I know that the noble Lord has not been following our proceedings so closely, but the point being made here was not about the status of the Scottish Parliament. In our earlier discussions I made the point that I cannot imagine circumstances in which we would want to abolish the Scottish Parliament, but it might be, for example, that the noble Lord’s party’s proposals to create a federal constitution and to have a new Act of Union were implemented. That might mean dissolving or altering the Scottish Parliament as it stood.
I do not like Clause 1 and new subsection (3), which provides for this referendum. I tabled the amendment to make the point that the future of the Scottish Parliament were it to be changed, now that we have gone down this road so far—and will have gone further when the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament—must be a matter for the whole United Kingdom. I cannot conceive of any other circumstances in which that would happen. I suppose that it could be that the nationalists had made such a hash of it that people in Scotland were pleading for the thing to be shut down and then come back. However, there would then be issues for the Welsh, the English and the Irish about the funding, the obligations and other matters that would arise. All this is pretty hypothetical and extreme but it has been put there in order to mislead people about the nature of devolution, which is power devolved from this sovereign Parliament. It is important that the legislation should not seek to mislead people.
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I was impressed by the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. I confess that I had not thought about the Northern Ireland precedent. The problem here is not my amendment, it is new subsection (3), which provides for a referendum on abolition. Throughout the whole period when these proposals have been discussed, Ministers have been at pains to say: “All we are doing is implementing the proposals of the Smith commission”. There is no such proposal in the Smith commission, as my noble and learned friend has confirmed. Along with the declaratory words in this clause, the referendum provision is making a political comfort statement to people who wish to destroy the United Kingdom, who are opposed to devolution and see it as a ram or a wedge by which they will split the United Kingdom and achieve their objectives. I am not keen on helping these people in that process and that is why I do not particularly like new subsection (3) but I accept that my amendment will not do the job. However, it has perhaps helped to expose the fact that the Government are putting into the Bill stuff which has nothing to do with the Smith commission but which has another political purpose that is extremely unwise. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.