Scotland Bill

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who is very often a travelling companion on the east coast line between London, Northumberland and the Scottish borders. It is also a pleasure to pay tribute to and welcome the two maiden speakers in this debate: the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, alias Ming, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

The Bill gives legislative effect to the vow and to the outcome of the Smith commission. Once the vow was made, it needed to be delivered. In that sense, I support the Bill and the speech made by my noble friend Lord McAvoy from our Front Bench. Living in England’s most northerly constituency, Berwick-upon-Tweed, I am affected and concerned by the debate on Scotland and its future role within the UK. The referendum vote was the most important one in my political life, although I did not actually have a vote to exercise. The Bill gives effect to the vow and I respect that but, from my own experience of canvassing for Better Together in the borders, particularly in the last 10 days of the referendum campaign, I agree with my noble friend Lord Maxton that the vow was not the reason why Scots voted no. It was certainly not mentioned to me on the doorstep. More effective was the splendid speech by Gordon Brown, reclaiming the saltire for the whole of Scotland, not just the yes campaign.

I was also struck by a comment made in an earlier debate by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who correctly pointed out that most of the postal votes had been cast well before the vow. As I understand it, those postal votes very much favoured the no side and were therefore not influenced by the vow at the last minute. I also clearly remember Nicola Sturgeon, now First Minister, saying on 16 September that the Scottish people were not daft and would not be taken in by the vow—and, only five days later, Alex Salmond saying that people in Scotland were tricked into voting no because of the vow. This seems highly inconsistent on the part of the SNP. On this occasion, I agree with Nicola Sturgeon that the electorate were not daft and knew what they were voting against, just as much as what they were voting for.

In many ways, I would prefer all the matters in the Bill to have been part of the constitutional convention approach, which a lot of noble Lords have put forward in the course of this debate and over the last few months. There are all kinds of implications as a result, not least for areas neighbouring Scotland, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, pointed out. That obviously resonated with me in particular. I also pay tribute to the tremendous speech by my noble friend Lord Hollick in presenting the findings of the Economic Affairs Committee. I hope that the Government will very much take into account the views he expressed.

Some noble Lords in this debate, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, have spoken about federalism and how keen they are to see a federal solution. I know that my noble friend Lord Foulkes also takes a keen interest in this. To a certain extent, it depends what you mean by federalism. I say this particularly coming from the north-east of England because, in many ways, our natural allies over many elections were in Scotland and Wales. There is a great worry that if there is simply an England-wide solution or an English Parliament, we could be more marginalised than we are in the United Kingdom Parliament. Although the Government seem now to be embarking on a programme of devolution it seems very piecemeal and aspects of it very much worry me, such as inflicting elected mayors on areas that have already voted against them. That seems against the very principle of localism and regionalism. I hope that regional devolution is not dead. It is true that the past vote in the north-east went strongly against it, in rather different circumstances, but that was by a rather similar majority to the rejection of the Welsh Assembly the first time around in Wales. So I do not lose hope of having a devolved situation in the largest by far, in population, of the four countries of our union.

Nicola Sturgeon recently spoke on “Desert Island Discs” about how she had come into politics and wanted to become involved in the SNP as a result of the effect of Mrs Thatcher’s policies on Scotland. Again, coming from the north-east of England where we, like Scotland, had three industries—shipbuilding, coal and steel—that went into a massive decline at once, I was very sad that she concluded that separation was the better road rather than economic and social solidarity across the whole United Kingdom, which is the approach that I would much prefer to see.

I accept the Bill but, at the same time, I urge the Government to accept the idea of the constitutional convention and to look urgently at ways of strengthening the union, particularly across the border in areas such as mine adjoining Scotland, so as to make a success of it—and not to allow it to drift apart and, possibly, break up.