Constitutional Law

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Iain Stewart

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

No. I am very happy. The hon. Gentleman is trying to put words into my mouth, suggesting that I do not understand or care what happens in Scotland. That is not the case. I am very much in favour of the order, and very much in favour of allowing the Scottish Parliament to conduct the referendum. However, I firmly believe that because the referendum will affect the future of the whole United Kingdom, this House—this Parliament—should also serve as a forum for discussion about its conduct.

Although I do not happen to live in Scotland at present, and although some Members who are speaking this afternoon do not represent Scottish constituencies, I hope that if matters will proceed with good will, the Scottish Parliament will take into consideration what we discuss in this Parliament during the process of giving it the power to hold the referendum.

[Iain Stewart]

As I understand it, the order in no way prohibits the Scottish Parliament from taking on board the suggestion that my hon. Friend is—very powerfully—making.

--- Later in debate ---

[Iain Stewart]

Forgive me, but I want to make progress.

We all have opinions on the constitutional status of all sorts of countries. I have views on what should happen in the United States, Australia and Germany, but I do not seek to vote on them. It is fundamentally wrong that such a situation could exist. I echo the call made by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest for a very simple change so that the franchise for Westminster elections also applied to Scotland. That would go a long way to removing many of the anomalies that have been mentioned with regard to members of the armed forces and their families not being able to take part in this poll. We call on these people to fight and to, potentially, give up their lives for their country, yet they will not be given the right to take part in its future direction.

[Mrs Laing]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the franchise were based on that used for UK Parliament elections, as he has just suggested, instead of on the local government franchise, that would also mean not only that Scots living outside Scotland would have a right to vote, but that people who are eligible to vote in UK parliamentary elections in other parts of the United Kingdom, but who were born in Scotland and can prove it, would, too?

[Iain Stewart]

My hon. Friend makes another excellent point and I echo it. The other key point is—I mentioned this in my intervention on her speech—that it is up to the Scottish Parliament to decide this. There is nothing in the order that prohibits that. I urge it to look reasonably and rationally at the issue. The referendum must be fair if it is to have legitimacy. If it does not have legitimacy, I fear that we will just perpetuate uncertainty.

That leads me to my next point, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State also made in his opening speech. The referendum must be the end of the matter. Whatever the result, it must be clear and binding. As my right hon. Friend also said, if the decision is a yes vote—I fervently hope that it will be a massive no vote—negotiations will have to begin. I want clarity from those on the Government Front Bench on what will happen if there is a very narrow yes vote and negotiations begin on the terms of the divorce. What if the reality does not match the separatists’ rhetoric on issues such as Scotland’s membership of the EU, adoption of the single currency or any one of the number of issues that are coming to light? What if the deal for Scotland is not nearly as favourable as first envisaged? Is there scope for a second referendum within the time scale, the end date of which is 31 December 2014? Either way, I do not want a second referendum to be called in the event of a narrow yes or no vote. The decision has to be clear and final, to avoid the kind of ongoing uncertainty that existed in Quebec following a narrow no vote. That vote did not end the matter, and the separatists have come back again and again to try to get their way. Thankfully, they have not achieved it. There could be a similar danger here, and I would like clarification on what such a situation would mean for Scotland and the United Kingdom.

On the timing of the referendum, I wish that we could just get on with it. I slightly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest on this matter, although she was right to say that the longer the debate goes on, the more the unsavoury consequences of separation and the confusion of the SNP’s position come to light.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Iain Stewart

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Gentleman seeks to disagree with me, in a mild way and from a sedentary position, but the facts speak for themselves. The country’s finances are in a mess. Yes, we all want to protect people in all parts of the country, but there is no argument for protecting Scotland to a greater extent than the rest of the United Kingdom.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the operation of the Barnett formula in its strictest sense will protect the Scottish budget at times of reduction in the overall UK level of public spending? A population change is taken on the basis of a higher-than-average base line, so in times of public expenditure reductions, that will protect the Scottish block.

