Ann McKechin
Main Page: Ann McKechin (Labour - Glasgow North)Department Debates - View all Ann McKechin's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Gauke
We are talking about preliminary numbers, which I have put forward on the basis of early estimates produced by the Treasury this week. We are keen to engage with the Scottish Government, just as we have with the Northern Ireland Executive. I am sure that there will be exchanges of correspondence, meetings, discussions and a full examination of both the numbers and the methodology used in producing them. We are more than willing to engage in that process, but we are also waiting for the Scottish Government to offer their analysis of the impact of devolving corporation tax, of what the costs would be, and of the economic advantages and disadvantages. We know that the Scottish Government take a great interest in this—they make this point on a regular basis—but we await their analysis.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
I think I am correct in saying that the Minister for Culture and External Affairs in the Scottish Government wrote to Members before the Easter recess suggesting clauses to be added to the Bill, including one on corporation tax. On that basis, is the Minister saying that the Scottish Government provided no information on their analysis of the impact of this tax? Since first requesting the information, how long has he waited for it?
Iain Stewart
Forgive me, but I am going to finish now. Many other Members wish to speak, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
Ann McKechin
I welcome the very wise remarks of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). He always provides us with great expertise on Barnett formula issues, and on the point about having hard evidence, because one key component of our debate about the Bill has been the evidence for the various fiscal arguments that have been proffered over the past few months.
Borrowing powers were not in the original Calman recommendations, but we certainly welcome the inclusion of that tool for the Scottish Government. The Scottish Parliament’s Scotland Bill Committee, in its report, and the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs both recommended that the powers be brought forward from the proposed date of April 2013, and as the Minister will be aware, we have already called for their advancement to 2012. That proposal is in amendment 2.
The Government announced in last week’s written ministerial statement that they are to bring forward to 2011 pre-payments, in order to allow work on the Forth replacement crossing. That is not the same as bringing forward the capital borrowing powers in the Bill, and it would be helpful if the Minister in his winding-up speech were able to confirm that the full capital borrowing powers will be available from the next financial year, if the Bill is on the statute book by that point.
I also welcome the announcement in the statement that the Government are removing the requirement for Scottish Ministers to absorb the first £120 million of tax forecasting variation within their budget, giving them greater flexibility. A number of comments have been made about extending the borrowing limits, and that should be a matter of negotiation between the two Administrations. The Secretary of State says that he views the figure of £2.2 billion as a floor rather than as a maximum, and that is welcome.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field)—
Ann McKechin
My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who I understand has reached a memorable birthday, spoke to new clauses on the Barnett formula, and the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South and others pertinently said that there is no easy solution. [Interruption.] I am pleased to see that my right hon. Friend has returned to his seat. In the financial year 2009-10, however, the average per capita expenditure in Scotland was £9,940, while in London the figure was £10,182. Indeed, it has been stated that the move to a needs-based system in countries such as Australia has resulted in the same amount of debate about what is required.
Barnett should not be confused with devolution. Devolution allows the Scottish Government to make their own decisions on a range of issues, such as prescription charges, which do not apply in England, but it is separate from Barnett formula issues. The Barnett formula is relatively simple and objective, and as the Calman commission stated, any changes to it would be difficult to determine and “a highly political process”.
On the new clauses on corporation tax, for the record the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) spoke about fiscal autonomy for 42 minutes, not 14. However, we are not necessarily any clearer about what impact his proposals would have on the electorate in Scotland. The Calman report specifically rejected the devolution of corporation tax. Paragraph 3.113 of the final report says that
“we therefore reject the devolution of corporation tax. Nor, especially in view of its volatility…from one year to another, do we see it as a candidate for tax assignment.”
Mark Lazarowicz
No doubt there is a theoretical argument that cutting corporation tax for smaller or new businesses would encourage them to grow and expand, but can my hon. Friend explain how cutting the corporation tax paid by Royal Bank of Scotland by 50% would encourage it to bring more jobs into the Scottish economy? Would it not just add to its already large profits?
Ann McKechin
My hon. Friend raises a good point. The Scottish Government are advocating a cut in taxes for banks but not for small businesses that do not pay corporation tax. Many employers in the private sector who employ many people do not pay corporation tax, but income tax. Substantially reducing corporation tax would lead to a large cut in public expenditure or increase the burden on income tax payers.
