Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-24
Topic: Social Welfare
Archibald Kirkwood (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. He is one of these unique individuals who never says anything that is not worth listening to, and his speech will repay careful study. I remind the House of my interest in the Wise Group, which will become obvious in a moment because I want to restrict my remarks in the next five minutes to the welfare clauses, Clauses 20 to 29. I also want to express the hope that someone in our Whips’ Office reminded my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem that the last time he was here, he got his clerk to send a fee note for £3,000 for his performance. I hope someone will put him right about the going rate at today’s prices, although it was probably worth £3,000 in terms of the value of his contribution This has been a more optimistic debate than I expected. I take my cue from my leader, my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, by saying that I think this is an opportunity. If I can claim to be a kind of specialist in social policy, I have a distinct feeling that investing in social protection is something more easily accepted by the electorate north of the border than in other parts of the United Kingdom—I put it no higher than that. I have come across a number of exceptional examples in Scotland of investing in preventive spending and giving early attention to preventing recidivism, for example, some of which I have seen as a non-executive director of the Wise Group. There are such opportunities in smaller scale communities across different parts of Scotland that I think would benefit from having more control over what they do. I agree with everyone who says that it is essential to retain for the benefit of the population of Scotland the residual machinery that deploys universal credit and the private pensions industry in the United Kingdom, but there are areas that I am increasingly coming to believe would be better devolved. I include in that category—it is not in the Bill but we need to think about it for the future; maybe 2020, not 2017—devolving Jobcentre Plus and putting it under the control of the Scottish Government. According to a report published by Cambridge Econometrics, £660 million is spent on employability in Scotland. It comes from all sorts of different places of different sizes, such as the European Social Fund and the Government’s Work Programme. I am absolutely certain that a Scottish Government who were sensible about planning and controlling that expenditure could get better results. The Bill opens the door to that I understand the powerful speech of the nobble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I was his best man, and that has been held against me—particularly by his wife. He stands up to the cybernats; I do not have the bottle to handle them the way he does. I have a Twitter account which I hide in; he has a Twitter account through which he attacks everybody in sight. My noble friend Lord Steel made the point that there is a danger of a single-party state. We must remember that the nationalists will not be the Government for ever. I come back to the point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness. We are setting plans in train, and this is an opportunity to think about how we do things better in future. I am more confident than some others; I might be more naive, but I am more confident I have two more things to mention before I turn to the eight clauses I will concentrate on. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, and it was his last point that worried me most. If he is of the considered view that the relationship between our two Governments still is not good enough, the Government need to respond. The Minister has a hard job responding to what will be a detailed and complicated debate. If he does nothing else, I ask him to address that point, if he can. Secondly, it is entirely correct that we put Part 3 at the end of Committee. I am against any principle of detriment, whether it is the first or the second; I just do not think that detriment is a good thing. We should take our time and give the clauses due consideration. If Part 3 comes last, nobody will be more pleased than me, because I will be tabling amendments the like of which I have a minute now to describe One thing we need to think carefully about is that Clause 27 introduces the notion of concurrent powers. I do not know of any other part of the social security legal framework that contains that concept. We need to be very careful about how the machinery is put in place to ensure that that works We should also consider—I will be tabling amendments to this effect—introducing the Social Security Advisory Committee in some form north of the border, because I do not believe that social security provision will lessen in future in the devolution settlement. I support those who say that the constitutional framework now needs to be addressed. There is a whole series of such questions, and I give notice to the Minister that I will be tabling amendments to try to clarify the Bill, make it more effective and less ambiguous and ensure that there are no unintended consequences I end on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, in what was a very measured speech: the important thing is to get a smooth transition in 2017, because the welfare changes affect hundreds of thousands of families. If the machinery does not work, it is not the politicians or the policymakers who will suffer; it is the families who depend on those benefits coming in week by week, month by month. Let us hasten slowly; let us get this important Bill on the statute book in good time to plan for the social security work necessary to ensure that smooth transition in 2017.