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Mr. Salmond: I find it difficult to believe that the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) is following the route of the leadership candidates, the right hon. Members for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). He surely cannot be suggesting a threshold--a blocking mechanism or a 50 per cent. rule--that his party would not apply to other constitutional legislation, such as would be necessary for a single currency. Will he say now whether the Conservative party would insist on a threshold for legislation on a single currency? If not, it is not the Chamber that will be short-changed, but the people of Scotland and Wales, by the Conservative party.
Mr. Ancram: My question, and I am entitled to put it also to the leader of the Scottish National party, is whether a referendum, to have any credibility, should have a minimum requirement for a percentage of the electorate to vote. If not, we could see extraordinary anomalies being created in the constitution that would be justified by the Government through the referendum, even though a majority of the people in the relevant parts of the United Kingdom might not have voted, let alone voted for the proposition. In a democracy, we must take that issue seriously.
Will the results of the referendums be announced only on an all-Scotland and all-Wales basis? Last time, we were told the regional results. If that is the case, I fear that we are seeing another attempt to cover up the fact that areas of Scotland are frightened of being run by the central belt of Scotland. My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks asked where the money would come from, and he gave the figures. Will the money be taken--
the people of Scotland and Wales have a right to know--from the education, health or transport budgets? In this current climate of economic discipline proposed by the Secretary of State for Scotland and his colleagues, the people have a right to know.
I come to the main concept of devolution. We oppose the Labour Government's proposals for a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly because we believe that they will launch us on a slippery slope to the break-up of the United Kingdom. I fear that a Scottish Parliament would swiftly become the focus for growing resentment and discontent on both sides of the border. What is being proposed is a unilateral form of devolution that is structurally unstable, and would not be able to stand for long on its own. In the end, the genuine aspirations of the Scottish and Welsh people, far from being served by such a structure, could be undermined and ultimately destroyed.
Scotland has for far too long been sold by both Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians the fantasy that a Scottish Parliament will cure all her ills, imagined and real alike. But when, as is inevitable, it does not, or if the Scots find themselves paying more than the rest of the United Kingdom, there will be a surge of disappointment and discontent.
It does not take a cynic to understand how quickly a Scottish Parliament would, for its own protection, seek to shift the blame for that to what it would call the parsimonious actions of Westminster. "Not enough money, not enough power," would be the cry. The result would be to increase the bitterness in Scotland against the rest of the United Kingdom, and it would be naive in the extreme not to see how that would accelerate the move towards the breaking up of the United Kingdom.
Moreover, we should not overestimate the patience of those outside Scotland who look at present subventions and feel that Scotland has not done half badly. If they feel that they are constantly asked to pay more through the block grant to protect the stability of the Scottish Parliament, the day will come when they will say, "Enough."
That is why constitutional change is not simply a Scottish or a Welsh matter. It affects the whole of the United Kingdom, and must be treated in Parliament accordingly. The hon. Member for Linlithgow made that point powerfully.
Whichever way we look at it, the issues at stake are significant and historic. We might have expected the Government of the so-called new dawn to advance their proposals confidently, prepared to argue them fully and steadily against all comers. Instead, we see a Government determined to rush the legislation through. Yesterday, the Secretary of State charmingly described that as "maintaining momentum".
I am sorry to see that even the right hon. Gentleman has fallen under the spell of the Minister without Portfolio, and is practising the art of Mandelspeak. The art is to pretend that a change is not really controversial--that the taxing powers are no different from those of a parish council, and that the matter is merely one of good governance, affecting Wales and Scotland but not the rest of the United Kingdom, which therefore need not concern itself. That is rather like saying that divorce affects only one partner in a marriage. It is nonsense and the Government know it; it is a dangerous travesty of what they are about.
Let us look at the consequences for the rest of the United Kingdom of what is proposed. There will be parts of the kingdom where, on matters of significant policy, the writ of this sovereign Parliament will no longer run. The old West Lothian question is still important.
For instance, Labour told us during the election that its top priority was education, education, education. That is the platform on which each Labour Member was elected by his or her constituents. Yet if the proposals go through, even the Secretary of State for Scotland will have no vote and no say on education in his own constituency, which elected him on that mandate--unless, of course, he stands for the Scottish Parliament. Perhaps he will let us know whether he intends to do so.
Similarly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence, as well as many junior Ministers, will by their own vote have abdicated that for which they were elected. However, they will be able to vote on education in my constituency, where they were not elected.
The constitutional anomaly goes even further. In the public expenditure survey round, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who are both Scottish Members, will decide what is spent on health, education and roads in English constituencies, but not in Scottish constituencies. They will be able to decide for my constituency, but not for their own. On any view, that is a constitutional travesty of the concept of elected representation and accountability. It goes to the very heart of the credibility of our constitution.
That is why the proposal is not just a Scottish or Welsh issue, but affects the whole of the United Kingdom--and not only in its anomalies. It will bring into sharp relief the heavy over-representation of Scotland at Westminster, long justified by the lack of devolution, and the over-subvention in Scotland, which has long been justified by Scotland's special needs. Both of those would be rendered unfair within the United Kingdom by the creation of a Scottish Parliament.
So much for the argument that the change is moderate. It is a major constitutional change which will send shock waves throughout the United Kingdom and fundamentally alter our constitution, undermining the sovereignty of this Parliament. I give notice that we will resist it.
A chilling arrogance is emerging in the Government and new Labour. New Labour assumes that because it believes something, no one has a right to question it--that because something was in its manifesto, no one has a right to debate and determine it in Parliament, but that it can, and should, simply go ahead. I say to the Government that they are wrong--profoundly wrong, constitutionally wrong and democratically wrong.
On 1 May, the people did not elect an executive presidency, however much the Prime Minister fancies himself in that role. The people elected a Government answerable and accountable to Parliament, and Parliament cannot be bypassed or short-changed. It has a right to discuss, scrutinise and determine every significant aspect of the manifesto before it is implemented. That is what Parliament is about, and nowhere more so than on the constitution. That is why all the Bills proposing schemes of devolution must be taken on the Floor of the House.
They go to the heart of the United Kingdom and they affect the whole. It would be a travesty of our constitution if they were not subjected in detail to the scrutiny of all who represent all parts of the United Kingdom.
We are in the House to represent our constituencies and we have a right to be heard. We will not be told that the election determined this debate. Elections confer powers, but they cannot alter truths or convictions any more than they can turn night into day. Nor do we in our party discard our deeply held principles and beliefs just to suit the changing wind.
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