Scotland Bill

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I do not know whether I am grateful to the noble Lord for that, because I had a very clever ending to this part of my contribution and he has prevented me moving towards it as quickly as I wanted to.

I have never been able to do this before in a debate: I intend to quote the Clerk of the Parliaments. There is a Library note on the issue of financial privilege; it goes into this issue in some detail, and only our Parliament could produce something like this that was so interesting and esoteric. Paragraph 18 of this report says:

“In conclusion, it may be worth making two points … First, until the Commons asserts its privilege, the Lords is fully entitled to debate and agree to amendments with privilege implications”.

It seems, and I am grateful for this, that this is the complete answer to the noble Lord’s amendment. It would be ill advised of this House, given that it has that power, to seek for the first time to try to control it with legislation at its own hand. I cannot, as I am sure the noble Lord will be devastated to hear, support his amendment in these circumstances.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Forsyth has a technical point about taxation through Orders in Council, but I want to come back to this basic point regarding the Bill: Section 28 talks in bold type about the power to add new devolved taxes. That is something to which my noble friend is opposed; he does not want the Scottish Parliament to have the power to create more taxes, but I do. I think I am right in saying that the Calman commission also wanted to give the Scottish Parliament the power to add more taxes. Going back even to the referendum that we had, I know that my noble friend keeps saying that there is a difference between varying taxes and adding new ones, but that is too subtle a distinction.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

There are three members of the Calman commission here. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Selkirk of Douglas will be able to confirm this. I think the Calman commission said that the Scottish Parliament should have the power to add specified taxes. I am not against the Bill allowing for specified taxes; I am against it being open-ended and subject to that procedure.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

That is where we differ. I am not against the Scottish Parliament having such powers. I want the Bill to be stronger than it is. We are on a constant road on devolution. I still believe that we want to get to the point where the Scottish Parliament has responsibility for raising the money that it spends on devolved matters. The Bill does not go that far but at least it moves in that direction.

I give the Committee a specific example. My noble friend keeps talking about a window tax. Nobody in their right mind is contemplating introducing a window tax in Scotland; not even Mr Salmond has suggested that. However, we used to have a dog licence fee in this country. It was abolished some years ago because it reduced to 37.5p. It was collected by local authorities and it cost so much to collect that it was not worth having.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

That was not a tax.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My noble friend mutters that it was not a tax. However, I am saying that it could be a tax. There is no reason why the Scottish Parliament should not decide, as a matter of good policy, that ownership of dogs, which can be a confounded nuisance in cities and the countryside, should be subject to tax. That is a perfectly sensible proposition and there is no reason why the Scottish Parliament should not decide that it is one way of adding to its tax take and finances. I am totally opposed to the amendment that my noble friend is pursuing. He is making a good case by trying to undermine the basic purpose of the Bill, while I want the Bill to go further than it does.

[Lord Lyell]

My noble friend made a powerful speech; indeed, I am half way to agreeing with him. However, our noble friend the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury referred 36 times to this extraordinary Scottish dance, the close connection; perhaps my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench can tell us whether it is a Canadian barn dance, a military two-step or a three-step. That close connection refers particularly to individual payers of income tax. In describing this close connection, my noble friend admitted more than 30 times that the individual payers who are classified as Scottish taxpayers would be nothing to do with this Bill. They could easily be English or other UK taxpayers. I hope my noble friend will take that on board. You can look at new taxes but, for goodness’ sake, take care over who will be responsible. If they are not Scottish taxpayers or Scottish voters, we will be in ever deeper water.

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I hope that my noble friend Lord Steel is right, because I can think of nothing that would sweep Alex Salmond from power more quickly than announcing that he was going to put a tax on dogs—

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

And caravans.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

And caravans. I do not want to detain the House, but I know that my noble friend Lord Steel got into some difficulty with dogs when he gave the former President Ceausescu a puppy dog following a state visit in 1974. My noble friend gave one of his puppies to Ceausescu. When they had gone shooting, the birds were recovered by children, so my noble friend sent one of his fine Labradors to Ceausescu. Many years later, when the regime collapsed and the press arrived, my noble friend received a call from an outraged journalist who asked, “Did you give this dreadful dictator a dog?”. My noble friend explained that he had done so as a result of a state visit and that it had been a courteous thing to do. The journalist said, “Did you realise that this dog had its own coach, its own servants and a whole palace to live in?”. I say to my noble friend that dogs, politics and tax are best not mixed.

