Scotland Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lyell]

My Lords, I declare an interest as honorary patron of another Titan of the Scottish football game, which I call “Athletico Forfar”—Forfar Athletic. I get a trifle worried when I hear outpourings in the media in Scotland along the lines that something must be done to help Rangers Football Club. A great football club it may be, but I wonder how it got into that condition. The answer to that can wait, but perhaps my noble friend could write to me with an answer to the following question. Why in the winding up of a football club such as this—perhaps under Scottish insolvency law; I am not sure—is Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs not a preferred creditor? South of the border, HMRC is an ordinary creditor. However, I had understood that north of the border HMRC was a preferred creditor and would therefore get the first bite in relation to the sums owing. If my noble friend could write to me on that at some stage, I should be most grateful. I thank him for his patience.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, for all the reasons that I set out in my first contribution to this Committee when it convened some time ago to consider the Bill, I want to see this Bill passed. Consequently, I support the devolution of the tax powers to the Scottish Parliament and I want to see Clause 29 stand part of the Bill because, without that mechanism, the amendments relating to the commissioners for Revenue and Customs will not be able to work. I do not intend to delay the Committee with any debate or argument about what I think is genuinely a technical part of the Bill in terms of the mechanism for the implementation of its provisions.

My second point is by way of a bit of advice to the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, whom I welcomed to the Committee earlier. He had an interesting baptism in the Committee. I am sure that he enjoyed the hour that he was at the Dispatch Box engaging, as he did, with my noble and learned friends and noble Lords around the Chamber. If he thought that that had a distinct quality about it, then he ain’t seen nothing yet if he succumbs to the invitation to engage in a discussion about the position of Scottish football clubs. We have already had a reference to behaviour on the internet with cyberattacks and so on, but the nature of the comments that will be unleashed on the internet if he is unwise enough to be attracted into debate and discussion about the health or welfare of any Scottish football club will be worse than he has ever seen.

[Lord Maxton]

Does my noble friend agree that perhaps that is why Mr Alex Salmond has decided that he is switching his loyalties to rugby?

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

Taking my own advice, I am utterly reluctant to express any opinion that is even marginally related to any football club in Scotland. Most people in Scotland know where my allegiances lie, and engaging in this debate would make it even worse for me. I apologise to my noble friend Lord Foulkes, who has been engaged in Scottish football. His support for Heart of Midlothian Football Club is well known and he has made an important contribution to Scottish football over the years. However, I think that he probably has more scars on his back from that time than he has from any political confrontations in Scotland. I just give the Minister a bit of gratuitous advice: he would be wise to take these matters away and perhaps write some very carefully worded letters to my noble friend and his noble friend if he thinks that these questions need answering.

I want to raise a point that I mentioned in my contribution to the debate on the previous group of amendments. I do this by reference to my contribution to the Second Reading of this Bill, which took place on 6 September 2011. During my contribution to that debate, I asked about the progress of the high-level implementation group and the joint Exchequer committee, which are complementary elements. The joint Exchequer committee, led by Ministers, and the high-level group of civil servants—from both the Civil Service that supports the Scottish Executive and the UK Civil Service—are to work out the process and deal with the challenges and issues in preparation for the implementation of the provisions that we have been debating when this Bill becomes an Act, as I hope it will.

I raise this because I have a suspicion—and I put it no higher than that as I share my motivation with the Committee—that perhaps from the Scotland side of this process of engagement there is less willingness to engage, and less capacity to engage, in the preparation for these issues than we will need if we are to meet the expectations that we all share that these devolved powers will be available to be used for the benefit of the Scottish people, broadly by about 2015. I do not expect the Minister to make any comments at the Dispatch Box about willingness, but I would be able to deduce from the detail of his answers whether there has been that willingness.

I raise this issue for one very good reason. There is an impression in Scotland that the Scottish Government are anxious to get their hands on these additional powers. In fact, they want more. It is not sufficient to say to the Scottish people that you want these powers; you have to explain to them what you are going to do with them when you get them and you have to convince the Scottish people that you are preparing yourself for these powers and for the use of them. I went on at some length at the beginning of this Committee about what I thought was happening in Scotland, and there was convincing evidence that the Scottish Government were falling down in all of those respects.

Therefore, can the Minister tell the Committee not just how many times the high-level implementation group has met but what progress is actually being made? Even if it has to be described generically, I will be satisfied by that, but I will keep pressing as long as this Bill is before this House to get more detail. What progress is being made to prepare the structure in Scotland to receive these powers or any powers that relate to the raising of taxation?

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

I apologise to the Committee that I was not present through the earlier parts of the discussion of Clause 29, but my noble friend is making one of the most critical and crucial points in relation to these tax-raising powers. I would be interested if, when the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, replies to him, he could put some figures on to the costs of implementation. He will know well that one of the essential ingredients of analysing the effectiveness of any taxation is the cost of collection. In this case, it is not just the cost of collection that we need to know about; it is also the cost of disaggregation of HM Revenue and Customs and the cost to the overall UK taxpayer, not just the Scottish taxpayer. If the noble Lord does not have those figures available at the moment, I would be grateful if he could give them to us in due course.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My noble friend Lady Liddell—through me as a conduit—raises some very interesting questions for the noble Lord. I expect that, because of the nature of the amendments in further groups, we may get an opportunity to explore in more detail the issue of the cost of implementation of these provisions and of who should bear that cost. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s very pertinent question.

