Scotland Bill

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. This may appear to be simply a matter of terminology, but a very important point is being made and it is not one just of consistency. The use of the phrase ““Scottish Crown Estate Commissioner”” in the Bill implies that there is a Scottish Crown. It is not a Scottish Crown estate; it is the Crown Estate in Scotland. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, makes that clear by suggesting that the commissioner should be referred to as the ““Crown Estate Commissioner for Scotland””. That is deeply worrying and I do not know what is going on in the Scotland Office. This sloppy attention to language is creeping in. It has a sort of nationalist feel about it. I should check with the clerk that it is within the rules of order to refer to the Crown here, but it might be appropriate to point out that the English Crown was taken over by the Scottish Crown in 1603 in a reverse takeover. On an issue related to this use of language, the First Minister the other day referred to how after independence there would still be a United Kingdom, which is absolute nonsense. The United Kingdom was created in 1707 when the kingdom of Scotland and the kingdom of England—