Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, and I am proud of that, just as the noble Baroness is proud of her origins. My mother used to polish the cars so that they were gleaming in the sunlight, in the hope that someone would come in to buy them So we have the Bill: all beautifully presented and put together. I do not think that my father would have got very far if he had tried to sell a car by saying, "I am terribly sorry, you can’t look at the engine. I can’t tell you about the gearbox. In fact, there might not be an engine—actually, it is confidential. But once you’ve bought the car, we can tell you whether the engine works, whether the gearbox works and whether the software works". That is what we are being asked to do on the Bill: "We can’t possibly tell you about the fiscal framework", which is the guts of the Bill, "because it is confidential. We are discussing it with the SNP. By the way, we are getting on very well; we have a long record of getting on very well with them" I thought that my noble friend Lord Dunlop had given me an assurance, in a private meeting back in the early part of the summer, that the Bill would not be introduced to this House without the fiscal framework. However, because I know the ways of the Civil Service, and of the Treasury and Governments, I thought that I would table a Written Question. I tabled it on 9 July—remember July? It was a long time ago. I asked Her Majesty’s Government, "when they plan to publish the new fiscal framework agreed with the Scottish Government". The Answer I got was: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Deputy First Minister met on 8 June where they agreed that they would aim to conclude negotiations on the fiscal framework that will underpin the financial provisions of the Scotland Bill by the autumn, in tandem to the timetable for the Bill" I thought that Answer was not quite consistent with what I thought my noble friend Lord Dunlop had said, so I put down another Question. I asked, "whether they plan to take any stages of the Scotland Bill in the House of Lords before the fiscal framework has been agreed and published" The Answer I got on 22 July was: "The Government intends to progress the negotiations on the fiscal framework in parallel with the Scotland Bill. At their meeting on 7 July, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Deputy First Minister re-affirmed their aim to conclude negotiations on the fiscal framework by the autumn" Now is the winter of our discontent not made glorious summer by my noble friend. When I was in school, "in parallel" meant "alongside each other". How can it be "in parallel" with the House of Commons when the Bill has left that House? In his speech, my noble friend said that the Bill was unopposed at Third Reading. Third Reading in the other place took all of 10 minutes, with the fiscal framework not known Of course, I understand the political difficulties that afflict my noble friend and the Government. We have heard a great deal about this amazing vow. I do not normally recommend the Daily Record for reading, but I recommend looking at its report on the anniversary of the vow on 17 September, where the editor says that it was all his idea. It was invented by him: he rang up Gordon Brown and said, "Gordon, can you get the other party leaders to do this and we will put it on the front page?". Indeed, the description of the vow was not that of the party leaders but invented by a tabloid journalist. Noble Lords can imagine my astonishment on hearing this when we got evidence to our committee from a distinguished academic who told me that the vow was the nearest thing we had in Scotland to Magna Carta. So there we have it: the Daily Record is better than Magna Carta If we look at this vow—this vow which is of such importance—it contains the sentence: "And because of the continuation of the Barnett allocation for resources and the powers of the Scottish Parliament to raise revenue, we can state categorically that the final say on how much is spent on the NHS will be a matter for the Scottish Parliament" That is what it said when it was signed by David Cameron, who is still a leader, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg—both of whom have since disappeared, leaving us to sort out the problem. It is illiterate and completely wrong. How can you say that spending on the health service would be "protected" because of the Barnett formula and the tax-raising powers? The whole point about the Barnett formula is that the amount of money that goes to Scotland for health is determined by what is decided in England. That is why the report of the Economic Affairs Committee is right to emphasise that we need to move away from Barnett towards a needs-based system if Scotland is to get the share of grant that represents its needs. The whole thing—this clash between the Barnett formula and the impact of the tax-raising powers—is based on something put together by a tabloid journalist We then had the argument that we cannot delay the Bill and need to get on with it. This has been the problem all along. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Smith, the Smith commission and the work that he did on it. However, I cannot think of any time in our history—perhaps we could go back to Henry VIII—when three privy counsellors could sit down and agree something that then had the force of law. Normally, Governments—the Executive—have to go to Parliament: it is a matter for Parliament, not Governments, to decide the fiscal framework. The only part of our parliamentary process in these islands now that seems to understand that—irony of irony—is the Scottish nationalists, who are saying, "We want to see the fiscal framework and the Bill. We are only prepared to consider them together and if we don’t think it works in a fair way, we will reject it". It is a situation that has been denied to the House of Commons I would like to pick up the noble Lord, Lord Smith, on one point. In his foreward to the Smith commission report—there is a picture of him on the front—he says, under "A more autonomous Parliament": "The Scottish Parliament will be made permanent in UK legislation and given powers over how it is elected and run … The Parliament will also have the power to extend the vote to 16 and 17 year olds—" So it goes on, using "will". I am sorry, but it should perhaps say "should" or "we recommend that it might". Whether or not it does is a matter for this Parliament—not for the Smith commission or the Government, but for Parliament. It is right that Parliament should have the opportunity to look at it I will make one final comment, because I realise that I am over my time. By the way, that is another disgrace: for us to be limited to six minutes on a major constitutional change is quite ridiculous.