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Mrs. Fyfe: I am glad to hear that reassurance. I understand that the Scottish National party has taken the same position; I hope that that is correct. That leaves only the Scottish Conservatives who are benighted, as usual.

Mrs. Michie: I cannot answer for the Scottish Conservatives, although I think that they are beginning to understand that, with proportional representation, a gender balance and a Scottish Parliament, they are getting a lifeline to politics in Scotland. Without those things, they would be in the wilderness for ever.

Conservative Members have gone on and on about the additional list system being in the hands of party hierarchies. That would be wrong as well, certainly for the Liberal Democrats. Members of the Scottish Parliament will be vetted and selected to stand, as are Members of this Parliament, by the party members in the Euro-constituencies. Those selected will then be on the list. It is not a question of my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, saying, "You, you, you and you will be on the party list." People will be chosen by local party members, as they are chosen at the moment to stand for first-past-the-post seats. I hope that we shall hear no more about patronage and party hacks going on lists.

The White Paper makes it clear that the Parliament will be responsible for further and higher education, including policy, funding, the functions of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and student support. That is absolutely right. I am concerned, however, that, as a result of the Dearing report, the Government may legislate on the charging of tuition fees, which should be left to the Scottish Parliament. The Parliament will also want to ensure that Scottish four-year degree students will not be disadvantaged.

It has been proposed that students should pay £1,000 a year, with the loan being repayable at a later date. That flies in the face of the Scottish educational tradition, which has been firmly based on the belief that the best possible investment is in our people and our children. Education has always been regarded as the one opportunity that should be afforded to all our youngsters, and as the one boost that can give them a lift out of deprived or disadvantaged circumstances and give them a real chance to make their way in life. Education is important to us.

Running up a considerable debt is a frightening prospect even for the reasonably well-off. It goes against a principle that many of us were brought up to believe in--that we should not incur debt and that we should never purchase anything until we were confident of being able to pay for it. That is a wise dictum. The Scottish Parliament may want to look at that and at other methods of funding higher education. I also hope that there will be no move to do anything about university rectors in Scotland. It is a matter for a Scottish Parliament to decide.

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I will try to get home the point about tax to Conservative Members. The Scottish Parliament is being given only tax-varying powers, so I do not understand what all the fuss is about. The Scottish Parliament is being given a minimal power. That power will be used only if a particular party has said that it will do so in its election manifesto and if the people then vote for that party. If the people vote for that party to go into government, the power will be used, because it will be the will of the people of Scotland. The power makes the Parliament more responsible and accountable, and that is why we must secure a substantial yes vote to the second question. I do not understand why Conservative Members think that a Scottish Parliament will act against its own people in terms of business and tax. Why would it do that?

Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury): Will the hon. Lady give way?

Dr. Fox: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Michie: I will give way to the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox).

Dr. Fox: At columns 416 and 417 of yesterday's Hansard, when asked whether he thought that the second question was fraudulent because, even if the answer was no, the Parliament would still have tax-raising powers, the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) said that it was a fraudulent question to that extent. Does the hon. Lady agree with her hon. Friend?

Mrs. Michie: I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland was saying that we would have preferred to have either no referendum or a referendum with just one question. I think that my hon. Friend was referring to the fact that we did not want a second question.

The White Paper raises a number of questions about the reserved powers, which are a bit bizarre. Under the heading "Certain other matters" on page 11, there is a list that includes the licensing of theatres and cinemas. I do not understand why that is included; perhaps the Minister can tell us later. The list also includes gambling. Does that mean casinos or betting shops? Why should they involve reserved powers? I do not see why this House should have a superior authority by which it can dictate to Scotland how it handles moral and ethical matters. We shall have to return to those matters, especially when the relevant legislation comes to the House.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow is right to say that Ministers will meet the Law Society of Scotland, because there are a number of questions to discuss. I am not a legal person, so I do not want to go into that area now.

Conservative Members make much of the merit of the Union, and they seem to believe that it is more important than democracy itself. Many people maintain, however, that the Union cannot be all that it is cracked up to be if it is unable to evolve, to adapt and to be flexible enough to meet the aspirations of its component parts. If we want to secure the unity of the United Kingdom, we should move towards a federal structure. I believe that we shall do so in the end. It has been Liberal Democrat policy for

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many years and I know that the hon. Member for Linlithgow agrees with me. It is the answer to all the West Lothian questions and those relating to tax and fiscal powers. It is how the majority of countries work.

