Northern Ireland

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s comments and I agree with him that the outstanding tragedy of recent weeks has been the incredibly young ages at which some of these people are becoming involved. One feels that they cannot fully understand what they are participating in. I agree entirely with the noble Lord that we must all redouble our efforts to deal with youth unemployment, which remains too high in Northern Ireland; to deal with low levels of educational achievement in many of the areas affected among the loyalist community; and to deal with attempts to improve the prosperity of Northern Ireland in general. That is why it is so very sad, when 2013 is a year of opportunity for investment, that this has occurred.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I understand that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, at the opening press conference of the year on Monday morning, were not asked even one question on this topic by the assembled media. That tells us perhaps two things about the situation. First, there is an acceptance of violence in Belfast that simply would not exist in Aberdeen, Newcastle, Cardiff or anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Secondly, following devolution—we experienced this in Scotland and it has been experienced in Wales sometimes as well—there is almost a disinclination at the centre of UK government here in London to become involved in the issues that have become devolved.

My question is therefore whether the Government will assure us here today that they will retain a close interest in this. While the Police Service of Northern Ireland may well be devolved to the Assembly, and the issue of flags above Belfast City Hall may well be devolved to the City Council in Belfast, rioting on the streets of any UK city is a matter in which the UK Government must have an interest. The UK media must be interested too.

[Baroness Randerson]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I agree wholeheartedly that it is absolutely essential that the UK Government maintain an interest in what is happening in Northern Ireland and that there are very close links between the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Executive. I know that those links exist and that they are very active. The Secretary of State has been in daily contact with the Northern Ireland Executive and Ministers in the last few weeks. We must not accept violence on the streets of any of our cities. What is perhaps most poignant about the recent weeks is that we had almost come to believe that Belfast was entirely stable and secure from the outside. I think it has come as rather a shock to many people how difficult it has been to control this violence.

David Livingstone Bicentenary

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to celebrate in 2013 the bicentenary of the birth of David Livingstone.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, Scotland Office Ministers and officials have met representatives of the Scotland Malawi Partnership to discuss the best way for the United Kingdom Government to mark this bicentenary. The Scotland Office will host a commemorative event at Dover House. The department’s officials are working with other interested parties, including the Scotland Malawi Partnership and colleagues in Whitehall, to ensure that this anniversary is celebrated across the United Kingdom.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. On my first ever visit to Malawi I was reminded by the Malawians that Dr Livingstone did not discover Malawi, the Malawians discovered him. They still to this day celebrate his role in the abolition of the slave trade in east Africa. I am aware of the plans for celebrations in Scotland next year, but given that Dr Livingstone was buried at Westminster Abbey and his coffin was covered with a wreath provided by Queen Victoria, I believe that this should be a UK-wide celebration. I would ask the Government to think again about this being simply a Scottish celebration and to ensure that it is celebrated here in London as well.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I sought in my original Answer to indicate that the Scotland Office has already taken one particular initiative. Scotland Office officials and Ministers, including my right honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, have been in contact with the Department for International Development. We are also engaged with other Whitehall departments, very much taking on board the point that the noble Lord made. He mentioned his visit to Malawi. It may well be appropriate to place on the record that the Scotland Malawi Partnership is very much the product of a concordat between the Government of Malawi and the Scottish Government of whom he was the First Minister. It is a reflection of his personal commitment to Malawi.

Scotland Bill

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I was asked on one or two occasions whether it would be legal to have a referendum on so-called devo-max without authority being conferred by this Parliament, either by a Section 30 order or by legislation on the Scottish Parliament. I was very clear that that, too, would change the relationship between Scotland and England and therefore it would be outwith the competence of the Scottish Parliament. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.

As the noble Lord, Lord Reid, indicated, there are some who support approaches short of separation, such as devo-max or devo-plus. We must be clear that there has been no single, agreed definition of any of these terms. It is the Government’s firm view that we should not intertwine questions about the future balance of devolution in the United Kingdom with the question of Scotland’s place in the union.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

