Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2017: attitudes data

3. The Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Social Attitudes ( SSA) Survey 2017 asked participants questions about the Scottish Parliament:

• Does having a Scottish Parliament give Scotland a stronger voice in the UK?
• Does having a Scottish Parliament give ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed?

In this chapter we present headline findings at a glance, and highlight statistically significant differences in views between different groups in the population.

Does having a Scottish Parliament give Scotland a stronger voice in the UK?

In 2017, the proportion of people who said that having a Scottish Parliament is giving Scotland a stronger voice in the UK was 64%. This compared with 71% in 2016 ( Figure 6). Just under a third (31%) of people said having a Scottish Parliament was making no difference while 4% of people said having a Scottish Parliament was giving Scotland a weaker voice in the UK.

The proportion of people who said having a Scottish Parliament is giving Scotland a stronger voice in the UK has varied over time, though with an upward trend. At its lowest in 2004, only 35% of people said having a Scottish Parliament was giving Scotland a stronger voice in the UK ( Figure 6).

The proportion of people who said having a Scottish Parliament makes no difference in giving Scotland a stronger voice in the UK has been broadly declining since 2004, although this figure has increased by 7 percentage points between 2016 and 2017 ( Figure 6).

The proportion of people who said having a Scottish Parliament gives Scotland a weaker voice has remained fairly stable over the time series.

Figure 6 Do you think that having a Scottish Parliament is giving Scotland a stronger or weaker voice in the UK? (1999-2017, %)

Does having a Scottish Parliament give ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed?

The proportion of people who said the Scottish Parliament is giving ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed is 57% in 2017. This compared with 59% in 2016 ( Figure 7). 38% said it made no difference and 4% said it gave Scotland less say.

Figure 7 shows that between 2000 and 2006, more people said the Scottish Parliament was making no difference in giving ordinary people a say in how Scotland was governed. For three consecutive years in 2015, 2016 and 2017, the majority of people said the Scottish Parliament is giving ordinary people more of a say in how Scotland is governed.

In 1999, when the question was asked prospectively, 64% expected the Scottish Parliament to give ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed. While the broad trend is increasing (by 26 percentage points since 2004), the level anticipated in 1999 has not yet been reached (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Do you think that having a Scottish Parliament is giving ordinary people more say or less say in how Scotland is governed? (1999-2017, %)

Variations in attitudes between subgroups

Views on whether having a Scottish Parliament is giving Scotland a stronger voice in the UK, and giving ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed, varied between a number of social groups, based on statistical significance. These are listed here. Variables with no statistically significant differences are listed in Annex A.

64% said having a Scottish Parliament was giving Scotland a stronger voice in the UK. This varied by subgroup as follows ^[18] :

The Scottish Parliament gives Scotland a stronger voice in the UK.

57% said having a Scottish Parliament was giving ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed. This varied by subgroup as follows ^[19] :

The Scottish Parliament gives ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed.