Scotland Bill

Lord Davidson of Glen Clova Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davidson of Glen Clova]

My Lords, we welcome this Bill in principle. Of course, it has been Labour, both in government and in opposition, which has been consistently in favour of devolution. It was the Labour Government who took the initiative in setting up the cross-party Calman commission, on whose work the Bill draws.

We must, however, recognise that the Calman commission produced its report in 2009. Many matters of significance for Scotland have occurred since the report. I will seek to look at a number of issues which have arisen in debate in Scotland that are not as yet found in the Bill. I accept immediately that not every new issue should be reflected in the Bill, but where an issue has emerged of constitutional importance, it should not be lost sight of. One does not anticipate that Scotland Bills will be a frequent occurrence, nor will opportunities arise often to correct constitutional difficulties.

First, perhaps I should say that at a time when economic growth in Scotland is hardly vibrant and unemployment threatens many in Scotland as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom, a focus on purely constitutional issues may seem to many to be at best a skewed priority. True, the Bill contains borrowing powers that could be useful if properly applied at this point in the economic cycle, but the welcome that such powers might receive will be muted if they are not put in place quickly.

I think that I understood the Minister to say that the borrowing powers may come into place in 2012. We certainly have called for them to be advanced to that year, and the Scotland Bill Committee and Scottish Affairs Committee reports both recommend that those powers be brought forward. We would welcome the Government bringing them forward to 2012. It would be useful for people in Scotland to know exactly when in 2012 the Government accept that capital borrowing powers will become available.

One should also observe the attention given to demands for new expanded powers, all claimed to be essential to the regeneration of the Scottish economy. This has led to scant scrutiny of the use of existing powers. The Scottish Government already have a wide portfolio of powers to contribute to economic growth. Their use, their non-use and the ostensible priorities might perhaps be subject to greater assessment and accountability.

I turn to the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has already referred to: a referendum on the question of the separation of Scotland from the United Kingdom, a subject that has engaged substantial debate in Scotland over a number of years. Since this year’s Scottish Parliament election, the issue of a referendum has come very much to the fore. Although there is scant evidence of public demand for such a referendum, the SNP Administration have committed themselves to this at some unspecified point before 2015. While we see no public demand for such a referendum, the issue will not simply vanish, given the SNP’s apparent commitment to it.

The prior constitutional question of law regarding any referendum is by what legal process such a referendum can be held lawful. To put it more acutely, can the Scottish Parliament lawfully put in place its own referendum on separation, set its own timing and questions and possibly ignore the obligations of Scotland to the rest of the United Kingdom? The question of lawfulness is inevitable, as in the Scotland Act 1998 the intention of Parliament was, unsurprisingly, not to put in place a mechanism for decisions on separation but solely to establish devolution in Scotland within the United Kingdom. It would have been remarkable if such a dramatic power to break the union by way of referendum had been included in the 1998 Act. After all, Section 29 of the Act provides that any reserved matter is outside the competence of the Scottish Parliament. Schedule 5(1) states:

“The following aspects of the constitution are reserved matters, that is … the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England”.

Various ingenious attempts thus far to imagine some kind of power to hold a referendum—for example, “It’s just an opinion poll, not a referendum; it’s only advisory”—may at least be unlikely to survive a challenge in court. And no doubt they would be challenged, either by the law officers, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament or indeed by any concerned citizens or group of citizens. The question for the Government may become whether they should create a proper statutory power in the Bill for, say, a one-off referendum or whether they would countenance a unilateral, potentially unlawful declaration by the Scottish Parliament of its own power to run its own referendum, whenever. That would hardly be the chosen route of any Government committed to the rule of law. It would set a precedent with the most remarkable consequences for the UK. In any event, it would remain vulnerable to third-party challenge with potentially hugely embarrassing results. I encourage the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General to pursue this issue with his ministerial colleagues, perhaps before he is obliged to consider it as one of his statutory duties in his separate role as law officer. To waver accelerates tension on this issue. I accept that there are many political arguments for the Scottish Parliament to run its own referendum, but the rule of law does not yield to political convenience.

I move on to another constitutional issue: the Supreme Court. This has come to prominence recently because of certain criminal cases in which the role of the Supreme Court has been challenged. Contention has arisen regarding cases involving criminal matters due to some recent cases where an appeal has been made to the Supreme Court on human rights points from the Criminal Court of Appeal in Scotland. In those high-profile cases, the Supreme Court has overturned the Court of Appeal decisions. This has precipitated much debate, not least because of wholly inappropriate criticism of the Supreme Court by the First Minister and the Justice Minister in Scotland.