The Scottish Government already have a considerable number of economic levers. They have decided to cut funding to many Scottish colleges—for example, James Watt college in Greenock faces a cut of £5 million. They have cut regeneration funds in many of the most deprived areas, including a 71% cut in the Inverclyde regeneration fund. The test that the Scots will apply is not how many powers anybody has vis-à-vis someone else but how they use them for Scotland’s benefit. [Interruption.] SNP Members chunter on, but they do not have any intervention to make because these are decisions that they have made and they do not wish to take responsibility for them.
Fiona O'Donnell
Does my hon. Friend regret the macho element that has crept into this debate? Does she, like me, regret the fact that when Alex Salmond came to Downing street with his two friends and sat down with Government Ministers, there was not a single woman around that table?
Ann McKechin
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point about the issues that the Scottish Government have decided not to speak about. They did not come down here to speak to Ministers about the cuts in the welfare reform that will impact particularly heavily on women. They did not come down here to talk about the crisis in our care homes as a result of the imminent collapse of Southern Cross, which affects elderly people and their families right across the country. They did not come down to talk about the increase in the pension age, which will impact on women in particular. My hon. Friend is right that when it comes to issues that affect tens of thousands of people and women in particular, who make up the majority of the Scottish population, the SNP is sadly silent.
Dr Whiteford
The last time I looked, welfare reform and pensions were matters reserved to this House. I certainly contributed to the debates on those matters in this House, and the last time I looked I was a woman. It is sad that when we discussed the uprating proposals in the Pensions Bill, most Labour Members, with a few honourable exceptions, sat on their hands. It was left to just a few of us on the Opposition Benches to oppose the increases proposed by the Government.
Ann McKechin
I do not discredit the hon. Lady for making strong statements in this Chamber. However, I find it extraordinary that the First Minister, who feels that he can speak about any issue that impacts on Scotland and who has more powers, does not take the opportunity to speak about the issues that matter to ordinary people in Scotland every day of the week.
I will return to the Bill, as I am sure you would wish, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Mr MacNeil
Will the hon. Lady clarify whether she is saying that she would welcome the First Minister coming to Downing street to talk about welfare reform and pensions?
Ann McKechin
If the First Minister had anything sensible to say, I would, but as yet, I have not heard it. It is a bit like the corporation tax issue—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) needs to calm himself and not get over-excited. The Scottish Government have had many weeks to produce detailed analysis. They have complained that things have been rushed and that we have not had figures from the UK Government on a variety of issues throughout the passage of this Bill, yet they cannot produce the detailed evidence and analysis that would allow people in Scotland to judge whether their calls have validity.
The hon. Member for Dundee East was given five opportunities this evening to explain what the impact would be on Scottish public expenditure if there was a cut in corporation tax. He said in Committee:
“I would like it cut over a number of years”.—[Official Report, 14 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 70.]
Members may be interested to hear that that has not always been the Scottish National party’s policy on corporation tax. In 1988, a certain Alex Salmond was suspended as an MP from the House of Commons for attacking the Tory Government’s reduction in corporation tax.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the history lesson. Is this what we are going to get from the Labour party for the next few years? I want to encourage her, because the negativity and can’t-do attitude that has permeated the Labour party is partly responsible for the overwhelming defeat that it suffered at the Scottish elections. Please carry on.
Ann McKechin
If that is the level of intellectual debate that we can anticipate from the Scottish Government and their colleagues at Westminster over the next five years, I think Scotland will be in a pretty poor state. Of course, we now have a hierarchy in the Scottish Government depending on whether one is a good Scot or a bad Scot. That is a level of debate that extends even up to judges in the Supreme Court.
If corporation tax was cut in Scotland, public spending would have to be cut in line with it, as we have heard today. The hon. Member for Dundee East suggested that the Scottish Government would take the power, but apply the same rate. That suggests that the power would not provide any benefit or disbenefit, except that they would have to administer the tax at a cost. At some point in the future, they would then apply the tax.
There are questions to which people in Scotland want answers. By how much would the Scottish Government cut corporation tax? The hon. Gentleman spent 42 minutes talking this evening and did not confirm that figure once. What would be the time scale for the cut in corporation tax? Would it be done over two years, three years or four years? We do not know. That is despite the fact that the Treasury, in its evidence to the Scotland Bill Committee in Holyrood in March, stated:
“A 10% cut in corporation tax in Scotland might cost about £600 million per year for an indeterminate period.”
That is understandable given the maturity of the Scottish economy and, as the Exchequer Secretary mentioned tonight, the many large plcs that already have their registered offices in Scotland. Even Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Peter Robinson, believes that Northern Ireland is a special case and has warned Alex Salmond that Scotland could lose up to £1.5 billion if it follows through the bid to set its own corporation tax. Anyone would need answers to the questions I have asked if they are to decide that that is a good idea.
The SNP is reluctant to say whether it thinks Scotland should be a high-tax nation or a low-tax nation. Does it believe in high-quality, good value public services, or does it want a lower public expenditure base, which would mean fewer nurses, doctors and police? There are consequences to that. Does it want an increase in income tax? [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar chunters about scaremongering, but he has failed to answer any of those questions. He should feel free to educate us about the detail of the SNP proposals.
Fiona O'Donnell
May I issue a word of caution to my hon. Friend about encouraging SNP Members to talk for any longer? The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said in his opening remarks that he could talk for days and days about the Bill. Is that not exactly the problem? Every hour the SNP spend talking about these ideas in the House is an hour when we are not talking about the issues that the Scottish people really need us to address.
Ann McKechin
I can understand my hon. Friend’s frustration. It is disappointing that the SNP has not taken the opportunity this evening to provide an explanation and analysis of why they think the change would be helpful.
Ann McKechin
I would like to continue this point.
Does the SNP believe that a further tax cut for banks, which pay the majority of corporation tax in Scotland, is a progressive policy? Does it believe that there should be a shift from corporation tax to personal income taxation, as has been the case in Switzerland, for example?
Ann McKechin
Actually, there has been very little increase in growth in Switzerland. There is no direct correlation, and the evidence is weak.
As I have said previously, and as a report that came out this week clearly indicated, many different levers of economic growth are already in the hands of the Scottish Government, but they have either chosen not to use them at all, or when they have chosen to use them it has had a detrimental effect as well as sometimes having advantages.
Ann McKechin
The Scottish Government have to make those choices, and like my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), I would like to get on with the businesses of discussing how they are going to use their powers, what they intend to do with them and how they will benefit people. Instead, the SNP has obsessed over process for an indeterminate period. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) has to resume her seat when it is clear that the person who holds the floor, in this case Ann McKechin, is not giving way.
This is not a game, it is a debate, and it would be good if all Members in the Chamber behaved in a respectful way. The heckling is getting a little out of hand, and I am sure some Members would not like me to point out who is doing it at the moment. Perhaps we can return to the debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker
That is not within my gift, Mr Field, but let me say that I sincerely hope so.
Ann McKechin
I certainly hope that my right hon. Friend will have the time to do so, and I hope to conclude my remarks fairly shortly, but I wish to move on to the amendments on excise duty.
The issues relating to excise duty constitute a relatively new demand since the completion of proceedings in Committee. They were not part of the discussions of the first legislative consent memorandum Committee, but will doubtless be discussed in detail by the second LCM Committee. I would welcome further analysis of the proposal’s methodology.
Stewart Hosie
Notwithstanding the hon. Lady’s questions, do I take it from her answers that she sees some potential to remove the obstacle that Labour in Scotland found to minimum pricing? The Labour party’s argument was that an increase in only the retail price went straight to the UK Exchequer and did not benefit the economy generally or the Government in tackling some of the consequences of drinking cheap alcohol.
Ann McKechin
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the serious problem of alcohol consumption in Scotland. As the Labour group in Holyrood pointed out, simply raising the price and allowing supermarkets to retain the surplus—I think that that was the Scottish Government’s first plan—was neither popular nor logical.
However, it is important to note that excise duty is now subject to an escalator above inflation. The Labour Government introduced it before the general election so that excise duty increases above inflation. Although, following the recession, as might have been anticipated, consumption in England dropped, that has not happened in Scotland to the same extent. There is a significant difference between consumption in Scotland and average consumption in England, despite the identical price and range of products.
Price sensitivity does not seem to apply in Scotland to the same extent as it does in England. That suggests that cultural and social issues are predominantly behind the problem. I do not derive any satisfaction from that. It would be much easier if we could say that a simple price escalation would lead to a reduction in consumption. However, the evidence to date has not shown that that would happen. Indeed, the medical evidence shows that the unit cost would have to be considerably higher than that in the Scottish Government’s proposals to make any impact. Obviously, that would have an effect on the drinks industry, particularly given that much of it is located in Scotland.
The subject is serious. The Scottish Government already have a range of levers at their disposal. The one for excise duty is exceptionally complex and I do not think that the argument for it has been made. Certainly, more needs to be done, but it needs to be based on hard evidence. We also need to realise that some of the things that we would like to do and that we think could work might not be sufficiently strong to make an impact. We might have to reconsider our proposals.
I appreciate that the Scottish Government have begun re-examining the issue because I think that they recognise that providing money to supermarkets was not the way forward. However, the issue is much wider and requires several different measures. The power to ban drink discounting, which the Labour group supported, is already on the statute book in Holyrood. That has still to go ahead. I therefore hope that the Scottish Government will enforce the legislation that they already have on the statute book.
Mr MacNeil
First, I observe that on the minimum price of alcohol, the SNP minority Government were supported by a range of professional opinion. However, is not the hon. Lady’s point on the differences between alcohol consumption north and south of the border an argument for pricing within cultures, as opposed to uniform, blanket, one-size-fits-all pricing?
Ann McKechin
The hon. Gentleman must recognise that the cost of alcohol has increased by slightly more than inflation over the past 20 or 30 years, when, of course, the increase in incomes has been much greater. The Government’s ability to control that gap is limited.
The other problem is that the total price of alcohol is, to a large extent, made up of different forms of tax. When we increase taxation to more than a certain level, we find that there is an increase in black market sales, as we found when we increased taxation on cigarettes. I do not discount the fact that price can have a bearing on consumption, but the evidence to date in Scotland presents us with a much more complex problem, much of which is about cultural and social values. They are the only things that can explain the difference in consumption north and south of the border. The regimes of alcohol selling are more or less the same, but there is increased drinking at home rather than in public houses. The problem is complex, and a range of measures must be put in place to deal with it. My Labour colleagues certainly want to make changes that will make an impact, and they are prepared to have a serious debate.
Stewart Hosie
Finally on that point, and for the sake of completeness, I am sure the shadow Secretary of State would want to confirm that all 17 of Scotland’s public health directors supported minimum pricing, as did the four UK chief medical officers, the British Medical Association, the royal colleges, the Association of Chief Police Officers and many others, including Tennent’s, Molson Coors and Tesco. They saw minimum pricing as an important part of the solution to the problems in Scotland.
Ann McKechin
The supermarkets might well have supported minimum pricing because they would receive a good degree of financial benefit from it. However, some medical experts said that on the evidence, the price per unit would have to be a great deal higher than that proposed by the Scottish Government to have an impact. As I said, although the increase in the excise duty escalator, which the UK Labour Government introduced, has had an impact south of the border in reducing consumption, it has not had the same impact in Scotland. Price sensitivity seems to be different north and south of the border, and there are different patterns of consumption. The focus must be on cultural and social values as much as on simple economic values.
On that basis, there are considerable complexities in any such proposals. The Government’s proposals would have an adverse impact on the drinks industry, which has a substantial bearing on the Scottish economy, but the argument for them has not been made.
Mr Frank Field
I rise to move new clause 8 and the consequential amendment 23, which stand in my name and the names of my hon. Friends.
Ann McKechin
As we made clear on Second Reading and in Committee, Labour welcomes the Scotland Bill because we believe that it will enhance the devolution settlement. As the Secretary of State mentioned, the Bill was the consequence of a lengthy, evidence-based, serious consultative process that sought cross-party consensus from the very beginning. It reflects many of the recommendations made by the Calman commission, which was established by the then Labour Government following the direct call from the Scottish Parliament for such a group to be set up. Important issues of constitutional change should not be marked by megaphone diplomacy and a never-ending series of demands. Constitutional change must always be based on hard evidence, consensus and consultation, and it should be clearly shown how it will improve the devolution settlement. It is not, for us, a marker on the route to separation.
Labour’s position is that it is not in Scotland’s best interests for the Scottish Government to play constitutional games and demand powers. It is time to start using those they already have, and to knuckle down to the hard task of getting the Scottish economy back on track, lowering record unemployment and generally making Scotland better. Although it is all too easy in the political game to focus on process rather than on policy, the important parts of the Bill are, first, to improve legitimacy and accountability to the Scottish electorate, and, secondly, to use these powers, along with the extensive range of powers granted in the Scotland Act 1998, for Scotland’s benefit.
I would like to spend a little time discussing the Supreme Court new clauses, which unfortunately we did not have time to discuss this evening, and which were not available in Committee. We welcome the fact that the Government did, as we requested, table the new clauses before the Commons stages were completed, and obviously we will want to discuss them in more detail when they reach the House of Lords, but I would like to put on the record what principles should be followed in referring cases to the Supreme Court. Labour fully agrees that the UK Supreme Court should retain a role in determining human rights and European law issues. The UK Supreme Court enables Scots to access justice without the expense and delay of having to go to Strasbourg, and without having to wait for years to have their cases heard. We believe that no one living in Scotland should have less access to the enforcement of their human rights than any other citizen living elsewhere in the UK.
Why would the Scottish Government want to make it more difficult for individuals in Scotland to access justice? Let us recall that it was a famous Scottish case to the Strasbourg Court in the 1980s that brought about the abolition of the belt in schools across the UK when the Court found in favour of two Scottish mothers, Grace Campbell and Jane Cosans. In those days, before the Human Rights Act 1998, cases took years to be heard, and in the meantime tens of thousands of children in Scotland and across the UK were belted right around the place in schools. The Human Rights Act is not about protecting bad people or about an easy escape route from jail; it is about protecting everyone from prejudice and harm.
Pete Wishart
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her history lesson, but she will know, as the Secretary of State does, that the amendments concerning the Supreme Court are totally unacceptable to the Scottish Government, and will be unacceptable to the Scottish Parliament too. May I suggest to her and the Secretary of State that the expert group under Lord McCluskey should be allowed to do its work before anything further is done regarding the Supreme Court in this House?
Ann McKechin
What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are aware that the McCluskey review is ongoing, and we will wish to consider its conclusions carefully when it reports. We will return to further analysis of the report in the Lords, which I hope will be available by the time this Bill reaches the other place.
We cannot continue this evening without mentioning the extraordinary attack that the First Minister and his Secretary for Justice made on both the Supreme Court and individual Scottish judges who sit in it, when they stated that the UK courts should have no jurisdiction in Scottish criminal cases. Let us be clear: no one is attacking the right for Scotland to retain its unique criminal legal system—I declare an interest, as a non-practising member of the Law Society of Scotland. However, on the other hand, those attacks smack of a political establishment that is too ready to attack anyone who dares to contradict its mantra, rather than one that is prepared robustly to tackle institutional complacency. It is entirely demeaning to Scotland’s international reputation when Scotland’s leading politician uses the language of the playground bully when describing the key relationship between the Executive and the judiciary. Mr MacAskill has referred to the UK Supreme Court as an “ambulance-chasing court”, despite it hearing on average only one Scottish case a year since devolution, and he has ignored the fact—or perhaps he was totally ignorant of it—that his own Scottish Crown Office is making referrals to the very same court.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the furore about the Supreme Court over the past few weeks smacks of opportunism, when what she describes has been the situation since the Scotland Act 1998 was passed by this House more than 12 years ago?
Ann McKechin
My right hon. Friend is right to say that this row has emerged from absolutely nowhere, and has arisen simply for the sake of political expediency.
Mr MacAskill—that well-known expert on making sound judgements—also claimed that Supreme Court judges picked up their knowledge of Scots law during visits to the Edinburgh festival, and threatened to withdraw funding. He can now add to his list of achievements that he is the first Minister in any part of the UK who has threatened to close a court by stopping its cheques. Perhaps after such a long-maintained silence over the last two years, the pressure on him was too much to bear.
