Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedules 4 and 5 and Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2015

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Lords Chamber

My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness said in his introduction to this debate that he anticipated, as, indeed, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland anticipated, that this process is now unstoppable. I say: godspeed.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, would like to hear views from people in other parts of the United Kingdom on the implications of this order. He is right: there are implications. You cannot compartmentalise the United Kingdom and have such drastically different franchises in different parts of it. Of course, Scotland has its own law, and we understand that there are differences and nuances, but the one area that brings everybody together is elections to our national parliament and elections to the European Parliament, and below that we have other tiers. It seems utterly unsupportable in the long term that we have this pick-and-mix process where you have a franchise here for this, a franchise here for that, and a franchise here for somewhere else. It is just nonsense.

Without getting into the merits of the voting at 16 issue—a debate I am very happy to get into and certainly some of the arguments are meritorious and others need consideration—the methodology that has been adopted in this case is indefensible. Since 2012, and, indeed, even long before that, the Government have got Scotland completely wrong. The question was wrong and the timing was wrong. We are reacting to the tyranny of populism and nobody is thinking this through. If Alex Salmond got up and said, “15 years old”, we would be saying 15 years old today. He got his question, which was the wrong question, and everything he wanted. The logic is that if we do that, everything will go away. It will not.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I just want to add something that he omitted. I refer to the exclusion of 800,000 Scottish people living in the same state from having a vote on the future of the country. It was an absolute disgrace and must never be allowed to happen again. If you want a historic reason for it, I point to the very reason for devolution, which was to recognise the distinct background on philosophy, culture and politics of the nations of the United Kingdom. The difference between Scotland and England has been that sovereignty in England lies in Parliament before the Crown, but for eight centuries sovereignty in Scotland has lain with the Scottish people, not the people in Scotland, but the Scottish people. Therefore, to exclude 800,000 Scots from a vote on the future of their country was not only a political expedient to gain advantage but was contrary to everything that lies intrinsically in the basic difference in politics between Scotland and England.

[Lord Empey]

The noble Lord, Lord Reid, has a very strong argument to make. The irony was that citizens from other parts of the European Union who happened to be registered in Scotland had a vote, even though they were not remotely in any sense Scottish. That seems to be another inconsistency.

The truth is that this order is a symptom of a fundamental flaw and malaise in the constitutional approach of our current Government. While this Government have done so many good things, the one area where they have been at their worst has been in dealing with constitutional matters. We have had one flaw after another. Some of us sat for years trying to work out a constitutional way forward for our own part of the United Kingdom. You cannot make this stuff up on the back of a fag packet and expect to have a system that will be respected in the long term.

The Minister made a point about the Smith commission and doing nothing to demerit the other parts of the United Kingdom. I understand that the clause was within the remit. However, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is irrefutable. Something such as this cannot be done in Scotland without implications for the rest of us. It is impossible. What will happen now? We will have a dog’s dinner of a franchise, which will apply in certain places. We have now invented a Welsh model, which is going to change things. How on earth can we say to 16 year-olds in Brighton, Belleek or Aberystwyth that people of their age in Scotland are fit to make a huge constitutional decision but those 16 year-olds are unfit to elect their local parish councillor? It is not sustainable and we all know that.

In many respects, I understand the panic that enveloped our leaders when they were a few days out from the referendum. One could see why. They saw things going down the drain, and there was a reaction of “We’ve got to do something to stop this”. There is no doubt that the right honourable Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath did have an influence, but he came on to the scene and basically bounced the leaders into these vows. He is now going on to part two of them, which takes us into an even deeper jungle.

I understand what the Minister is doing here but he must understand—he does understand because he is a very clever person—that this series of constitutional inconsistencies is unsupportable. It would not be possible to go out and argue this case in front of an audience and expect to be treated with respect as people would know that it had not been thought through and whether one calls it a commission or a constitutional convention it needs to have a sensible time limit. It cannot be seen to be put on to the long finger. We need to sit down and look at all of this. It is one awful mess. I am really distressed about it because I can see what is going to happen. We must not distinguish between our young people. Young people from those regions come together in universities or in further education or technical colleges. They mix with one another and they meet each other. We cannot have a situation where one young person is at one level and is treated as being at that level, while another person is treated as being at a different level. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that cannot be sustained.

