Scotland Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it is a very real pleasure for me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. He will remember that when he was Secretary of State for Scotland and I was the head of the judiciary, we did not always see eye to eye. In fact, I can assure your Lordships that he was just as vigorous and energetic in his presentation of policies with which I did not agree, and just as controversial, as he is now. These days are past now, if I can echo the words of a well-known song, and it is a pleasure to listen to such a spirited speech, with much of which I can agree.

I would also like to echo the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, a former dean of the Faculty of Advocates—as am I—in what he said about the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. It is a quite unusual situation for two members of the Faculty of Advocates to make their maiden speech in this House on the same day. I am not sure that this has ever happened before. It is a very real pleasure for us, who recall the faculty and owe it so much.

Turning to the Bill, I confess to having mixed feelings about it. Of course, the Bill must pass and it was—and is—an essential part of the process that the recommendations of the Smith commission are put in place. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, put it in his foreword and also said today, that process is one of turning the recommendations into law. There must be some relief at the progress made in what has been achieved so far to bring the Bill forward to this House within a year of publication. The report is not yet one year old—I think its birthday is on Friday of this week.

Leaving that to one side, there are some serious grounds for concern. I mention a point developed by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in his very perceptive speech, that if you look at the detail in the Bill and contemplate what it really means for the people in the Scottish Parliament, you begin to wonder at the ability of that Parliament to handle what we propose to deliver. After all, the Parliament was designed in the Bill that became the Scotland Act 1998. I am one of a number of noble Lords here who is a veteran of the debates then. I remember that the Minister who introduced it, the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, said:

“Through this Bill we seek to establish an enduring, fair and stable settlement”.—[Official Report, 17/6/98; col. 1567.]

He said he was,

“completing the unfinished business of which John Smith spoke”,

and that this was to be a,

“lasting political legacy”.—[Official Report, 17/6/98; col. 1574.]

What was designed, in a similar pattern to Wales and Northern Ireland, was a unicameral system with a series of committees to control and scrutinise the Executive and the legislation being put through. Given the package that was in the Scotland Bill of 1998, that seemed a reasonable and stable situation. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, was careful to explain to us, the political situation has changed entirely from what was envisaged in 1998. That leads me to the concern about the ability of the Parliament to really deal with the situation we have now, with a majority Government and all the consequences already mentioned.

The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, drew attention to this problem in his foreword, where he said that the addition of these new responsibilities,

“means that the Parliament’s oversight of Government will need to be strengthened”.

He called for,

“an inclusive review which will produce recommendations to run alongside the timetable for the transfer of powers”.

As far as I can detect, that has not happened. I do not know what is going on to try and achieve the noble Lord’s wise words. I hope that the Minister in his reply will be able to give us some insight into the progress, if any, being made to achieve that kind of strengthening of the system of government which will need to cope with these new responsibilities.

On the detail of the Bill, in the short time I have left, there are particularly Clauses 1 and 2, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, referred and which have been the subject of some discussion in the Constitution Committee’s report. Clause 1 reminds me of Article XIX of the Act of Union 1707, which declares:

“That the Court of Session or Colledge of Justice do after the Union and notwithstanding thereof remain in all time coming within Scotland as it is now constituted by the Laws of that Kingdom”.

In other words, that was a declaration that the College of Justice was not to be capable of being removed by an Act of this Parliament. As a student at Edinburgh University many years ago, I was taught that the provision in those terms was fundamental law and in that respect the UK Parliament did not have absolute sovereignty. That is what I was taught. Clause 1 seems to drive in the same direction: a declaration that is perhaps intended to have political effect but, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said, the purpose of the Bill is to turn these things into law. If it is turned into law then one day somebody will bring the issue before the judges. The judges do not invent the argument; it is brought before them. If it were brought before them—I sincerely hope it never would be—that would give rise to exactly the point that the noble Lord talked about.

In Clause 2, I am concerned about the use of the word “normally”. I do not understand what that would mean. If this is making law, again the judges will have to decide what is normal. I do not see how they could possibly do that without evidence. It has to be explained. Also, as has been pointed out, the Sewel convention must be explained. If it is to be turned into law, it must be capable of being argued about in court and made the subject of a determination by the judges which makes sense and contributes to our well-being. These points are very well taken by the committee, with great respect, and I hope we can develop some further thinking about this in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, for the past 18 years, we have seen significant measures of constitutional change enacted on an almost unprecedented scale. For most of those 18 years I have drawn attention to the fact that the measures have been disparate and, crucially, discrete. There has been no attempt to locate them within an intellectually coherent approach to constitutional change. They derive from no clear view of the constitution as a constitution. The constitution of the United Kingdom is being fundamentally altered without any attempt to stand back and make sense of where we are going.

