Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Sanderson of Bowden and Lord Maclennan of Rogart

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, I should declare an interest. I have recently been appointed as a trustee of the development trust for the most recent university in Scotland—indeed in Britain—the University of the Highlands and Islands, which has achieved its status at the hands of the Privy Council in the last year.

I cannot rest today on the arguments about university fees and the rights and wrongs of charging some. I know that opinion is deeply divided about that and that some of those involved in universities have made strong cases for substantial fees. Something as inequitable and discriminatory as this must exercise everyone in this House and in the country. What has been done by the Scottish Administration is deeply divisive.

The first successful advocacy that I indulged in as a boy was to persuade my father not to send me to an English boarding school but to keep me at the Glasgow Academy. I remember trying to persuade my parents’ friends that they should take part in that advocacy because I got so much benefit from their generation and not just from my own generation. After that campaign had been won and I was allowed to remain at school in Glasgow, I remember that I received a letter from the right honourable Hector McNeil, who was at the time Minister of State to the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, saying, “Well done. You have chosen a good school and you have done the right thing, but I must tell you that there is a great deal to be said for thinking about going to a university in another part of the United Kingdom and I would encourage you to look at Oxbridge”. I did and I went there.

In the case of my own offspring, my son, the situation was reversed. In the House of Commons I represented a remote constituency and it was decided that my son should go to school in London where I would have a better chance of seeing him. In turn, he went to Edinburgh University. I wonder whether he can be described as a Scot or not? As the rules stand, it is all about where he lives. It seems to me that this is a shocking determination. In my son’s case it did not happen. He went to Edinburgh. Pupils who are at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Edinburgh University or wherever are now faced with grossly unequal circumstances. It does not encourage people to move around and gain new educational experiences in a new and different part of the country.

The University of the Highlands and Islands in particular will seek to attract people to study there who are engaged in many different, discrete and sophisticated scientific and other studies. I fear that this will have an adverse impact on those studies. I noted the reference to the University of Edinburgh studying Antarctica. Cambridge University is promoting similar studies. People may consider that they might as well go to Cambridge as Edinburgh if they have to pay the same fee. This higher educational process will not benefit the younger members of our society if people are discriminated against in this way.

The arguments have been very well deployed in this excellent debate. I ask my noble and learned friend to take away these arguments and discuss them with senior colleagues who are in a position to do something. It is important that there should be a direct dialogue before Report not only with our senior Ministers but with representatives of the Scottish Executive. The public utterances that have been made by the First Minister, Mr Salmond, have been utterly deplorable in their discriminatory effect, and calculated to stimulate hostility among those who are not Scots. That is not how our Government should be managed. Although I cannot expect the Minister to give an entirely positive answer today, I hope that when the Bill comes back he will have taken these views into account and come up with proposals that right this serious wrong.

[Lord Sanderson of Bowden]

My Lords, I strongly support both my noble friend’s amendment and that of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I should perhaps declare an interest. I have two grandchildren, both aged 17. One is at school in Scotland and has been offered a place at Cambridge. The other is at school in England, lives in England and has been offered a place, conditional on her A-level results, at Edinburgh University.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Sanderson of Bowden and Lord Maclennan of Rogart

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, I would not like it to be thought that the views expressed in the previous two interventions were partisan in any sense. I certainly identify with those comments.

It appears to me that if the principle of subsidiarity distributes powers up and down, there should be clear and at least conventional understandings as to the limitations of interventions in respect of matters that are principally for one tier of government. This is not an absolute distinction. In the Lisbon treaty affecting the governance of the European Union, provision has been made for national Parliaments to participate in dialogue with the institutions of the EU about matters in which they are interested. Of course, we have in this House a Select Committee on European affairs and we offer thoughts and advice, but do not attempt to give any impression—and I believe we do not—that we are actually responsible for the matters that are being decided upon. Too often, the voices expressed, particularly by the Scottish National Party, attempt to give that impression.

Although it may not be a requirement that we lay down the law, as it were, it is a worthy motive that inspired the amendment and it emphasises what should be a clear convention. If the Scottish Parliament or any part of it, or a majority in it, want to engage the Government of the United Kingdom in discussion, it would be sensible to adopt the noble Lord’s amendment—and I hope that Members of the Scottish Parliament will take note of these recommendations.

[Lord Sanderson of Bowden]

My Lords, I raise one point on the amendment, which is slightly wide of the purpose and message of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. Can my noble and learned friend explain why energy is a reserved matter in the Scotland Act, but, because planning powers are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish National Party Government see fit to do nothing about the Torness nuclear station and others in Scotland? After all, when I was happy to be in government dealing with the Electricity Bill, we managed to include powers for the interconnector to send nuclear-generated electricity south of the border. To my mind, that will stop unless something can be done to reverse that decision. It seems a total anomaly in the Scotland Act that a reserved matter such as energy cannot be fulfilled for nuclear energy because of the planning powers of the Scottish Parliament.