Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I appreciate that it has got much worse but the catalyst was a similar action by the coalition Government in that in England they transferred the burden from the public purse to the student. It was a similar action. This is not the place to debate whether student fees in a particular place are right. In the context of devolution, the debate is about whether it is appropriate for your Lordships’ House to impose on the Scottish Parliament an obligation, or a restriction, on a power that they have been exercising in a particular way for the best part of 10 years, when no attempt has been made to have a serious cross-UK discussion about the situation to see whether it can be resolved.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am not going to argue that ultimately this Parliament can decide anything it wishes in relation to any part of the United Kingdom. I certainly would not argue that because I respect devolution and was a great advocate for it. Could my noble friend deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, about discrimination. Discrimination is still a matter for the United Kingdom Parliament—it is a reserved area—and is it not overwhelmingly an issue of discrimination that has been raised today?

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I am happy to deal with that point, but I will deal with it directly by responding to my noble friend on this issue. My noble friend was a Member of the Scottish Parliament for four years, during all of which time the Executive of that Parliament had the differential fee. I am not aware of my noble friend at any stage during his time in that Parliament raising this issue as one of discrimination against students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland or suggesting that something should be done—where the power lay, and where it was created.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I shall answer my noble friend’s question and I hope that he will answer mine. It never came up specifically as an issue. My noble friend needs to take account of the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that we are talking about an issue entirely different in scale. As the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, said in relation to the National Gallery of Scotland—can you imagine that gallery saying, “Are you Scottish? You can come in free”. If the gallery had then asked an English person to pay £1, they might have said, “Okay, it’s only £1”. But imagine that they were asked for £10, £20 or £30—that is the kind of scale that we are talking about. It would be entirely wrong, and this is the same principle. It is discrimination.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

It is discrimination, but I do not think that a little discrimination is any better than a lot of discrimination. The fact of the matter is that there has been discrimination for 10 years, and we have established in this debate that no serious attempt has been made across the United Kingdom to deal with it.

I will deal directly with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk. There is an argument, and I am attracted by it, that we reserved to this Parliament the right to deal with issues of discrimination and that, as a matter of law, we can deal with it here. I am not learned enough in the law in this area to know whether that is so, but as a matter of law, in terms of devolution, we can deal with anything; we are the sovereign Parliament. We do not need to rely on the reserved area to claim our right to deal with it—we can deal with anything.

This is politics and we are doing this in the context of probably the greatest challenge that the union of the United Kingdom has faced in any of our lifetimes. Those of us who believe in this union are trying to manage a difficult political situation in which all of the parties represented in the Scottish Parliament have their DNA in this discrimination to some extent. I exclude the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, from that. We now decide in an entirely opportunistic way—encouraged, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, points out, by the nature and the scale of the discrimination—to deal with it by imposing these conditions.

And when do we do it? We do it at a time when a Government Minister can come to the Dispatch Box and say that they have just negotiated a legislative consent motion to deliver this Scotland Bill, which is the policy of all our parties after weeks if not months of negotiation. We are just at the point where we can do something that can ensure that all the negotiations and discussions are wasted. We are back to square one again, back into confrontation and back into giving those who lead the Scottish Government the script that they want: that the unelected House of Lords has told the people of Scotland what they can do. They will say, “They give us devolution with one hand and then take it away. They let us use it for 10 years and then, when we use it in a way that they don’t like, they take it away. That is exactly why we need to be independent of these people”. This is bad politics in my view.

There is a way forward. We should accept all of our responsibilities for the situation that has been created by the actions and the interactions of the Government at the UK level with the history that was left to the nationalists when they became the Scottish Government and the challenge that they faced in terms of university funding. We should sit down together and try to resolve the situation—not in the interests of whether we have the right to impose this but in the interests of the young people whom we want to live, work and be educated together for the benefit of the United Kingdom. That seems a much more sensible way of dealing with the situation, rather than trooping through the Lobbies tonight and making a point which will be to the detriment of the issue that most of us feel passionately about—the preservation of the union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I wonder if my noble friend could explain why I got a text saying, “Whip off”.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My noble friend is an experienced Member of this House and has been a Member of other parliaments. I understand this position, and I think that he should understand the position, too. The Opposition Benches are voting against this amendment. He is not obliged to vote.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I can understand why my noble friend says that using this Bill to discuss or legislate for a referendum might not have seemed appropriate. However, if the amendments had not been put down all those months ago by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and myself, and if the pressure had not been put on the Government, does my noble friend think that we would have had two consultative documents? Does he think that we would have achieved what we have achieved today? Is there not extra advantage in putting down amendments, even though at the end of the day they may have to be withdrawn? Does it not achieve something in the end, and has something not been achieved in relation to this?