On the issue of seeking agreement with the Scottish Government on the nature of the question to be posed on the ballot paper, are the Government willing to look at my suggestion as a way not only of compromising between the two positions outlined by the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments but of producing a clearer answer so that people can understand with absolute clarity what they are voting for, and everyone afterwards can accept and understand the result? The question on the ballot paper should be posed not as a yes/no question, either for independence or for remaining within the union, but as a choice between two statements, the first being that Scotland should become an independent country and the second being that Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom, with voters asked to put a cross on the ballot paper beside the statement of their choice. It would be consistent with the form of words used in the 1997 referendum. It would also give everybody a chance to campaign for their own positive choice, and for them to accept afterwards that the result was fair and not skewed by who had the choice between yes and no in advance.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Lord makes an interesting and constructive proposal. I agree with the object of what he is proposing: it must be a question that is fair and brooks no division or challenge afterwards. This is perhaps relevant for the next group of amendments on the role of the Electoral Commission. It has an important and tried and tested role to play in this, so perhaps this is an issue that we will return to on the next group of amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I indicated that we are not generally disposed to supporting the idea of a threshold. My noble friend mentioned the Cunningham amendment, which related to a classic example of a referendum that many of us did not consider, at the end of the day, to be fair. Heaven forbid that we should ever find ourselves in a position whereby, after a referendum on independence, 30 years later one side or the other cries “foul”—with some justification. That is why the oversight of the Electoral Commission is very important.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, and my noble friend Lord Forsyth raised a point about timing to which I should like to respond. I was asked what the timetable would be. We should press on with this matter very early indeed. We should be pressing for early engagement with the Scottish Government immediately after the close of their consultation. There have already been preliminary discussions between my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the First Minister—indeed, the Prime Minister met the First Minister. I am sure that they will receive representations. If the Scottish Ministers think that independence is such a wonderful thing, why do they want a delay in getting it? This is a matter on which we should seek to make substantive and early progress to allow their referendum to conclude.

I will take one further intervention before I make my final point in response to the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and my noble friend Lord Forsyth.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

I thank the Minister for giving way. On the specific of timing, in response to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that the timing perhaps does not matter as much as the issue of the Electoral Commission and the other issues we have been discussing, we should be cautious. It seems to me, with the Scottish unemployment rate now higher than in the rest of the United Kingdom and Scottish growth now below that of the rest of the United Kingdom, there is a degree of urgency about resolving this uncertainty. I hope that the Government will not de-prioritise the timing of the referendum in order to secure agreement on the other issues. Timing the referendum in advance of some date nearly three years away is vital if Scotland is going to get the growth and jobs that it badly needs.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Lord makes an important point, which was reflected in some of the responses to the consultation, not least from SSE. My noble friend Lord Forsyth and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, made the point that we want the debate to move on to the substance of independence, a point also made by my noble friend Lord Caithness when he raised the question of the currency. Those are questions that the Scottish Government ought to be addressing. I entirely agree. It is important that we get the process resolved, and resolved swiftly, but it is equally important that we get on to the substantive debate about the benefits to Scotland from remaining part of the United Kingdom, part of the most successful union of nations, certainly in modern times, and possibly for even longer.

As noble Lords will be aware, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has raised six questions with the Scottish Government to which we still await answers. Many others, including Members of your Lordships’ House, have raised other questions. I am confident that when we get to the substance of the referendum debate, we can expose the weaknesses in the independence argument and do so on a positive footing by showing what is really positive about Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom. On that basis, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Scotland Bill

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyd of Duncansby]

My Lords, we support the inclusion of the clause, which seems sensible. Antarctica is obviously an important international resource. It is regulated by a treaty which, as we have heard, is now up for renewal, and it is clearly important that environmental protections are put in place to preserve Antarctica as a pristine part of the planet. Perhaps I should declare an interest as having acted for Donald Trump in a certain planning inquiry, but I assure noble Lords that there is no connection between my supporting this clause and Mr Trump.

As a Scottish Minister, I was not aware that we had any responsibility for Antarctica. I see my noble friend Lord McConnell nodding, so I do not think that he was aware of his responsibility. Clearly, that was a dereliction of duty.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I can confirm that I was aware of my responsibilities as First Minister of Scotland, but I can also confirm in response to the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, that at no time in the five-and-a-half years that I served as First Minister of Scotland was I ever asked a parliamentary question on this subject, was a parliamentary debate on it ever suggested or, for that matter, did we ever receive any correspondence on it.

[Lord Boyd of Duncansby]

The question that I was going to pose was why we did not extend the ban on smoking in public places to Antarctica. Clearly, that was an oversight on our part. We could also have extended the scheme for insulation of older persons’ homes, which was one of the then Scottish Executive’s schemes. Of course, we are now spared the question as to whether the referendum on independence should also extend to Antarctica. The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, has pointed out that if independence was ever to come, the First Minister would not have to consider whether to expand his navy by adding an ice-breaker to it. We fully support the clause.

Scotland Bill

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I hope I can be forgiven, as a Sassenach bishop, for making a brief contribution. When I go to Burns suppers at this time of year, I find myself with rather better Scottish credentials than many of those who present themselves in kilts: I have two degrees from a Scottish university and one wife from Scotland, as well as a home there. I am probably the only bishop who will have a vote in the referendum, if I understand the franchise correctly. I am tempted to take a poll of all my Scottish friends who will be disenfranchised before I decide how to cast my vote.

