The hon. Gentleman has not said whether he is voting with us in the Lobby or voting for an increase in APD. On the fourth time of asking, he is still unable to tell us what the Liberal Democrat position in Scotland is on devolution of APD.
The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) made me pause and think for a while. He wants to bring in differences in the UK, which I welcome, but sadly he carped at the SNP. I think he took the wrong approach there. I would be happy to see economic growth in the north-east of England. I would not feel diminished in any way if the economy of the north-east of England were to improve, and he should not feel diminished either by Scotland advancing. I suggested to the hon. Member for North Antrim earlier that it is a win-win situation. The view of the hon. Member for Sedgefield is that it is a lose-lose situation. I am pleased to say that that view was not shared by the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who could see the benefit of devolving APD to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) certainly understands the need to devolve APD, but then argued against it. She said the proposal was piecemeal, but did not want to make a
start on it anywhere. Cannot she see that with or without independence more growth in Scotland benefits us all, as more growth in the Republic of Ireland and France surely benefits us all? We should be moving with a big heart to ensure that that can happen everywhere and not be stifling growth. The hon. Lady is a sensible woman and in her heart of hearts she knows the wisdom of the proposal. Of course she strayed a little far and upset my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, but I am sure that she will reflect that she possibly went too far.
Labour unfortunately is employing again the Bain principle: no matter what the SNP does, no matter how sensible or wise, Labour will not vote for it. If Labour has one other principle, it is the Kilbrandon principle, which it established in 1970, whereby it prefers a Tory Government to independence for Scotland. We have seen that time after time, particularly through the damaging 1980s.
The Minister mentioned inflation, but the Government have decided increase the duty at the highest level possible. I am glad that he is looking at what is happening to our friends in the Commonwealth and in the Caribbean in particular. Disappointingly, he was unable to say whether the duty caused a competitive disadvantage to the UK compared with other countries that we do not share a land border with. I hope that the finest minds in the Treasury can go and research that and perhaps in years to come we will have an answer. For Wales there were no figures.
The upshot of this is that the UK Government are continuing to hamper Scotland. At first, it was a policy of omission, but we can now see that they are clearly hampering Scotland by commission. That is why we must vote for independence in the autumn of 2014.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.