Scotland: Devolution

Lord Birt Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, patriotism is a positive force rooted in pride of place, common endeavour and shared culture, perspectives and values. Nationalism, on the other hand, can be a destructive force, and no one expressed that to me more keenly than Eric Hobsbawm, the late, esteemed Marxist historian. Eric was a near neighbour of mine in mid-Wales, and he and I would oft-times hike the glorious hills of Brecon and Radnor together. In the 1930s, as most will know, Eric as a child had to flee Berlin and the Nazis, and he had been forced to move once more in his life, in the 1980s, from north to mid-Wales to escape the poisonous nationalistic hostility that had confronted him in Snowdonia.

[Lord Elis-Thomas (PC)]

I am sorry to intervene on the esteemed noble Lord, but as the Member of Parliament at the time and as the Assembly Member for Meirionnydd, I can assure him that his version of events borders on an imaginative treatise that I will never be able to subscribe to.

[Lord Birt]

I can only say that, on our long walks together, he felt extremely passionate about it and it caused him to move home. He had lots of chapter and verse to support his feelings.

Though many on the yes side of the Scottish referendum campaign behaved with propriety and conviction, others acted dishonestly and with menace. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, brought that out extremely forcefully. The evasion about the critical issues in the referendum campaign—the currency, a central bank, the NHS or membership of the EU and NATO—was without precedent in any election or referendum campaign that I ever experienced.

There was no better example of menace, among the many, than the singling out by the First Minister of Nick Robinson and the BBC. At a very difficult moment in the campaign for the yes side, towards the end after a series of highly unwelcome interventions from business leaders, the First Minister held a press conference for foreign correspondents, extraordinarily packing it with fevered and noisy supporters. To distract from his difficulties—as usual playing the man and not the ball—the First Minister orchestrated an argy-bargy with Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, a correspondent universally respected for his insight, independence and integrity.

Following Mr Robinson’s report of that conference, there was a demonstration against the BBC and its political editor, as the noble Lord, Lord McFall, mentioned. Some thousands of yes supporters gathered outside the headquarters of BBC Scotland, an intimidating and frightening experience for BBC staff. The First Minister was, however, to describe this demonstration as “joyous and peaceful”. Nick Robinson could only continue to report the final stages of the campaign with a bodyguard at his side.

The next challenge for the United Kingdom is a resurgence of English nationalism. What Eric Hobsbawm made me deeply conscious of on our walks was how nationalism evades the essential discourse between left and right about wealth creation, social justice and income distribution. For nationalists, there are always easy targets: immigrants are stealing your jobs; the Jews your money; the white farmers your land; the English your oil. Nationalism thrives on economic reverse and volatility.

It is a commonplace at the moment to claim that there is widespread disaffection with the Westminster classes and that the remedy is therefore to tear up our constitution and to devolve power here, there and everywhere. We should be very careful. The modern state is indeed a terrible tangle. It is indeed vital to ensure that real responsibility and power are lodged at the appropriate place, whether globally or at national, regional or local level. I agree with all noble Lords who said that we need to tease away at identifying the right balance between centralisation and devolution or decentralisation. We must, of course, honour our promise to Scotland, but we should take our time about everything else and answer the questions properly.

In particular, we should be extremely cautious of so-called English votes for English laws. It is indeed anomalous, as I am sure everybody agrees, that Scottish MPs vote on English matters, but perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, suggested, it is an anomaly that we should simply live with, for England is by population 84% of the United Kingdom. It is one thing to create special arrangements for three national regions representing respectively 8%, 5% and 3% of the population, but it is quite another to make special arrangements for 84% of the population. That would simply drive us further apart.

Let me cite an extreme example to illuminate a point. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, mentioned London. Imagine if London and the south-east, at some point in the future, pressed to be a city state. It is by far the most prosperous region in Europe, not just in the UK. Enormous wealth passes from London to the rest of the UK. Picture the impoverishment that would result in Wales and elsewhere from London’s independence. Picture also the vulnerability of a highly fragmented British Isles. Remember the Romans, the Vikings and the Normans, as well as the Nazis. A united nation shares its wealth and stands shoulder to shoulder when threatened.

The root of widespread disaffection in the electorate, which has been much mentioned in this debate, is not our constitution but the monumental failure of governance in the last decade or more. Governments the world over, including in the UK, have been fiscally irresponsible. Regulators have failed to protect us against systemic breakdown and the finance sector has failed to act with prudence and probity.

