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Mr. Maclennan: It has to be said that neither party has been notably effective in bringing devolution to the statute book, but it was extremely encouraging to hear the Minister of State speaking as she did tonight, for I am quite sure that she is right to see devolution as the way to end anomalies.
We are not saying that a uniform system of decentralisation should be imposed on the whole of the United Kingdom. The Minister of State is right to say that devolution should reflect what people want in different parts of the country and that it should proceed at the speed that people want. We have seen that happen in other countries with great effect--notably in Spain, where devolution has not proceeded in an imposed form, but has grown from beneath. That is what will happen here, I think.
I particularly want to pay tribute to the Deputy Prime Minister, because he deserves a great deal of credit for having driven the process forward. What has been done,
sometimes in the face of opposition from those who are tidy minded, has taken the process of local decision making far further forward.
Dr. Fox:
Why does the right hon. Gentleman believe that devolution should be pan-national in Scotland and in Wales, but regional in England? Is it because he sees England not as a nation, but as a conglomeration of regions?
Mr. Maclennan:
I see within England very great differences of identity. The north-east and Newcastle are not likely to respond positively to a London Government being imposed on them by someone who is devising a pan-English solution.
The thrust towards devolution is the desire to achieve decentralisation--not the desire to express national identity alone--and to adapt systems of government to the demands of the societies in which we live and make them fit our needs. Where those needs are different--they are patently different in different regions of England--they should be reflected in a structure that allows those differences to be expressed in different choices of priority, in different public expenditure priorities and even in different systems of taxation. That is the nature of a federal solution and the nature of the solution that I want this country to move towards.
Mr. Shepherd:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Maclennan:
I am taking a little longer than I intended, but I will give way.
Mr. Shepherd:
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. The whole point about accountable government is that those who raise the money and determine how to spend it are accountable to an electorate. That function--the totality of central Government expenditure--will be determined in this Chamber, but it will be driven by priorities for which we will be held accountable by the local Parliament or Assembly. There will be conflict in that arrangement, will there not? Unless those authorities in Scotland and in Wales can raise money, how will that arrangement be justified? The Barnett formula will be under threat.
Mr. Maclennan:
Thinking will develop on tax raising as on tax spending. In due course, there may be a federal funding response to the development of federal responsibilities, which I would certainly welcome. People in New York city pay income tax to three bodies--the city, the state and the federal Government. A development along such lines would be extremely rational and welcome in this country, but we are some way from that.
In the meantime, we must attend to the immediate task of overseeing the work of government in the regions of England. The Minister of State is right to say that that can best be entrusted to the work of Committees of this House, following the pre-devolution pattern in Scotland and other parts of the UK. That is entirely a matter for this House, and we look forward to the report of theSelect Committee on Modernisation to see what recommendations may come from our colleagues.
I conclude by making a heartfelt statement of my satisfaction with the constitutional developments that have been marked by the elections in Wales and Scotland,
which have confounded the enemies of promise.There can be no turning back now. The British unitary state is giving way to a more complex and more flexible organism, in a settlement that I think is based on consent.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock):
I am pleased to participate in this debate, and I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that I was one of the only English Labour Back Benchers to contribute to the Committee proceedings on the Scotland Act. I regret the absence of hon. Members from England, particularly Labour colleagues. I am worried about that, because it betrays the fact that people have not realised that the legislation and tonight's debate relate to the UK. The Scottish and Welsh devolution legislation was UK legislation, which has a profound and irreversible effect on our relationships in these islands and on our entire constitution. I am worried about the absence of real debate in England about what is happening in the other parts of the UK.
I approach this matter as someone who was interested in, and advocated devolution for, Scotland in 1968. I was a disciple of John P. Mackintosh, the former right hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian. He--and I, in my humble way--advocated devolution long before it was fashionable in the modern Labour party. Although the party had advocated it in earlier epochs, it was not until after the 1974 general election that Labour became converted to it.
I remember those times, when Jim Sillars was absolutely opposed to Scottish devolution and the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) was in the Labour party. I do not remember whether the right hon. Gentleman was a tremendous advocate of devolution, but I am sure that he was. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), advocated devolution when he was in the Liberal party.
I was there, and I have been consistent. Being a disciple of John P. Mackintosh, I feel entitled to remind my Front-Bench colleagues that, while he advocated devolution to Scotland, he was also a United Kingdom federalist. He believed in devolving to the whole of the UK.
Mrs. Liddell:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Mackinlay:
I was going to entertain a presumption against giving way because of time, but seeing as it is one of my mates, I will.
