Scotland Bill

My Lords, I support the general tenor of this debate in so much as it encourages the noble and learned Lord to explain the Written Ministerial Statement more fully and how we will take forward—if we are to do so—the agreement that has now emerged between the Scottish Government and the coalition Government. It would appear that that agreement has encouraged the Scottish Government to do no more, according to the Statement as I read it, than to, "““table a Legislative Consent Memorandum recommending that the Scottish Parliament votes in support of the Bill on a further Legislative Consent Motion for the Bill””." That sentence has been somewhat extravagantly interpreted, perhaps for other purposes, by some of my noble friends and other noble Lords. It is incumbent on us to pay appropriate respect to the Scottish Parliament, which will have to debate a Motion. No doubt some members of that Parliament may disagree with the agreement that their Government have reached. How they vote will be a reflection of the way in which that Parliament operates, which seems to copy our voting discipline substantially, from what I can see: that is, people often conform to the position adopted by their party. I was amused by the idea that a country that did not have a genuine separation between its Executive and its legislature would no longer qualify for membership of the European Union. Given that our Executive seems to be part of our legislature, if we were not already members of the European Union, we might struggle to get membership of it on that criterion. I approach this issue in this way because I have been on record repeatedly in this Committee as being confident that the Scottish Parliament would pass a legislative consent Motion. I am confident because it has already done it and because many significant Members of the Scottish Parliament have already voted for a legislative consent Motion on most of what is before us in this Bill. To the extent that the Bill has been amended, it has been amended at their request. It therefore did not seem consistent or politically likely that that Parliament would not pass a legislative consent Motion at some stage. I have said this before and I am not saying it now in the knowledge that an agreement has been reached. I have been confident that that would happen. However, I have also said before, and I repeat, that as far as I am concerned that has never been a condition precedent for us getting on and dealing with this Bill. I have been prepared to entertain debate with noble Lords about what we need to do if there is no legislative consent Motion, although I have been confident that there would be one, and it seems that my confidence was not misplaced. However, from my perspective of the politics of Scotland and where we are at this challenging time, it is important that we keep our word to the Scottish people and pass this Bill, which has its genesis in Calman and prior to that in the Scottish Parliament and all the devolution parties in Scotland. We should proceed to offer these additional powers to the Scottish people through their Parliament. It would then be a matter for the Scottish Parliament to decide whether to accept them, and it would not be our responsibility, and certainly not the responsibility of an unelected Chamber of this Parliament, if it did not offer them. As far as I am concerned, it has never been a condition precedent of completing this work that we guarantee that there will be an LCM. However, it now appears that there will be one. At least to the extent that we can anticipate that the agreement that has been reached will persuade the Members of the Scottish Parliament to vote for this LCM, I think we can work on the basis that there will be one. However, we need to get more detail from the Government of what this deal that they have struck with the Scottish Parliament actually means. I have already said this afternoon that the Government should assure the House that Parliament will be provided with an adequate opportunity to scrutinise properly what amount to significant new details on the process of the devolution of tax and borrowing powers. I do not fully understand the relevant paragraphs in the Written Ministerial Statement. We do not have much time to get to grips with them, but we will never do so if no one explains them to us. What exactly does the reference to the Holtham report mean? The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred to the paragraph that states: "““The Government will work together with the Scottish Government over coming months and years to give operational effect to the powers including the block grant adjustment, in a fair and sustainable way””." What does that mean? How will that agreement, when it is reached, be subject to parliamentary scrutiny here in our Parliament? The next bullet point states that the Secretary of State for Scotland and Scottish Ministers will produce between them, "““annual reports to the UK and Scottish Parliaments on the progress of transferring the tax and borrowing powers to the Scottish Government””." There must be some method of accountability envisaged in this deal that allows this Parliament to be assured that the Bill we are passing in the context of the deal that has been struck will ensure that the Government are answerable for what they are doing in relation to these issues. I am content that we should continue with this debate provided we are given some explanation of how this process is to be carried out. I am happy to engage, time permitting, in any number of briefings outwith this Committee with Ministers, or with Members of this House more broadly, so that they can explain how this process is to operate. I would also like to be assured that Members of the other place will get the same briefing, because it is absolutely certain that they will get 15 minutes to debate all this and decide it when it gets back to them. They may all be cut off in mid-sentence as they try to tease out what this means. I therefore encourage the noble and learned Lord to come to the Dispatch Box now, or at some stage over the next few hours, and explain how this is to be done. I have already said that I broadly welcome the other aspects of this agreement—the non-financial elements—because I do not think that they represent the hollowing out of the Bill that was suggested earlier. They are comparatively small concessions. However, as my previous contributions to this debate, and those of my noble and learned friend, have indicated, they are concessions that we were encouraging the Government to implement in another way because we thought they went beyond the Calman recommendations, which we support. Legislative consent Motion conditionality is less relevant to the Bill now than it ever was. In any event, it was never relevant to my support for it. However, we now have a much more complicated environment that has generated the possibility of that LCM. When the noble and learned Lord comes to the Dispatch Box now or at some stage within the next few hours, I urge him to explain to us the implications of that much more complex environment.