Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke

Thursday 15th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has raised the issue of the legislative consent Motion and my noble friend Lord Foulkes has raised the issue of the timetable. We have also had within the process a consultation which concluded at the end of last week. At Second Reading we were told that one of the reasons for the truncated consultation process was to allow amendments to be brought forward at Report stage. However, there is a very short period of time between the Committee stage and the Report stage. I echo the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and my noble friend Lord Foulkes about this debate taking place on a Thursday and the final day of the Report stage taking place on the Wednesday before the Easter Recess

The whole process is in a muddle, and that is not the way to deal with a serious constitutional issue. I have the greatest respect for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and I know that he would wish to be as straightforward with the House as he can be. I hope, too, that the Leader of the House, as the leader of the whole House, will not see this as some source of mischief but as an attempt to get to the bottom of what is happening.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, it is with some reluctance that I rise to speak but I think that my contribution will substantially meet the criteria that the Leader of the House has laid down for this debate.

I addressed the House at some length on the first day in Committee setting out the reasons why I thought it was important that we should conclude our scrutiny of the Bill and present it back to the other place ready to become legislation. That was on 26 January and I do not intend to repeat all the points I made on that occasion. Those who are interested can read for themselves that 45 minute contribution in the Official Report. However, I do wish to make one or two important points.

First, I rebut the suggestion that we are meeting on this Thursday to discuss this part of the Bill at the request of this part of the Opposition. I cannot speak for all of the Opposition, of course, but I have been privy to many conversations, getting uncomfortably close to the usual channels in your Lordships’ House, and never at any time in these discussions did I ask, or was I party to a request from the Opposition, that we should meet on a Thursday.

Noble Lords ought to remind themselves of the somewhat chequered history of the management of the Committee stage in this House. It was the great plan that this day would be devoted to a debate about referendums. It was broadly agreed because the consultation would be over and it was expected that the Government would be able to come to the Dispatch Box and indicate what their response to the consultation would be. There was a degree of consensus that went beyond the Front Benches that it was appropriate to handle the matter in that fashion. However, as has consistently happened with the Committee days of the Bill, we have been subject to other items of business being imposed on them. We have just had the same thing today. In fact, we lost a whole Committee day for this Bill because it was seized from us for ping- pong on the Welfare Reform Bill. I was assured that that would take only a couple of hours—at the time I laughed uproariously at that idea—but it took all day and we lost a whole day in Committee.

There was an attempt, to which I was a party, by those who want to see this matter proceed appropriately to manage the business in such a way that we would conclude it within the appropriate time. However, there was no agreement that we would sit on Thursdays. A lot of what has happened has been imposed on me and other Members of the House by the circumstances of the business of the House. I understand that it has to be managed and I do not want to be part of that process, but any suggestion that the Opposition requested Thursdays is not correct to my knowledge.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

Taking my own advice, I am utterly reluctant to express any opinion that is even marginally related to any football club in Scotland. Most people in Scotland know where my allegiances lie, and engaging in this debate would make it even worse for me. I apologise to my noble friend Lord Foulkes, who has been engaged in Scottish football. His support for Heart of Midlothian Football Club is well known and he has made an important contribution to Scottish football over the years. However, I think that he probably has more scars on his back from that time than he has from any political confrontations in Scotland. I just give the Minister a bit of gratuitous advice: he would be wise to take these matters away and perhaps write some very carefully worded letters to my noble friend and his noble friend if he thinks that these questions need answering.

I want to raise a point that I mentioned in my contribution to the debate on the previous group of amendments. I do this by reference to my contribution to the Second Reading of this Bill, which took place on 6 September 2011. During my contribution to that debate, I asked about the progress of the high-level implementation group and the joint Exchequer committee, which are complementary elements. The joint Exchequer committee, led by Ministers, and the high-level group of civil servants—from both the Civil Service that supports the Scottish Executive and the UK Civil Service—are to work out the process and deal with the challenges and issues in preparation for the implementation of the provisions that we have been debating when this Bill becomes an Act, as I hope it will.

I raise this because I have a suspicion—and I put it no higher than that as I share my motivation with the Committee—that perhaps from the Scotland side of this process of engagement there is less willingness to engage, and less capacity to engage, in the preparation for these issues than we will need if we are to meet the expectations that we all share that these devolved powers will be available to be used for the benefit of the Scottish people, broadly by about 2015. I do not expect the Minister to make any comments at the Dispatch Box about willingness, but I would be able to deduce from the detail of his answers whether there has been that willingness.

