Scotland: Independence

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, first, on tabling the QSD on this subject and, secondly, even more impressively, on getting a debate quite so quickly on it. He must have the kind of influence on the usual channels that I can only dream of. He has also established a sort of, albeit temporary, unique Lib-Lab coalition on this debate, which I must say I am encouraged by.

I refer back to Margo MacDonald’s memorial service. I was struck by the message that Jim Sillars brought to us from Margo MacDonald on her deathbed, which was the hope that, whatever the outcome of the referendum, we should all work together for the good of Scotland. Maybe it is my wishful thinking, but I thought when he uttered that, he was looking particularly at Alex Salmond. I assume that he was talking to both sides on behalf of Margo. As Margo said—and I think I can say this as one of the no campaigners—I hope that when we win, as I think we will on 18 September, when 19 September comes there will be no recrimination whatever, no score-settling and no tone of triumphalism, but a tone of inclusivity, ensuring that not only is Scotland fit for purpose but the whole United Kingdom becomes increasingly fit for purpose.

We have had the devolution process. I was party to that as chair of the Labour campaign for a Scottish Assembly and then for a Scottish Parliament. I must say that I get upset when the SNP says that it was the instigator, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said. We did it because we believed in it, and it was a Labour Government who produced the Scottish Parliament. But unfortunately, of necessity, the devolution process has been piecemeal. We have gone our own way in Scotland, Wales has not gone quite so far and in a different way, while Northern Ireland has its own set-up. London has not just one centre of government but two, on the riverside—the Mayor of London and the GLA. This piecemeal devolution has left us with what Tam Dalyell called the West Lothian question but what I would rather call the English anomaly—the English democratic deficit. If I was still living in England, that is what I would be annoyed about. I am surprised that the English are so reasonable and sensible about it, apart from towards Italy because of recent events. The wrong way to deal with the English dimension is what the Tory side of this Government are suggesting—I do not know about the Minister at the Dispatch Box—which is that Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs should not vote on what supposedly can be defined as England-only measures in the House of Commons. This needs to be done in a more fundamental, sensible, coherent and cogent way than that, which is why the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and I have set up an all-party group to look at further decentralisation and devolution and to consider ways in which England can be excluded. My own thought is that we should have an English Parliament and the devolution of administration to the regions or city regions within England, but that is not for me to decide. What we need to do is provide a framework so that we can all look at it and all decide.

Incidentally, a similar proposal is coming for another source of concern, which we will discuss next Thursday. It relates to the urgent need for a review of the constitution of this House, the second Chamber of Parliament. It should be looked at by a constitutional commission. I think that the outcome of the all-party group will be to suggest a constitutional commission, just as the working group of the Labour Party has suggested in relation to reform of the Upper House. If the second Chamber could be representative of the nations of the United Kingdom and the regions of England, it would fulfil a very useful purpose. Perhaps I may also echo what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said about the cynicism of the nationalists in saying that they cannot trust the unionist party leaders to come up with an alternative. That is cynicism of the worst order, which is so typical of the nationalists. If we had a constitutional commission, in order to reassure people who might think that we are kicking the issue into the long grass, it should have a clearly defined timetable to enable legislation to be introduced in the next Parliament. If there was a timetable of two years, the commission could certainly do that.

The idea that has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is one way of doing this. I like the concept of a conference of the new union and I like the way that he suggested that the Government should do that. However, I say to my noble friend Lord Kennedy that I am campaigning to make sure that this commitment is set out in the Labour Party manifesto so that we can be really sure that what we expect to be the next Government of the United Kingdom will carry it through at the earliest opportunity. I know that my noble friend Lady Adams and other noble friends will join me in that campaign.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The Minister has not been supported by any civil servants in the debate and yet he has done a brilliant job. However, I am a bit suspicious when Whitehall does not turn up. That is because my experience over the past few months is that Whitehall seems to be ignoring this issue. Perhaps I may ask the Minister how he is going to feed the ideas that have been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and the questions raised by my noble friend Lord Kennedy, into the Whitehall machine. It is important not only that we have the sympathy of the Minister but that we have the Whitehall machine behind him as well.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for that barbed compliment. Of course it is purely accidental that I have made a good speech without officials being present. I can assure him that I meet the officials fairly regularly and that I meet my Conservative colleagues fairly regularly. I also talk to Labour colleagues fairly regularly. This is one of those areas where we all share an interest in raising various broad matters. It means that people like the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others should be writing to the newspapers and appearing on radio and television programmes to discuss them. We have at last reached the point where people understand that there is going to be a Scottish referendum, and that is progress. Three months ago you hardly saw any mention of it in the London press. We can now begin to talk about what is to happen after September, and that takes us further.

Those of us who are interested in successful decentralisation within England, which is part of what the coalition Government are now trying to do with the City Deals, want to take them further and link them into the devolution-plus which follows in Scotland, the implementation of the report of the Silk commission for Wales and similar developments in Northern Ireland. That is a very large agenda, and it is not something that the British have been good at handling. The sad history of attempting to discuss House of Lords reform over the past 25 years and more shows how bad we are at considering constitutional reform in a calm way. Let us approach this in a different manner. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, that as far as I am concerned, I along with many of my Conservative colleagues recognise that after Scottish devolution we will have to move. That is what the three parties in Scotland have just committed themselves to, and that is how we will go forward. I note the point about entrenchment; it is not something that the British constitution has done before. I note the point about a changed role for the Treasury and I note the argument that we need a bigger overview in some form of the structure of the British constitution.

This is a debate that will continue and I trust that all noble Lords will be active participants in it, but this is the point at which, without my officials, I should stop and thank everyone for a very constructive debate.