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Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, this speech could have been delivered on Thursday, Monday or today, as I hope to comment on international development, the constitution and Scotland and transport. I shall start with transport. There is no doubt that most journeys will be made on the road network and that many journeys can only be made by road. It is therefore the job of government to make available as many alternatives to road transport as are practical. Perhaps we should consider other modes of transport as road network decongestants. However, I do not relieve the Government of responsibility for keeping the road network in good condition and viable. The removal of bottlenecks will always be useful, but it is among the other modes in which the Government should be investing towards the abstraction of journeys from private cars into public transport—buses and coaches—and the removal of journeys from the road altogether on to rail, air and, possibly, sea, similar to services across the Firth of Forth. It is here that investment will have the greatest road network decongestant effect. So to all the transport measures in the gracious Speech and subsequent gracious speeches—presumably three in number—it is that congestion-busting criterion that we shall apply. References in the gracious Speech were limited to four. Paragraph 24 referred to an offence of corporate manslaughter; paragraphs 27 and 28 talked of sustainable development, the natural environment and support for the rural community; and paragraph 30 promised road casualty reduction measures. The latter, at a UK average of more than 3,000 per year, and the public acquiescence that accompanies it, shows how road network managers are not expected to perform to the same standard as rail, air and sea network managers. I seek to raise standards on the road network, rather than to diminish standards on the other modes. Before moving on from transport, I shall mention some things that ought to be firmly on the transport agenda and that might be considered as the performance criteria for the next few years. My first selection is the loading gauge for rail freight. Today, all 40 foot sea-going containers are being built to a height of nine foot six inches. Although they can be inefficiently carried on low-loader—lowliner—wagons, that is an expensive process, not being able to carry them on ordinary container wagons. So far, the railway from Felixstowe has been converted, but that from Southampton to the West Coast Main Line has not. The Strategic Rail Authority's draft route utilisation strategy for the Great Western Main Line states that although a business case exists for opening that route to nine foot six inch containers, funding is not available. The funds required are up to £40 million. So I must ask: will the Government commit themselves to finding that funding? Other selections include sorting out the bus concession schemes, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, so that they make sense—as, for example, the Welsh Assembly scheme for all of Wales by negotiating centrally; or similar to the Scottish scheme, which has also been developed on an all-Scotland basis. Will Network Rail's governance be modified to give a better focus to the improvement and availability of the rail network? Will any progress be made towards a new high-speed main line to the north and Scotland, with the benefits of rail substitution for both air and road? Finally, will any real progress be made on finalising high-speed train 2—the replacement for the 30 year-old high-speed trains? There should be one universal design with greater passenger and luggage capacity and an operating speed of 125 miles per hour. Railway development in Scotland has been steered by the Scottish Executive and the generosity of the Barnett formula. Railways and light rail projects have been promoted by local authorities promoting private Bills in the Scottish Parliament. For example, at the bottom of my garden, the Stirling, Alloa and Kincardine Railway Act was promoted by Clackmannanshire council. I wonder whether that is the right way. Should not Network Rail be developing expertise in reopening railways? Clackmannanshire council is unlikely ever to promote another railway, so that experience will be somewhat lost. I turn to international development and the Scottish context. At present, international development is a reserved matter; but, at the same time, the First Minister, Jack McConnell, is visiting Malawi to redevelop the historic links with the former Nyasaland, forged largely by the Kirk in an acceptable manner. The acid test of that acceptability is the fact that towns with Scottish names have retained them. The Scottish Executive are diverting some of the Scottish block grant to that activity. I applaud that. It begins to give the Scots something of an outward-looking focus again, reminding Scotland that it is a small, first-world country with an international responsibility. Malawi, as the 10th poorest country, may benefit from such a twinning, provided that investment is carefully made. So my tactical aim for this Parliament is therefore the devolution of international development to the Scottish Parliament. In the last Parliament my tactical aim was the devolution of the railway in Scotland. As this was largely achieved, I am ever hopeful for my new tactical aim—although it is some hope, I suspect. The third area is my strategic aim for Scotland. No mention whatever was made in the gracious Speech about constitutional progress in Scotland. Some good grumbling has taken place recently about the West Lothian question, and I am quite pleased about it. There are four solutions to the West Lothian question. The first is an English domestic Parliament. The second is the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, that MSPs be abolished and that the Scottish MPs would sit in Holyrood for Scottish domestic business and at Westminster for United Kingdom business. This was the career-busting proposal for Mr James Gray who reigned, I suppose, for as long as his namesake, Lady Jane, but with a less abrupt end. The third solution is what I shall call the Lord Palmer option, and I am pleased to see the noble Lord in his place. I hope that it remains the abolition of the Scottish Parliament. Those three proposals I reject, for the best solution is the withdrawal of Scottish MPs from this Parliament, and that would go for Scottish-domiciled Peers as well. May 1 2007 would be a fitting moment for Scotland to move on from the political United Kingdom and resume its position on the world stage as a dominion. Involvement in the political United Kingdom has served Scotland fairly well in the past, but is no longer relevant. The threat seen by Queen Anne's government, largely from European superpowers, is over and Scotland has become submerged as 8 per cent of the United Kingdom. The feeling of helplessness and dependency which this engenders in Scotland does its community no good. Those in Scotland who believe—wrongly, in my view—that Scotland is subsidising the United Kingdom would be vindicated, while those who accept that the United Kingdom subsidises Scotland would be on improved moral ground. Permanent subsidy is wrong for the national self-esteem and bad for poorer people in the remainder of the United Kingdom who must subsidise the Scots. The momentum towards full autonomy under the Crown must be on a come-what-may basis, cutting the cloth accordingly. I have no doubt that in 1905 the Swedes told the Norwegians that they would be better staying within their union with Sweden, while the same went for the Irish in 1922. Even our neighbours in the North Atlantic, the Faeroe Islands and Iceland, have prospered with their respective autonomy. There is a real negotiating problem in this over the submarine base on the Clyde. My solution is for Scotland to seek NATO membership, which is of course vehemently opposed by the Scottish National Party, and thus to draw up a treaty port proposal—as of course was done in 1922 in Ireland. The landowner in me sees that a good rental could be achieved in such circumstances. This Parliament ought to be characterised by resolving problems boldly and by increasing people's feeling of being in control of their destiny. But will it? We shall see.