I seriously suggest that the Minister should say to his colleagues—I am sure that he has tried to do so—that this blunderbuss, inconsistent approach which we have adopted will do permanent damage to our country. It will create constitutional chaos. We are making things up as we go along. Far from assuaging the rabid appetite of Scottish nationalism, this is feeding it. People can see that the more they shout for this, the more they get. It is not rocket science; it is Pavlov’s dog. It is the same thing. They shout and they roar, and they get a feed, and they do it again. Why would they not do it? That is the question I ask myself.

I have lived surrounded by people who also wanted different constitutional outcomes but who went to the use of force. Force did work for them to a very large extent until eventually we managed to pull the community together to face them down. We will not solve this problem by feeding it and running away from it. It has to be confronted and the arguments for the union must be put in a coherent and consistent manner. We will not maintain the union by producing measures which serve only to prove how hopeless the union must be if it needs such a mishmash of a constitutional mechanism. This will not be the last of it.

Scotland: Draft Legislation

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I cannot say what will happen in a future Parliament. All Members will vote on the Budget that will take place in this Parliament, for which I have collective responsibility as a member of the Government. I do not know what will happen in a future Parliament. There is a debate, but the noble Lord is right to point out what the Smith commission said on that. The noble Lord knows as well as anyone just how difficult it would be on—for example—income tax. That is a shared tax because, while rates and bands will be devolved, personal allowances will remain a matter for the United Kingdom Parliament. The definition of income and what constitutes a tax base will be a matter for the United Kingdom Parliament, and I do not know how to disentangle that.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, is it not the case that this is the fourth set of constitutional proposals in the past 12 months? Is this therefore not a case of constitutional crazy paving where there is no plan? Each proposal is a different shape and serves a different purpose. The point I want to concentrate on is the first part of these clauses covering the issues of the constitutional composition, and in particular the Sewel convention. When is a devolved Parliament not a devolved Parliament? As a result of these clauses, can the Minister confirm that this Parliament will still be able to vote and decide on devolved matters if and when it felt that that was required?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, what we have done is put the Sewel convention on to a statutory basis. The noble Lord can see how it has been set out, although it may not immediately be clear from the clause. However, it has been added after Section 28(7) of the Scotland Act 1998, which makes it clear that the Westminster Parliament can still legislate.

Scotland: Devolution

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, this debate is on devolution following the Scottish referendum. Unlike many colleagues in this Chamber who, after the Scottish referendum, expressed the view that it was a great victory, I do not think that is the case. It was a damned close-run thing. Not only that, having succeeded in winning, the ink was barely dry on the ballot papers when we were busy snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I am no constitutional expert but there are two things that I know. First, you cannot sensibly reform a constitution such as ours on the hoof.

The second thing I know is that we are perfectly capable of destroying a similar constitution on the hoof. These things need to be thought through, and we have had years to think them through, but little or nothing has emerged. All of a sudden we get a shock. I have to say to noble Lords that it does not matter what we do with the vow that was made by our leaders. Of course it must be implemented, but whatever is put forward will not be enough because the people who will reject it have no gain to make by accepting it.

That is my biggest concern. I have always been in favour of devolution, and I accept that there will inevitably be an asymmetric situation in the United Kingdom. I also accept the frustration of the people in England. Let us face it: we have a Cabinet Minister outside this building telling the people of Scunthorpe how many times a month their bins are going to be emptied. That does not strike me as being somewhere where power should be, so we have a long way to go and we know it.

As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, asked a moment ago, what will become of your Lordships’ House? Are we to go around with badges on us, or with flags on our foreheads, to say when we can go into a Lobby and when we cannot? What are we going to do? These things are fundamental and can be dealt with in a coherent manner only when everybody sees the working out of the constitutional changes that are inevitable now. We have set our shoulder to the wheel. Did we intend the machine to run down the hill out of control? Probably not, but that is where we are.

The nationalists in Scotland will never accept anything that we do here unless they get their own way. People like me know how nationalists think. It does not matter what we do in Stormont either—the same thing will apply.

The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, is in his place, and I want to say something about the convention in his name, which has been mentioned. That roughly said that this Parliament would not interfere in the day-to-day affairs of the devolved Assemblies. I understand that. However, as a result of that, we have turned the devolved Assemblies into giant ATMs. The politicians in them spread out the largesse—and I was one of them. We were spending billions of pounds, and if we did not have enough to spend, this place was to blame. It was a shot to nothing, as snooker players would say. We cannot possibly win in Westminster. There has to be some link so that the people understand where the money comes from and what the consequences are of overspending.