I have a specific question for the Minister, which has not been raised so far. The Second Reading debate was in September and we are now entering Committee at the end of January. An awful lot has happened in that time. In the mists of history, I was a chemist and one of the few things that I learnt was that, when you have several variables on the go at the same time, it is difficult to know what is really happening. In doing an experiment, you change one variable to see what the result is before you bring another variable into play. The referendum might be held in the midst of the implementation of the significant additional devolution that is enshrined in the Scotland Bill, not least in the area of taxation, which throws down the gauntlet as regards fiscal matters. Have the Government given any thought to the awkwardness of holding the referendum and that discussion while we are further down the line of implementing this Bill? That rather undergirds what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said and the last part of his Motion. If we are to go ahead with this Bill, we have to do so with the full consent of the Scottish Parliament. If we do not, it will be a very awkward and messy discussion. It is already marred by a great deal of awkwardness and messiness for various reasons.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, the result of last year’s election in Scotland produced two significant developments which should affect today’s discussion. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on bringing this matter to the Chamber. There is a need to discuss the Government’s overall strategy in relation to this Bill and the other matters that affect its progress.

The first significant impact of last year’s election result in Scotland is that there will come a point when, for the first time since devolution and the innovation of the legislative consent Motion, which my noble friend Lord Sewel introduced, there will be a significant issue—subject to a legislative consent Motion—on which the two Parliaments disagree. The second significant development and impact was that the majority achieved by the Scottish National Party in those elections gave the First Minister the opportunity to use that majority ruthlessly—he has been very clear about this—to determine, if he could, the rules, organisation and timing of the referendum.

Perhaps to the surprise of many of my colleagues, I welcomed the Prime Minister’s intervention this month, but I have two regrets about it as well. The first is that it was several months too late and should have occurred at a much earlier stage in the debate. None the less, it is welcome. The second is that it appears yet again to be part of a government strategy which, to be honest, has regularly since last May seemed to be all over the place, with different Ministers saying different things, the Prime Minister sometimes intervening and sometimes not, and the Government changing their position on different aspects of a referendum or other matters from time to time, or at least giving the impression of doing so.

This debate gives us an opportunity to say to the Government and to the Prime Minister that there needs to be a much more coherent approach to this. It is vital that the referendum, whenever it takes place, does so under fair rules agreed between the parties, not just by the nationalist majority in the Scottish Parliament but by all the parties, as occurred in 1997. The new Labour Government in 1997 gained more votes than did the Scottish National Party in Scotland last May, yet that summer they worked not just with the Liberal Democrats, who were our colleagues in the Constitutional Convention—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was a leading figure in that discussion—but with the nationalists, who were against devolution up until that referendum, and with the Conservatives, who at that point were in opposition in the House of Commons. That is the approach that must determine the organisation of this referendum. Any interventions that help us secure that are, in my view, welcome. If the Government are to succeed in this effort, they need to be more coherent and more consistent in their approach to tackling these issues.

As regards the legislative consent Motion, we have to understand that if we have a process that works relatively comfortably when the two Governments are working in agreement and when the two Governments are of, or largely of, the same party, there will be times when the legislative consent Motion is not going to happen because the Scottish Parliament is of a different political composition. You cannot have the principle of the legislative consent Motion and then ride roughshod over it. I know that that is not the intention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, and it would certainly not be his approach, but we have to be very cautious about making too much progress on this Bill in advance of further discussion taking place with the Scottish Parliament, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has said. There is a point of principle on the LCM. We need to be careful how we proceed. I understand the desire of many Members on both Front Benches and elsewhere to make progress on the Bill, but we need to make sure that any such progress and any further interventions on the issue of a referendum should proceed in a coherent fashion and that the Government should follow through with a proper strategy to engage the Scottish Government in discussions—not just do interviews on Sunday mornings on the BBC—even if they have to force them to the table to do that, to make sure that the Scots get the referendum they deserve.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I wish to follow my noble friend on the point about how we are going to have discussions with the Scottish Government or the Scottish Executive. The trouble is that there are no circumstances whatever in which Alex Salmond and the SNP will sit down to discuss anything about the future. My noble friend will recall that Alex Salmond is not alone in that—the Conservative Party did not take part in the Scottish Constitutional Convention, which eventually produced the devolution settlement. The Scottish Government refused to have anything to do with the Calman commission, which is the basis of this report. At no time has Alex Salmond been prepared to discuss this rationally with anyone. That is not meant to be an insult; it is a statement of fact. I do not want to go over old scores. I just say to the noble Lord that some of us recollect hearing the wrath of members of the SNP on their doorstep when elections were being fought. That was not a pretty sight. I will say no more than that. However, I do not want to be misunderstood. I will see him outside and tell him later.

