Scotland: Draft Legislation — House of Lords, 2015-01-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much for his comments and for his welcome of these clauses, which, as I think he acknowledged, implement ahead of time the spirit and letter of the Smith commission agreement. It is also particularly welcome that he indicated that any future Labour Government would take these clauses forward in the Queen’s Speech. It is important to note that that has been said today by all three parties which signed the pledge prior to the referendum, so those who might try to cast doubt on the commitment are just mischief-making. There is a very clear commitment on the part of all the parties that that should be done The noble Lord asked about the Barnett formula and the adjustment to the block grant. There is within the Command Paper, in the section dealing with the fiscal framework, an indication as to how the block grant will develop. As tax will be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, the amount of tax generated will be deducted from the block grant. The Smith commission said that there had to be some means of indexation; it was quite good at saying that, but did not actually set it out. However, this will be discussed. The Command Paper sets out how it is intended to be done with regard to the devolution of income tax agreed in the Scotland Act 2012. There clearly will have to be discussions and I am pleased that the Deputy First Minister, Mr John Swinney, has already indicated to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State a willingness on the part of the Scottish Government to engage in these discussions on the fiscal framework. Whereas at the moment roughly 90% of the Scottish Parliament’s funding comes from the Barnett formula, once the 2012 Act arrangements and the Smith proposals are implemented it will reduce to 35% The noble Lord also asked about MPs’ voting and accurately quoted the passage from the Smith commission. There clearly is an issue, which has been raised, not only in regard to tax but on a number of issues. He is aware that the Government published a Command Paper on 16 December that looks at those issues. It is very difficult sometimes to disentangle what is devolved and what is not devolved. I certainly remember when—I was the Minister responsible for higher education in Scotland—this Parliament passed laws in relation to tuition fees in England and Wales, which had very direct consequences for Scotland. Sometimes it is too simplistic to say that just because it is not devolved it does not have implications for Scotland. But there is a legitimate debate to be had The White Paper sets up a number of options that the Conservative Party put forward and ones that my own party put forward. I am sure that the noble Lord’s party has its own view on this. The important point to make on this, however, is that the proposals that we are discussing today stand alone. They are not contingent—as we have made abundantly clear on a number of occasions—on any arrangement or Motions that might come forward with regard to "English votes for English laws", as it is sometimes referred to With regard to VAT, the noble Lord asked why we went beyond the Smith commission—as well as the first 10% of the standard rate we will also assign 2.5% of the reduced rate of VAT. The answer is that, obviously, if the reduced rate is 5% one cannot assign 10%. We did, however, think it was in keeping with the spirit that we would assign half the revenue that comes from the reduced rate of VAT The noble Lord asked about welfare and it is certainly our belief that we have honoured the spirit of the Smith commission. In this, he is quite right to say that some £2.5 billion of welfare spending will be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. He asked about the detail of that, which is clearly considerable; none of us shies away from that. A ministerial working group on welfare has been established, which will be jointly chaired by my right honourable friend Mr David Mundell, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, and Mr Alex Neil, who is the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary with responsibilities in this area The noble Lord asked about the Work Programme. There have been discussions between his honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State on this. We take the view that this is a package. The only measure we have accelerated is the Section 30 order in relation to votes for 16 and 17 year-olds because of the necessity of getting that on the statute book in good time for the 2016 election. The Government support the devolution of the Work Programme but it must be done in a way that reflects the fact that Smith will mean that we have a shared welfare and unemployment support system between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. That is why we believe it has to be taken forward as a package. We do not know what the Scottish Government would do, and therefore do not think it would be right to take the risk that there would be no alternative programme or adequate transitional arrangements if we were to do it in very quick order. That is why we believe it should go forward as a package Finally, we have tried to devise a way in which we can devolve the Crown Estate, as the Smith commission recommended. I certainly share the noble Lord’s view that devolution does not stop in Edinburgh. He might expect me to say that, as I am a former parliamentary representative for the Northern Isles, which had very strong views on the Crown Estate. But, of course, further devolution is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. It is important, however, to put on record and remind the House that in his report the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, as well as talking about further powers to the Scottish Parliament, made the point that it was important that the Scottish Parliament looked at ways in which it could devolve further powers to Scotland’s many communities.