At Stormont today they are in crisis because they cannot control their own budget, something that has never happened before, despite being in charge of this for years. It is a mess. My fear is that, unless there is a clear link between what is spent and clear accountability by the devolved regions for what they spend, there is no way that we will have any United Kingdom identity or brand. It will simply be Holyrood or Cardiff or London or Belfast or wherever.

We have a lot of work ahead of us if we are to have a coherent constitution that meets the needs of our citizens. I feel very strongly that in Northern Ireland after 1920, Whitehall and Westminster thought the problem was solved. Northern Ireland was dealt with by a junior officer at the back of an office in the Home Office. I believe that, if this Parliament had had a meaningful role, oversight of and a say in what was happening in Stormont, we would never have got into the mess we got ourselves into in the 1960s and 1970s. We are going to repeat the same mistake, because it was clear when the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill was brought forward earlier this year that the same thinking and mentality are still there.

I can say only that I am a great believer in our union—a great believer in the United Kingdom. The chairman of our Constitution Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, who will speak shortly, spelt out a vision for the union for the years ahead. We need that vision first, and then we have to decide what the function is, and the form will follow. I think we are doing it back to front.

Scotland: Independence

Lord Empey Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity for those of us from other parts of the United Kingdom to express our views on the implications for all of us of the proposal for Scottish independence. I also warmly welcome the Constitution Committee’s report, which had the foresight to set out the consequences for all of us should the Scottish people vote yes. This area has been largely swept away under the carpet because people have not felt it appropriate to face up to some of these matters lest that encourages the yes campaign, et cetera. Given the significance of the proposal in front of us, it would have been foolhardy for Parliament not to have at least looked at the long-term consequences of the proposal for the rest of us.

I am bound to say, and this was brought forward earlier in the debate, that what has puzzled me most about the campaign for independence has been the assertion that because Scotland probably has a higher GDP than the rest of the United Kingdom, that should be the plank from which to launch independence. Surely the logic of that argument is that it is best deployed by those who want to stay in the United Kingdom. It is precisely because of Scotland’s membership of the United Kingdom that it is in the position that it is in. If there was a union that was clearly failing the people of Scotland economically, Scotland would not have the economic position that it has. Indeed, it may argue that it was in a better place before the union, but the fact is that the union came about precisely because of a financial crisis. Therefore, what has happened in the intervening years has been an improvement.

However, I believe that we ain’t seen nothing yet. There is much more opportunity for greater improvement. The noble Lord, Lord Lang, in a previous contribution earlier this year set out why we could review the constitution of the United Kingdom and what unionism could look like in the future. That is an element that has been lacking in the debate so far. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, in a previous discussion, raised the question of the European Union, and I know that this matters a great deal to many people in Scotland. The noble Lord said—I think I recall correctly—that perhaps the United Kingdom Government should assist the Scottish Government and have an early negotiation to see whether it is possible to help the people of Scotland formally. I do not detect that there is an appetite for that in the Government, and indeed why would the United Kingdom Government want to take on that role? An independent country negotiates its own treaty; it does not subcontract that out to somebody else, least of all to the Government of the country it has just sought to leave. Therefore, I do not think that that will happen.

Things are happening in other countries in the European Union. In Catalonia, there is growing demand for independence from Spain, but it is inconceivable to me that the Spanish Government—and they are not the only ones—would encourage and clear the path for Catalans to leave and become independent. Therefore, taking into account the self-interest of other members of the European Union, I do not see that they will be in the mood to clear the path and make it easy for Scotland to enter the European Union under favourable terms in the short term. That is a huge issue. It has been glossed over but, as has just been mentioned, all the links and dependencies that Scotland has in the European Union could be thrown into jeopardy.

