I want to put to the noble Marquess a point that I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. The problem is created by paragraph 21 of the heads of agreement, which states in terms:
“UK legislation will state that the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government are permanent institutions”.
There may be an answer to the point that he raises. The word “permanent” is lay man’s language. After all, this was drafted by people sitting around without consulting lawyers at the time. It could be regarded as lay man’s language and there may be some other way of taking away the word “permanent” but nevertheless fitting it into the UK context. The previous paragraph, paragraph 20, says,
“in the context of Scotland remaining within the UK”.
I am not suggesting a form of words, but I wonder whether the noble Marquess would accept that the Government have a problem in having to give effect to paragraph 21. Maybe there is a way of softening the word “permanent” to fit it in with the United Kingdom and the well-understood constitutional principles. Perhaps we are being too attached to the word “permanent”, which lay men use and was perhaps not very cleverly chosen.