I have dealt with the high-level implementation group. I am interested not only in how often it meets but in what it does and in whether we are making genuine progress toward creating the infrastructure that will be necessary for Scotland to receive these powers. I have said before that almost all members of the Scottish Government voted in the Scottish Parliament for these tax-raising powers. Therefore, I expect them to be at least beginning the process of consultation with the people of Scotland on how they intend to use them. If they are to be ready to use them by about 2015, and if they are to give the people of Scotland a level of consultation that devolution has conditioned them to expect, they should be beginning to draft the documentation to put before the Scottish people that explains how they intend to use the powers.

It does not matter whether this is devo-plus or devo-max. Whatever powers the Scottish Government have in relation to tax, they should be getting ready to implement them. As I said earlier, there is an extraordinarily interesting debate and discussion to be had in Scotland about how stamp duty land tax could be used to help to inject energy into the economy in different parts of Scotland. I am not an expert in these areas, but I know from representing for many years a constituency in Scotland that using taxation revenue in a more localised way at least has the potential to generate economic activity. I would like this explored further. If the debate and discussion reveal that it cannot be used in this way, at least that would be a conclusion.

There are two aspects to this. First, there is the engagement between the UK and Scottish Governments and their respective civil servants on planning for this. Secondly, there is the question of fitness and preparation, and the condition that the Scottish Government are putting themselves in to exercise any devolved taxation powers. I see no evidence of any of this in Scotland.

I turn to the joint Exchequer committee, about which the noble Lord and I have already had an exchange. I asked about the committee at Second Reading and was told that it was anticipated that it would meet for the first time on 27 September. My earlier intervention implied that I thought that that was a bit late when one considered how long the process had been in gestation and how long the Bill spent in the other place and here—but I had to live with that. The committee met on 27 September. The noble Lord implied that when it met it made progress on some issues that were aired in the debate on the previous group of amendments, which dealt with some of the challenges that people had identified.

My information, which was provided very graciously by the Scotland Office, is that the committee met and there appeared to be some agreement on a set of principles on the block grant adjustment mechanism. Apparently, three principles were agreed that will apply to the mechanism for the adjustment. The first is fairness. It is not defined, but we all know what it means. The second is resilience in different fiscal circumstances. The third is the avoidance of unintended consequences, including the transfer of resources one way or another. It may be my fault, but the principles do not tell me very much about the nature of the agreement. They smack a little of motherhood and apple pie and do not seem to engage with some of the difficult and challenging issues that the devolution of tax powers to Scotland will inevitably generate, some of which we have already debated.

Certainly, if the committee is not to meet again for another six months, unless the high-level implementation group is drilling down into some of these difficult issues and starting to display a level of competence and ability in dealing with the infrastructure that is necessary for implementing this, these meetings of the joint Exchequer committee are not going to make very much progress. Before this House gives its approval to this Bill and it becomes an Act—I fervently hope that it will and I will do everything in my power to achieve that—I ask of the Minister that at least we spend some time getting some sense and some idea of whether Scotland, its Government and its Civil Service will be in any shape to actually use these powers if and when we pass them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maxton]

That is very much so and it was quite interesting, as I listened to the debate earlier on taxation, that the Scottish Government, led by Alex Salmond over the past—what is it now?—three or four years, have not allowed local authorities to increase their council tax. They have put a cap on it, so they have in fact restrained taxation at a local level. My noble friend is quite right. They have actually reduced the democratic rights and responsibilities of local government, whereas what ought to have been the next step was to say, “We have devolved power to a Scottish Parliament for democratic reasons. We now need to devolve further down, to give more democracy to our local communities and our people to take the decisions at their level that need to be taken at that level”. That to me is what devolution is about. It is not about independence; it is not actually about nationalism or nationality at all. In fact, nationalism has been the bugbear of devolution, not the natural progression of it. Therefore I support my noble friend's amendment, which would put “devolved” into this Bill.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate for the simple reason that I do not support the amendment and I feel that I am destroying my relationship with my noble friend Lord Forsyth bit by bit in a salami-slice fashion.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

Sorry, I meant my noble friend Lord Foulkes. Maybe I should start again.

The reason I do not support the amendment is not that it gives us an opportunity, as my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke has indicated, to celebrate devolution—I intend to do a bit of that myself—nor that it created the opportunity for what I thought was an excellent contribution from my noble friend Lord Maxton on the reasons for devolution and why we should support it in principle. But over the course of this Parliament, I have been surprised by the ability of people to make the most detailed and engaging speeches about the concept that has become known as localism while at the same time resisting devolution. I do not really understand how people can hold those two concepts together in their head, as localism is just a form of devolution. As my noble friend Lord Maxton has suggested, we ought to start looking at the powers that we as politicians in government of any description exercise over people. We should look at the appropriate level to exercise them that is relevant to people. Given the experience that the political classes have had in the United Kingdom over the past few years of the deterioration of their relationship with the people they govern and legislate for, getting their relationship with the people of the country back would be very helpful.