Mrs. Liddell:
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. He refers to John P. Mackintosh and to our commitment to
Mr. Mackinlay:
I remember that I first heard my right hon. Friend at a by-election in Berwick and East Lothian in 1978, following the sad and untimely loss of John P. Mackintosh. He advocated federalism throughout the UK, and that is the point that I want to make. He recognised, as I do, that Scotland had its own history, culture and law making. In a sense, it had its own separate Government, although not its own separate legislature. Those were compelling reasons for devolving to Scotland, but he advocated devolution throughout the UK--something we have not heard enough about tonight--on grounds of good governance and modernisation.
That is why I go along with the Government amendment tonight, although it does not go far enough. I am a moderniser and a radical, and I want to devolve real powers to other parts of the UK. I am fairly agnostic as to whether there should be an English Parliament or regional Parliaments within England. However, I believe in constitutional symmetry and, as sure as night turns into day, some day we will have to address ourselves to that. It may be a score of years down the road, and I do not know whether any of us will be in the House then. If we are, I will remind people that the matter was raised on this occasion.
I was proud of the fact that, in our manifesto, we said that we wanted to reverse remote government and to modernise government. The Government have a proud record of advancing constitutional change and reform. However, as someone who supports the creation of the Greater London Authority and the emergence of regional chambers, I say that they are good, but they are no substitute for proper, directly elected law-making bodies in the rest of the UK. We will have to tackle that matter for a raft of reasons, one of which is the need for constitutional symmetry throughout the UK. There may be variations on that theme, but the GLA will never be a legislative body, and the regional chambers--elected or unelected--will never be legislative bodies. We have to recognise that decision making has to be brought down to the most local level.
It is absurd that I was held on a two-line Whip to vote on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill. I am sure that the Bill was extremely important, but it should have been a matter for our friends in Wales; it should not have been a matter for us here. Equally, if there is a London taxi Bill, it will not be the business of the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. Those are matters that need to be dealt with sensibly by people at a local level. It would make for better decision making as well.
It does not matter how often my colleagues refer to the Greater London Authority and regional chambers. It will not overcome the lack of constitutional symmetry, so I urge them to reflect on the matter. I am reasonably comfortable at the present time because there is dynamism in our constitutional reforms. We cannot do everything overnight with the wave of a magic wand, but there are certain issues that we cannot sweep under the carpet.
The West Lothian question was raised famously by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), who opposes devolution. I raise it as someone who is a passionate advocate of devolution and of a federal United Kingdom. It is an issue for us all; it will not go away.
I depart fundamentally from the view of Her Majesty's Opposition on this point. I think that the current position can be sustained in the immediate period because there is dynamism in the reforms and we have to make interim arrangements, but it is foolhardy in the extreme to suggest that, a score of years down the road, that can be sustained.
In any event, much as I love the Prime Minister and my party, we are not omnipotent. I suspect that, one day, there will be a change of Government. If there is a change on the worst possible terms and in the worst possible circumstances, things such as the Barnett formula, the scale of representation and the West Lothian question will be addressed. Therefore, it is much more important that we address ourselves to those issues now. If not, and they persist, there will be a constitutional perversity that will run contrary to our democratic principles and institutions. The situation is okay for the immediate period, but not for much longer.
I say to both sides: those of us in politics who have a long memory remember how my party used to complain about Northern Ireland Unionist Members holding Ministries. We found it unacceptable that Robin Chichester-Clark was a Minister in the Government of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath). Also in those days, Northern Ireland constituencies had about 100,000 electors.
I do not think that artificially diminishing the number of representatives is a way of tackling the West Lothian question; it does not solve that question. I happen to believe that constituencies should be more or less the same electoral size throughout the UK. People might be given extra resources if their geographical area is large; that is the way we should be dealing with our representation. Altering the number of people whom Members represent here, so that there is a disparity between the constituencies of colleagues from Scotland and England, is not a good, modern democratic system.
Reference has been made to whether Ministries are English. I remind Ministers that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, said, rightly, when he was Opposition health spokesperson before the 1992 general election, that, if Labour won in 1992 and implemented its devolution legislation, it would not be possible for him to be Secretary of State for Health.
There is a powerful argument for the Prime Minister and my right hon. and hon. Friends in Cabinet to consider whether they need a realignment of the Ministries. I recognise that the Department of Health has a primarily English jurisdiction, but it has a United Kingdom dimension as well. The Minister with responsibility for education is primarily an English Education Minister, but has responsibilities throughout the United Kingdom as well. In any event, that Ministry is now coupled with the Employment Ministry, which demonstrably has an all-UK jurisdiction.
The Prime Minister needs to reshuffle the pack, so that we at least bring into line some Ministries that are demonstrably English and that could be filled onlyby Members of Parliament representing English constituencies, as against others that clearly have some
pan-British competence. Such a change would be a logical step--but only an interim one, as it would not answer the West Lothian question--toward dealing with some of the immediate oddities arising from devolution.
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