Constitutional Convention

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate about our very complicated constitution, with a disparate range of views, not all of which are going to be easy to reconcile: that in a sense makes the case for having a convention. I join the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, who has had a very distinguished career, both in this House and in the other place. He and I were reminiscing just a few weeks ago about a visit we made to Zimbabwe—he mentioned Rhodesia in his speech—at a time when we hoped we might be able to help Zimbabwe in a more positive direction than it turned out. We tried very hard; unfortunately, not enough people listened. He recounted to the House the wide range of activities he has been involved in, as a Minister and as a Member of both Houses, and the House has demonstrated how much it appreciates him and wishes him well in his retirement.

I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, on securing this debate: I absolutely support the objective behind it of having a constitutional convention. A number of points have been made, but I reflected on what happened yesterday. It brought home to me just how dysfunctional and medieval our political system is. A dispute in a minority party at the other end of the House, which nobody but 317 people were involved in, was supposed to keep us all on the edge of our seats about the destiny of our nation. If that is British democracy, it is a shameful humiliation that it has been brought down to that. The reality is, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, says, that in fact our British political system is at the mercy of the minorities who control the two largest parties—which are in themselves minorities—and we have the nerve to call that a democracy. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on that. We have some very fundamental thinking to do, because people are angry, disengaged and alienated. If we do not do something about it, I actually think we have to worry about civil disorder and unrest when people do not find any democratic outlets for securing the things that matter to them.

I pick on the big picture—the more focused picture. The dimension of England is always the problem for those of us who believe that some form of federal United Kingdom is the only way we can resolve the piecemeal reforms that we have initiated. The argument is that England is too big, so we can do nothing about it, but my noble friend Lord Greaves and others have made some suggestions. For example, my noble friend Lady Janke said we could look at how local government was secured in other countries, and mentioned Sweden and Germany. One of the problems with local government is that it just does not have its powers or financial resources secured: these should be constitutional rights enshrined in the law, and not subject to the will of some passing Secretary of State to start changing the powers or the allocation of how money is distributed, if he needs to please the Daily Mail on a given day for a headline.

Yet this is how our country is being run and has been run and there is very little that people can do. People in local government are asked to do more and more with less and less and as a result people say, “You are no use, you can’t do anything, you are not actually delivering for us”. We need a radical rethink, from top to bottom and side to side, but I suggest that before we have a federal constitution for the United Kingdom we absolutely have to address proper, effective, accountable devolution for England. However, I say in passing that that one of the bad consequences of the Scottish devolution settlement and the creation of a majority SNP Government is that it has been the victim of exactly the same paranoia that has been characteristic, in England, of taking control away from local government and centralising it under the control of a few Ministers. In Edinburgh we have lost control of the police, the fire service and many aspects of planning. We have lost control of our ability to actually fund the services that the Government expect us to provide.

We need, therefore, to start thinking about how we can draw people together, analyse the dysfunctionality that is characteristic of the way we run ourselves and, yes, learn from other countries. The interesting thing about Europe, never mind over 50 years but over the last 20 or 30 years, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, is that when countries had the opportunity to look at the kind of democracy they wanted to be, none of them looked at the United Kingdom as the model to follow. They looked at countries that had proper constitutions and proper arrangements. My noble friend Lord Steel once famously said, “The British constitution is not worth the paper it isn’t written on”. Nobody quite knows what it is: it is there to be manipulated at will by minorities who happen to be in control at any given time.

I was a member of the Scottish Constitutional Convention and was very proud to be part of it. To be fair to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, he acknowledged that while we naturally and unsurprisingly give the Labour Party credit—which it deserves because it had had a bloodied nose and needed to learn from it, and did learn from it—the convention was an offshoot of the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, which was cross-party and non-party, which is really important. When we established the convention, we wanted to be sure that it was as representative and as legitimate as possible, so every elected Member of Parliament and of the European Parliament from Scotland was invited, ex officio, to be a member. Every council in Scotland was invited to send representations and it was supplemented by representatives of trade unions, business organisations, churches, women’s groups and a whole variety of civic society, to enable them to participate and be involved in it. It was not official; the Government of the day treated it with a degree of dismissive contempt and the SNP turned up only to walk out—with the intention of walking out, I think it would be fair to say.

