Queen’s Speech

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

It has been a great pleasure to hear two such admirable maiden speeches, and it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—our lost Leader—who clearly has not lost his panache. I would simply say in response to his attack on the Cross Bench that there is no Cross-Bench line and no Cross-Bench Whip. Cross-Benchers tend to listen to the arguments, and it is conceivable that they may vote on the merits. There are a number of explanations for a number of government losses in recent votes; it may have something to do with the merits of the issues.

What I want to talk about is Scotland. Sixty-two of the 73 constituency Members of the Scottish Parliament that convene today come in SNP colours. That would equate to 550 seats in the House of Commons. If Mr Johnson had done as well in 2019, his majority today would be 450. Of course, the balancing of this system has done its job and the SNP falls one short of a majority, but to call the election a setback for Mrs Sturgeon, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, came quite close to doing, would be a little absurd. Like it or not, by winning a fourth consecutive term, the SNP Government are now the voice of Scotland, with the right to be heard. I do wish we could hear them in this House.

It would be no less absurd to assert, as Mr Johnson regularly did until recently, that the UK Government and this Parliament could flatly refuse a Section 30 order permitting an independence referendum should it again be sought. The union in 1707 was by consent, not coercion, and the best way of boosting the independence cause in Scotland would be to deny the right of the Scottish people to make a democratic decision. I am very torn about all this. My working life was spent in UK government service. I was privileged to head the Diplomatic Service of the United Kingdom. I liked having three identities and three citizenships—Scottish, British and European. I deeply regret losing one; I do not want to lose another.

In 2014, when Mr Salmond claimed that an independent Scotland could slip easily and instantly into the EU, I disagreed, pointing out that a period outside and an accession negotiation would be inevitable, and the terms obtained from outside inevitably less favourable than those Margaret Thatcher and John Major had secured from inside. The prospect of temporary exile from the EU may have dissuaded some Scots from voting to leave the UK in 2014. In 2016, the Scots voted by a larger majority against leaving the EU, only to be dragged out against their will, which might make some of them now regret and change their 2014 votes. It is a material change of circumstances, with leaving the UK now seeming the only route back to the EU.

But probably a bigger vote-changer in Scotland is the changed way the London Government have handled Scotland—and Wales and Northern Ireland. We have a Prime Minister who calls devolution a disaster. Seen through Scottish eyes, Whitehall risks seeming not a United Kingdom Government but an English Government, deaf to Scottish concerns. It was a very bad mistake when, on the morning after the 2014 referendum, Mr Cameron chose not to bind up the wounds but instead to promulgate EVEL—English votes for English laws. The promise to write the Sewel convention into law was honoured only in form without binding effect. Brushing aside Mrs Sturgeon’s White Paper and going for the hardest of Brexits, ignoring how much free movement meant for Scottish demography and the Scottish university, research and financial communities, Mr Johnson added insult to injury. Then came the internal market Act, driving a coach and horses through the devolution settlement—taking back control, but for England.

Trust, once lost, is not easily rebuilt. Maybe Mr Johnson will now try. I hope so. Parity of esteem and an end to gratuitous and patronising attacks on Scotland, Scotland’s elected Government and their mandate would be a start. But the key point is that if the union is to survive, its Government—the union Government, the Government of the four nations—must stop behaving like English nationalists. Precisely because they now have so few seats outside England, and no Macmillans or Douglas-Homes in their ranks, they must be seen to be alive to Scottish concerns. Why does Rhode Island have as many senators as California, and why did the EU adopt qualified majority voting? It was to give the views of smaller member states greater weight. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the highest wisdom. Condescendingly throwing in a couple of freeports and some levelling up largesse will not take the trick.

As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, pointed out, it is 18 months since the report of the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, found

“broad consensus … that the UK’s intergovernmental relations machinery is not fit for purpose”,

but one heard nothing in the Queen’s Speech or from the Minister today about concrete steps to put that right. What is needed is genuine decision-sharing, which probably requires the permanent decision-taking forum for which Gordon Brown has called. Who knows whether 1707 can survive? What is certain is it will not unless Scots want it to, and they probably will not unless London rediscovers a United Kingdom mindset. Of course, for Scots, the economic hit from the break-up would be far greater even than that of Brexit, but Mr Johnson proved in 2016 that heart can overrule head. It could happen again. It is up to him now.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the amendment would establish that it should meet, and some timescales are set down. My concern relates to good intentions. No one disputes the good intentions for the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations when established, but they were not carried through in practice. When the Minister comes to reply—I am not sure which Minister it will be—I am sure that we will be told of good intentions. We want to ensure that good intentions are delivered on.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 18. It would be very much in the Government’s interest to buy the amendment; it is quite hard to see what arguments could be made in public against their doing so.

I want to speak briefly to Amendment 29, to which I have put my name. I have little to add to what was said on the subject by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson—she knows much more about it than me. I disagree only with one thing that I think she said, which was that the JMC had tended to meet regularly but not frequently. It might have been better to say that it met rather irregularly and very infrequently.

