Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2015-06-01
Topic: Government Operations
Thomas McAvoy (Labour, Centre-left): We have taken a defeat. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, indicated that we were defeated because of our economic policy. There were many reasons for our defeat, which we will deal with and hopefully fix in the future. The combination of the Barnett formula and the tax-raising powers of the Scottish Parliament will be entirely up to it. If it does not have the money to do these things, it will not do them. It is our policy to make sure that it has the choice to do so, and that is the difference Devolution is about all of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party and I endorse Ivan Lewis’s statement that there is a duty on all parties within the Stormont Parliament to come to a responsible arrangement. We urge them all to do so. We also urge the Government to play a part in bringing these folk together as well Labour supports measures to put Welsh devolution on a stronger statutory basis, as in Scotland. We agree with taking forward proposals from the Silk commission and extending the power the people of Wales have over their transport, elections and energy. Wales must not be unfairly disadvantaged by the Barnett formula. The previous Government cut the Welsh budget by £1.5 billion, so this Government must ensure a fair funding settlement for Wales by introducing a funding floor, and we are glad to hear that that is what they are proposing. The measures that are expected to be put into the Wales Bill transfer new powers to Wales by implementing the agreed settlement for Wales and handing over more responsibility to the Welsh Assembly I am trying to paint the picture that devolution is not just about Scotland. Scotland is naturally taking all the headlines at the moment, but for devolution to work it must work for the United Kingdom I shall deal with one or two things that cropped up in the debate. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton cleared the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, of any guilt concerning the poll tax. My view is that if somebody is in the Scotland Office, I believe in collective guilt, so with one bound he is not free. I am still waiting to hear a complete denial of that. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, had a very lucid, shrewd perspective, urging the SNP to nominate. I thought it was a very useful contribution: a voice comes from the non-political world, urging the SNP to get involved. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, has made some credible criticisms of the Labour Party over the past few years. I am not saying that I accept them, but they are credible and must be answered. He has some questions to answer himself, for instance about the performance of his Prime Minister on the steps of Downing Street on the morning after the referendum, with his quite disgraceful party-political broadcast on English votes on English laws, thereby giving the Scottish National Party the justification for saying that all unionist parties lied to the people of Scotland to get their vote and then withdrew everything else for it. He altered at a stroke the outcome of that referendum. It was a defeat for the SNP, but Mr Cameron’s intervention helped to turn it into a victory for them. In addition, the Prime Minister compounded it by the scare tactics of using the SNP in England to get votes by frightening people in England about how Scotland was going to take over—Mr Miliband in Salmond’s pocket, and all the rest of it. Therefore if there is some reckoning to be had, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, should be knocking on the door of No. 10 and making his point of view heard. Knowing him as I do, he has probably been there already I also picked up on the issue of voting systems. I was quite surprised to hear my two noble friends Lady Adams of Craigielea and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock indicate, in all honesty, that perhaps a look should be taken at the voting systems. However, the votes study, which the noble Lord, Lord Flight, mentioned and my noble friend Lord Gordon of Strathblane analysed, does not give a clear picture that the problem would be solved by the introduction of the Liberals’ holy grail of proportional representation. My noble friend Lord Gordon destroyed that case—it is not a clear picture. We are all interested in tackling the problems; all the Liberals can talk about is proportional representation, which gets quite boring.