Constitutional Law

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anas Sarwar]

I agree wholeheartedly and, in fact, I would go further. Polling has shown that 45% of the people who voted SNP in 2011, when the party won that overall majority in the Scottish Parliament, oppose independence and support being members of the United Kingdom. We have seen the launch of the Labour for Independence campaign, which has one or a maximum of two Labour members fronting a campaign led mainly by the SNP. In fact, the SNP should be looking to keep its own support rather than trying to look for voters elsewhere.

The Scottish Government, Yes Scotland and the Deputy First Minister have all said that the debate must be open, transparent, fair and honest. The transfer of powers from this place to the Scottish Parliament and the decisions that the Electoral Commission will make on how to make the referendum fair and open are the first big tests of the rhetoric. This is the first opportunity those bodies will have to show that they will put the people of Scotland first, that they will put the future of Scotland before the future of the SNP and the country’s interests before their own, and that the will of the people of Scotland will come before all else. The people of Scotland deserve nothing less.

I have some concerns. To date, the SNP rhetoric on transparency and fairness has not matched up to the reality of its behaviour. On the very subject of today’s debate, let us not forget that just one year ago the SNP said that it did not need a section 30 order for the referendum to be competent. Alex Salmond said to the Scottish Parliament:

“We have set out in the past how the Scottish Parliament could hold a referendum that we are satisfied would be within its present competence.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 25 January 2012; c. 5605.]

Bruce Crawford, as Minister for Parliamentary Business, said that the SNP Administration had set out their position on the

“right and ability of the Scottish Parliament to hold an independence referendum”.

Both comments were presumably the most factual comments ever made in the history of the Scottish Parliament.

Let us be clear. The leader of the Westminster SNP has welcomed the historic agreement that will transfer these powers—an agreement the SNP said was not needed in the first place. We have also seen the section 30 order being used as an excuse for assertions on other issues. The Deputy First Minister stood up in the Scottish Parliament and claimed that the SNP was now in a position to seek legal advice on the EU because of the content of the Edinburgh agreement, an agreement that her party did not think was needed in the first place. Nothing in the agreement stopped the SNP or the Scottish Government from seeking legal advice on that issue or many others before this point, so none of the debate from the SNP should be skewed in the context of the section 30 agreement.

We have heard from colleagues today, and have already seen from the SNP, a willingness to change the franchise for the referendum by reducing the voting age to 16. Although I agree with that, the SNP’s proposal is based not on any principled view that 16 and 17-year-olds should have the vote for all elections but rather on a belief that they might gain electoral advantage from the inclusion of that group, who were believed to be more likely to support independence. However, that plan appears to have backfired somewhat as a recent poll showed that young people are as against independence as the rest of Scotland.

Let me make some important points about the expansion of the franchise to include 16-year-olds. We need to ensure that not only some 16-year-olds but every 16-year-old gets a vote in the referendum. We must be clear about the work that must be done locally and nationally by the electoral registration officers, where the funds will come from to meet the costs and whether local government will be given the additional finance it needs to deliver on that pledge. We must also be clear about the impact of the UK Government’s insistence on single voter registration on encouraging 16 and 17-year-olds to register for the referendum. Those are all serious issues that must be addressed before we move on to the substance of the question.

There are other areas of concern, too. Perhaps the most obvious is the reluctance of the Scottish Government publicly to commit to accepting the decisions of the electoral Commission. The role of the Electoral Commission is clear and well rehearsed; it is an independent, experienced and trusted body, whose motive is only that of ensuring a fair contest and a fair outcome.

Two areas of consideration are vital. The first is the fairness of the question. Can anything be of greater importance than ensuring that voters have a clear unbiased question? The second is to ensure that the spending limits of the respective campaigns are appropriate to allow a properly robust and informed debate.

There is not universal approval of the wording of the question. Some say it is leading and some say it is likely to skew the result. I say, let the Electoral Commission decide. On our side of the argument, we know the result we want, and the nationalists know the result they want. It should not be for politicians to decide what the question should be; let us take it out of their hands. I am not saying that our question is better than an SNP question; I am saying that we should respect the right of an independent respected body to set the question. All political parties should accept its advice and move on, to give Scotland the debate it deserves.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

One of the things the Electoral Commission can deliver is its experience in getting under the language used—for example, testing it with focus groups—to see whether people understand what the writer thinks they understand. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not about the politics, but about ensuring that the language is clear?

[Anas Sarwar]

I was coming to that very point. The Electoral Commission will test the question. Any advice it offers will be evidence-based. It will not be based on supposition by any Member of the House or of any other place, nor on opinion or myth; it will be based on evidence and rigorous testing.

The job of the Electoral Commission is to ensure that the question is clear, understandable and decisive. If given that right, it will ensure that the question is unbiased and fair. Crucially, by accepting the decision of the Electoral Commission, the question will be seen, across Scotland and across the world, as unbiased and fair. It was somewhat surprising, therefore, to hear the chief executive of the Yes Scotland campaign be very clear in his evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee about the Electoral Commission advice:

“There is always room left to disagree.”

Yes, we can disagree, but trusting an independent body to deliver a fair question is another thing altogether.

While those words are deeply concerning they also, I fear, reveal a worrying capacity for those in the yes camp to play fast and loose with vital checks and balances in the process. It is not just on the question that they appear prepared to ignore advice; given the SNP proposals, the issue of campaign funding also appears to be in its sights. The SNP Government want spending limits. That is absolutely reasonable and to be expected, but unfortunately, they want the spending limits to be set by them, not by the independent Electoral Commission. The spending limits will be set by legislation, but the SNP will control the legislation. There is a majority Government—in effect, a dictatorship in the Scottish Parliament—who will seek to do what is to their advantage.

