Peter MacMahon: A robust and even passionate debate about policy is possible without intolerance

One of the problems of the devolution era in Scotland has been a stifling, almost suffocating, lack of debate on important aspects of public policy. Take education, for example. In these pages today, Joan McAlpine reflects on how long it has taken for the EIS union to get to the position of calling for a cut in the number of education authorities. Progress of a kind, but at a snail's pace.

For education, read health, or justice or energy policy. There is discussion of the issues but it is usually set within narrow, limiting, parameters. Anyone who strays beyond the supposed Scottish consensus – usually defined as those who look for diversity of public service provision – is condemned as an extremist.

Three cheers then for Iain McMillan, the director of CBI Scotland, who, to put it colloquially, has got right in among the fiscal autonomists in taking on their argument that Scotland would be a far better place if she controlled all her own tax and spending.

This not the place for getting into the pros and cons of "fiscal freedom", a concept which certainly has some appeal, and this newspaper at least has made sure that both sides of the argument have had plenty of space to make their case.

No, what is of more immediate concern is the reaction from some quarters to Mr McMillan's raising of the issue, which was sparked off by his criticism in his New Year message of the SNP spending money on the national conversation over independence.

Immediately the CBI director was upbraided for being part of the Calman commission which proposed certain new tax powers for Scotland, mainly on income tax. That in turn provoked his robust criticism in yesterday's Scotsman of fiscal autonomy being "a staging post to independence".

To this writer at least, what is of most concern has been the reaction to Mr McMillan's forthright defence of his stance and the warnings he has delivered on what he sees are the dangers of greater financial independence for Scotland.

The clear implication from some – not all – of the reaction has been that even to question the idea of fiscal autonomy is somehow unpatriotic; that in questioning the idea Mr McMillan is anti-Scottish; that there is some kind of outrageous British conspiracy against Scotland led by the CBI which, of course, contains the "B" word.

This is where the problem lies. It gets to the heart of much of the wider debate about Scotland and her future. Robust debate is healthy. We need more of it. Denigration of your opponents by suggesting their views are illegitimate is a dangerous road to go down.

Whether you agree or disagree with him, Mr McMillan has done us a service by raising what he sees are problems over the direction the debate on Holyrood's powers has taken. His opponents must make their argument with facts not assertion, with logic not sentiment. Passion in making a case is admirable but passion must not give way to intolerance.