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention, although I have no idea what the answer is to the question that he asks. We get many amendments that allow us to explore issues that are of less relevance and importance to the people of Scotland, but I certainly welcome amendments that allow us to explore issues that are important. Through their amendments, my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, have been utterly diligent on this Bill. They deserve a great degree of credit for the amount of work that they have put into preparing amendments, by which they have created opportunities for some very good debates in Committee. They will be a quarry for the future for many good arguments that can be put forward about the positive nature of the United Kingdom.

To go back to my point, the noble and learned Lord says, “Not this Bill”, and I agree. He says that the preferred option is a Section 30 Order in Council, and I agree. The consultation reveals some very good and compelling arguments in some of the responses about why that is the right way to go. I have adopted some of them. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked the Minister, “What if there is no Section 30? Where does that leave you?”. The noble and learned Lord answered, “If agreement cannot be reached, we need to consider other options”. I understand why that form of words is the most that he can give your Lordships.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendment in this group standing in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd of Duncansby. I also have something to say about the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Foulkes.

My amendment would grant the Scottish Parliament the power to ensure that its elections are never again held on the same day as another national poll. The amendment is nearly identical to one tabled by my honourable friend Tom Greatrex, the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, at the Public Bill Committee stage in the House of Commons. However, I regret that during that debate the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland and many others were diverted by the then controversy of the imminent application and interaction of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. As far as I can see, although my honourable friend spoke to the amendment, it was never properly answered. Therefore, it has been repeated here in order to get an answer. If the answer allows for the avoidance of a coincidence of polls such as we saw in 2007, I will be greatly satisfied.

As noble Lords will know, the coincidence of local government and Scottish Parliament elections on 3 May 2007—and other factors—led to the rejection of 146,099 Scottish Parliament ballot papers and 38,362 local election ballot papers. It was the nadir of electoral administration in the United Kingdom, and everybody has focused on ensuring that it never happens again. It is the firm belief of this side of the House that never again should the people of Scotland be subjected to the confusion and chaos of two polls on the same day. We strongly opposed the coalition Government's decision to impose a referendum on the alternative vote system on the same day as the Holyrood election. The Minister said that it passed off without incident, but we will never know what effect that coincidence had on the way in which people behaved. There was no repeat of the dreadful circumstances of 2007, but I argue in my amendment that we should try to avoid repeating the coincidence if at all possible.

I am conscious that Clause 2 relates to the administration of the combination of polls that would be required should there be such a coincidence. I have nothing to say about that; I agree with it. We have been combining polls in those circumstances probably since 1978 or before. It makes good sense. Therefore, I am happy to let Clause 2 pass. What I am concerned about is seeking to use the device of the 1998 Act to avoid this. If the clause is properly drafted—and I hope that it is—it would grant the Scottish Parliament the flexibility to move its poll in the event of a coincidence. It would mean that there should never be any future coincidence of polls unless the Scottish Parliament decided otherwise. Most people believe that probably we cannot have that coincidence. However, despite the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and the devices of extending the period of a Parliament, in particular of the Scottish Parliament, that the coalition Government have agreed to, there is the possibility of an extraordinary election—some noble Lords on this side of the House would quite like next to see ordinary election, despite the Fixed-term Parliaments Act—coinciding with a date fixed for a Scottish Parliament election.

