Scotland Bill

My Lords, it was not my intention to speak on this. Briefly, it was with great pleasure that I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, use the term ““poll tax”” instead of ““community charge””. He actually proved the point that the Minister—who has done an excellent job, I have to say—made in the very first debate this afternoon, that if something becomes the common parlance, it should be used as the common parlance. The real point is that there has yet again been confusion—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, did it—between devolution, the democratic process of devolution and independence. They are not the same thing. That is why, although I support what this Bill is doing, I am not sure that this is the right time to do it. I am not at all sure that we should not, first, have had the referendum on independence in order for Scottish people to make up their minds as to whether they want to be an independent country totally separate from the rest of the United Kingdom or they want further devolution. We should let them decide on that first. The second question is just a confusion. There should be one question—independence or nothing else. For me, devolution was always about democracy and not about the separation of the Scottish state. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who made great play of the fact that he sat in the Cabinet and could talk to the Prime Minister when he was Secretary of State, that that is fine. Perhaps he could but he did not represent the people of Scotland when he did so because he did not have the majority of Members of Parliament in Scotland when he was putting Scottish legislation through.