European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise that I missed the later speeches this morning because I was attending an event at which our old friend Shirley Williams was receiving an award. I found myself sitting next to Baroness Trumpington, who greatly misses the House. She assured me that, had she been here in this debate, she would have been giving this Bill hell, and I can well believe that. She encouraged me and reminded me that, in her post-Bletchley years, she spent her life trying to piece together the bits of Europe, like Lord Carrington who was quoted earlier in this debate.

Last week, we had a debate on devolution and Europe, and the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, made a shrewd point when he said that it was a bit like having a Committee stage debate before we had the Bill. I plead guilty to doing the same again today, because I want to concentrate on one issue only: the effect that the Bill has on the Scottish Parliament.

The Scottish Government were promised an amendment to the Bill in the House of Commons. That never happened. The excuse was given that Damian Green had left the Government, so there was a bit of chaos. Chaos is almost the middle name of this Bill. It was not a very good excuse. I believe that the Scottish Government have been treated rather badly throughout this whole process. In the beginning, the Joint Ministerial Committee set up a European sub-committee, which was to meet monthly and to oversee the negotiations. In fact, it met monthly until February last year, when it suddenly stopped and did not meet again until October. Again, an excuse was brought forward—that there was an election. Come on, was it an election taking eight months? That was another excuse that did not wash. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness pointed out to the House that the principle of the Scotland Act of 1998 is that everything is devolved to the Scottish Parliament unless it is specifically reserved by statute in the schedules to that Act. This Bill cuts across that principle, in my view.

There is a serious problem, particularly with Clause 11. This is not just the view of the SNP in Scotland; it is the view of the Scottish Parliament as a whole. Its constitution committee said that Clause 11 of the Bill is,

“incompatible with the devolution settlement in Scotland”.

Now, the devolution settlement has worked extremely well, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, was arguing. We were debating that way back in 1997-98, when I came into the House, and very good debates they were. I think that Bill has turned out to be very satisfactory, but the genius at the heart of the devolution settlement, which was endorsed by the Scottish referendum and encapsulated in that Act, was that it gave a stable and sensible form of government. The trouble with Clause 11 is that it sweeps up the entirety of EU law and puts it beyond the powers of the devolved legislatures, and I think that is not really acceptable.

My noble friend pointed out that, when the Canadian Government were involved in the trade agreement across the Americas, they made sure that the provincial legislatures were in on the negotiations. Of course, they have a proper federal constitution and we do not, but that is still the principle that should have been adopted here. In the debate on Thursday, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, lamented that the SNP has no representation here in the House. It is now unacceptable, when the SNP forms the Government in Scotland, that they do not have anyone here in the revising chamber. That is largely their own fault, but the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, and I agree, that if the Burns committee report proceeds and the Government agree to the principle that future peerages are of 15 years, at that point the Scottish Government should reconsider their position and bring their voices to this Chamber. In the meantime, it is up to the rest of us to voice their concern, which is that of the Parliament as a whole and not just the SNP. The Conservative Members of the Scottish Parliament in particular fully support their constitution committee. It was a unanimous report that I quoted from a moment ago.

Earlier, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, spoke much more eloquently on this subject than I do. He is quite a remarkable man, because he gets away with saying things that the rest of us would not be allowed to say. He has that air of judicial authority and scholarship. When he says that King Henry VIII did not go to Scotland and Oliver Cromwell did, it is a devastating reflection on the state of this Bill. It is not the Henry VIII powers that matter; it is the fact that Oliver Cromwell dispensed with Parliament altogether. What this Bill does is to dispense with the Scottish Parliament. That is why it is unacceptable, and that is why we must have an amendment during Committee that puts right a totally unsatisfactory Bill as it stands.