Devolution (Scotland Referendum)

Graham Allen Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I will make just one more point.

The Prime Minister has asked me to chair a Cabinet Committee to look at the devolution of powers across the United Kingdom. There will be every opportunity for decisions on the future rights of England and devolution to Wales and Northern Ireland to be made on a cross-party basis, unless, that is, any party chooses not to participate in the discussions. That is a point to which I will return.

The hon. Member for Moray made the point about 1.6 million people. We should pay tribute to all those who voted in the referendum. He might not want to remember so easily that more than 2 million people voted for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom. They voted for a stronger Scottish Parliament, backed by the strength and security that comes from being part of the United Kingdom. Before the referendum, the three pro-Union parties of the United Kingdom made clear commitments to devolve further powers to Scotland on a clear timetable that was put forward by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who is in his place. That was supported by the three party leaders.

Yesterday, the Government published the Command Paper on Scotland ahead of schedule. It sets out the published proposals of the three UK political parties on further devolution in Scotland. Lord Smith will oversee a process that takes forward those commitments. He has already begun his work and has written to the groups that were formed during the referendum campaign, inviting them to give their views on further devolution. I welcome the fact that, for the first time, all the major parties are involved in shaping devolution for Scotland, with the Scottish National party and the Green party tabling their proposals too. Lord Smith will talk simultaneously to the political parties, civic institutions and the public, with a view to reaching the heads of agreement by 30 November. As the House heard again yesterday, draft clauses will be published by the end of January, so that the legislation is ready to be implemented after the next general election.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will know that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which I have the honour of chairing, has produced extensive work on a written constitution, devolution to English local government and the need for a constitutional convention. Will he ensure that Parliament is represented on and has input into his Cabinet Sub-Committee, which will discuss those much bigger and much more important issues than the one on which, I suspect, many Members will focus, which is English votes for English laws?

[Mr Hague]

Absolutely, I will. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and the Procedure Committee need to be fully involved in the process. It is certainly our intention that they will be. I will make arrangements for that to happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Moore]

I shall come back to the issue of English votes for English laws in a moment.

I believe that there is a lot of support across Scotland for a modern Scotland within a reformed United Kingdom, and it is important that we should be serious about that reformed United Kingdom as well. Let us look at the inner workings of the United Kingdom, and particularly at the civil service. I am proud to have worked with some immensely talented people in the Scotland Office, the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and elsewhere. I saw for myself what could be achieved when people put their minds to working together in common cause. I saw the limitations as well, however. I saw the hollowing out of the United Kingdom Government’s presence and capacity in Scotland and, at times, a lack of understanding and sclerotic responses.

I plead for forgiveness for previously arguing for the abolition of the Scotland Office. I confess that I did that when I believed that the rest of the United Kingdom Government had a strong presence north of the border. Three and a half years in the Scotland Office disabused me of that notion. However, the resources, the policy-making capability and the stakeholder engagement in Scotland improved substantially in response to the referendum campaign. We must seize the moment and ensure that there is a step-change in Scotland on the back of that. We must not go back to the old days.

We must also look afresh at how we resolve disputes within the United Kingdom. We need greater openness and engagement in the joint ministerial Committees, and quicker resolution of disputes before they are elevated to constitutional crisis level. All of that is about more openness and a greater understanding of what is done in people’s names across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Allen]

May I take the right hon. Gentleman back to his remark about greater independence for local government in Scotland? One thing I hear is that in Scotland there has been great over-centralisation at the Scottish Executive level. Will he underline that in any written settlement that comes forward for Scotland—and, hopefully, in time in the UK—it will be very clear that there is double devolution? By that I mean devolution that goes not only to the Scottish Parliament, but down to a lower level. That is equally applicable in the United Kingdom. One falsehood of English votes for English MPs, because there is a lower level—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Interventions are supposed to be brief. The hon. Gentleman is waiting to speak and I am sure he will be able to expand on his point. May I say to the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) that he does not have a time limit, as the Speaker ruled, but he has been speaking for 15 minutes and a time limit will apply after the fourth speaker opening the debate. Although he has been generous in taking interventions, may I therefore ask him rapidly to draw his conclusions in his remarks so that we can move on to the next speaker?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to address the federal Parliament today. Like many colleagues, I want to start by congratulating the Scottish people as a whole—whether they voted yes or no—for the way in which they gave many of us an exciting and euphoric democratic experience. I suspect that those who were out there on the day will not share that view, but as someone who was external to the process for most of the time, I think it was a great tribute to the concept of democracy.

It would be a great shame if we let that go and did not surf the wave of democratic feeling unleashed by the referendum but lapsed back into good old Westminster intrigue and internal politics. That is why the referendum had the legs that it had—people had thought that all we were concerned about were things such as who sat next to whom on these Benches and whether they were able to vote or not. We have been given the most fantastic opportunity, with the Scottish people leading the way, to improve our democracy.

