Scotland Bill

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Mar and Kellie]

I suppose I should continue to look for advice: did they? I also note that Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man have almost complete autonomy, including on foreign policy and the Treasury. The only thing they do not provide overall is their own defence.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, I intervene briefly in the debate simply because Amendment 88, tabled by my noble friend Lord Forsyth, also bears my name. I begin with an apology because I have been detained away from the House all day and indeed had not expected to be able to get back in time for this debate. Therefore, I speak with some diffidence because I have heard only half of the wind-up speech made by my noble and learned friend to the last debate.

This amendment was tabled when the United Kingdom Government were taking no clear interest in what was going on in Scotland, when the First Minister was being given a completely free run, and when there was a clear need for the Government to get a grip on this matter and represent the interests of the whole of the United Kingdom. That is what the amendment hopes to stimulate, and certainly there has been a lot of progress since then. I wish that I had heard all that my noble and learned friend was able to say this evening but, from the reaction to it, I understand that quite a lot of useful progress has been made.

What seems absolutely necessary is that whatever manoeuvring takes place involving a Section 30 order or whatever else may come along, we have to have a watertight situation in which the Scottish Executive cannot manoeuvre to break away from the commitment that we all now have to holding a referendum in Scotland, with clear wording that forces the issue on whether or not Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom. That point has been effectively made by a number of speakers today. I particularly agree with the comments made in the last debate by the noble Lords, Lord Williamson and Lord Reid.

My reason for intervening now is to draw my noble and learned friend’s attention to what my noble friend Lord Forsyth said when he indicated that he was willing to withdraw his amendment but sought certain clear and specific assurances and undertakings. He made the case clearly and I shall not attempt to repeat it or improve on the language he used. However, I urge my noble and learned friend to respond directly, clearly and unambiguously to the request that he made.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, at the conclusion of this long debate, I thank my noble and learned friend for what he has contributed so far.

Events have moved rapidly in the past few days and have made it extraordinarily difficult for the House to keep abreast of what is going on. However, my noble and learned friend has made it clear from the beginning that the referendum which is held will have to be legal, fair and decisive. How does he intend to enable the United Kingdom Parliament to satisfy itself that the process is legal, fair and decisive and that the questions being put to the electorate are legal, fair and decisive?

There are many questions about fairness and decisiveness in particular. My noble and learned friend has gone quite far towards satisfying us that there is now a broad consensus on what is legal but, with a Section 30 order, there is some difficulty in being certain as to how fairness and decisiveness might be achieved. I recall in earlier debates about referenda an issue about the proportion of the electorate that would be required to reach a decisive conclusion. It is a matter on which people will have differences of view and it is therefore important that we know what the Government are proposing. If Scotland was to oscillate in its views, as it might, and if large numbers of people did not vote, that might not contribute to the decisiveness of the outcome. I hope that that will be taken into account.

In earlier debates we also considered who should be the electorate. There is an inherent unfairness in precluding from such a significant referendum Scots people who are working abroad with no real property owned in Scotland. It is a difficult question to resolve but we would like to at least consider that the Government have addressed the issue.

Many of these questions, no doubt, will be referred to the Electoral Commission, as is appropriate, but Parliament’s input into this is at least as important. A government agency should not have the final determination on whether or not what is being put forward is acceptable on the grounds of it being fair and decisive. I hope, consequently, that there will be an iterative discussion in Parliament over the next few months about the process and the criteria to which the Minister has attached himself. They have been supported by others but they are not necessarily as clear as they need to be if we are to decide how this process is to be concluded.

Scotland Bill

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I wish I had not given way; that intervention was not all that helpful to my argument. If the noble Lord, Lord Steel, David Cameron and I can agree on a way forward, there must be some hope that this rainbow coalition will find out what is best for Scotland and for Britain, and will avoid the dangers of separation and of breaking up the United Kingdom. That is the way forward. I have spoken for quite long enough now.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate because I have not had the opportunity to do the groundwork in order to understand what my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendments are all about. The House is greatly in his debt for bringing to our attention the most extraordinary proposal contained in the Bill. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, I got the impression that he was arguing that we should support the Bill because we know that it is a bad Bill and that the financial provisions will not be adequate for Scottish needs. I am happy to let him intervene and correct that if I am wrong, but if he does so I know that several other people have now argued almost exactly the same point. Personally, I believe that if a Bill is bad you should not pass it, which is why in my Second Reading speech I called for it to be withdrawn. To pass a Bill because you know it is bad seems to be fundamentally wrong.

