Scotland: Devolution

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, today I am celebrating: the concept of a federal approach to our previously grossly overcentralised system of government seems to have come of age. After a political lifetime promoting this concept, I am delighted that this f-word is no longer considered unutterable. Perhaps we should also allow two c-words to be used in polite political society: the Commonwealth of Australia has something to teach us, as does the Confederation of Canada. We are so insular in this country that we have failed to examine the good examples in other mature democracies, even when we Brits had a hand in devising their constitutions. I will make three broad points.

First, I hope and trust—and this has been evident from the contributions so far—that there is complete unanimity across the House and the three main parties that the delivery of the vow to the people of Scotland will not be delayed by any proper considerations of the implications for other parts of the United Kingdom. That is important for all sorts of reasons. Nothing could stoke up further resentment, increase disenchantment with our whole representative democracy and, indeed, play into the hands of separatists, more dangerously than delay and dithering over this.

Secondly, there is also a widespread recognition that there are consequences of greater devolution for the way in which we legislate and apportion tax responsibilities and expenditure here in Westminster and Whitehall. Thirdly, there must be recognition that the most oversimplified, knee-jerk, hasty reaction of calling for English votes for English laws is simply inadequate: EVEL is not enough. It is far from simple; decisions taken on English matters in the United Kingdom Parliament have financial implications for the whole union. It is hard enough to define what an English Bill is. As my noble friend Lord Thomas has already said, very often it is an English and Welsh Bill and falls outside that definition during its progress through both Houses.

Of course, the United Kingdom Parliament is not unicameral. There are two Houses and we here do not represent any one territory: we are United Kingdom Peers. Only an elected House—so far elusive—could resolve that anomaly. However, in the mean time, the McKay commission completely ignored our evidence on this point. What would this House do if its recommendations were accepted by the other House?

Although we must be conscious that obsessing about England per se does no service at all to the already increasing pressures for true subsidiarity and a bottom-up approach to devolution, we must recognise that within England there are pressures for devolution. Simply creating an English institution does not deal with the underlying problem of overcentralisation. People are already rightly asking, if Scotland and Wales, with five and three million people respectively, can take significant legislative and fiscal power, why not London or Yorkshire? Indeed, might it not again be time to ask the people of the north-east—or parts of it—whether they want the top-down, minimal devolution-lite they were offered in 2004, or whether they would prefer something serious, along the lines already experienced in Wales and which we hope will be increased there. In Cornwall, of course, there is substantial demand for an assembly to take on similar responsibilities.

Dealing with this demand for real legislative devolution—not just administrative decentralisation—is a construct that people in England already recognise, and we must require a bottom-up process, not a top-down imposition, as a vital first step in sorting out the English question. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that the Localism Act did not instil in the British people a recognition that we have adequate local accountability in England. It simply is not there. That is not enough. It was never thought to be enough.

Clearly this would leave much less for the Westminster Parliament to do. There would be far fewer English issues. There would be less for Whitehall to do, offering an opportunity for substantial bureaucratic slimming. However, I and my colleagues acknowledge that there would still be some distinctly English issues. For those, it may be that an English Grand Committee might be an appropriate mechanism—but that is a consequential change. That is not the initial change that is so critical. In setting that up, we would have to be clear what the options for such a committee would be.

First, it could be an impotent talking shop—there is plenty of precedent for this. If, as with the McKay proposals, the full House of Commons, the United Kingdom House of Commons, and your Lordships’ House were simply to overrule everything that was said in the English Grand Committee, how would that play with our fellow citizens? That would just make the problem worse, not better.

A second option would clearly be a full legislative decision-making parliamentary vehicle. If so, we must face up to the fact that there would be a need for an Executive to deliver those legislative decisions. Do we want an English Executive with an English First Minister? I do not think that the public are ready and willing to go in that direction.

Thirdly, the committee could have the power of veto to prevent MPs from Scotland or Wales, or wherever that legislation was likely not to have any effect, pushing it through at the risk of constant cost and tax implications exclusively for England—or England and Wales. That veto option seems the most likely to prevail. It underlines why so much legislative power needs to be transferred out of Westminster before it happens, because it is only half the answer—or no answer at all—to the English question.

We must also consider that each devolution settlement so far has built in a firm commitment to fair representation. That is why my right honourable friend David Laws, on behalf of our Party, has set out this essential element for a new parliamentary vehicle, if there is to be one, to be truly and fairly representative of English voices, in a submission to the Cabinet committee.

In his Guardian article on 2 October, David Laws set out an unanswerable case when he stated:

“Every time Westminster has devolved powers in the past—to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and even London—it has insisted that the devolved authority that wields those powers be put together on the basis of proportional representation … What was right for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London is also right for England”.

That approach was endorsed by the Economist on 21 September this year.

From these Benches, we will continue to argue that further devolution to Scotland must proceed immediately. We should go even further than the present Wales Bill does for Wales. We should introduce a devolution-enabling Bill to bring about transfers of more power from this Parliament to other institutions in England, and those institutions should be elected on the basis of fair representation. Residual English powers operated in Westminster by a Grand Committee should be similarly subject to fair proportionality so that English votes and English voices represent the will of English voters.

Next year, 2015, is the 800th anniversary—

[Noble Lords]

Order.

[Lord Tyler]

I am coming to a conclusion. Next year is the 800th anniversary of this Parliament, as set out in the Magna Carta. Barons led the route to greater democracy 800 years ago. I hope that Barons and Baronesses will make a very positive contribution to the next move forward on devolution.