Scotland: Independence

Lord Gordon of Strathblane Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)]

My Lords, somewhat more than 50 years ago I presented a series of programmes on Scottish television called “Scots Abroad”, which broadly celebrated the wholly disproportionate role that Scots had played in the building of the British Empire and, subsequently, the Commonwealth—whether by colonisation, occasionally by conquest or by administration. Scotland also benefited hugely from the existence of the Empire markets. My native city of Glasgow simply would not have grown from a small village to one of the fastest-growing cities in the world in the 1800s were it not for the demand for ships, railway engines et cetera, all of them manufactured in Scotland.

In the world of ideas, too, the golden period is known as the Scottish Enlightenment, as has already been referred to. Indeed, I remember meeting in America a scholar at the Smithsonian who had no Scottish connections or background but who entitled his book How the Scots Invented the Modern World—along with almost everything in it. It was entitled The Scottish Enlightenment when it was republished in this country. Neil MacGregor, the very distinguished director of the British Museum, subtitled a talk there: “When the Scottish Enlightenment encountered London globalism”. Both are important because those were wonderful Scottish ideas, and nobody is pretending that they are other than Scottish, but they would not have had the world stage without the British connection. That is really the lesson that those of us who will be voting no want to get across tonight.

The UK now exercises its power through soft power. Just as the whole country was genuinely proud of the way that London handled the Olympics, I hope that we will have equal cause for pride in how Glasgow will handle the Commonwealth Games in just a few weeks’ time. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has already given the litany of Scottish Prime Ministers and senior government officials. Anyone who claims that Scotland has been a downtrodden nation for the past 300 years really cannot pretend to serious consideration.

Scottish traditions and institutions have also been allowed to flourish very freely by the union settlement of 1707. We all think of devolution as beginning in 1999, but it did not. We have had administrative devolution since 1885. In 1999 came democratic control over that—with all the positives and negatives that that brings, let me tell you. What is being proposed now, I think, is adding fiscal powers. By and large I support that. I genuinely support the points that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, made in his speech, because I believe that politicians will be more responsible if they are responsible for raising the money they promise to spend.

However, I would urge a couple of caveats about devolution. I am in favour of subsidiarity, but there are some issues where we do not like the idea of a postcode lottery. There are some issues that we want to be handled the same throughout the country. I would say that pensions is one of them. I want everyone in the UK to enjoy the same right to a pension. I would probably say health and welfare as well, but they could be argued about. There are other issues where you may want devolution, but the practicality of achieving it on a very small island with a land border is somewhat limited. You may want, for example, to have a higher customs duty on drink and tobacco north of the border, but unless you institute a border post, people will just drive down in pantechnicons and bring up booze.

Likewise the position of the economy—and Alex Salmond knows this. This is why he wanted a third option, because at that point he was honest enough to recognise that independence is impossible with a currency union, which he regards as desirable. That is why he wanted the third option. He now says that Scotland needs more immigrants and the Scottish Government would aim at having 27,000. Nothing is stopping the Scottish Government having more immigrants at the moment. The trouble is that immigrants do not go where Governments direct them. They go where the jobs are. That is why they all went to Glasgow in the 1850s. They came from the Highlands and Islands, Ireland, and England, let alone abroad, simply because Glasgow was the workshop of the Empire at that point. The idea that somehow you can have a currency union with separate economic policies is unthinkable and Alex Salmond knows it. It surely is preposterous to suggest that a foreign country will have more influence over Bank of England policy than one that is an integral part of the same country—yet that is what the Scottish people are being asked to swallow.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, earlier referred to the Darien scheme. By a strange, uncanny coincidence the losses of the Darien scheme in modern terms, I am told, would have been roughly the same £40 billion that RBS cost us. The interesting thing is that the Darien scheme was promulgated by a Scot, William Paterson, who had also founded the Bank of England. It is undoubtedly true that the English Government were less than helpful, because we were two separate countries at that point. A lot of Scots Nats say that it was the Darien scheme that led to Scotland having to go into a union almost unwillingly—“bought and sold with English gold” and all those phrases. But, in fact, it almost proves the Better Together point. Had we been part of the union, the Darien scheme might have foundered anyway, because it was a malaria-ridden swamp on the Isthmus of Panama, but on the other hand, at least lives would have been saved had we had England as a partner rather than a rival and formal enemy.

I really hope that Scotland votes no, because even then, at the time of the Darien scheme, we would have been better together. The alternative of a weakened Scotland exercising even less influence on a diminished England means that the UK as a whole will be sidelined from the world’s stage. I regard that as a tragedy for the whole world, because I think that, with all its faults, Britain is still a beneficial influence in the world and I am very proud of the part that Scots have played in making that so.

Scotland: Independence Referendum

Lord Gordon of Strathblane Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, in a debate so ably initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Lang. By happy coincidence, the three of us were introduced to your Lordships’ House on the same day in 1997. More importantly, perhaps, this has also provided a convenient occasion for the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, to make her maiden speech. I very much welcome the experience that she brings to the House from the Scottish Parliament, which will inform future debates as it has informed this one.

