Devolution (Time) Bill [HL]

Lord Gilbert Excerpts

Friday 1st July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gilbert]

My Lords, this is the first time since I arrived in this august establishment that I have sought to impose on your Lordships by speaking in the gap. I merely want to say how much I support the Bill and the sentiments behind it. I remember well a brief period when I was Minister for Transport in another place, and I was instructed to devolve everything possible to the new authorities. So I said, “Let them have speed limits”. You have no idea of the horror this produced, as though the Scottish authorities and the authorities in Wales and Northern Ireland were not capable of deciding what speed limits they wanted. The situation we find ourselves in at the moment is a very immature one. I am fully in favour of giving the Scots and the Welsh, if they want it, full discretion to decide their own time zones, where their boundaries should be, and what times they want to set.