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The Prime Minister: I am not the only one who thinks so. As another critic said:
- "The moment powers to raise taxation are offered and taken . . . the fracture of the United Kingdom will have begun."
Would the tartan tax be levied according to where people live, where they work, or where their company is located? Could it become the tweed tax, spreading across the border? If someone from Islington was employed by a Scottish company, would he pay the tartan tax?
I shall give the right hon. Gentleman a practical example to chew on and respond to. Take the case of an important Scottish company, Kwik-Fit. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to listen, as he may wish to respond to this point. I am sure that the conversation of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) is diverting, but he can talk to her later. Kwik-Fit has 4,000 employees in England and 1,200 in Scotland, but all are paid from the payroll in Edinburgh. Would they all pay the tartan tax, or would Kwik-Fit be expected to apply different tax rates to different employees? [Interruption.]
When Labour Members do not like it because they do not have the answers, they try to drown it out. I repeat: would Kwik-Fit be expected to apply different tax rates to different employees? If not, employees in England would pay the tartan tax. If they did not, they would face a tax rise if they were transferred to their head office in Scotland. What would that do to the competitiveness of an extremely successful Scottish company? Opposition Members have not thought about any of that.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
We have.
Mr. Major:
Good, then the Leader of the Opposition will give us the answers this afternoon.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Major:
No, we want the organ grinder, not the monkey.
What of Scottish Members of Parliament who advocate the tartan tax? Would they not be exempt from paying that tax? Within three months, the people of Scotland and the rest of Britain will have to vote on those crazy proposals. They have a right to answers, and, if those answers are not forthcoming today, they will be entitled to draw their own conclusions.
If anything could be as much of a mess as Labour's plans for Scotland, it must be its plans for Wales. Wales is to have an assembly instead of a parliament.
Mr. Major:
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I am now talking about Wales. [Hon. Members: "Oh".] Perhaps I shall give way in a minute.
What is it about the people of Wales that means that Labour would not trust them with the powers that it is prepared to give to the people of Scotland? When the shadow Welsh Secretary, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), talks of a Welsh assembly not having tax-raising powers, he adds "initially". He says that Labour's plans for Wales are "clear and becoming clearer". What is becoming clearer--
Mr. William McKelvey (Kilmarnock and Loudoun):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it in order for the Prime Minister to refuse to give way to a Scottish Member of Parliament who wishes to ask a question about Wales, when the Prime Minister is arguing about the United Kingdom?
Madam Speaker:
It is entirely up to the right hon. Gentleman to develop his speech in his own way. Perhaps the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) will be called to speak later in the debate.
The Prime Minister:
The hon. Member for East Lothian knows that I have given way often enough in my speech, and shall do so again.
The shadow Welsh Secretary talks about a Welsh Assembly not having tax-raising powers initially. However, it is becoming clearer to the people of Wales that, in due course, they too will have to pay higher taxes for the privilege of living in Wales. I shall tell hon. Members why, and I quote:
Plans such as those mean that conflict between devolved Parliaments and the House would be inevitable. The outcome would be to damage the unity of the United Kingdom and lead to its fracture.
Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West):
Why does the Prime Minister persist in his nonsense of claiming that the choice before the people over Wales is for or against a devolved assembly? The choice is whether we have a vote or not. The Government are offering Wales no choice and
The Prime Minister:
Wales had a choice and expressed its view very clearly in the past.
Let me now move to what is proposed for England. A parliament for Scotland--[Interruption.] An assembly for Wales--[Interruption.]. The more Opposition Members shout, the less they have the answers to the questions that I have put. There is a lot of sound and fury. We will see whether we get the answers. Then there are to be new assemblies for the regions of England.
Where is the appetite for a whole extra tier of government?
Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North):
Ask the people.
The Prime Minister:
"Ask the people," says the hon. Gentleman. I bet that they would be very pleased with more bureaucrats, more politicians, more taxes.
Labour say that they will set up regional assemblies
Mr. Tony Banks:
What is wrong with that?
The Prime Minister:
The Labour leader says that he is not in favour of referendums--that is one thing that is wrong with it. I suppose that the hon. Gentleman shares very few views with his leader, so it is unsurprising that he does not share that one.
If some regions choose to have an assembly, what will happen in those regions that do not? What would the assemblies do? The shadow Environment Secretary is very vague about that. He says that they will have "a say" over health. What that means, heaven alone knows. He is not certain, but just possibly he might want them to monitor water and electricity companies. He goes on to say that their demand for "more services" would be "unstoppable". What services? What nonsense! He has not the faintest idea what they are going to do.
The real reason for establishing regional assemblies across England has nothing whatever to do with good government in England; rather it has to do with giving the Labour party a spurious justification for keeping the present number of Scottish and Welsh Members of Parliament in the House, even after establishing a parliament in Edinburgh and an assembly in Cardiff. That chaos--more government, more regulation--is the price that England would be asked to pay as the Labour party tries to appease separatism and tilt the electoral system in its favour.
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland):
Has the Prime Minister not noticed that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee pointed out that the people of England have £17 billion of public expenditure per annum spent by his placemen and women through quangos, and the regions and the people living in the regions have no say in what the quangos are doing?
The Prime Minister:
If that is a new Liberal policy to abolish them all, I am very interested to hear it. No doubt
Let me turn to the point originally raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) about Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland remains one area where the Opposition parties have constantly supported Government efforts, and that has given the peace process added strength. I have publicly thanked them for that often enough, and I willingly do so again today. Unfortunately, some of them attempt to use the special circumstances of Northern Ireland to promote other views.
The hon. Gentleman asked why we can contemplate an assembly for Northern Ireland but not for Scotland and Wales. [Interruption.] It is a fair question, and if Opposition Members will listen, I will give them a detailed answer. The best answer is that given by the shadow Scottish Secretary, who said:
What we have suggested for Northern Ireland is radically different from the plan that the Labour party has for Scotland and Wales. There is no suggestion of an assembly with tax-raising powers. There are no pluralist politics in Northern Ireland, as there are in Scotland and Wales. There is no representation by parties likely to form a United Kingdom Government. What we are seeking in Northern Ireland is a widely accepted accommodation based on consent. That would provide the surest possible foundation for maintaining Northern Ireland's place firmly within the United Kingdom. That is our wish. Labour's flawed proposals for Scotland and Wales would ultimately drive them out of the United Kingdom, and we oppose that.
Labour also proposes to fiddle with the House of Lords, despite the fact--
"No level of Government has been denied some control of revenue raising . . . indeed, the lack of such a power and the conflict this could provoke is a more significant danger than having it".
In essence, not having a tax-raising power is more dangerous than having a tax-raising power. That is not my view, but the view of the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). If the Labour leader does not repudiate that view, we know the fate for Wales--increased taxation.
"if that is what local people want"
Presumably that means yet more referendums.
"We would be unwise to draw a parallel between Scotland's . . . desire to have a parliament and anything going on in Northern Ireland."
I shall elaborate the point. He is right, because the circumstances are not comparable. That is only the background to why the hon. Gentleman made that statement.
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