I fear that whatever we do today will be misconstrued. Alex Salmond is full of slogans. I remember the slogan in the 1993 election: “Scotland free by ’93!”. Now it is: “Scotland free but not yet”. I do not think that we can achieve agreement. Alex Salmond has said that he wants not only to have the referendum but to set the date for it. I think he will achieve that date, but not by agreement. What happens if we in this Parliament decide—either in the Commons or here, or together—that we want a different date and a different question, and Alex Salmond says, “I am going to have mine anyway.”? How is he to be stopped—perhaps through the Supreme Court? That will easily take up the time until 2014—no problem at all. The dilemma is, I fear, that we really do not know how we are going to deal with this. How can we deal sensibly, reasonably and amicably with a party that is totally determined not to have any discourse whatever?

Although I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has said—in fact, I argued and made representations myself that we should not go ahead, and I even suggested giving the Government a guarantee that we would get the Bill on a date that would be necessary in order not to lose it—we have to go ahead and debate it on the basis of our good faith.

I sometimes think that the only way to make sure that Scotland does not become independent is to trumpet the fact that something like 54 per cent of people in England want Scotland to be independent. What will Alex Salmond do? He will say, “I am not going to be bullied by the English into going independent”. That is his whole attitude—bully, twist and turn. We will do our best, and perhaps the time is coming when we should simply get on with the Bill.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, before the noble Lord takes his seat, will he comment on what appears to be a strategy by the First Minister—the strategy that can be used by those who wish to move out of a block of flats, if I may use that analogy? The best way to get the move, as a tenant, is to annoy the neighbours. Perhaps a strategy is being followed here. Will the noble Lord join me in asking the people of England not to rise to that strategy?

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I absolutely agree and, although I do not know whether it is intentional, I think that Alex Salmond has deliberately set out to attack the English and blame them for everything. I guess that I will probably not be around if there is ever Scottish independence to see how the nationalists react when they are on their own and there is no one to blame. Yes, he wants to annoy people and we should not fall for that. When the referendum comes, I hope that people in England, Ireland and Wales get a say in some form or another. The case will be made very strongly that those of us who believe in the union and in Scotland certainly do not believe in antagonising the neighbours.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I was going to deal with that matter later. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, also made reference to the possibility of carrying over the Bill. Certainly, it is my understanding that the normal process for carrying over legislation is that it has not passed to the second House for consideration. Page 642 of the 24th edition of Erskine May states that,

“carry-over is restricted to Bills which have not yet left the House in which they originated”.

Therefore, to try to carry over this Bill would mean not so much carrying over but effectively starting the process again, which would significantly delay implementation. That is why I believe it is right to continue with the current timetable and I will come on later to explain why. It is important that we make progress on that.

My noble friend Lord Forsyth mentioned the fact that, as we are well aware, the consultation paper was published yesterday. The point is that the UK Government’s consultation paper indicates that while our preference is for a Section 30 order, there is also the possibility of using this Scotland Bill. Clearly, if we are to get this Bill passed in the current Session, it would not be possible to put it off indefinitely. I note that paragraph 1.7 of the Scottish Government’s consultation paper states:

“The UK paper sets out two possible mechanisms to transfer the power to hold a referendum on independence: an Order in Council under Section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998, or an amendment to the Scotland Bill currently under consideration by the House of Lords”.

It does so without any implied criticism. It just states that as a fact. We would wish therefore to make progress, although it is important for us to indicate that, but for the fact that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has been stricken down with chicken pox, there would have been a meeting tomorrow between him and the First Minister on these matters. Unfortunately, it cannot take place tomorrow but we are very keen that it should take place—I do not think the First Minister is keen that it should take place while the Secretary of State has got chicken pox—as soon as possible. It is a welcome sign that that engagement is happening.

I will reflect on the points made by my noble friend and others about the role of the Electoral Commission. However, the UK Government have made it very clear that we believe that the Electoral Commission is a proper body to have oversight of the referendum, not least given its track record in monitoring referendums since its inception. We are clear that that is our preference.

A number of noble Lords raised whether the question proposed by the Scottish Government is fair. We will certainly wish to consider the consultation document carefully but we believe, as set out in our consultation paper, that the Electoral Commission should have a statutory role to review and to comment on the question. As others have pointed out in the press today, it is not immediately clear from the Scottish Government’s document that they propose that the Electoral Commission will have that role. I understand that the First Minister has indicated that this may have been an oversight of the document but we will obviously pay close attention to that. Clearly, it would be part of the substance of discussions.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

The Minister advised that at some stage, perhaps not today but in the future, that process could involve looking at a variety of ways of posing the choice. Over the past few decades, it has not necessarily been the case in the United Kingdom that all referenda have included questions that had a yes or no answer. There have been referenda which posed a choice. I should like the Electoral Commission to be able to look at a variety of possibilities and not just those that have been chosen in more recent times.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I recall the kind of situation that the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, suggests. That emphasises that the Electoral Commission does have an important role to play. I cannot answer his specific question today, but it underlines more generally the important role of the commission. Further, as I have indicated, this will be a matter for discussions with the Scottish Government.

