Scotland Bill

Lord Davidson of Glen Clova Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McCluskey]

My Lords, in view of the terms of Amendment 33, I shall not be moving Amendment 32.

[Lord Davidson of Glen Clova]

My Lords, this has been a brief and helpful debate about the question of the supermajority. We do not oppose the various amendments that have been tabled.

We agree that the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, are technical and doubtless useful in taking matters forward. It would be useful to know why he is in the position of having to advance notions that the Scottish Government would wish this Chamber to advance. We were hearing not so long ago about the good relations that were breaking out at intergovernmental level, which might suggest that these various amendments would have been brought forward by the Scottish Government to Her Majesty’s Government and that, as a result of intergovernmental discussion, one would have been able to achieve some consensus on these points. We look forward to seeing if the improvement in intergovernmental relations takes us that far.

The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, introduces two amendments in relation to parliamentary terms and the supermajority. We support those additions. On the question of the deployment of the European Convention on Human Rights, where the Scottish Government transgress in this regard there will be the protection of the Advocate-General for Scotland raising proceedings before the Supreme Court, but also the Lord Advocate—a Minister of the Scottish Government, as I have already alluded to—as well as the Attorney-General. We certainly do not oppose these amendments; we support them.