Scotland: Independence

Lord Maclennan of Rogart Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I certainly agree that one of the primary responsibilities of government is the defence and security of the realm. The report, which was published two weeks ago by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons and the Economic Affairs Committee of this House, touched on a whole stream of important issues related to defence. Defence is one of the issues on which a paper will be published in the Scotland analysis series. It is important to recognise the benefits Scotland gets, not only from our defence of the UK but from the number of jobs that are dependent on the defence industries in Scotland.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, have the Government given collective consideration to how to get across to the general voting public in Scotland the facts that are being made available, in a department-by-department process? It is extremely important to bear in mind that the media are not giving detailed consideration to these issues. The Government might think it right to communicate with the electors directly on these matters. If we follow the pattern of the previous referendum, on alternative voting, we had two weeks of media coverage of that issue, although admittedly it was nothing like as important as the break-up of Britain. However, if we do not get detailed knowledge to an intelligent electorate, we could find that the public react against the general condition of the country at the time.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I take my noble friend’s point about the importance of communicating the arguments. The paper on currency to which I have just referred in my response to the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, had so many points in it that some did not necessarily get the full airing that they might have. The next paper in the series will be on the financial services industry, and numerous issues could arise from that. It is not anticipated that there will be any separate government publication in the run-up to the election in the way that there was in the run-up to the EU referendum of 1975. However, it is important that the Government communicate these important messages and arguments for the union in a way that is readily accessible. It is important that they are underpinned by some weighty analysis, but there is also a case to be made for making sure that the arguments are readily available to the public.