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Mr. Salmond: I am not sure that this is the best example for the hon. Gentleman to use. In world history, there are many examples of devolved Parliaments
becoming independent Parliaments, but Ireland is not one of them. Surely, Ireland is an example of devolution not leading to independence.
Mr. Leigh: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I must say that that is a bad point. Stormont was created by people whose entire raison d'etre was to stay in the United Kingdom. Is that the ambition of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) who represents the SNP? His ambition is precisely the opposite. My right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) knows that perfectly well.
Mr. Leigh: The hon. Gentleman had plenty of time to make his points. He knows what his game plan is and he has no doubts about it. He is perfectly honourable about the fact that he intends to remove himself and all Scottish Members from this Parliament. That is the doomsday scenario, which may or may not happen.
Mr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde): I was interested in the reference by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) to Gladstone's Bill. I should have thought that it is not the number of Scottish Members, but the principle of representation in this place, that is a matter of contention. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that, over the next few years, that issue will be debated over and over again.
I want to respond to three comments--one by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), one by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)--who is not in his place at the moment--and one by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram).
I agree with what the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said about the criterion of residence for the referendum. Two members of my family have chosen to live in Australia. One is now an Australian citizen; the other hopes to become one. I suspect that, had they voted in the last election, they would have voted for the Scottish National party--but I am not responsible for youngsters. They told me that they had chosen to live in another country and hence had no moral right to take part in the referendum. Therefore, I agree on that point with the right hon. Gentleman, although I thought that his remarks on the poll tax were utterly absurd.
My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow referred to the unintended consequences of this measure. I remind him that, at a meeting of the Scottish Grand Committee in Dumfries last July, I said:
The right hon. Member for Devizes might have been a little needled by my earlier comment on his contradictory view on political devolution. He told me to take care and speak to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland about a Northern Ireland elected Assembly based on proportional representation. I actually did that on 30 June. In response, I received a letter from my hon. Friend the Minister of State--it is germane to this debate--saying:
My hon. Friend the Minister continued:
In advance of the debate, I picked up a book entitled "England's case against home rule", written by a professor of English law at Oxford university. In his concluding remarks, he said:
I want to quote more recently from an Irish author who is employed at Edinburgh university. In the current edition of "Scottish Affairs", Owen Dudley Edwards says:
The Parliament will be based upon proportional representation and there will be a number of Scots in that Parliament.
I want to refer to that most fair-minded and courteous of adversarialists, the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack). I shall have a bet with him here and now that that fine son of his, Charlie Cormack, will stand for the Scottish Parliament. He, too, was a fair-minded and courteous adverserialist in the recent general election. I met him and I believe that he would grace the Conservative Benches of a Scottish Parliament.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire):
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his generous words. However, I want to put on the record the fact that my son, of whom I am very proud--I am delighted by what the hon. Gentleman said about him--will certainly campaign for no, no in the referendum. I shall help him so to do. However, he is a democrat and if the vote goes in favour of a Scottish Parliament, of course he may stand. If he does, it will be with my blessing. However, he would do so not because he wants a Scottish Parliament, but in the hope that, from within, he might help to prevent the worst things from happening. He believes, as I believe, that the very integrity of the United Kingdom is threatened by these ill-thought-out proposals.
"I believe that within the next 20 years, Scotland will either be a constituent nation within a federal Britain, or an independent member state of the European Union. I think that we will proceed unevenly down the federalist road."--[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 5 July 1996; c.30.]
31 Jul 1997 : Column 510
My hon. Friend was right to say what he did.
"As you well know we endorsed in Opposition the proposals published by the previous Government for new democratic institutions in Northern Ireland outlined in the 'Framework for Accountable Government' document of February 1995. Those proposals were based extensively on discussions in 1991/92 with the four main political parties in Northern Ireland. In essence the proposals include the establishment of the unicameral Assembly which would have legislative and executive responsibilities; with a system of Assembly Committees, constituted broadly in proportion to party strengths in the Assembly and detailed checks and balances intended to sustain confidence in the new institutions. Elections to the Assembly would be by a form of proportional representation."
That is precisely what the White Paper suggests. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman was sympathetic to that proposal, if not a signatory to it.
"It will be for the talks participants, however, to decide how far they take into account these proposals. Any new arrangements settled on must command support from representatives of both communities in Northern Ireland--as the talks voting rules require--and then be approved in a referendum before being submitted to Parliament."
There are vast differences between Northern Ireland and Scotland, as we all know. The right hon. Member for Devizes was party to a proposal for an elected Assembly based on proportional representation--but, before it was set up, the people would have to decide through a referendum.
"On the whole, then, it appears that whatever changes or calamities the future may have in store"--
I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow will support these sentiments--
"the maintenance of the union is at this stage the one sound policy for England to pursue. It is sad because it is expedient, it is sound because it is just. Still, at this great crisis in the fortunes of our country, when every course is involved in undeniable perplexity and surrounded by admitted danger, there are two principles to which we may confidently appeal"--
this is an English case against home rule--
"it is by habitual adherence to them that England has grown to greatness. These two principles are the maintenance of the supremacy of the whole state and the use of that supremacy for the purpose of securing to every citizen, whether rich or poor, the rights of liberty and of property conferred upon him by law."
That was published in November 1886, a few months after the defeat of Gladstone's first home rule Bill. That is why I was pleased that the hon. Member for Gainsborough referred to that Bill.
"Tory devolutionists were once an impressive throng, with such prominent names as Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, William Whitelaw, Margaret Thatcher, Alick Buchanan-Smith, Malcolm Rifkind, Michael Forsyth: of these Buchanan-Smith alone remained true to his faith. But today's Tory Devolvers are Edinburgh
31 Jul 1997 : Column 511ex-Councillor Christine Richard and Councillor Brian Meek, Struan Stevenson (the vanquished heir to Sir Hector Munro's once safe seat in Dumfries) and other minor lights."
Brian Meek said in his recent column in The Herald:
"One of my biggest political mistakes, and not the only one, in the past decade was to turn my back on participating in the Scottish Constitutional Convention. Devo-Tories like me ought to have been there. You can't have any influence from outside.
He is absolutely right in his prediction. He continued:
We should have been arguing for a better system of financing for the parliament . . . Yet I do long for a parliament in Edinburgh and believe the people of Scotland will vote overwhelmingly in favour of the principle. When it happens nothing will ever be quite the same again."
"I hear a whisper that my good friend, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, is thinking of standing".
Lord James would make an excellent Conservative representative.
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