Contentious though it may be, the need to upgrade our infrastructure and to improve access to the country away from the south-east must surely resonate with your Lordships. Business, too, will welcome that.
In my early years here, I used to raise Scottish issues—always to be told, “That is a matter for the Scottish Parliament”. Now when Scotland features in our deliberations, it usually means trouble: most recently the Scotland Act and the order to allow a Scottish independence referendum to take place. Troubles come not singly.
Scotland is a great nation but that greatness has been achieved within the United Kingdom. The Scottish Enlightenment came after 1707; so did the great industrial growth and the global breakout, when Scots travelled the world, keeping the Sabbath—and anything else we could lay our hands on. We are the land of inventions: from the steam engine to the bicycle, the mackintosh, the television, the Glenlivet, the Glenfarclas, the Glenfiddich and the Glenmorangie—and of course the cloning of Dolly the sheep. Not many people know that copper wire was invented by two Aberdonians quarrelling over a penny.