Scotland Bill

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, that we owe a debt of gratitude to both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, for the amendments that they have brought forward to this part of the Bill and for the way in which they have put forward the arguments that have opened this debate. This is the heart of the Bill. It is an important constitutional Bill, as I said in my opening remarks today when the Committee convened. I also said that noble Lords could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given the management of its passage through the Houses of Parliament. I regret that. To the extent that I have agreed on occasion to days and dates for the management of the Bill, on reflection I now regret doing that because it is such an important constitutional Bill. No Members of the Committee should be mistaken that this is not a Bill of constitutional significance and of potential practical significance for the people of Scotland. However, without the provision that noble Lords seek to delete with their respective amendments, I do not believe that the Bill could be described in these terms at all. What was left of the Bill would be far less significant. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore, said in his evidence to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee that without this provision, this would be, "““a smaller, less impressive Bill””." Those are the words that he used and they are recorded not only in the evidence that he has given but quite clearly in volume I of the fourth report of Session 2010-12 of the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, to which I shall refer later on because it raises a number of other important and serious issues that need to be addressed before we conclude our deliberations on the Bill. He said that it would be a smaller and less impressive Bill, and that view is reflected in the Select Committee's report. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, said that this provision and the Bill are small steps towards the sort of devolution that he thinks is necessary not only to keep Scotland in the union—I know that he is a unionist—but also for the Scottish people. I do not agree with that; this is a very significant step. I regret that we have developed what appears to be a ghost debate about these issues. The contribution made most recently by my noble friend Lord Foulkes, in which he appeared to be in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the Prime Minister David Cameron on this issue, clearly demonstrated what is going on in this debate. He is talking about something different from what the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is talking about. I have no clue what the Prime Minister is talking about. The three of them can appear to be in agreement only because there is an utter lack of definition of what each of them was talking about. To some degree I commend the initiative that has become known as devo-plus but there seems to be a competition to find a suffix to ““devo”” to come up with something different that will resonate with the Scottish people. Fundamentally, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. The answer lies in the Bill. In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, said entirely accurately that there are precious few people in Scotland who understand the significance of the Bill or the potential of this legislation. I have to say that when the Prime Minister visited Scotland recently, he was among those people who did not understand what was already in the Bill. If he had, he would have spent time explaining the potential of the Bill to the people of Scotland, including the opportunity—which already exists in the Bill—for Scotland's ambitions for the control of its fiscal policy. I will explain that in a moment. Instead, he offered the people of Scotland something ill defined for the future, which subsequently had to be explained away in what appeared to be an off-the-cuff remark. I am a politician so I will make a political point here. This is not the only time that I have seen the Prime Minister not understand a piece of legislation that his Government are taking forward. Indeed, I have seen him do it at the Dispatch Box. It is deeply dangerous to talk in vague terms about these issues and then leave the debate in Scotland to be dominated by those undefined words when there is no shortage of people in Scotland who will define them for him and will define them for their own purposes. That is the compelling reason why we need to stop talking in general terms across the devolution parties about the level of agreement that there appears to be among us, and start putting together an explanation of what we collectively want for the Scottish people for the future and talk to that, instead of constantly competing with each other. We can then fill this space, which the ill defined devo-max currently fills. I am conscious of the time. This debate has perhaps taken longer than many people expected because it stands between them and their dinner. However, there are very important issues here and this may be the most important debate that we have on the Bill. Therefore, I intend to go through the points that I want to make with some degree of care. In Part 3, Clause 28 creates the framework within the 1998 Act for the devolution of financial powers. Significantly, as well as devolving legislative competence over new specified devolved taxes in relation to land transaction and landfill, Clause 28 provides a mechanism for the devolution of additional taxes by statutory instrument, subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses of the UK Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. As this has dominated our debate in Committee, it undoubtedly raises an important question about whether devolution of UK-wide taxes should be permitted without primary legislation being brought before and approved by this Parliament. I have to say that I do not think that is necessary and I will go on to explain why. There is a much more significant disagreement between me and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, than there is between him and my noble friend Lord Foulkes or anyone else in this Committee. The Bill is right in this regard but it is not properly understood. It can be improved but it will not be improved by taking this clause out. I will explain why. First, I will deal with my noble friend Lord Maxton's point that the ability to raise taxes defines the characteristics of a sovereign Parliament.