Scotland Bill

Margaret Curran Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I do not know what the hon. Lady is referring to. I have never said anything about false information.

In a spirit of consensus and co-operation, let us start with the issues on which we all agree, for obviously there are such issues. We all agree with the Secretary of State and with our Labour colleagues that devolution is, in the words of Donald Dewar, a process and not a one-off event, and that is important. We may disagree on the conclusion of that process—we believe in independence, and my Labour colleagues believe in something else—but we all agree that devolution is a process, and that we will continue to see a transfer of powers from the House of Commons to the Scottish Parliament.

A point was made earlier about the reference to the Scottish Government in the amendment. When I first came to the House 10 years ago, Labour Members were appalled at the prospect of a Scottish Government. The Secretary of State probably remembers the debates in which they expressed their view. They helpfully said, “They can call themselves ‘The White Heather Club’ if they want, but they will never be a Government.” We are a Government now, thank goodness, and the Labour dinosaurs, some of whom I see in their places, will never go back to having an “Executive” running Scotland. That is a good thing too.

An important new development is that we all agree now that some financial powers—fiscal powers—should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. We never had that important source of agreement before. We fundamentally disagree on the measures in the Bill, but we agree that financial responsibility should be a feature of the Scottish Parliament. I look forward to that, and that is another area of agreement. We will oppose measures in the Bill, but it is good that we now all agree that financial powers are required for the Scottish Parliament.

The most important thing that everyone in this House can agree on—this ran through everything to do with Calman—is that the Scottish Parliament has been an overwhelming success. The Secretary of State is of course right to say that there is no question—only people on the fringes of politics in this House would even suggest this—of ever going back to having no Scottish Parliament again. What typifies that more than anything is the fact that a Conservative-led Government are legislating for more powers and responsibilities to be given to the Scottish Parliament, because only 12 short years ago the Tories campaigned so energetically against the Scottish Parliament. That shows the progress that we have made, and there will be areas of agreement as we go through the Committee stage in this House.

Although we agree on many things in the Bill, there are many things with which we fundamentally disagree.

[Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

This is probably one of them.

[Margaret Curran]

The hon. Gentleman’s contribution seems to contain an inherent contradiction, because he is saying that he welcomes the Government’s introduction of this Bill, yet it is widely observed that they are doing this because of the work of the Calman commission and his party has criticised and refused to participate in its work. The Calman commission has led to great progress for Scotland but, yet again, the Scottish National party has opposed the Calman commission and held it back.

[Pete Wishart]

That was an unfortunate intervention, because I give the hon. Lady more credit than that. I was trying to think of issues on which we agreed and I thought that we would hear a more helpful intervention. It was just the Labour party resorting to type and it was unfortunate that we had to hear it.

Although we agree on much, there are a few areas where we disagree.

--- Later in debate ---

[Malcolm Bruce]

On the models that I have seen, the reverse is the case, particularly at a time of public spending constraint. The point is that it will depend on changes over time—some years it will be up and some years it will be down. However, the proposals provide the potential for successful economic management to provide genuine benefit.

I would give more credibility to the SNP claims that the measures are inadequate to grow the Scottish economy if its record in government showed that it was using the powers it currently has in ways that will grow the Scottish economy, but it has not done that. We have seen a succession of populist consumer gimmicks; almost a complete collapse in public investment; and the slow strangulation of local autonomy. Local councils have less and less control and more and more centralised management through the freezing of council tax. There is effectively less flexibility across Scotland to gear responses to meet local needs.

[Margaret Curran]

Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the Scottish Futures Trust? Does he see that as a model for using the levers appropriately to grow the Scottish economy?

[Malcolm Bruce]

My next paragraph relates to my constituency, and I am sure the hon. Lady can predict the answer to that question. I did not have a problem with the SNP saying that there were weaknesses in the public-private partnership method of financing, and that it wanted to look for a better method. I had a big problem with it abandoning all those projects and failing to come up with a better method, leaving us in total limbo. That has been catastrophic for investment in Scotland—catastrophic, not just seriously bad.

I am fortunate, privileged and honoured to represent the dynamic economy of the north-east of Scotland, which is probably the most dynamic economy in the whole of the United Kingdom at the moment. I and my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) represent the constituencies with the lowest unemployment rates in the United Kingdom. I appreciate that other hon. Members face serious problems of unemployment in their constituencies, so I am not boasting about this; I am simply acknowledging it. The point is that Scotland has a region with the capacity to deliver economic growth, yet the Scottish Government have conspicuously failed to deliver what they should have been doing to facilitate that growth.

There is no Aberdeen bypass. The Scottish Government today announced the go-ahead for an upgrade of the A90 north of Aberdeen. I am glad about that, but all they have done is to announce, a year after the public inquiry, that they intend to go ahead with it. There is no date, and it is dependent on the resolution of the western peripheral route, which is still subject to legal argument. When the SNP loses office in May, not one stretch of tarmac will have been laid and not one ditch will have been dug—nothing will have happened on the ground.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

I apologise for not being able to stay to hear the concluding remarks today. This is explained by the fact that, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), I have current responsibilities as a Member of the Scottish Parliament. We are still trying to juggle some of those responsibilities, so I hope I can be forgiven by my colleagues, friends and opponents on these Benches. I obviously do not have to apologise to too many of my hon. Friends—although there is a valiant crowd left.