I have made the point that these discussions are taking place, but my noble friend also raised the question of what we should do with the Bill pending a legislative consent Motion in the Scottish Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, reminded us, the Scottish Parliament expressed its general support for the Bill, subject to some detailed concerns, in a vote in March 2011. Of course, the Scottish political landscape has changed since then, but as he rightly reminded us, those voting for the resolution included many Members of the current majority party in the Scottish Parliament, including the First Minister himself. He also indicated that there has been a response from the UK Government to the points made in the legislative consent Motion, specifically that provision has now been made in the Bill to allow bonds to be introduced in the future without the need for further legislation. There is a provision in the Bill to allow for reciprocal consultation between Governments in relation to electoral matters; provision to provide Scottish Ministers a role in the appointments to MG Alba; and provision to give Scottish Ministers responsibility for the disqualification rules for the Scottish Parliament. Obviously we will come to discuss Clause 17 at the next sitting of the Committee, if we get that far, which in a number of important respects is a response to the review undertaken by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, at the request of the Scottish Government. So there have in fact been numerous comprehensive responses to the previous LCM.

I can assure the House that we are considering carefully the latest Scotland Bill Committee report. Its timing is clearly not a matter for the UK Government, but I can confirm that we are in continuing constructive discussions on the Bill with the Scottish Government. It might be premature to table a legislative consent Motion when these discussions are ongoing. I do not particularly want to say anything that might prejudice those discussions, but I can confirm that they have been happening on a constructive basis, and I hope that they will provide us with a way forward.

My noble friend Lord Maclennan asked about our response to Miss Fabiani, who is the convenor of the committee. I can confirm that on 20 January the Secretary of State wrote to her and again made it clear that constructive discussions are under way. He also indicated that in addition to reviewing the report of the Scottish Parliament, the Government would have to have regard to comments and contributions made in your Lordships’ House on the Bill. I think I am right in saying that the letter contained a paragraph which reminded the convenor of the Scotland Bill Committee that the Government do not have a majority in this House, and therefore we could not necessarily guarantee that any particular amendments would be carried. However, I hope that I can reassure noble Lords that there is constructive engagement on this.

It is also fair to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, pointed out, that there is no clear timetable about when in the progress of a Bill a legislative consent Motion is passed. As I indicated, one was passed in the Scottish Parliament last March, which certainly meant that it was done before Report stage in the House of Commons.

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.

UK: Union

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

It is interesting that the noble Lord should mention the economic impact of the uncertainty. He may have seen a report published earlier this week by Citigroup on the very important issue of renewable energy, which made the point about the dangers of investing in Scotland while there is uncertainty about the future of the constitutional position of Scotland. The other side of that coin is that there are considerable benefits of a united kingdom in taking forward that agenda to ensure that we meet our climate change targets. It is not often that I have the opportunity to quote with approval a Daily Record editorial, but today it says:

“In the meantime, it's hard to disagree with pro-UK politicians who claim green energy is a great example of Scotland and the rest of the Britain working together”.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

Does the Minister accept that one of the great strengths of the union of the United Kingdom is the way in which the Scots, the English, the Welsh and the Northern Irish have moved throughout that kingdom over the last three centuries? Do the Government take a position on Scots who do not currently live inside the boundaries of Scotland but may have an interest in a referendum that will determine their country’s future?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right to indicate that the flow of people throughout the United Kingdom is important. Many families in England have relations in Scotland and vice versa. That only underlines the important cultural and social ties as well as the economic and social benefits that flow from our United Kingdom. However, we have made it clear in the past that a referendum would be on the basis of the people living in Scotland at the time of that referendum.

Scotland Bill

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I suppose that the starting phrase should be, “Follow that!”. In any debate on the constitutional position of Scotland, my starting point is what is best for the people of Scotland and what is best for Scotland—not what is best for the coalition Government, the Labour Party or even the union, but what is best for Scotland and the people of Scotland—whether it is best to be inside or outside the United Kingdom or, indeed, the European Union.

For me, devolution for Scotland, and for Wales and Northern Ireland within the modern partnership of nations that is the United Kingdom, is indeed the best arrangement for Scotland and for the people of Scotland. That is why in my very first vote I cast a yes vote in the 1979 referendum that the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, mentioned earlier. That is why I campaigned through the 1980s and 1990s and was involved in the convention that the Minister mentioned in his introductory remarks, and why I stood for the Parliament and had the pleasure of serving with my noble and learned friend—I call him my friend even though he sits on that side of the House—as First Minister and Deputy First Minister in that Parliament.

