Scotland: Constitutional Future

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I accept absolutely the sovereignty of the people of Scotland on this issue, but I hope that they will exercise their choice to stay part of a multinational and multicultural United Kingdom. I agree also that there is a need to end the uncertainty and clarify fair rules around any referendum on independence for Scotland. However, I counsel the Government against falling into a nationalist trap, as they will wish to portray the Prime Minister—to amend a phrase used elsewhere in recent years—as going from Mr Bean to Stalin in relation to Scotland. It is vital that all of us ask both Governments to get around a table and agree the rules for the referendum and agree them properly and fairly. Will the Minister address his colleagues in Government on that issue and urge them to get involved not in a shouting match but in practical and concrete discussions that produce an end result? Does he agree that the 1979 referendum result in Scotland was not accepted by everyone in part because it was created in a divisive manner and the campaigns were executed in a divisive manner? The 1997 referendum result was accepted by everybody, including by everybody who opposed it, because the rules were agreed fairly and there was consensus about how it was done. Does the Minister agree that that is the way forward for Scotland, and that we have a result that is clear but accepted afterwards because every party and everyone involved has been engaged in the discussions about the creation of that referendum in the first place?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I thank the noble Lord for that contribution. I certainly entirely endorse the latter part of what he has just said. Having campaigned in both the 1979 and the 1997 referendums, I am certainly clear that the fact that in the 1997 referendum the campaigns and the rules were very clear and nobody had any cause to say that there was any jiggery-pokery, or that the goalposts were being shifted, meant that those on the losing side nevertheless felt able to accept the outcome. That is the goal that we all want to see in this. I say that in terms of the earlier part of his question, too. Anyone who reads the consultation paper will see that it is by far and away not a Stalinist document but one that invites consensus and provides a route map towards consensus. That is the spirit in which it is offered to the people of Scotland.