The SNP has already proposed spending limits at half the level, or even less, than those suggested by the Electoral Commission. It is worth considering the impact of the Scottish Government’s proposals. One of their proposals is that each campaign can spend a maximum of £750,000. That is half the £1.5 million allowed through the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. It is less than the £1.2 million that all the council candidates from each party could have spent collectively during last May’s council elections.

I recognise that winning control of the great city of Glasgow and many other places was important for us as a political party, and more importantly, it was an opportunity for political parties to deliver their principles and values in local authorities, but are we seriously suggesting that the referendum on the future of Scotland—the most important decision we have made in 300 years—deserves to have less spent on it and is of less importance than a council election? I do not think so. That point needs to be reflected in the proposals for the spending framework.

The SNP proposals will have an impact on other interested parties; for example, the trade union movement. Unite has approximately 150,000 members in Scotland, yet the SNP proposes that organisations such as Unite are limited to a maximum spend of £50,000. It does not take a mathematical genius to work out that Unite will not even be able to pay for the postage of a letter to each of its members, never mind pay for a leaflet or an envelope.

It does not take a political genius to work out the SNP’s motives. There can be no convincing reason why the SNP would choose to set those limits. The court of public opinion will come to the conclusion that yet again, the SNP is seeking to manipulate the process for its own ends. I hope that it will rise to the occasion. I shall give SNP Members the opportunity to say whether they prefer to abide by the decision of the Electoral Commission or whether they wish to reconsider it. I hope that they will address that when they speak in the debate.

By passing the motion we are setting out a clear legal position on the referendum, and by doing so we are passing responsibility from this place to the Scottish Government, and to all Members of the Scottish Parliament. That is a heavy responsibility that lies with the SNP Government and SNP Members because, perhaps uniquely in the Scottish Parliament, the party has an overall majority and a resulting built-in majority in committee, which places a greater responsibility on the party of government to live up to the highest ideals, judged not as members of the SNP but as parliamentarians and first and foremost as democrats. If done right, the legacy, whatever the outcome of the referendum, can be a Parliament of which we can all be proud, and a result in which we can all have faith. I commit myself and, I am sure, every single member of my party, to working for what is in the best interests of Scotland, whatever the outcome of the referendum. I hope that members of other political parties will do exactly the same. Scotland deserves nothing less.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire). She has just given 10 minutes of a wonderful speech that welcomed the section 30 order and highlighted the dangers ahead of us. It is also a great pleasure to take part in the same debate as my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). He gave a powerful and influential speech, which is why he is chair of the Better Together campaign. I can think of no one better to keep the United Kingdom together.

I want to reflect a little on the speech of the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who is no longer in his seat. He gave the House an historical canter through Scotland and its relationship with England, and spoke of how parliamentary Chambers and institutions hold people together and become the focal point of where people do things. It is worth reflecting that everyone in this Chamber who has an accent similar to mine or calls themselves Scots can go abroad anywhere in the world, to the four corners of the globe, and chat to people from different countries who think that Scotland is already a separate country because it has its own separate identity, dialect and history. Indeed, constitutionally, being part of the UK means that we can benefit as a country from being part of that Union, while also sharing the wonderful opportunities that having a separate identity as a nation and being Scots brings. We should reflect on that; indeed, the hon. Gentleman allowed us to do so.

Our consideration of this section 30 order is quite an historic moment, because when we pass it this evening—and when it is passed in the other place—it will go north to the Scottish Parliament, which will then have all the powers it requires to run the referendum on separation. I am pleased that that is happening today for a number of reasons, but mainly because it is this party—the Scottish Labour party—that is the party of devolution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland said, one of the first Acts of the new Labour Government in 1997 was to bring forward the referendum to allow the people of Scotland to decide whether they wanted the Scottish Parliament.

[Sheila Gilmore]

One of the things I particularly remember is that we had a general election in May of that year and the referendum at the beginning of September—a piece of speedy action that the current Scottish Government could do with emulating.

[Ian Murray]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour has made that point. We should reflect on the fact—the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), the leader of the SNP in this House, mentioned this in his contribution—that the SNP has been in existence for 75 years pushing this constitutional point, but does not quite know the answers to the big questions now that they are being asked. With consensus from most Members in the House, the Labour Government were able to proceed with the referendum speedily and give the Scottish people their opportunity to decide whether they wanted a Scottish Parliament.

The process did not stop there, because it was those of us on these Benches—the Scottish Labour party—who delivered the Calman commission and the Scotland Act 1998. Devolution was always supposed to be a process. The 1999 commencement of the Scottish Parliament was never supposed to be the full stop in this constitutional journey, which has continued. Crucially, however, it has continued only under the Scottish Labour party. The Scottish National party has now taken control of the Scottish Parliament. What we have seen since 2007—although more so since 2011—is a party that has taken the wonderful institution that is the Scottish Parliament and turned it into little more than a talking shop for the ruling party, with commanding majorities on its scrutiny Committees. We have only to think about some of the Committees in this House to see how powerful that scrutiny process can be in holding the Executive to account. I can think of numerous occasions on which that has happened, including a Backbench Business debate in the House last week—prompted by a report from the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills—that changed the Government’s policy on dealing with pub companies. That happened because of the power of the Committees in this House.