Scotland: Independence Referendum

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate because, as others have said, the referendum in Scotland will affect not only Scotland itself but every other part of the United Kingdom, especially Wales. If Scotland leaves the UK, 59 Scottish Members of Parliament will be removed from the House of Commons, 58 of whom are not Conservatives—only one is a Conservative. That would not occur under proportional representation, but 58 of those will be opposition Members. If that happens, it will be much easier to obtain a Conservative majority in England, Wales and Northern Ireland than it is at present. I know that fair-minded Conservative Members will be as horrified as I am that this perpetual Tory majority could squeeze the rest of the United Kingdom.

Wales has never had a majority of Conservative MPs. I looked back to 1885 and found that in that year there were 29 Liberals in Wales and four Tories. In 1906, 1997 and 2001, not a single Conservative was elected in Wales. Therefore, a party which in 140 years has never returned the largest number of MPs in Wales would be ruling in a country which has rejected it time and time again. Usually in Wales the Conservatives will have, say, 20% of the vote, so 80% of the people of Wales will be subject to an alien party, as well, of course, as being subject to England. This would be colonial rule returned. The immediate cry would be for Welsh independence. People such as me who are in favour of a federal solution for the whole UK—we have not really spoken about that—might join the independence bandwagon, because Wales would be ruled by a party that had never been in the majority there, and that represented only 20% of its people.

We have to think of this. England would rule; Scotland would have gone; Northern Ireland would be there; and Wales would be subject to the rule of the 20% over the 80% of the people who were not Tories. A yes vote in Scotland to independence would deny us the opportunity of discussing the federal answer to our demands. We must go to that discussion next: a federal answer should be discussed increasingly in the years ahead.

I speak only briefly today to say that if the majority of the people of Scotland want independence then they must have independence, because the people of a country ruled in this way have the right to give their opinion. On this occasion, however, I think that I can speak for the people of Wales of all parties if I ask them, “Scotland, please stay with us, because otherwise we will see the dissolution—the end—of the UK as we know it”.