Scotland Bill

Lord Lyell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to make a few brief comments on a very thought-provoking summary from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. In my speech on Second Reading, I mentioned the issue of scrutiny, as it is a great concern to me. As I said, what concerns me is the very heavy constituency load that members of the existing Parliament have, which means that they simply do not have time to perform proper scrutiny of the legislation, of which there is an awful lot in the Scottish Parliament. I would further develop the argument to say that, if we are lumping a whole lot more powers into the Scottish Parliament, that problem is going to be exacerbated. Therefore, the quality of legislation—and I speak as a resident of Scotland—will inevitably go down.

I make a further point on the skill set required for scrutiny. I had the great benefit of watching the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, prepare for today by just by chance being in and out of his office a few times. The care and precision with which he prepared today and the great scholarship that he has—reflected also by the noble Lord, Lord Norton—do not necessarily exist in the constituency MPs in the current Holyrood Parliament, but they are very necessary for the proper scrutiny of legislation, as we are doing today.

There is also an old adage about absolute power. It disappoints me that the Scottish Parliament has an absolute power today and is in many ways a more powerful Parliament and executive than this Parliament, where at least the mirror can be held up, and the Lords can say no—as they have several times already—which makes the Government reconsider things, which drives change for the better.

I want to address cost and perhaps answer the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. If it costs £200,000 per member, it would be £9.2 million; if it cost £400,000 per member, depending on what sort of Parliament you had, it would be double that, at just under £20 million. I think that the cost is likely to be in that area, but it would be small compared to the loss of things such as foreign direct investment or the economic damage inflicted by badly drafted and badly thought-through legislation. However, I have one concern: I am not sure that this Bill is the proper place for this set of thoughts, but it is certainly a very valid set of thoughts, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for raising them.

[Lord Lyell (Con)]

I am fascinated by the marvellous remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I was interested that he mentioned one of my great passions, which has occupied a good bit of the Scottish Parliament and is about sectarianism at the football. Indeed, a leading sheriff in Dundee pointed out that he regarded the legislation as “mince”—I hope that is not an abusive term. It came down to the fact of lip-reading whether a supporter was singing the correct words of “The sash my father wore” or other terms which might be abusive. Leaving that aside, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for trying to get a revising chamber for the Scottish Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, was kind enough to refer to the superb Second Reading speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey. The noble Lord was quite tactful not to mention that the noble and learned Lord referred to sheep—that was one of the more moderate aspects. I appreciated what the noble and learned Lord had to say. One of the points he made in that the proposal is relevant to the amendment before us. It was about the standard of pre-legislative scrutiny by the committees of existing Members of the Scottish Parliament. If the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, believes that there is a field of 92 people in Scotland who can provide a higher standard of scrutiny—quite apart from the cost and the time involved—I salute him for his optimism, but I wonder whether, with all the guidance that many of these so-called amateurs might need, he will be able to find them.

On the other hand, I look around your Lordships’ House this evening and find my noble friend Lord Dundee. When it comes to cost, I am tempted to think of the chant “Up with the wallets of bonnie Dundee”. He might be paying, or some of us might be thought to be rich enough to pay ourselves, but I am not too sure. If your Lordships would care to glance at the Second Reading speech and comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, if I were a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I would repeat the wise words of the Vietnamese gentleman Do Duck Low and stay well out of the criticisms that have been quite justifiably directed in that area. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for his imagination and thought, but on the other hand I dread to think what the cost might be.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, I remember that “Monty Python” always finished with the words, “And now for something completely different”. It used to throw my late father-in-law into a paroxysm because he could not stand “Money Python”, but we all insisted on watching it. He would think it was the end and give a great big sigh of relief, and then they would go, “And now for something completely different”, and end with exactly the same thing that they had been doing for the rest of the programme.

I have three points on this amendment. First, I support it. I did not support a second Chamber in the first place when we set up the Scottish Parliament because I felt that the powers we were giving it did not warrant a second one. Now that we are giving it extra powers, that warrants having a second Chamber as a balance to the first Chamber. Secondly, I do not believe, as my noble friend said, that the elections ought to be on the same day because there is a grave danger of the political make-up of the senate being exactly the same as the Scottish Parliament and that raises problems about what it will do and how it will be a counterbalance to the main Chamber if it is of the same political complexion. It would perhaps be more expensive to have the elections in between, but they could be on a day when other elections were taking place and, of course, if it were done my way electronically with an ID card, the cost would eventually be considerably less than at present.

Thirdly, if you elect people to a position, they will insist on having more power than my noble friend is prepared to give this senate. That is what happened in the United States. Believe it or not, the original Senate in the States was appointed and had little power; it had the same sort of powers that we have here. Once it moved to an elected system, though, it became increasingly powerful, and in the end was more powerful than the House of Representatives. That, I fear, is the danger with the senate that my noble friend is proposing: eventually you will have elections and they will insist on taking more power than the major body, which is elected by a different system.

I am a first past the post man first and foremost so obviously I would like the senate to be elected that way, along with the Scottish Parliament itself; we would not be in the fix that we are now if we had had first past the post in 2007.