[Mrs Laing]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I am grateful to him for making that point at this stage in the debate. I am glad to say that he is something of an expert on this subject, having been steeped in it for many years. He is absolutely right; it is also very important, for the reasons he has just stated, that we keep the Barnett formula. That is the way to protect the people of Scotland not from the effects of the Conservative-led coalition but from the effects of 13 years of Labour mismanagement of the economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Iain Stewart]

I am explaining why I do not think the provisions in the current Scotland Act are sufficient, and why I welcome the measures to increase substantially the power of the Scottish Parliament to raise a significant chunk of its own revenue. There are still concerns about how they will be implemented, and I raised that point during Scottish questions yesterday. I have been reassured that proper consultation is taking place with members of the business community in Scotland, who will have to administer many of the new arrangements, but I urge my colleagues on the Front Bench to keep a close watch on the increased regulatory burden on businesses at a time when they can ill afford much additional bureaucracy.

I think the HMRC bodies should consider the possibility of certain unintended consequences. There is, for instance, the question of how payments into personal pension plans which attract the adding back on of basic or higher-rate tax contributions should be treated. If in the past contributions have been made at the United Kingdom rate and added back on, a different Scottish rate will create potential anomalies when it comes to how that income is treated. I suspect that a fairly small amount is involved overall, but it is an important detail that ought to be clarified before the Bill is implemented.

I welcome the move to devolve some taxes, and I hope that more can be devolved in time. I hope that, for instance, the issues surrounding the aggregates levy and air passenger duty issues will be resolved. I do not believe that this is the end of the story; I trust that those two taxes will eventually be devolved, and that the Scottish Parliament will be given greater fiscal autonomy.

I referred earlier to the book that I co-authored. Part of our research involved international comparisons.

[Mrs Laing]

I hesitate to interrupt my hon. Friend, but he has just demonstrated that he is one of the few people who understand, and have carried out an in-depth study of, the relationship between United Kingdom and Scottish finance. He is being modest about his book, but I need not be modest on his behalf. It is an excellent publication, which I have consulted on many occasions. May I ask him to show the House his book and tell us its title, so that every Member in the Chamber—[Interruption.] I do not think he will make any money from it. However, some Members might be better educated in future if they knew more about it. I believe that it is called “It’s Our Money! Who Spends It?”

Elections and Returning Officers

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Iain Stewart

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct; I am glad he made that point. We have spoken a lot lately about the need to encourage people to be involved in the democratic process and to encourage all age groups and people across the social and economic spectrum to register and use their vote. I mentioned earlier the number of people who allegedly turned up at the polling station and were denied their right to vote. That number may even be far greater than we estimate, because of the situation that he has described.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is also important to note that the problems arose when the turnout was not particularly high. Turnout increased marginally in 2010 compared with the previous general election, but it was nowhere near the turnout figures of 75% or 80% that we used to have in the elections of the 1970s and 1980s. If we return to that level of turnout, I suspect that the problems that occurred will be magnified many times over.

[Mrs Laing]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, absolutely right. That is one of the problems we can foresee. We are all working hard—I know that the Minister in particular is doing so—to bring in individual voter registration as soon as possible. We all hope that individual voter registration will encourage more people to be involved, to register and to use their vote. We also find that where the media tell people that the outcome of an election is a foregone conclusion, many people think that there is no need to go and vote. If we have closer elections and it appears that there could, again, be a change of Government—let us hope not, but I suppose that it will happen one day—people are more likely to vote and there will be higher turnouts.

If the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which is currently before the House of Commons, succeeds in going through Parliament, we will have a referendum next May and it is likely there will be a high turnout—although I have argued that that is not likely. However, in any case, there will be a national plebiscite where everyone will be given the opportunity to vote. That is not very far away. So although we will not have a general election for another four and a half years, we will have a full national election of sorts next May. Therefore, by securing this debate, I hope that I am helping to begin the discussion on matters that need to be taken into consideration before next May and the next set of elections.