I got myself into some difficulties with the arithmetic of trying to work out whether coincidence is at all possible with the European Parliament elections as a consequence of the movement of the Scottish Parliament elections. It may just be possible, which is why the amendment anticipates the coincidence. I may be wrong about that, but we could in future have to use the device of extending the Scottish Parliament’s time again to avoid coincidence. That may throw up the possibility of a European Parliament coincidence. We believe this is the best way to do this. It should be a matter for the Scottish Parliament. In response to Gould, the Scottish Parliament committed to decoupling Scottish Parliamentary and local government elections, which was the real mischief that caused the problem in 2007. Similar provisions have been made to try to ensure that Scottish parliamentary and UK general elections do not follow the same cycle, as I have already said. The Calman commission recommended that, for reasons of practicality and principle, Scottish parliamentary elections should be administered at the level closest to those affected by them. We have already debated that to a degree. In a sense, it was the electorate of the Scottish Parliament who were the victims of the catastrophe that was the 2007 election. We believe that as a mature Parliament the Scottish Parliament should have the responsibility to decide whether it wants to allow this coincidence to persist, should it happen because of the rhythm of parliamentary elections or the possibility of an extraordinary election. This amendment is devised to achieve that possibility.

I turn to the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. I congratulate my noble friend and, by extension, the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. Each of them identified lacunae in the framework for Scottish elections, which is a phrase that I will now use, to the Scottish Parliament that could be addressed. I was not aware that there is no process for filling a vacancy for an independent member in the regional part of the system. That should not be allowed to continue. I understand that my noble friend’s approach to this is to devise a method that is very similar to the method adopted for electing regional members. It is very close to that, if not precisely the same. I urge the Minister to take this away to see whether, at some stage during the passage of this Bill, we can deal with this. His advisers are, in addition, capable of dealing with a lacuna that has been identified by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. I suggest that the Minister considers that too. It would genuinely be in the spirit of the appropriate approach to this legislation. I am sorry that the Calman commission did not have its attention drawn to this problem because I am sure that if it had the noble and learned Lord in another guise may well have been party to a recommendation to resolve it.

I turn to Amendment 16 which the noble Lord, Lord Steel, identifies as being the more substantial amendment. My noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock is a man of extraordinary experience, not just in your Lordships' House but in the House of Commons and in the Scottish Parliament. Some of us were privileged to be at the celebration of his 70th birthday in the Gorgie Suite in his beloved Tynecastle Park on Saturday night. He knows where my allegiances lie, and I am delighted that there is at least one reason for celebration in the Gorgie Suite in Tynecastle this year because there will be precious few others. For those noble Lords who do not know what I am referring to, in an act of extraordinary generosity his family invited almost 200 people from all over the world to join the celebration of his 70th birthday. The fact that almost nobody refused the invitation no matter how far away they came from or, it seemed to me, failed to turn up is a measure of the high esteem in which he is held. I refer to this because the speeches that night celebrated a lifetime of service to politics in Scotland and to public life. It is from that background that he speaks when he rises in your Lordships' House, and he ought to be listened to carefully. However—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

However!

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

However, I regret that in this case I cannot support my noble friend’s amendment. If there is a mischief here, it seems to me that the solution lies in the hands of the political parties. We should not be legislating for this and I am surprised that we have in fact legislated in Wales, but if the Welsh people wanted that, that is fine.

For many years, the Labour Party had a voluntary prohibition on this. We had a rule that you could not stand for both the lists and the constituencies. We departed from that at the last election to the Scottish Parliament and because of that Sarah Boyack is a Member of the Scottish Parliament. That seems to be a good result; apart from anything else, it may be a reason for maintaining the status quo.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, we have had a wide-ranging and diverse debate on this comparatively simple Motion, and we have the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, to thank for that opportunity. I have not been long in your Lordships’ House, but when discussing Scotland I have become used to hearing the same familiar voices—speaking on some of the same issues, I have to say.

This debate in its diversity has added something and I am particularly pleased to have heard from the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Singh, and, although it is a Scots voice, from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. The points that they made individually and collectively should be listened to by my Scots colleagues. I was pleased that on Second Reading my noble friend Lord McConnell made a forward-looking speech. Scotland is in its politics, as I perceive it, beyond arguments that may well have served those of us who wanted to see the union held together. It is now looking for reasons to stay in the union rather than reasons why it cannot leave the union. The tone and content of how we conduct ourselves in these debates is crucial in the modern world. In my contribution to these debates, I intend to try at all times to describe a Scotland that is better for the people of Scotland and the people of the United Kingdom. Some strong strands or threads of debate are emerging already which suggest that there is an appetite in your Lordships’ House for this kind of debate and I am very pleased about that.