We need only look at America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Germany. Who gave Germany a federal Government after the war? We did. Who gave Germany a fair electoral system? We did. Yet, until now, not one jot or tittle of power has been allowed to leave this place. That is why I warmly welcome the White Paper. Although it is about devolution, it is much better than I expected, particularly having heard the rather chilling words of the Home Secretary when he said that power devolved was power retained. I commend the Government for having stuck closely to and, in some instances, improved on the proposals from the Scottish Constitutional Convention.

We are home rulers and, as I have said, the ideal is a federal structure.

Mr. Laurence Robertson: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Michie: No.

With a federal structure, this place would no longer dictate to Wales and Scotland; rather, there would be agreement on what powers each level of government would carry out.

Sovereignty as it is understood here is quite different from how we understand it north of the border where the people are sovereign--not any one person, body of people or Government, particularly as Governments are always elected on a minority vote.

The Conservative party in general and the official Opposition in particular demean themselves by their carping criticism. They could try to recover their political antennae, which have not been in evidence for many years, by speaking to real people, and not just among themselves, and trying to understand the deep passion, the desire of the hearts and heads of so many Scottish people who, though the generations, have dedicated their lives to the re-establishment of our Scottish Parliament. As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvin (Mr. Galloway) put it so eloquently last week, many people have lived and died without seeing it come to fruition. We, their children, have continued in that desire, and our children know that they must carry the banner until the day comes when Scotland can once again hold her head up high with confidence and pride as a partner in the United Kingdom, Europe and the world.

5.22 pm

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): I am not given to exaggerated language, but frankly I was shocked by the opening of the speech by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie). Let me explain to the House why. She referred to the battle of Stirling bridge some 700 years ago. She said that it was a light-hearted reference. Why did the hon. Lady start a speech in a crucial debate with that light-hearted reference when she knew very well that it was to a battle of Scots and English?

In 35 years of contesting elections with the Scottish National party--the leader of that party will bear me out in this, if in nothing else--I have never said that representatives of the Scottish National party are anti-English. Nevertheless, that will be a serious concern

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once Pandora's box is open. I beg the hon. Lady to be careful in using that argument, because there are hundreds of thousands of English people working in Scotland and well over 1 million Scots working in England. They see it as one United Kingdom.

We are on very sensitive ground. The Liberal Democrats had great influence both in the convention and on the White Paper. In one sense, it is their White Paper as well as that of my right hon. Friends. Liberal Democrats can claim great influence on the White Paper; therefore, it behoves them to be ever more careful about what can be described as the law of unintended consequences. I beg the hon. Lady to be careful.

In his penultimate remarks, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to the Leader of the Opposition. He took great comfort in the fact that the Leader of the Opposition had made statements along the lines that, if there were a Parliament, it would be permanent. I understand how the position has arisen, but how long will it last? Whatever the Leader of the Opposition or any politician says, how long can 72 or 58 hon. Members, or even one hon. Member, sent by electors north of the border be able to vote on matters relating to England, but be unable to vote on matters relating to Scotland? How long can that endure?

My problem with the White Paper is this: how long can a Scottish Parliament last in the form--or anything like the form--in which it has been proposed? People who propose constitutional change must submit proposals that at least have a chance of enduring. After careful study of the White Paper, I fear that there is no possibility of its proposals lasting a decade or more. Therefore, it behoves us to argue for proposals that at least have the possibility of enduring.

Once again, it comes down to something has been recognised for a very long time, certainly since the last years of the last century. At some risk, I quote Carson, who said in 1912:

"We see, as Irish Ministers saw in 1800, that there can be no permanent resting place between complete union and total separation . . . If there were no other objection to the establishment of a separate government in Dublin, it would be impossible because legislative autonomy can only be coupled with financial independence".

That is part of the problem which was reinforced by careful reading of the White Paper, by the reaction to Edinburgh castle and, not least, by the treatment of the subject by The Scotsman on that Friday morning. I fear that, at the end of the day, it comes back to the same question: the choice between something indistinguishable from the status quo and something indistinguishable from the general views of the Scottish National party. I stick to it, but the referendum really ought to be on two questions: "I wish to remain in Britain" and "I wish to be part of a Scottish state separate from England".

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