One of the subjects that has not yet been fully explored is the role of the Electoral Commission, which is still a fairly new body. In many ways, it has been very successful. However, in some ways, it is still settling into its role. When taking the advice of the Electoral Commission on how to deal with the issue of returning officers and the timing of the count, we discovered that it has no power to require returning officers to act in a particular manner. The Electoral Commission only has the power to issue guidance.

As a matter for consideration, I suggest that such a situation is not fair. The Electoral Commission and its chairman were given the blame for what went wrong at 10 o’clock on election day, but it is not fair that they should take the blame when they had no power beforehand to put matters right. At 10 o’clock on election night, the Electoral Commission had no power to say to individual returning officers, “No, you can’t do this. You must allow people to vote. You must keep the doors open.” It had no power to tell people to act in a particular way. Nobody had any power. The Minister had no power; the Electoral Commission had no power; the local authorities had no power. There is no line of reporting or of authority for electoral registration officers and acting returning officers. In a modern democracy, where we spend hour upon hour in the Chamber discussing the minutiae of elections and their administration, as we have done over the past few days, it is appalling to discover that there is no line of authority whereby the administration of our elections can be properly decided.

In the run-up to the election, during which I had been fairly vocal about the problem of returning officers and the 10 o’clock vote, I found myself in a live radio debate with a particular returning officer, a lady from the north of England. I made the point during that debate that returning officers ought to be responsible to the electorate and ought to act responsibly. The lady’s retort, which was made live on the radio, was more or less along these lines: “How dare you, a Member of Parliament, try to interfere with how I, a returning officer, do my job. I am responsible to no one and I won’t listen to you, Madam.” Those were not her exact words, but it was clear that her message to me and to the three or four people listening was that returning officers were responsible to no one, and she was outraged that I would even suggest that Parliament should take some action in that respect. I was equally outraged in my response, but I will not repeat what I said. The fact is that the count in that constituency took place, I am glad to say, at 10 o’clock on election night.

The 10 o’clock issue is irrelevant; how our electoral system is administered is what is important. Over the past few years, various complications have arisen in elections, such as having more than one election on the same day, or different kinds of elections under different voting systems on the same day, as happens in Scotland. There is a danger that such complications will arise across the country next May, when a referendum and other elections will take place simultaneously in more than 80% of the UK. Indeed, in some parts of the country, three types of election will take place on the same day. On this occasion I do not object in principle to simultaneous elections, although I have done so on other occasions. The purpose of the debate is to open the discussion on how we ensure that elections are undertaken in a proper, measured and watertight fashion.

My first suggestion to the Minister is that the powers and duties of the Electoral Commission should be reconsidered and that perhaps the way forward is that it ought to be given a power to direct returning officers, electoral registration officers and acting returning officers. My second suggestion, which I am happy for the Minister to knock straight on the head, although I think it ought to be discussed, relates to the hypothecation of public money. The Treasury is implacably opposed to hypothecation, and there are good reasons for that, which I have always supported. However, the additional funds for electoral registration officers setting up and administering elections come directly from the Treasury, rather than local taxpayers. That is absolutely right, because if the money came from local taxpayers, a returning officer would have the excuse of saying, “Well, in this local authority we have had a particular problem with housing this year, and we have spent so much money on that that we simply do not have enough to spend on the proper administration of elections.” That would be the case whatever the current concern in a local authority, whether it is asylum seekers or an influx of Gypsies and Travellers. However, such excuses cannot be made because the money spent on elections comes directly from the centre.

Having come directly from the centre, however, that money is not ring-fenced or earmarked, so there is no hypothecation. I am suggesting, for the sake of argument, that the principle of hypothecation in that instance ought to be revisited. We are talking about money allocated from central Government for a specific purpose over a specific period of time, so that money that comes to returning officers and local authorities for the funding of electoral administration ought to be hypothecated and ring-fenced. I appreciate that the Minister may be bound to say that Treasury rules do not permit hypothecation, which I understand, but this is only the beginning of the argument.