Scotland: Independence

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, made an important point in his speech on the Loyal Address: that this House should have more general debates on a whole range of subjects, whereas we seem to spend so much of our time discussing the lacunas—important lacunas—in undigested House of Commons Bills. I therefore welcome this debate to discuss the enormous constitutional implications of the possible break-up of the United Kingdom. It is blindingly obvious that if there is a yes vote, there will be substantial implications for England, Wales and Northern Ireland too. Yes or no, the case for a constitutional convention to look at the role of the nation states within the United Kingdom becomes stronger every day.

We, the people of England and Wales, have not had the opportunity of a referendum although we, too, are much affected by it. The Prime Minister took it upon himself to sign the Edinburgh agreement in direct negotiations with Mr Salmond. I was reminded the other day that the Act of Union and the treaty concerned the union of two Crowns: the Crown of England, which included Wales, and the Crown of Scotland. I believe that it was a grave mistake for the Edinburgh agreement not to provide for consultations with the citizens from the other parts of the union. I particularly regret that the people of Wales—some of whom I had the honour of representing for more than 40 years in the Commons, and serving as their Secretary of State for nearly six years—were not given the opportunity to play a similar role to the Scots in the contemplated divorce in the constitution of which they, too, are an important part.

Come to think of it, my ancestor, Morgan Jenkin, who in 1706 was farming in Cardiganshire, was not consulted either. Our extended family still farms in broadly the same area, of which I had the honour to be the lord lieutenant. I thought that with the coming of universal franchise and democracy, we had moved on.

As the architect of the original Welsh devolution proposals, with our Government, which after many years of blood, sweat and tears, were agreed to by both Westminster and the people of Wales, I can be quite sure that whatever the result in Scotland, there will be repercussions for Wales, and that the present Wales Bill now going through Parliament will have to be looked at again. We may indeed be driven to look radically at federalism for all the countries of the United Kingdom.

From my point of view, however, the top priority must be for the Government to deal with the Barnett formula, which is unfair in Wales and which Governments of all parties have failed to address. With the independence of Scotland, the Barnett formula will, I suspect, be irrelevant.

I turn briefly to the West Lothian question, which the McKay commission sought to answer. Not unexpectedly, the matter is gathering dust in Whitehall’s pigeon-boxes despite the original coalition agreement. The Government have not responded to the committee’s report, but I welcome the Minister’s statement today that we can expect a reply by 16 July. Given that the two debates have been conflated together, I might have thought that there would have been a little effort to expedite the reply to meet the needs of this debate.

It is unfortunate that insufficient thought was given at the time of the Edinburgh agreement to the closeness of the date of the Scottish referendum and the fixed date of the general election in 2015. Looking at it in terms of the interests of the Westminster Parliament, I do not know why our Prime Minister agreed to the closeness of the two dates given the possible effect on the remainder of the country. If the referendum were to go one way then, as we have just been reminded, the 59 elected Scottish MPs will be in the strange position of having been elected to serve for the whole of the Parliament—as I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, reminded the committee—but then be expected, on independence, to vacate their seats at Westminster. They could not in any shape or form continue at Westminster following independence. The implications for the colour of the incoming Government in 2015, and for the coming months until independence, are enormous. These should have been thought out in agreeing to the dates of the events—the election on one hand and the referendum on the other.

The report makes a very important point at paragraph 63. It states:

“In the event of a ‘yes’ vote, the status of MPs for Scottish constituencies in the period between the referendum and independence day should be resolved quickly, and certainly before the 2015 general election”.

The report rightly points out in paragraph 44 that,

“legislation to facilitate Scottish secession … may not need to be extensive”,

but that consequential legislation would. The amount of legislation needed for the change in the role of the Lord Chancellor was chickenfeed compared with the extensive consequential legislation that will be needed in the event of Scottish independence. These are the problems that will have to be faced. I regret that those who drafted and—much more importantly—agreed to the Edinburgh agreement did not consider these real problems as deeply as they might have.

My earnest hope is that Scotland will not cross this particular Rubicon. If it did, it would be an enormous loss to the continuing contribution of the Scottish people, to the benefit of us all, to our work at Westminster and elsewhere, which has lasted for 300 years. I am grateful to the Constitution Committee for drawing our attention to this series of vital issues, only a few of which I have been able to touch on. I suspect that many more important issues will emerge in the coming months.