My second point is about a slight discord with my noble friend Lord Foulkes who is a very good personal friend as well as being a noble friend and a party colleague. My recollection of the general election on that terrible night in 1979 was not that his election was the highlight in Scotland, but that it was the election of my noble friend Lord Maxton to the constituency of Cathcart. It was a bright light in an otherwise very dull night for me. I hate to introduce that level of discord and I hope that my noble friend will forgive me, but that is certainly my recollection.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

It is a debatable point whether the achievement of getting rid of Teddy Taylor was better than getting rid of Jim Sillars. Perhaps we could discuss it outside.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

The margin of winning may have been very narrow but I certainly know where I stand. I am happy to debate with my noble friend outside but let us just say that there were very few bright lights that night and maybe we should savour them all.

My third point is that I am grateful to the Government, the usual channels or whatever the processes are, which I have never quite got to grips with in this place, for the level of cross-party engagement to manage the order of consideration of the Bill. Having been party to that agreement I shall resist the temptation to discuss referendums and questions relating to referendums in this contribution.

However, I will break that general rule in order to make one point. It struck me as very interesting—indeed, instructive—how quickly the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who came to the aid of Alex Salmond, went from trying to persuade us that the proposed question was straightforward, via one very simple but telling intervention by my noble friend Lord Gordon, to a position of having to try to define one word of it in order to explain why it was straightforward. If I had had the opportunity to cross-examine him further, I suspect that we may well have got a long dissertation from him on that comparatively simple and straightforward question that would have left us all utterly confused about whether a yes or no answer would have made us any the wiser about the view of the people of Scotland. However, these are discussions for another day. Having agreed this with the Minister, as well as with other Members of the House and with the coalition Government, I shall resist the temptation to say more.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I move Amendment 31, standing in my name and in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke. I understand that my noble friend Lord McAvoy has put his name to it as well. I am pleased to see so many noble Lords with Scottish titles in the Chamber today. I presume that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will be replying to it. No? Well, another Scot will be replying to it—that is, the Leader of the House.

When I looked through the Bill and saw that the question was to be posed in Welsh for voting in Wales, I thought, what a very good idea. I immediately assumed that it would also be posed in Gaelic in Scotland. Going further through the Bill, I was disappointed to discover that that was not the case. I presume that the reason why it is being put in Welsh in Wales is that people who are native Welsh speakers will understand better the nuances of the question, the implications of voting one way or another will become clearer to them, when they read it in their native language, their first language. That is a very good argument and a very good reason for having the question in Welsh.

There is exactly the same reason for having the question in Gaelic in Scotland. There are a number of native Gaelic speakers in parts of Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, and most particularly in the Western Isles, whose first language is Gaelic. These people will understand the question better, understand the nuances and implications of it, in the same way that Welsh speakers will in Wales.

Then I thought that maybe the argument for having it in Welsh in Wales and not in Gaelic in Scotland was that in Wales there are people who speak only Welsh, whereas in Scotland there are no people who speak only Gaelic. In fact, the situation in Scotland is that in the last few years it has become the case that all native Gaelic speakers now speak English as their second language. However, the situation in Wales is almost exactly the same. I quote from Wikipedia—I am not sure if that is the best source, but it is correct on this occasion:

“monoglot Welsh speakers are now virtually non-existent … Almost without exception, Welsh speakers in Wales also speak English … Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English”—

but that is true also of Gaelic speakers. So the situation in both countries is effectively the same.

I also thought that there might be an argument that there were more Polish and German speakers and speakers of other European languages in Scotland. This would complicate things and mean that we ought to have the question in those languages as well. At present, though, citizens of the European Union resident in the United Kingdom will not be eligible to vote in the referendum. As it happens, I also tabled Amendment 36A, which, if accepted, would allow them to vote and to have the same franchise for both the referendum and the election, which would be helpful. At the moment, though, Polish, German, French and other European citizens will not have the right to vote. So that argument does not arise.

Like Welsh, Gaelic is increasingly being used alongside English in Scotland. I took a journey by rail recently from Edinburgh to Ayr—it is not always easy to make any journeys in Scotland at the moment—and Scotrail now has all the names of the railway stations in Gaelic as well as in English. That is happening throughout Scotland. That is just one example of many.

