Scotland Bill

My Lords, three amendments in this group—Amendment 47A, 47B and 50A—are in my name and those of my noble friends. I do not intend to speak to, or in due course move, Amendment 47B. Before I get to the meat of the amendments, perhaps I could make a general point about the Bill and the proposals from the Calman commission. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, said—I hope that I do not misquote him—that this was dreamed up by a group of politicians who got together to try to prevent an SNP victory. Perhaps I was slightly naive at the time, but I did not think that that was my task as a member of the Calman commission. I am looking at two of my fellow commissioners across the Chamber and I do not think that it was in their remit, either. In relation to road traffic, we received and assessed evidence. I have just had a quick look at it. Much of it was received from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. It is true that we commented that it was unfortunate that we did not receive evidence from major motoring organisations representing a Great Britain-wide viewpoint. We took that into account when we reached the view that we did in relation to both drink-driving and speed limits. At the moment, enforcement of the drink-driving limit is effectively devolved. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made an important point in relation to enforcement, when he intervened during the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger. Of course, as Lord Advocate I was very close to enforcement issues. I personally did not consider that there was any weakness in the enforcement regime, at either police or prosecution level. That is not to say that we were ever complacent about it, and there were consistent attempts to ensure that enforcement was rigorous—and yet we still see a higher fatality rate in Scotland. We received evidence from ACPOS, which told us that there was, "““a need for a Scotland-only solution to drink driving but that this need not necessarily mean devolution of powers””," and it was certainly keen on a ““Scotland-only solution””. When we came to view the issue, we were of course aware that the Scottish Parliament had responsibility for it in relation to criminal law. In relation to speed limits, there is already a considerable degree of flexibility for local variation in Scotland, with local authorities having powers to set their own limits. Of course, I appreciate—and the noble Lord will no doubt say—that this does not affect the national speed limits on country roads and so on. That is undoubtedly true. In relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, about whether it is right to have differences and that people who live in border areas might find it particularly difficult, judgments have to be made as to where the balance lies and people can disagree over those judgments. I can quite understand that from the point of view of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, who has represented a border constituency and still lives in that area and is aware of these issues, that would be a much more important factor than for someone who lives at the other end of the country such as the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who is not in his place any more, made an important point about the fact that people have experience of driving through different countries on the continent, and the contribution of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, in relation to Ireland was also very significant.