Scotland Bill

My Lords, I have immense respect for the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. I listen carefully to what he says, and I have heard this argument from him on a number of occasions and respect it entirely. I have listened carefully, too, to the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton. I thought that his contribution ranged much wider than the actual provision that we are considering, but he made some very important points, which are worthy of being recorded. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, rose to debate some of them and made a helpful contribution. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, read in short—and with respect to him, slightly misleadingly—a part of the Bill to make another point. I hope noble Lords will forgive me, but we have debated these provisions in some detail in different ways. I had my say both at Second Reading and in Committee, and that is all recorded. If people want to know what my views are for supporting this provision and its maintenance in the Bill, they can read them at length. However, in response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, it can sometimes be deeply misleading to read in short a piece of legislation. I am not intending to read it at length, but the operational way of this Bill is to amend other legislation. I think that the answer to his point—the Minister will be able to correct me when he comes again to the Dispatch Box if I am wrong—lies in the fact that the active verb in the piece that he read to us is to ““specify”” a tax, not to impose a tax. The answer lies in the words that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, chose. That, put another way, is the point that the Minister was making to him. In any event, whether or not this provision generates deep and interesting constitutional issues, we know that where this constitutional imperative resides—in the other place—they have already approved this devolution. The Bill has come to us with their approval. It may be that we can say, with some merit, that they did not pay a lot of regard to this clause. It was a differently numbered clause at the time. However, they will certainly pay a lot of regard to it when it goes back to them, and it will not become law if they do not approve it. The responsibilities that they hold in terms of our constitution, they hold. If they choose to devolve them and encourage us within this Parliament to support that, I do not think it is our privilege to prevent them doing so. For clarification, we also need to look at the genesis of this provision. It is not entirely true to say that Calman was silent on this point. The Calman commission recommended: "““The Scottish Parliament should be given a power to legislate with the agreement of the UK Parliament to introduce specified new taxes that apply across Scotland””." The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who is comprehensively knowledgeable about Calman and this Bill, and has proven that time and again, will see that this provision goes significantly further than the Calman recommendation. However, it is not true that there is no reference in Calman to the devolution of taxation or the creation of a power of this nature to assist future devolution. There is consideration of it in some detail in the report. The arguments for and against are there, and there was a clear recommendation, but I accept that it has been taken further. As I said in Committee when this issue was debated at great length, the deletion of this provision would leave the Bill significantly reduced, not only in its constitutional significance but in its significance for the people of Scotland. I am not interested in achieving that objective. Our position is that we support the inclusion of this provision, provided that certain checks are in place. That is why rather than seeking to support the deletion of this provision we have tabled Amendment 16, to which I will speak at greater length in the next group, and which we believe would allay much of the concern over the breadth of this provision, were it to be accepted in some form. This of course all depends on the House's position in relation to this amendment. I accept that the debate on my amendments is dependent on the decision that the House makes in relation to this amendment. However, I was given a certain assurance by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, in his introductory remarks that I need not worry about that, so I will now sit down and prepare to argue the next amendment.