Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Morgan and Lord Maclennan of Rogart

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for moving this amendment because it has enabled there to be a discussion about the potential role of devolved government in the protection of interests in overseas discussions. I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, said. I cannot believe that it is helpful, in seeking agreement across borders on issues that might affect us, for British representatives to be unable to speak with one voice at the official negotiating level.

The proper time for those discussions is prior to the engagement in the international debate. It is not meant to put a ban on representation by individuals who have some democratic authority. The amendment may well be defective in that respect, as the noble Lord has recognised. However, let us consider the situation in reverse. If we, as a British Government, were under the impression that we had to deal not just with the Spanish Government on fisheries policy but with a Catalan Government as well, it would hugely complicate our negotiations. I am bound to say that so long as the nation state remains, we should be dealing internationally and not with devolved Governments.

The representation of points of view is quite a different matter. It would have been helpful—to answer the question that was thrown back at me—if there had been a full dialogue between the Scottish Government and the United Kingdom Government about the al-Megrahi case. I am not sure that there was not, in fact, such a dialogue; it as remained rather obscure, but it is certainly important to Britain’s position vis-à-vis some of our allies that we were not thought to be in complete ignorance of the Scottish Government’s position. It led to some deterioration of understanding between the United States and the United Kingdom that there was no absolute clarity about who was essentially to take responsibility for the release and return of al-Megrahi to his homeland.

[Lord Morgan]

I will make one or two remarks as a non-Scottish person, although the purpose of this amendment in part appears to be to give the Scottish National Party a good kicking. That is a very desirable objective in many ways. Coming from Wales, I am very glad that we do not have a party with the bitter Anglophobia that is frequently revealed by the Scottish National Party. In Wales, we concentrate on other things, such as beating other countries at rugby and speaking our own language.

In wishing to criticise the Scottish National Party, I am very much in sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, has just said. We must be careful not to give the impression of imposing a uniform pattern on the ongoing process of devolution. It is about difference; it is about differentiation; it is about pluralism—and it is very difficult to impose any kind of check on that. I recall that Mr Gladstone famously said, “You cannot put a stop to the onward march of a nation”. That can apply to nations within the British Isles as well.

The question was raised by various noble Lords about what kind of foreign representations we were proposing to monitor or have Foreign Office checks on. There are already, of course, as other noble Lords have said, enormous ranges of foreign contacts, particularly with the European Union. It would be very difficult to distinguish between foreign contacts that needed control from Big Brother at Westminster and other kinds of contact where that was not appropriate. The real point is that there is a kind of mistaken assumption that a devolved Scottish Government—whether it be devo-max or even going beyond that, if that actually took effect—would somehow impinge on the sovereignty of the British Parliament.

The word “sovereignty” was used by my noble friend. Views of sovereignty have moved on a great deal since it was brandished by Dicey at the end of the 19th century as a kind of inalienable set of powers that, if they were diminished, would inevitably disappear. There are all sorts of ways in which the sovereignty of this Parliament is fundamentally affected and transformed. At the present time, human rights legislation has done that, our contact with Europe has done that, and devolution has certainly done that. In the famous phrase, this is a process and not an ongoing policy that comes to an end.

If you look at the concept of sovereignty within the context of some other countries, you have a very different view of sovereignty. It emerges as a much more flexible concept; it is not like a cake that you take a piece out of and that piece never reappears. Look at the länder of Germany, which pursue an enormous range of contacts on industrial, economic, agricultural and social matters with other countries, enormously to their success. It has been a feature of the success of Germany, particularly the länder such as Baden-Württemberg, that their economic prospects have flourished because they have been allowed to be independent in this way and not controlled by a central Government. This is the purpose of devolution, and I think this is more likely to be about the success of devolution than about differentiation. In wishing to criticise the severity and extremism of the Scottish National Party, we must be careful that the extended implications of devolution are not criticised as well, because they are enormously valuable for the well-being of our country.