Scotland Bill

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am afraid we are getting into the historic arguments of who is to blame: is it the UK Government? The Scottish Government face a fundamental problem, in that spending is 20% higher but tax revenues are, inevitably, lower. That is a fundamental problem that SNP Members have to—[Interruption.] Well, I have lost them there—fair enough.

We can have that debate, but let us not get too bogged down on that. They want independence; they can have it—[Interruption]—full fiscal autonomy.

The fact is that the SNP’s capture of all but three of the Scottish seats is an even greater victory than Sinn Féin’s in Ireland in the 1918 general election. Then the Unionists managed to secure 22 of the 105 Irish seats. We have to listen: this is actually a very serious issue.

[Stewart McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I will make a bit more progress, because I want to get to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg). He has been very patient, and I will get to him eventually.

Like then, everything is different now. What will happen if Smith stays? Can we sustain a permanent settlement that prevents Scotland from setting the initial threshold for income tax or from changing universal credit? What will happen when the Scottish Conservative party promises in its election manifesto to cut taxation? How credible will that be if it affects the block grant available from the United Kingdom? All these issues have to be discussed.

Under the Smith proposals, universal credit will remain a reserved matter. Holyrood will be able to vary the frequency of payments and the way it is paid, while the power to vary the remaining elements of universal credit remain reserved, but I would ask why. I have read the Smith commission. Why?

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

Again, that is a very fair point. I do not mind having conventions, but we, as politicians, have to decide what we want. We should decide the principles and then, once we have decided, by all means employ distinguished people such as Lord Smith, accountants, tax lawyers and so on to work out how it is done, but let us not just push this into the long grass and have a convention of the great and good lasting for years with wall to wall lawyers. Let us, in this House, decide what we want.

This is an historic opportunity to cut through the negativity of the £7 billion black hole doomsayers. Give Scotland control of its oil revenues and taxes and let it decide its own priorities on encouraging exploration and how to tax it as the oil runs out. Then we will be one Union, based on solidarity and need. The UK subsidises Northern Ireland to preserve peace. Why should we not, on the basis of need, subsidise Scotland? I am very happy with that. Are we not brothers and sisters in this Union? Should we not help each other, if needed? Our principles should not be the politics of fear, but the statesmanship of hope.

New clause 3 delivers what I think Scotland wants: power to run her own affairs, but with the consolation of knowing that there is a secure foundation stone against catastrophic shocks, such as those in 1929 and 2008. I wish for there to be solidarity on pension liability and national debt, and for it to be shared. We should not be saying “This is your bit of debt.” We should say that it is our debt. To ensure peace and security, we should share a single defence and foreign policy; not a division based on the auld alliance of the times before James I and VI rode south, but the Union that has given us 400 years of shared identity and prosperity. Those who want slowly to leak this power and that function are setting a trajectory, however slowly, towards independence.

[Stewart McDonald]

There is one part of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, which he may well be coming on to, that did strike me as slightly curious: the part on keeping treason reserved. Is there a modern day William Wallace or Mary Queen of Scots in our midst that means he sees the need to keep that power reserved?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I took advice from the Clerks. All right, I will surrender treason if they want, particularly to the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond). [Laughter.]

The Smith commission itself admits:

“A challenge facing both Parliaments is the relatively weak understanding of the current devolution settlement.”

What a glorious understatement!

“This is not surprising”—

its report further concedes—

“given what is a complex balance of powers.”

A complex balance of powers has been created and I do not think there is a single Member of Parliament who actually understands what is going to happen under Smith. We need to move to a more federal arrangement whereby the four nations have broadly equal powers. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have devolved legislatures, with the English MPs at Westminster deciding the same for England, then acting as a pan-European Parliament alongside MPs elected from the devolved countries as well.

The Prime Minister promised Scotland

“the strongest devolved Government anywhere in the world”

and the Scottish people rejected full independence. I suspect that they want full home rule. But will those who have argued for full fiscal autonomy now vote for it, or will they vote for further delay or deeper fudge? Will they go on blaming the United Kingdom Government for what goes wrong, or have the courage to grasp what they say they want? Full fiscal autonomy is inevitable.

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[Mr Allen]

If we have now breached the principle and the wonderful idea of devolution—giving power away, not decentralisation, where Westminster and Whitehall can suck it back—let us look at devolution that is entrenched and can stand the test of time. I agree very much with getting the words right. My Select Committee was clear about the words reflecting the permanency of the Scottish Parliament.

The question is how we achieve permanency in an unwritten constitutional environment. We do it in two or three possible ways. One suggestion in one of my amendments—I tabled new clauses 6 to 9—is that the Scottish Parliament is protected behind the ingenious mechanism of the Parliament Act, which requires both Chambers to agree to any change in the status of those things that are protected. The other idea is related to Magna Carta, which is being celebrated today, and calls for a new Magna Carta—a written constitution. I commend the Scottish Executive for the work that they have already done on that. [Interruption.] If any hon. Member has something to say, please stand up and correct me. I am happy to take a correction.

