Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Steel of Aikwood and Lord Selkirk of Douglas

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

I do not know whether I am interrupting at the wrong point but, after listening to the past hour of debate, I want to add that even those of us who are enthusiastic about devolution have to admit that it has created a field day for lawyers. We have lawyers galore all over the place. I was most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, for describing very accurately at the beginning of his speech the triple-lock mechanisms that exist, first, with the Executive’s legal advice, then with the Presiding Officer’s legal advice, and finally with the Advocate-General’s legal advice, to ensure that we do not get into difficulties with one Parliament attempting to legislate where it has no authority to do so.

I seem to recall that in the very early days of the new Parliament—my noble and learned friend and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, will correct me if I have this wrong—when my noble and learned friend was Minister of Justice and the noble and learned Lord was the Solicitor-General, we had real difficulty in my department because the law department was not fully staffed. Both noble and learned Lords will remember that we had a backlog of legislation from the days when my noble friend Lord Forsyth rightly said that he was effectively in opposition rather than in government, and we had all the reports of the Scottish Law Commission waiting to be put into effect. We had a flood of very early legislation, none of which was particularly controversial but all of which had to be gone through. I remember that the staff in my office were almost in a state of breakdown because they did not have the capacity to give the necessary legal advice, although it was eventually given.

My noble friend Lord Stephen asked whether the legal advice would be made public. The answer is no, not normally anyway. After all, legal advice is advice; the decision rests with Ministers and with the Presiding Officer. What would happen if there were an FOI request, I have no idea. It never happened in my time so I do not know the answer to that. However, it is important that everybody knows that these locks exist even though, as I say, they provide endless employment for lawyers on a grand scale.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, mentioned emergency legislation. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I mention a final anecdote, but I recall the occasion when we had to rush through a piece of emergency legislation following a decision of the court over the release of somebody from Carstairs Hospital. That occurred one summer. I remember it clearly. Her Majesty was at Balmoral. I was told that the Advocate-General could not possibly take the 28 days that he was normally allowed and that the measure would be rushed through. I was asked where I was going to be located in order to receive the Advocate-General’s advice, sign it off and send a letter to Her Majesty asking her to give Royal Assent. I was at home. I think that it must have been a Saturday as I was having lunch, untypically, with two hereditary Conservative Members of this House. That was not my normal custom but just happened to be the case on that occasion. A courier arrived on a motor bike from Edinburgh. He saw me through the kitchen window and so knocked on that window rather than going to the door. I opened the window, received the document, undid all the pink ribbon and the vellum, looked at the Advocate-General’s response and signed the letter to Her Majesty asking her whether she would be kind enough to give Royal Assent to this very important emergency legislation. I gave the letter back to the man on the motor bike and asked him, “Are you taking this to Balmoral now?”. He replied, “Yes”. I said, “Let me give you a piece of advice. When you get there, don’t knock on her kitchen window”.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas]

I thank my noble and learned friend very much indeed for accepting the principle of the amendment. I hope I may say, by way of a one-sentence reply to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that he reminds me of the famous parliamentary statement that lawyers should be elected only with so much circumspection, and therefore it will not happen very often.