Scotland: Independence

Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (CB)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for securing this debate and support his call for a Joint Committee.

I offer a few thoughts on the possible percussive effects of the Scottish question. Horizon scanning is a perilous trade, but those of us who live on our islands and care deeply about them need to be ready for several stretching, vexing and interlocking contingencies. I have two swift scenarios. The first one has already been alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth.

In September 2014, the Scottish people vote to separate from the UK and negotiations begin. I have my doubts that the all-encompassing statute ending the old sovereignties will be in place by spring 2016, but it would be so well before 2020. In May 2015, at the general election, Scotland returns 59 MPs to the House of Commons. Last time 40 were Labour Members. Should Labour win the 2015 election, even with a relatively comfortable overall majority, the loss of around 40 MPs when Scotland goes would plunge it into a minority Government. Does it soldier on to May 2020, or would such a Government try to engineer a losing confidence vote to stop the clock ticking, in accordance with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, knowing that what Whitehall inelegantly calls the “remainder of the UK”, or “RUK”, is unlikely to return another majority Labour Government in the foreseeable future?

In scenario two, in September 2014 Scotland votes to stay a part of the UK. Opinion surveys show that economic worries were among the trumping factors in determining the outcome. In June 2017, the UK electorate votes in a referendum to leave the European Union. Scottish voters, especially if the bulk of the Scottish electorate favoured staying in the EU in 2017, would say that the September 2014 deal is off. They voted then to remain part of a country with full EU membership and unfettered access to its single market. Could a UK Government deny Scotland another Edinburgh agreement and another referendum in, say, 2020? Alongside the upheaval and uncertainty of hauling ourselves out of the EU in the vain hope of becoming a kind of Singapore in the cold northern seas, the prospect of living inside a shrivelled RUK would loom once more. There is more uncertainty imperilling our islands in peacetime than in anyone’s living memory—and far more than our people realise.

I have a final optimistic thought. When the time comes, I want to draw my last breath as a Brit, not a RUK. I am fairly confident that I shall.