Scotland: Independence Referendum

Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to be the first to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, on her fine maiden speech. Her arrival in your Lordships’ House is as timely as it is welcome because she has been at the epicentre of the questions before us today. The noble Baroness’s wisdom, which we have already felt today, will continue to be a boon to this House and so will her company, for she is hugely liked and admired across the political spectrum for her gift for friendship and for her generosity of spirit.

As a non-Scot, and the first non-Scot to speak in this debate, it is hard to know how to declare one’s interests in a debate of this kind. In my case, they come in three varieties. First, I had one Scottish grandmother and, since last year, have close family living in Scotland, in the Northern Isles. Secondly, to adapt the opening line of General de Gaulle’s memoirs, I have always had “a certain idea” of Scotland. More than that, I have had a love of Scotland since my first visit, aged 10, in 1957 when we went from London by car to the Isle of Skye via Edinburgh and Inverness on the way up and the Clyde and Kilmarnock, where the family lived, on the way back. The third interest is difficult to declare because, as many of your Lordships will understand, male Brits of my age were brought up not to speak of emotions in public—quite the reverse. However, I cannot conceive of my country, the United Kingdom, without Scotland as part of it. My fear is that without the Scottish connection England will become a shrivelled nation, psychologically as well as geographically, and more inward looking after the equivalent of a family break-up.

Just think of the benefits that, over the past three centuries, have poured over the border from the family in the north to the family in the south, enhancing the lives of both family branches. We all have our own list—we have had several today—but here is mine in headline form. There are the continuing fruits of the Scottish Enlightenment, which we feel every day in the prowess of Scotland’s universities. I should declare an interest in that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, gave me an honorary doctorate at the University of Strathclyde a few years ago, which I wear with pride. There is Scotland’s industry and flair for invention; its gifts for public, judicial and military service; its writers and actors; and the variety, spice and bite that Scotland has brought to our Parliament and our political philosophies. That is quite enough emotion from me— probably too much—save to say that if Scotland separates, whatever the position in international law, I shall always regard it in my mind as part of my country until the day I depart for what will still, I hope, be a UK enclave in the sky.

Perhaps I may concentrate today on one aspect of what I regard as the regrettable decision taken by the Cabinet at the turn of 2012-13 that Whitehall shall not engage in any contingency planning for Scottish separation. The future of the Royal Navy’s Clyde submarine base in such an eventuality is of particular concern to me, as I am a firm believer in the need for the United Kingdom—or heaven forbid, the “remainder of the UK”, as Whitehall calls it—to sustain a nuclear weapons capacity through to the mid-21st-century as the ultimate protection against a highly unlikely but potentially utterly catastrophic contingency we might face in an unpredictable world. Sir Kevin Tebbit, a former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, has accurately depicted the UK as the world’s most reluctant nuclear power. It is to our credit, however, that we go through a great and often anguished debate each time we face an equipment or an upgrade decision. But were we ever to give up our nuclear weapons, it should be after we have had the fullest and best informed national conversation possible, not on a side wind swirling out of the Scottish question.

Having visited Faslane and Coulport, I have some idea of the magnitude of any attempt to recreate them in England or Wales in both logistical and financial terms. My research colleague, Dr James Jinks, has furnished me with the original February 1963 study, now declassified in the National Archives at Kew, of possible bases for the Polaris force. This was the list: Devonport, Falmouth, Milford Haven, Loch Ryan, Gare Loch, Loch Alsh, Fort William, Invergordon, Rosyth and Portland. The Gare Loch was chosen for good reasons: it has deep water in which to dive quickly down the Firth of Clyde off Arran, and three possible exits en route to the patrol area—through the North Channel straight into the Atlantic, up the north-west coast of Scotland and out through the Minches, or south down the Irish Sea and through the Western Approaches.

Should an independent Scotland strive to remove the SSBN and SSN forces from the Clyde, which the SNP is pledged to do, there are now only two possible sites for relocation: Falmouth and Milford Haven. Can you imagine the planning process and the construction efforts required, let alone the cost? We may be able to take a stab at imagining these things, but the Ministry of Defence cannot under Cabinet orders. The solution, in my judgment, would be a sovereign base arrangement for Faslane and Coulport on the Cyprus model, but that idea is, I fear, regarded with horror in both Downing Street and the First Minister’s residence. I profoundly hope that the question does not arise.

I shall finish with a thought about the union post a referendum decision in Scotland not to separate. Although the union will be intact for now, there will remain the danger of a creeping estrangement between Scotland and England, especially if the SNP forms the next post-referendum Government. There could well be a continuing, perpetual drizzle of complaint about Westminster and Whitehall which would induce still more resentment south of the border and poison any conversations about further devolution. If the post-referendum relationship is one of surliness and sourness, we shall all be the poorer. I was very struck by the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lang, about learning to do things once more as a union. Post-September, if we are still together, it will be necessary to sing a song of the benefits of union. The union quite simply is a 300 year-old international success story. It has done great things for our people and for the world in peace and war. It can still do more, much more.