We know that the Bill will not meet the needs of the Scottish finances because in order to do so it would have to ensure that as the Barnett formula was withdrawn over time, Scottish incomes rose at the same level at least as UK public expenditure has done over the years. Research done by a couple of academics, Professor Hughes Hallett and Professor Scott, discovered that in the eight years to 2008 there was a differential between those two measurements of 0.21 per cent per annum. Over a period of time, Scottish incomes were not rising as fast as UK revenue.

There are countless arguments which could explain why the Bill cannot work and that the finances provided by this 10 per cent tax discretion will be inadequate, but that alone seemed to be a telling one. I noticed that the answer given by the Treasury in previous discussions in another place—I would be grateful if my noble friend Lord Sassoon addressed this matter in his wind-up—was that that had been true over the past eight years but would not be true over the next five years because public expenditure has been heavily reined in. I suspect that incomes in Scotland are also being pretty heavily reined in, particularly because there is a higher preponderance of public servants whose numbers are likely to be reduced and whose incomes are being controlled, and partly because the Scottish economy is in a very much poorer state than the rest of the United Kingdom’s.

One could dilate on a whole load of other reasons why the finances will not work, but the provision in the Bill to create a new tax seems to have been inserted subtly and quietly by the Government because they, too, know that the provision will be inadequate. With the Bill we are not talking about a provision to help Scotland take control of its finances and create a new accountability; in fact it is to demonstrate the complete inadequacy of provisions of this kind for Scottish accountability. That means that it is not a Bill at all but a Trojan horse.

Many noble Lords seem keen to use the failures of the Bill, which they all discern, as a springboard to bring in another Bill to create devo-max, if you like to call it that, more high taxation and other measures. Almost every measure that the Scottish Government might like to control in due course, like pensions responsibility and social welfare, will reveal further inadequacies in the Scottish capacity to provide for them once they are transferred out of the United Kingdom. Noble Lords are creating this springboard towards separation where, under what they call devolution, we shall be independent in Scotland in all but name, and possibly ultimately in name as well. That would create a situation that is not what we are supposed to be debating, so the whole debate is being conducted under a cloud of self-deception in the hope that no one will notice that failure is built into the provisions of the Bill.

My noble friend Lord Forsyth has put his finger on this point extraordinarily effectively, and I am ashamed that I had not noticed it myself when reading the Bill. I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench to address this issue and explain why the provision is there and how he thinks it will be used in future.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, that we owe a debt of gratitude to both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, for the amendments that they have brought forward to this part of the Bill and for the way in which they have put forward the arguments that have opened this debate.

This is the heart of the Bill. It is an important constitutional Bill, as I said in my opening remarks today when the Committee convened. I also said that noble Lords could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given the management of its passage through the Houses of Parliament. I regret that. To the extent that I have agreed on occasion to days and dates for the management of the Bill, on reflection I now regret doing that because it is such an important constitutional Bill. No Members of the Committee should be mistaken that this is not a Bill of constitutional significance and of potential practical significance for the people of Scotland. However, without the provision that noble Lords seek to delete with their respective amendments, I do not believe that the Bill could be described in these terms at all. What was left of the Bill would be far less significant. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore, said in his evidence to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee that without this provision, this would be,

“a smaller, less impressive Bill”.

Those are the words that he used and they are recorded not only in the evidence that he has given but quite clearly in volume I of the fourth report of Session 2010-12 of the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, to which I shall refer later on because it raises a number of other important and serious issues that need to be addressed before we conclude our deliberations on the Bill. He said that it would be a smaller and less impressive Bill, and that view is reflected in the Select Committee’s report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sassoon]

No; the point I made was that it went through this House, as would an order as envisaged here. Any number of points can be made. The principal point I addressed was the question of whether this House would be circumvented in some way by the introduction of a proposal for new taxes for Scotland. The answer is: unequivocally not, whether by an order or by primary legislation.

