SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateSteven Paterson
Main Page: Steven Paterson (Scottish National Party - Stirling)SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
Steven Paterson Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Jenkin
I am acutely aware of that. We have argued about this, and I agree with my hon. Friend much more than I used to about the danger of inflaming opinion in Scotland. It has to be said, however, that having produced this report today—I did one interview on “Good Morning Scotland”—there has not been a huge reaction to it. It is a very Westminster village, techie subject, but the problem is that it has the potential to create deep political grievances.
It was a fatal error for the 1997 Parliament to consider this issue too boring for words and to ignore it. We will rue that day. To base a constitutional reform on the complete absence of consensus is extremely dangerous, but that is what we have done with these Standing Orders. That is why I agree with my hon. Friend that we should be working towards some form of consensus. That may be impossible: in putting in place these structures, we may have created a constitutional Gordian knot that cannot now be undone or resolved. In that case, I hope that the conversations we are beginning to open up with all parts of the United Kingdom will lead us towards an altogether different kind of debate about how to settle the future of the four countries that compose the United Kingdom.
Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)
I would contradict the hon. Gentleman because this issue is headline news in Scotland. It is a really big deal and it is newsworthy. Where I agree with him, however, is that he is quite correct to point to the asymmetric nature of devolution. Devolution took decades, and we are not finished forming it yet—I hope there is only one destination that devolution can reach—but these proposals were rushed through extremely quickly and I quite agree that they need to be binned. We must think again about how to make this work, and we must achieve consensus with the Scottish National party. I hope he agrees that if there is an opportunity to sit down and thrash out the proposals, we can do so.
Mr Jenkin
The proposals only become an issue in Scotland if they are misrepresented—but they are capable of being misrepresented, and that is why they are unsatisfactory.
I cannot vote on matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and all this is trying to do is to make sure that there is a measure of restraint on how he votes on the same matters in relation to my constituency. That is perfectly logical. The problem is that what is resolved for Scotland in the form of the Scottish Parliament is resolved for England in a completely different and almost incomprehensible way. The lack of consensus on that leaves us in a very difficult situation.
However, I urge the hon. Gentleman not to go around stirring up a false grievance in his constituency, which would be quite difficult, on the basis that he should somehow be able to vote about schools, hospitals or even tax rates in Harwich, when he cannot vote on those matters in respect of his own constituents. The Scottish Parliament will vary the rate of Scottish income tax; that is not something on which he can vote in this House. These matters are very complicated.
This is my advice to the House. Let us approach this in a different way. Let us have a more frank and open conversation. Perhaps we should have more conversations in private so that we can befriend and learn to trust each other and make progress on that basis.