Do I believe that the Scottish Parliament has done everything right in the 12 years since 1999? No, of course not; no Parliament does everything right. Do I believe that the Scottish Government or all First Ministers have done everything right? No, of course not. All Governments and First and Deputy First Ministers will make mistakes from time to time. But is Scotland a stronger and a better place? I would argue that, yes, it is. Did we survive and indeed build on the electronics manufacturing meltdown in the late 1990s to ensure that our economy's growth rate matched that of the UK by 2007? Yes we did. Did we reverse the brain drain that the Minister mentioned in his introductory remarks and increase Scotland's population after years of decline? Yes we did, through policies pursued in the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. Did we lead the rest of the UK in the smoking ban? Yes we did. Did we reform Scotland's land laws and criminal justice service? Yes we did.

Devolution has made Scotland a stronger and better place, but after 12 years it is right to review the settlement agreed by referendum and by this Parliament back in the late 1990s. Was Calman the right way to do that? I think, on balance, yes. I am not a great fan of committees of the great and the good or of trying to seek consensus for the sake of consensus, but on the issue of the constitutional position of Scotland within the United Kingdom I think that the attempt to find consensus and the way in which that was done was broadly the right approach. Do I believe that the proposals have merit? Yes. Initially, I was not convinced by the report of the Calman commission, but over time I have become persuaded that most of the proposals have merit. Are they perfect? Of course not, but I do not believe that perfection should ever be the enemy of progress, as has been said by others more eminent than me.

Do I believe that the Bill deserves scrutiny? Yes, I do, but I also believe that it will ultimately deserve support. It contains proposals that are both radical and reasonable. I will come to the radical ones in a second. Although some of the initial proposals may irk the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I believe that, subject to the scrutiny that we need to give them, they will ultimately be supported by this House and Parliament. I am sure that they will lead to sensible decision-making in Scotland and therefore deserve a fair wind.

On finance and taxation powers, the original tax power was conceived at a different time and in a different economic climate. Like the electoral system, it was part of a settlement designed to secure the progress of devolution. The power to increase income tax by plus or minus 3p in the pound has never been used. That is partly because the parties who would have used it lacked the courage to do so. The nationalists lost an election in 1999 because they proposed to use it by increasing income tax and never made that proposal again. I would argue that one reason why the Scottish Conservatives have been in the doldrums since then has been that they have never been brave enough to propose to reduce income tax in the Scottish Parliament. That power has now become redundant because the political parties in Scotland have never felt that it was an appropriate use of the powers of the Parliament.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

One of the reasons it has not been used is because, when I was Secretary of State, the budget was about £14 billion. It is now about £30 billion. That was a period when there were vast amounts of money coming in. We are now in a period when the opposite is happening.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

I was just coming to the issue of the increase in the budget. In the mean time, the budget has increased from about £10 billion when I was the first Finance Minister to about £30 billion. A broad consensus has developed in Scotland over that time that there is not enough responsibility for spending in the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government and that there is a need to change taxation powers—the way that the Scottish Parliament receives finance and that the Scottish Government raises finance—to ensure greater accountability of decision-making.

I was not initially convinced by the proposal in the Calman commission but I have become convinced that it could indeed be workable and improve the governance of Scotland. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has just said, it is wrong to argue that the Scottish Parliament, perhaps alone among legislative parliaments in the world, is not fit to set taxes. As long as a parliament is held accountable for its decisions, it should be free to set some taxes. That opportunity in the Scottish Parliament would lead to more responsible decision-making than has perhaps been exhibited at some times over the last 12 years.

This power is also fundamentally different from the imposition of the poll tax back in the late 1980s. The difference is that income tax is income related whereas the biggest problem with the poll tax was not its gearing—although that was an issue—but the fact that it was correctly perceived to be unrelated to income and provoked a reaction and civil unrest across the country.

We should test the proposal here. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made some important points about the need to test the detail. In my view, the principle is right. The Scottish Finance Minister having to set a budget every year and make a decision to raise taxes would enhance accountability and responsibility in the devolved settlement. However, since the Calman proposals have come forward—

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I agree with almost everything that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said—which must be a first. On this point, I am inclined to agree with my noble friend the former First Minister. The reason that the 3p was originally introduced, in about 1980, into our plans for devolution was precisely in order to meet the requirement that a parliament—or an assembly, as it was then called—should not be able to spend endlessly without any obligation to raise its own tax, in answer to the electorate. The reality is that in all of the prior period since the formation of the Scottish Parliament, and precisely because there has been an increasing budget, there was no obligation in practice for it to do that. We may be in a different position now and the question is simply whether we should have a parliament that is allowed to spend tens of billions of pounds but has no obligation whatever to raise any of it or to answer to the electorate for raising that tax.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Reid, for that point. It reinforces the argument I am making.