The argument might be put—perhaps by the Leader of the House, if he is replying—that Welsh is an official language. Since 2005, however, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will attest to because he was Deputy First Minister of Scotland at the time, under the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, Gaelic is now an official language in Scotland.

The argument might be that the question is being put in Welsh in Wales because there are more Welsh speakers—in fact, there are 611,000. In Scotland there are 58,652 Gaelic speakers. However, I would argue that the issue is not the number of speakers; rather, it is an issue of principle. Even if there were only a handful of Gaelic speakers, the argument would be the same. Still, there are 58,652 native Gaelic speakers.

There have been a number of considerations regarding this at the European level. In fact, it was pointed out recently, in relation not to Scottish Gaelic but to Northern Irish Gaelic, that the United Nations committee looking at the European Convention on Human Rights recommended that the Administration in Northern Ireland adopt an Irish language Act with a view to preserving and promoting minority languages and cultural heritage in the same way as the Welsh Language Act and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act. So there was a recognition there, and there is increasing recognition generally that Gaelic is an official language in Scotland.

Given the setting up of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, if we put the Bill through in its present form there would be a case for Gaelic speakers in Scotland to take a case to it on the basis that they were not being dealt with in the same way as native Welsh speakers. We are all in the same United Kingdom but they are not being dealt with in the same way.

This is a very serious matter. Some people thought that some of the comments I made on previous matters were debating points. This is not a debating point or issue. It has become known among some people who speak Gaelic that I had planned to move this amendment, for which I have had expressions of support. Gaelic speakers think that this amendment would be a great advantage to the Bill.

The Leader of the House—or I think the noble Lord, Lord McNally—has put down some amendments to the Bill. We passed a change to the Bill on Monday, so the Bill has to go back to the other place anyway. I hope that the Leader of the House will accept this amendment and that it will go back to the House with a clear instruction or expression of review from the House of Lords that the speakers of Scottish Gaelic should be treated in exactly the same way as Welsh speakers in Wales.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, not for the first time I rise in Committee to support my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. On this occasion my noble friend has identified a very important issue of support for minority language rights and identities. He has afforded your Lordships’ House an opportunity to make a statement about such support in supporting his amendment. As I have said before, I have made a point of reviewing everything that has been said in these Houses in relation to this Bill. I have to say that I was surprised, given the makeup of the other place, that this issue was not raised in Committee or in any other part of the debate that they had about this legislation. This fact and the issue that my noble friend identified have indicated how important it is that we look at this legislation as carefully as we have been doing in Committee because I am sure that we will find many other opportunities to improve it quite significantly and improve the appreciation that the electorate have of the body politic in this country—a point that I made earlier.

In researching my contribution to this short debate—and I am sure that it will be a short but valuable one—I came across the writings of a man, who I had previously not read, called Robert Dunbar, who was, at least in 2006, at the school of law in the University of Aberdeen. I will share his words with your Lordships’ House because they make the holistic case for my noble friend Lord Foulkes’s argument very well. In the Journal of Law and Society in 2006 in volume 33, number one, in an article entitled, “Is there a duty to legislate for linguistic minorities?”, he wrote:

“All three Celtic languages are … threatened minority languages. Gaelic particularly so, and Welsh and Gaelic are only spoken as community languages—and will therefore only survive—in the United Kingdom. These demographic and sociolinguistic facts are a product, to a very significant degree, of state language policy, which until fairly recently has been directed at promoting the acquisition of English, with little or no regard to the impact of this policy on minority languages”.

He goes on:

“Frequently, minority languages such as the Celtic languages have been viewed by the majority as not merely ‘less widely spoken’, but also as ‘inferior’, ‘backward’, ‘parochial’, and these value judgments have too often coloured attitudes to the speakers of such languages. When such attitudes guide the implementation of an integrationist policy, the effect changes from one of equipping the minority with skills in the majority languages to one of removing the minority language and identity altogether”.

I apologise to your Lordships’ House for reading that at length. However, in those few sentences, Mr Dunbar made the argument for respecting the minority language of Gaelic, the Scottish people and the identity of those who speak that language in a very good way. I could have adopted his argument and changed the words, which, as a consequence of my researches, I have to say I have done in the past. However, I thought that I should attribute those arguments to him.