Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, indicated, we had a very lengthy debate on the issues in Clause 1 in Committee. He is right to point out that the wording in the Bill, as amended in the House of Commons, is not particularly felicitous and leaves open some questions of interpretation. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, indicated, as I said in Committee we are to some extent dealing with a hypothetical position. The real situation is that it is a political reality Of the various amendments, I find the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, probably the most logical. The problem I have with Amendment 2, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, is that there are two conditions for a repeal: that, "the Scottish Parliament has consented to the proposed repeal; and … a referendum … in Scotland on the proposed repeal", has a majority voting for it. The problem there is that you get the majority voting for it, then you ask the people in the body that you are about to repeal to consent to it, too. It may have received the majority among the people of Scotland because they want to get rid of it, but the people already there have a vested interest in hanging on to it. Therefore, I do not think that that is a particularly satisfactory situation I say to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on his amendment that states: "Nothing in this section alters the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament", that that position is made perfectly clear in Section 28(7) of the Scotland Act 1998 As I said, at the end of the day this is a matter of political reality. The Smith commission gave the parliamentary draftsmen a rather daunting challenge. Paragraph 21 of the commission’s report said: "UK legislation will state that the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government are permanent institutions" Therefore, it is almost necessary that there is some element of a declaratory nature in here. The sovereignty of Parliament is such that the Bill could be repealed, as any other Bill could be. That is why, at the end of the day, it does boil down to political reality As I said in Committee, in the Scottish Constitutional Convention that sat in the early 1990s we wrestled at great length with how to entrench any Scottish Parliament that was established. We looked at various possibilities, including some declaratory statements, but never quite managed to work out how we could do it. In the end, it was a referendum. My party opposed it at the time, but in retrospect the 1997 referendum gave the Scottish Parliament that legitimacy and has made it, de facto, a permanent part of our constitution. That is why, in the political situation we now have, it will be a political reality If the circumstances were such that the people of Scotland no longer wished for a Scottish Parliament then the political reality would kick in, and no matter what we put in this statute, that political reality would come to pass. That is why it is important that we try to get clarity in legislation as best we can. At the end of the day, this is a political matter, and I do not believe that it ever will arise, but if it did arise, a political solution would be found.