wasn’t the same choice as there was in the Westminster election, there wasn’t a serious opposition. But this time, we have got a serious choice, and I wouldn’t have the same worries about turnout in this election as I had in 2003. I would think that participation in the election isn’t going to be the issue, the outcome of the election is going to be the issue.

Gordon Brown has called for a new kind of politics. Is there anything Westminster can learn from the Scottish way of doing politics?

The openness of the Scottish parliament has given people a confidence that they can speak to their elected representatives, and that they listen. I don’t accept the arguments of those, primarily on the right, who say that is not true in the Scottish parliament. And I think that all the examples of significant initiatives which have been really successful, and that have embedded themselves in communities, and through the way the people conduct themselves, I think that in those cases you can see the way that politics is now happening in Scotland is now just more inclusive, but is also more effective.

An example would probably be our enterprise education progress, Determined to Succeed, which began as an initiative by business coming to politicians and saying ‘can we get more involved in the schools?’ and the politicians saying ‘let’s give this a try and see how it goes’. The businesses themselves taking up that challenge, a number of schools volunteering to be part of pilots, those pilots being an outstanding success, then again the politicians and businesses coming together again five years ago making a firm decision: ‘this is working, let’s make it happen in every school, and let’s make that happen within 18 months to two years’. And throughout Scotland, every school, local authority, the politicians, the business figures, see the potential of it, making it happen.

And that is partly because of the scale of Scotland, and I recognise absolutely that it’s harder to do on a UK basis. Scotland is a size of country where it is possible to make these things happen, and happen quite speedily. But I think that the process of bringing people together, testing out ideas, and when they are clearly working, showing firm leadership, but involving people in the implementation, is a style of government for the 21st century, that I think could be effective also even in a bigger state.

The way that the parliament building operates is definitely encouraging people to know more about, think more about, to feel more part of the business of government in Scotland. That’s all good. I think if there has been a really significant impact that has been in the representation of women in the parliament. We set out as a party, when I was general secretary back in 1998 to establish half of candidates in the winnable seats would be women. To achieve that, not all the other parties had been anything like as successful, but the significant numbers of women MSPs have had a real impact on the policies of the parliament, on the policies parliament has adopted on the style of parliament. I think that has been a real benefit for Scotland.

Some people might have thought in advance that it would be good that there were more women in the parliament because it would look right, or there would be more role models, or it would look fairer if there were more women there. I always believed that the real impact would be in the policy of the parliament, and I think that the women MSPs have made a significant difference to what would have been the priorities, and the parliament has done more work on domestic abuse, on seriously tackling the issues around prostitutions, on childcare, family life, personal health issues, more than any elected body in Britain has ever done. I think that has partly been because of the impact of the Labour women in particular, but the women as a whole.

Do you think it is right that Scottish MPs in Westminster should be able to vote on legislation that does not affect their constituents?

Ultimately I think it’s entirely a matter for the Westminster parliament. Although my own personal view would be that I think it is difficult to have different MPs in the business of parliament who have a different status, and I think those that are suggesting that could be setting a precedent that could be damaging to the credibility of parliament as a whole.

Do you think the perception in England that its taxes disproportionately subsidize Scottish public services is unfair? Why do you think it has arisen?

One of the very interesting things that Gordon Brown has been saying recently is that there is a need in the 21st century, as there is for every new generation, there is a need to explain and to justify the United Kingdom, and convince the various nations of the UK that it is still a common interest that we share. And I think that point has been made very well by Gordon.

In relation to that, I think that one of the areas where for all sorts of reasons there has not been sufficient public debate or explanation on the way in which expenditure is distributed. The reality is that Scotland is a third of the UK’s land mass, that we have roughly 50 per cent of the UK’s coastland. There are therefore challenges in delivering public services and government expenditure in Scotland, that are matched by the historic funding formula, that survived the Thatcher years, and if it wasn’t credible she would have done something about it. I think it is an entirely justifiable position to share resources on the basis of need, and equity, and the basis of outcomes, rather than on strictly population.

I think there is a need for each generation of politicians to explain why that is the case. So I would wholly endorse what Gordon has been saying about the need to explain to the whole UK the benefits of a shared experience together, and the outward way in which that is delivered. Not just in terms of government expenditure, but in other respects as well.

In Scotland you are in coalition with the Lib Dems. Can coalition governments still be progressive?

We have shown in the Scottish parliament that a Labour-lead coalition can be extremely progressive. I think that we have been able in both of the two Scottish parliamentary sessions to deliver the vast majority of our manifesto commitments, and to ensure a very clear Labour lead in Scotland in government. And we have made a difference to the lives of the people we represent. So it’s ultimately about the judgements that you make, the quality of the leadership, the content of your policy and whether that stands the test of coalition, and discussion, and debate. I think we’ve done well on that respect to significant improvement in the lives of the people we represent, and I think a real embedding across Scotland of the values we represent as a party, and therefore we have made a success of coalition government. And that was a choice we made at that time, that was based on the circumstances of that time. Whether we’d make the same choice again is still to be decided.