To deal with other issues that are not specifically economic, the union is not all about arithmetic. I take my own region of Northern Ireland as an example. We are hewn from the same rock as the people of Scotland in many cases, and we have much in common. We have an industrial heritage and we suffered in many cases from the downstream consequences of that heritage. We have soldiered together for centuries. We share different religious and sporting traditions, and we share our geography. Our history is so intertwined that the idea of separation fills many of us with dread.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said, of course Scotland could survive on its own. I think that it would survive with a much lower standard of living, but of course it could survive, and the Scottish people have the right to take off in that direction. However, I must say to them that there are downstream consequences for the rest of us. On behalf of my party, the Ulster Unionist Party, and as our name suggests, I appeal to the people of Scotland not to leave us. We are partners and share many of the same aspirations. We are literally kith and kin. We would not be well served by their departure. I hope that they will stay with us. As the noble Lord, Lord Lang, so eloquently put it, we can work together to mould a stronger and better union.

The people of Scotland ran this country in the previous Government. The Prime Minister was a Scottish MP, as was the Chancellor from the commencement of that Government until the end of it and the Secretary of State for Defence, as well as the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Department of Health and other departments. The people of Scotland, through their representatives in Parliament, were in the commanding heights of the previous United Kingdom Government only a few years ago. They invited President Obama to come to the G8 in Scotland. Prime Minister Brown was at the centre of attempts to solve the financial crisis. In other words, Scotland, like many of our regions, including that of our Welsh colleagues, punched way above its weight. That will not be possible, with the greatest of respect, in an independent Scotland. Stay with us; work with us; and the next 300 years will be far better than the last.

Scotland: Independence Referendum

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Lang, on securing the debate. His comments and vision at the end of his speech on what a new unionism might look like is the missing ingredient in the current debate, in my opinion. The debate is about whether Scotland leaves the UK, whether it would be better off on its own—that sort of argument. Instead of making the debate about leaving the union as it is, we need to look at how the union could evolve and improve—how we could make things better. If the noble Lord is looking for a response, I can tell him that my party in Northern Ireland—the Ulster Unionist Party—is attracted to the ideas that he espouses and would love to participate in a debate on how we can help the United Kingdom to evolve.

Though I am a supporter of devolution, I am concerned at the way in which devolution is being treated in Whitehall. The issues of the regions are being pushed to one side. That is the mistake that was made on Northern Ireland from the 1920s; it was pushed to a desk at the back of the Home Office and ignored. We are all part of a union, and we should all have a say. The idea of pushing devolution to get the issues off the Whitehall desk is a fundamental error. Large amounts of money are being pumped into the regions, and the regional parliaments should not simply be ATMs that can distribute largesse locally, without any acknowledgement of where it comes from. In what is happening in Scotland, we see before us the downstream consequences of that fundamental mistake.

Of course it is perfectly possible for Scotland to be independent. The people of Scotland have the skills and ability to survive on their own. However, they will do so at a different level of economic and political influence. That is the risk that they run. The forensic approach of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, a few moments ago was very sobering indeed. Of course, Scotland is not a single unit on this issue. The approach is totally different in the islands—Orkney, for instance. They are saying, “It’s not your oil, Mr Salmond, it’s our oil. It’s got to come through our front door before it gets to you. We don’t need you, Mr Salmond; we can be on our own”. What does that mean? I have never seen such a significant constitutional issue come before us so ill thought-through. Not a quarter of the major issues have even been addressed. We are taking a leap in the dark. The people of Scotland are being asked to walk over a cliff edge in the hope that the SNP will catch them as they fall. The issues are not even worked through in any coherent way.

As the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, made clear, there are also implications for Parliament. Sadly, there may be a few in the other place who look around and say, “If we didn’t have those 40 or so Scottish MPs we could have a different Government. We wouldn’t be dependent on other people any more”. What about the implications for this Chamber? Think of some of the voices that might be stilled in this Chamber. Maybe I will not go there—that might work against my argument—but the fact is that this Parliament would not survive unscathed.

I feel concerned that so little thought has been given to the downstream implications of this, and I am pleased that at least we have been looking at it from the other side of the argument—that the rest of us have some say in this. Following the Bank of England governor’s intervention yesterday, I can say for almost certain that those of us remaining in the United Kingdom in the event of a yes vote would have to determine our response on the currency issue. Are we seriously going to pick up after the Scottish National Party—guarantee it, be lender of last resort? Who in their right mind wants to be an independent country but have their money supply, interest rates, public spending and lender of last resort outside their borders? It is barking mad. That is not independence at all; that is servitude. You are a client state, like some of the old Soviet republics. Sufficient detail has not been debated.

