Scotland Bill

My Lords, I have two brief points to make. I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, had to say on these matters and I will not repeat the arguments. I would just like to pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Maclennan. One of the big low points in my political life was seeing the saltires flying in Libya when al-Megrahi landed there. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has been kind enough to say that perhaps his amendment is not the most felicitously drafted. Its substance, however, is that Ministers in the Scottish Parliament can of course make representations and meet delegations and travel abroad, but they should not pursue an independent foreign policy. Until now, we have enjoyed a Civil Service that has kept Ministers in check and within the bounds of their responsibilities. I say with regret that there is a certain amount of evidence that that is not happening in Scotland at the moment. The Scottish National Party is perfectly entitled to have a policy that states that Scotland should withdraw from NATO. Why it has that policy, I do not know; everyone else is queuing up to join NATO. However, it is not entitled to advance and advocate the policy within the confines of the devolved Parliament, because foreign and defence policies are not the business of that Parliament. If we cannot rely on the sense of responsibility of the elected Members, we must have rules to deal with that. In the old days, the rules that worked particularly well were those on financial accountability that lay with the accounting officer of the department concerned. The response of the noble Lord who was a Cabinet Secretary to some of the complaints that were made by all the parties about the behaviour of the Civil Service in Scotland was disappointing to say the least. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, tabled the amendment out of sheer frustration. He is on to a good point, but unfortunately it is a bit of a blunderbuss. It has served to give us a good opportunity to debate these issues. However, it is very important, if we are to have a devolved Parliament, that it sticks to its last, does not create confusion and does not have a leader who thinks that it is his job to pursue competing policies. I am all in favour of competition, but competition between Parliaments on foreign policy is going a bit far.