Scotland: Independence

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow a Welsh voice in this debate about the future of the United Kingdom, which is what the debate is about; it is not just about Scotland. I entirely agree with the concluding words of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and I shall come back to them in a moment.

One thing that I have found dispiriting about the public debate in Scotland so far is that it has concentrated too much on whether it will be cheaper or more expensive to get out of the union. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, is quite right that it is missing the point to argue about £1,000 here or £1,400 there. We all know that divorce is an expensive business, but if it is the right thing to do we must bear the cost. My belief is that it is the wrong thing to do and, therefore, the cost is irrelevant. What we ought to be arguing about—and I welcomed the speech of my noble and learned friend, because he concentrated on this—is the benefits of the union and the concept of a reformed union after a no vote in September. I think that that is the right way to go.

There have been a lot of debates about how long it would take for Scotland to become independent, if there were a yes vote. I do not believe for a second that the nationalist Government are right to say that it can be done in six months; that is preposterous, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has just spelt out. One cannot sort out the currency, membership of the European Union and defence structures all within six months. An academic said last week that it would take 10 years. That is perhaps a little excessive, but certainly it would take some time and during that awkward period between a yes vote and actual independence Scotland would be in some kind of limbo; we should be clear about that.

However, if there is a no vote, we should be positive about how we move forward on the back of the declaration by the three political parties in Scotland. My great guru in these matters was Jo Grimond, who wrote many years ago:

“I do not like the word devolution as it has come to be called. It implies that power rests at Westminster, from which centre some may be graciously devolved. I would rather begin by assuming that power should rest with the people who entrust it to their representatives to discharge the essential tasks of government. Once we accept that the Scots and the Welsh are nations … we must accord them parliaments which have all the normal powers of government, except for those that they delegate to the United Kingdom government or the EEC”.

It has always seemed to me that that is the better starting point for discussing what should happen after 18 September.

I am glad to say that we have some new converts to the cause of a federal or quasi-federal constitution. Gordon Brown, with all his experience as a former Chancellor and former Prime Minister, wrote a very powerful essay in the New Statesman last week, which states:

“No one can now ignore the basic fact that the United Kingdom is no longer and will never again be the all-powerful centralised unitary state of the constitutional textbooks. With one parliament, two legislative assemblies and a high-powered London authority taking powers from the centre, Britain is not the unitary state we were taught about at school”.

He is right about that. He goes on in the same essay to say:

“The system of sharing across the UK creates a form of equality between the citizens of the four nations that no other group of countries can match for its depth and sophistication and this is arguably the defining characteristic of the Union today”.

These are wise and profound words, of which people in Scotland should take account.

An intriguing, additional argument has been put forward by Alan Riley, professor of law at City University —namely, that the advantage of the UK having a written constitution is that of protection against mission creep from Brussels, which so exercises politicians and press alike. He writes:

“A British version would, like the German law, set out the major institutions of the state, set out principles and enumerate fundamental rights. The British Supreme Court would then be able to police the borders of the union’s jurisdiction”—

that is, the European Union’s jurisdiction—

“in a similar fashion to the German courts”.

Again, I think that that is a powerful argument for looking forward to some form of written constitution and the development of a quasi-federal constitution for our country.

I find that many people in Scotland on the yes side argue about the advantages historically of the Scots making their mark in the world. That is undeniable—for example, the Jardines and the Mathesons in the Far East. However, they forget that many of the Scottish heroes of whom we are most proud were dependent on mutual support from English organisations. For example, David Livingstone’s remarkable exploits were carried out on behalf of the London Missionary Society, while the Selkirk-born Mungo Park, who died on the River Niger, relied on the support of the African Association in London. This is true of our inventors as well, of whom we are all very proud. Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin but developed its use at St Mary’s Hospital in London. James Watt developed his steam engines in Bristol and Cornwall and John Logie Baird developed his television in Hastings. These people, of whom we are so proud and whom the nationalists talk up, were all dependent on the mutual support of the United Kingdom for the work that they did.

In my first general election manifesto when I was party leader, I called for reform of the House of Lords, but my wording was carefully chosen. I stated:

“The House of Lords should be replaced by a new, democratically chosen, second chamber which includes representatives of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, and UK members of the European Parliament”.

If you look back to the Bryce commission of 1918, which recommended that a reformed House be indirectly elected by Members of the Commons, here is the possibility of a reformed senate—an upper Chamber of this Parliament—being elected by Members of the Commons, the European Parliament and the devolved Assemblies, and being a real, quasi-federal institution. That is why I welcome what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde had to say about what could happen after 18 September—a coming together of such people into some kind of constitutional convention or commission, in which this House could play a distinguished part in the future.