That was unfortunate because there was plenty of room for building consensus, and we did. Indeed, I remember an occasion on which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I were on the opposite sides of the argument about the voting system. He claimed that I had a gun to his head and the chair of the Labour Party at the time said that the gun was loaded. It was not loaded by me; it was loaded just as much by the Labour movement and other members of the Labour Party, because they recognised that if you were going to secure a Parliament in Scotland commanding the support of the people of Scotland, it had to be genuinely representative of all parts of Scotland—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, will understand that— not just the Glasgow Labour Party, which was what people feared. I give credit to Donald Dewar and other leaders for acknowledging that that was necessary. As a result of that, we moved from having an assembly to having a Parliament, to having more than the powers of the Scottish Office and to being elected by a proportional system.

That takes us on to issues such as referendums. If anything has been a constitutional outrage and abuse, it has been the use of referendums in this country. We have no constitutional basis for a referendum. We have a representative system of government, which the people boast about and celebrate, and then we suddenly throw into it the whim of a referendum, which is nearly always to meet the needs of a particular party in a mess. The net result of that political party in a mess has made the country a mess. What a disgraceful piece of leadership that turned out to be. The Scottish independence referendum was possibly the only way to address an issue: if a nationalist party wins a majority and says, “We have a mandate to try for independence”, a referendum is the way to test it. However, I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that a simple question and a simple majority is the answer. Something as fundamental as constitutional change has to carry a very substantial majority for it to stick. If not, we have exactly the situation we have now; a country split down the middle, incapable of resolving its differences by any proper mechanism.

I am personally not very keen on the idea of a second referendum. I support a people’s vote only as a default mechanism because there does not seem to be any other way of resolving the dilemma. If Parliament can find a majority for a system that is genuinely uniting, I would support that, but the reality is that that does not look likely so it seems to me that we have to consult the people.

Fundamentally, I suggest that a constitutional convention needs to look from the bottom up. It needs to consult as widely as possible. It needs to include politicians: I do not think we can exclude them because in the end it will be politicians who have to implement it. The people making suggestions and having ideas who do not have political antennae need to be informed by that, but I agree that the politicians should not be the drivers. It should be a collective decision that draws from all opinions and especially from the grass roots up.

It has been done in other countries. The founding fathers of the United States built their system on it. Talking about the United States perhaps builds in one particular factor, which is that the lack of a written constitution and of real guarantees means that we have a lack of checks and balances built into our constitutional system. To those who say that we should just do everything gradually, bit by bit, I say that doing it that way is how we have got to this state. We have failed to do anything fundamental by analysing what we need to do. Some say that having gone down the road we have, with a Northern Ireland Assembly, a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly, a London Assembly and the demand now for much more local and regional government in England, we are well on the way to creating a quasi, if not actual, federal United Kingdom. It is not possible to have a federal constitution that is not written down. By definition, you have to define where the powers lie and how disputes are resolved and the mechanisms for doing so. The whole point about a federal constitution is that power is divided according to the appropriate body for delivering it, and the powers and resources for that body are secured by the constitution, not by the Government of the day or the political minority that happens to be in control.

That would be a fundamental, radical change to the way we do things in this country. It is a citizens’ contract that has never been built. To the extent that we have acquiesced in the way that the country has been run, it is now breaking down to the point where it threatens our ability to make the country governable. The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is very timely. I point out to him that my noble friend Lord Purvis suggested a Bill three or four years ago. Indeed, there is a fairly proud history of doing that. But the reality is that we need to move and to recognise that this constitution does not work.

Referendums: Parliamentary Democracy

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, decades ago my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood said that the British constitution was not worth the paper it was not written on. Now we have a more dysfunctional constitution than many of us have ever seen. I do not concur with some of the sentiments expressed to the effect that this wonderful unwritten constitution kind of dynamically works. It is in danger of failing to work and letting us down very badly. If our Parliament does not understand that and start to think about it, we may find that centuries of evolution can be crushed in a very short time.

