Scotland: Independence

Debate between Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and Lord Purvis of Tweed

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am the 23rd speaker in today’s debate and the 23rd male. Of the 40 speakers who will be taking part in the debate, with the notable exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Adams of Craigielea, who I was grateful to for taking part in my debate last week, 39 will be male. That is neither representative of this House nor of the country and I hope that all our groups may reflect on why that is the case today.

There will be a genuine tinge of sadness for me when I cast a vote in the referendum because I will effectively be asked to choose between two things that I love. I will also be asked, in a negative way, to affirm support for what is a remarkable coming together of peoples, histories and cultures in our union, as we have been debating this afternoon. Equally, there will be many fellow voters who will simply be elated by the opportunity to vote in that referendum; they hold sincere views and I respect them for that. However, my sadness will be tempered by a quiet pride that this union, without resorting to state terror, armed conflict or repression from government, would allow itself to be democratically dissolved because that was the democratic will of people who had chosen a different path from the one that we here would choose, as we have been discussing today. They would be doing it democratically and through a ballot. They want a different path for their country.

I have not been able to see the deadly disputes around the world since we have been having our debate on Scotland without reflecting on how we are carrying out our process differently. That is something that should give us pride. Scottish Nationalists seek to take credit for this and say that it is a peculiarly Scottish characteristic in this debate, but it is actually a remarkable thing about our United Kingdom that through tough times of great national peril where the very existence of our union has been threatened by foes from abroad, through times of imperial expansion when we have seen our position in the world grow exponentially, through times of famine or economic crash at home and through times of remarkable economic growth due to international trade—with all our shared history—we still have a compassionate and profound position that, if people within one part of our nation choose that they do not wish to continue to be part of it, this union will end. The Constitutional Committee of your Lordships’ House shows the process that could commence if that were the view.

I share the position of one of the four Knights of the Thistle who have been taking part in the debate today, the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn: I will cast a no vote.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

There are two more to come.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

And two more to come. I do not know what the collective noun for Knights of the Thistle is; maybe a contribution later in the gap could tell us what it is.

I will be casting my no vote and endorsing a bigger and better vision, which is that Scotland can have an opportunity and a thriving future as part of our union. Part of the positive future in rejecting independence is founded also on my commitment to do what I can in working with colleagues across parties in this House and in other Parliaments in Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England to help to bring about a refreshed union. Why do I feel that the union needs to be refreshed? Noble Lords have already highlighted some of the reasons in the debate today. We remain a too centralised state and this has skewed decision-making. We established national legislatures but we did not establish fiscally accountable Governments. This has skewed decision-making in the nations. We have not created a coherent narrative for the reasons why our services for all the UK should be for all the UK, such as pensions, macroeconomics or single-market policies, and why we believe it is better that some policies should be decided at a national level.

Without a proper narrative explaining why that is the case, as the noble Lord, Lord McFall, warned us, we will be perpetually in an ad hoc situation with regard to devolution. I agree profoundly with my noble friends Lord Stephen and Lord Steel of Aikwood, who quoted Jo Grimond saying that devolution is power retained in this place rather than a proper decentralisation of power to the nations, and then to the regions, by the fact that they are there in their own right for better governance rather than just because it suits this Parliament at any given time.

The noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde and Lord Richard, commented that we will benefit from this Parliament being a more representative of the nations and the regions within England. I agree with them. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness ably presented the strong opportunities for Scotland in continuing in the UK, and I need not rehearse those arguments. I hope that all of us will be reinforcing them with passion and gusto over the next 85 days.

What is the future of our union and how can we express it so that people outside Parliament are enthused by it and feel that it is representative of them and that they can play an active role within it? In many respects, the case for many aspects of this union is made by the SNP, which, even with independence, wishes to continue to be part of it: the head of state, the currency, the BBC and pensions are all unions that it wishes to leave but rejoin, most likely on poorer terms. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, referred to a former constituent of mine, Sir Walter Scott. In his “Marmion” he said,

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!”.

That sums up the SNP’s position on the unions in this land. It is worth pointing out to the noble Lord, Lord Lang, that “Marmion” was about Flodden Field.

I have put forward a proposition for a conference of the new union to take place shortly after the general election in 2015 to complement the conference on the new Scotland that my right honourable friend Alistair Carmichael has announced will commence after the Scottish referendum. The purpose of the conference on the new Scotland is to bring together those who have already published their proposals for what further powers should be provided to the Scottish Parliament, for making the Scottish Parliament a permanent part of the United Kingdom’s institutions and for this Parliament permanently to cede authority over legislating on what are currently home rule areas. I believe that a conference on the new union should take place in a similarly consensual way after the general election to address the relationships between the nations, Whitehall institutions and the Westminster Parliament. It should last no longer than six months and should therefore be focused and inclusive. It should be government sponsored, with the intention that it will result in legislation that can be presented within the next term of the United Kingdom Parliament, and it should focus on entrenching the legislatures in the United Kingdom, making their legislative capacity permanent and making the relationship between them and our institutions here in Westminster and Whitehall decided not unilaterally here but by a bilateral process with them. Importantly, it should also address issues concerning the governance of England.

Without such a conference of the new union, without it being focused and without it being the intention, on a cross-party basis, to deliver legislation, we will perhaps continue to be searching for the overriding narrative for supporting the union. Unless we do it, up to 40% of the people of one nation in this country will continue to believe that their views and future aspirations are not being addressed by the union. I passionately believe in the union but equally I believe very strongly that work needs to be done to make sure that it respects and is representative of their views.