My noble friend suggested a tax on plastic bags. The mind boggles as to how large firms such as Tesco and others would operate if there were different taxes on plastic bags north and south of the border.

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Moved by

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

93: Before Clause 10, line 14, at end insert “and the Scottish Parliament.
( ) Such a referendum must be administered by the Electoral Commission.”

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, I think this amendment has been overtaken by events. The Minister has made it clear that the referendum will be administered by the Electoral Commission and, therefore, there is no need for me to labour the point. That is very important. The First Minister of Scotland still has to recognise one thing: as he has a particular objective in mind in holding the referendum, he is not the right person to declare what the question should be. Any member of the public would accept that that proposition is correct. You cannot say, “The people must determine this, but I will tell them how to determine it”. In my Amendment 93 to the noble Lord’s Amendment 91, I have suggested that it should be by agreement and that the Scottish Parliament should be consulted and be party to how the question is drafted.

Equally, I disagree with the noble Lord—although I think a moment ago he almost resiled from certain wording—that we should lay down the question. I missed the earlier debate for which I apologise, but the noble Lord, Lord St John, and I had a longstanding appointment with the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai. If you think we have problems in our coalition, you should hear his. I missed the substantive debate on the referendum earlier.

I think it is also important that the people of Scotland are beginning to get scunnered—if I may use a good Scottish word—by the endless argument from politicians, academics and economists about the process and what might or might not happen if Scotland became independent. This cannot go on for another three years. It is ridiculous.

Therefore the part of the amendment that I support is the suggestion that the time should be now. If not immediately, then certainly as soon as possible, we should get this issue out of the way. As soon as we get clear of the independence referendum, we can start, as the Prime Minister has said, serious discussion about how we can add to the devolution package, and that is very sensible.

We have got the Electoral Commission in the frame, so there is no need to press that. Choosing the question should also be a matter for the Electoral Commission, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, who has made this point before, that rather than having a yes or no and putting some people in a negative position, there should be two propositions from which people choose either to remain in the United Kingdom or to go independent.

If that is done, and done quickly, then we can get this issue out of the way and the Scottish Government should concentrate on what they were elected to do, which is to deal with the issues affecting Scotland at the moment: bad housing, unemployment, and the need for more investment in industry. These are the things people want. They do not want three years of argument about a referendum. They want to see a Government tackling the issues, both in Scotland by the Scottish Government, and in the United Kingdom by the UK Government. The sooner we get back to that realistic level of politics, the better.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, my Amendment 94E takes what my noble friend Lord Steel said a little bit further, and asks that the Electoral Commission set the question. It is quite clear that nothing the UK Government propose is going to be accepted by the Scottish Government, and nothing that the Scottish Government propose will be accepted by the UK Government.

Why not cut the politicians out? Let us ask the Electoral Commission not only to set the questions but to arrange all the counting, transferring the number of votes into a proper result that is based, exactly the same way the referendums were in 1979 and 1997, on each local authority area, rather than just Scotland. We would know that there would be a clear question—or questions, if we go down the route proposed by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell—but also that each area voted and how they voted, and that it was a fair process.

Taken out of the hands of politicians, it will not only be more acceptable to the people of Scotland, but in view of our earlier discussions, I think it would be more acceptable to the rest of the UK, who would feel that an independent authority is doing this rather than politicians.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

While my noble and learned friend has a drink, is this phrase of allowing the Electoral Commission to have “oversight” not weasel wording? Surely the Electoral Commission should be responsible for the overall conduct of the referendum campaign.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

Including the question.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Yes, including the question. I notice that in the Scottish Government’s consultation paper, which was then spun as involving the Electoral Commission, it was invited in as a kind of veneer of respectability. The Electoral Commission has to be the regulator. Is that use of “oversight” by my noble and learned friend weasel wording or does it mean what we all want it to mean?

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I hear what my noble friend says, but I ask him to reflect him on two points. First, it is my understanding that the Electoral Commission would not necessarily welcome that. Secondly, with regard to the point I was making about the franchise: if one seeks to do something different, what are the rules regarding the relationship between the Electoral Commission and the question under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000? If you try to do something different for a Scottish independence referendum, you could immediately open yourself up to a charge of trying to rig or manipulate it. The advantages of consistency in this area are important.

I am told that the Electoral Commission has not, and does not wish to, set a question as its role is properly to review the question and publish that review, which is important. I do not countenance any situation where the commission would not be engaged, nor where its view on a question would not be made public.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 93.

Amendment 93 (to Amendment 91) withdrawn.