Scotland: Constitutional Future

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I certainly am very grateful and appreciate the support and welcome that the noble Lord has given, not least because of the very important role that he played in delivering the Scotland Act 1998 through many sittings in your Lordships' House. He asked about the timing, and clearly one could pray in aid comments from professional bodies, including the CBI Scotland. However, it is almost common sense and self-evident that at a time of otherwise considerable economic turmoil and concern, businesses, which in making investment decisions look to the long term, will factor in questions of uncertainty as to whether Scotland will or will not be part of the United Kingdom and, if not, whether it will have the euro or the pound. Clearly there are uncertainties there, which is why the Government, including a number of my ministerial colleagues, have expressed a view that we would prefer to see this referendum sooner rather than later.

The consultation paper sets out some of those factors and invites comment from people in Scotland as to the timing for the referendum. I hope that not only the United Kingdom Government but the Scottish Government will have regard to those responses.

I will not follow the noble Lord down his final path, because I do not believe that while we are trying to move forward and get a legal, decisive and fair basis for a referendum, and to have a campaign which those of us who firmly believe in Scotland's future in the United Kingdom want to co-ordinate and act on together, it is the moment for criticising parties north of the border.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My noble and learned friend knows that I did not take any part in the last Scottish elections, because I was following the advice of the late Lord Weatherill and the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, that as a former Presiding Officer I should not take part in party political activity, but that did not mean that I was not watching what was going on. Does the Minister agree that what happened was that the SNP leaflets, and indeed the ballot paper, did not say, “Vote SNP for independence”? They did not even say, “Vote SNP for a referendum”. They said, “Vote SNP for Alex Salmond as First Minister.” Objectively, I thought that was rather successful. However, the idea now that there was some kind of mandate and that people were rushing into the polling booths to authorise the SNP to organise a referendum—and to decide who should vote in it, what the question is and when it should be held—is complete nonsense. Their manifesto did not even refer to the timing coinciding with Bannockburn, so let us get rid of this mandate theory.

The Government are right to come forward with a consultation paper. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, that what will scunner the people of Scotland is if we spend the next three years discussing these issues instead of getting on with getting the two Governments together to work out a sensible way of letting the people of Scotland decide their future as soon as possible.