This Opposition agree that the UK Supreme Court should retain its sole role in determining human rights and European treaty issues. Section 17 of the Bill, however, seems to create a number of obstacles to the speedy testing of compatibility issues. We will want to scrutinise these closely in Committee. One concern is that where Scottish procedures contain an incompatibility, some such obstacle may simply defer and hence magnify the difficult consequences of any finding of incompatibility. The Minister will of course be acquainted with the problems that arose over the slopping-out cases in Scotland and the way in which delay can magnify problems. The Scotland Act 1998 permits a challenge to be made at any stage, thereby potentially avoiding the entire criminal process being run through, where there is an incompatibility discoverable by early challenge.

Another concern is that, in respect of the certification of leave to appeal, Scottish devolution issues will be subject to an obstacle that does not apply to either Welsh or Northern Irish appeals on devolution issues. This seems to be creating an anomaly, and I look forward to hearing the explanation for it.

The apparent fortifying of the position of the Lord Advocate in that regard will also require scrutiny. It is presumably not the intention of the Government to erode the access to justice by persons prosecuted in Scotland. As a member of the legal profession, the Minister will be aware of the considerable disquiet that the Bill has caused in the profession in this area.

The Minister is also one of the many law officers required to look at Scottish arrangements. I move on now to look at the question of Scottish law officers. One of the notable constitutional features of the Scotland Act 1998 was the substantial role given to law officers in Scotland—namely, the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General. As part of the Government in Scotland, they are Ministers and bound by collective responsibility. The Lord Advocate—this is the unusual feature—is also the head of the system of criminal prosecution and may in fact lead any prosecution in court, make decisions directly on any part of any prosecution and make the decision on what plea in any prosecution may be accepted. These are wide-ranging responsibilities for a Minister, as I think this Minister would accept, and are increasingly seen as powers that do not belong as part of the responsibility of Ministers.

Having been appointed myself in the past to the position of Solicitor-General in Scotland, I was immediately struck by the tension between the roles of politically appointed Minister and prosecutor. It appeared that there had been no assessment of why Scotland did not have the equivalent of a Director of Public Prosecutions appointed by an open and objective process. When the Minister was Justice Minister in Scotland, he described the role of the Lord Advocate as both prosecutor and Minister as anomalous, and he was right. He would remain right if he were still of that view today.

Over the past decade, law officers have increasingly eschewed involvement in political issues. First the Solicitor-General, then the Lord Advocate, and now both law officers, have been drawn from the Civil Service staff of the prosecution service, a de facto if not de jure Director of Public Prosecutions. Given the awareness of the anomaly in having prosecuting Ministers and the desire on their part to avoid political association and political responsibility, this Scotland Bill is surely an opportunity to remove the anomaly.

The issue also contains within it the risk of yet further human rights challenges to the conduct of prosecution in Scotland, which has been somewhat embattled of late. The Government might consider modernisation of the position. This is not merely a desirable adjustment. It raises profound issues as to the constitutional position of the Scottish prosecution system.

Another feature of the constitutional arrangements under the Scotland Act I wish to look at is the position of the Auditor-General, who examines the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of Scottish Ministers discharging their functions. In the light of the trend to give greater financial powers and responsibilities to Scottish Ministers, the Auditor-General is likely to have, and certainly should have, a role of greater importance in scrutinising ministerial expenditures. A clearer, more transparent view of the Auditor-General’s responsibilities might be helpful. It is hardly good government where the auditor is powerless to act when he is aware of proposed unlawful or wasteful actions, involving expenditure of public money. We suggest that this is an area which calls for clarification of powers and we may look at this more closely in Committee.

I move on to taxation. Part of the statutory purpose of the Bill is to create greater financial responsibility and accountability in Scottish Governments. The Bill sets out a Scottish rate of income tax. One understands and welcomes the purpose, but we will wish to examine in Committee the scheme of taxation proposed. One notes, for example, the provision that envisages the Scottish rate of income tax being set each year by resolution of the Scottish Parliament. In a sense one is familiar with such a process in annual UK Finance Bills. But one is also familiar with the potential for disruption to business and to the economy more generally where substantial shifts in taxation occur.

Some questions arise. What consequences do the Government foresee from this transfer of fiscal power to the Scottish Parliament? What costs to business will result? What greater administrative burden will the transfer impose on business in Scotland? Is the tax base in Scotland sufficiently resilient to absorb the use of income tax for the budgetary purpose envisaged? What problems do the Government foresee in respect of the residence definitions, and the checking of days spent in Scotland by those who may work or reside in more than one part of the United Kingdom? We consider scrutiny of these issues in Committee to be necessary.

In conclusion, I repeat the welcome that we gave to the principles guiding the Bill. However, it should be clear that we consider that this Bill should not miss out the areas where the experience of more than 10 years of devolution shows a need for constitutional clarification, at least. We look forward to examining the Bill and its various amendments in Committee.