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Mr. Marlow: We have had the knockabout; perhaps now we can have answers to some of the important questions. If there were to be a Scottish Parliament with powers in Scotland over health and education, would the right hon. Gentleman allow his Scottish Members of Parliament to vote on English health and education? If he cannot answer that question, all his devolution proposals have no credibility whatever.
Mr. Blair: I can answer it, and I will. I shall come to those issues in my speech, and the hon. Gentleman will get clear answers.
Apart from the flimsiest of fig leaves, the Prime Minister stands before us effectively as the candidate of no change. All is well. Keep it roughly as it is--1,000 years of history and change and then the end of history. Perfection is then reached and nothing more need be done. How bizarre a position when we think that, today, for many people outside the House, politics and our political system are probably less respected than they have been for generations. We have the most over-centralised Government in the western world.
Over the past few years, Parliament has been beset by allegations of sleaze and disreputable conduct, such that the Prime Minister had to set up two judicial inquiries--one into the conduct of Members of Parliament and the other into the conduct of Ministers. The House is probably held in lower regard than many of us would like, the system of holding Government to account is poor, and, after 28 pieces of local government legislation, it is a scandal that more money is spent by unelected, unaccountable quangos than by directly elected local government. This is happening less than three years before the start of the 21st century. By all means let us debate the detail of change, but we must answer the need for change in our country.
Mr. Tim Renton (Mid-Sussex)
rose--
Mr. Blair:
I shall come to devolution and the House of Lords in a moment. I shall shortly give way to the right hon. Gentleman, and I ask him to sit down for a moment.
Before I deal with devolution and the House of Lords, I shall consider devolution in a small way, in London, and speak about the way that it is governed.
London is the only capital city of any comparably sized country in the western world without its own strategic authority. I say again that, by all means, let us debate what type of change there should be, but when we ask Londoners and look around London and see what the absence of proper strategic planning has done, can any of us doubt the need for a proper, strategic, co-ordinating authority?
I return to Scottish and Welsh devolution. We believe that decentralisation is right and proper. Indeed, there is an inconsistency in the Conservative attitude to that.
Conservatives say yes to subsidiarity in Europe but no to it in the UK. The Prime Minister reserved his loudest condemnation for devolution.
Mr. Renton:
Is the right hon. Gentleman not in danger of adding to the contempt of Parliament to which he refers by his constant evasion, and that of the members of his shadow Cabinet, of the West Lothian question? I remind him that the question was first asked by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) 20 years ago. The hon. Gentleman sought an answer from the Labour party then at the same time as he published a book entitled "Devolution: the end of Britain?". Will the right hon. Gentleman give a specific, clear answer? For example, why should the right hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) be able to vote to abolish grant-maintained schools in my constituency when I shall not be able to vote on abolishing them in his?
Mr. Blair:
As I have said, the Prime Minister reserved his loudest attack for devolution. [Interruption.] Conservative Members want the answer to the question by the right hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) and they are about to get it. May I have a little patience, please?
The protestations can be kept in proportion if we remind ourselves that, in the 1970s, the Conservatives proposed a Scottish Assembly, to be elected by proportional representation, with law-making and revenue-raising powers and with no reduction in the number of Scottish Members of Parliament. I am about to give the same answer that the Conservatives gave then, so the right hon. Gentleman can listen to it.
Let me remind the House of what was said in the Tory Scottish manifesto of 1974:
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Forsyth):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blair:
I shall in one moment. Let me just complete this, because I know the right hon. Gentleman would like the full list. Who was it who said in answer to the West Lothian question:
Mr. Forsyth:
The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct. The Conservative party in Scotland did advocate a Scottish Assembly in the 1970s, but it was because we could not answer the West Lothian question that we abandoned the policy.
He has still failed to answer the question: how could he justify to the House Scottish Members of Parliament coming down here in greater numbers than would be appropriate for England and voting on English business when they had no say on the same business in their constituency? It was because we could not answer that question that we abandoned the policy. The right hon. Gentleman should answer the question or abandon his policy.
Mr. Blair:
That is complete and total nonsense. That is not the reason why the Conservative party abandoned the policy. That is precisely what the Conservative party says Northern Ireland Members of Parliament should be able to do, so it says that it is good enough for Northern Ireland, but not good enough for Scotland.
Let me just give the answer to the Secretary of State for Scotland, because that was an unwise intervention. This issue came up in the 1960s when Stormont was in existence, when a Labour Government were in power, and when the Conservative party used to try to defeat the Labour Government on the basis of help from Unionist Members of Parliament, as indeed Winston Churchill did in the 1950s. When a Labour Member raised the West Lothian question, the Conservative party said:
Mr. Blair:
That is complete rubbish. That is a separate point altogether. The West Lothian question is about English Members of Parliament not being able to vote on Scottish matters. The right hon. Gentleman is raising the issue of Scottish Members of Parliament in relation to those matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament, but that is because they have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament. That is the very purpose of devolution.
Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blair:
No. I want to come back and deal with the Secretary of State. As he has asked me two questions, let him answer a third. If the referendum in Scotland goes in favour of the Scottish Parliament, will he then support it?
Mr. Forsyth:
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could answer why the last Labour Government thought, rightly,
"Devolution is our policy and is the direct opposite of separatism. It can free Scotland from the frustrations of centralisation."
I say, "Hear, hear" to that. Who was it who declared at Edinburgh, at a rally of the Conservatives:
"The establishment of a Scottish Assembly must be a top priority to ensure that more decisions are taken in Scotland by Scots"?
It was one Margaret Thatcher, now Baroness Thatcher. Who was it who in the same year wrote passionately of the need of the Tory party to prepare itself for a future
"where a Scottish assembly is a permanent feature of political life, as it inevitably will be"?
It was the man who is now Secretary of State for Scotland. Who said that
"people had forgotten that it was the Tories who first developed the whole concept of a Scottish assembly . . . The party has an opportunity to recharge the batteries . . . and the proposed new Scottish assembly can be the catalyst"?
It was his predecessor, now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
"We would strongly oppose any suggestion of bargaining Scottish representation at Westminster in order to obtain parliamentary approval to the Devolution Bill"?
It was the Foreign Secretary. Naturally, the Conservative party is entitled to change its mind, but let it no longer insult our intelligence and that of the British people by pretending that a policy that it used to espouse in virtually every detail means the end of civilisation as we know it.
"Every Member of the House of Commons is equal with every other Member of the House of Commons and all of us will speak on all subjects and let us hear no more of this nonsense."
Mr. Forsyth:
The whole point about the right hon. Gentleman's proposals for a Scottish Assembly is that Scottish Members of Parliament would not be equal to other Members. They would not be able to vote and speak on those matters that affected their constituents and, in that way, he would sow the seeds of the disintegration of the United Kingdom.
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