[Stewart McDonald]

The legislation was changed from Scottish Executive to Scottish Government. It is not a briefcase.

[Mr Allen]

I am sorry for once that I gave way to an hon. Member because this is a serious debate. There is a precedent and if we can build on the precedent, however we name it, and make a broader constitutional settlement for the United Kingdom, there will be fewer occasions on which any of us need doubt when progress is made. If it is clear for every schoolboy and schoolgirl that the structure of their Government is there in writing, there is less likelihood that those powers can be sucked back into Westminster and Whitehall.

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[Mr Allen]

As far as I am concerned, the idea of income tax assignment was applied in the Scotland Act 2012. I think that it is the basis on which devolution can move further forward in Scotland, and certainly on which it can start to move forward more seriously in England so that we have not just piecemeal breakthroughs, as we are having at the moment, but something that can apply to every local authority throughout the whole of England and Wales and, if it wishes, Northern Ireland.

[Stewart McDonald]

rose—

[Mike Weir]

rose—

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[Pete Wishart]

There is very little I would disagree with the right hon. Gentleman about on these things, and I agree that there is a real requirement for a written constitution in this country. But let me suggest another way we can get the permanence for the Scottish Parliament, as set out in our amendment 59: by putting this to the Scottish people in a referendum. The only way then that the Scottish Parliament would ever be abolished or done away with would be on the say-so of the Scottish people, as a directly expressed desire through a referendum. I hope the right hon. Gentleman supports us in that amendment this evening, because it is the way to go forward.

That deals with the permanence issue. We have not heard much about another matter, despite several of my friends from south of the border having spoken in this debate. I refer to new clause 2 on the constitutional convention, which I believe the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) is still to speak to. That has been a long-standing policy of the Labour party and it was central to its manifesto at the last election—I have to say that Labour did not have a great deal of success when it was put to the people of England. My problem with this idea that Scottish devolution and our constitutional journey should be mashed together with a UK-wide look at the constitution is that it would slow down our very clear progress and our clear statement of where we want to go. The cause of English devolution moves at an almost glacial pace, and any suggestion that we have to be slowed down, as England rightly works out what it wants to do, has to be rejected this evening. Just piggy-backing Labour’s concerns about a constitutional convention and about English devolution on to a Bill about Scotland, and the things we were promised in the vow and that were progressed with the Smith commission is totally unacceptable. I say to the Labour party: do the work yourselves. There is no need to bring it to a Scotland Bill in order to progress this agenda. Bring in your own piece of legislation. Bring it in however you like and we will play a part in that. There are interesting things to be discussed on the further progress of constitutional change all over the UK.

[Stewart McDonald]

The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) earlier described the Bill as the property of the Union. Is not part of the problem that this is viewed through the prism of the Union? What is needed is a radical vision, which was once the territory of the Labour party but which we are now offering tonight.

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend is, again, spot on. We always seem to get here in Scotland Bills: there is a debate in Scotland where we think we have managed to reach some sort of agreement about a way forward, but when it comes to this House all of a sudden we get caught up in “English votes for English laws” and with English devolution. Those are important things that have to be debated, but somehow they find their way into a debate we are having in Scotland about what we think we are entitled to and what the Scottish people have decided they want by sending so many of my hon. Friends here.

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[Ian Murray]

I will give way, but let me make a little progress first as people want to speak on other amendments.

If those ambitions are to be realised, we need to depart from the divisive rhetoric employed during the general election campaign, which set Scots against the English and against one another and risks tearing the UK apart at the seams. Labour believes in the historic Union of the UK nations working together for the common good. However, it is clear that the Union now needs to evolve, and that evolution means dispersing power from the centre, from Whitehall and from this Parliament. With devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continuing apace, this evolutionary process is in danger of becoming lopsided.

That is why, had Labour won in May, we would immediately have started to devolve power away from Whitehall not just to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but to the regions and localities across the United Kingdom. That is because we recognise that regions can and must be given more of a voice in our political process, and that we must find new ways to give further voice to regional and national culture and identity, and crucially without the strings that this Government have attached.

[Stewart McDonald]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for intervening first. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about taking power out of the hands of this place and of the Scottish Parliament and giving it to local communities. Others on the Labour Benches have made the same point. Why then did Labour-controlled Glasgow city council continue to act as a roadblock against our legislation in the Scottish Parliament? I see him rolling his eyes and chuntering to his mate beside him. Why is Labour against our Bill in the Scottish Parliament to give power to local communities through the Scottish Parliament? Why is Labour such a roadblock in Glasgow?

[Ian Murray]

I am not sure of the entire detail of the proposal that the hon. Gentleman refers to, but there is a general consensus across Scotland that the Scottish Parliament has been one of the most centralist Parliaments in the world by grappling power away from local government. What we are trying to do as part of this Bill, which I think is a major positive, and I hope the Government—