We have before us just one of many measures of major constitutional importance, but one that, as the report of the Constitution Committee puts it, devolves powers,

“in a reactive and ad hoc way”.

I declare an interest as a member of the committee. The Bill derives from what the committee identified as a “disjointed approach”. We have a Bill that is rushed and coheres with no clear view of constitutional change. Perhaps when my noble friend the Minister comes to reply to the debate he will explain what, precisely, is the intellectually coherent approach to constitutional change taken by the Government.

The report of the Constitution Committee draws out the problems with the Bill’s constitutional implications. I wish to pursue problems associated with Clauses 1 and 2 that build on and go beyond the committee’s report.

There is a problem with the first two clauses, in terms of not only the basic issues they raise regarding parliamentary sovereignty but the very purpose of legislating. They have been drawn up in the face of the Government’s own guidance on drafting legislation. I quote paragraph 10.9 of the Cabinet Office Guide to Making Legislation, published in July, which states:

“Finally, when writing instructions it is important to keep in mind the general rule that a bill should only contain legislative propositions. These are propositions that change the law—they bring about a legal state of affairs that would not exist apart from the bill. It can sometimes be tempting to ask the drafter to prepare a provision that is not intended to change the law but is instead designed to serve some political purpose or to explain or emphasise an existing law. However, non-legislative provisions of this sort are likely to go wrong because the courts will be inclined to attribute legal effect to them on the grounds that Parliament does not legislate unnecessarily—and the legal effect attributed may be one the Government could not have predicted”.

The Scottish Parliament is already permanent under the terms of the Scotland Act; it remains in being unless this Parliament legislates otherwise. New subsections (1) and (2), introduced by Clause 1, do not make it any more permanent than it already is. Under the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, this Parliament could legislate to suspend or abolish the Scottish Parliament. One could provide, as new subsection (3) does, for a referendum to be held before it is abolished, but this Parliament could legislate to remove this provision. The purpose of new subsections (1) and (2) is therefore not clear; they add nothing unless they seek to create some body of higher law and thus conflict with what has been termed the cornerstone of the British constitution.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

I am fascinated by what the noble Lord is saying, but the problem is that the Smith agreement was to create these undertakings in law. The difficulty I have is how you can reconcile that proposal with the memorandum that has been quoted, and then provide a formula that the courts can adjudicate on. I find that extremely difficult, but one cannot slide round it by saying that this is simply a political exercise.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

I agree with the noble and learned Lord. It puts us in a very difficult situation because there is a commitment to it, but it creates problems by being embodied in the Bill. It raises a problem that should not be there and should perhaps not have been made in the first place, because the Smith commission’s recommendation falls outside the commission’s terms of reference.

Clause 2 is a novel provision. There are precedents for transposing a convention of the constitution into statute, but once it is in statute the convention ceases to exist. The most recent example of this replaces the convention that a Government who lose a vote of confidence in the House of Commons either resign or request a Dissolution with Section 2 of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. The Act provides legal certainty. It was amended in your Lordships’ House to ensure that it did so.

Clause 2 does not transpose the Sewel convention into statute. It simply states the convention. The convention does not cease to exist. We thus have the convention and we have statute. The flexibility inherent in conventions is not displaced by the certainty of a statute. This creates uncertainty in a way that has not existed when conventions have given way to legal certainty before. Conventions are not enforceable in the courts. What we have here is a statutory provision. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, said, it is not immune from being challenged in the courts. It may never be challenged, but there is no immunity. Will my noble friend the Minister therefore explain why these provisions are in the Bill? How does he justify them, given the Government’s very clear guidance on the purpose of legislating?

The Constitution Committee’s report makes a compelling case for standing back and making sense of where we are. Some may see that as justifying the case for a constitutional convention, as we have heard. I do not. I fear that a convention may rush and produce skewed recommendations. I have argued for a different type of body—one that looks at how the changes we have undertaken, or are undertaking, fit together and how the basic principles underpinning our constitution are maintained. The more that Bills such as this come before us, the more the need for such a body becomes urgent. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the time has come for us to take stock of where we are, and, if not, why not?