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Mr. Trimble: I have a little point to make the issue even starker. Immediately before the establishment of the
Northern Ireland Parliament, more than 25 Members of Parliament were returned from that area: the representation of Northern Ireland was halved in 1921.
Mr. Dalyell: I used to discuss this issue with the late Rafton Pounder, Stratton Mills and others and I realise that there are complexities. All that I ask is that the White Paper to be produced by the Government whom I support should address the problem and not leave it unaddressed.
One day--not before I am kicking up the proverbial daisies, I hope--the Government of the day will not be allowed to tolerate a situation in which my successor and the other Member of Parliament for West Lothian, a by that time white-bearded Robin Cook, are still able to vote on housing, education and health in West Bromwich, but not in West Lothian. A Prime Minister who rightly sets such store by doing what is right in the long term cannot shrug off the problem by intoning:
How will the White Paper address the problem of setting up a subordinate Parliament in a part--though only a part--of a kingdom which, above all, one wishes to keep united?
I confess to being the first person recently to have suggested a referendum on devolution. For this I was rebuked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Robertson), who called me "isolated in the party" and various ruderies. Never in a month of Sundays would I or did I suggest the current referendum proposal. If the referendum is to be on a White Paper, we must have time to see and digest that White Paper. If the White Paper is vague in any respect, the referendum will be on a pig in a poke.
Any Government with a colossal majority should be careful about assuming that a White Paper can go through both Houses unaltered in every respect. The referendum that some of us had in mind--and which, whatever happens, should still be held--is on the one meaningful and precise question that can be asked: "Do you approve of the Scotland Act 1998 as passed by Parliament?"
Will the Secretary of State explain to us in the wind-up the justification for a pre-legislative rather than a post-legislative referendum?
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross):
May I begin by expressing my immense satisfaction that the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland (Mr. Dewar) has assumed his important position as Secretary of State for Scotland? It is rare to speak of friendship for colleagues in the House, but I regard him as my oldest friend in this place and I could not have been more pleased by his appointment.
I welcome the measures foreshadowed in the Gracious Speech promising reforms of our constitution. They are important in themselves, but they are also important as the first steps in a much-needed process of modernisation to make our system of government fit for the tasks required of it by the British people.
Constitutional reform, being concerned with improving the system of government, is sometimes represented as being of less interest to the public than the ends of government, such as health, education, care of the elderly or housing. However, historically that is not a universal truth. Battles to extend the franchise and to reform the House of Lords secured centrality in past elections, when the voting public recognised that progress in attaining the fruits of good government was blocked by outdated constitutional provisions.
The election from which this country has just emerged is unusual in that, for the first time in modern British history, two of the major contesting parties--the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats--put forward not just a proposal to tackle a particularly offensive constitutional anomaly, such as that which animated two elections in 1910, but a critique of our system of government and a substantial agenda of reforms and remedies.
The securing by the two parties of 62 per cent. of the popular vote is as broad an affirmation as could be given by the British people of their acceptance of the need for fundamental constitutional reform. The former Prime Minister sought to ignite fears that the proposals would damage our democracy and the unity of the realm. The public forcefully rejected that claim.
This, then, is a Parliament entrusted with reform. The people have given us an unparalleled opportunity systematically to reconstruct our democracy and the opportunity has come just in time. There has of late been a marked deterioration of public confidence in our system. The standing of Parliament and parliamentarians is worryingly low. There has also been a decline in participation in the democratic process. The vote in this election was lower than in any since 1935. When people come to believe that they cannot change things through the ballot box, democrats should take notice.
In some parts of our country, there has also been an increasing sense of alienation from what has been presented by the outgoing Government as our national mind. The diversity of our country, which has made it possible for British citizens to feel loyalty to the several communities to which they belong, has been seriously threatened by the impositions of a centralising state.
In my view, an unwritten constitution can work only where there are agreed ground rules and conventions which are shared across the party political divide. Too often in recent years, those assumptions and conventions have been ignored or flouted. As a consequence, the case for a written constitution setting out the limits and responsibilities of public power has strengthened.
A written constitution is the avowed longer-term goal of the Liberal Democrats. We see it, however, not as an event consequent on the disruption of our constitutional system, but rather as the end point of a process which consolidates the achievements of systematic and deliberate reform. That reform must accord with the wishes of the British people to be citizens and not subjects. That reform must reflect in its distribution of power the very British sense of fair play, due proportion
and justice. That reform, through its step-by-step achievement, should increase the confidence of the British people that democracy can be made to work better--that it is not just the least bad system of government, but that it can provide an admirable civic framework to fulfil their aspirations which cannot be achieved by individual effort alone.
The Gracious Speech is the beginning of that deliberate process, and it is deliberate in contrast with so many of the constitutional changes wrought by the outgoing Conservative Administration. Those changes were never put to the public for approval and even now they have never been approved. I think of the abolition of the Greater London council and the emasculation of local government throughout the country. I recall the casuistry of the distinction drawn by the outgoing Government between ministerial accountability and ministerial responsibility--a ruse which did not convince the public that Ministers were at fault only if they chose to accept the blame. I think of the muddying of the distinction between the provision of Government information and the purveying at public expense of glossy party political advertising. Such abuses--very different in kind, but the examples are legion--are evidence of a coarsening of standards and the dangers of power unchecked by formal constitutional constraints.
When the country heaved a collective sigh of relief on 2 May, it came from a deep sense that the process of government itself had become indecent. The constitutional measures proposed for this Session are certainly those which merit priority. Nothing can be more important than seeking to give our citizens the opportunity to have their fundamental rights and freedoms protected in the courts of our country. The incorporation of the European convention on human rights into United Kingdom law is a long overdue step towards a British Bill of Rights.
The proposed legislation, agreed in the Scottish constitutional convention by a broad spectrum of civic representatives, to give Scotland its own Parliament is more than welcome. The intention to subject unaccountable Welsh administration to the oversight of an elected Assembly is also timely. The proposal to move to a directly elected strategic authority for London is not simply righting a great wrong done to our capital city, but is necessary to secure its proper governance and development. The Government's assertion of their commitment to openness and transparency will best be met by the passage of a freedom of information Bill at an early date.
These important measures were among those agreed by the joint committee that the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and I chaired prior to the election. There remain a significant number of other agreed constitutional reforms on which legislation is not specifically proposed for this Session, but on which I hope that work will begin concurrently.
I mention in particular the avowed policy and intention of the Labour party to introduce a fair and proportional voting system--the regional list system--for the elections to the European Parliament in 1999. I hope that the Government will confirm that intention at an early date and signal it by an appropriate direction to the boundary commission.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
In the current parliamentary arithmetic, the problem does not arise, but there will come a day--later rather than sooner, I hope--when it will arise. If we are talking about proposals that are likely or have a chance of lasting, now is the time to address the problem. The White Paper provides the opportunity to do so.
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