Scotland Bill

Lord Lyell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lyell]

My Lords, I declare an interest as honorary patron of another Titan of the Scottish football game, which I call “Athletico Forfar”—Forfar Athletic. I get a trifle worried when I hear outpourings in the media in Scotland along the lines that something must be done to help Rangers Football Club. A great football club it may be, but I wonder how it got into that condition. The answer to that can wait, but perhaps my noble friend could write to me with an answer to the following question. Why in the winding up of a football club such as this—perhaps under Scottish insolvency law; I am not sure—is Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs not a preferred creditor? South of the border, HMRC is an ordinary creditor. However, I had understood that north of the border HMRC was a preferred creditor and would therefore get the first bite in relation to the sums owing. If my noble friend could write to me on that at some stage, I should be most grateful. I thank him for his patience.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, for all the reasons that I set out in my first contribution to this Committee when it convened some time ago to consider the Bill, I want to see this Bill passed. Consequently, I support the devolution of the tax powers to the Scottish Parliament and I want to see Clause 29 stand part of the Bill because, without that mechanism, the amendments relating to the commissioners for Revenue and Customs will not be able to work. I do not intend to delay the Committee with any debate or argument about what I think is genuinely a technical part of the Bill in terms of the mechanism for the implementation of its provisions.

My second point is by way of a bit of advice to the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, whom I welcomed to the Committee earlier. He had an interesting baptism in the Committee. I am sure that he enjoyed the hour that he was at the Dispatch Box engaging, as he did, with my noble and learned friends and noble Lords around the Chamber. If he thought that that had a distinct quality about it, then he ain’t seen nothing yet if he succumbs to the invitation to engage in a discussion about the position of Scottish football clubs. We have already had a reference to behaviour on the internet with cyberattacks and so on, but the nature of the comments that will be unleashed on the internet if he is unwise enough to be attracted into debate and discussion about the health or welfare of any Scottish football club will be worse than he has ever seen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lyell]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Sassoon]

I think that probably deals with all the football questions, and with probably just about everything else that was directly relevant to this clause. I will try to deal with some of the other things.

We came back to the big picture question of the legislative consent Motion. It is of course for the Scottish Parliament to choose to bring forward the Motion at any time; it is in its discretion. It must be in the Scottish Parliament’s interest to bring forward an LCM before the last amending stage in this House to allow the House and the Government to reflect on the LCM, and if it wanted to it could choose to pass the legislative consent Motion tomorrow.