Scotland Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I have great sympathy with the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, because it appears that we are putting the cart before the horse. Nevertheless, I have to say that I do not think that the full implications of what is proposed have sunk in for people. I have a very simple question. If the people of Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom, how can we have a United Kingdom if one of the kingdoms has left? What will we be called? What is Great Britain without Scotland? What will that be called?

A lot of comment has been made about the First Minister personally. I think we should get away from that and forget about the individual. We are talking about the future of more than 60 million of us. We are literally all in this together in every sense. Think of the situation that my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and I would be in. We would have a foreign country on one side of us and a foreign country on the other side of us. We would end up like West Pakistan. We are all hewn from the same rock. Imagine the circumstances we would be placed in. We have just spent decades overcoming nationalist terrorism and we have gradually, after years and years, managed to settle down our community. I do not wish to exaggerate, but if the Scottish nationalists were to succeed it could reignite the difficulties that we have just managed to overcome. I do not say that lightly.

Having spent many years negotiating with Irish nationalists of different stripes, I have to say that we have got to get the tone of the debate right. We should not hector nor bully the Scottish people. We must not, we cannot; if we do, we do so at our peril. We will not win the argument by saying, “You’re going to be impoverished here”. Any group of people who are determined enough can be independent. They may not have the same standard of living, but they can be independent and survive.