I would like to move on, because I have now laid out the full process here. It is important to register again the question of accountability, and the importance of the new accountability for the Scottish Government that is given here in the proposal that, for the first time, the Scottish Parliament will have the facility—with the approval of this Parliament—to set new taxes. It means that the Scottish Government will be able to find ways to deliver their desired policy outcomes and potentially raise additional revenue. As well as assisting policy-making in Scotland, the ability to propose tax solutions will itself increase the accountability of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, which is of course the main purpose of the Bill.

The measures in Clause 28 will correct an anomalous situation whereby the Scottish Parliament can implement tax policy changes through only what Calman described as the backdoor of local authority taxation. At the moment, only local taxation is devolved to Scotland. Calman noted that the current situation incentivises the Scottish Parliament to achieve its policy aims through local taxes even though they might be more effectively achieved through devolving taxes which are reserved. Again, it is important that we reflect on that point.

Not only that, but introducing makeshift local taxes in lieu of the power to raise them nationally would mean that the UK Government and this Parliament would have no power to intervene even if there were implications for the wider UK tax system. The powers granted here would at least allow for a discussion of new taxes between Holyrood and Westminster that in many cases could result in better outcomes for both Scotland and the wider United Kingdom.

Although I suspect that we may come back to this matter in more detail in later clauses, I want to address in headline terms the question of my noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton on whether Scotland will be better off or not. I know that there are questions about what the evidence from the past shows and how much credence should be given to that past analysis. But in simple terms, Scotland will be better off under the proposed arrangement if tax receipts grow faster than public spending than they would under the current block grant system and vice versa. It is not possible to say exactly what the impact will be but the key point is that this Bill delivers accountability to the Scottish Parliament and not a guaranteed financial settlement.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

I believe that the prediction my noble friend just quoted is for the five years from 2010 to 2015. I do not believe that but I accept that that is a Treasury view. However, the powers under this Bill will not come into force until about 2015. If my noble friend believes that the Scottish National Party, the Scottish Executive, are keen to have these tax powers, which we have been debating extensively this evening, simply in order to cut them, I cannot agree with him on that either. The fact is that they have vast ambitions for increased public expenditure. My argument is that they will have to increase taxation not just to increase expenditure but to keep the standard of living and government expenditure in the same place.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, the directional effect that I have set out for the effect of what is proposed in this Bill compared to the current arrangements is clear. The question that people have is, on particular projections of growth and spending, what the effect would be. Of course, it is possible to give only the worked example of growth and spending based on the current spending settlement round and the current projections of the Office for Budget Responsibility. There is no question that you can forecast for one period or any other period. It entirely depends on the assumptions you want to make about the performance of the Scottish economy and the policy decisions made by the Scottish Government about expenditure.

The key point I come back to is that it transfers a significant amount of responsibility and accountability for this balance to the Scottish Parliament, which of course is fully accountable to its electors. That really goes to the absolute heart of what we are talking about and it is why I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing attention to the point.

I think that I should bring this discussion to a conclusion—

Scotland Bill

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Debate on whether Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill resumed.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, I made the mistake before we started today’s business of having a brief word with the Minister, from which I gained the impression that if I kept quiet the preliminary business would be dealt with very quickly and we would soon be into the body of the Bill. I increasingly regretted taking the decision to keep quiet. I have picked some of the notes that I made and scribbled all over them, with a view to reintroducing and regurgitating them now.

The first thing I would say to my noble and learned friend is that, historically, two and a half hours of letting off steam at the beginning of the Committee stage on any Scottish legislation has always proved a way of shortening the overall length of proceedings. Perhaps that may happen on this occasion. However, not having let off steam, I still have some to let off and I propose to do it in short, sharp bursts periodically through the progress of the Bill.

I absolutely support the admirable speech made by my noble friend Lord Forsyth and the brilliant way in which he laid out the concern that all sides of the House have. It was an extremely productive and successful debate. I thought that his tone was absolutely first-class as well. While the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and others have criticised the tone, and are right to do so, we should always remember that tone is important but so are the facts. The facts will be pretty unpalatable but will have to be laid out before the electorate at various stages. We fail in our obligations if we do not take every opportunity to do it in this place, as well as in the referendum when it comes.

