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Ms Rachel Squire (Dunfermline, West): The people of Scotland have just had a referendum that gave them the three options of the status quo, devolution or independence. It was called a general election, it was held on 1 May and a majority of the Scottish people voted for devolution.
Mr. Salmond: Then why are we having another referendum? The hon. Lady says that the general election gave a mandate. If the general election gave a mandate, Labour should go ahead and legislate for its devolution proposal. If the general election did not provide a mandate and the Labour party wishes to consult the people, it should consult the people democratically on the major constitutional options that are available. The hon. Lady and the new Labour Government cannot have the argument both ways. Given that the Government have chosen to go through the consultation process, it is an early blot on their record not to make the democratic choice available to the Scottish people. I suspect that Ministers in their quieter moments, even in the midst of their euphoria, know that to be true.
The Government's proposals have not been furnished for this debate, and one of the few reasonable points that have been made by Conservatives today is that the Bill mentions Government proposals that have yet to be published. I await the White Paper with interest. I hope that it is constructive and that it will be published soon. I was encouraged by the remarks of the Secretary of State for Scotland when he referred to the Claim of Right. He was a signatory and co-author of that document as the leader of the Labour party in Scotland.
Hon. Members will remember that the Claim of Right referred to the
Mr. David Stewart (Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber):
It is with a mixture of trepidation and awe that I prepare to make my maiden speech this evening. I thank hon. Members and officials for their help in the past few weeks. I also add my congratulations on the three contributions from the other hon. Members who have made maiden speeches. They are a hard act to follow. I also wish to thank the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) for his remarks about Conservative voting behaviour in my constituency, which I shall bear in mind.
Sir Winston Churchill described his maiden speech as a terrible, thrilling yet delicious experience. Disraeli's maiden speech in 1837 took three hours to complete and, at the end, he was shouted down. I assure hon. Members that I shall not take three hours, but whether I am shouted down is a decision for them.
I shall start by paying tribute to my predecessor, Sir Russell Johnston, who was the Member of Parliament for my constituency from 1964. Sir Russell Johnston was an intelligent and articulate Member, who was steeped in the history and culture of the highlands, and it was my privilege to meet him during the 1987 election campaign. He is a man of great integrity and conviction, interlaced with a dry sense of humour. He has fought for highland interests for 30 years and achieved many great successes. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to pay tribute to Sir Russell Johnston on his retirement from the Commons and to send their best wishes to him on his elevation to the other place.
The highlands have a rich and proud history of political radicalism. Honesty, fairness, social justice and a strong sense of community are our values. They are old and enduring values in the best highland tradition. An early champion of the highlands was Charles Mackintosh, who made his maiden speech in 1874. He was a rarity as a radical crofting Member of Parliament who piloted crofting legislation through the House, which changed the rights and responsibilities of tenants against the powerful interests of large landowners.
As a highlander, I am proud to be the first Labour Member to represent the constituency of Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber. It is a unique constituency because, during the election campaign, it was the only four-way marginal in the United Kingdom. It has the highest mountains and the deepest lochs. It has the beauty of Glencoe and Loch Ness and the isolated splendour of the
islands of Rhum, Canna, Muck and, of course, Eigg, which chose self-rule instead of the dead hand of absentee landlordism.
The constituency is of tremendous size--750,000 hectares. It stretches from the North sea to the Atlantic. Tourism is very important. It is responsible for 20 per cent. of the highlands' gross domestic product and it supports more than 20,000 jobs throughout the highlands. That is why transport is so important in my constituency and why I shall campaign for a reduction in the price of petrol and diesel, which is extortionate in the highlands and islands.
Inverness is the capital of the highlands and has seen some historic events, although some hon. Members may not be aware of them. For example, Inverness is the only place in which the full Cabinet has met outwith the Cabinet Office. In 1921, the Cabinet met at the conference that agreed the treaty that created the Irish Free State. Members present included Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, Austen Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. This evening, I extend an invitation to the current Cabinet to visit Inverness without the need to sign a treaty.
Several members of the Cabinet visited the constituency during the general election campaign. I pay tribute to everyone who did so, especially the Prime Minister. Not many hon. Members will know this, but he played in goal for my local football team, Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Shortly afterwards, the team won the third division championship. Something obviously rubbed off. I must report to the House however that, since 1 May, my team has lost three games in a row. The Inverness provost, Allan Sellars, remarked to me at a recent game that that had never happened under the Conservatives.
My constituency is also the stronghold of the world's oldest team sport--shinty. Legend has it that the game was played by saints and scholars, which suggests that the House has never had a shinty team. Although annual matches are played by exiles at Stamford Bridge, the venue is closer to the heart of my hon. Friend the Minister for sport than the noble and ancient game of shinty. In antiquity, shinty replaced clan warfare as a way to settle internal disputes, so I warmly commend it to the Conservatives. The Camanachd cup final will be played on 7 June at Fort William, itself a cradle of the game. This year's finalists are the ancient rivals, Kingussie and Newtonmore, which is a heartland of the sport and now a haven for skiers who flock to the Cairngorms.
I welcome and support the Bill, which will pave the way for a long-awaited Scottish Parliament, a new dynamic Parliament with more young people and more women, which will tackle the chronic problems of the highlands--low pay, poverty, a lack of housing, poor bus services and growing hospital waiting lists. Those are the failures of the past 18 years. We need a new approach.
People might ask what a Labour Government will do. Let them come to the highlands and see the faces of the unemployed young people who have been cast aside like unwanted pieces on a chess board. People might ask what a Labour Government will do. Let them come to the highlands and see the low-paid hotel workers in Nairn and Aviemore. People might ask what a Labour Government will do. Let them come to the highlands and see the quango state in operation--that system of patronage that would bring a blush to the cheeks of a mediaeval monarch.
