Scotland Bill

Lord Sewel Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I absolutely agree and, although I do not know whether it is intentional, I think that Alex Salmond has deliberately set out to attack the English and blame them for everything. I guess that I will probably not be around if there is ever Scottish independence to see how the nationalists react when they are on their own and there is no one to blame. Yes, he wants to annoy people and we should not fall for that. When the referendum comes, I hope that people in England, Ireland and Wales get a say in some form or another. The case will be made very strongly that those of us who believe in the union and in Scotland certainly do not believe in antagonising the neighbours.

[Lord Sewel]

My Lords, for a number of reasons, I am not particularly keen for the 1998 Act to be amended, but I will accept it as we progress. However, the important thing is that nothing in the 1998 Act prevents this Parliament legislating in devolved areas. That is stated in the Act itself, but of course to get a proper relationship between the two Parliaments, we formulated what has come to be called the Sewel convention, whereby this Parliament will not normally legislate in a devolved area except with the agreement of the Scottish Parliament—I repeat, not normally. That is the relationship.

The need for a legislative consent Motion, which is founded upon the Sewel convention, was then extended to cover any legislation that affected the powers of Scottish Ministers. I think that that was done without any statement to Parliament. I have never been able to trace, apart from in a Cabinet Office note, how that extension occurred. In some way, that is why we are discussing the need for a legislative consent Motion for the non-referendum part of this Bill. I am attracted to the idea that we split the Bill and deal separately with issues relating to new powers for the Scottish Parliament—which I accept to all intents and purposes come under the requirement for a legislative consent Motion—and the bit about the referendum, because it does not require a legislative consent Motion as a referendum relates to the constitution. The constitution is a matter that is specifically reserved in the 1998 Act to this Parliament. Furthermore, if you read the debates on amendments that Members of the Opposition tabled at that time on the need for a specific reference to an independence referendum, the Secretary of State in the other place and I here made it absolutely clear that by reserving the constitution and everything to do with it, anything anticipatory and ancillary to a referendum is reserved as well.

[Lord Sanderson of Bowden]

Does the noble Lord agree that the time for an enabling Bill, because I think he is going down that route, is in the next Session of Parliament once Scotland has agreed to the consultation document—not our own one but the other one? Surely that is the time for this Parliament to consider and if necessary put through a Bill.

[Lord Sewel]

The noble Lord, as always, makes an interesting and important point. At this stage, I am not prepared to follow him completely, but it is something upon which we may wish to reflect as the debate progresses in our House.

Part of the confusion that we face on the whole business of a referendum, because the debate in Scotland for a long time assumed that it was within the powers of the Scottish Parliament to call a referendum on independence, is because—and we have seen this sort of tactic in a number of areas—the present First Minister has a very good knack of being able to make quite outlandish assertions, and make them so strongly and repeat them so many times that people come to accept their validity without any attempt to find out what the actual position is in reality and in law.

I hope that we progress with this Bill, but we must do so with a great deal of care.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, although I agree with many of the arguments advanced by my noble friend Lord Forsyth, I am glad that he is not going to press his amendment to a vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, suggested that my noble friend Lord Sanderson was being a bit unkind in using the word “devious” about Mr Salmond, and I take his point. Can I rephrase that and be positive and say that Mr Salmond is successfully manipulative? That is a compliment. I have said repeatedly that members of Her Majesty's Government underestimate him at their peril. He is not known as “smart Alec” for nothing north of the border. I remind the House that in the previous two general elections in Scotland he did not campaign on independence. He did not even campaign under the banner of the Scottish National Party. He campaigned on the basis of, “Alex Salmond for First Minister”. That tells you a great deal about how we have got to where we are. That campaign was very successful and manipulative.

There is another area that we have rather passed over. Before any Bill is introduced, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament has to sign legislative competence, both under the Scotland Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. I used to take that matter very seriously indeed, and the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, will not mind me saying that there were occasions when I told the Executive that they could not expect me to act just as a rubber stamp. My legal advisers would send me back with a red box with perhaps 30 pages of their opinion on whether something was legislatively competent or not.

The referendum Bill, as outlined in Mr Salmond’s consultation paper yesterday, would have to come to the Scottish Parliament. Frankly, if I were Presiding Officer I would not sign a document that said that a referendum was within the competence of the Parliament because I do not believe that it is. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, may be correct that the Scottish Parliament can hold an expensive opinion poll, but it certainly cannot hold a referendum, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, just advanced. However, remember what happened after the most recent election. After the first Scottish election, I was elected as the Presiding Officer, and I came from the Liberal Democrats. In the second Parliament, the Presiding Officer, George Reid, came from the Scottish National Party. In the third Parliament, the Presiding Officer, Alex Fergusson, came from the Conservative Party.