The context in which the Bill is now in front of Parliament has changed since the Scottish election result in May. I would argue that a referendum on Scottish independence is now almost certainly going to happen—I suspect in around late 2014. The next three or four years will be very uncertain for those who want to invest in Scotland as well as for the people of Scotland more generally. At the moment, one side has the absolute power to shape the terms on which that referendum will take place. Unfortunately, it is also true that only one side is even in the park playing in this match.

The Scottish football team had another disaster at the weekend. We have learned in Scotland regularly to take an approach after these games of, “We were robbed”. We are in grave danger here of having a referendum campaign in which, afterwards, potentially a majority of the Scottish population suddenly realise that something has happened and feel, “We were robbed”. It will not be good enough for the mainstream political parties in the UK and other organisations to adopt that “We were robbed” approach afterwards. To use a wider analogy than Scottish football, we cannot give the pacemaker so much of a lead that we end up having too much to do on the last lap in the referendum campaign that will take place between now and, I suspect, 2014.

I believe absolutely that the best future for Scotland is as part of a partnership of nations that is the United Kingdom—not some 1950s Britishness that is part of our honourable and respected past but a modern, 21st century arrangement that is modern, multicultural, multinational and has a different vision for the United Kingdom and for Scotland itself. Some decisions are right to be made at the United Kingdom level and some are right to be made in Scotland. There is a fundamental choice between that vision and that of independence for Scotland. That is a once-in-a-lifetime choice and, perhaps even at this stage in the century, a once-in-a-century choice. It should not be taken lightly.

Scots deserve a full debate on this, in which both cases are positively put and clearly explained and the result is a clear resolution of the debate once and for all in our lifetimes. Those who support the alternative vision to that of the nationalists are in grave danger of sleep-walking into an irreversible decision. It is incumbent on political leaders, the business community and the civic Scotland that supported devolution 15 years ago to rise to this challenge by coming together to put forward a positive vision—not a fear of the alternative—of where Scotland can be in the 21st century. If we do that, we can make a decisive decision about that future that leads to a more prosperous and successful Scotland with devolution inside the United Kingdom and not the dramatic implication that would come from a decision to go independent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, for introducing the Bill and sitting so patiently through a very long debate. I am happy to report, as you will all notice, that we are in fact into the second day of the debate—it is just that we have not had a night’s sleep in between.

Administrative devolution in Scotland is over 125 years old. The Scottish Office was set up in 1885. The change that we had in 1999 was to give democratic control over the administrative devolution, and this measure does very little in the way of increased powers, because so much was already devolved. It simply tries to ensure that the elected representatives of the Scottish people in the Scottish Parliament are more responsible for raising some of the money. All my instincts tell me that you will get better government if you make the politician who makes the promises also raise the money for it, be responsible for it and get the opprobrium from the electorate. My instincts would be to let them raise 100 per cent of the money and see whether they want to promise so much. We do not quite go that far—we have the figure of 35 per cent. In fact, I would be happy to go further.

I make one general observation about the Bill as it stands at the moment. If it is only going to be 35 per cent, I would much rather that it was 35 per cent that covered 100 per cent of expenditure in certain clear areas, so that there was clear responsibility and we knew who was responsible, rather than 35 per cent of all areas. Any decent politician, even if he has totally mismanaged his expenditure of his 35 per cent, will blame whatever has gone wrong on the lack of the 65 per cent, or its not being 70 per cent, and so the blaming of Westminster will still continue. It is an end to this blame culture that we have to try to get through in Scotland. As I said in a previous debate, the Scots enjoy blaming other people for their problems: if you can blame the English, you score double; if you can blame English Conservatives, you hit the jackpot.

I take the view that Scotland is already independent. It is entitled to be, and already is, in the sense that nobody is stopping us doing exactly what we want. We are a totally free country. If we decided next year to be a full, autonomous, independent country, the tanks would not roll up from Carlisle to stop us. We are an independent country; we simply chose to live in an economic union with our neighbour to the south. That union has endured, as has already been mentioned, for several hundred years and has been hugely beneficial to both parties. There would not have been such industrial growth in 19th century Scotland had it not been part of the British Empire. As has already been alluded to, the Scots did rather well out of the British Empire, sometimes in a rather unsavoury way. When we are talking about increased tax-raising powers for the Scottish Parliament, any objection to that is based not on issues of entitlement, but rather, I think, on whether it is imprudent, impracticable or would have unfortunate side effects.

