Scotland Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate on a significant piece of constitutional legislation—the next step in a process we have been witnessing since at least 1997, when the first steps to a devolved Scottish Parliament were put in place.

It will come as no surprise to the House that I take a close personal interest in this Bill, as a Scot by birth and upbringing who has lived in England for many decades. Not only is it important to me personally for that reason, but it is important to many of my constituents who share exactly the same family experience. These families have lived, and continue to live, on both sides of the border, and they feel an emotional and physical attachment to England and Scotland as a result of their history and their lives today. We have, again, heard from other Members who share that family experience, including in at least two maiden speeches—those of the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth). They, too, described exactly that experience, which is very common in this country of people who have strong family links and histories in both England and Scotland—and indeed in other parts of the UK.

The Bill is not only important to families across the UK, but it is an important financial, political and constitutional settlement that needs therefore to be fair to people in all parts of the UK. Clearly, there is cross-party support for the Smith commission principles and for the idea of greater devolution. This is a great opportunity for people in Scotland to tackle the poverty and inequality that still pertain in that country. It is very much one that I hope we will be able to replicate in my part of the country in the devolution settlement we achieve for Greater Manchester. But that cross-party support for devolution sits alongside our wish for the continued ability to pool and share risks and resources, and nowhere is that more important than in relation to welfare provision, where it is key that costs and risks must be fairly shared.

There has been much discussion this evening of the extent to which this Bill gives effect to the intentions of the Smith commission. Smith said that there should be “complete autonomy” over devolved benefits. We heard tonight concerns that, in practice, the UK Government will now be able to veto that autonomy, and questions were asked about what that would mean in practice and how things would operate.

It is important to say to those who speak for complete autonomy and expect that that would not involve a degree of negotiation and consultation between the two Governments that we must recognise the huge scale and challenge of the operational change the Department for Work and Pensions is facing now on welfare. Indeed, it is now in a state of perpetual revolution, which makes such negotiation necessary. It will not help people in Scotland or in England or Wales if the stability and resilience of our welfare systems is put at risk by an insistence on impractical solutions. Equally, however, the Bill’s wording as to what we mean by this process of consultation and this notion of veto is unhelpfully woolly. I hope there will be an opportunity to tighten it up in Committee.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Given the hon. Lady’s caution, what does she think of the example in Northern Ireland? On paper, the Northern Ireland Assembly has legislative power, but Westminster has basically said, “Unless you pass a karaoke version of our legislation, we will interfere in the rest of your Budget and create a Budget crisis.” That situation is now creating a political crisis.