Scotland: Independence

Lord Birt Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is an extraordinary crucible of ideas, learning and creativity. Part of our strength is that, although we can speak with one voice when fighting totalitarianism or at the opening night of the Olympics, we are also heterogeneous; we can celebrate difference and speak in harmony with many voices.

I am as proud to be a Liverpudlian—I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, did not mention Bill Shankly—as I am to be British. I am proud of that willingness to challenge convention that inspired Alan Bleasdale, Ken Dodd and the Beatles, but I recognise, too, just how enriched I am by Yorkshire’s writers and artists, by Northern Ireland’s poets or by the new powerful contributions that post-war immigration to the UK has brought us. Through the multiplicity of all those subtly different voices and accents, we can also hear something that we have in common: something distinctively British. That is something that the rest of the world can and does recognise too.

No part of the United Kingdom has made a greater contribution to the whole than the people from Scotland. We have heard that in abundance today in this remarkable, eloquent debate. The list of those who have made contributions is too long to repeat, but perhaps I may be allowed to mention some: Adam Smith and James Boswell, JM Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark and Carol Ann Duffy, Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith, Ludovic Kennedy and Andrew Marr, Billy Connolly and David Tennant, Armando Iannucci and Irvine Welsh. I note that Irvine Welsh once said that he loved the “density and complexity” of Jane Austen and George Eliot. That can be no surprise, for they are all part of the same British literary tradition.

One reason for Britain’s exceptional creative and intellectual vitality is our genius for founding institutions which channel and foster our national talent. None of those bodies is more effective than the BBC. Illuminatingly and tellingly, the BBC was founded and critically shaped by a young Scot of vision, a can-do engineer and a curmudgeonly son of the manse, John Reith. It was that bold Scot who bequeathed the BBC an enduring conviction, a stubborn commitment to excellence and a lasting set of values.

As we have heard today, there would be many consequences if Scotland were to become independent, but let us be clear what they would be for the BBC and for broadcasting in Scotland and in the rest of the United Kingdom. First—I do not think that this has yet been properly recognised in the debate today—the BBC, like other national institutions, would lose 10% of its income. The recent brand-new obligations placed on the BBC to fund the World Service, S4C and other activities from the licence fee will in short order take a further 15% out of the pot currently utilised for funding TV, radio and online services. In the space of just a few years, if Scotland became independent, the BBC as we know it would effectively lose one quarter of its funding. Changes to BBC services would be unavoidable.

Secondly, the BBC buys programmes of distinction from other countries—most notably recently from Scandinavia. Even with its diminished revenues, the BBC would no doubt buy some programmes from an independent Scotland but, as with other countries, only programmes in the “outstanding” category would be purchased.

Thirdly, a smaller BBC would no doubt make some programmes in and about Scotland, as it does now in other countries, but that would be exceptional, unlike now, when, as a matter of policy, a proportionate slice of its budget is spent in Scotland on programming for the whole of the UK. If Scotland were independent, I am very sorry to say that it would no longer be much reflected on our screens and airwaves in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Fourthly, the new Scottish publicly funded broadcaster —the SBS—would have about a tenth of the BBC’s current budget. Like other countries with populations of about 5 million, the SBS would tailor its programmes and services to its limited means.

Fifthly, like other broadcasters, I expect that the SBS would want to acquire programmes from the BBC, not least those loved intensely by Scottish audiences. The BBC is, thankfully, independent of government, so whatever is said wishfully by some, the BBC will have no alternative whatever but to act in the interests of its licence fee payers and to seek the best possible commercial terms for the sale of its programmes in Scotland, not least because of the aforementioned financial impoverishment that it will just have suffered.

Finally, as for the availability in Scotland of the BBC’s continuing services for the rest of the United Kingdom, there will of course be some transmission spillover at the border, and BBC channels and services will certainly be accessible more widely in Scotland, but encrypted and available only on commercial terms.

Those who will vote for independence identify and expect many gains, but I suggest that many of the advantages that the most creative and inspiring talents in Scotland have enjoyed for 300 years—of making a massive impact on a big stage to global acclaim—will simply be lost.

If Scotland votes for independence, the rest of the United Kingdom will lose too, for in all sorts of different ways the UK will make a lesser contribution to the wider world. Our status and standing will be diminished. Worst of all, we will suffer the loss of the Scots at the very heart of our affairs as admired and appreciated allies, collaborators and friends.