Constitutional Settlement

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about whom one of our colleagues once said that if this place had not existed, it would have had to have been created for him. He fits into this place so well. I congratulate—I must refer to him as my noble friend—my noble friend Lord Maclennan. I have known him for so long and most of the time we were in the same party together. I appreciate his wisdom, which others have mentioned, his knowledge and his experience. I am particularly pleased that he has included those three words “alternative constitutional settlement” in the Motion. That is what I want to concentrate on.

Let us first remember why we brought about devolution in the first place. It was not as a reaction to the SNP, it was not as a bulwark against independence and it was not, as some people hoped, as the first step towards independence—the slippery slope argument. We introduced it because in Scotland for 200 years we had had a separate system of education and local government, a separate culture and, above all, a separate legal system, but we also had a democratic deficit because we did not have appropriate democratic control of all that devolution. It was dealt with administratively and inadequately here in Westminster as a codicil to UK or English legislation or as a hurried Scottish Bill late at night, if we had the time. That is why we brought it in. It was because we wanted to do something sensible about that democratic deficit. As with all the changes that have taken place, there have been unintended consequences, and they are what we need to deal with.

Perhaps I may add to what was said earlier by my noble friends Lord Maclennan and Lord McConnell and explain how we dealt with the devolution creating the Scottish Parliament. It was the Scottish Constitutional Convention. Let us remember that the SNP boycotted it. Some people forget that. We might almost forgive them, but not quite. We had wide representation from civic society in particular, and it was based on a clear aim in the Claim of Right. I do not know whether all noble Lords have had the opportunity of reading an excellent book by Owen Dudley Edwards—I contributed a chapter to it. All the Scots Labour MPs, except Tam Dalyell, and Scots Liberal Democrat MPs signed that Claim of Right. We had a purpose. There was a real understanding of what we were aiming for. Then the Welsh Assembly followed. There was not that enthusiasm originally in Wales, but when people saw what Scotland had and what we were doing with it, as noble Lords from Wales will know, they wanted something similar, and the desire for devolution has been growing in Wales. Thankfully, Northern Ireland revived its assembly under different circumstances, and Stormont is now working as part of the whole constitutional structure.

[Lord Wigley]

The noble Lord will have noted, I am sure, that support for the constitutional settlement in Wales shot up when the National Assembly for Wales got legislative powers after the referendum last year. Therefore, enthusiasm has grown, as have the powers.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Indeed, it is understandable. It is welcome that we have a representative of the Welsh nationalists here. I underline what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, said: it would be helpful if we had a representative of the SNP. I know Pete Wishart and some other MPs are quite keen on that, but there is one person who vetoes it, and he has a veto.

To return to my argument, I have written a couple of blogs recently arguing that both from the point of view of Scotland and the point of view of this place, we need a UK constitutional convention because of the piecemeal looks at constitutional reform that we have had in the past and all the anomalies and unintended consequences that have resulted. We need a coherent, consistent look, and we need to work towards a stable solution. One of the anomalies has already been mentioned: the West Lothian question. That is being dealt with separately, and I think wrongly, by the commission under the chairmanship of Sir William McKay because it is looking at it in the narrow context of how we can stop Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs voting on purely English legislation. Incidentally, it has not considered whether it would stop Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Peers voting on that legislation. That did not seem to have occurred to it until some Peers drew it to its attention. So that is being dealt with.

The other thing is that we have ended up with asymmetrical devolution. Scotland, or perhaps Northern Ireland, has the greatest amount of devolution—we could argue that—and then Wales. We then come to the West Lothian question and the problem about England. That is why I and others argue—and it is an increasing argument—that there should be a constitutional convention. My noble friend Lord McConnell said, and I think he is right, that there should be a purpose and an end in sight and that we should know where we are going and not just hope that something will emerge. That is why I am in favour of a federal United Kingdom. I have been arguing that in my own party and with the Liberal Democrats. The Liberals used to want one. I remember going to meeting after meeting where the Liberals would argue so cogently in favour of a federal United Kingdom. They should return to that, we should look at it and I hope others will look at it as the stable solution.

The other stable solution would be a centralised United Kingdom or the break up of the United Kingdom. I do not want either. I do not want a return to a centralised UK, and I do not want the break up of the United Kingdom, but a federal UK would be the way forward.

As other noble Lords have said, the UK constitutional convention could also look at this House, its purpose and its constitution. I very much agree with my noble friend Lord McConnell and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about the need for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and, of course, England and the regions of England to be properly and sensibly represented in this place, giving this place some enhanced credibility. That needs to be looked at. We also need to look at the relationship of the United Kingdom Parliament, the Commons and the senate, or whatever we call it, to the devolved Parliaments.

Some people argue that a federal system would not work because England is too large. If you think about it, that does not make sense because if the English Parliament—let us say that there is an English Parliament—deals with devolved matters, it is autonomous in those devolved matters, as is the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, so it gets on with its own educational system or whatever. If you agree with a federal structure, if that is the way forward, the size of the different parts does not matter. Where it may matter is when it comes to the federal Parliament, and that is where you have to look at how some balance can be struck.