One of our proudest achievements as a party is the success of our unwavering advocacy of devolution to Scotland and Wales. Without us, and without the pressure of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, it is likely Tony Blair would have abandoned the project. And some of our party’s first successes in government were as part of the partnership agreement with Labour in Holyrood, where I was proud to lead the first Scottish Executive alongside the late Donald Dewar.

Political developments in Scotland since might lead some to say that devolution has been dangerous for the Union. I disagree. It is bad enough having the SNP claim falsely that Scotland is controlled by London, when – overwhelmingly – it is not. The SNP’s ascendancy would have been hastened and strengthened by any backtracking on the devolution agenda in 1997, and unionists would have been without a leg to stand on.

Yet the flaw in the devolution ‘settlement’ has been the failure to settle on what is a reasonable degree of asymmetry between the different parts of the United Kingdom. Now, a cross-party report on Devolution and the Union, launched by the former Head of the Civil Service, Lord Kerslake, seeks to review and improve what he characterises as the United Kingdom’s “piecemeal and incoherent” arrangements.

In doing so the report endorses much of the Liberal Democrat approach to devolution. It recognises that while the UK is heading in a federal direction, it cannot be a ‘neat and tidy’ Federal state, with one unit – England – containing 85% of the population and the other three containing only 15%, while all enjoy exactly equal powers. Instead, the report recommends making more powers available to all local government in England.

The key here is that these powers should not be handed down from on high by a munificent Chancellor, but made available as of right to any local area that wants them, with or without an elected Mayor. This reflects the approach of our own policy paper passed at our York Conference two years ago, Power to the People.

The Kerslake Report’s excellent analysis also leads it to some strikingly Liberal Democrat conclusions. Among their key recommendations are for:

– Local government to be given extra financial freedom and flexibility
– Greater fiscal devolution to Wales
– The principle of subsidiarity to apply to all levels of government, and in particular for decentralisation to go beyond Holyrood, ending the SNP’s tendency to see the Scottish Parliament as a place to hoard power.
– Electoral reform to be considered at a local level in England and Wales.

I am grateful to Jeremy Purvis – who set up the APPG on Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution in the UK, which commissioned this authoritative analysis – and to Barbara Janke and Bob Maclennan, who have represented our party on Lord Kerslake’s panel over many months. They have all worked across party lines to produce what is an excellent report.

Now there is more work to do in persuading the government that devolution is not about ‘deals’ but about rights for countries, for communities, and for citizens to govern themselves.

* Jim Wallace is leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords and was Deputy First Minister of Scotland from 1999-2005.