Scotland Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Debate on whether Clause 29 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

As your Lordships will see from the Marshalled List, I gave notice of my attention to oppose the Question that Clause 29 stand part of the Bill. When I gave that notice, there was at least one good reason for doing so. There are now at least three good reasons for doing so—perhaps more. I shall refer to only two.

The first has emerged from the debate that we just had. Is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, going to reply to this? Oh no, it is the poor noble Lord, Lord Sassoon. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, will recall that many weeks ago I raised a question about the wisdom of proceeding not just with Clause 29 but with every clause, given what was happening elsewhere—given that the Bill and Calman had been overtaken by events. As I said in an intervention on the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, earlier, we now know that the Scottish Parliament will not be discussing either the majority or minority report from its committee until we have decided. The indication from the majority of the committee—contrary to what was said from the Front Bench opposite earlier—is that it did not support the provisions of the Bill but wanted it to go further. The minority supported it, but the majority wanted it to go further. It seems daft to press ahead with the Bill, including Clause 29, until we have some indication that, if we pass it, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government will accept all its provisions. I hope that that point can be dealt with.

My second point is one of which I gave the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, some intimation. The clause mentions,

“amendments relating to the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs”.

The noble Lord will be aware of the unfortunate situation regarding Rangers Football Club, which is in administration in Scotland, where Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is owed a substantial amount because of an arrangement that Rangers Football Club entered into to avoid paying tax. It set up a scheme so that when its players received payment, it was paid not to them as salary but to a company set up for their advantage. As the noble Lord will be aware, as a result, there is a major dispute between Rangers Football Club and the Revenue and Customs about whether that money is due to the Revenue.

There have also been suggestions that the Scottish Government might help Rangers Football Club in its difficulties. I make no comment about why that has arisen, who is to blame or whether the Scottish Government would be wise under any circumstances to make any payments to help the club. All I am asking is: do any of the provisions in Clause 29 or elsewhere in the Bill change the arrangements in which Rangers currently finds itself, or would the circumstances be exactly the same after the Bill’s passage? Those are the only two points that I want to raise. Foolishly, we are pressing ahead with the Bill, but I take this opportunity to ask that question and, I hope, to get an answer in relation to Rangers Football Club.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sassoon]

I think that probably deals with all the football questions, and with probably just about everything else that was directly relevant to this clause. I will try to deal with some of the other things.

We came back to the big picture question of the legislative consent Motion. It is of course for the Scottish Parliament to choose to bring forward the Motion at any time; it is in its discretion. It must be in the Scottish Parliament’s interest to bring forward an LCM before the last amending stage in this House to allow the House and the Government to reflect on the LCM, and if it wanted to it could choose to pass the legislative consent Motion tomorrow.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Would the Minister like to speculate on why it is not doing that? Why is it deliberately delaying it? My speculation would be that it is playing a cat and mouse game with us, and that it wants to see us move ahead without having to reveal its hand fully. Maybe a better analogy would be a game of poker. This is not something that should be the subject of a gamble. It is a very serious matter. Would he not join me in encouraging the Scottish Parliament to consider the legislative consent Motion at a very early opportunity?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I will certainly not be drawn into speculation. I have already said that it must be in the Scottish Parliament’s interest to pass the legislative consent Motion in time for the Government and this House to consider possible amendments in response to anything it comes forward with, and, as I said, it could pass the Motion any day. However, beyond that there is nothing more useful that I can add.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

52: Clause 30, page 23, line 5, after “the” insert “Devolved”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

As I explained about six hours ago, I have put down a series of amendments to put “devolved” in front of Government. That is in no way to denigrate the functions of the devolved Government, or to devalue them or say that they are in any way less important by putting that word in front. It is meant to indicate that we are talking about devolution and not independence. As I said previously, Alex Salmond and his Ministers and colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, all of them in the SNP group, are going around in this great big pretence that they are already independent and acting as if they are an independent Government. They are doing things that they think they have the right to do. As we will come to in other debates, the chief civil servant in Scotland has made some amazing and unbelievable outpourings. In some of the statements made by Ministers, they clearly do not comprehend what is meant by devolution.

Devolution means that they remain part of the United Kingdom and that the United Kingdom Government and Parliament are sovereign. Ultimately, the UK institutions can make decisions affecting Scotland on a whole range of things, although by convention and out of courtesy we do not do that. The word is put in there just to remind people that we are talking about devolution; a very important concept that, as noble friends know, I have fought for since I was a young man—and that was not yesterday. I spent a long time helping to persuade the Labour Party—along with John Mackintosh, Donald Dewar and a lot of noble Lords here—to come round in favour of devolution. One or two of my colleagues were not so enthusiastic about it, but we managed to persuade the party to do it. Devolution is very important. We should be proud of it and say how important it is, and how Scotland, by having a devolved Administration, can get the benefits of both worlds. There is the benefit of being part of a strong, powerful United Kingdom—one of the most important powers in the world, with a permanent seat on the Security Council, and membership of the European Union and NATO—but also that of having a Scottish Government, with power over their own affairs in a whole range of important matters such as education, social work, law and order, health and all these areas. This is not to minimise those in any way, but to make sure that that is clearly understood.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, makes a very important point. We have spent a lot of time in the debate today talking about the problems that surround devolution, but devolution in itself has been a very considerable achievement. It may not have gone as far as my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen suggested, to kill nationalism stone dead, but it has put in place a system of government that has rectified some of the inequities that have existed for something like 300 years. Because of the nature of the debate that we have had as part of this legislation, we are missing out on making the case that devolution was a very considerable achievement. I do not think that anyone—and I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—would try to put the genie back in the bottle and go back to the previous status quo. Although what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is talking about is in essence a gesture, it is an opportunity for us to celebrate the fact that a transfer of powers was made very peacefully to the Scottish Parliament after the election of the Labour Government in 1997.

