Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-08
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): I am obliged to noble Lords. Clearly I cannot comment on any dialogue that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has had recently with the noble Lord, Lord Smith. I merely observe that there is a distinction between improving the Bill in order to implement the Smith commission agreement and, on the other hand, extending the Bill so that it goes beyond the terms of the agreement, or in fact retreating so that the Bill does not implement it. We would of course be happy to pursue further dialogue ourselves with the noble Lord, Lord Smith, if he felt that that would be useful These amendments seem to fall into two broad categories: on the one hand, amendments to the current clauses that are intended to improve the drafting of the Bill, and, on the other, a second theme extending the scope of the supermajority clause to matters that were not included in the Smith commission agreement. I shall deal with these in turn. I turn first to those amendments put forward as a means of improving the operation of Clause 11 as and when it is implemented. Amendment 35 would allow for a Bill to be passed without a Division. Our considered position is that a Division is the most straightforward way of verifying that a two-thirds majority in the Scottish Parliament has been achieved. For this reason, we cannot agree with the proposal in Amendment 35, which provides for a Bill to be passed by consensus In addition, we do not agree with the proposal in Amendment 39 that the Scottish Parliament should be able to "reconsider" a Bill if the Presiding Officer decides that a supermajority is required and the Supreme Court later affirms this. Nor do we agree with Amendment 40, which appears to provide that the Scottish Parliament should be able to reconsider a Bill if the Presiding Officer decides that a supermajority is required and the Bill receives only a simple majority. We consider that in both these situations there should be careful consideration and no short-cut to a final vote which requires the supermajority in the context of such legislation While we agree with the rationale behind Amendments 30 and 38 and parts of Amendments 37 and 40, we believe that the Bill as drafted provides for these considerations and that therefore such amendment is unnecessary. We would of course be happy to discuss this further with the proposers of the amendments I will address those amendments which seek to extend the scope of the supermajority provision, particularly Amendments 31 and 33, and I think a part of Amendment 34. Amendments 31, 33 and 34 seek to ensure that legislation brought forward by the Scottish Parliament concerning the period of time between ordinary general elections to the Scottish Parliament should also be covered by the requirement for a two-thirds majority. The second part of Amendment 33 seeks to ensure that Bills concerning the alteration of boundaries of constituencies, regions or any equivalent electoral area for the Scottish Parliament should also be covered by the two-thirds majority. The simple response of the Government is that the Smith commission agreement specifically outlined the subject matter, which it considered should be subject to the supermajority requirement. It did not propose that legislation concerning the term length of the Scottish Parliament, the date of any Scottish Parliament elections or the alteration of boundaries should be subject to a two-thirds majority of the Scottish Parliament. In these circumstances, we would not be content with the proposed amendments. I therefore invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.