I want to refer to two different referendums that we had on constitutional issues. In the Scottish referendum on independence there was at least a semblance of a framework. I will claim some credit: it was during a period of coalition, with a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland who recognised that there needed to be a shape to that referendum. The shape took the form of the Edinburgh agreement, where all the parties agreed on the principles and the outcome, and that it would be accepted as a once-in-a-generation decision. That was not enforceable but was nevertheless part of the agreement.

It also forced those calling for the referendum—the nationalists—to at least set out, in a very long White Paper, the basis of what kind of independence they were asking the people to vote for. Much of the detail of that White Paper was challenged—and was very challengeable—but it was at least a framework. It forced them to say things such as, “We would operate with the pound sterling”, which exposed the fact that, as we had no central bank and required the authority of the remaining part of the United Kingdom, that was a basis on which independence would not fly, and almost certainly determined the outcome of the referendum, which was to remain part of the United Kingdom. If a process even vaguely approaching that had taken place with the Brexit referendum, there might have been a difference in the context of the debate and the outcome.

History will treat David Cameron very harshly, because to put a question to the people that involved an answer which you had no idea how you could deliver was the most appallingly irresponsible and cavalier, short-term political approach to the destiny of our nation. History will not forgive him for that. We now face a situation in which the majority of people in Parliament and in Government believe that we are embarked on a decision that will deeply damage our country for many years—if not generations —to come. I do not mean just economically: I mean politically, in terms of our standing and influence in the world.

It is essential, therefore, that we look at how we are abusing our constitution, and if we use instruments such as referendums we find ways of putting them into proper contexts. They should probably be reserved mostly for constitutional issues, and a two-stage process may be the only way you can make them work where there is a binary decision. That involves asking people in broad terms which way they want to go, but with a clear undertaking that, having set out the course, the mechanism will then be developed before they are again asked, “Is that still something we should follow through?” I find it ironic that of all the parties in the country at the moment, the one that is most enthusiastic about campaigning to give people a referendum on the outcome is my own party, the Liberal Democrats when we are the party that least needs the referendum. We were completely united from start to finish that it was the wrong thing to do and we should not do it. It is the other parties which are split and may have to go back to the people to get a resolution of their own difficulties, because they are not capable of resolving them themselves. There just seems to be an irony about that.

The position that we need to develop is: if we are routinely to use referendums in future as a means of determining a position, the first thing we have to be clear on in law is whether it is a consultative, advisory referendum or a binding referendum. If it is the latter, before the question is put you have to be able to tell people what the implications or consequences of either of the answers are in detail. The argument we are now faced with is that having had a referendum, anybody who suggests that we should do anything other than implement that referendum—even though we have no idea in what way to do it—is frustrating the will of the people and despising the democratic process. I think it is offensive to suggest that. I do not blame people who voted leave in the context. They were told lies and left to make all kinds of judgments. They were voting for all kinds of reasons, as has been said. It is not my view that they got it wrong, or anything else. Some of them might be absolutely certain that they know what they want and would vote for it again.

However, I believe categorically that when we know that the nation is facing a serious potential mistake, the very least we have to say to people is, “First, we have to be able to agree a course of action, so if we do not have one we cannot have a referendum”. But we are all faced with a situation where literally none of us has the slightest idea what will happen to our country next week, next month or by next March. Yet we turn around and claim that we represent the people and can somehow or other deliver for them, and that we are bound to implement their decision, even though we do not know what it means, because we did not think about that when we asked them the question.

The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, is absolutely right to have initiated this debate. It is essential that the country thinks hard about how we work our constitution and use instruments such as referendums in ways that do not take our country from disaster to catastrophe.

