When anniversaries approach, there’s an understandable tendency to look back.
But it’s often more important to look to the future.
Twenty years ago, I was among the first group of MSPs to be elected to the Scottish Parliament.
Next weekend, I will take part in the Parliament’s 20th anniversary celebrations.
Back in 1999, the official opening took place in the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh – a temporary home while the new building was being built at Holyrood.
The ceremony lived up to all expectations. The Labour leader and Scotland’s first first minister, Donald Dewar, gave a magnificent speech reminding us all that this was “about more than our politics and our laws” but about “who we are, how we carry ourselves”.
Sheena Wellington’s emotional performance of Robert Burns’s A Man’s a Man moved everyone who was privileged to hear it and the day was filled with optimism and hope.
Today, the Parliament does not just have a permanent physical home, it is firmly established as the centre of Scotland’s democratic and public life.
These last 20 years have, of course, not been perfect. But the Parliament has made a real difference.
Thanks to the decision of people in Scotland to vote for devolution, students here don’t pay tuition fees.
We’ve resisted the creeping privatisation of the NHS that we’ve seen south of the border; free personal care has been introduced and we’ve combined fairness while helping families with the cost of living through measures such as free prescriptions.
This has happened because we have had the ability, in important areas, to take decisions about our country here in Scotland. As we look to the future, we can do so with a similar, indeed an even greater, sense of optimism that existed 20 years ago.
We’re a well-educated people, a more inclusive society (partly due to laws passed by Holyrood), people are drinking less, there are fewer smokers and employment is at record levels.
Of course, we have to do more to open up greater opportunity, make our contribution to tackling climate change while growing the economy and bring an end to the real injustices that still exist in Scotland today.
But too often these ambitions are hampered because the Parliament operates with one hand tied behind its back.
The campaign to set up the Scottish Parliament was in large part driven by what became known as the “democratic deficit”.
This referred to the situation where Tory governments, with little support in Scotland, imposed unpopular and damaging policies.
The supreme example of that was the hated poll tax.
Two decades on, the Scottish Parliament can offer some protection. But Westminster still controls the vast bulk of the social security system and most taxes.
So there is only so much MSPs can do to limit the damage of Tory austerity or the assault they’ve launched on the post-war welfare state so many Scots value.
People didn’t vote for devolution so we could divert cash from public services to mitigate the impact of Westminster policies that should never be imposed on Scotland in the first place.
It’s far better, surely, to have these decisions made in Scotland.
It is the prospect of Brexit, and the shock to jobs and living standards, that is the worst example of the ongoing democratic deficit.
And the hard-liners at Westminster are using Brexit to launch a power grab on Holyrood.
In moving forward, however, we are determined to stay true, as much as we can, to the spirit of consensus that characterised the devolution campaign.
We’ve offered cross-party talks and are setting up a Citizens’ Assembly. With independence, we can complete the powers of the Parliament, build a genuine partnership of equals on these islands and ensure decisions about Scotland are taken where they belong – here in Scotland.
