Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Selkirk of Douglas and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas]

My Lords, may I speak to—oh! I am sorry.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Members will be getting fed up with my voice by now. I am glad that I withdrew the previous amendment and did not move Amendments 4 and 5. I tabled those amendments but I could have put down dozens more. There is a whole range of issues that we could have discussed. If we had wanted to cause trouble—heaven forbid that I should cause trouble here—I could have tabled dozens of amendments and delayed us. The fact that we are getting though the Bill relatively rapidly shows the good will of not just the Front Bench but the Back Benches on this side towards the coalition Government. Whether they deserve it is another matter, but they are getting it.

I come now to the discussion of reserved matters, which relates in some ways to the previous amendment. In my time in the Scottish Parliament—I think this will apply to other Members here who were Members of the Scottish Parliament—it was very frustrating that the SNP in particular would use up the limited time available, including government time, for discussion of reserved matters. These included foreign affairs and defence; they went on and on about these areas. It is understandable that they should discuss them where they impinge on some of the Scottish Parliament’s responsibilities, but it worried me that it restricted the time for discussion of very important matters.

We have devolved to the Scottish Parliament some of the major areas that affect the lives of people in Scotland, such as all aspects of education. However, there were no really detailed debates on it. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester would be astonished if he came to the Scottish Parliament and saw how little time it spends on discussing the details and development of education in the forum of the plenary sessions. Then there is the development of the health service, with telemedicine and all the new developments that are taking place; and social work and the links between it and education and housing. There are many issues that the Scottish Parliament should be discussing, but it never seems to get around to doing so. These are vitally important issues.

This is a related issue but it is slightly different. I also get the feeling that, as the SNP has moved into the ascendancy, first as a minority and now as a majority Government, it seeks to operate almost as a de facto if not de jure independent Parliament. It wants to take on more responsibilities and pretend or imagine that it is dealing with all these issues. I had occasion to raise this with Sir Gus O’Donnell, now the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, in a question about the Permanent Secretaries—first Sir John Elvidge and, more recently, Sir Peter Housden, who has gone native since he moved. He is from Shropshire originally, a lovely county of England, as I know only too well. They seem to be advising the Scottish Executive on how to move towards independence. They seem to be giving them all the advice, guidance and detail that they need and, in Sir Peter’s case, almost encouragement to move towards independence. I hope that Sir Jeremy Heywood—he has a more pragmatic and sensible view on this than Sir Gus O’Donnell, but perhaps I should be careful about saying that—will look at things in a more pragmatic and sensible way and remind Sir Peter Housden that he is still a member of the UK Civil Service and still owes some loyalty to the Crown and the United Kingdom Parliament although he has been seconded to the Scottish Parliament and should not be dealing with these matters.

It is fair enough for the Scottish Parliament to consider reserved matters when it wishes to make representations on them to the Westminster Parliament, particularly to the House of Commons. However, for it to have debates on nuclear weapons, defence policy, foreign affairs issues, reserved aspects of welfare or on major economic issues which are still the responsibility of this Parliament and the UK Government, seems to me not just wrong in principle but a waste of the Scottish Parliament’s valuable time. I hope that we will send a message to it that—