This clause was not one that concerned me when I initially looked at the Bill. I had concerns about other clauses but not about this one. However, in the light of what has happened in the past few days, and the way in which the Scottish National Party Administration has behaved, it is not a clause that one should let pass unchallenged without questioning precisely what it would achieve. That is an important approach to take, not just to this clause but to the whole Bill.

It is unsatisfactory that there is no Scottish National Party Peer in the House who could answer for that party. Let us hope that that will soon be put right. However, foghorn diplomacy is one of the First Minister’s strengths and we hear pretty clearly, even from here, what he has to say. The views of the Scottish Administration shriek out from the paper in which they published them and we are not in much doubt as to what they believe.

Turning specifically to the clause, I think the noble Lord, Lord Browne, raised the question of the possible extension of the franchise to 16 or 17 year-olds. If he did not, I hereby raise it now. I see that Clause 1 transfers certain executive functions in Section 12, relating to the conduct and administration of Scottish Parliament elections. That sounds harmless enough but I should like to hear a little more from the Minister by way of reassurance that it will not jeopardise our position any more than it is already jeopardised by the gymnastics of the First Minister.

Subsection (2) gives Scottish Ministers the powers to make provisions on the conduct of Scottish Parliament elections, which again sounds innocent but is not necessarily innocent in delivery. Subsection (3) amends Section 12(2), which clarifies the scope of the order-making powers of Scottish Ministers to make provisions under Section 12(1)(a). It also amends Section 12(2)(d) to allow Scottish Ministers to combine polls to the Scottish Parliament with other devolved elections where the polls are held on the same day. This seems to me not to involve any principle but to create a potentially anomalous situation. If the electorate were extended to include 16 and 17 year-olds and the poll for a Westminster Parliament took place on the same day as that for a Scottish Parliament, or, indeed, for Scottish councils, would it not seem anomalous if the 16 and 17 year-olds were able to vote for one but not for the other? The same would be true of European elections. To me it points not to any high principle but to self-interest on behalf of the Scottish Administration, who seem to believe that young voters would be more likely than older voters to turn out and vote for independence. Therefore, I hope that my right honourable noble and learned friend understands how my concern grows in looking at this relatively innocent clause.

Scotland: Constitutional Future

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, with regard to the noble Lord’s first question, it is very clear on page 16 of the consultation document that the United Kingdom Government believe that the Electoral Commission should oversee any referendum on Scottish independence. Indeed, we have included provision in the draft Section 30 order which is appended to the consultation document. However, we put the question because this is an issue which the Scottish Government have called into question. It is something that should be consulted on, but the UK Government make it very clear that we believe that the body best equipped to oversee this, with a track record of overseeing impartially and fairly, is the Electoral Commission.

With regard to the timing of business, as a non-business manager it is always very difficult to embark into that territory. However, the consultation will be current because there are issues other than the question of the noble Lord’s amendments, and amendments tabled by other noble Lords, with regard to independence. There are other issues to be debated in Committee. Also, it would not necessarily do any harm to air some of the issues—perhaps in more detail, which we have in this consultation—and of course there will still be the Report stage to come back to, by which time we will have had the outcome of the consultation.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, I add my welcome to this Statement, which is absolutely excellent. I welcome its clarity and its tone. I welcome its firm and fair sense of purpose, particularly with regard to the timing. I hope that the absence of a reference to an 18-month time limit in no way suggests that the enthusiasm for speed has diminished in the hands of my noble and learned friend and my colleagues in Government.

However, whatever became of Braveheart? Last February, the Scottish National Party put out a policy document, which I am told said that it would hold a referendum as soon as possible. Now, less than a year later, it seems to have disappeared into the mists of time, so it is Braveheart to shrinking violet in less than one year. I hope that my noble and learned friend will press on, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, gave. The Scottish economy is undoubtedly suffering and will continue to suffer as a result of the uncertainty which is happening. Investment is falling, inward investment is low and company formation is very low. Unemployment is rising faster in Scotland than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. We need firmness, clarity and a modicum of speed, provided always that we can ensure that all the facts and reality of the figures and consequences for Scotland are laid clearly before the people before a vote is taken. That requires independent verification by some kind of body, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth has suggested in the past.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his welcome for the approach which we are taking. As I indicated in my response to the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, it seems to be self-evidently the case that a question of Scotland's future within the United Kingdom is a cause for uncertainty as long as it remains unresolved. That indeed is why my ministerial colleagues and I are of the view that a referendum held sooner rather than later would be better. That is stated in the consultation but we thought it important that other people in Scotland, and indeed outwith Scotland, get the opportunity to express their position on the view.

