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Dr. Lynda Clark (Edinburgh, Pentlands): My intervention is intended to be helpful as I am hoping to give you some support for your devolutionary credentials. I think that you are the same person--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. I did not make any statement. I know that the hon. Lady is a new Member, so I must advise her that when she uses the term "you" she is talking about me.
Dr. Clark: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I should start again.
I am trying to assist the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) with his devolutionary credentials. In June 1979, he said that there was
Mr. Ancram:
The date to which the hon. Lady referred was shortly after I had spent three months, together with the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), campaigning for a no vote. I pay tribute to the strength of the hon. Gentleman's arguments against a Scottish Parliament of the sort that we are now discussing. I stood alongside him then, I agreed with him, and his arguments remain true today. Since then, the Conservative Government had made some changes in the development of the Scottish Grand Committee. I was involved in discussions on those changes from 1979 onwards.
On the point about the dynamic of devolution and what it would do to a Scottish Parliament--[Interruption.] Labour Members shake their heads, but it is a serious matter because this has happened in other areas at other times in history. A Parliament, by its nature, always wants more power. How soon would a Scottish Parliament be flexing its constitutional muscles? How soon, claiming credence from the Claim of Right, would it be testing its own view of where sovereignty lay? I doubt whether
its view would be that sovereignty lay with the Westminster Parliament. How soon would it be asking for greater powers and greater resources, probably in the knowledge that it would not get them? Then what? It would become the focus for Scottish discontent, the cockpit for national resentment and the arena in which to set Scot against English. That is the virus and the dynamic it would create--it would tear at the bonds that hold this United Kingdom together.
Mr. John Swinney (North Tayside):
How does the right hon. Gentleman's argument square with the view of the former Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher, that, if the Scottish people wanted to assert their rights, use their sovereignty and determine their independence as their preferred option, no impediment should be placed in the way of their achieving that objective? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with that? How does he square it with his argument?
Mr. Ancram:
The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me, because that is precisely what a Scottish Parliament would argue--that sovereignty rests not with Westminster, as the Secretary of State said, but with the people of Scotland.
That is not all. The proposals, which were put before us last week, leave a dangerously unbalanced constitutional position within the United Kingdom. The envisaged reduction in the over-representation of Scotland at Westminster may help a little, but I frankly tell the Secretary of State that it is an alarmingly long way down the road. I suspect that it is the price of loyalty from his Back Benchers.
We must continue asking what will be the role of Scottish Members at Westminster. In logic, why should they still be able to vote on matters affecting English schools and English hospitals when they will not have the right to vote on those matters as they affect Scotland? Why should they decide those matters for my constituents when they cannot decide them for their own constituents? Why should a Scottish Member be able to be the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and decide individual spending programmes for England when he will not be able to do so for Scotland?
Does the Secretary of State really believe that that position is sustainable and that a quiescent England will somehow not notice the proposed constitutional travesty and inequality of treatment?
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough):
As my right hon. Friend is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, perhaps he cannot hear the sotto voce remarks of Scottish National Members, who are saying, "We don't want to come."
Mr. Ancram:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making up for the fact that my hearing is becoming poorer as I get older. He has also reinforced the point that I was making. Scottish nationalists are supporting a Scottish Parliament because they believe that it will become the sovereign Parliament of Scotland. The intention and policy of the Scottish National party is to create an independent Scotland.
My argument, however, is not with the Scottish nationalists--like them, I believe that the Government's proposals will achieve their goal--but with the Secretary
of State, who tells us that the Government's proposals will secure the Union. I profoundly disagree with him on that belief, because there is nothing in precedent to suggest that that would be the consequence.
The proposals contain a frightening potential to set Scot against English and English against Scot. Far from binding together, the proposals will unbind; far from strengthening relations, they will undermine them; far from stabilising our constitution, they will unbalance and destabilise its very foundations.
For those of us who cherish the United Kingdom and believe that its great amalgam of nations, cultures, traditions and skills has been and can again be a force for immense good, the proposals are a nightmarish beginning of its unravelling. The proposals threaten the United Kingdom, and we oppose them.
Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill):
Does the right hon. Gentleman care to predict the date on which he thinks that Germany, having created its lander, will break into several independent nations?
Mr. Ancram:
If the hon. Lady studies the position in Germany, she will discover that the White Paper does not make comparable proposals for the United Kingdom. If she believes that the proposals are for the maintenance and sustenance of the Union, she should ask herself why the nationalist parties in both Wales and Scotland support them. Have those parties suddenly converted to the idea of the United Kingdom, or do they know--as I know--what the proposals will lead to?
Mr. Ernie Ross (Dundee, West):
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, once a Scottish Parliament is up and running in Scotland, the Conservative party in Scotland will put forward no more candidates for seats at Westminster?
Mr. Ancram:
I am not sure that I understand even the purpose of that question. We have consistently said that we do not want the situation to arise. Before 11 September, we will be arguing that the proposals will lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. On 11 September, we will ask the people to examine the Government's half-baked proposals. I believe that people in Scotland understand the value of the United Kingdom to Scotland, and I do not believe that they will lightly sow the seeds of its destruction. I also do not believe that they will want the voice and influence of Scotland to be diminished in the United Kingdom, and that would be the consequence of the White Paper's proposals.
We have been told--we have already discussed the matter today--that the post of Secretary of State will be maintained--but to do what? The Secretary of State said that the post will be changed quite radically. Having lost all his powers to a Scottish Parliament, however, what clout will he have in Cabinet? What influence will he have on the wider scene? The White Paper states that his role will be "promoting communication" between the Scottish and Westminster Governments. What does that mean? Is it a euphemism for a glorified message boy?
The truth is that, in politics and in government, one punches one's weight. If the proposals are implemented, the Secretary of State will have no weight, no punch and no influence. Scotland's historic voice at the centre of
government will effectively be gone. When, inevitably--as my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) said--the political colours in Edinburgh and London are different, even the role of "promoting communication" will come into question.
Moreover, it will not be long before Scotland's voice in the House becomes very much less. Fewer Scottish Members will not strengthen Scotland's voice. The inevitable diminishing of the role of Scottish Members in the House, to meet the needs of constitutional balance, will lead to further marginalisation. The reality of the proposals--far from the Prime Minister's promise in the White Paper of giving Scotland an "exciting new role" within the United Kingdom--will be an undermining of the considerable role that Scotland now plays. That would be bad for Scotland and bad for the United Kingdom.
Mr. Ian Bruce:
Perhaps my right hon. Friend is being too generous in his description of the role of a post-devolution Secretary of State for Scotland, because the White Paper's funding formula almost sets in stone the amount of money that will go to Scotland. In considering devolution, should we not re-examine the Barnett formula? I have spoken to Scots in my constituency who wonder why Scots in Dorset receive less money than Scottish--or English--people living in Scotland. Why should there be greater per capita spending in Scottish parliamentary constituencies than in English ones?
"a genuine need and a genuine desire for constitutional reform not only in Scotland but in the rest of the United Kingdom."--[Official Report, 20 June 1979; Vol. 968, c. 1412.]
The right hon. Member must have had some form of devolution in mind, so I should be grateful to know what form he would support.
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