Liaison Committee

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Sewel

Thursday 12th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, perhaps I may deal with a couple of early points, and then get on to what has taken us so much time.

First of all, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, for his comments. We have worked with the Treasury to make sure that we get a better understanding of the nature of the relationship between the department and our Select Committees. I am more than hopeful that, from now on, we will have a very much more constructive relationship with the Treasury. I think that that will again enhance the quality of our reports.

To the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I say that we are increasing, year on year, the amount of resource that we allocate to Select Committee work. We obviously have to take into account our responsibility for public expenditure, but that is not cramping the work of our Select Committees; I am sure of that. A usual Select Committee inquiry taking place over about a Session costs about a quarter of a million pounds. I think that that is money well spent, but we have to have a proper, reasonable and responsible attitude to the expenditure of individual committees.

I turn now to the matter of international affairs, foreign affairs, or whatever we wish to call it. I think that the present system is working rather well. Let us look at the topics. The most recent topic was on soft power, on which there was a very high-quality report and a high-quality debate. Today, I hope, we will decide to have a Select Committee on sexual violence in war zones. We will be breaking new ground when we do that. It will be the first parliamentary inquiry covering this area. I believe—and I think the House believes—that it is an important area of policy and one that we should examine. I just wonder, in the back of my mind, had we had a permanent Select Committee on foreign affairs, would it have really looked at soft power or at sexual violence in war zones? I leave that for the House to decide.

The Liaison Committee did consider the establishment of a separate Select Committee on foreign affairs as a sessional committee. I believe that the Liaison Committee has now come to a settled view that it would prefer a different approach to international affairs, whereby all Members of the House have the opportunity to put forward a topic for Select Committee inquiry—that we invite everybody to bring forward what they consider to be an important and relevant area on which this House can bring its expertise to bear. That is now the settled view of the Liaison Committee and I believe that it is the right view.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble friend asserts that the Liaison Committee has reached a settled view. Would he be prepared to put that settled view to the test by giving the House an opportunity to vote on it?

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, as far as I am aware, there would be an opportunity for the House to vote on it now if it wished. That is the matter before us.

Houses of Parliament: Education Centre

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Sewel

Monday 10th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Chairman of Committees]

That is absolutely true. The position of the House Committee was that in the relatively short term—and this demountable building will be in operation for, at the most, 10 years—it would be better for the permanent solution to be part of the restoration and renewal plans and that, in the mean time, it seemed to us that provision was capable of being made within the existing Parliamentary Estate, and particularly 1 Parliament Street, but that was not acceptable to the House of Commons.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, following up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, none of us is against people having access to this building and appreciating its aesthetic status, but is it not rather perverse to seek to damage that status in pursuit of the education which people are coming for?

[The Chairman of Committees]

Yes.

House of Lords: Peers’ Entrance

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Sewel

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that it might have been better to have consulted Members of the House about the use of this equipment before the expenditure was incurred in getting it?

[The Chairman of Committees]

I think that all members of the Administration and Works Committee and of the domestic committees realise the importance of having a proper and thorough consultation before making and announcing decisions.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Sewel

Thursday 15th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I want to touch on this briefly. It was a point alluded to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson of Glen Clova. This is about fairness and I hope that my noble friend the Minister is not going to tell me that there is a principle involved here. I see a principle, which is that you should not be taxed for something that you have not received.

As drafted, the Bill provides that if at any time in the tax year someone is defined as a Scottish taxpayer but then changes his status, my noble friend says that he will have to pay the tax. Perhaps he is one of those members of the armed services, who is stationed in Edinburgh from April to May and then goes somewhere else for the rest of the year. He will have to pay the Scottish rate of income tax for the full year, not only for the period when he was defined as a Scottish taxpayer. That cannot be right. I can see why it is administratively convenient for the Revenue and the Treasury. They have thought up the idea of having different tax rates in the United Kingdom but I do not see why taxpayers should have to bear the burden. It is unfair and my amendment provides that liability to pay the Scottish tax should arise only for the time when someone is getting the benefits of the services and political representation that the Scottish Parliament provides. I hope that my noble friend will accept this as a matter of principle and on grounds of fairness. I beg to move.

[Lord Sewel]

My Lords, I do not want to keep on going back to 1997-98, but this was the sort of problem that arose then. I shall take the argument slightly further forward, because we now hear that the Welsh Assembly wants to have tax-varying powers. That is very understandable. If the same test is applied in Wales as has been applied in Scotland, it would be possible for a person to be a national taxpayer in Scotland and a national taxpayer in Wales for the whole of a tax year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I would guess that that must be because electoral registration offices have far more staff than HMRC, so it is probably easier for them to cope with these matters. This is an important principle. The idea is that it is just too difficult and too complicated. When we raise the issue of how employers are going to deal with a payroll where people are constantly changing from being liable for Scottish or English tax, we are told by Ministers and the Treasury, “It is very simple. It is just a matter of changing the tax code, so it is not a problem”. But when it comes to the Treasury having to take account of liability, if it is about collecting the tax, then it is far too difficult and complicated. I think we are getting a bit of doublespeak here. I do not say that that applies to the Minister—

[Lord Sewel]

Before the noble Lord reaches his peroration, as I am sure he will shortly, does he not accept the point I tried to illustrate somewhat earlier that although it may be unfair for a person to move from Scotland to England and still pay a Scottish tax, it would be totally iniquitous for a person to move from Scotland to Wales, if Wales gets tax-raising powers, and finish up paying two lots of extra tax?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I have considerable respect for the noble Lord, who of course was the architect of the whole devolution thing and of the Scotland Act.