My noble friend referred to Braveheart and shrinking violets. I note that in the Scottish Government's White Paper, Your Scotland, Your Voice, published in November 2009, the First Minister said:

“It is now time for the voice of the people to be heard—in the referendum on Scotland’s future we intend to hold in November 2010”.

Their manifesto for the 2010 elections said:

“We are taking forward a Referendum Bill in the Scottish Parliament this year”.

I just observe that it seems rather odd that when they were in the Scottish Parliament without a majority, they were wanting a quick referendum but when they can actually deliver it they want to delay it.

UK: Union

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I certainly agree that this is not for any one party or any one part of the United Kingdom. Judging by the response to my Answer and to the noble Lord’s Question, we all share a common interest in spelling out the merits for the union, which is of 304 years’ duration. I think the question the separatists have to answer is: why separate?

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, if the Greeks can organise a referendum in four weeks, why should it take four years to organise one in Scotland? Is not the idea of the Scottish national Administration in Edinburgh organising a referendum on independence a bit like a plaintiff presiding over their own case in court when seeking a divorce? Would it not be more appropriate for the British Government and the British Parliament to take hold of this issue and to hold the referendum soon with one simple question: do you want Scotland to leave the United Kingdom?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I certainly think that one simple question that focuses on whether Scotland should or should not be a part of the United Kingdom is key. We should avoid any attempt to muddy the waters—as I think one rather influential academic put it last week—in suggesting a second question. That is spot on. I do not think that that would bring the clarity that we need on an issue such as this. I assure my noble friend that United Kingdom government Ministers have been pressing the Scottish Government to come clean as to their timings and, more specifically, what they mean by independence. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has posed a number of questions and we are still waiting for answers.

Scotland Bill

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, I should perhaps begin by declaring an interest, or rather a lack of interest, in that I was invited, and declined, to serve as a member of the Calman commission. I have no regrets about that.

The first thing to be said about this Bill is that it is an admission of failure. It will solve nothing and it will endanger everything. Its arrival underlines vividly the shortcomings and the dangers that were always intrinsic in the other Scotland Bill of over a dozen years ago. Then we were presented with what the late Donald Dewar claimed to represent “the settled will” of the Scottish people. It was to herald a new age for Scotland. And now we have before us another Scotland Bill. Another Secretary of State hails it as the settled will of the Scottish people, and another new dawn beckons.

My Lords, I was present when we debated that Bill in this House, and my heart bled for Scotland, as I warned then that it was a Bill that I believed would break the back of Britain. I derive no satisfaction from seeing that prediction heading towards fruition. It is sometimes more painful to be proved right than to be proved wrong, but I believe that the new Bill represents one more fracture in that inexorable process. The “settled will” is looking distinctly unsettled.

Now, of course, the settled will has become an ongoing process, and an accelerating one. Does the Labour Party still believe that devolution will “kill separatism stone dead”? Surely not. Has it brought Scotland peace, plenty and contentment, even from the cornucopia of Mr Brown’s borrowings and Lord Barnett’s formula? Before the Act the Scottish National Party had almost no Westminster MPs and only a sprinkling of Scottish local councillors. Now, through the Scottish Parliament, it has overall control in Scotland.

One looks in vain for provisions in the Bill that might actually improve Scottish government, popguns and penguins notwithstanding. But the Bill will not work, firstly, because its powers will fall into the hands of the Scottish National Party, whose core objective is the opposite of this Government’s. To pander to the nationalists has the same effect as paying Danegeld. Even as we debate this Bill, they seek to double their demands. The Bill offers them the chance to raise income tax, but they now want corporation tax as well, and capital gains tax, and excise duties, and fuel duty, and quarrying, and mining, and air travel, and, for good measure, the Crown Estate’s Scottish revenues. We can be sure of one thing: they do not want to control all of these taxes in order to reduce them. My noble friend Lord Forsyth made that point in his very telling speech on the tax issues.