Many people misunderstand devolution, which has existed in Scotland for 300 years because of the nature of the Act of Union. The Scotland Act merely transferred that legislation, which often took place in this House in the middle of the night, and put it into a proper parliamentary context. By the time I became Secretary of State for Scotland, the Scotland Office was one department. When the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was Secretary of State for Scotland, he oversaw an empire of something like 13 different government departments. The model that we have now is the right one, and I support the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in his argument for celebrating the cause of devolution rather than trying to hide it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maxton]

However, the damage to the Labour Party in Scotland—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Which was self-inflicted.

[Lord Maxton]

It was partially self-inflicted, as my noble friend beside me says. However, that damage is also a short-term phenomenon and we will recover.

Certainly, we will recover once we have had the referendum on independence. I do not understand why Mr Alex Salmond does not want that referendum immediately, because this is his best chance of winning it. The longer he leaves it, in my view, the less chance he has of winning it. The arguments will no longer be about the way in which, or whether, we have the right to hold the referendum. It will be about the issues of what being an independent country, outside the United Kingdom, actually means: whether it will be part of Europe; whether it will have to apply to be part of Europe; and whether the rest of the United Kingdom will be part of Europe. Mr Alex Salmond seems to think that the rest of the United Kingdom would not necessarily be part of Europe, but it must be in his best interests to hope that it will be part of it. Can your Lordships imagine a Tory-dominated England, led by people such as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who would probably say: “Now we can get out of Europe—we don't have to be in it any longer. We can get out altogether and leave the European Union.”?

I always supported devolution on the basis of democracy. It was the right thing to do and it still is. I wish, however, that we could settle the issue of independence once and for all. If we get it out of the way, we could then deal with whether we apply, change or alter devolution. I am not necessarily convinced that we have to give enormous extra powers to the Scottish Parliament. In fact, there are some parts of the devolution settlement where we ought to be taking powers back from Scotland. For instance, broadcasting is one area over which they demand power, but powers like that should certainly be with this Parliament because they are now international rather than national. We should not therefore necessarily always be looking at giving powers to Scotland, and never taking them back.

We also have to look at what to my mind my late and very good friend Donald Dewar meant when he said that devolution is a process and not an end. The process was about extending democracy from the Scottish Parliament down to local government and local areas, so that you were giving powers to the people in the areas and the communities in which they lived. That to me is what Donald Dewar meant when he said that, not that it was the first step towards an independent Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, can I perhaps be somewhat boring and brief at this time of night by focusing on the amendment? It would insert the word “Devolved” into Clause 30, Clause 37 and Schedule 4, where the reference would become to the devolved Scottish Government. Clause 15 changes the formal name to the Scottish Government from the Scottish Executive. It was felt that the Executive were increasingly widely known as the Scottish Government and that it made sense to amend the Act to reflect public perception and to avoid confusion. However, the fact that the Scotland Act refers to “Scottish Executive” prevents the use of “Scottish Government” in legislation, contracts and other legal matters. Therefore, Clause 15 is designed to prevent inconsistencies in what the Scottish Executive are called by the public and in the legal name.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, wishes to insert “devolved” in front of “Scottish Government”. That is unnecessary and may even lead to further confusion. Altering the name of the Scottish Government to “the devolved Scottish Government” would in no way strengthen the position of devolution. Indeed, it is important to note that no such prefix attaches to the devolved Administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland. It would look very odd and lopsided if it happened just in Scotland.

That said, this has been a useful debate on devolution. I will not go into all the highways and byways but some important points were made. Some of us who very much support what has happened over the past 12 years sometimes miss a trick because so often, ahead of the debates in 1997 and the referendum leading up to that, we talked about devolution in terms of the Scottish Parliament dealing with matters related to the domestic agenda of the people of Scotland and the United Kingdom Parliament being responsible for macroeconomic policies, defence, foreign policy, social security and pensions. Although we will undoubtedly debate where the boundaries should be—the Bill seeks to address some of these issues—I nevertheless believe that the idea of a Scottish Parliament within a United Kingdom still commands the support of the vast majority of the people in Scotland. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am convinced by the eloquence and brevity of both Front Benches. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 52 withdrawn.