G20

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am satisfied that every country in the European Union has signed up to the automatic exchange of tax information. For many years, it was not only Luxembourg but one or two other countries in the EU that did not sign up to that. We are making progress, but I will never be fully satisfied, because until every jurisdiction in the world signs up we will not be able to get rid of tax avoidance.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

In the conversations with Mr Putin, did the Prime Minister remind him of his unwelcome interventions in Georgia and Transnistria, and make it clear that the Baltic states were clearly off limits to the EU and NATO?

May I welcome what the Prime Minister said about additional funding for Ebola and the global attack on taxes? On climate change—on which Britain has been in the lead globally—can he indicate what Tony Abbott said Australia’s contribution would be?

[The Prime Minister]

To answer my right hon. Friend’s last question first, the Australians have pledged a 5% cut in carbon emissions, which they say is equivalent to a 19% cut on business as usual, but I think that they will face further pressure, as an important economy, to throw in more cuts to carbon as the whole world comes together in Paris.

On my right hon. Friend’s other questions, the discussions I had with President Putin were frank. We did not mention every problem and issue between Britain and Russia, but crucially we looked at how we could try to find a pathway by which Ukraine’s integrity and independence are respected. That is the key to de-escalating the situation, and I was very frank about that.

On Ebola, Britain has played a key part and we should be proud of that. Others are now stepping up and the World Bank is also looking at ways it can help us to sustain that commitment.

European Council

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am not accepting that we should pay anything like what has been asked. I think it is very important that we make that clear. I am always happy to have votes in this House. They can happen through Opposition days, Back-Bench days or, indeed, Government days.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The Prime Minister said at the start of his statement that he went asking for €1 billion to tackle Ebola and he got it, and that he went asking for a climate change agreement that had been piloted by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change with his green growth group and he got it. Does that not demonstrate that leadership from the UK can deliver results in Europe, and that we should stay in?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

I absolutely agree. It is disappointing that in the days before the referendum the First Minister of Scotland was able to say that he did not foresee another referendum in his lifetime; then he said a generation; and now he is saying a few months. That is totally unacceptable. The sovereign will of the Scottish people is that Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom. We should all come together to forge the new devolution settlement.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

On the Tuesday before the referendum, I was present in Inverurie when a small group of Better Together supporters who had been manning a street stall day was suddenly surrounded by a flash mob of 150 nationalists waving banners, shouting, playing music and creating an intimidating atmosphere. The Better Together supporters stood their ground sufficiently to ensure that the people of Gordon rejected independence by a majority of nearly 2:1.

[David Mundell]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the fact that such intimidatory and bad behaviour in the street and on the internet did nothing to further the cause of Yes Scotland. If demonstrators had not been outside the BBC but had been knocking on doors on the Sunday before the referendum, the result might have been closer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman still has to defend the man who presided over the Mid Staffs disgrace, where standards of patient care were so bad that patients were drinking out of dirty vases because of standards in Labour’s NHS. The point is this: the reason we have been able to cut bureaucracy and the reason we have been able to put more money into the NHS is that we have taken difficult decisions, including having a 1% pay cap in the NHS. Of course, Labour said it would support that, but this week it has decided that it will back strikes instead. I have here the Labour briefing on strikes, which says, “Do we support strikes? No. Will we condemn strikes? No.” There we have it: that is his leadership summed up in one go. Have the Opposition got a plan for the NHS? No. Have they got a plan for our economy? No. Is he remotely up to the job? No.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Is the Prime Minister aware that British Airways is to cease the link between Aberdeen and London City in favour of increased services to the already well served airports of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin? Will he support the campaign to maintain the link, which is vital to the vibrant business economy of the north of Scotland?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to look into that issue with the right hon. Gentleman. It is an absolutely vital service, particularly given how strongly the economy in north-east Scotland is performing, with North sea oil and gas.