I am pleased to be able to say that my text for this debate comes from a point made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, when he stressed the need for courtesy and respect in the handling of the devolved Administrations. I strongly agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness: things are getting very tense. I agree with the point made earlier in discussion on this group of amendments that the devolution settlement is in clear and present danger. As we approach the minutiae of this Bill, we need to have the broader picture in mind. Fine words have been said and undertakings given by successive Front-Bench spokesmen, but they are not perceived in Cardiff or in Edinburgh to have been delivered on. That is why it is a good idea to write into statute the role of the JMC.

That for me is the second-best option. The best option would be to include representatives of the devolved Administrations in the negotiating teams that go to Brussels when the subject for discussion is going to touch on the competence of the devolved Administrations. The battle over common frameworks will be very much easier if the devolved Administrations believe they have been involved in the substance of the negotiations.

I recall that when we first joined the European Union, long before I was born, the first representatives to discuss, for example, fisheries in Brussels were John Silkin accompanied by Bruce Millen and Willie Ross. It was frequently the Scots who spoke on fisheries in the Council, although the legal establishment from London was sitting alongside them. I see no difficulty of principle, and I hope the Government do not, in including the representative devolved Administrations in the negotiating team.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure, as always, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, but I shall take my text from what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan. I share his concern and surprise that the gracious Speech is silent on what seems to me to be the clear and present danger of the union disintegrating. I too will talk about Scotland, but also about Ulster.

I agreed with Mr Johnson when he told the DUP conference in 2018:

“No British Conservative Government could or should sign up to … regulatory checks and … customs controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”


I agreed with that, but he has so signed up. Clearly I was wrong to discount the polls that told us that the party in England would rather lose Ulster or Scotland than delay Brexit. However, it still seems rather odd that the Government are so relaxed about the possible price to be paid. It does not take a crystal ball to spot what might happen when trade in both directions across the Irish Sea is subject to checks supervised by a third party, with tariffs payable to a third party on Northern Ireland’s imports from the mainland if there is any risk of those goods going on into the Republic. When many regulations and standards, all state aid rules and all VAT rules in Northern Ireland are set not by this Parliament or Belfast but by Brussels institutions in which Belfast is not represented but Dublin is, the economic integration of the island of Ireland will proceed apace. Will not political integration likely follow, with Westminster required to deliver on the 1998 promise of a border poll?

Northern Ireland voted to remain, and will now remain in much of the single market and all of the customs union. Anyone born there will retain the right of EU citizenship, except the citizen’s right of representation —but will not support for correcting that democratic anomaly be reinforced over time by Northern Ireland’s demography? A return to full EU membership would of course be easy. It would not require any accession negotiation; the 1990 German unification precedent would obviously apply.

It is not for a Scot like me to say whether the end of a century of Irish partition would be a good or a bad thing. All I can say is that it now seems rather likely, given Johnson’s betrayal of Ulster unionism. Where does that leave Scotland, which also voted to remain and whose Government have since argued in a series of White Papers brushed aside by Mrs May and Mr Johnson that, if the UK were to leave the single market and customs union, Scotland should be allowed to retain some kind of EEA-type arrangement—an arrangement rather like the one Ulster Unionists did not want but are now going to get? In Edinburgh the contrast adds insult to injury. If next year’s election up there returns another nationalist Government, I find it hard to see how the demand for another referendum on independence can be resisted. To go on dismissing self-determination would only fuel the demand for it, and the Irish have their right to a border poll. So where does this end?

In 2014 I campaigned against Scottish independence. Doing so will be harder next time. I annoyed Mr Salmond particularly by insisting that leaving the UK would mean leaving the EU, something few Scots wanted. That argument has gone. I majored on the economic downside to secession, but the English have just been persuaded that, for them, sovereignty matters more than prosperity. We should heed the eloquent warning of the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan; the Scots might take a similar view to the English. They might want to take back control. It is a potent slogan, and head might lose out to heart.

The gracious Speech was, as the noble Lord said, strikingly silent on all this and on how these risks could be reduced. However, the accompanying memorandum tells us on page 121 that the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, is about to undertake an independent review into the UK Government’s “union capability”. I have absolutely no idea what that means, but I look forward to hearing from the noble Lord later today and wish him luck. I have great respect for him and it seems to me conceivably to be an extremely important exercise. I hope its terms of reference are broadly drawn.

In the meantime, I will make two concrete suggestions to the Minister. Will the Government include representatives from Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast in the new team being assembled to conduct the future trade relations negotiations and in the Joint Committee which is to implement the withdrawal agreement? Will they rapidly refresh strands 2 and 3 of the 1998 Good Friday agreement institutions, in particular considering how to give some democratic legitimacy to EU laws applying in future in Northern Ireland?