Scotland: Independence Referendum

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

The distinguished former Member of your Lordships’ House, Earl Russell, described the essential relationship between Scotland and England as that which could be defined by saying that England could brook no equal, and Scotland no superior. The motto of the oldest continuous regiment in the Regular Army, the Coldstream Guards—“Second to none”—is testimony to that. As a borderer, my area has seen the tensions realised over the centuries. No doubt, my ancestors, who were witness to the bloody dispute on Flodden Field, may have some sympathy when I see a less bloody dispute at Murrayfield between the two warring partners in 10 days’ time.

This debate has heard much of poetry and pragmatism. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to say that the best poetry was best delivered by my former colleague, my noble friend Lady Goldie. If many noble Lords thought that the only Conservative politician to be stranded on a zip wire was Boris Johnson, they need to refer back to my noble friend Lady Goldie, who was the first to pioneer that media stunt in an election campaign in my former constituency a number of years ago.

That, as well as a longer history, has been part of today’s debate. However, in my short contributions to previous debates in your Lordships’ House on this subject, I referred to a girl who would be born in Scotland on the day of the referendum, who would be likely to see the 22nd century, and her granddaughter the 23rd century. In that regard, the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, set exactly the right tone for our national debate taking place in Scotland and across the whole UK: the choice ahead of those of us who have a vote in Scotland is between the ever more diluted and nebulous concept of independence that is being presented or a reformed and refreshed union. I very much respect the contribution made to Scottish politics by the noble Lord, Lord Lang, but I regret his saying in this debate that those of us who are passionate about the union and Britain, and see the benefit that reforms can bring, should be getting real.

A decade ago, when I served on the Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee, I wrote a paper arguing that while the establishment of a Scottish legislature was unquestionably a good thing, we did not establish a Scottish Government or have the recourse to reforms to Whitehall and Westminster that allowed a more federal type of United Kingdom to be developed. That is why there is an opportunity ahead of us to seize that issue and offer the people of Scotland an opportunity to reject independence but put their faith in a reformed and improved union. I concur wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, in his illustrations of the benefits of the Scottish Parliament. To his examples, I could add: land reform, which languished on the shelves of officials who did not secure parliamentary time in Westminster; criminal and civil law reform; the first legislation on freedom of information in the UK, which included its own Parliament in that legislation—something that this place learnt, to its cost, that it should have done; reform of local government; and electoral reform. Many of those instances were put forward through the leadership of my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace and the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, working together in coalition. They saw coalition work in the United Kingdom, after a long break, which was also a contribution that reform can bring. Those are examples of parts of progressive reform in progressive institutions.

The very much admired and much missed John P Mackintosh said in another place in 1976:

“One party, with which I have much sympathy—the nationalists—says ‘If you feel Scottish and want to run your own affairs, you must have the full panoply of statehood—with an army, a navy, an air force, ambassadors abroad and the lot’. I do not think that the Scottish people want that. The other group, the Unionists, say ‘If you feel British, if you value British traditions and respect British parliamentary democracy, and if you think that the big industries have to cover the whole of Britain, you cannot have a degree of self-government which reflects your needs in your own areas.’ I reject both propositions. Institutions have to be the servants of political demands. We have people in Scotland who want a degree of government for themselves at the Scottish level. It is not beyond the wit of man to devise the institutions to meet those demands and thus strengthen the unity of the United Kingdom”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/12/76; cols. 1829-30.]

That happened. However, we have an opportunity to question whether that system was the best for the future. Is the settlement we have the most stable and beneficial for the rest of the life of that young girl who will be born next year?

A decade ago, I wrote the paper to which I referred. More recently in my work—I declare an interest as a member of the advisory board of the think tank Reform Scotland—I was the author of the devo-plus reports, published in 2012. They sought to establish an objective look at where the most appropriate balance of power and accountability would lie for the most efficient and stable delivery of public services in Scotland, and across the rest of the United Kingdom. We have an opportunity to put the Scottish Parliament on a more permanent constitutional footing, allow it fiscal power commensurate with its legislative power, and ensure that there is proper accountability and elections in the Scottish Parliament, so that when I was an MSP people would not have asked me where the money was raised from for the services on which it was spent, but would have asked simply how it should be spent. There should be more robust legislative underpinning of the financial relationship with the Scottish Parliament. That is unsustainable in the future because the devolved Scottish budget is treated effectively as a departmental budget line in the Treasury documents. It is also no longer sustainable that the funding formula for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland can be arbitrarily changed by the Treasury or that, if we consider the Scottish Parliament to be permanent, it can be abolished by a one-line piece of legislation in this Parliament.

It is an absolute pleasure and an honour to be part of a debate to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has contributed. He said in a judgment on AXA General Insurance v the Lord Advocate in the Supreme Court:

“The dominant characteristic of the Scottish Parliament is its firm rooting in the traditions of a universal democracy. It draws its strength from the electorate. While the judges, who are not elected, are best placed to protect the rights of the individual, including those who are ignored or despised by the majority, the elected members of a legislature of this kind are best placed to judge what is in the country’s best interests as a whole”.

I believe passionately that it is in the best interests of Scotland to remain a successful and progressive part of the United Kingdom, but we need to look very clearly at the form and we need to offer people a positive choice in the referendum. In that regard, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, and others are correct in saying that we have an opportunity to provide people with a positive choice for the future.