This particularly applies to our Labour colleagues in Scotland: if you look back a few years, this country was led from Scotland. We had a Scottish Prime Minister, a Scottish Chancellor, a Scottish Home Secretary and a Scottish Defence Secretary. The G8 met in Scotland; all the world leaders were there. That will be thrown away. Scotland has punched above its weight consistently inside the union; all that will go. President Obama will not be ringing up; neither will anybody else. Particularly in Scotland, we need more vigour behind the campaign than there has been hitherto.

I will quote a poet for a moment, Robert Frost:

“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out”.

I do not think that question has been asked. The nightmare of border posts is hard even to comprehend. I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, who is not in his place, but the idea that we would take on the job of negotiating on behalf of the SNP is very difficult. Why should we clean up its mess? I want to see Scotland succeed and prosper but its place is within the union, not outside it.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Lords Chamber

My noble friend Lord Cormack asked about Third Reading. My understanding is that these things go through other channels but that it will not be before the recess. If my noble friend wishes to engage further with me on this, I shall certainly be happy to do so. However, from what was said by the right reverend Prelate and from what has also been said about the workability of my noble friend’s amendment and the uncertainty that could arise from it, I hope that he will be willing to withdraw it, bearing in mind, too, that the sovereign must be a Protestant. That requirement is to remain solidly placed in law, as ever, and it is not affected by the provisions of this Bill.

[Lord Empey]

Can the noble and learned Lord clarify one point concerning the relationship between this legislation and the other Commonwealth countries and what the implications of change would be?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, this is an agreement that has been reached with the other Commonwealth countries. This question may arise in relation to later amendments, but the preamble to the Statute of Westminster Act 1931 gives an expectation that in matters of succession to the Crown there will be the engagement of the other realms of which the Queen is head of state. It is not a matter of binding law but it is certainly an expectation and one that we have considered to be very important in taking forward the proposals in this Bill. As I indicated, the implication or consequence of my noble friend’s amendment is that it would affect the succession, and we would need to consider that with the other realms of which the Queen is head of state.

Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2013

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Mar and Kellie]

My Lords, very briefly, and by way of introduction, I believe the referendum will lead to Scotland becoming a better democracy. The process we are involved in at the present moment, and the fact that the Edinburgh agreement was signed in Edinburgh, is a great improvement on what happened in 1921 after a ceasefire in July and fraught negotiations in Downing Street led to a treaty that people probably did not want to sign. The Westminster Parliament has made progress.

I am also mindful of the fact that the original treaty negotiations were held in London in the summer of 1706, and it is a curious phenomenon but the two sides were not allowed to meet. They had to negotiate from separate rooms, sending messengers to each other. We should make certain that we do not remain in that position. At the present moment, listening to the debate, it does slightly sound as though this House wants to talk to the Scottish Parliament without meeting its Members. I hope we can continue to make progress towards proper democratic discussion.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, the noble Earl is concerned that people only met at a later stage in separate rooms. People in negotiations that I have been involved in have been in separate nations, separate continents and different places before we actually got together, so we are well versed in “proximity talks”, which I think was the phraseology that was invented to cover those circumstances.

We seem in this country, of late, to have developed referendumitis, because we are looking at a whole series of them now. Indeed, later this week, we may be offered a menu for further referenda. Not wishing to be outdone by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, the sole English contributor to this debate, I felt it appropriate for my part of the world to make a few comments, because, as noble Lords have said throughout the debate, all of us would be affected one way or the other. However, the most important thing is that we are a union with component parts, and there is no doubt in my mind that the people of Scotland have a right to choose. The job of this Parliament is to ensure that the choice is fair and that the options are put to them clearly, as has been said many times before.

I will just deal with the order, because noble Lords will all have great sympathy with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, has said today. However, I think that the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, who is not in his place at the moment, put his finger on it. Whether we like it or not and whether this Parliament has had enough time to debate it or not—and I think it has not—the fact is that the Prime Minister and the First Minister have shaken hands. Quite frankly, any departure from that at this stage would have cataclysmic results on the implications and how that would be spun in the circumstances. It is done, and whether we like it or not, we have to work with it.

