Scotland Bill

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, a number of points have been raised on this group of amendments. Amendment 43 refers to “may” and “must”. When I was a young, dynamic junior Minister in the Scottish Office, I once tried to change “may” to “must” in a Bill that we were bringing before Parliament. I was told by my officials that: “In effect, Minister, ‘may’ means ‘must’”. This was, of course, in the premiership of my late lamented friend Baroness Thatcher. I rather like the triangulation, offered by the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, that “shall” is probably better than either of them. No doubt the Minister will have an answer to that point.

I support the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on Amendments 45 and 47 and echo what has been said by my noble friends Lord Dundee and Lord Sanderson. This is an important issue because centralisation—to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, drew attention—is a very alarming trend that is taking place in Scotland. We see it threatening the universities. I had a hand in the universities when I was Secretary of State: I created their separate funding council in Scotland and took part in expanding university activities. To see anyone intervening in the independence of the universities worries me greatly.

One can see it in the police, too. Again, I made changes to the police force when I was Secretary of State but I resisted any suggestion of centralising, which I thought was a seriously wrong step. I would have liked to have privatised Scottish Water, but I was able to set up three separate corporations. Once they had created a record of performance, they would have been able to follow the English ones—already in the form of corporations—into private ownership. Sadly, I was no longer in power, and nor was my successor, my noble friend Lord Forsyth, when that point was reached.

There has been a trend, not just confined to the present Government but over time, for the devolved Parliament not to devolve further: not to decentralise but to centralise. That is why I feel strongly that we do need, as the noble Earl suggested, a separate Scottish Crown Estate commission. Indeed, I had rather assumed that that would be forthcoming. I regret to say that I do not have the Smith commission report with me now and I cannot quote the wording, but I was under the impression that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, anticipated some form of further decentralisation affecting this organisation. I do not believe that he thought that it should pass into the maw of the Scottish Government, for them to despoil or develop as they think fit. It has been immensely successful over the years and it deserves to be maintained, as my noble friend Lord Sanderson said. It should, of course, be accountable to the Scottish Parliament and its Ministers, just as happens in the United Kingdom with the Crown Estate.

On Fort Kinnaird, I echo what my noble friend Lord Sanderson said. This is a separate venture, not a wholly-owned part of the Crown Estate Commission. To intervene in a joint venture with an outside commercial body, which is maturing well and is part of a good, well-established relationship with that body, would jeopardise the interests of both the outside partner and the estate commission itself. Therefore it was and remains right not to interfere with the arrangement but to allow it to continue. To force some kind of disposal might jeopardise the venture itself and the Scottish Crown Estate commission to some extent. That cannot be in the interests of anyone involved in this debate. So I support what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said and I hope that the Minister will respond favourably.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

Just as a footnote to the point that noble Lords have made about Fort Kinnaird, one can see from the Crown Estate commissioners website the structure of the venture that has been described. The Crown Estate commissioners themselves have,

“a 50 per cent interest in an English Limited Partnership which owns Fort Kinnaird Retail Park in Edinburgh”.

The venture is a partnership. The ownership and presumably the management of Fort Kinnaird are in the hands of the partnership and I take it that the commissioners draw a revenue out of that arrangement.

That takes one to the essence of the role of the commissioners, as described on their own website, which is one of management of the resources in order, as they put it,

“to deliver the best value over the long term”.

Of course, the interest for the UK Government at present is in the revenue. The commissioners make it clear that their function is to pay all the “annual revenue profit” to the Government. I would have thought it absolutely crucial to maintain that position, that in so far as the assets are concerned, they are managed in the broad interest of maintaining the assets for the best value. Of course, the revenue would then be transmitted to the Scottish Government, as would be consistent with the present position. That distinction between capital and revenue management and payment is absolutely crucial to the point that various other noble Lords have been making.