Alistair Carmichael
Main Page: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)Department Debates - View all Alistair Carmichael's debates with the Scotland Office
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
1. When he plans to respond to the fifth report from the Scottish Affairs Committee on the Crown Estate, HC 889.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
I welcome the Committee’s continued interest in the Crown Estate’s activities in Scotland and the publication of its latest report. I am working on the UK Government response with colleagues in HM Treasury and we will publish it as soon as possible.
Mr Davidson
Does the Secretary of State agree that this is indeed a fine report, which should be accepted in full by the Government? In particular, does he accept the proposal that the devolution of powers from London should be not simply to the black hole that is Edinburgh, but to the local communities and authorities of the highlands and islands of Scotland?
Mr Carmichael
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman because, under his stewardship, the Scottish Affairs Committee has become one of the most productive Committees in the House. He knows that I have a particular interest in this issue. He highlights one of the real challenges facing us. People in our island and coastal communities have seen power and influence systematically stripped away by the Scottish Government since they took power in 2007. I do not see any particular attraction in replacing a centralised system from London with a centralised system in Edinburgh.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
A social enterprise has bought the Ardroy outdoor education centre in my constituency, but it needs to acquire from the Crown Estate the rights to a sewage pipe over the foreshore. After months of legal correspondence and thousands of pounds of legal bills, the matter is still not sorted out. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to help resolve the problem?
Mr Carmichael
Unfortunately, my hon. Friend highlights a constituency case of the sort that has been all too familiar to me over the years. In fact, in many ways, it makes the case for the need for reform. I would be more than happy to meet him and his constituents and assist them in any way that is open to me.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
It is now nearly three years since all three UK parties were resoundingly defeated by the Scottish National party. In those three years, there was plenty of time for the coalition Government and indeed the official Opposition to consider further devolution, including that advocated by the Scottish Affairs Committee. Will the Minister confirm whether they will or will not publish a comprehensive joint devolution proposal?
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman will get the Government’s response at the same time as everyone else, but he cannot get away from the fact that his Government in Edinburgh have systematically stripped power, influence and accountability away from island and coastal communities. They are not to be trusted with this.
Angus Robertson
The coalition parties and the official Opposition have spent the past three years expressing nothing but groundless, relentless negativity about the future of Scotland. They have dubbed it “project fear”. The Conservative party said that it had a line in the sand and that there would be no further devolution. The Labour party is proposing even less than a few years ago, and the Liberal Democrats are in favour of federalism in a lopsided model that will never ever work. Why should the electorate believe a single word of any of the three parties on the issue of devolution—
Mr Carmichael
It is not lost on the House that the hon. Gentleman’s question has absolutely nothing to do with the Crown Estate. My constituents and those of other hon. Members representing coastal and island communities will no doubt conclude that that is simply because his Government do not care about them.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
2. What assessment he has made of the extent of the use of zero-hours contracts in Scotland.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
4. What assessment he has made of the financial benefits for Scotland of being part of the UK.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
As part of the United Kingdom, Scotland’s economy is doing well. We benefit from being part of the large, integrated UK domestic market.
Dr Coffey
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. He illustrates very clearly the benefits of Scotland staying in the United Kingdom, which will be good for everybody in this country. Having already mentioned the private sector recovery and jobs, does he agree that the Barnett formula provides a generous amount of public sector funding?
Mr Carmichael
Indeed. The Barnett formula has been part of Scotland’s political landscape for almost 40 years and delivers a good level of public spending for people in Scotland—in the region of £1,000 per head each year over the figure for the rest of the United Kingdom. That reflects Scotland’s distinctive needs. That is why it is here to stay.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
There is huge and growing inequality. Staggeringly, according to Oxfam, five families in the UK own as much as 20% of the population do. The Financial Times stated on Monday that the burden of austerity has fallen most heavily on the least well-off. Can the Secretary of State explain to the growing number of people using food banks in Scotland the benefits of being in the UK? They are not better together; they are at the food bank.
Mr Carmichael
No subject, apparently, is so complex or involved that it cannot be trivialised by the Scottish nationalists. The reasons people have to resort to using food banks are complex, and many of them have more to do with the difficulties they face in work than with being on benefits. I am quite prepared to listen to representations from every part of the House about what the Government can do, but frankly I do not expect to hear anything constructive from the hon. Gentleman.
Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is more than a sense of irony about the fact that the devolution cause—to maintain but reform the United Kingdom—was based largely on the correct analysis that too many economic decisions were being concentrated here in London. Yet, now in Scotland, if we look at Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Crofting Commission, to take just two examples, we see that too many economic decisions are being centred politically in Edinburgh? Does he agree that Scotland’s long-term financial benefit is in the UK, but that we also need a more devolved Scotland?
Mr Carmichael
Indeed. We see Scotland’s constitutional position as an evolving one. The experience to which my right hon. Friend points is exactly the same as that which I and my constituents see. Week in, week out, the Scottish Government take power and influence away from constituencies and communities such as ours, which know best what will work in growing their economies, and what we get is what people in Edinburgh think we need, rather than what we want.
Mr Speaker
I ask the Secretary of State to face the House so that we get the full benefit of his mellifluous tones.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
There are tens of thousands of financial services jobs in my constituency, and my constituents are getting increasingly upset by the uncertainty around the independence referendum and the fact that many financial institutions might leave Scotland. What can the Secretary of State say to my constituents to ensure them that those jobs will not only stay, but increase in the future?
Mr Carmichael
The best way to ensure that those jobs stay is to vote no on 18 September and ensure that Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom. In recent weeks we have seen a growing number of companies—Standard Life, Royal Bank of Scotland and Alliance Trust Ltd—explaining that, if Scotland was to become a foreign country, as good Scottish companies operating through the whole of the United Kingdom, they would be required to remove their headquarters from Scotland to the rest of the United Kingdom. That would not be good for Scotland’s economy.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
5. What recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on the prospect of a currency union with an independent Scotland.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
8. What recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on the prospect of a currency union with an independent Scotland.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
I have not had any discussions with the Scottish Government about the prospect of a currency union. The Chancellor, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the shadow Chancellor have all said that there will not be a currency union. The only way to keep the pound is to stay in the United Kingdom.
Mel Stride
Alex Salmond claims that an independent Scotland will still use the pound. Given that there is no likelihood of a currency union between the remainder of the United Kingdom and any future independent Scotland and that Scotland would therefore not have the backing of the lender-of-last-resort facility of the Bank of England, does my right hon. Friend agree that such a path is disastrous for Scotland—particularly its financial and banking sector?
Mr Carmichael
Indeed. If Scotland made herself a foreign country to the rest of the United Kingdom, there would be no question of the Bank of England and the taxpayers who underpin it continuing to stand behind banks headquartered in that foreign country. That simply does not happen. As we have already explained, a number of financial services and banking companies north of the border have rightly identified that as a risk to their continued future governance.
Andrew Bridgen
Following the First Minister’s admission at the weekend that his own fiscal commission working group is looking at not only a plan B but a plan C, D, E and F, is it not the truth that the Scottish National party can offer no certainty for the people of Scotland about currency provision for an independent Scotland? They cannot keep the pound, because—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his say, but it did not remotely resemble a question.
Mr Carmichael
On currency, we started with a White Paper and we have now been given an alphabet soup. I cannot believe that the First Minister does not have a plan B; I cannot believe that, six months from an independence referendum about which he appears to be serious, he has not actually decided what that is going to be. What worries me is that he seems so reluctant to tell the people of Scotland.
Mark Menzies
The First Minister, Alex Salmond, has previously described the pound as a millstone around Scotland’s neck and insisted that it was sinking like a stone. Does my right hon. Friend know what has changed?
Mr Carmichael
My hon. Friend invites me to look into the workings of the First Minister’s mind—not a particularly edifying enterprise, and one that goes beyond even my ambition. My recollection is that when the First Minister made that remark, he wanted us to be independent in Europe. I cannot remember whether that was the time when we were going to be part of the arc of prosperity, but it seems to be all change these days. The truth of the matter is that the First Minister does not care about the pound or anything other than independence.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
On 29 January, the Financial Times reported that on independence, with £100 billion of sales, Scotland would be one of the top 35 exporting countries in the world. If the Secretary of State has his way—I am sure that he will not—when does he intend to run around to the good people of England explaining the impact on their currency when £100 billion of Scottish export sales are no longer receipted in sterling?
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman should listen to some of the experts. The Institute of Directors, for example, has said in terms, that the well rehearsed risks of a currency union far outweigh the problems of the sort of transaction costs that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. He needs to listen to the experts and tell us what he is going to do instead.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
Does it not tell us all we need to know about those arguing for independence that when the Governor of the Bank of England, in an impartial and carefully produced speech, draws attention to the reservations he has about a currency union, he is dismissed out of hand by the Scottish National party?
Mr Carmichael
In that respect, the Governor of the Bank of England is in very good company—he is with the President of the European Commission, the Prime Minister of Spain and the permanent secretary to the Treasury. The truth of the matter is that, day by day, bad news comes to those who want to remove us from the United Kingdom, and they are just not prepared to listen to it.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
If and when the Secretary of State does speak to the First Minister, will he remind him that any attempt to use sterling informally without a central bank would mean that an independent Scotland would not meet the terms of entry to the European Union? What could be more damaging for jobs and growth in Scotland than that?
Mr Carmichael
The nationalists are always very keen on telling us about their vision. In fact, if we were to use sterling without the central bank in the Bank of England, the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom would be like that between Panama and the United States of America. That is not a vision; it is a nightmare.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that there is nothing more important in a pensions system than—[Interruption.]
Gregg McClymont
I am delighted by such a reception, Mr Speaker.
The Minister will be aware that nothing is more important as regards the certainty of a pensions system than clarity about the currency in which pensions are paid out and saved. Does he therefore agree that the lack of clarity from the Scottish nationalists about the currency that an independent Scotland would use is very damaging for Scots and their pensions?
Mr Carmichael
Indeed. The future of the pensions industry and the security of pensions for Scots post-independence is one of the biggest risks that comes from that lack of clarity. It is quite remarkable that six months out from the independence referendum date, we still do not know what the nationalists are offering us by way of a currency.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
9. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of Scottish independence on investment in the North sea oil industry.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
We have already heard from senior business figures that independence presents risk for investment in the North sea oil industry. The sector is facing new challenges, and the United Kingdom offers the strongest basis to unlock the investment needed and ensure that we maximise its potential in future.
Graeme Morrice
The Secretary of State will be aware that the Scottish Government’s own figures show that oil revenues dropped by £4.4 billion last year. Does he agree, therefore, that the figures serve to demonstrate the weakness of basing the economic argument for a separate Scotland on unstable oil revenues?
Mr Carmichael
The figures illustrate perfectly the opportunities that come to Scotland from being part of the United Kingdom. For an economy that is highly dependent on offshore oil and gas, the size of the UK economy offers us the opportunity to absorb the peaks and troughs that are inevitably part of that commodity.