But yet another burden looms. Over the past decade, United Kingdom public spending, which determines the level of the Scottish block grant, has grown faster than Scottish income, which of course determines the revenue from income tax. UK public spending, of which Scotland has received its share and more, has grown by 94 per cent in 10 years, but Scottish income by only 48 per cent. Therefore, when the new Scottish income tax replaces part of the block grant, it seems that it will have to be raised above the United Kingdom rate for Scottish public spending just to stand still.

I accept, of course, that the Bill attempts to address the accountability issue—the worst shortcoming of the 1998 Act. Just as in the eurozone monetary union cannot work without fiscal union, so with devolution responsibility for spending is untenable without responsibility for taxation. However, here, too, the Bill will not work because, although it proposes to increase to 35 per cent the proportion of expenditure raised by the Scottish Parliament, the remaining 65 per cent will still come from the Treasury’s block grant, so the Scottish Parliament will still be able to blame Westminster for starving it of funds and freedom. It raises another problem, touched on by my noble friend, which is that of gearing. Anyone familiar with local government knows that, where the bulk of its budget comes from central government and that amount does not increase, the whole burden of any spending increase must fall on the local tax base—so with Scottish income tax. With the 35:65 split between Scottish tax and block grant, if the Parliament wanted to increase spending by, say, 5 per cent, Scottish income tax would need to increase for that reason alone by 15 per cent.

The Bill will not work above all because Scotland’s weakened economic base cannot support the spendthrift policies of its Government. When the Barnett bonus of some £4.5 billion starts to disappear in the shake-out of the new tax arrangements, the burden will get heavier and it will fall on a small tax base. We have fewer than 2.4 million individual taxpayers in Scotland—less than half the population. A large proportion of them are either employed by or dependent upon the public sector, where substantial cut-backs are inevitable in response to the deficit and debt crisis. Therefore, an even bigger burden will fall on the beleaguered private sector, yet that is where the only hope for future economic growth is to be found; that is where the spirit of enterprise lies. Enterprise is not a gift of government; it resides in people, not parliaments, and the more Parliament taxes it, the less it can succeed. That spirit has had little chance to prosper over the past 12 years while Scotland has languished under the cloud of what one might now call “Saltire socialism”. In 2009, Scotland, with 170,000 more public sector jobs in just 10 years, was deemed in one survey to be the most state-dependent country in the world after Cuba and Iraq. Presumably they could not get hold of the figures for North Korea.

If income tax is levied in Scotland at a higher rate than in the rest of the UK, as it would have to be, targeting our brightest and most successful entrepreneurs, I foresee, as surely everybody can, a flight of capital, a flight of jobs and a flight of people, and it would be the brightest and the best who would go first. Already the uncertainty alone about Scotland’s future is a major cause of concern to the business community.

So I say again: this Bill will solve nothing and endanger everything. It builds on failure. It offers help and encouragement to those who would destroy the United Kingdom. It will create fiscal confusion and grievance. In seeking to rectify the worst shortcoming of the Scotland Act—its lack of accountability—it will go far enough to alienate Scottish taxpayers but not far enough to enforce accountability, and it will bring with it an accumulation of painful and unforeseen financial consequences. The Germans have a word for it: Schlimmbesserung—an improvement that makes things worse.

I sympathise with my right honourable and noble friends in their dilemma. They inherited an Act that set Scotland on an ineluctable downward path towards separation. They cannot reverse it, but how can they try to slow it down and hope that it may come to rest short of complete break-up? If they do too little, the lack of accountability continues; too much, and the downward slide continues.

To conclude, I suggest that what is urgently needed is an injection of realism into this debate. What Scotland needs now is a dose of “tough love”. The Government —by which I mean the UK Government—should withdraw this Bill and place it on hold in the light of the change of government in Scotland and the determination of the governing party there to use it to advance its separatist ends. They—the UK Government —should hold the independence referendum with which the First Minister of Scotland is toying, and they should hold it soon to remove uncertainty. Before that, they should spell out in complete and unqualified detail precisely what independence would really mean for the people of Scotland.