[Lord Sewel]

Not in the way the present lot are trying to define it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I was about to go on to say that I am not sure that this problem would have arisen under the definition which applied in the 1998 Act. When I asked my noble friend why he had abandoned the definition in that Act, he told me that he had done so in order to achieve clarity and to make it simpler. It is not simpler, as the amendment we are discussing illustrates. If the noble Lord says that the anomaly he speaks of would not arise under his definition, which was certainly shorter, perhaps we should go back to the drawing board. However, my noble friend does not look as if he wants to do that.

We have had a good debate on this—

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Sewel

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)]

I advise the Committee that if Amendment 51A in this group is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 51B due to pre-emption

[Lord Sewel]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 51A, which is in my name. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, is absolutely right when he draws our attention to the central constitutional importance of the clause. We are dealing with a fundamental constitutional issue—the power to create taxes, which is a defining characteristic of a sovereign parliament. At the moment, the new Section 80B proposed for the 1998 Act reads:

“Her Majesty may by Order in Council amend this Part so as to … specify, as an additional devolved tax, a tax of any description”.

Through this amendment, I want to ensure that any change in the tax powers of the Scottish Parliament will be subject to the scrutiny that you have with the primary legislative process rather than that which applies to secondary legislation. The Order in Council route is totally inadequate to secure the degree of political scrutiny that is appropriate and necessary. The granting of a power to enhance the taxing powers of a devolved parliament is not something that should be done lightly, casually or trivially. It should be done only through the process of primary legislation to ensure the absolute, measured, considered and examined scrutiny of any proposal. The order route is inadequate because we do not amend Orders in Council—this House is, rightly, reluctant to vote down orders and they see a very abbreviated form of parliamentary scrutiny.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Is it not an oddity that this House is not meant to consider taxation at all and yet the Bill provides for this House to approve the order?

[Lord Sewel]

Yes, and also, if we look at the way in which this has developed, I do not know how we come to this order solution. If you go back to 1997, the tax-varying powers then were subject to a separate question in a referendum and were incorporated in the Scotland Act as primary legislation. The Government today are bringing forward a whole series of tax-raising powers to be given to the Scottish Parliament in primary legislation. Why is it suddenly decided that any new taxes that are not specified in the Bill are going not to be subject to primary legislation but only to what I consider to be the absolutely unacceptable method of secondary legislation and Orders in Council?

I mentioned the 1997 referendum, and we know there are amendments standing in the name of some colleagues dealing with the referendum on taxing powers. I am not in favour of a referendum on taxing powers—although I took a referendum Bill through this House, I am not awfully in favour of referendums. My concern is that taxation and the power to create new taxes are of such fundamental constitutional importance that we run a very grave danger if we devalue the standing of that power and use a way of obtaining them that may be convenient for the Government but is wrong. It must be the job of the United Kingdom Parliament to be able to scrutinise any proposals for new or additional taxes in any part of the United Kingdom, through the proper parliamentary process.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Sewel

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sewel]

Treaties do—a treaty change would require unanimity. In terms of the normal day-to-day policy-making of the EU, it is now virtually all qualified majority voting.

Can I get back to nuclear energy? Nuclear energy is essentially reserved, but the Scottish Parliament—the Scottish Government—is opposed to it, wanting to use, I suspect, their planning powers to prevent it. The issue is whether the use of the planning powers would pass the purpose test on vires which is in the Act. If there is doubt about that, surely this is the opportunity to make it absolutely clear where responsibility for nuclear energy lies. That is a big issue that we are going to have face up to in this country in the very near future.

The second area—the obvious one—is to do with the calling of a referendum on independence. As the Minister knows, that specific issue was a matter for debate both in the other place and here during the passage of the 1998 Bill. Perhaps I may read two quotations. One follows a question that was asked by the then Mr Michael Ancram of Donald Dewar particularly on this point. The Secretary of State replied:

“It is clear that constitutional change—the political bones of the parliamentary system and any alteration to that system—is a reserved matter. That would obviously include any change or any preparations for change. … If one assumes that that is a way of changing the constitution, no, it is not in the power of the Scottish Parliament to change the constitutional arrangements ... A referendum that purported to pave the way for something that was ultra vires is itself ultra vires”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/05/98; col. 257.]

