Devolution (Constitution Committee Reports)

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, the mood of the House seems to confirm a long-held view of mine: that the UK needs a root-and-branch overhaul if it is to hold together. That is behind many of the speeches that we have heard.

The destructive forces of nationalism—British, Scottish and Irish—have divided us to such an extent that rational decision-making is becoming nearly impossible. A referendum that I recall was supposed to unite the Conservative Party has split that party and the country. The Tory party is now a faction containing two factions fighting like ferrets in a sack. Survival of the Conservative Party, whatever it costs the nation or the interests of the people, is the overriding and only glue that holds it together. If the Tory party does not split, the nation will.

The hope and belief for the EU for many people was that it would act as an umbrella to accommodate and moderate the forces of nationalism. To some extent, that was why the EU was created in the first place. The EU provided the common space to move forward the peace process in Ireland. For many years, the SNP sought to blunt the barb of separatism by calling for independence in Europe, thus reassuring unionist sentiment that we would still be in the same family, even if Scotland became independent. The question for us is whether Parliament can save the United Kingdom from the divisive, destructive forces of the Conservative Party.

Here is an irony. At this year’s election, the Tories fell back everywhere but in Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives have 12 MPs, distinguished sharply, at least by their leader, from the ultra-conservative Democratic Unionist Party within the current government arrangement. In my part of Scotland, the Conservatives had their biggest surge for decades. North-east Scotland appears now as the Tories’ biggest stronghold across the UK. They took six out of seven seats, including my former constituency of Gordon. Why was that? Quite simply, it was a reaction against the SNP and, perhaps particularly, its former leader Alex Salmond.

In 2015, when I retired as a local MP, my party the Liberal Democrats fought a strong campaign to retain the seat with our candidate, Christine Jardine, now the MP for Edinburgh West. Sadly, Edinburgh’s gain is Gordon’s loss. Gordon had voted by two to one on a nearly 90% turnout against independence. Yet only a few months later, they voted in the former leader of the SNP as their local representative. For that, I blame David Cameron. The day after the independence referendum, he called for English votes for English laws—EVEL. “Evil”—a very good name for it. He knew what he was doing: he was promoting the electoral chances of the SNP to defeat Labour in its former stronghold of Scotland and secure a Conservative majority. And it worked.

However, on his election, Alex Salmond interpreted the result as mandate to campaign for a second independence referendum, which was a total misjudgment. The majority of his constituents were outraged. I know that from the doorsteps. Mr Salmond seemed to think that the pathological dislike of the Tories that had characterised Scottish politics for years was irreversible. He accused Liberal Democrats and even Labour of betraying Scotland and effectively endorsing Tory rule. The irony is that Alex, who loved to coruscate the Tories and fellow travellers, gave them the oxygen they needed. Tory strength in the north-east of Scotland was largely achieved by Mr Salmond’s arrogant misjudgment of local people, and his party has paid the price.

So the Tory revival in Scotland is entirely due to its robust campaign to gather the anti-independence referendum forces behind its banner. I am not decrying that as a political expedient—and it worked. But it was certainly not an endorsement of the Brexit shambles now being stumbled through by Mrs May’s Government. I doubt if it was even support for the more attractive brand of social Conservatism espoused and promoted by Ruth Davidson. After all, as a cheerleader for Theresa May she faces a backlash in Scotland if the outcome is as disastrous for the will and interests of the people of Scotland, as now seems likely.

So what do we do now? The SNP Government are wrong to pursue the idea that somehow, Scotland, as part of the UK, can maintain membership of the single market, the currency union or even some kind of EEA arrangement. That is simply not politically or legally achievable. But they are right to join forces with others to fight for continued membership of those institutions, or the best possible access that we can achieve. In my view, they should challenge Ruth Davidson and the Scottish Conservatives to join with them, and they should put Scottish Labour under pressure to do likewise, and make Jeremy Corbyn understand that, without a more constructive approach to Brexit, he will find it much harder to build a majority in any future election.

As a number of noble Lords have said, what has happened and is happening is piecemeal and full of anomalies and contradictions. These reports, as we would expect of reports of this House, are a constructive, useful and helpful contribution to the debate, even if they are somewhat belated in coming to the House. We have to assume, of course, that the key players who are making decisions are listening to this debate. If the devolved Administrations and a significant section of regional government in England—the noble Lord, Lord Desai, is right about that—see leaving the single market and the customs union as damaging and disturbing, do not the Government have a responsibility to explore how much of those we could remain connected to and what compromises would be worthwhile for that purpose? I look to the Minister in his maiden speech.

The problem I articulated at the beginning of my remarks is that it seems that the extreme Brexiteers want to break off all connections with the EU and float off into the mid-Atlantic, and will go ape at any suggestion of compromise—but without compromise there can by definition be no agreement. We know that huge sectors of British society and the economy want to maintain good links with the EU. We know that our financial services still want to serve the EU market. We know our universities and research institutions want continued co-operation. Student exchanges want to continue, and we want to collaborate on culture and the arts as well as intelligence and security—the list is almost endless. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, mentioned the sheep sector and the rest of the agricultural sector. I am not sure whether noble Lords recognise that in the week after the EU referendum, exports of Scottish lamb to France fell by 80%. They recovered because there was nowhere else to get lamb from, but it tells you that the French will not buy Scottish lamb when we leave the EU, which will destroy our entire sheep sector.

Where is the leadership? The current devolution settlement is inherently unstable, and leaving the EU makes it more so. We need some kind of constitutional convention to explore the basis for a sustainable way of governing the United Kingdom and maintaining good relations with our neighbours. We need a clear statement of where power lies—at which level—and how disputes are resolved. There may well be justification for replacing the Barnett formula with a needs-based approach and a proper share of tax revenues and tax-raising powers, as long as it is not done in an inherently destabilising way.

I am a bit disappointed that the reports reject fairly quickly any form of English Parliament, arguing that England is too big. That fails to address the fact that English MPs and voters see no need for an English Parliament because they regard this Parliament as the English Parliament. That is not consistent with the devolution settlement that we have maintained. There is a good case to be made for devolution within England—I accept that. There is a good case for devolution in Scotland, by the way, as it has been overcentralised under the SNP. But English regions should not be equated with the devolved Administrations; they do not have a historical identity.

Whether it is a Parliament or not, there needs to be an England-wide legislative forum, and we need to work out how we do that. Doing it piecemeal, as EVEL does, creates resentment, just as transferring decision-making to the devolved Administrations creates resentment in England. We need to acknowledge that. But is it not time to stop addressing legitimate concerns in ways that kick off more grievance, and to make a radical change through proper constitutional arrangements?

I would look for a federal constitution, recognising the status of England, clearly defining the powers for all components of the UK and guaranteeing the rights of local government and individual citizens. This issue is bigger than any one political party. No party can be trusted with this, and certainly not the Conservative Party. If we carry on in this incoherent, ad hoc fashion we will not just severely damage the UK’s economic and political wellbeing and our standing in the world, which is already suffering; we will undermine the sustainability of the United Kingdom as a whole. It is time to think hard and long.