Scotland Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McCluskey (CB)]

My Lords, I have simply one question to ask the Minister at this stage. Given the failure of the Government to respond positively to the submissions that were cogently advanced both in Committee and here today—the same, by the way, applies to many of the other amendments we discussed in Committee—is there some kind of agreement or understanding between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, perhaps as part of the fiscal agreement deal, to the effect that the Government will not allow any material amendment of the Bill in the course of these or subsequent proceedings? If not, I fail to understand how the Government have not advanced certain amendments which reflect the debate and the Government’s response in Committee to those amendments. I will refer to those particularly when we come to them.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, if I may follow the point just made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, I said in Committee that I believed the outcome of the Smith commission had the status of a treaty. I did not say that in any negative fashion, but I have seen all this before. Once these deals are done, we are going through the motions here. There is a political imperative: all the Front Benches signed up to whatever happened a week or 10 days before the referendum. What we have before us is the same procedure that flows from Europe, goes into the mixer in Whitehall and comes out as Smith-plus. That is where we are. It does not matter what the merits are of the amendments of the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth, and Lord Forsyth, or of any other noble Lord. The political decision has been taken and the Front Benches are paralysed, because they have reached a position, for political reasons. We know it, all noble Lords know it; the dogs in the street know it. That is where we are.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Is the noble Lord suggesting that we are all wasting our time?

[Lord Empey]

Perish the thought of such an outrageous consideration, but I suspect that the Government will be impervious to our arguments, if I might put it that way. The reason is that a political decision has been taken. We all know that. I happen to think that the Front Benches are wrong. I have had many years of experience of dealing with nationalism. It is a perfectly legitimate aspiration, in Wales, in Scotland, in Ireland or anywhere. There is nothing wrong with it. It is part of our national life. However, it is a fundamental mistake to believe that if you give folk the power, they will make such a mess of it that the people will be relieved to get rid of it when the time comes. That is not going to happen.

I think the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to the Danegeld. We have been doing this in Ireland for years—decades—and all it has done is grow, sustain and feed the forces that are anti-British. We will have later amendments where the very word “British” is the issue, irrespective of the substance of the matter we are debating. Therefore, I understand where the Minister is at. He is a very articulate and capable Minister but he has a concrete block and there is nothing he can do with it except present it to us and, sooner or later, it will be nodded through.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I should say that if we get to the stage of putting this to a vote, I would like to support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. In Committee, I drew out the question about the progression from the wording that Lord Sewel set out at that stage of the 1998 Bill and what it had become. It seems to me that the beauty of creating the legislation in statute rather than in a convention is that we know exactly what we have got. It may be that the Government are arguing that we never want to pin things down and that they should be free to do whatever they like at all times, but I think we in this House prefer to have things clearly stated so that people know where they are. Of course, my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth has also made this point —that you cannot have a convention and a statute—so the Government have to make a choice as to which road they will go down. At the moment there seems to be a lack of clarity on many levels, so to have an amendment which has been drafted by the Scottish Parliament and recommended by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, is not a bad beginning.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, can the Advocate-General tell us whether the use of the word “normally” is to allow the Government sufficient flexibility in the event that a devolved Parliament actually breaks the rules of an international treaty obligation? The United Kingdom is signed up to a number of international treaties, and it is possible that the actions of a devolved legislature could break one of those conventions. Indeed, we are on the cusp of that at this very time over certain issues concerning rights in Northern Ireland, and it could happen on other occasions. Is it therefore the Government’s view that because they want that flexibility, they have chosen to use this language so that if, for instance, the Scottish Parliament does something which breaks our international obligations in terms of legislation, this Parliament would have the ability to correct it?

It is a bit unfortunate that the Constitution Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Lang, is currently looking at a range of issues which include whether there are any countrywide values or other rights that we believe any United Kingdom citizen should be entitled to. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, who is not in his place, has advocated something approaching this on a number of occasions. I therefore wonder whether the Minister considers that the provision as it stands allows for that or could allow for it, or whether that was the intention behind the language. I have to say that I do not agree with the Sewel convention. In my home circumstances, the practice was that from 1921, Parliament effectively ignored what Stormont did, and we all know where that led.

I agree that there is not much point in having devolution if you continuously intervene over the heads of the devolved legislature, but at the same time there is a rational argument for saying that you cannot allow things just to drift on without having regard to the wider issue and to our international obligations. Therefore, I wonder whether that is what is at the back of the Government’s mind. If so, it would be most helpful to have an explanation.