Labour in Scotland has taken different decisions to Labour in Westminster on issues such as tuition fees. Does this create tensions within the party nationally? Don’t voters see this as inconsistent?

One of the direct implications of devolution was that there was going to be policy variations across the UK in the areas of government policy that were devolved. That should have always been expected, that there will be different policies, education would be a very obvious example, but on other areas as well.

Before devolution there were different policies regularly in education and other areas in Scotland, because we’re an entirely different system. The problem of that time was that those differences became experiments from a totally unaccountable government that didn’t have any support in Scotland, rather than now an actual positive policy choice on behalf of the people of Scotland. So, I think that there always was divergence. Secondly, there was always going to be more divergence after devolution, and thirdly that can be a healthy thing.

My objective in the government I lead in Scotland is to show that we in Scotland through the powers of devolution can be a hot-house of ideas that can give out a lead to the rest of the movement in the UK and show what is possible. And because of the scale of Scotland and the nature of devolution, I think we have the opportunity to do that. So in areas like the smoking ban, the obvious example, but in other areas of policy, I would like to see an increasingly devolved Scotland be the place where the rest of the UK is sitting up, thinking, not that they’re spending more money, but that we’re using our imagination and our powers to make a real difference and show people what can be done.

A recent government report found that Scotland has an £11bn financial ‘black hole’. Why do you think the Scottish economy is not performing as well as the rest of the UK?

The reason for the public expenditure gap is primarily, in most years, based around the cost of delivering public services in Scotland, and that is what justifies the funding formula. That is also what results in that gap between income and expenditure. And that is a significant issue for the election campaign that is currently under way, because the nationalists have to be honest about it, and they have to say whether it would be tax rises or expenditure cuts that would help to fill the gap.

However, our objective as a party in Scotland has to be to secure a far stronger, a healthier, far more sustainable long-term growth in the Scottish economy. And we have a responsibility to do that. So not just to accept the current situation, and to force others to explain how they would deal with that if they want it to change. But crucially to say that we in Scotland have the potential to have higher levels of economic growth, and we have a responsibility within the UK to make a much more significant contribution.

That is why we made economic growth our number one priority in the 2003 election. We accept that responsibility of generating wealth as well as spending it, and as a result of that we are making a significant difference. Economic growth in Scotland over the last three years is higher than the 30-year long-term average. We now have an increasing population, rather than a declining one. We have the highest employment in the UK. We’ve got unemployment that’s lower than the UK average. In those and other areas we are now seeing indicators that show that it is in fact possible for Scotland to become much stronger economically. The combination of the UK government’s economic policies, the added value we deliver in Scotland on skills, on infrastructure, on promoting Scottish companies abroad, and supporting innovative companies with ideas, I think that we’re proven that it is possible for devolution to make that happen.

Do you think Scotland has seen in a growth in sectarianism under Labour?

Sectarianism in Scotland has been a problem for a very long time in, primarily, specific communities. But it has touched the rest of Scotland as well. There has been a marked decline over the last 30 years or so, there’s no doubt about that there’s no longer the sort of routine discrimination that I think that people generally accept did happen in employment, in housing, and so on, probably up until about the 1970s. None of it was ever upfront, but it was there behind the scenes.

The problem is that even since then, there has still been a degree of tension, violence, and certainly a degree of hatred continuing through the generations. That was still the case at devolution, when Scotland gained its parliament back in 1999. When I took over as First Minister in 2001, one of my personal priorities was to use government – the power of government – to bring people together, to give a lead on this issue, and to consign sectarianism to the dustbin of history.

We have since late 2002 strengthened the law, on prosecutions, and proper prosecutions for those involved in religious hatred. We have got the major football clubs in Scotland now banning people on a regular basis, changing the atmosphere inside their grounds, implementing non-sectarian policies on employment, promotions, and other areas. We have agreed remarkably with the marching organisations a whole new set of procedures that will see them clear up their act on the streets.

We have a very high quality, very strong, Catholic sector in our education system in Scotland, and it’s right that we have that. What we are doing is, particularly in the primary schools, bringing youngsters together from the different denominations, so that they spend more time together, and understand each other, and see that people who go to a different church, or go to no church at all, don’t have problems. All of us think it’s making a real difference.

Do you think the experience of the smoking ban in Scotland should ease fears about its implementation in England this summer?

Yes I do. My main piece of advice would be not to underestimate the challenge, partly because you’re implementing this on a bigger scale than we did, of course a bigger country, so it is perhaps not as easy to get the whole population willing to work to make the ban succeed, as we managed to achieve in Scotland. It also requires very tough and very clear decisions by ministers, to make sure that the ban is understood, is well prepared, that all the different stakeholders have got a stake in making it work, and are supported in making it work.

But I have absolutely no doubt that it’s the right thing to do. In Scotland it has been an outstanding success. We have managed to make this a success, have people in Scotland feeling proud about it, and I think it is helping us with our international image. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that our tourism numbers are going through double digit increases at the moment. I think that the signals that were sent out are part of the reason for that. And it will save lives generation from now, and I’m delighted about that, very proud of it.