Frankly, I will be very relieved when 18 September has passed, not so much because of the result as the danger of permanent damage being done in the intervening period to what is a very close relationship. It is a severe test of any marriage when one party announces that it wants to consult about divorce. It is difficult to imagine things being quite as warm again in the future. There is a very real danger of that here. In everything we say, we must realise that, no matter what happens, we will all be living together in one very small island off the shore of Europe and we should avoid any statements that make relationships in the future more difficult than they need to be.

A lot of English people to whom I speak are as much hurt as puzzled as to why we are having a referendum on independence. They wonder what they have done wrong to cause the Scots to want to do this. It is very difficult to give them an answer. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, mentioned the Blair Government in 1997. Every senior post was taken by a Scot. Eight out of 22 in the Cabinet were Scots. It is difficult to portray Scotland as a downtrodden nation with those figures. It is easier to make a case that England has been rather abused in recent years. We need to address that.

There is evidence that the English are beginning to address it. I, along with most noble Lords, received a briefing from the Local Government Association this week, saying that devolution seems to work rather well for Scotland, so how about some devolution for us? How about devolution and more equal expenditure? The Barnett formula is under severe threat because, frankly, it is more than fair to Scotland, and we know it. That is why Nicola Sturgeon was so desperately anxious to get an assurance that it will not be re-examined. The English regions will start demanding their fair share, so some damage has been done already.

Damage has been done to Scotland because there is uncertainty where there need not be. Damage has been done to the SNP because the SNP was doing rather well in Scotland. Its first Administration introduced some fresh faces to Scotland and a fair degree of competence as well, which the public in general admired. Now it is showing what might be called it true colours and it will do the SNP harm. This is not its most popular policy. People vote SNP who would not touch independence with a barge pole. That may not be the case in future elections.

The SNP is anxious to pretend that nothing will change. It wants to keep the Crown, to remain in NATO and to remain in the currency union. However, things will change. In my view, we already are independent, in that no one will send tanks up from Carlisle if we decide to vote yes. We are a free nation—I fully accept that we are a nation—and we are entitled to be independent if we want. However, I do not think that we want to. I do not think that the Scottish people want to. The SNP knows that the outward trammels of independence would be unpopular in Scotland. We do not want a separate head of state. We want to remain in the currency union.

The SNP wants to pretend that everything will remain the same. However, in my view, if the SNP says that there will never be border posts, it must accept the consequent reality: if there are no border posts, we must follow the same immigration and terrorism policies as England, otherwise there will be border posts. Likewise, if it says that of course there will not be customs posts at the border, we cannot then pretend that we can have a different level of excise duty north of the border from that in the south. All that will happen is that pantechnicons will roll down the M74, pick up the cheap booze in Carlisle and come back up the road to the black market. All that we are looking for is a degree of consistency. In any case, if nothing is changing, you might well argue, “Why sell a 300 year-old house simply because you do not like the wallpaper in one of the rooms?”. That is what the SNP is effectively doing; it wants to keep the big things but change a few minor things.

Incidentally, I was greatly intrigued by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. As far as I can remember, there is a bit of a coincidence here. The man who founded the Bank of England, William Paterson, was a Scot and the man who was later behind the Darien scheme. This seems to come around every 300 years. The issue was shown up clearly in the Governor of the Bank of England’s speech, which was reasoned. He said that it can be done, but the question for Scotland is, “Do you genuinely think that you will have more influence over Bank of England policy as a foreign country or as part of the UK?”. Once you have asked the question, you realise what the answer is, and it is why, frankly, I wish the referendum were not taking place.

If one considers the issue of broadcasting, my own background, Scotland constitutes 34% of the UK land mass. It takes 1,154 transmitters to cover the whole UK, 235 of which are in Scotland. In other words, more than 20% of the transmitters are in Scotland serving 8% of the UK population. The same problem will arise with broadband. The Scottish Government are doing a good job of trying to roll out broadband, but it will be more expensive in Scotland, simply because we are a less densely populated country with difficult terrain. There is also reference in the White Paper to taking over BBC Scotland. Incidentally, there was a big hoo-hah a couple of years back under Blair Jenkins about a new digital channel. That has now been forgotten. We are going to take over BBC Scotland and then miraculously get all the BBC programmes for nothing. How that works, I do not know.

My concluding remarks relate to Scotland’s place in the world. One of the first television programmes I made was a series called “Scots Abroad”, because I was mesmerised by the achievement of the Scots in building the British Empire. Scotland benefited disproportionately more than the rest of the UK from the industrial wealth of the British Empire as a captive market, brought particularly to Glasgow and the west of Scotland. We also suffered more than the rest of the UK when our manufacturing industry ran down. However, the UK now exercises its power through soft power. I felt genuinely proud of London during the Olympics. London showed a warm side that most people had hitherto not noticed, including Londoners themselves. I hope that Londoners will feel just as proud of Glasgow when we hold the Commonwealth Games in the summer of this year.