Queen’s Speech

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, on his most thoughtful speech. When I was the Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs, he and his wife were the most agreeable constituents and I wish him every success in the demanding and difficult area that he is taking up. I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, on their excellent maiden speeches.

I wish to say a few things on the Scottish issue, the West Lothian question, the Human Rights Act and devolution. I very much agreed with the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Lord Lawson of Blaby and Lord Gordon of Strathblane.

On the Scottish issue, “Gang warily” is my starting advice. There is the danger of repeating the unhappy history of Irish nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, even though Ireland and Scotland have very different histories. Scotland does not have Ireland’s historic justification of having been oppressed by England as a colony; rather, Scotland was an equal partner with England in the history of the British Empire. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Lawson of Blaby, pointed out, we are not going to be able to deal with the situation correctly unless there is some revival in British nationalism. There might also be something to learn from the rise and decline of Quebec nationalism.

I know a lot of Scots living in England, and I think the Scottish diaspora, which is essentially very strongly against Scottish independence and critical of the SNP, needs to be organised and to create a political organisation to make its voice heard and to ensure that, in the event of any further vote, Scots working in England would have the vote in Scotland.

The biggest single problem is that the opposition in Scotland is divided, as other noble Lords have pointed out. There really needs to be a common unionist ticket for those opposed to the SNP to vote for. Although it sounds a feasible solution to give Scotland fiscal independence, to my mind it is not so easy in practice, as other noble Lords have pointed out. Scotland would need to contribute to areas such as defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and overseas aid, and it may be more difficult than it appears to delineate the ownership, let alone the size, of oil reserves and revenues. It is clear, as the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, pointed out most eloquently, that the Scottish economy would suffer badly from fiscal devolution, and not just by the ending of the Barnett formula subsidy. Many Scottish businesses may well look to migrate to England, where the tax regime may be more generous. Politically—perhaps the most important aspect of the lot—unless there is a single effective Unionist opposition, there is the danger of one-party national socialist government, which would be very difficult to shift.

On the West Lothian question, in practice delineation here is as difficult as ever. Much apparently English legislation—for example, Finance Bills—would have some knock-on impact for Scotland. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson of Blaby, made the point that the whole issue might better be dealt with through relative representation at Westminster, with parts of the UK that were substantially devolved being, in a sense, underrepresented rather than overrepresented here.

Given the experience of the last 15 years, I strongly support the abolition of the Human Rights Act and its replacement with a new Bill of Rights. The long and ridiculous battle to deport Abu Qatada more than illustrated the need in that regard. He was held by the courts to be a danger to the public, but more than 10 years after proceedings began the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights ruled that he could not be deported, on an argument that had been previously dismissed by the House of Lords. Human rights laws, and particularly the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights, have prevented the removal of many illegal immigrants and foreign criminals from the United Kingdom. I was particularly pleased that my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern clearly set out the fundamental point that the Strasbourg court is superior to the British courts and can overrule them.

It is important to note that a potential withdrawal would not jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland. A new Bill of Rights incorporating all the original articles of the European convention and other British rights such as trial by jury would be consistent with the Good Friday agreement and would allow Parliament, not Strasbourg, to decide where the balance between rights lies.

With regard to devolved affairs, I support what I would call the Boris Johnson agenda, and would add only that municipalities should be allowed to raise funds for infrastructure investment projects via their own bond issues, as is the case today in the USA and was the case in the UK until the Attlee Government abolished the power. The one problem I perceive is where local government is not doing what it ought to be doing, such as childcare services in Birmingham. I think that there need to be some reserve central government powers to address that sort of situation.

I would normally have spoken in the economic debate, but I do not have a great deal to add to what the Government are already doing most successfully, other than to make sure that they sustain the wonderful entrepreneurial revolution going on in the UK and prevent small businesses being burdened with further UK or EU regulation. Potentially, the greatest risk is that of getting bogged down and mishandling the Scottish issue. It seems to me somewhat ironic that, while the eurozone is calling for coming together fiscally and certainly needs to have transfer payments to avoid the uncompetitive problems of southern Europe, in the case of Scotland we are potentially heading in the opposite direction, with fiscal powers being devolved and transfer payments coming to an end. The threat of that to the Scottish economy is really quite serious—I would not say a Greece, but certainly of southern European proportions. Getting Scotland right is going to be the single most important issue for the British economy.