| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Who will speak for them, then?
Mr. Galloway: Those people certainly will not have any parliamentarians to speak for them; that is a matter of regret. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take that as a sincerely felt point of view.
The thinking upper reaches of the Scottish Conservatives--among whom I include the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), who in a previous life was a Scottish Conservative, the former Foreign Secretary and many others--believed that there was a case for Scottish devolution. I urge the present Government to try to be as inclusive as possible in the approach to and the conduct of the referendum and to try to take with them those civilised, thinking sectors of Scottish Conservative opinion who are engaged in that thought process at the minute, as they do, indeed, represent an important strand of political opinion which is, sadly, unrepresented. We want them to be in the new Scottish Parliament; that is one of the reasons why, at political cost to ourselves, we have developed a proportional representation system that will allow them properly to be represented there.
I rather regretted the tone of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, who was presumably playing to a different gallery from the constitutional debate. I picked up on a word that the right hon. Gentleman used three times in his speech and which the former Prime Minister used throughout the general election campaign. It is a significant misnomer and lies at the heart of the failure of many Conservatives to understand the national question in Scotland. The former Prime Minister constantly referred to "the British nation". There is no British nation. This is a multinational country--a multinational state.
No one in Scotland, whether Conservative, Liberal Democrat, nationalist or Labour, regards himself or herself first and foremost as British. The Scottish people regard themselves first and foremost as Scottish and thereafter as British to a greater or lesser extent. It is the failure to grasp that fundamental point which has led the Scottish Conservative party to the sorry pass in which it now finds itself.
The overwhelming majority of the Scottish people want to have the best of both worlds, and what is wrong with that? They want to express their Scottishness and to have a political focus in a Parliament in Edinburgh without losing the great benefits of being part of a multinational state in these islands. Conservatives should also be able to grasp that proposition because our country is a sum greater than its parts. There is no contradiction between being a Scottish patriot and a
British patriot. It is one of the idiocies of the so-called cricket test set by Lord Tebbit. It is perfectly possible to be loyal to more than one country. Indian and Pakistani citizens who live in Britain do it, and so do Scottish and Welsh citizens. It is perfectly possible to have multilayered patriotism, with a commitment to Britain and to one's own nationality within it.
I say to those who criticise our attempt to reform the British state--I should not need to say it to Conservatives--that the bough that will not bend is the bough that may well break. Those of us who are trying to make amendments that will make our islands a better, more democratic, more decentralised and more civilised place in which to live deserve critical support from Conservatives rather than root and branch opposition.
Let me say to my very dear hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), with whom I have travelled many long political miles, that I am in complete agreement with him on almost every question. He won my heart one day in the Blackburn West Lothian miners' club after he had seen me score a goal against a local West Lothian team by saying that he had not seen a left foot like mine since Puskas. I have been a loyal supporter of his ever since. However, he will have noted the significantly greater murmur of approval from the Opposition to his arguments on the Scottish question than normally meets his propositions. With all due respect, I hope that that will chasten him. Of course, the specific questions that he raises are academically interesting, but I believe that they are simply that. The British constitution is riddled with such academically interesting questions.
It is said that according to the laws of aerodynamics the bumble bee cannot fly--it is too heavy for its wing span and its wings are too slight--and yet we all know that it does fly. And so does the British constitution, despite all the anomalies which, were we at a seminar, we could easily identify. They include an unelected second chamber, an hereditary monarchy and the fact that in a previous Parliament English Members were able to impose the poll tax in Scotland, when it had been absolutely rejected by the people of Scotland, at a cost of several thousand million pounds, a whole year before its introduction here. There are innumerable anomalies, including the position of Northern Ireland, which has also been mentioned. We are trying as best we can to find a new modus vivendi that will make the British state work better. That is what lies behind the blast of constitutional fresh air that the Queens's Speech intends to blow down the sclerotic arteries of the British state. We do not hate the British state: we want to save it and make it better.
The Opposition's policy of no-change unionism has no support worth speaking of in either Scotland or Wales. A significant number of Conservative voters in those two countries did before and are certainly now coming out of the woodwork and saying that it is time for change.
A new Parliament for Scotland will give expression to the legitimate national aspirations of the people of my country who have waited a long time for it.
Mr. Alasdair Morgan (Galloway and Upper Nithsdale):
I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech in this important debate. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Ian Lang. Ian served for some 18 years as the Member of Parliament first for Galloway and then for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale. During that period, he held some of the great offices of state for the United Kingdom and I am sure that hon. Members will join me in paying tribute to his service.
I should also mention Ian Lang's predecessor as the hon. Member for Galloway, George Thompson. George was a Scottish National party Member of Parliament and is well known for having been a diligent, hard-working Member. As I went around Galloway and Upper Nithsdale during the campaign, I certainly found out how much people still remember George with great affection and gratitude. His will certainly be a difficult example to follow.
Galloway and Upper Nithsdale is a vast constituency, even in Scottish terms. It stretches from Portpatrick in the west almost up to the boundaries of Dumfries in the east, from the Mull of Galloway in the south to Wanlockhead in the north. Despite the fact that Galloway and Upper Nithsdale is a lowlands rather than a highlands seat, Wanlockhead is the highest village in the United Kingdom.
