Queen’s Speech

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I join in the congratulations to the noble Baronesses, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie and Lady Merron, on their excellent maiden speeches and welcome them to the House. I welcome the commitment in the gracious Speech to strengthen and renew the constitution. There are many separate constitutional issues where renewal and strengthening are urgently needed.

I would like to address the outcome of the Scottish election last week and its implications. The First Minister claimed it to be a landslide and a mandate for a referendum. The landslide amounted to a gain for her party of one seat while the mandate, which she had said earlier would be triggered only by an overall majority, was now to be founded on the support of less than 32% of the Scottish electorate. She now claimed that that represented the democratic will of the Scottish people.

It is clear now that there is no case and no preponderant settled wish for a referendum, either now or in years to come—and there is certainly no mandate for one. The Scottish Parliament is almost entirely unchanged from the last one, so its mandate is to rescue Scottish education, to rebuild the sick health service, to save the neglected Scottish economy and all the other responsibilities that are devolved to it and badly need its attention.

But there does remain an unsettling malfunction in the relationship between Scotland’s devolved Administration and its United Kingdom parent. It flows in origin from the Scotland Act 1998 and later variations, and from the structural failures, in several respects, of the Scottish Parliament to deliver open and effective democratic government. The problem will fester if nothing is done. The relationship between the two has to be improved but, until now, there appears to have been a depressing blindness within government to the need for a new approach to change the atmosphere —through many and various initiatives, to be sustained over years, to build mutual good will and understanding. Precious words alone are not enough.

Nothing of substance has been done over the past few years, despite painful advice from many sources including, for example, from your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, to which my noble friend Lord Norton just referred, and more recently from an excellent study by my noble friend Lord Dunlop, who I am delighted to see will speak shortly. Just recently there have been signs that the Government have begun to take on board the nature of what is needed, with their commitment to foster a culture of collaboration and co-operation between them and the devolved Administrations. I do not underestimate the nature of that challenge, but I welcome the emerging clarity of purpose that the recent election has triggered.

I will make two points—positive, I hope—about which I feel strongly. First, there is a constitutional problem over all this, but it is a British problem, not just a Scottish one. It centres on the strength of the United Kingdom and the need to revitalise its bonds with all its parts. It can do that only if the union itself is reinvigorated. If it is not, serious problems could lie ahead. A prominent part of future debate ought to be about the damage to the rest of the United Kingdom that the secession of Scotland would cause. It would surely be deep and far-ranging, with geostrategic implications, problems for defence and security, international status, foreign affairs and soft power, to name but a few—and of course all the familial links formed over the centuries. So the United Kingdom has every right and duty to be deeply involved in any future separatist referendum, should there ever be one.

My second point is that the design and implementation of any future referendum ought to require the full involvement and approval of the United Kingdom’s Parliament. That should include the requirement that a referendum could take place only after the electorate had been made fully aware of all the implications—social, economic, financial, right across the board—of Scotland leaving the UK and how the Scottish Government proposed to address them. That can be done only after negotiations have been conducted and the broad terms of secession settled. It is essential that the people of Scotland know and understand what they would be voting for, which would bring an essential realism to so crucial a decision.

But it could all be avoided. Since Brexit, our nation is now able to reclaim its identity in full. It is vital that we develop it now in such a way that all parts of the United Kingdom feel that they continue to belong here.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I begin by paying tribute to two maiden speakers, my noble friends Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Lord Davies of Gower, for maiden speeches which certainly enhanced the quality of our debate today.

I will make some comments on the constitutional measures, which this year have had unusual prominence in this debate. In particular, I welcome in the gracious Speech the words:

“Work will be taken forward to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.”


It was good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who sadly is not in his place at the moment, condemn that Act from the Opposition Front Bench and call for its repeal. He used the word “ineffective”, but I fear that it was much worse than that. The Act has always been a piece of constitutional illiteracy. It sought to destroy a fundamental principle of our constitution that, subject to the outer limit of five years, a Government may remain in office for as long as they command a majority in the House of Commons. The consequence of blocking off that principle was months of chaos, as certain parties broke their pledges to the electorate, paralysed government and yet resisted the holding of an election that was so badly needed. No Act of repeal has yet been listed for the FTPA, but it should be straightforward to revert to the status quo ante. The folly of the present Act has now been proved. Its underlying motive can only have been more coalitions and, therefore, confusion, indecision, instability, and endless haggling within government—the kind of terrain which can bring only cruel comfort to minority parties. So long as it remains on the statute book, the Act constitutes a monstrous carbuncle in the great gut of our unwritten constitution, and it should go soon.

Another outstanding issue, of which no mention was made in the gracious Speech, but of which my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham has already spoken most tellingly, is the need for the implementation on a population basis of new boundaries for parliamentary constituencies. This is a matter of fairness and justice, over which paralysis has sat in recent years, and I agree with his comments. Matters of this kind, if not attended to, end up nowhere.

The noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, who has also, sadly, just left his place, complained that there were only 16 words in the gracious Speech about the union and devolution; the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, also had some strong words to say about it. I agree with a lot of what each of those noble Lords said, but it seems to me that much action is in fact afoot. The new “Department for the Union”, with my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in charge of it, suggests the potential for progress opening up. The tone in recent press coverage of devolution and the union is encouraging, speaking as it does of viewing all policy through the prism of the union, and of levelling up, connecting and embedding devolution into everyday business as part of the daily drumbeat of government activity.

Perhaps these are just straws blown with the wind, but this now apparently prevailing tone, if fulfilled, perfectly enshrines the change of mindset throughout government, and the more proactive approach to the devolved Administrations that your Lordships’ Constitution Committee called for in two of its reports some three or four years ago is now finding favour. Abandon the slogan “devolve and forget”, was one of our cries. But for years it seemed to be our languishing reports that were being forgotten. It now seems that the tide is with us. I noticed the other day that Professor Vernon Bogdanor has joined the cry. We do not need more throwaway, ad hoc devolution; we just need better government and better intergovernmental relations. I much look forward to the forthcoming report by my noble friend Lord Dunlop on a review of UK Government union capability, not least because, like other noble Lords, I am not certain what that implies. It is yet another initiative of the Government, taking action to meet with this serious problem.

This is sensitive territory. It will not be easy, but if we can get it right and change the tone, we can then look forward not only to a stronger United Kingdom but to a much-needed improvement in the quality of government in all its parts.