Scotland: Independence

Lord Crickhowell Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crickhowell (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean for initiating this debate. My own family represents an intermingling of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish blood that is by no means uncommon. In the 1820s, my wife’s Scottish forebears established a Far East trading company of the kind to which the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, was referring. It prospered for 150 years. Scots have frequently lived, worked and produced their offspring far from home. Today, a great many of them live and work away from Scotland; they will have no vote in the referendum that will decide the future of their country.

The Scottish Government propose an 18-month timetable from the referendum, if it is won, to independence. Between the two events, negotiations of immense complexity would have to take place and, in May 2015, a general election will be held. I do not think for one moment that it would be postponed for Mr Salmond.

Last Thursday, my noble friend Lord Forsyth asked a crucial question. At what point will those Scottish MPs, elected to the House of Commons, be asked to leave? My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness responded:

“Those who have been elected to this Parliament in the other place have received their Writ of Summons. I do not think they have any clause in it that tells them to go”.—[Official Report, 28/11/13; col. 1514.]

The implication seemed to be that, once elected, MPs from Scotland might stay for a full five years, despite that, in less than a year, they would be foreigners. I do not for one moment believe that that would be allowed to happen. There would have to be speedy legislation to tell the Scottish MPs that they would have to go at the moment of independence. That could result in a change of government at Westminster, less than a year after the start of a five-year Parliament. As the first non-Scot to speak in this debate, I emphasise, as did my noble friend, that all these events are as important for the rest of the United Kingdom as they are for Scotland.

The Scottish Government are frank about the deep integration that exists between Scotland and the rest of the UK, but fail to acknowledge the many consequences of break-up. Among these are the costs of dissolving institutions and of merging others, which would be not be light, and would be a burden that could severely impact both economies for many years.

Interdependence takes so many forms. Mr Salmond’s bid to remain with the sterling area and to have the Bank of England as lender of last resort, while making a rapid and pain-free entry into the EU, has already sparked hostile reactions which have introduced an element of reality into this debate. It is clear that he and his supporters want to eat their cake and have it too. I support my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean’s proposal that there should be a Joint Committee of both Houses to make recommendations about the way forward, and about how much cake there is available for eating.