Scotland Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend As Conservatives, we believe in responsibility and I believe that we have created in the Scottish Parliament a grievance Parliament. Even after these proposals, the Scottish Government will be able to spend only about 50% of what they raise. They will always be able to blame the United Kingdom Parliament for what goes wrong. Give the Scottish people responsibility and, ultimately, the wheel turns—it always does. The more responsibility one gives to people, the more difficult the decisions they have to take. For example, they might want to increase taxes, but that might lessen productivity; they might want to cut spending on social security, but that might make them more unpopular. Those, however, are decisions for a real Parliament, and they are what we should give to the Scottish Parliament It is argued that the EU will not allow us to give value added tax decisions to the Scottish Parliament, but that is something else that the Prime Minister can argue for. If he does not succeed in that negotiation, perhaps some Scottish people will form the view that there might be life outside the EU, but that is for another day I do not claim any expertise in the Scottish psyche and I might have got this wrong, but I think we can have closure if we give people ultimate responsibility and if we reassure Scottish people that this is not a trick and that we will keep pension liability within the United Kingdom, as well as the liability for great financial shocks such as those we saw in 1929 or 2008. We have heard about the £7 billion black hole and I understand the Secretary of State, but we can surely carry on having the discussion. We can also carry on discussing social security. People argue that we cannot give away social security, because we have to have a larger pot to help the poor, but that is something for an enabling Bill and to discuss with our colleagues in the Scottish Parliament. If they do not want to take full fiscal responsibility now, that is their choice and they must be allowed to make it. We should at least look at the Bill in an atmosphere of co-operation and toleration for each other’s views, with a determination on the Government Benches—the Unionist Benches—to make things work, to have some sort of closure on the issue, and to re-create people’s faith in our United Kingdom Parliament, because I believe that the result of the referendum showed that that faith is still there After the failure of his 1886 and 1889 Home Rule Bills, Gladstone warned: "We are bound to lose Ireland in consequence of years of cruelty, stupidity and misgovernment and I would rather lose her as a friend than as a foe." No one is arguing that we are in that position, but we might still lose Scotland if we create an unsustainable situation, which we are in danger of doing, so let us use these four days in constructive debate. The referendum showed us that Scotland has not yet given up on us; nor should we give up on it. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change; we must move forward in a spirit of co-operation.