I raise this issue for one very good reason. There is an impression in Scotland that the Scottish Government are anxious to get their hands on these additional powers. In fact, they want more. It is not sufficient to say to the Scottish people that you want these powers; you have to explain to them what you are going to do with them when you get them and you have to convince the Scottish people that you are preparing yourself for these powers and for the use of them. I went on at some length at the beginning of this Committee about what I thought was happening in Scotland, and there was convincing evidence that the Scottish Government were falling down in all of those respects.

Therefore, can the Minister tell the Committee not just how many times the high-level implementation group has met but what progress is actually being made? Even if it has to be described generically, I will be satisfied by that, but I will keep pressing as long as this Bill is before this House to get more detail. What progress is being made to prepare the structure in Scotland to receive these powers or any powers that relate to the raising of taxation?

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

I apologise to the Committee that I was not present through the earlier parts of the discussion of Clause 29, but my noble friend is making one of the most critical and crucial points in relation to these tax-raising powers. I would be interested if, when the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, replies to him, he could put some figures on to the costs of implementation. He will know well that one of the essential ingredients of analysing the effectiveness of any taxation is the cost of collection. In this case, it is not just the cost of collection that we need to know about; it is also the cost of disaggregation of HM Revenue and Customs and the cost to the overall UK taxpayer, not just the Scottish taxpayer. If the noble Lord does not have those figures available at the moment, I would be grateful if he could give them to us in due course.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My noble friend Lady Liddell—through me as a conduit—raises some very interesting questions for the noble Lord. I expect that, because of the nature of the amendments in further groups, we may get an opportunity to explore in more detail the issue of the cost of implementation of these provisions and of who should bear that cost. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s very pertinent question.

I have dealt with the high-level implementation group. I am interested not only in how often it meets but in what it does and in whether we are making genuine progress toward creating the infrastructure that will be necessary for Scotland to receive these powers. I have said before that almost all members of the Scottish Government voted in the Scottish Parliament for these tax-raising powers. Therefore, I expect them to be at least beginning the process of consultation with the people of Scotland on how they intend to use them. If they are to be ready to use them by about 2015, and if they are to give the people of Scotland a level of consultation that devolution has conditioned them to expect, they should be beginning to draft the documentation to put before the Scottish people that explains how they intend to use the powers.

It does not matter whether this is devo-plus or devo-max. Whatever powers the Scottish Government have in relation to tax, they should be getting ready to implement them. As I said earlier, there is an extraordinarily interesting debate and discussion to be had in Scotland about how stamp duty land tax could be used to help to inject energy into the economy in different parts of Scotland. I am not an expert in these areas, but I know from representing for many years a constituency in Scotland that using taxation revenue in a more localised way at least has the potential to generate economic activity. I would like this explored further. If the debate and discussion reveal that it cannot be used in this way, at least that would be a conclusion.

There are two aspects to this. First, there is the engagement between the UK and Scottish Governments and their respective civil servants on planning for this. Secondly, there is the question of fitness and preparation, and the condition that the Scottish Government are putting themselves in to exercise any devolved taxation powers. I see no evidence of any of this in Scotland.

I turn to the joint Exchequer committee, about which the noble Lord and I have already had an exchange. I asked about the committee at Second Reading and was told that it was anticipated that it would meet for the first time on 27 September. My earlier intervention implied that I thought that that was a bit late when one considered how long the process had been in gestation and how long the Bill spent in the other place and here—but I had to live with that. The committee met on 27 September. The noble Lord implied that when it met it made progress on some issues that were aired in the debate on the previous group of amendments, which dealt with some of the challenges that people had identified.

My information, which was provided very graciously by the Scotland Office, is that the committee met and there appeared to be some agreement on a set of principles on the block grant adjustment mechanism. Apparently, three principles were agreed that will apply to the mechanism for the adjustment. The first is fairness. It is not defined, but we all know what it means. The second is resilience in different fiscal circumstances. The third is the avoidance of unintended consequences, including the transfer of resources one way or another. It may be my fault, but the principles do not tell me very much about the nature of the agreement. They smack a little of motherhood and apple pie and do not seem to engage with some of the difficult and challenging issues that the devolution of tax powers to Scotland will inevitably generate, some of which we have already debated.

Certainly, if the committee is not to meet again for another six months, unless the high-level implementation group is drilling down into some of these difficult issues and starting to display a level of competence and ability in dealing with the infrastructure that is necessary for implementing this, these meetings of the joint Exchequer committee are not going to make very much progress. Before this House gives its approval to this Bill and it becomes an Act—I fervently hope that it will and I will do everything in my power to achieve that—I ask of the Minister that at least we spend some time getting some sense and some idea of whether Scotland, its Government and its Civil Service will be in any shape to actually use these powers if and when we pass them.