Scotland Bill

Debate between Jack Dromey and Dominic Grieve

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

Let me give an example of what really matters on the living wage. In Birmingham, it affected not just the directly employed but the schools, and then all the contractors. Now, all future care contracts will be based on the living wage. Forgive me, but I say with the greatest of respect to the SNP Members in the Committee today that I have fought a fair few battles in Scotland for workers over the years—I suspect a few more battles than have been fought by Members of the SNP—and nothing will ever persuade me against the notion that the unity and solidarity of workers north and south of the border and of the nations of the United Kingdom is in the best interests of winning for workers.

[Mr Grieve]

I had not intended to speak in the debate, but the rather pejorative comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) in which he described my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) as representing Downton Abbey prompted me to do so. My hon. Friend might at times appear to have a rather archaic way of approaching some of these issues, but in practice his analysis of the devolution of the Crown Estate that is proposed in the Bill is correct.

The Crown Estate is indivisible, because it is the Crown Estate of the United Kingdom. There is absolutely no reason why the revenue from it should not be allocated in different ways, including to the Scottish Government—I have no difficulty whatever with that proposal—but an issue arises in relation to the duty of this House to fulfil what is both a statutory and, in a sense, a fiduciary duty to ensure that the estate is properly managed and to hold to account the Ministers and, ultimately, the Commissioners who are responsible for that. The point has been made that the provisions in the Bill do not allow for the estate’s alienation, but that does not mean that it could not be so mishandled in the course of its management that its value did not diminish substantially. I assume that, as a result of the Bill and of Sewel motions, this House would no longer be in a position to scrutinise how that management was taking place if that were to happen.

The Crown is a reserved matter, and the running of the Crown Estate is intimately concerned with the affairs of the Crown, so this proposal is a constitutional novelty that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset was quite right to highlight. I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us more about the issues relating to alienation, about the management of the Crown Estate and about the extent to which this House—which is ultimately supposed to maintain the dignity of the Crown—will have a role hereafter in respect of those parts of the Crown Estate that are being managed elsewhere.