RICHARD LEONARD used a recent speech in Glasgow to call for the renewal of our democracy. 

He reported on the work of a project he had established along with deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party Lesley Laird and with the support of Jeremy Corbyn to consider how we can redistribute wealth and power. 

This was to include consideration of whether a federal settlement is the best way to rebalance the overly centralised UK state.

The working group, which he asked me to bring together, includes party activists, trade unionists, campaigners and academics. 

We are considering how to deliver more effective devolution and how to use any new powers for the greater benefit of people in Scotland. An interim report will be published at Labour Party Conference.

This report will be in stark contrast to that commissioned by Nicola Sturgeon, The Sustainable Growth Commission, chaired by ex-MSP Andrew Wilson and which famously failed to include even one trade unionist.

Not surprisingly, the Growth Commission was based on the simple belief that global capitalism, the power of free markets and neoliberal policies will be the economic future. 

It argued that that the current austerity policies needed to be locked in for at least the first decade of an independent Scotland.

The report commissioned by Leonard will take a very different direction. First, it will outline how to use the existing powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament more effectively. 

It will negotiate a better fiscal framework. Under the SNP deal Scotland benefits in full from revenues raised as a result of Scottish government fiscal policy decisions. 

But it loses in full if the Scottish economy performs poorly compared to the rest of the UK. 

We are already seeing a gaping hole opening up in the Scottish budget.

Other areas where existing powers could be used more effectively include: land ownership; ending the scourge of poverty pay; investing in our hospitals, schools and in further education. 

Labour will use public procurement to the advantage of local communities and bring our bus services back in to public control.

Second, the report will identify what new powers would make a real difference to people’s lives. 

Scotland needs borrowing powers fit for a Parliament. The Scottish government should be able to borrow and issue bonds for both resource and capital spending without restriction. 

There should be the devolution of powers to enhance employment law and industrial relations. 

The Scottish Parliament should not be able to lower standards of protection below that of the rest of the UK, but could improve them. 

When the Scottish government gives financial support to the private sector by awarding contracts or making grants, there must be conditions such as the recruitment of local workers, that companies pay their taxes with the UK, that they recognise trade unions and that they provide equal opportunities and equal pay.

The Scottish government does already have powers over aspects of social security. 

While the SNP government has delayed the full implementation until 2024, more powers could be used to change the benefits culture to be supportive rather than punitive.

Additional powers could allow a future Labour Scottish government to deliver more subsidiarity and reinvigorate local government so that its impact is more than just local delivery of national policies.

Finally the working group has considered how to make more fundamental changes to the overcentralised British state. 

The UK needs a new way of working together that shares both political and economic power based on solidarity not on competition between the different parts of the UK.

The report will call for the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement with a senate of the nations and regions. 

A federal system could be built on a principle of co-determination, of shared powers based on partnership not hierarchy. 

It would allow both subsidiarity and solidarity, based on a charter of rights with minimum standards below which no part of the UK could fall.

Leonard put the case for transformation when he said in his speech: “How we can extend democracy not just at the ballot box, but in every workplace and every community. For  me that goes to the very root of my own politics shaped by my working life experience, because if democratic socialism means anything, above all else it is surely the extension of democracy into the economy.”

Whatever changes are finally agreed to our constitution, we should remember that there is no neutral way of building a state or devolving power. 

It will be done in the best interests of a class. The question is can that be done in the interests of the working class?

Pauline Bryan is a Labour peer.