I am in a privileged position as I have the honour of representing the people of Glasgow East in this august institution that has such great traditions, but I can also participate in this debate with the benefit of my experience as a Member of the Scottish Parliament for 12 years, since its inception. This is a significant debate, on which we will all look back in years to come, as we are at a key stage in the devolutionary process. The Scottish Parliament is firmly established in the governance of Scotland and has addressed the fundamental democratic deficit that generations of Scots felt. Many of us campaigned long and hard for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament, and are proud of many of its achievements, as it empowered us to address problems and galvanise responses to meet challenges, within the framework and partnership of the United Kingdom. Perhaps we are in a position where we get the best of both worlds.

My experience is that the Scottish Parliament has, as the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) said, acted within the mainstream of Scottish opinion. The Scottish people have strongly supported the Scottish Parliament, which has kept their faith as it has developed. In some ways, its operation is in the character of Scotland. We criticise the Parliament and keep it on its toes, and many of its Members have faced criticism, but the Scottish people would never tolerate its abolition and would wish to protect it.

The Scottish Parliament has not been without its controversies and weaknesses, which we hope to address through the Bill, but it has had notable successes. I am pleased that this august Chamber has also learned from the Scottish Parliament, which led the way on the smoking ban and on free public transport. Scotland has what is called the most progressive legislation on homelessness. With the housing stock transfer, in which I was particularly involved, we managed to develop the means to have perhaps the highest level of housing investment, in the needier parts of Scotland, that has ever been achieved. That speaks to one of the great successes of the Parliament, which is the focus on the experience of Scottish people: to be hard-nosed and hard-edged; to focus always on the Scottish people’s interests; not to allow ourselves to be diverted into eccentric political debate; and always to keep the mainstream of Scottish interests at the forefront of our minds. I hope that the Scotland Bill will allow that to continue.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, who shares my privileged position, has also often been asked to draw parallels between the experience at Westminster and in the Scottish Parliament. Although I would not want to digress, I make two comments about that. In the early days of the Scottish Parliament, the worst thing that we could do, and that we would be chastised for—I am sure that the Under-Secretary, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), would agree—was to emulate Westminster. If we behaved in any way that was comparable to Westminster, we were criticised enormously. We saw ourselves as a more consensual, transparent and accessible Parliament. I would argue that the high number of women in the Parliament helped to establish that, although I am less on the consensual end of the spectrum than some others, such as perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun.

I am struck by my experience in this place, however, and I think that the Scottish Parliament now does need to learn from Westminster’s much more sophisticated mechanisms for ensuring that Government, as opposed to Parliament, are held to account. The Bill begins to address that. This Parliament’s treatment of its authority and reach is also much more thorough than that of the Scottish Parliament. That might be explained to some extent by the Scottish Parliament’s youth, but the time is right to consider those big issues. The Scotland Bill allows us to do some of that.

According to international research and assessment, one of the strongest features of the Scottish Parliament is its Committee system. That system allows people to be interrogated about legislation and research to be consulted. It is based on the principles of evidence, engagement and analysis, and serves as a model in that regard. The Calman commission could be said to have copied that system, and to have done so very effectively. Evidence-led policy development must be centre stage.

Like others, I thank and congratulate those who served on the commission. They devoted time to taking stock of where we are in Scotland, and to outline an agenda for taking Scotland forward. I hope that, as we examine their conclusions and the extent to which they have been incorporated in the Bill, we will learn from a process that managed to bring the broader body politic into the detail of some of the commission’s discussions, because I think it can enhance democracy considerably.

One of the principles of such a process is that it is cross-party. As those who are familiar with Scottish debate will know, that is not easy to achieve in Scotland, as the current operations of the Scottish Parliament illustrate. The Scottish Government rarely command a majority vote in the Parliament: education motions, for example, are regularly defeated, and the Government pay no attention. I think that that is very serious, but it contrasts starkly with the majority support for Calman’s work, which is highly significant.

I recognise the work that the Government have done in the Bill in relation to borrowing powers and financial accountability, which will advance the Scotland debate significantly. However, I want to draw attention to a very important issue that is particularly relevant to my constituency. As many Members will know, it was the death of a very young child that triggered—if the House will forgive the expression—the debate in Scotland about the use of airguns. A young boy, Andrew Morton, who was only two years old, was shot dead in my constituency with an airgun. I pay tribute to the Morton family, who have campaigned for many years. They have lived with terrible tragedy, but ,with great dignity, have managed to pull themselves together and argue the case for the banning of airguns.

I have listened carefully to what many people have said about the difficulties of legislating on such matters. Let me take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, who at the time of that terrible death was Minister for Justice in Scotland. She met the Morton family, and worked closely with them to see what could be done. We appreciate that there is no easy solution, and that simply banning something does not mean that the problem will go away. I do not necessarily want to cause difficulties for sporting communities in Scotland, and I realise that we must test the legislation as we go through it in order to ensure that it is proportionate. However, I plead with the Minister to bear in mind the experience of the Morton family, to bear in mind the fact that 11,000 people signed the petition they delivered, and to understand the basic, essential, human emotion involved.

That airgun was not the most dangerous kind available, and it was a kind that is easily available. However, although it was not particularly dangerous in itself, in the wrong hands it caused terrible tragedy. We must do all that we can to protect people from the worst excesses caused by the use of such guns.

The other key aspect of the Mortons’ experience was that they saw the Scottish Parliament as the place to go to protect their family. That was right and understandable, because at the time crime and justice were the subject of a huge debate in Scotland, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun. I think that we too should have that debate, and I plead with the Minister to allow it to take place.

In conclusion, the Bill is a key stage in the development of devolution in Scotland, and I believe that it speaks to majority Scottish opinion. We perhaps need to test some of the powers more thoroughly to ensure that they properly address the economic interests of Scotland, but I emphasise again that on some of the more significant human experiences we have within our grasp the powers to act to address things that matter fundamentally to Scots. I hope that we take the opportunity to do so.