The Labour Government offer the prospects of radical change for the highlands. In 1964, with two Labour Members of Parliament in the highlands and islands, Harold Wilson made his historic pledge to establish a Highlands and Islands development board, which stopped the depopulation of the highlands and transformed the area. In 1997, with two Labour Members of Parliament in the highlands and islands, we can bring power back to the highlands, by creating a Scottish Parliament--the dream of Keir Hardie, and the unfinished business of John Smith.
I was privileged to meet John Smith in the highlands. I remember his speech in Ullapool one warm spring evening, when he spoke with passion about creating the Scottish Parliament, and about his dream of being the first highland Prime Minister. His tragic death brought an end to the latter goal, but now the torch has passed to the present Prime Minister and to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Mr. Richard Livsey (Brecon and Radnorshire):
It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart), who gave such an eloquent maiden speech. I appreciated the delightful highland tones that came through--something with which I am familiar.
I also thank the hon. Gentleman for his fulsome tribute to my former colleague, Sir Russell Johnston, who served the House so well. The hon. Gentleman arrives with a true radical highland pedigree, and I can see that he has a great future in the House. I was delighted to hear his speech, as I was to hear the other maiden speeches that we heard this evening. The new Members have made a great contribution.
My Welsh constituency, Brecon and Radnorshire, is the third largest in Britain. The hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber probably represents what is, in geographical terms, the largest, and much of what he said about transport and remoteness applies as much to my constituency, where there are many problems similar to those that he described.
Devolution for Wales is fundamental to the good governance of Britain--of the whole United Kingdom. Liberal Democrats regard that as most important. The previous Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, Jonathan Evans, whom I defeated at the general election, did much good work for Wales during his tenure as a Welsh Office Minister. However, he stood firmly for the status quo on devolution.
My predecessor believed that the status quo was satisfactory, and he was swept away in the general election on 1 May 1997. The result was the 40th to be declared in Wales. I was the person who removed the last Conservative Member of Parliament from Wales, and with him much of what I would describe as the "incredibility" of Conservative policy on the status quo.
The result was declared on 2 May, which, by happy coincidence, was my birthday. In my acceptance speech, I asked Jonathan Evans what he thought of proportional representation now, when his party, having polled 19.5 per cent. of the votes in Wales, had no Members elected to the Westminster Parliament, whereas the Liberal Democrats, who had polled 12.3 per cent., had two, and Plaid Cymru, with 10 per cent. of the votes in Wales, had four. That is a real conundrum, which constitutional reform will have to put right.
The people of my native Brecon and Radnorshire want a fair outcome on devolution, and we have now reached something of a constitutional crisis, with no Conservative Members in either Wales or Scotland. The status quo has been totally eclipsed, and the arguments advanced by Conservative Members today are dead and buried; they were eclipsed at the general election. Conservative Members must, as some Conservatives in Wales are already doing, go back to the drawing board and have second thoughts. Some are now talking about the possibility of supporting a Welsh Assembly.
I believe that the people of Wales need a Welsh Assembly, and my party has been campaigning for a Welsh Parliament for the past 100 years. We are now on the threshold of achieving a modest level of democratic accountability in Wales; at the moment, there is a huge democratic deficit there, because Wales has been largely ruled by quangos spending up to 40 per cent. of the Welsh Office budget, to which the Conservatives have appointed members of their own party who have not been at all representative of the democratic situation in the country.
The Government's proposals for a Welsh Assembly are not exactly earth shattering. Liberal Democrats in Wales would like to see the creation of a Sennedd, with more teeth than the proposed Assembly. Our litmus test would be, first, that the Senate must be able to legislate; secondly, that it must have tax-raising or lowering powers; and, thirdly, that it should have true proportional representation.
We would like a 75-Member Assembly. According to the formula proposed by Labour, 40 Members would then be elected by the first-past-the-post system, and 35 would be chosen on an additional Member basis. That would give a precisely proportional system, reflecting the votes cast in Wales. I do not think that the 60-Member Assembly proposed by Labour would fall within the inclusive spirit that Welsh Office Ministers claim the Assembly will embody, so I hope that there will be scope to amend the proposals when the Bill for Wales is introduced after the referendum.
The test that Liberal Democrats will apply in Wales will be whether the Assembly allows fair representation in terms of geography--balancing the north, south, east and west--in terms of the political balance of parties, and in terms of gender, as judged by the number of men and women within it. If the Government genuinely wish to produce an inclusive Assembly, clearly the proportionality of the voting system must be addressed further.
The idea of introducing a referendum for Wales has the wholehearted support of Liberal Democrats there. I believe that the Secretary of State and his Ministers are men of honour, and we have no difference of opinion about the question that will appear on the ballot paper in Wales. We are indeed in favour of a Welsh Assembly, and it is entirely right that we should support its creation.
As a party, we shall campaign for a yes vote, and we shall be happy to do so. I can therefore leave Welsh Office Ministers in no doubt that that will happen.
The chances of establishing a Welsh Assembly have been few and far between, especially in this century. We must therefore grasp the opportunity now, and we must show leadership. In my experience of life, nothing worth while is ever gained without courage and resolution, and that is what we shall demonstrate in the referendum campaign.
"sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine a form of Government best suited to their needs."
It did not suggest that
"sovereignty resides with English Members of Parliament and that's the way it will stay."
There is an essential difference between those two attitudes to sovereignty, and I was encouraged because the Secretary of State seemed to indicate that he was staying true to the Claim of Right. If that is the case in the White Paper, and if it does not obstruct democracy, the Scottish National party will not obstruct the White Paper.
7.12 pm
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