Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Bruce Lang (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that there is a lot of imperviosity in the air today. He talks of feeding the flames. That is a phrase I and a number of colleagues have used many times over the last few years, certainly every time legislation affecting Scotland has come before the House. However, I make no apology for speaking very briefly in support of Amendment 1. Indeed, I support all the amendments in this group, with the possible exception of Amendment 3, proposed by my noble friend Lord Cormack. I sympathise with his sentiments but it is so palpably obvious that what he would like to achieve is outwith the terms of the Smith commission report, which is our sacred text, that it is highly unlikely it would make any progress In constitutional terms we should not forget that this is a shameful piece of legislation and has a shameful origin. The Constitution Committee was deeply critical of that fact. It was born out of panic and its contents decided by an arbitrary political cabal. Parliament’s role was blindly and blandly simply to pass it through into law. Clearly, my noble friends on the Front Bench have been given instructions not to yield an inch on any matter—not even a willingness to take things away and consider. "Get it through on all counts, unamended; don’t give anything away". That is the sort of thing the Treasury says to other people, although in the last 24 hours we have noticed that it is sometimes a little bit inclined to breach its own rules—not always in the right way. Therefore, I think it is right to revisit this issue, however briefly, particularly because when we debated it very fully in Committee, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the noble and learned Lords, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Lord Hope of Craighead, and Lord McCluskey, and other distinguished lawyers and constitutional experts, including my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, all came in behind the proposition that it was dangerous to legislate in a meaningless and declaratory way; indeed, that goes against the Government’s own guidelines on drafting legislation The point is that Clauses 1 and 2, which we are debating amendments to, change nothing in law. They are essentially meaningless. They are declaratory. But they could sow a seed and some Scottish judge at some time in the future could build a case over these now justiciable matters. The implications for Scotland, and indeed for parliamentary sovereignty, would be very considerable indeed My noble friend Lord Dunlop and my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie are curiously reluctant even to consider what was said then. At one level, the clauses change nothing because they are declaratory. In a sense they are meaningless, but their very meaninglessness carries a meaning of sorts and carries implications and uncertainties. Indeed, I wonder why the Scottish Government were so keen to have the changes made to which our Government gave way so readily in another place. It is still not too late to think again, and I remain ever hopeful that the Front Bench will relent.