Galloway and Upper Nithsdale has been at the heart of Scotland's history over many years. St Ninian brought Christianity to Galloway several centuries before Columba went to Iona. I believe that it was the first Christian settlement outside the boundaries of the then Roman empire. Some years later, Galloway was the site of the battle of Glentrool, where Her Majesty's ancestor King Robert I, King of Scots, won his first victory in the wars of Scottish independence.
Galloway and Upper Nithsdale is also a very varied constituency. In the west, we have the major town and sea ferry port for Ireland at Stranraer. Throughout the rest of the constituency, we have market towns and very rich farmland, and in the north-east the unfortunately now rather depressed ex-mining areas of Upper Nithsdale, Sanquhar and Kirkconnel.
Galloway and Upper Nithsdale has very beautiful countryside. Although it is sometimes forgotten and passed by as people head north to the obvious attractions of Edinburgh and the more advertised attractions of the highlands, it is perhaps the most beautiful part of Scotland. Unfortunately, however, beauty does not pay the rent or put food on the table. Some of the highest levels of unemployment in all of Scotland are in Upper Nithsdale, the Newton Stewart travel-to-work area and around Stranraer. I have heard during the course of this debate, however, that Wigtown in the South Machars--one of the worst areas of rural unemployment--has today won the race to be Scotland's first book town and only
the second such town in the United Kingdom. I am sure that that will do something to alleviate the problems of the South Machars.
Given the problems of high unemployment and the terrible lack of other employment opportunities, I was happy to hear the emphasis by the Government in the Gracious Speech on attacking youth and long-term unemployment. I know that my constituents will be looking for real action in the south-west of Scotland to flow from those promises. I am, however, somewhat sceptical about the methods with which the Government propose to fund such measures--namely, the windfall tax.
Closely tied up with the problem of unemployment in Galloway and Upper Nithsdale is the transport infrastructure--especially the roads, since railways form only a small part of the infrastructure in my constituency. The road network in Galloway is essential if we are to attract new investment. It is also essential for the prosperity of the major town of Stranraer, which depends totally on ferry traffic to Ireland. The A75, the main route from Stranraer to the English border at Gretna, is part of the Euro-route from Ireland to Leningrad. There is a sick joke in Galloway that the only two speed restrictions on the road from Stranraer to Leningrad have been imposed in the two villages of Crocketford and Springholm in the constituency, where a lorry going to Leningrad, if such exists, has to slow down to 30 mph on two occasions. We shall be looking for urgent action to address the infrastructure problems of Galloway and especially the A75.
I have already said that my constituency is largely agricultural. Galloway is especially well known for its beef. High-quality Galloway beef is sought after in Scotland and throughout the world and until recently much of it was exported. It has been disastrous for Galloway and its farming community--and for the other communities that depend on the farming community--that Scottish beef can no longer be exported to Europe and to much of the rest of the world. It is essential that the Government build on the new relationship which seems to be available with the European Union to work quickly and take all necessary actions to achieve a lifting of the beef ban. If Scottish and Irish herds have to go first, ahead of the pack, and have the restrictions lifted early, so be it.
I come now to the constitution, which is the focus of today's debate. Demand for constitutional change has long been at the top of the Scottish agenda and the focus for political debate in Scotland. I am glad that it is now top of the political agenda at Westminster, as evinced by the fact that the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill was the first to be published in this Session.
The strongest argument for Scottish self-government is the democratic one. Like the people of all nations, Scots should have the right to determine and run their own affairs. The Government claim that their proposals are closely modelled on those of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. The founding document of the convention was the Claim of Right, which stated that the convention acknowledged
I am concerned that the Government's proposals will not give the people of Scotland the right to determine their form of government. The Government's refusal to support a multi-option referendum with independence as one of the options and their proposal instead to have a take-it-or-leave-it referendum, as though the Labour party's proposals were the only possible option, represent a refusal to recognise the democratic right of Scots to determine not only whether they want a Parliament but what kind of Parliament it should be.
The Secretary of State for Scotland, who opened today's debate, agreed that the election had not given consent to his party's proposals. That argument emphasises the need for a genuine, multi-option referendum with all the options on the ballot paper. Scotland is, after all, a country: it is not a county or a parish. We therefore need a real Parliament in Scotland and not a county council, still less a parish council. To represent the people of Scotland properly, we need a Parliament that is restricted only by the willingness of its members to take decisions and not by rules laid down in any other place.
During the election campaign, the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), who is now a Minister of State at the Scottish Office, suggested that a devolved Assembly would not be able to organise its own referendum to find out whether the Scots wanted to take constitutional change a step further. In that context, I remind the House of the words of Charles Stewart Parnell, spoken in Cork in 1885:
"the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs."
That principle was endorsed by the present Secretary of State for Scotland and by all--bar one--Labour Members. I trust that they will not now turn their backs on that principle which they endorsed some years ago.
"No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country--thus far shalt thou go and no further."
I trust that no such restriction will be put on any Scottish Parliament.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |