Scotland Bill

Debate between Earl of Kinnoull and Lord Thomas of Gresford

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I feel obliged to intervene for Wales for a moment, because there is a very solid Welsh dimension in this. I also feel that I can do so because I was married for 39 years to a lass from West Lothian and I have always known the answer to the question—which is, “Yes, of course, dear”. The point that really concerns me is that a deal is being done in secret in Scotland, involving the fiscal framework, which will have implications in Wales. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, the Welsh deal on the Barnett formula is rubbish. Every political party in Wales recognises that. The Welsh Labour Government refuse to exercise their tax-raising powers until that formula, or some formula, is revised. I fear that this secret formula or framework that is being arrived at in Scotland will be used as a precedent in Wales when we come to deal with tax-raising powers under the draft Wales Bill, and that we will be stuck with the same sort of system, arrangements and mechanisms as there are in Scotland—but it will be entirely different.

Therefore, I urge Ministers, as my noble friends have done, to allow transparency, so that we may actually have some input. Many speakers in this debate have said that it is unfair on other parts of the United Kingdom. Certainly, it may very well be unfair on Wales: the impact of this fiscal framework in Scotland could devastate Welsh funding for the future. I hope that your Lordships will excuse me for putting in a Welsh voice.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 76 and 79G. Like many other noble Lords, I have found much that is attractive in many amendments in this debate, but I am confining my remarks to those two. I note that all the amendments and speeches have been wholly consistent with the Smith commission report.

I support Amendment 76 totally, of course, but I fear that it is something that is needed more than once; in fact, I would repeat it every five years. I see it as part of what, in commercial terms, one would call a feedback loop, which I think one needs to set up for every single devolved Administration. It could be well-structured and formal and allow for a frank examination of every aspect of devolution between Westminster and those devolved Administrations. If we do not set up a feedback loop now, as sure as eggs are eggs, when things go wrong we will set one up in the future. I feel strongly, and I think this will come back in further debates, that a feedback loop is required.

Secondly, I was much attracted by the thinking behind Amendment 79G. However, I would not in fact set up a Scottish fiscal commission; rather, I would expand the OBR to include this. As we expand the number of devolved deals, the problem is that we could potentially end up with a massive number of these commissions, all of which would essentially be umpires and all of which, one assumes, would umpire according to slightly different rules. There would be a great advantage to having one umpire in the UK—it has been pleasing to read today in the press how the OBR has resisted political interference in the recent past—which used one set of rules to examine figures and to report generally to the United Kingdom.