Scotland Bill

I strongly believe in the United Kingdom as an entity. It is one of the most effective political and economic unions that the world has ever seen. It virtually put an end over a relatively short period to the internecine warfare around the area. Importantly, it also launched Britain as the world’s first industrialised, unified economic and political system, which produced great freedom under the rule of law. We should be proud of that and stand up and fight for it. One of my regrets about today’s debate is that the Government have chosen to put it all into one day. My noble friend Lord McAvoy pointed out that it would make people in Scotland feel that they have been pushed to the end of the day. Although they would be right to feel that, it is also the United Kingdom which has been pushed to the end of the day, because there would be many more speakers here from elsewhere in the United Kingdom—from England, Wales and Northern Ireland—if this had been a two-day, rather than a one-day, debate. That is a serious failing on the part of the Government. I am also a strong believer in devolution. I think we got it broadly right and that the broad thrust of this Bill is right but I am worried about the development of the nationalistic agenda in Scotland. I have never really liked the push towards nationalism. One of the things that perhaps Alex Salmond needs to recognise is that if you wrap yourself in the flag of one part of the United Kingdom and suddenly start arguing that you can separate in some clean break into just two separate systems, you are forgetting that there are other parts of the system—Wales, Northern Ireland and England. I might add that the people of Shetland do not talk about Scottish oil. They talk about Shetland oil. I have just come back from a delightful holiday in Orkney. I counted in the first four days there no fewer than 14 Norwegian flags. If I was somebody representing Orkney or Shetland I would be insisting on a referendum in Scotland including a referendum on the future of Orkney and Shetland in Scotland. It is one of the reasons I make this point. The Minister will know the importance of the Orkney one. One of the important points that has been made—I hope the Government will accept it—is that the referendum needs to be held, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said, under the Electoral Commission for the United Kingdom. It is completely wrong to leave it to the existing government of Scotland to develop the rules and regulations for an election that affects not just Scotland but the whole of the United Kingdom. We should also remind ourselves that in the settlement on Northern Ireland any referendum in Northern Ireland on its future also requires a referendum in the island of Ireland. There is a very strong case for saying that any referendum on any part of the United Kingdom breaking away ought also to be a referendum within the United Kingdom in much the same way we have agreed for Ireland. That has all sorts of dangers. I am not necessarily recommending it, but follow the logic. If you say one part can just break away the changes will be very significant and very dramatic and we should not go down that road. I actually think the Scottish people will be far too sensible to do that. At the end of the day there is not the will for that degree of independence. I want to make another point about which I also feel very strongly. It is the idea that somehow or other on this island of just 60 million people, where for 1,000 years we have been mixing and interbreeding, you can suddenly come out and say that this person is English, that person is Scottish and that person is Welsh. I often get people saying to me, ““You’re English””. I speak with an English accent. I was born in East London so you could say that makes me English. However, if you look at my background it is actually Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish. What suddenly gives Alex Salmond or anyone else the right to tell me that I am English? If you ask me what I am I do not say English. I have never identified with England as an entity. I identify myself as British and for me that is important. It seems to me that I have a right to vote in a Scottish referendum if I regard myself as Scottish. I am in the process of looking for a house in Scotland. If I get one in time suddenly I will be Scottish and will be able to vote. This sort of nonsense makes sense in a larger continental entity. If you are in a continent the size of Europe with 400 or 500 million people you can do this but in an island the size of Britain with four nations it does not make sense. I have strong objections to people telling me what my national identity ought to be. Much of my life has been spent in close connection with Scotland. In many ways, as my noble friends will know, the Scottish education system saved me. I left what by any definition was a failing school in East London aged 15 in the early 1950s. I was turned down even by Ruskin College, believe it or not, but I was accepted by Newbattle Abbey College near Edinburgh. I was accepted by Strathclyde University as an adult student even though I did not have the proper qualifications. I was even, I might add, accepted as a bus conductor on what used to be known as Alexander’s Buses in Scotland where doing the Ruchazie, Castlemilk and Easterhouse runs on a Friday or a Saturday night required a great deal of nerve and the recognition that paying your fare on those nights was a voluntary activity, particularly when someone turned round to you and said, ““What is a Sassenach doing taking my money off me?””. This nationalism that has suddenly convinced Alex Salmond that he has some great national identity that he can give to the rest of us is profoundly wrong and profoundly dangerous. When national identities break up, they do not always break up neatly; they often splinter, and splintering is dangerous, which is why I mention this issue of where the referendum is really held—not because I recommend it but because I know that that can be the end of the road if you go down that line. I would like to talk a bit about the tax issue that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, mentioned, but at this late hour it would be better if I did not. He is hitting on a very important point about the impact on the union at the end of the day and the similarities between the various parts of the union. One issue that we have yet to face up to—the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, touched on it—is that in a way the United Kingdom was the first invention of a type of federal system, but it was not and could not be a full federal system because, as he said, England is too big compared to the other parts. But we should consider the relationship between the Parliaments and institutions of the various parts of the United Kingdom. That touches on what the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, said about the report, which again I would have liked to talk about more. We need to do much more work on that. It has often occurred to me that although I would not recommend that this second Chamber became simply a chamber for the regions of Britain, there is a way that we could use it on occasion for debates about the regions. That is particularly true if you develop devolution within England. The problem is that very often it is said that the Scots feel that they are governed by London and that everything is decided down here. You can have a similar conversation in Cornwall and in parts of the north of England. They feel that London dominates. If you look at the population of the United Kingdom, 25 million people are in that south-east corner bordered by Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Oxford and Southampton. Of course that area is going to dominate the rest—but that makes other people in further-out regions, not only Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but other parts of England, feel marginalised. I do not think that the answer to that is to have an English Parliament, but the devolution option is a real and sensible one. Then you would need to find ways in which to discuss the matters that affect all of us, which could be one of the roles—perhaps a limited role—of a second Chamber. It is something that we have never really looked at or thought about in any depth. I want to end on this point. The United Kingdom is immensely important. If we risk breaking it up, it does not follow, as the SNP needs to understand, that it is going to be a nice, neat, clean split. It could be much more splintered and unpleasant than that, and it would certainly lead in my view to many problems that none of us need have. But to win that argument we need to think about the structures again. The noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, is right to spend some time on that. We need to think about the tax issue, because of the differences that that can create. Other noble Lords have mentioned things such as the educational grants and so on; all these things accentuate difference and play into divisions. The United Kingdom is a very impressive asset for us. It is particularly suitable to an island of this size; we are not a continent but an island, and it is important to remember that. It is those structures that we ought to look at. I do say to the Government, ““For heaven’s sake, in future if you do constitutional Bills like this, don’t think that it just relates to that part of the United Kingdom that we are talking about—it relates to all of us, and we all need to have a say on it””.