I do not believe that deep down most of my fellow Scots want to break away, but they quite enjoy having a nationalist Government to fight their corner within the United Kingdom. However, the danger is that step by step we pass the tipping point and, before we realise it, the union is lost. So let us have it all out now: no more pandering, no more fudging. I say to my noble and learned friend: lay it on the line now and let us clear the air.

Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Essentially, what this Bill is seeking to do is to treat itself as a constitutional Bill that will pre-empt future Parliaments, unless they exercise their sovereign powers to repeal it. In other words, it seeks to act in a quasi-constitutional way. It will therefore inevitably introduce rigidity where at the moment we have maximum flexibility, and do so in the name of the democratic imperative. I do not find that persuasive when one sees the range of issues that are apparently to be subject to future referenda. That will not help the interests of the United Kingdom in negotiating within the corridors of power in Brussels and it will not enlighten our citizens, were we to have referenda on these subjects. Since it is not proposed that the powers in this Bill should be exercised in the lifetime of this Parliament, I believe that sunset and sunrise are appropriate.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, nobody is better suited than the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to inject into a debate on a European-related matter a degree of intricacy, complexity and subtlety. He did it with great success in a number of earlier debates on this Bill. However, from my point of view this is not a complex issue. This amendment that we are addressing is not about the substance of the Bill as such but about whether the Bill should contain a sunset clause. That seems a much simpler issue, which can be much more directly addressed. We need to ask only what the objectives of the proponents of this amendment might be and what their motive might be for the future of the Bill.

The Bill is essentially about national sovereignty. It is about the protection of our national political security and about long-term national confidence. It is an attempt to halt the endless drift of sovereignty, salami-sliced over the years, with the erosion of our long-term security and constitutional stability by that drift towards the European Union. All earlier such commitments to restrain that kind of drift seem to have failed. I remember that at one time the watchword was “subsidiarity” and we all cheered subsidiarity around the time of the Maastricht treaty. It was going to make life so much easier and more direct, and stop the endless flow. Of course, it did not and has not and that is one more attempt that has failed.

However, this Bill is for the long term. It is an attempt to stop the rot. No Parliament can bind its successor; that seems to be the simple answer to those who believe that a sunset clause is necessary in the Bill. They say that it undermines our constitutional sovereignty. It does not because Parliament has that degree of sovereignty and could reform, repeal or change this Bill at a later date. Yet in European matters a strand of sovereignty, once lost, tends to prove irrecoverable. Without the certainty of an established position by an Act of Parliament, that trend could resurface and continue. Against that background, a sunset clause would inject uncertainty and short-termism. It would undermine the purpose of the Bill, which is perhaps the objective of the movers of the amendment. This House is here to revise and improve legislation, not to destroy the objective of that legislation. For that reason, the amendment should be opposed.

[Lord Jopling]

My Lords, I follow what my noble friend Lord Lang said, but I come to rather a different conclusion. Some of the speeches that we have heard on the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, have reverted in some ways to Second Reading speeches. I do not intend to move in that direction. I take a very simple approach to this amendment. I have now worked in this building for almost 47 years. Throughout my entire political life I have had the greatest loathing for referenda in principle. I dislike them intensely. I have always taken the view that the more referenda you have, the more people will say, “If you have these, I don’t see much point in being a Member of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords”. I therefore start with a dislike of referenda.

I have reluctantly supported the Bill in all the Divisions that have taken place on it. However, the point I want to make is the one to which my noble friend Lord Lang has just referred. Very simply, at the beginning of each Parliament, why should that Parliament not decide for itself whether it wants to revive this legislation? The amendment suggests that it should be done in a simple way by order rather than by imposing on Governments all the rigmarole of primary legislation. I cannot see why it would be necessary, given the sunset clause, to impose that on a new Parliament.

As many of my friends on both sides of the House will know, years ago I was a business manager in the other place. Early in a new Parliament, before new Bills are ready, there is plenty of time to set aside a day for deciding whether it is desirable to reactivate the European Union Bill. This would mean that at the beginning of each Parliament, following the result of the general election, a decision could be taken that reflected the views of the public. That is what Parliament should be doing and the way that Members of Parliament should operate. I therefore have every intention of supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.