Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Sanderson of Bowden

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Absolutely—and, like every other Bill, it is important that we give it detailed consideration. Like the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I think that we should consider holding off completing consideration of it until that second legislative consent Motion is through. I have the greatest respect for the Minister, as I do for my own Front Bench colleagues—my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton gave me a wee look then. I respect their agreement to hold off consideration until later. However, I hope that they will now give careful consideration to holding off final approval and accepting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, until the second legislative consent Motion is agreed because this is Salmond’s latest trap.

The future of Scotland does not just affect we Scots but everyone in this United Kingdom. Every Member of this House has a responsibility to take part in that. We must fight to protect the union. It is the most successful economic union in the world, which has existed, developed and moved forward for the past 300 years. It is worth all of us fighting for it. Whether we feel inhibited as unelected Members—I that hope we do not—we should fight for what we think is right.

[Lord Sanderson of Bowden]

My Lords, it is not the first time that, rather surprisingly, I have had to rise to agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has said. I, too, have had experience of Mr Salmond as a Minister, when I was in charge of fisheries in the Scottish Office. Of course, Alex Salmond was Member of Parliament for Banff and Buchan, which is—as anyone knows—the main fishing area of Scotland. I can assure noble Lords of what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, just said: we are dealing with an extremely clever, devious man, apparently easy going until things are at a difficult stage, and then he will put the boot in.

I will say just one very sincere thing about this particular Bill, which is vital for us and for Scotland. When we consider the referendum, there must be no weakening of the powers contained in the Scotland Act to hold on firmly to the powers that Westminster has over the constitution. This is what my noble friend Lord Forsyth is getting at. I am extremely worried that there are two consultation papers. There is one that we have already seen and one produced in Edinburgh yesterday. The date for final submissions for the Edinburgh document is May. I am very worried that if this goes into the next Session of Parliament—as we hear is likely to happen—Mr Salmond will again get his way. We must not let that happen. We must ensure, through the Scotland Bill and my noble friend on the Front Bench, that when we face the referendum we have adequate safeguards in our Bill to enable us to tell Mr Salmond, “These are the rules by which we are playing”.