My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 41 and 42, and then move to Amendment 44 standing in my name. First, I thank the Minister and his staff for facilitating meetings and discussions, and, indeed, the representatives from the Department for Transport for making themselves available. I would also like to commend the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, which was a tour de force of the situation that is in front of us.
When I tabled an amendment in Committee I never thought for one moment that the ripples would go out as they have—it seemed to strike a chord with people. We are fixing a problem that does not exist. The force’s figures and its success rate are all moving in the right direction. I have heard no criticism of the service delivery and am completely unaware of any proposal that would enhance the service. I have no doubt that officials, working with the Scottish Government, could come up with mechanisms to make the situation work. That is what civil servants do. My experience is that if Ministers ask them to do something, they do their best to deliver it, so something could be put together.
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Having served on a police authority for 10 years at a time of transition, I make it very clear that if we go ahead and abolish this organisation in Scotland, it will not be free of risk and cost. To start with, the staff contracts are with the British Transport Police. Some of the staff may be offered the opportunity to transfer to Police Scotland, even within a division of transport police, and some may wish to stay with the parent organisation, but, just as happened with the transition from the Royal Ulster Constabulary to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, a lot of expertise will be lost. That is inevitable, and it will take many, many years to re-establish.
I have no doubt that there are people in Police Scotland who can be trained to do this job—those who care to transfer from the British Transport Police to Police Scotland or a division thereof. I have no doubt that you can always pull something together to make it work but there will be a period of years in which the service is not as effective as it is at the moment. If there were something wrong with the present system, I do not think that anybody here would have an issue with what is proposed. However, there is nothing wrong with it. This is pure, unadulterated politics. Having worked with nationalism for many years, I know that this is about sawing off another branch—removing any connection. It is ideological; it does not matter whether it is right or wrong. This is an ideological imperative, and I can tell noble Lords that acceding to it for no good reason will not bring any benefit whatever to the United Kingdom.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, raised a point about the no-detriment policy. I believe that the Smith commission has overreached itself because this will affect the rest of Great Britain. Maintaining security on the island is an integrated process and, because the network stretches across the border, inevitably the security on one side of the border is affected by the security on the other. Why weaken it?
Earlier today I was accused of being cynical, although perhaps fewer people will accuse me of that at this time of night, but the fact is that we have seen this type of thing before. These amendments, including Amendment 44 in my name, offer a menu of options. I do not believe that the British Transport Police should be touched at all. However, where policing powers are devolved to Scotland, the Scottish Parliament has a perfectly legitimate interest. Railway policing involves a geographical area with large tracts of land, properties and stations. Therefore, it has a perfectly legitimate interest in that, and rightly so.
I said in Committee that we had an issue with accepting the National Crime Agency in Northern Ireland. The nationalists at Stormont blocked the proposal to give the powers of a constable to an officer of the National Crime Agency and that delayed its implementation by three years. However, we found a solution, and a solution is expressed in Amendment 44. If this amendment were agreed to, it would do no injury whatever to the Smith proposals because it proposes an additional, not a replacement, process. It is done in that way because, if you give institutional and immediate expression to the legitimate interest of
the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament in a policing issue, perhaps when they get involved in it and see it in operation they will conclude that there is no point in further proceeding to smash something that is not broken. It does not replace the proposal in the Bill but is additional to it. It also has the advantage that it could be introduced immediately without doing any injury at all to the Smith proposals.
However, the Government have to realise that this is a two-way street. There is a genuine English-Welsh issue to be considered. If you vandalise, as has been said, the British Transport Police, you will create a vulnerability for a period of time which will expose the rest of us to risk. That is not rocket science. I have no doubt that the two Governments can work together, make proposals and find processes. However, an extra link will be added to the chain in dealing with terrorists, people traffickers or whatever it happens to be. It goes in the very opposite direction of what happened in Scotland, where Police Scotland pulled together different forces in order to reduce the links. It has not worked yet but it might eventually. We are going in the opposite direction and adding to the links.
I believe that the Government should consider some of these amendments. I think that they should listen, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, said, to the professional advice that has been given. We all know that this is politics. It is nothing to do with the delivery of the service. Today we saw an example of the constitutional chaos that we have inflicted upon ourselves throughout the United Kingdom over the past few years with this completely disjointed constitutional change and reform. Instead of a coherent process in which we know where we are going and we go to it, this is patchwork-quilt stuff with bits bolted on here and bits bolted on there. How many Bills have passed through this House in the past three years—Northern Ireland Bills, Welsh Bills, Scottish Bills? Now, by a Standing Order, the constitution of the United Kingdom is being torn up at the other end of the corridor and the status of MPs from the regions is being totally changed, and yet there has hardly been even a decent discussion about it. This is another example of it.
We have an opportunity here. We have given the Government some perfectly reasonable and sensible options because we understand the position that Ministers are in. It is not their fault—it is a circumstance that arose in a week of panic before the referendum in 2014. Things were said for the right reasons albeit, looking back, they were unwise. However, the implementation has got mixed up in this interparty rivalry in Scotland and this sort of obsession with not offending the SNP—which is a one-way street if ever I saw one. I have to respect that it has a mandate. I respect the fact that the powers of policing have been devolved. I also respect the fact that that can be institutionally recognised without damaging and destroying a service that works perfectly well.
I hope the Minister and the Government will reflect on those points before Third Reading and realise that there are options. There are genuine concerns, but there are also options for resolving them. I commend Amendment 44 to the House.