I will also deal with the point of breakdown. When we had our referendum—nearly 15 years ago, believe it or not—I had the task of being co-ordinator for the Ulster Unionist Party’s “yes” campaign. Not only were communities divided but so were families—husbands, wives, sons and daughters—and some of those scars have not yet healed. Let us be under no illusions but that the tone in which the debate is conducted is going to very important for the long-term relationships. People keep telling us today of the implications of the miners’ strike and the differences that arose there, and I know that both communities and individuals remained very divided.

Questions of this nature are extremely divisive, and constitutional questions, certainly where I come from, are exceptionally divisive. What we are witnessing at home at the moment is terribly sad. Sadly, Mr Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein, in his new year message, as reinforced in an article yesterday, is now trying to promote a referendum in Northern Ireland. Under the Belfast agreement, the only question, effectively, is, “Do you wish to be part of a united Ireland?”. Putting that particular, most divisive, issue front and centre as your main campaign for the next few years running up to 2016—the 100th anniversary of the rebellion in Dublin—is irresponsible to say the least in the present circumstances. When we should be talking about our economy and trying to get young people into work, I would have thought that talking about a referendum is the last place anybody wants to be. I deeply regret that.

With regard to complacency, I strongly endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, has just said. If you have a 50% turnout, 33% can be 66%. You will get differential turnouts; I have seen it happen. If one side of the argument feels, “Ach, well it will be all right on the night”, but the diehards on whatever side of the argument come out, the percentages in an opinion poll are almost an irrelevance. It is who turns out on the day that matters.

I share the concerns about intelligibility and all these sorts of things. These arguments go over people’s heads. We have had three terms used in this debate already: “country”, “state” and “nation”. If you go and ask somebody for a definition, we all slip in and out of that language in our own parlance. As an Ulsterman looking across the channel at Scotland, to me, Scotland is a country. It has to be a country; if it were not, it would be part of the amorphous landmass of Great Britain. If it is not a country, why does it have its own law, traditions and different languages? Why does it have a history of attitudes, religion and a pioneering spirit and all that goes with that? Of course it is a country. I also think it is an independent country, because it has all those things, which define a country. However, if we get into an argument with somebody in the street about whether a country and a state are two different things, and if we have to go to the door arguing and trying to explain the difference between those things, I fear we are in some difficulty.

All I can say, with the experience that we have had, is that this will be divisive. We have to try to keep the best humour possible, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, but not underestimating the downsides and implications—and try to keep the argument as simple as possible. I sincerely hope that the people of Scotland will choose to remain within the union, because it would have huge implications for us if they did not. It is their decision, and I respect that, but the playing field has to be level, with nobody manipulating it, and the question asked has to be a genuine question that makes it clear that they are seceding from the United Kingdom. Anything less than that will leave an argument. There are still people in Northern Ireland today who do not accept the referendum result that we had, even though it was won with 71.5%. Because of our cross-community issues, people say, “Oh, well not enough of this group voted or of that group”. I can think of nothing worse or more corrosive than an argument over the process. I sincerely wish the people of Scotland well, but sincerely hope that the Government do not allow anybody to wipe their eye in the months ahead.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has said, words are important, and I come back to this word “independent”, or “independence”. I agree with my noble friend Lord Forsyth—on the hypothetical question that the Scottish Government would like to pose, I would very much like to vote yes because Scotland is, to me, an independent country now within part of the UK. I have been banging on about the use of the words “separate” and “separatism” rather than “independence”, and must ask my noble friend why the Government have used “independence” in the order. Proposed new Section 5A, under Article 3 of the order, refers to,

“the independence of Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom”.

That only encourages the Scottish Government to continue using “independence” rather than “separation”. Why are the Government using that wording rather than saying, “Separate from the rest of the United Kingdom”? That would make what we are all talking about and what the Scottish Government actually mean much clearer.

I also echo what the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, said. I have been longing to ask the question, “Why have we got this order now?”. My noble friend Lord Forsyth said that the Electoral Commission has told him it needs 12 weeks to study the question and formulate its reply. That is in only three weeks’ time, but so much of this debate has been about what the Electoral Commission might have said or might not say. Why have we brought it forward this time? It has been a huge disservice to Parliament, and we have not had the sort of debate that we could have had. It leads one to ask the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Browne. If the Electoral Commission says, “No, that is a leading question”, what are the legal remedies if the Scottish Government persist with their proposed question?