Scotland Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Ann McKechin

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ann McKechin]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman speaks with considerable expertise on legal issues. I do not want to discuss the individual cases, but he is absolutely right that they involved important points of principle that everyone who is concerned about the integrity of Scottish law should take seriously into account.

Mr Salmond has attempted to climb down from the remarks that he made in a Holyrood Magazine interview, but has refused to apologise. “Better late than never” should be the new mantra, but the First Minister does not have a reverse gear. Instead, this whole sorry incident has typified a controlling approach that his spin doctors have tried hard to hide. In his view, there is a hierarchy in our national debate between those who are deemed “good Scots” and those classified as “bad Scots”, and anyone who speaks directly against his view will always be in the latter category, even if they are one of our country’s most eminent legal minds.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

I would never claim to be one of our country’s eminent legal minds, but, like the hon. Lady, I am a non-practising member of the Law Society of Scotland. I commend her for her defence of Scots law against the current actions of the Scottish Parliament.

[Ann McKechin]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, a fellow lawyer. I do not want to turn this into a lawyers’ conference, however, lest anyone should suspect that we have vested interests. More seriously, this is about the tone of the debate and about the relationship between the Executive and the judiciary, which forms the foundation of our democracy.

I noted in this week’s Sunday Herald that some of the First Minister’s own Ministers and MSPs apparently refer to him in private as the “Dear Leader”. References to any similarity with North Korea might seem comical, but this display fits in better with a paranoid one-party state than with a modern, progressive, advanced 21st-century democracy. I certainly do not believe that everyone who supports the SNP or wishes for independence follows that creed—Jim Sillars is a good example of someone who believes in independence but also believes in listening to other people’s arguments—but it certainly has a home within the SNP “cybernat” sphere.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Ann McKechin

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ann McKechin]

Yes, indeed.

That brings us to how the questions are phrased on any self-assessment form and the guidance that is provided to individual taxpayers and to their employers. Obviously, employers will have a high level of responsibility in advising their staff about whether they will be covered. The Minister cited the example of a travelling salesman, but there are many other examples of staff who travel the country from time to time. Some people’s lives are entirely peripatetic—entertainers, for instance. I remember many years ago, when I was a lawyer, acting for entertainers who spent the summer season living down in Blackpool and then came back up to Scotland for the winter season.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady recall the leading case on residence in Scots law—Udny vs. Udny—in which the fact that the person in question, despite having a house in England, continued to take The Sunday Post every week proved that he was still domiciled in Scotland?

[Ann McKechin]

Indeed. The hon. Lady attracts me into an interesting debate on the difference between residency and domicile, but I am not going to bore the Committee—I can see that the Under-Secretary is getting a bit concerned—about the distinction between the two. That sort of thing keeps tax lawyers very busy.