Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Duke of Montrose

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Lang in what he said. The wording of this clause reflects what I understood that Lord Sewel said in this House at the time of the passing of the Bill. It says that,

“the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters”.

When that was said before, I think that all of us here—my noble friend Lord Lang reinforced this—thought that it referred to Schedule 5, non-devolved matters, so that a Sewel Motion would be needed for anything discussed in this House outwith Schedule 5.

I have watched over the years as this matter has gradually crept out. The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, mentioned the various steps along which the Civil Service has progressed in making this convention. It was always a fairly constitutional matter and they were chipping away at what we understood could or could not be discussed. To just leave the wording as it is tells only half the story. We must find out what exactly the convention has developed into and what wording would describe it if we want to have it as either a convention or whatever it is. At least we have it on the Floor of the House now and can begin to look at what it should be.

Having seen the wording when the Bill was published, I asked a Written Question of my noble friend the Minister. I asked,

“how many times the Scottish Parliament has passed a legislative consent motion … regarding matters that were not at that time devolved under Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act … and in each case what reason was given”.

The Minister kindly replied with one example, but I think there must be many more. His example was that,

“section 10 of the Scotland Act 2012 made provision for certain elements in relation to air weapons to be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament”,

the argument being that things that were about to be devolved should be subject to a legislative consent Motion. We need to know exactly how far this goes and what its meaning will be.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to support my noble friend Lord Norton’s remarks and the amendment of my noble friend Lord Lang. I will not go through all the arguments about sovereignty again because we have done them to death. I will also speak to Amendment 17, which for some reason was put in an earlier group. I tabled it as a probing amendment but having listened to the debate I really think my noble friend needs to go back to the drawing board on this. It surely makes sense to put into statute the Sewel convention and then abandon it as a convention, as we discussed earlier. Of course, when we discussed English votes for English laws, I predicted that by giving the Westminster Parliament an English veto on legislation it would be only a matter of time before people argued that there ought to be a Scottish veto, as the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, did in the context of the Sewel convention.

What my noble friend Lord Norton said was very wise. We need to work out what this convention means and we need to put that in the Bill in a way that is apparent. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, who worries about how this will be seen by nationalists north of the border and that some people are trying to refight the battles of 1997, I see no reason why we should not just cut this Gordian knot and leave the Scottish Parliament to legislate on all devolved matters. What happens is that it piggy-backs on legislation that is carried down here and then finds it very convenient to blame Westminster for passing the legislation to which of course it was a party.

This Bill hands a huge new set of powers to the Scottish Parliament, with huge new responsibilities. The whole purpose of the Bill is apparently about making the Parliament accountable to the Scottish people. Well, why not let them get on with passing the legislation necessary to meet their responsibilities? I think that the Sewel convention should be toughened up. It should be made stronger and should basically provide that the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not legislate with regard to devolved matters. It is up to the Scottish Parliament. Why would we wish to do so?