Scotland Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, as we move on to this next amendment, I hope your Lordships will agree that it is appropriate, as we are on Report, just to remind the House that the Companion sets out that a speaker other than a mover, a Minister or a noble Lord in charge of the Bill can speak twice only if granted the leave of the House, to explain a material point of his own speech that may have been misunderstood or misquoted. If we are to make progress, I would be grateful if the House would adhere to the guidelines in the Companion.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I am really glad that I was in when he said that, because I am quite shocked. My understanding of what the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, said the other day is that, because of the truncated nature of the proceedings, which we agreed to, and because a lot of these things were not able to be dealt with in Committee, we would treat this as if it was in Committee, to allow proper debate and discussion. The noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, clearly gave us that assurance, and I am afraid that what the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, is suggesting goes completely against that. I hope everyone will pay no attention whatever to what the noble Viscount has said.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, my clear understanding is that no undertaking was given whatever on that basis. We remain on Report and I suggest that the House adheres to the guidelines within the Companion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, whether or not any undertaking has been given up to now, it is painfully obvious that we ought not to proceed with Report given that we have had no debate at all on the financial framework in Committee under Committee conditions. It would be quite wrong for us to go all the way through the Bill when we are not able to have adequate discussion. Indeed, the Statement we heard this afternoon said there would be adequate discussion. My noble friend need not reply to this now, but I suggest to him that we really ought to have, in the course of this evening’s debate, a clear statement from the Front Bench that the proceedings on the latter part of Bill will be such that we can debate it fully.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

This is duplicity by the Government, and it really needs to be sorted out. I have been sitting quietly saying almost nothing—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

Will the noble Lord give way? I had hoped to be able to discuss this in an orderly fashion, and I apologise if it has taken longer than the House would expect. I fully realise the pressure under which the House has been dealing with this Bill in general. Although we started the Bill an awfully long time ago—I think it was November when we had Second Reading—we have been in an expectant state for some days. Such is the situation that I recognise that noble Lords will want a little more time on Monday on those groups of amendments that deal with the fiscal framework. I understand that. I think it is the agreement of all in the usual channels that this would be a satisfactory way of dealing with it. It will be an informal agreement, with no resolution of the House, but I can announce it to those here today who I know are interested in this matter.

I thank my noble friend Lord Younger for holding the fort, but I happened to see the situation in which he was placed and I thought it would help matters if I made the position of the Government clear in this respect now. Many noble Lords involved in this debate are used to absorbing complex documents very quickly—that is why they are here—and I hope they will take the opportunity of the weekend to swot up, so that when we meet on Monday to discuss those aspects of the Bill, they will be in a position to add to our debate in a constructive way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am sorry: did I not make that clear? Although there will be no formal resolution to this effect, on those groups of amendments to which the fiscal framework applies, we will adopt those rules which we normally have in Committee. If that is agreed across the House, I am quite happy with that. My noble friend must have misheard what I was saying. I may not have been in the Chamber, but I was listening to the debate.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

As the person who initially raised it, and as one of the usual troublemakers, I fully accept what the Chief Whip has said. That is what we all understood was to be the case. As long as the discussion on the fiscal framework and related matters can be, informally, treated as if it were Committee rather than Report, I am sure that that is the way forward.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

That is very good news.

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, for allowing me to add my name behind his on the amendment. I must thank both Ministers for a very generous slice of their time when we discussed the thinking behind the amendment in their offices a week or so ago. The amendment concerns intergovernmental relationships, and I remind the House what the noble Lord, Lord Smith, wrote in his foreword:

“Both Governments need to work together to create a more productive, robust, visible and transparent relationship”.

I was very encouraged to hear, when the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, repeated the Statement, that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, had again talked about how important intergovernmental relationships were. The noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, talked about there being a basis for constructive engagement and how he was keen on building intergovernmental relationships.

The amendment concerns what I would call, in commercial terms, a feedback loop. When we are building a heavily devolved United Kingdom, it is very important that there is a structured, formal feedback loop between the Westminster Parliament and each of the devolved Administrations. I had the benefit of a visit to Canada in November, when, by sheer chance, I was able to sit down with a friend of mine who is a well-respected and very senior constitutional lawyer there. We talked about how the feedback loop exists and has been working in Canada. He confirmed that the loop went up and down; it consisted of a frank and honest interaction, and he regarded it as being open and constructive. That is not to say that he thought it was a total panacea—he identified one or two areas where there were weaknesses—but he said that through the creation of that feedback loop, an enormous number of poisonous things had been drawn from the lion’s paw in Canada. The amendment should be seen as something that begins to create a feedback loop. After all, we have a lot of devolution to come in the United Kingdom, and we will have to create a standardised approach to the feedback loop. The clear drafting of the amendment, which has developed since Committee, could be a valuable tool to kick it off.

We will have to have a feedback loop sometime. I feel that it is entirely consistent with the Smith commission agreement to include in the Bill something which starts a successful feedback loop. It will be interesting to hear from the Minister, if not now, when we actually have a Scotland Bill before us, when we can begin to put in place a formal structure that will help relationships between the two Governments.

Finally, I observe that if we go without a feedback loop, eventually there will be some form of car crash. A great dispute will grow up which may not have arisen with the feedback loop, and we will then be trying to retrofit such arrangements.