Scotland Bill

Marquess of Lothian Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Marquess of Lothian (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull. It will certainly deserve re-reading tomorrow to get its full impact and I shall certainly be doing so.

My family’s Latin motto is “Sero sed serio” which, translated into English, means “Late but in earnest”. That is fairly appropriate for my position in this debate. This does, however, have its disadvantages because I had written a speech for this occasion before I knew the running order. During the course of the debate, every line of my speech has been delivered in one part or other of the House, so I am going to restrict myself to a number of observations. Before I do, I should like to congratulate the two maiden speakers. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, is an old colleague of mine at the Bar in Scotland and served with me for a long time in the other place. My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering made another very fine maiden speech. She was also at the Bar in Scotland, as I was, and also served with me in another place. We had two excellent maiden speeches. I look forward to hearing much more from them.

It has been 17 years since I last spoke on devolution at all, let alone in a devolution debate—I will explain why a little later—so coming to this debate has been rather nostalgic. There are the same faces and quite a lot of the same points are being made all over again. One of the things I enjoyed most, which was fairly novel in these debates, was listening to my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, fulminating against the success of the nationalists over the years since devolution was introduced. I wonder whether at some stage he might apologise for the enthusiasm with which he embraced the concept that devolution would kill nationalism stone dead, but—Oh! Perhaps I will get that apology.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

It was another George, my noble friend Lord Robertson, who used that particular phrase. I am sure he will explain that away himself. I have gone as near as I can—the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, recognised this earlier on—in recanting some of the things I said when I was a bit younger.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

I think I will have to take that as being as near to an apology as I will get from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Foulkes for recanting, as he should on a number of issues. This is the third time that the accusation that somehow devolution would not deter or kill nationalism, which in its ultimate expression is separation, has been mentioned. Will the noble Marquess reflect on what might have happened in the recent referendum had we not had devolution? We would now be a broken union because I have no doubt at all that if the aspirations of the Scottish nation to have more control over its own affairs had been denied for generations over this century and the previous century, we would not have had the result we had, which was to retain the United Kingdom but with devolution inside it. I ask him to reflect on that before he repeats what is becoming a cliché throughout the House.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

I am very happy to reflect on it, but I make the point that had we not had devolution, I doubt whether we would have had the referendum because the basis for having the referendum would not have been there. A little later in my remarks I will deal rather more fully with what the noble Lord has just said.

Another thing that has interested me about this debate is how unpartisan it has been. In different parts of the House, people have taken the same view, but differing from that in other parts of the House. That is a very interesting factor in this debate. This is not a party issue. The Committee will therefore be of great interest.

I shall pick up one or two points that were made. First, we have heard a lot about the fiscal framework. I look forward to seeing it in due course. However, if we do not have it as part of our deliberations, our scrutiny in this House is false scrutiny because it is not based on the full facts and realisation of what the full impact will be. My noble friend Lord Forsyth described it as a second-hand car with we know not what under the bonnet in terms of the engine. I think it is more dangerous than that; we are about to launch an aeroplane without knowing whether it has landing gear and, if it has, whether it will work when the plane lands. That is a very serious consideration. I hope that even at this late stage the Government, through my noble friend the Minister, will try to find some way of ensuring that we can, as part of our scrutiny, look at the implications of the fiscal framework.

My second point is about permanence. I remember that many years ago when I was a law student in Edinburgh I was told that the Act of Union, which contained the phrase “that Scotland and England would ever after be united into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain”, could never be changed. I seem to remember “perpetuity” being mentioned. Yet the very holding of the referendum last year showed how false a position that was because, had the result gone the other way, that perpetuity would have been destroyed. I rather think that the permanence we are looking at in terms of Clause 1 will suffer the same end, and I look forward to hearing the arguments in Committee about whether there is some other way to give satisfaction and confidence, which I understand from the Minister is what we are trying to achieve. I mention in passing that doing so might be helpful to give satisfaction and confidence to the other side of the argument, too. If we are to have a ratchet to say that we can never go back from where we are, we ought to have a ratchet to say, “Thus far and no further”. That might give many of us a lot of reassurance on devolution.

In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Reid, my reason for not having spoken on this for 17 years is that at the end of the process of taking the Scotland Bill through the other place, where I led for the Opposition, I described it as the beginning of the slippery slope to separation. I was answered with accusations of scaremongering; that this was never going to happen; that devolution would hold. I do not think that the phrase “Thus far and no further” was ever mentioned, but that was the impression I had. That was what we would give the Scots in terms of devolution and that would be that. We are now on the third Bill: the slippery slope is continuing and, if we are not very careful with this Bill, it will go on even further.

I stopped talking about devolution because I recognised that the line I had taken had been defeated and I had to live with that. I did not want to be part of the slippery slope argument. The only reason I come back to it now is that, when we held the referendum last year and I thought the staying together side would win it, I rather foolishly thought that might be the end of the slippery slope. However, it was not, because in the last few days the vow was given, in unnecessary panic, and the results of that are now before this House. I am absolutely convinced that this is going to give encouragement to the nationalists in Scotland to push further and further.

This brings me to another point about the fiscal framework. My noble friend Lord Forsyth mentioned, quite rightly, that he was suspicious about how keen the nationalists would be to see this completed in time for the parliamentary elections in Scotland. If I was them, I would not want to see it. If I am a nationalist I do not want stability when we get to those elections: I want instability. If I was a nationalist I would be saying, “Let us do everything we can to stop the framework being achieved”. The Government are in danger of falling into that trap unless we find another way out of it.

My view is very simplistic and has been from the start. The nationalists are the Danes. In the words of Kipling: when you start paying the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. Over the years since devolution came along, we have always been paying the Danegeld; they always come back for more and will continue to do so. We have to think very seriously about that when considering the Bill. I end by saying something that I never thought I would say. Over these years, we have created great instability within the United Kingdom. I am a keen supporter of the United Kingdom—an arch unionist. I never thought I would be looking at anything to replace the United Kingdom that I was brought up with. However, I accept what I have heard from a number of noble Lords today, starting with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem. The time has come when we have to look seriously at how we create another Act of Union. It might be by convention or by all sorts of different ways, but we cannot go on relying on an Act of Union that has been so destabilised. We need to find something and if that is federalism, which I have opposed all my life, so be it. I would prefer that to the alternative of a further slippery slope and eventual separation.