Sir Menzies Campbell
Of the two cases that have proved so controversial, the first dealt with the protection of a person once charged and taken into custody by the police. The second dealt with whether there is a continuing obligation on the prosecution to make available all evidence to the defence, including evidence that might have the effect of exculpating someone who has been accused. Are those two principles not right at the very heart of the Scottish legal system, to which the hon. Lady has just referred?
Ann McKechin
The right hon. and learned Gentleman speaks with considerable expertise on legal issues. I do not want to discuss the individual cases, but he is absolutely right that they involved important points of principle that everyone who is concerned about the integrity of Scottish law should take seriously into account.
Mr Salmond has attempted to climb down from the remarks that he made in a Holyrood Magazine interview, but has refused to apologise. “Better late than never” should be the new mantra, but the First Minister does not have a reverse gear. Instead, this whole sorry incident has typified a controlling approach that his spin doctors have tried hard to hide. In his view, there is a hierarchy in our national debate between those who are deemed “good Scots” and those classified as “bad Scots”, and anyone who speaks directly against his view will always be in the latter category, even if they are one of our country’s most eminent legal minds.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
I would never claim to be one of our country’s eminent legal minds, but, like the hon. Lady, I am a non-practising member of the Law Society of Scotland. I commend her for her defence of Scots law against the current actions of the Scottish Parliament.
Ann McKechin
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, a fellow lawyer. I do not want to turn this into a lawyers’ conference, however, lest anyone should suspect that we have vested interests. More seriously, this is about the tone of the debate and about the relationship between the Executive and the judiciary, which forms the foundation of our democracy.
I noted in this week’s Sunday Herald that some of the First Minister’s own Ministers and MSPs apparently refer to him in private as the “Dear Leader”. References to any similarity with North Korea might seem comical, but this display fits in better with a paranoid one-party state than with a modern, progressive, advanced 21st-century democracy. I certainly do not believe that everyone who supports the SNP or wishes for independence follows that creed—Jim Sillars is a good example of someone who believes in independence but also believes in listening to other people’s arguments—but it certainly has a home within the SNP “cybernat” sphere.
Mr Cash
Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the real problem is that this dispute is not so much about the Supreme Court as about the application of the Human Rights Act 1998 to the Supreme Court? For practical purposes, the Scots are entitled to their criminal law, and that has been the case since the inception of the Union.
Ann McKechin
The hon. Gentleman has very particular views about European human rights legislation, but I support it 100%. I believe that the Human Rights Act enhances our legal system, and it is important that people in Scotland should receive the same level of protection as everyone else. The Act is a UK-wide piece of legislation, and it is important that judgments should be made consistently. Accordingly, it is right that there should be one ultimate Court of Appeal that makes important decisions on key points of principle. The Cadder decision, which the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) mentioned, was one such decision. It is important to have consistency of judgment, which is one of the parts of our judicial process.
Like most people in Scotland, my domicile arises from birth and not from choice, but I believe that I am exceptionally fortunate to have been born in Scotland at this time in history and I am proud to be a Scot. However, I totally renounce any attempt to mould the politics and culture of the country that I love into one that is marked by a constant placing of the “good Scot versus bad Scot” concept into the dialogue of our public life. That is both dangerous and destructive, and represents a threat to genuine debate. The tactics of the playground bully should form no part of a modern, open Scotland.
Scotland’s legal systems, like any other area of our public life, need to be open to ideas from the outside, and not just from its own legislature. In fact, many of our oldest precepts and concepts are borrowed from a wide combination of other European systems—French, Dutch and Roman as well as English. We have also learned from cases that have occurred in England. It was because we are part of the United Kingdom that one of the most famous cases of tort and delict in civil law, Donoghue v. Stevenson, which took place in my own home town of Paisley, spread across the world. When we genuinely look outwards, we perform at our best; when we revert to inward, defensive complacency, we let our nation down.
This has been an important debate on the future that we see for Scotland. As the Secretary of State has said, the debate will continue over the weeks and months to come, but I want to ensure that it takes place in the context of the hard, reasoned evidence that the Scots demand of us, and that it can be clearly shown to be for their benefit.