Perhaps we should look at practicability first of all. It is very important to recognise that we have a land border with England. I would refer the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of the Shaws, to the experience of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: there was constant smuggling going one way or the other, depending on which economy was doing better at that moment. In my view, if there is a land border, there are three alternatives: either we leave the rate of excise duty, or whatever it might be, to be fixed at Westminster; or we devolve it, with the clear understanding that all the Scottish Parliament will do is mimic what Westminster does, but at least it is apparently deciding this for itself; or we create the possibility that the Scottish Parliament will choose a different route, in which case we have to be quite clear about how we are going to police that. Are we actually going to have a customs post at the border?

For example, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, mentioned the possibility that Scotland might raise excise duty. That would be very acceptable to the medical profession, but the licensed trade would go out of business in Dumfries, as it has done in ferry ports on the south coast of England, and the M74 would have to be widened still further to cope with the traffic going down to pick up cheap booze south of the border. This is a very small island. People will vote with their feet and buy things where they are cheapest. You can impose whatever taxes you want; I will go elsewhere and buy those goods cheaper unless you physically stop me. A lot of taxation proposals will founder on this test, as it is simply not practicable to enforce them without a customs post at the border.

We must also consider the fact that, if we are not going to have a separate currency, passport controls or customs, there are severe limitations on what we can do differently from our near neighbour. That has led most people so far to think that we are much better off being part of that larger neighbour as a unit, so that we can at least influence the rates of taxation and the policies reached, rather than being outside it, and so simply having to copy our neighbour and imitate what it is doing.

There is another consideration which I think on grounds of prudence would give us pause before we introduced a different form, which is the question of Scotland’s size and relatively sparse population. We are, after all, about 30 per cent of the UK land mass but only 10 per cent of the population or slightly less. That would make me, frankly, very worried about going it alone on anything involving transport, broadcasting, rolling out broadband or anything else. It stands to reason with those costs—the cost of broadband rollout, for example, would be a lot higher proportionately in Scotland than in London, which has two and a half times the population but could do it at a fraction of the cost.

There are other issues of unintended consequences. Reading the Scottish media during recent months, you get the impression that we are looking for a variation in the rates of corporation tax and income tax so that we can be lower than the rest of the UK and attract all the high-flyers. Who are we kidding? Scotland has a higher dependency on public services than any other part of the UK. If you raise less in taxation, you have less to spend on public services so that is another area where we have to be cautious.

All I really look for from this Bill is that, while nobody can say that anything is a final settlement, let us at least hope that it can be a stable one, because uncertainty is bad. My noble friend Lord Foulkes has already referred to things such as the green bank. Would any UK Government prudently site any UK activity in Scotland over the next few years? You might as well site it in Dublin. If it is going to be an independent country, you cannot take the chance and we are in danger of losing out on some things unless we get some certainty.

The final point I would make is that in many ways this debate is a bit unreal—and not just because it is well past my bedtime. The fact is that the real action is taking place offstage. This Bill is out of date; the sea change took place last May. I am well aware that, in the past, support for the SNP has fluctuated quite wildly and it may well do so again. I do not think that it is downhill all the way or anything like that, but it is a pity that there is no representation of the SNP in the House of Lords. I think that is the fault of the SNP and I would genuinely like to have heard its voice answering in the debate and explaining why some things that some of us have been saying are, in its view, wrong. I would be genuinely interested in that debate.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

Would the noble Lord want to comment on the fact that this whole debate, which has taken some several hours this evening, has been filled with speeches from Members on all sides who are here at the nomination of, or at least have a connection with, the political parties in the Chamber? In fact there was only one Cross-Bench speech, right at the beginning, from the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey. Perhaps there is an issue being highlighted here about the geographical spread represented in the House by the Cross-Bench Peers—an issue that might be for the commission to look at in terms of future debates about Scotland in this House.

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane]

I genuinely disagree with that observation. It is not a question of the overall representation of Scotland but the nature of the political representation. The SNP has chosen to set its face against the idea of anyone taking a seat in the House of Lords. That has disadvantages for the nationalists, because the honest truth is that they would get a fairer hearing in this Chamber than in any other because we are not up for re-election and running the risk of losing seats to them. That is a mistake.

My final plea would perhaps come from recognising that I know some quite sensible people in the SNP. I disagree with them but they are not madmen; they are people who immediately realised, with the huge majority that they got last May, “Hold on—this independence thing—what are we going to do?”, so they have now dreamt up independence-lite. I fully accept the strictures that have been made already. They have not spelt out what it is, because the honest truth is I do not think that they know but they perhaps recognise that what might be traditionally thought to be independence is neither possible not desirable. We have to help them reach a conclusion which the rest of us would find acceptable. Independence-lite and devo-max, to use chattering-class lingo, are probably not all that far apart. I am quite happy to have a sensible dialogue with the SNP and listen to a reasoned case for further devolution of tax-raising powers. I do not think it possible but I am very happy to listen.