Scotland Bill

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sewel]

The noble Lord, as always, makes an interesting and important point. At this stage, I am not prepared to follow him completely, but it is something upon which we may wish to reflect as the debate progresses in our House.

Part of the confusion that we face on the whole business of a referendum, because the debate in Scotland for a long time assumed that it was within the powers of the Scottish Parliament to call a referendum on independence, is because—and we have seen this sort of tactic in a number of areas—the present First Minister has a very good knack of being able to make quite outlandish assertions, and make them so strongly and repeat them so many times that people come to accept their validity without any attempt to find out what the actual position is in reality and in law.

I hope that we progress with this Bill, but we must do so with a great deal of care.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, although I agree with many of the arguments advanced by my noble friend Lord Forsyth, I am glad that he is not going to press his amendment to a vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, suggested that my noble friend Lord Sanderson was being a bit unkind in using the word “devious” about Mr Salmond, and I take his point. Can I rephrase that and be positive and say that Mr Salmond is successfully manipulative? That is a compliment. I have said repeatedly that members of Her Majesty's Government underestimate him at their peril. He is not known as “smart Alec” for nothing north of the border. I remind the House that in the previous two general elections in Scotland he did not campaign on independence. He did not even campaign under the banner of the Scottish National Party. He campaigned on the basis of, “Alex Salmond for First Minister”. That tells you a great deal about how we have got to where we are. That campaign was very successful and manipulative.

There is another area that we have rather passed over. Before any Bill is introduced, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament has to sign legislative competence, both under the Scotland Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. I used to take that matter very seriously indeed, and the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, will not mind me saying that there were occasions when I told the Executive that they could not expect me to act just as a rubber stamp. My legal advisers would send me back with a red box with perhaps 30 pages of their opinion on whether something was legislatively competent or not.

The referendum Bill, as outlined in Mr Salmond’s consultation paper yesterday, would have to come to the Scottish Parliament. Frankly, if I were Presiding Officer I would not sign a document that said that a referendum was within the competence of the Parliament because I do not believe that it is. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, may be correct that the Scottish Parliament can hold an expensive opinion poll, but it certainly cannot hold a referendum, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, just advanced. However, remember what happened after the most recent election. After the first Scottish election, I was elected as the Presiding Officer, and I came from the Liberal Democrats. In the second Parliament, the Presiding Officer, George Reid, came from the Scottish National Party. In the third Parliament, the Presiding Officer, Alex Fergusson, came from the Conservative Party.

On any understanding of common sense and good will, it was the Labour Party's turn to provide the Presiding Officer after the most recent election, but of course Mr Salmond does not do graciousness. He does not do consensus. He had a majority, so a member of the SNP was appointed as Presiding Officer. I make no criticism of her whatever; I think she has behaved perfectly well, but it puts her in an impossible position and has shown again how Mr Salmond's record is one of being successfully manipulative—as did the use of Edinburgh Castle yesterday, to which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred and as does the question in the consultation paper. We were told over the past few days by every newspaper that Mr Salmond was being so kind that he was going to allow the Electoral Commission to be in charge of the referendum, but when we read the paper we find that it is in charge of the administration but not in charge of the question. That, again, has been successfully manipulated.

I just say to the House that we must be extremely careful in all our dealings with the present Scottish Government. The paper published yesterday is run through with the theme of successful manipulation. I think we should proceed with the Bill. I take the view—as, I think, does my party—that it is not strong enough. We want greater devolution to the Scottish Parliament in future, but that is not on the agenda now. This is a Bill produced by consensus, and for that reason we should press ahead with it.