I am a passionate supporter of devolution. I do not have anything like the history that some of my noble friends and other Members of this House have, but I have been committed to it for the whole of the shorter political life that I have had, and I was committed to it in my membership of the Labour Party before I had a public life in politics. At some stage in this debate we need to move away from arguments about what other people are doing or personalities—I include the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, in this; he ought not to be the manifestation of a particular type of politics that we define ourselves against, any more than we should be obsessed by what other people are doing—to a collective narrative for devolution and for the union that describes the sort of United Kingdom that we want for the young people of today in Scotland and their future. That will be, as the people of Scotland demand, a Scotland in which there is significant devolved power, exercised by a Parliament that they elect independently of the United Kingdom Parliament.

We have to recognise that whether we have conditioned people into that expectation because of their dissatisfaction with the previous settlement and the sense of disfranchisement that there was between the people who governed them and the exercise of their votes, whether we have conditioned them into it by their expectations of devolution, or whether they have just been conditioned into it by their espousal in significant numbers of the concept of nationalism, it does not really matter what the motivation is—that is where the people of Scotland are. The sooner we get a collective narrative that describes the sort of Scotland that we want our children or our children’s children to live in, and what powers the people who govern them will have, how they will be able to use them and how they will be accountable, the more chance that we have of preserving the union. I passionately believe that the best way of describing that is in the context of the union.

I come to the issue of the use of the word “devolved”. The people of Scotland do not actually need that word attached to anything. They understand that their Parliament is a devolved Parliament and the Scottish Government are a devolved Government. Whether or not the people who happen to have charge of that Government or that executive power for a particular period have other ambitions and behave in a particular way, as they do, that is designed to give some alternative impression, the people of Scotland are not fooled. The people of Scotland want an Executive who address the issues that Scotland faces, which are manifest to anyone who lives there. We have problems in relation to unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, health, the abuse of alcohol, sectarianism and a lot of issues that have their roots in decisions made by previous generations, such as the movement of people, the death of economic drivers, changes in economic circumstances and the movement of jobs from these islands. There is a whole series of things, over many of which we have not had any real control.

Of course, the people of Scotland do not want a First Minister who is more interested in consorting with people who give the impression that he is somehow much more important than he is. They do not want that and they see through it. We do not need to spend much time describing all that. However, they definitely want politicians who can address the issues and challenges of their everyday lives. They want people to explain to them why these issues are best addressed in the context of the United Kingdom, wider Europe and the world. They understand that.

Traditionally, Scots knew and understood their position in the world. That is why, while there are approximately 5 million people in Scotland who claim to be Scots, there are in excess of 40 million people around the world who claim Scots heritage in one way or another. We are a nation of people who have an understanding and concept of our place in the world. I honestly do not think that we need to spend any more time in this Committee or on the Bill debating these issues. We need to start describing the future of Scotland in the context of devolution and celebrate what we have already achieved by being a template for genuine localism in the United Kingdom.

It has not been perfect. We have a very young Parliament in which people are growing up. Members of the Scottish Parliament who were not politicians at all when we devolved powers to it are becoming significant politicians in the United Kingdom. I simply do not support my noble friend’s interesting amendment, which has led to a short but interesting debate, because the last thing that the people of Scotland need is for their politicians to spend another few hundred thousand pounds on changing the name of their Government.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, can I perhaps be somewhat boring and brief at this time of night by focusing on the amendment? It would insert the word “Devolved” into Clause 30, Clause 37 and Schedule 4, where the reference would become to the devolved Scottish Government. Clause 15 changes the formal name to the Scottish Government from the Scottish Executive. It was felt that the Executive were increasingly widely known as the Scottish Government and that it made sense to amend the Act to reflect public perception and to avoid confusion. However, the fact that the Scotland Act refers to “Scottish Executive” prevents the use of “Scottish Government” in legislation, contracts and other legal matters. Therefore, Clause 15 is designed to prevent inconsistencies in what the Scottish Executive are called by the public and in the legal name.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, wishes to insert “devolved” in front of “Scottish Government”. That is unnecessary and may even lead to further confusion. Altering the name of the Scottish Government to “the devolved Scottish Government” would in no way strengthen the position of devolution. Indeed, it is important to note that no such prefix attaches to the devolved Administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland. It would look very odd and lopsided if it happened just in Scotland.

That said, this has been a useful debate on devolution. I will not go into all the highways and byways but some important points were made. Some of us who very much support what has happened over the past 12 years sometimes miss a trick because so often, ahead of the debates in 1997 and the referendum leading up to that, we talked about devolution in terms of the Scottish Parliament dealing with matters related to the domestic agenda of the people of Scotland and the United Kingdom Parliament being responsible for macroeconomic policies, defence, foreign policy, social security and pensions. Although we will undoubtedly debate where the boundaries should be—the Bill seeks to address some of these issues—I nevertheless believe that the idea of a Scottish Parliament within a United Kingdom still commands the support of the vast majority of the people in Scotland. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.