Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Tankerness and Earl of Lindsay

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the names of my noble friend the Earl of Dundee and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I remind the House that, quite apart from what the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said when reporting on his commission’s work, the Government, in their reply to the Smith commission, also accepted the call for greater co-operation and respect. They said:

“Effective inter-governmental working is essential to guarantee the best possible provision of services and representation for the people of the UK; a renewed commitment to build these relationships and explore better ways of working, as recommended by the Smith Commission Agreement, will require close collaboration between the UK Government and Devolved Administrations”.

The noble Lord, Lord Smith, and his commission, were absolutely right in endorsing that strong, unambiguous message.

It is perhaps a source of regret that in 2013, the recommendations of the Calman commission, which reported in 2009 in this very important area of intergovernmental co-operation, have to a large extent been either ignored or progressed in a way that has not been wholly effective. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and I, as members of the Calman commission, were largely responsible for what became the largest section of the report, with 23 recommendations that dealt with intergovernmental co-operation, interparliamentary co-operation and inter-institutional co-operation. We on the Calman commission were very clear that this was a very important ingredient of achieving a stable, devolved constitution.

In coming to those 23 recommendations in 2009, we were acting on the evidence that we had heard from countries such as Canada, Australia, Germany and Spain—from memory—where the message was very clear. That was that the mortar between the bricks that delivered a stable and resilient devolved constitution came from relationships, not just primary legislation that determined which powers were devolved and which were reserved.

I encourage the Government, who have had both the Calman and the Smith commission recommendations, and now have this worthy amendment in the name of the noble Earls, Lord Dundee and Lord Kinnoull, to take seriously the message that it contains.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to support the spirit of the amendment in the names of the noble Earls, Lord Dundee and Lord Kinnoull, and to endorse what the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, said. The noble Earl referred to the Calman commission, on which he and I served and were charged specifically with looking at intergovernmental and interparliamentary co-operation. We found that there was much to be done. It came down to simple things such as passes for Members of the Scottish Parliament to access the Palace of Westminster and MPs to access the Scottish Parliament. There is much more that can be done.

I make only two further points, because there is a lot in the amendment that should give us impetus. Legislation cannot do it on its own; a culture requires to be built up as well. First, I wanted to pick up on,

“the sharing of examples of best practice between the Scottish institutions and United Kingdom institutions”,

in subsection (2)(c) of the proposed new clause. I have always believed that it is one of the potential strengths of the devolution settlement that we have in the United Kingdom that we not only have a United Kingdom Parliament that deals with England and in some cases England and Wales on otherwise devolved matters but we have Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland legislation. There is much that we can do to learn from each other. There are things that might have been tried that did not work which there is no point in repeating elsewhere. For example, the Scottish Parliament took the lead on the ban on smoking in public places, which other devolved institutions then followed. But the sharing of best practice has probably been patchy at best.

Secondly, the Bill does not allow this proposal to go beyond the terms of the amendment, but clearly it is not just about interchange and exchange between the United Kingdom institutions and the Scottish institutions—it is something that we will want to do for the Welsh and Northern Ireland institutions as well. We can all learn from each other, but I hope that the House will endorse the spirit of the amendments that have been tabled.