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Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Dewar: I let the hon. Gentleman in on Friday. I do not want to make a habit of doing it every time that I speak, because I fear that if I am generous now, he will take it as a precedent. I should be obliged if he waited.
There is advantage in popular consent. In our unwritten constitution, popular consent gives a certain legitimacy. In a sense, it is the way to build the devolution scheme into the system and to give it roots. That, for me, is attractive. It also gives the Opposition, and those who dissent from my point of view, the opportunity to defeat it and, in effect, to kill it. That seems right. If we get the
right result, we have moral authority to speed the passage of devolution. That is again a matter for the people and we shall have to see what the results ultimately bring.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent)
rose--
Mr. Dewar:
I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Jenkin:
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. May I suggest that he should take the advice of the right hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Robertson) about why there is to be a referendum before a Bill on Scottish devolution is put before the House? It has nothing to do with the airy-fairy arguments that the right hon. Gentleman advances; it has to do with the fact that the opposition to the principle of devolution was so effectively conducted by Michael Forsyth, the former Member for Stirling. Seeking powers to raise an extra tax in Scotland became such an embarrassment to the Labour party that the Prime Minister imposed the referendum policy on the Scottish Labour party.
Mr. Dewar:
We all make mistakes. I thought that I was letting in the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), who is sitting beside the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin). That was unfortunate. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman was trying to whitewash his part as a very minor sprocket in the departing Scottish Office team. I assure him that I very often take the advice of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Robertson), and hope to do so many times in future.
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan)
rose--
Mr. Dewar:
I must make some progress. I should like to deal with some of the amendments. I have listened with interest to what has been said by Opposition Members.
The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) is a very old friend. I was a little surprised that he was anxious for us to give the light of day to the Liberal Democrat amendment. I should have thought that it was more a case of private grief breaking into public view, although I might be prejudiced. The Liberal Democrats' reasoned amendment is interesting because it welcomes
Mr. Maclennan:
The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that there is less certainty about the outcome of a referendum in Wales than of one in Scotland, even on the most optimistic assumptions that the Government no doubt make. In this disunited kingdom, it is reasonable to have arguments to address both cases separately.
Mr. Dewar:
It is not satisfactory to hold elections only when one thinks that one might lose them. It is an interesting democratic principle. It has some appeal.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Dewar:
I am sorry, but I must make some progress. I look to the Chair for protection.
The Tory amendment deals specifically with the question of the pre-legislative referendum, and I understand that. I have explained that we see the purpose of the referendum to establish consent in principle and to move on to the next stage, we hope with renewed impetus and some authority. The Tory party has concentrated on that issue. In a sense, it is an interesting matter of constitutional practice whether the engine pushes or pulls the train. One could hold many learned colloquies on that point, and I have no doubt about the mental ingenuity of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard).
I stress again that the aim is to establish consent before plunging the Government machine, the civil service, the House of Commons and the House of Lords into the complexities of this journey. Parliament still has a job to do against the background of the advice offered by the people in the referendum if the scheme goes ahead. It clears the way and allows Parliament to do its job of scrutiny knowing the true basis of the support. I hope that that support will go beyond narrow party boundaries. I feel strongly that constitutional change is not the partisan property of any single party. As I tried to explain, rather unsuccessfully, to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), events in Scotland are reinforcing that message. A vote with a clear-cut decision in the referendum will provide stability and a background against which Parliament can do its job.
Mr. Dewar:
It is not without precedent. I make the point to the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram)--
Madam Speaker:
Order. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) should not keep trying to intervene when the Secretary of State has made it clear that he is unlikely to give way.
Hon. Members:
He is a new boy.
Mr. Dewar:
I am not sure that he is. He looks horribly familiar to me.
Mr. Garnier:
I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker, and to the Secretary of State for allowing me to participate. As the right hon. Gentleman is so keen on the public consent aspect of the referendum--I do not argue with the need for that--will he address the House on
Mr. Garnier:
Why not, possibly, but it will not allow my constituents who are members of the EU and United Kingdom residents to vote in that important referendum.
Mr. Dewar:
I shall come to that in a moment, but I want to draw the hon. and learned Gentleman's attention to the concept of residency, which has some relevance in the matter.
The pre-legislation referendum is not without precedent. The right hon. Member for Devizes will remember the Northern Ireland framework document, which is a recent example. There was the triple-lock mechanism under which there was to be political discussion and, it was hoped, broad agreement. That was to be followed by a referendum and then by legislation. I do not want to dwell on that, but it is an example and there are circumstances in which that has occurred.
Let me put it this way. The rule appears to be that when it suits, not perhaps even the Government but a wider part of the House, a pre-legislation referendum is not so unacceptable, unthinkable and offensive. I should have thought that the argument about consent that has been raging would echo around, if not the constituency of Devizes, at least the ancestral acres of the right hon. Member for Devizes, so that he would be aware of the need to settle the issue of consent. I shall leave it for the right hon. Gentleman to think about. No doubt we can debate it again on another occasion.
Mr. Ancram:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Dewar:
If the right hon. Gentleman does not mind, I shall not give way, because I am conscious of the abuse of the House.
There is nothing surprising in the Tory amendment. What is surprising is what is not in it. I understood from the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks that an issue on which the Conservatives were particularly het up, to use a Scottish colloquialism, was the need for thresholds, and that does not appear in the amendment. The right hon. Gentleman said that there was
In any event, I understand that there is considerable interest among Conservative Members in thresholds. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks might be even
more worried if he reads the second Conservative reasoned amendment. It comes from what the Leader of the Opposition once slightly unhappily called the bastard tendency, which takes the view that there should be a fancy franchise and artificial obstacles in the way of the democratic process. That view was rather strongly endorsed by the right hon. Member for Devizes when he replied to the constitutional debate last Friday.
I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe intends to say a word or two about the other Conservative amendment. I presume that, if amendments are to be tabled in about a week, he has a clear mind on what they are likely to contain. It would be extremely helpful for the House if it had some sight of the amendments on thresholds with which we are to be presented so that we can, with fair and equitable minds, assess them. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not think it amiss if I tell him that I have a prejudice against such amendments and that I take the view that a test of public opinion is conducted on the basis of simple majority in this country. If he or his party tried to revisit the 40 per cent. rule, it would be seen in the most basic terms, certainly in Scotland and Wales, as something akin to ballot rigging, and would be treated with contempt.
"appropriate referendum proposals for Wales,"
but mysteriously discovers that a referendum in Scotland is unnecessary. It seems that the Liberal Democrats have managed to square a circle, on which I congratulate them. It is a curiosity, a collector's piece. In any event, it will not be debated now.
"a powerful case for a threshold".
There was then perhaps a touch of the faint heart or a wish to distance himself, because he went on merely to say that the Opposition would table
"a number of amendments to the Bill, and some will deal with the question of possible thresholds."--[Official Report, 16 May 1997; Vol. 294, c. 286, 291.]
It may be--I understand this--that he did not want to be too closely associated with the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who had started that particular hare running. Perhaps he was thinking about the dangers of guilt by association.
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