European Council

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, there are consequences from Europe adopting the principle that the head of the Commission should effectively be appointed following nominations by European political parties. If that is allowed to continue, and if it happens again, there will be real consequences, because we could end up with candidates who, as I said, have particular views that are totally against the interests of individual member states. That is a very worrying development. In the Council conclusions, we have agreed to review this process, and I hope we can make sure that it does not happen again.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

If exit from the European Union is not what the Prime Minister seeks, can he resist the siren voices who are calling for ever more unachievable demands, backed by the threat of exit, to ensure that that does not happen? After the excitement of this week, will he reflect on how he can build alliances for reform that will promote jobs, cut red tape and reduce waste, which is actually what the citizens of the entire European Union are looking for?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. The work of the British Government—a coalition Government—in the EU is to complete the single market in digital, energy and services and to sign the trade deals with the fastest growing parts of the world. That agenda is progressing well, and it is important that we stick to it. I am not setting out impossible demands; I am setting out things that could be changed, and should be changed, in order to reform Britain’s place in the EU.

Debate on the Address

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Unlike the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), I welcome this Queen’s Speech, which contains some very constructive measures, but we need to recognise the mountain that we have been climbing and continue to have to climb. The economy collapsed by more than 7% in 2009, and we inherited a public sector deficit that was bigger in percentage terms than that of Greece. Lord knows that Government Members have had to take some very tough and difficult decisions at a time when our trading partners have also been trapped in recession, which has made it even more difficult to get the economy growing again.

Now that we can, at last, see strong sustainable growth across all sectors, it is to be hoped that from this year on, people will at least begin to feel the benefits of recovery. Having gone through such a long period with no growth, we know that getting growth going again does not happen overnight; it will take time for many people. As a Liberal Democrat, I would stress that this is a coalition Government and that Liberal Democrats have shaped many of the key reformist policies. If we do not say this, nobody else will, but it is important for people to understand how coalition works.

The Queen’s Speech pledged to deliver a stronger economy and a fairer society, enabling everyone to get on in life. It is a Liberal Democrat mantra that the Queen uttered this morning—although I do not know whether she realised that—and it has underpinned our approach to government. I want to give the lie to the idea that the Government’s key achievements could or would have been secured without the Liberal Democrats. I want to make it clear that this is a coalition, in which we share the responsibility, the decisions and the policies.

The fact is that many of the things that have happened would not have happened without the Liberal Democrats. Let me explain what I mean. First, there seems to be a theory out there that the coalition was not even necessary, but there is a real likelihood that, had we not entered the coalition in 2010, there would have been a run on the pound, a great deal of market uncertainty, and a sharp rise in interest rates.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I do not know whether I misheard the right hon. Gentleman. Did he really suggest that there would have been a run on the pound had the Liberal Democrats not been part of the coalition?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

What I said was that had there not been a coalition delivering stability in Government, there would have been a run on the pound, or it is likely that there would have been a run on the pound, and there would have been a sharp rise in interest rates—and as the only coalition possibility was the one that actually happened, yes, I am saying that had we not entered the coalition, that would have been a real risk.

There is also a presumption that, a short time after the 2010 election, there would have been, or might have been, a second election, which might have produced a similarly indecisive result because the economy had been seen to deteriorate even more, but which, in some people’s opinion, would have produced a Conservative majority Government. I can only say that if that had happened, we should have heard a very different Queen’s Speech from the one that was delivered today. For instance, I do not believe that the Government would have delivered the raising of the tax threshold to £10,000 this year, and the further increase to £10,500 next year. That was not in the Conservative manifesto, and the Prime Minister said that it could not be done, but it has been done, because we were there fighting for it. It has been popular, and of course Conservatives want to be associated with it, but it was and is our policy. It will cut income tax for 24 million people by £800 annually from next year, and it has taken 2 million people out of tax altogether.

If there had been a Conservative majority, we would certainly not have introduced the latest round of the most radical reforms of our state and private pension arrangements since the days of Lloyd George, who, as some Members may recall, was a Liberal. Our pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), has secured a legacy as a great reformer. He is probably the best informed, best qualified pensions Minister that the country has ever had, and I believe that the measures he has introduced will serve as the foundation for both public and private sector pensions for decades to come.

Those two measures in themselves represent huge and positive reforms that have happened only because Liberal Democrats have been in government, but Liberal Democrat Ministers have also been the driving force behind the growth of apprenticeships, and we are on target to achieve 2 million by the end of the current Parliament. Liberal Democrats, led by the Deputy Prime Minister, have secured extra child care support, free school meals for every infant, and targeted support for disadvantaged pupils. Those measures have made a significant difference to families and others living in deprived circumstances, and are having, or beginning to have, a qualitative effect on the outcome of education.

Liberal Democrats have led the way towards a reform of the electricity market which, unlike the measures proposed by the Opposition, would keep the lights on, keep bills down and promote green energy. Liberal Democrat Ministers have secured a commitment to zero-carbon homes and to international agreement on climate change. Numerous other Liberal Democrat measures pepper the Queen’s Speech, including restrictions on plastic bags, support for garden cities, protection for pub landlords, a definition of child cruelty through a Cinderella clause, tough powers to tackle female genital mutilation, and legislation for the recall of Members of Parliament. None of those measures would have been in the Queen’s Speech if Liberal Democrats had not been in the coalition.

There are other parts of the speech which I warmly welcome, too. As I represent a constituency in the north-east of Scotland, I welcome the fact that maximising North sea resources is committed to in the Queen’s Speech, as is implementing the proposals of the Wood review, which the Government—indeed, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary—commissioned and which was supported by the Prime Minister. This will be achieved first through co-ordination between the Government and industry and also by maintaining a tax regime that encourages development. I hope the Government can simplify the tax regime over time, because it is becoming complicated. That is serving to unlock investment but it is also making it very difficult for businesses to assess that against international comparators. We also need to stimulate exploration, which is essential for future development.

I should say in passing that the industry has a concern. It will support this co-operation between Government and industry to maximise returns and to co-ordinate the use of infrastructure, but the regulator that is required to achieve that could be costly and it believes that if there is shared co-operation the costs should be shared, not imposed entirely on the industry. However, this calculation has, in the end, to be made: whatever is done has to enable the industry to make the investment that will ensure we get the maximum returns in the long run.

I also welcome the implementing of new financial powers for the Scottish Parliament. It is the essential next step in devolution. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) has left the Chamber, but he was right to say that if—or when, as I believe—Scotland votes to stay in the United Kingdom, the further transfer of powers to Scotland and what is happening in Wales and Northern Ireland will lead to a demand for devolution within England. I recognise that that is a matter for English MPs, but I personally think it would be a welcome development, leading to decentralisation and more localism.

This is the reality in Scotland: the coalition Government had to tackle the recession and the hole in the finances and had to take all the tough decisions, whereas all the Scottish Government had to do was spend the block grant, but they have done that while hurling abuse at all the difficult measures which, frankly, any Government would have to take, and while having no responsibility for those decisions. Giving the Scottish Parliament the responsibility to raise its own revenue and not just spend the block grant will increase transparency and accountability.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that had we given the Scottish Parliament those powers of full control in raising and spending revenue at the time of the 1998 Scotland Act—this point was made back then—we would have reduced the demand for independence?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I do agree. I would not say “full” in this context, because in a quasi-federal system each tier in Government needs to have access to its own tax base, but I agree that if the Scottish Parliament could have accessed most of its own revenue and resources, that would, indeed, have been the case. I think it would also have led to a more adult debate in Scotland about how priorities are determined. It is very easy for MPs in the Scottish Parliament to attack the difficult decisions involved in dealing with the deficit, as they have no responsibility for making those decisions.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most important reasons for the Scottish Parliament having full control over its tax revenues through, hopefully, independence is that that will enable it to grow the economy? The laudable aims of making Parliament more transparent and politicians more responsible is all well and good, but the most important thing for people in the street is that the economy grows, and we can do that through independence.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I am not going to go down the route to independence. I believe the Scottish Parliament has got substantial powers and, frankly, I believe that the Scottish Government would have served the Scottish people better if they had spent more time using those powers and less time promoting the case for independence. They even let their current tax-raising powers lapse: they did not want to use them as it might have been a bit unpopular or they might have been accountable for that. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument because what independence does, of course, is raise barriers to the very means of growing the economy. My argument is, yes, we should have access to taxes that help fund the Scottish Parliament, but that we should contribute to, and share in, the whole of the United Kingdom.

If I may, I will pay tribute to someone. Just in the past week, a great champion of Scotland’s role in the UK, Maitland Mackie, died—I am going to his funeral on Friday. People might have heard of him, as he was famous for Mackie’s ice cream and was a great pillar of the Scottish agricultural community. One of his uncles was a Liberal Democrat MP and another was a Labour MP. Maitland Mackie was committed to the view that Scotland would thrive provided it had control over its own affairs domestically but shared in the full benefits of the Union; as he pointed out, 80% of his ice cream is sold south of the border, and he did not wish to undermine that. I pay tribute to him, because he was a very fine example of Scottish enterprise and success—

[Mr McCann]

Unlike Scottish Enterprise.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

He was a former chairman of Grampian Enterprise Ltd, but he recognised that that enterprising Scottish business flourished better inside the UK.

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point about selling ice cream; he is trying to give the impression that if Scotland were independent it would sell less ice cream outwith its borders. I ask him this: where is most Guinness sold? It is not sold in the Republic of Ireland; it is sold worldwide. The idea that borders would stop that trade is nonsense, and he knows it.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I do not know that, because I do not know what the currency transactions would be—because we have not got an answer on that from the Scottish Government. The problem is that all the uncertainties—the potential barriers and the potential changes—will have an effect. Like Maitland Mackie, many others in the food industry who are doing business in England daily are overwhelmingly concerned that independence will damage their market and are privately saying that they do not want to see Scotland vote yes in September.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the thing that finally swung the Quebec independence campaign referendum was the fact that the rest of Canada made it very clear that it wanted Quebec to stay within the union? Does he agree that we can throw all the facts and figures we like at the Scottish people but if we could get it across to them that they are actually wanted by the rest of the United Kingdom, that would do more good?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

It is a simple statement as far as I am concerned and the better way to put it is that if the United Kingdom breaks up, we are all diminished: Scotland is diminished; Wales, Northern Ireland and England are diminished; and everything we stand for together is diminished. It is as simple as that. When all the ins and outs—the costs and the figures—are taken into account, the reality cannot be measured just in money. We will all be diminished, and our influence and standing in the world will be diminished.

[Mr MacNeil]

On that point—

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

No, I am not going to accept another intervention. I say to the hon. Gentleman that on the doorsteps—this is not about slogans—people are increasingly telling me, in very simple terms, “You know what, we are better together.” I believe that will be the prevailing argument.

In my role as Chairman of the International Development Committee, I wish to say that I share pride in our achievement of 0.7% of gross national income being spent on official development assistance. When I say “our achievement” I mean the achievement of this Parliament, across parties; it could only have been achieved because all parties supported it. I welcome the fact that we have achieved it and that the Queen’s Speech specifically sets out a commitment to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria. On the information that my Committee and I have—we will be publishing a report in a few weeks’ time—UK support has been crucial to being able to provide access and support to people in distress which other countries have not stepped up to the plate to deliver. We should recognise that this country has every reason to be proud of that.

I also welcome the explicit commitment in the Queen’s Speech to preventing sexual violence in conflict worldwide. We have all seen too many horrors recently, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan to name but a few, of the appalling ways in which women are treated: how they are valued—how they are undervalued; how they are denied access to education; how they are abducted; and how they are murdered. This is an intolerable situation. The UK alone cannot prevent those things from happening, but as the world’s second largest bilateral donor and an internationally acknowledged force for good we can provide leadership that can make a difference. I welcome the fact that that is explicitly set out in the Queen’s Speech, and I hope that Members on both sides of the House can unite behind that.

I conclude by saying that I believe that, for the last Session of this Parliament, with only 10 months to run, this is an excellent Queen’s Speech containing a lot of very substantial and worthwhile measures. It is substantially a Liberal Democrat Queen’s Speech and for that reason I am very happy to commend it to the House.

Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I apologise for having missed part of the debate; I had engagements that I could not change with people from outside the House. I am glad that the Speaker has allowed these tributes to be paid, as they give us the opportunity to place on record our views and experiences.

I had the great privilege of meeting Nelson Mandela shortly after he had been elected President. I have Richard Caborn to thank for that opportunity, as he was then the Chair of the Trade and Industry Select Committee, of which I was a member. The Committee visited South Africa to see how the ending of apartheid could change the business relationship between the United Kingdom and South Africa—as indeed it has done. Mr Mandela gave us a considerable amount of his time, as he always did; he was very generous and engaging. People often talk about his humility, and I was astonished when, on shaking hands with me, he told me that it was a great honour for him to meet me. I think I replied, “It is entirely the reverse, Mr President.” That was typical of his understatement and his charm.

On that visit, I also remember attending a reception at a hotel in a rather nondescript place called Midrand, which, as the name implies, is halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria. I was talking to an Afrikaner lady, who expressed her concern about what would happen to South Africa now that it was in the hands of the majority. Obviously, I found that conversation rather uncomfortable. I pointed out that they were indeed the majority and that, as it had been an agreed transition, I hoped that she would welcome it.

Just before the reception ended, the president of the chamber of commerce announced that two of the young girls from the typing pool wanted to sing for us. Two very small girls stood on the podium, put their arms round each other and sang, a cappella, “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”. As they sang, tears started to run down the cheek of the Afrikaner woman. When they had finished singing, she turned to me and said, “This is still my country. It’s time I learned the words.” That encapsulated the impact of what Nelson Mandela was able to do. He made people understand that they had to move on, and that they had to do so without recrimination and without looking back.

I have the privilege of being the Chair of the International Development Committee and in that capacity I have travelled all over Africa in the past few years. Let us be clear: Mandela’s dream has by no means been fulfilled across Africa, which is riddled with conflict. Sadly, more often than not, those conflicts are between black and black, rather than the civil war between the races that many people feared. I am certain that Mandela’s wisdom and advice are still relevant. People have to be able to move forward, to work together, to embrace their enemies and to start to think about a different set of values.

After President de Klerk had given his undertaking that he would move forward to create majority rule in South Africa, he came to London to speak at the South African embassy. Members of the House were invited to attend. Very few did, but I chose to do so. The demonstration outside the embassy was still going on at the time, and I was heckled and harassed for having the audacity to go to listen to that speech. All I wanted to do was hear from the man himself just how genuinely committed he was to the promises and pledges he had made. I make no apology for going, and I have no regrets, because the results now speak for themselves.

At the end of that Select Committee visit to South Africa, we were about to leave Johannesburg to come back to the United Kingdom when we happened to bump into Joe Slovo in the airport lounge. He was terminally ill with cancer, but he was still working as a housing Minister. I told him that we had met Nelson Mandela and that I had seen and heard many things that had impressed me. I said I was impressed by how the country was determined to move forward as a rainbow nation of people who wanted to work together to put the past behind them and to go forward together as one nation. Joe Slovo said to me, “We won’t forgive, we can never forget, but you won’t build a new nation on bitterness and revenge.” That seemed to me fundamentally to sum up what Nelson Mandela had achieved: only when people can move forward, embrace the future and turn their back on the divisions of the past, can they face the world and claim that they have delivered freedom. There is a long way to go—it is still a long walk—but, without Nelson Mandela, perhaps the first step would not have been taken.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

If this privatisation was a threat to rural Scotland I would not support it. This is a privatisation born not from ideology but from necessity. Without it, the real threat would be Royal Mail losing business hand over fist, as it has since his Government liberalised the letter-post market.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the privatised Royal Mail, free from state aid restrictions and competition rules, offers the best opportunity of promoting the last-mile delivery service and securing the jobs of our dedicated local posties?

[Mr Carmichael]

My right hon. Friend has a rural constituency that I know well. The points that he makes are very well made. This was necessary to save the universal service and, for the first time, legislation privatising Royal Mail brought with it meaningful protections for that universal service.