United Kingdom: The Union — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: International Affairs
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): The noble Lord has made an excellent suggestion which is worthy of note, and we should consider it further I can identify with many of the remarks already articulated, but had anticipated building on the theme and questioning whether the UK is, or even can be, governed effectively with the complex structure to which we adhere. That has been touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. We set out from a single premise —the break-up of the union as we know it is not unthinkable. We do not need to go far back in time to find an example: Yugoslavia comes to mind. Preparing remarks for today has presented a quandary as to whether drawing attention to the challenges, complexities and inadequacies goes counter to the future of unionism. I am of the camp that recognises the positive contribution of today’s debate, but with it the responsibility and indeed necessity of listening and understanding by government Keeping the union relevant by changing the attitude towards the state of the union is essential and should be asked with greater urgency. Care should be taken that malaise, with the many competing priority policy areas requiring attention, does not place consideration of this on the back-burner. The union has proved durable and flexible over the centuries, evolving to meet the needs and aspirations of the people with its significant strengths and benefits. Devolution in the United Kingdom has been much more oriented towards the idea of self-rule by the devolved Governments and much less focused on the importance and practice of shared rule by the four Governments across the United Kingdom Over recent years, Brexit and the pandemic have exposed the inadequacy of the established ad hoc and reactive approach to handling relations with the devolved Governments. The practical and existential question as to whom in the 21st century the United Kingdom serves requires a definitional and careful response. Brexit was an assertion made up mostly by the English, and for the most part this Government are considered to be an English one, and only occasionally a British one. In understanding that it was the English community living in Wales that tilted that country to leave the European Union, should we be reflecting on why the devolved nations voted therefore to remain in the European Union, and in varying degrees to exit the union of the United Kingdom? What is it about one state of a union that does not apply to the other An effect of Brexit has been to loosen the social contract binding Britain’s union of nations together, revealing the union as of the English, by the English, for the English. Taken as a whole, there is no example of a federal state anywhere else where one of the components of the federation is so large. Northern Ireland is on the Brexit front line, and the only part of the UK with a land border with another EU state. Brexit affects Northern Ireland more directly than any other part of the UK, so too affecting the Republic of Ireland more directly than any other member state of the European Union. The UK exhibits one of the world’s most centralised governance systems, at the same time exhibiting among the highest inter-regional productivity and income inequalities of any industrialised country. Relations are overly informal, ad hoc, hierarchical, statist and ill equipped for dealing with contemporary policy challenges. It is this overly centralised governance that places the union in greatest jeopardy—and so the ultimate break-up of the union. The urgent rise of the levelling-up agenda is, I trust, more than simply a badging exercise. If we are serious about levelling up, we need to deliver by fundamentally recalibrating the lines by which our governance is drawn, making better and more creative use of the powers and potential of the constitutional settlement we have. This requires delivery through a world-leading Civil Service, as has already been touched on. Whitehall must take a leadership role with civil servants in each Government, spending time learning about how the other Governments work by developing and extending practices such as joint training events, shadowing schemes and secondments, all of which would help to promote mutual understanding of the different contexts across the UK It is not just leadership that must change but also the mentality that the Civil Service must bring to its work. A good understanding of UK governance and devolution should be a prerequisite for promotion within the senior Civil Service by direct experience of governance outside Whitehall, either in devolved or local government. Some say that further constitutional change is the only way to address the problems confronting the union of the United Kingdom. This is not the solution. The supporters of devolution in 1998 said the measure would not only strengthen the union but also kill support for Scottish independence. The argument essentially was that Scotland would have the best of both worlds—self-government and unionism—and so never feel the need for formal secession I end with this single conclusion. The more you give heed to devolved structures, the more you stoke the embers of eventual independence and, with it, profound constitutional change.