As an English Member of Parliament, I congratulate Scotland on the way in which it managed, perhaps hairily, to get what will be an incredibly strong devolution package. All I would say to this House is that what is good enough for Scotland is good enough for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We should treat this as a launch pad for devolution for the whole of the United Kingdom. That is the key lesson for us. I am afraid that none of our party leaders covered themselves in glory the day after the referendum result was announced. They did not take that lesson to the extreme and address the journey we could all begin to take so that everybody else can do as well as Scotland has done.

All I am asking is that Britain be allowed to join the family of western democracies, with a devolved settlement and a constitution that guarantees, as has been said, what happens with local government. It is good to give local government some authority and a package of proposals, but the experience of Scotland has shown how a Government can suck powers from the localities if they are not entrenched and guaranteed in writing—not just in law, but in a constitution.

[Graham Stringer]

My hon. Friend is making some profound points. In 2010, public expenditure in Greater Manchester was £23 billion, and in 2014 the figure was exactly the same. There have been huge cuts in public services, local government and elsewhere over that period. Does that not show that the centralised model does not work, and that if people in Greater Manchester had been in control of that money, we would have had a better outcome?

[Mr Allen]

I strongly support my hon. Friend’s record of achievement in pressing the case for Manchester and many other places that need that liberation. Our country’s localities, regions and nations can do far better than simply rely on the man in Whitehall telling us what to do. My only caveat to my hon. Friend’s comments is that we all have to get this. It is not just a matter of having a great campaigning council or a strong council with the right connections; everybody, including, as has been said, the counties, non-core cities, parishes and rural areas, has to benefit from that liberation, and I think that is what a written settlement will be able to do.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the powerful speech he is giving. Does he agree that it is also vital that we focus not just on the delegation of powers but on collaboration among the cities and the counties, to bring about economic benefit for all involved?

[Mr Allen]

The independence of local government to do things appropriate to its level will actually encourage interdependence, interrelationships, treaty making, sharing and co-operation in a way in which we are all currently constrained from doing, because all we can do at the moment is implement the stuff that comes down the pipe from Whitehall. That will be liberating with regard to relationship-building, and it will give local government the sensitivity to engage with local people and spend money more accurately locally.

I have been worried that the vision needed to get on this road has been lacking. I think that has happened in Scotland to a degree over the years. I think Donald Dewar led at such rocket speed that perhaps it has been difficult to keep up the pace of that engagement with people. That has certainly been the case at the UK level: our respective Front Benchers seem shy of engaging with the British people on the subject of democratic change. Above all, not engaging with people in England on how they can run their own affairs more effectively has led to the ghost of UKIP appearing at the feast to fill the vacuum. All of us, regardless of party, have a role to play in bringing such things back to the English people, as well as to the Scottish people and the rest of the people of the Union.

We have had high levels of complacency and short-termism, and we are now being paid back for that. We must not forget that that led us to the brink of failure: however excited the people in the no campaign are now, we came within an ace of destroying the Union. Going back to business as usual is not the way forward. We must ensure that the whole range of democratic measures are considered in any settlement, rather than just English votes for English laws. In saying that, I am criticising those on both Front Benches.

It is close to arrogance to assume that devolution in England means just talking to English MPs. That is where we previously went wrong. It is why people do not like us and think that we are corrupt, to a degree, in wanting to move the deckchairs around on the Westminster Titanic, rather than reaching out to them with double devolution—not just in relation to us as English MPs, but as people who run local authorities, which should be vested with much more authority than they currently are. We need to be very careful to avoid such arrogance.

There is lots of stuff that people can use to make this work. The Leader of the Opposition said that he did not want to do anything on the back of a fag packet, so I have brought a few fag packets along from my Select Committee—they are on the Table—showing how we can build a written constitution, have a constitutional convention, and have independent local government in England as the vehicle for devolution. A lot of smoking went on in my Select Committee to produce them.

Lots of parliamentary colleagues have made individual contributions, as have several think-tanks on the left and the right, and many local authority leaders of all parties, from Boris Johnson to Sir Richard Leese, and including George Ferguson. Loads of people have engaged with this subject—for example, Jim O’Neill’s recent Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce project on cities—and a lot of thinking has been done. The idea that we cannot now decide on a package to put to the people of this country ahead of a general election therefore beggars belief. History will not forgive any of us if we do not take this chance on the back of what the Scottish people have led us towards.

If we look at what all the parties are proposing on the package before us, I must say, as a former trade union negotiator, that with such a package from three different parties, we could make it work and reach agreement. There is more room for agreement than for disagreement. We or, rather, Lord Smith can make a great package to offer Scotland on income tax assignment—putting on every wage slip the amount of money that goes to Scotland or, in our case, to English local authorities—and on the entrenchment of local government powers, which has also been agreed, as well as having a written constitution so that things are in writing and cannot be repealed by somebody else at a later point and so that we all know the rules of the game. That is the package and the common ground—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.