Scotland Bill

Lord Stephen Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stephen]

My Lords, I begin by agreeing with my noble friend Lord Soley that the timing of this debate, given its self-evident importance, is less than ideal. However, there have been many very valuable contributions. It is perhaps worth starting with the summary given by my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace about the history of all this. This particular Bill and review all began back in 2007, immediately after the Scottish election that took place in that year. There was a sense that, after 10 years or so of its operation, we needed a full and serious review of the working of the Scottish Parliament and its effectiveness and the possibility of more powers for the Parliament. We needed to put in place what became the Calman review to achieve that.

It is important to underscore that the scale of this review has been extremely serious, significant and substantial. In my view, great credit should go to the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, for helping to trigger the review. He had just fought a very close election campaign, essentially on a manifesto of no change to the powers of the Scottish Parliament, yet he took on the proposal to trigger this review. So too did the leader of the Scottish Conservatives—now their outgoing, and perhaps final, leader—Annabel Goldie. Not everyone in her party agrees with this review, as we have seen in the Chamber this evening, but she was prepared to put her reputation at stake and work with the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats to trigger the review.

My position at that time, as leader of the Liberal Democrats in Scotland, was a far easier one, because, as noble Lords will be aware, the Liberal Democrats support home rule, a federal structure for the United Kingdom, greater powers for the Scottish Parliament and more decentralisation. My concern was that the whole thing would not go far enough and that it would not be substantial. To give one simple point of clarification, I should point out to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that in establishing this review, we had to wait for the election of Wendy Alexander as the new Scottish Labour leader before finalising the commission, its membership and so on. The plans were already in place when she became party leader, and therefore her plans to support the referendum—to “bring it on”, as noble Lords may recall, and as he referred to earlier—did not actually come until later in her leadership.

I would like to pay tribute particularly to Professor Sir Kenneth Calman, but also to the lay people—businesspeople and young people from across Scotland—as well as the senior party political figures who participated in the Calman review. I would also like to pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, the noble Lords, Lord Elder and Lord Selkirk, and the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and particularly to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I am delighted that he is now in charge of the Bill in this House. I think it should also be mentioned that there was one other political activist involved in all of this, Audrey Findlay. She deserves considerable credit, not least for her work alongside the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, the noble Lords, Lord Elder and Lord Selkirk, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay. It was quite a task for her to be part of that heavyweight team.

It was hard and serious work, but we achieved unity. That involved compromise. It could have been simply tinkering at the edges—a polishing of what was achieved in 1998—and, at one point, I feared that it might be. Yet, in my view, the commission came up with a radical set of measures particularly in relation to taxation that went far beyond what we were told that the Treasury would live with when the review was first established. That is another point to emphasise: getting the UK Government to support the Calman commission, and getting the Treasury directly involved in the review, was difficult to achieve, but we got there in the end and they played a very important role in shaping the proposals that are now part of this Bill.

It is simply not tenable for any Parliament to receive a £30 billion cheque each year but have responsibility only for spending that money without having any role in raising a single penny. I tried to explain the system once to the Chinese Finance Minister during a visit to St Andrew’s House in Edinburgh, probably just after a lunch with my noble friend Lord Steel as Presiding Officer down at the Parliament. After I had given the best explanation I could, he responded by saying “Ah, I understand now. It’s very similar to the way we fund Tibet”. At that point, I wondered whether the problem was my explanation or whether we perhaps had a fundamental problem with the system in Scotland. The Scottish Parliament was, and today still is, 100 per cent dependent on another Parliament for its funding. In my view, that is not sustainable and more powers to create a more buoyant tax base are required. Perhaps more powers than are in this Bill are required in time, but this remains a strong start.

For the Liberal Democrats all of this was, as I have mentioned, a natural progression building on our original commitment to home rule, our commitment to the Scottish Constitutional Convention, the progress through Parliament of the Bill which became the Scotland Act and then the excellent work of the Steel commission, chaired by my noble friend Lord Steel, in looking at how to create a stronger, more effective Scottish Parliament. This Bill is not only of great significance but has been progressed far more quickly than we might have imagined when the Calman commission was established. Having been thought of in the summer of 2007, the commission was established by the Scottish Parliament in December that year, with an interim report in 2008 and a huge volume of work done by the commission and its members in the period up to the final report in 2009, which was at the 10-year mark. It was then endorsed at a UK general election in 2010 and is moving forward into legislation in 2011. It has moved speedily—far more so than I originally anticipated—and has had a far greater impact on Scotland than the Scottish Government's “national conversation”, which took place over the same period.

In my view, the UK remains too centralised. We have heard discussion tonight of some other nations. My noble friend Lord Maclennan mentioned Australia, in some parts of which 55 per cent of the tax base is raised at the state level. In some regions of Spain, 100 per cent of taxation is raised at the regional level. The USA, Canada and Germany—the list goes on—all raise substantial taxes at a federal or regional level and all have substantial devolved powers. Democracy can still work—indeed, can flourish—with systems of devolved administration and federal taxation. Wide, broadly-based tax-raising powers at local or regional level, in my view, give strength to democracy rather than undermine it. We need to see more of this in the United Kingdom. Some would argue that 33 per cent is not enough; my noble friend Lord Forsyth mentioned that. I have some sympathy with that view but this Bill is, I repeat, a substantial start and should be strongly supported.

Finally, at one point we thought the Calman proposals might settle things, perhaps for the following decade. However, in May this year that all changed so this Bill is neither the end nor the beginning of the end. A very big constitutional debate lies ahead. We are at an early stage in all of that but it is a profoundly important, historic stage in Scotland's future. There is a great responsibility on all of us who share the view that we should work powerfully together to prevent Scotland's separation and block independence. I believe it is impossible to overstate the importance of this. If we pull together as Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative representatives to activate everyone in Scotland who opposes independence—and there are many, I believe—the campaign can and should be won. These are defining times for our nation’s future, and this Bill must act not just as a foundation but as a launch pad for a strong and effective cross-party campaign to keep Scotland as part of the United Kingdom.