Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Steel of Aikwood and Lady Saltoun of Abernethy

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lady Saltoun of Abernethy]

My Lords, I just want to raise one little matter about the drafting of Amendments 48 and 49 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. Surely it would be better if the provisions to set penalties for drink-driving and for random breath-testing were put in Clause 24, which concerns drink-driving, rather than in Clause 25, which concerns speeding.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, where I disagree with my noble friend Lord Forsyth is in our attitude to devolution as a whole. I would sign up for what is called “devo-plus”. I define that as meaning the greatest amount of devolution consistent with common sense. When we come to debate financial issues I will say more about that, in the light of Prime Minister Cameron's recent utterances in Scotland. Given that we are likely to come back to the issue in future legislation, if we take a definition of “consistent with common sense”, I say with great respect to my colleagues who served on the Calman commission that I am not certain that different categories of air guns, different drink-driving limits or different speed limits are consistent with common sense, and we would do better to remove them altogether.

My noble friend referred to those who live on the border. When I was first elected to the Commons, my constituency boundary was the English/Scottish border. My nearest railway station is across the border. When I come to your Lordships' House by train, which I do from time to time, I have to travel across the border. Let us suppose, although it is unlikely, that the Scottish Government decided to keep the drink-driving limit higher than it is in England, and let us suppose that I repaired to that excellent institution, the Cross Keys Inn in Ettrickbridge, before setting out on my journey. I could then find myself within the law for the first part of my journey and then fall foul of the law for the second part. A much more likely scenario would be that I met my noble friend Lord Forsyth on the train going north and we had a meal and a convivial glass of wine. I could then be perfectly legal on leaving the station and suddenly illegal as I neared my home. This is not consistent with common sense. When we come to a future Scotland Bill, I hope that we might drop these issues and deal with more substantial devolution questions that are of greater interest to the Scottish people.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Steel of Aikwood and Lady Saltoun of Abernethy

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

For the third time, we have done useful work today. We have carried out the work that we are here to do. We have scrutinised the Bill line by line and we have put through three important housekeeping measures, which I am very keen we should report to the House and then move on to Report stage.

I am well aware that not everyone agrees with the withdrawal of the provisions for the statutory appointments commission. The amendment dealt with that but there are also about 116 amendments dealing with the appointments commission. It is not my wish that we should proceed with those but my noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord Trefgarne have every right, if they wish to, to start the proceedings on 116 amendments and keep us here until 3 o’clock. I appeal to their sense of the mood of the House and the votes that have already been made and to accept that that will not get us anywhere; it would simply mean that the Bill would be talked out. That would be a tragedy because, as I say, we have done good work today. It has been a good humoured debate and I would appeal to them to allow us to move to delete Clauses 1 to 9 of the Bill and we can all go home early.

[Lady Saltoun of Abernethy]

My Lords, it is a matter of opinion as to whether we have done good work today. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, thinks that we have done good work because we have done what he wanted us to do. However, for those of us who were thoroughly opposed to Parts 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill, we have done a day’s really bad work and it might be quite nice to start working on an appointments commission, which we badly need. If we worked on that, we would be doing good work.

[Viscount Astor]

Perhaps I could ask my noble friend Lord Steel a question. He has an amendment coming up, Amendment 163, which changes the Title of the Bill. It removes the provision,

“for the appointment of a Commission to make recommendations to the Crown for the creation of life peerages”.

Surely if that amendment is moved and carried by your Lordships' House, that is the moment when we should decide on whether to proceed with any of the following clauses.