On any understanding of common sense and good will, it was the Labour Party's turn to provide the Presiding Officer after the most recent election, but of course Mr Salmond does not do graciousness. He does not do consensus. He had a majority, so a member of the SNP was appointed as Presiding Officer. I make no criticism of her whatever; I think she has behaved perfectly well, but it puts her in an impossible position and has shown again how Mr Salmond's record is one of being successfully manipulative—as did the use of Edinburgh Castle yesterday, to which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred and as does the question in the consultation paper. We were told over the past few days by every newspaper that Mr Salmond was being so kind that he was going to allow the Electoral Commission to be in charge of the referendum, but when we read the paper we find that it is in charge of the administration but not in charge of the question. That, again, has been successfully manipulated.

I just say to the House that we must be extremely careful in all our dealings with the present Scottish Government. The paper published yesterday is run through with the theme of successful manipulation. I think we should proceed with the Bill. I take the view—as, I think, does my party—that it is not strong enough. We want greater devolution to the Scottish Parliament in future, but that is not on the agenda now. This is a Bill produced by consensus, and for that reason we should press ahead with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the point on Section 30 orders is clear—it is in statute. Statute law requires the consent of the Scottish Parliament and of each House in this Parliament. A convention is just that, a convention; it is not enshrined in statute. However, as the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, said, if a convention has been operating for a period, you have to be careful about how you deal with it. I am not going to say anything today that might prejudice the way in which that convention is dealt with. Equally, although there is a legislative consent Motion outstanding, I very much hope that there will be a further one to which the House can have regard before we reach Report.

I shall come to the question asked by the right reverend Prelate in a moment. However, we may well have completed the Committee stage before we have the report of the Scottish Parliament committee. At one stage it seemed possible that we might receive it but, for reasons of timing, that has not happened. There is certainly nothing sinister about it, and I do not think that the Scottish Parliament necessarily expects that we would hold back our deliberations in Committee until the legislative consent Motion had been tabled and debated. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, is desperate to intervene.

[Lord Sewel]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for giving way. So far as I can remember, and I may well be wrong, a legislative consent order can be passed at any time up to immediately before the last amendable stage of a Bill in this Parliament.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That accords with my recollection. Given the limitations on amendments tabled at Third Reading in your Lordships’ House, I am not going to get into a discussion on whether it would be before Third Reading or before Report. However, that—as enunciated by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel—accords with my understanding of the convention.

It is also important to note what has been noted by a number of contributors to this debate—that not only has the Bill been passed by the elected House, its content was included in the 2010 general election manifestos of the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and, substantially, the Conservative Party. Each party which had been party to the Calman commission process made a commitment in its respective manifesto to take it forward. It is quite a rare event in politics to be criticised for implementing your manifesto commitments. It rather stands things on their head if for some reason you are criticised for actually doing what you said you would do.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, asked me as a member of the Calman commission—I suppose that my declaration of interest will apply throughout these proceedings—what response the commission received. I think that it is fair to say—there are other members of the commission present in your Lordships' House today—that we were not inundated with suggestions about where the boundary between devolved and reserved matters should fall. Many of the representations that we did receive—there were not a particularly large number—are reflected in the Bill before us. However, it was strongly represented to the Calman commission that the 1998 Act would have to be revisited because of the lack of financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament. That was understood when the Act was passed. We have had since 1999 a Parliament that has had complete discretion over how it spends the money it receives but precious little responsibility for raising it. I think that my noble friend Lord Steel said in a Donald Dewar lecture that a Parliament that was 100 per cent dependent on its revenue from another Parliament would have to address that issue. That is what we seek to do in the Bill. As the Calman commission proposals have been around since 2009—they elicited a White Paper from both the previous and the present Administrations—I suspect that many of them, to some extent, have already been banked. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, indicated, these are very substantial proposals that should not be minimised. They will give to the Scottish Parliament a degree of financial accountability that does not exist at the moment. That is one of the reasons why we want to make progress.

The right reverend Prelate asked about the overlap of the Scotland Bill and a referendum campaign. I think it is fair to say that it has been known since last year’s election, and before the Commons debated the Bill on Report, that we would have a referendum campaign at some point. That is something that we have to take account of but it has not suddenly come up. It was clear in the Second Reading debate that we would go into a referendum campaign at some stage. However, the Bill’s powers are substantial and we should continue to make progress with it.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, raised some important issues about the referendum campaign that will have to be debated, as the substance of that independence debate, once the process is resolved. I think that many of us look forward to engaging in that debate and making a positive case for Scotland being part of the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, warned that the First Minister was perhaps taking the view that the way to get rid of bad tenants is for them to annoy the neighbours. It is a good analogy up to a point, but the point is that we are not tenants. We helped to build the house and we co-own it. That is why the union is so valuable to us.

My noble friend’s Amendment 85 will allow us to return to these matters later in Committee. As I indicated earlier, although the Scottish Parliament has considered the Bill, your Lordships' House should be able to consider it in detail too. I am conscious that there are a number of your Lordships present who were here during the debates in 1998. I think that those debates well served the Scotland Bill, which became the Scotland Act 1998. The kind of deliberation that your Lordships can bring to a constitutional measure such as this is an important part of the process. I encourage noble Lords to continue deliberations on the Bill, and I hope that we can now proceed to do so in Committee.