Those were the words of Donald Dewar. In this House, the Minister in charge of the Bill was also questioned on this issue. There was a specific amendment put down. In arguing that any act about the continuation of the union would be beyond the competence of the Scottish Parliament and therefore not lawful, the Minister said:

“Perhaps I may go through the three steps that lead to that conclusion. First, the parliament cannot legislate if the provision relates to a reserved matter. That is Clause 28(2)(c). Secondly, the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England is a reserved matter by virtue of paragraph 1(b) of Part I of Schedule 5. Finally, legislation for a referendum on independence would be legislation about whether the Union should be maintained and would therefore relate to the reserved matter of the Union, and so be beyond the competence of the parliament. That is brought in by the purpose test [on vires]”.—[Official Report, 21/07/98; col. 854-55.]

Do the Government still hold to that position or not? If they do not, they must in all fairness, honesty and transparency amend the Bill so that it deals with and faces up to the issue.

On the increase of non-financial powers, which are of mind-blowing importance, I welcome them. There is no fundamental change in them, which is perhaps because the original Act was quite good. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has previously spotted the question of the poor guy who lives in England, drinks in England, but drives through Scotland to get there. At the beginning and the end of the journey, he is perfectly lawful, but for the five miles or so that he drives through Scotland, he is committing a crime. I am sure that this is not beyond the powers of the Government to sort out.

The real substance of this Bill is the financial powers. That is the real guts of the whole thing. I welcome the intent of those clauses. I believe that the one major mistake we made in 1998 was failing to ensure that the Parliament was financially accountable to the people of Scotland. That omission has meant that the crucial political decision of striking a balance between expenditure and taxation has been missing, and that has led to at least a rhetoric of irresponsibility. By giving this power, that is closed off, and I thoroughly support it.

However, I do not believe in fiscal autonomy, not least because devolution provides a structure through which the resources of the whole of the United Kingdom can be redistributed so that more wealthy and prosperous nations and regions of the UK can assist the less wealthy. That, at heart, is the social democratic argument for devolution.

As for the powers of the Scottish Parliament to create new taxes but only with the approval of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—a point which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, may have skipped over when reading the Bill—the issue is how that is going to be done. Will it be done by primary legislation? Will that approval be given by primary legislation, by resolution or by order? That has to be specified in the legislation.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I hesitate to interrupt—I have said too much already tonight—but, just on that point, if we cannot bring ourselves to deal with the vires, does the noble Lord seriously think that we are going to bring ourselves to contradict them if they introduce a new tax?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Sewel

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I mention “Lochaber No More” because I suspect that that will be the consequence of this. As I said in the earlier debate, when I read the Bill I thought that this was a protection measure for Charles Kennedy’s constituency. He set me straight on that when I had lunch with him the other day. The most likely outcome is that the Boundary Commission will start, as it has always done, in the north; the constituency that is currently represented by Lord Thurso will become larger; and there will then be a fight between Mr Kennedy and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for the remaining constituency. I do not know what my right honourable friend’s views are on primaries but they have always been enthusiastically embraced by the Liberal Party. If there is to be a contest, my advice to him was that he does not want it to be a primary because I think Mr Charles Kennedy will win hands down.

[Lord Sewel]

I do not wish to intervene in an internecine conflict within the coalition, but are the Government sure that their proposals are consistent with the Act of Union?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

As the noble Lord was such a great mover in the process of devolution, he is on thin ice when talking about the security of the union as a result of legislation passed through this House. However, that is a debate for another day.

I have some sympathy with the amendment because it seems perverse to set a physical limit. When we talked about the Isle of Wight the other day—I understand that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, has taken to quoting me extensively—I said that constituencies are not about blocks of numbers. However, neither are they about blocks of specific land mass area. I did not know how the Boundary Commission would deal with the problem, but we could end up with a new Caithness constituency, which is an entirely arbitrary line on the map, arising from this provision. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bach, we have put the proposition fairly and I do not understand why this provision is here, unless it was thought that it would provide protection for a particular constituency. That constituency, Ross, Skye and Lochaber, has worked very well. Despite his politics, the right honourable Member, Charles Kennedy, has represented it very well in Parliament.

I am always in favour of saving public money, but it strikes me as I look at the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, that there is a curious thing in the Scottish context in that we want to reduce the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600, but the Scottish Parliament, which has 129 Members, has fiercely resisted any reduction in its size. If one wanted to give the Boundary Commission instructions, it would be far more important to try to co-ordinate the boundaries of the Scottish parliamentary Westminster constituencies with those in the Scottish Parliament, but that does not feature. Instead, we have this extraordinary thing that no constituency can be larger than the existing constituency, which in itself was created to take account of geographical and other boundaries.

I do not want to detain the House, and I certainly do not want to be accused of filibustering or anything of that kind, but the noble Lord, Lord Bach, makes an important point and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation.