---

United Kingdom: Treaty of Union

My Lords, like the three previous distinguished speakers, I come to celebrate the union, not to bury it. I make no apology for intervening as a Welshman because this debate relates to the future of the union as a whole. I make but four brief observations. First, it is unlikely that the union question would have been raised at earlier anniversaries. Clearly, there is now a Scottish question, to a lesser extent a Welsh question and, as I shall come to shortly, certainly an English question. Secondly, what are the roots of the present challenges to the union? Even in Scotland in the 1979 referendum the statutory hurdle was not reached and in Wales there was a 4:1 majority against the devolution proposals. Less than 20 years later, in the new referendums there was a massive majority in Scotland and a bare majority in Wales in favour of the proposals. Why? What had happened during those 20 years? Obviously, one cannot separate the question from the UK political context. In 1979, the proposals were put forward by an unpopular Labour Government. In 1997, the proposals were made by a Labour Government after an overwhelming Labour election victory. Yet there were wider reasons. To provoke the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, who will speak after me, I say that some of the responsibility must lie with the Conservative Government after 1979, who failed to recognise that there is a Scottish question and failed to follow the example of Disraeli over the franchise and partially to steal their opponents’ clothes. The party fell into a narrow English nationalism, with the result that it lost all its seats in Wales and Scotland in the general election of 1997. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if, after 1979, instead of ignoring and neglecting the problem, the Conservative Government had instituted a form of indirect election to an all-Wales body drawn from Welsh local authorities. Those super-councillors would then have had a vested interest in maintaining the new body. Perhaps that speculation is like asking whether Ireland would still be in the union if the wise home rule proposals of Gladstone had not been defeated by the unionists in the 1880s. Thirdly, the problem is now exacerbated by the West Lothian or West Glamorgan question. Opinion polls suggest that half the English want independence, perhaps for economic reasons. In my judgment unwise initiatives and slogans such as, ““English votes for English laws””, by those from the unionist tradition could have negative consequences. Those who blow on the flames of English nationalism may one day find the union consumed by them. Perhaps because of the dangers we should recognise that some problems have no solutions, or at least no solutions without unacceptable consequences. Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said so well, surely the real problem is how in the post-imperial world we can best accommodate differences of national identity within the union. The problem is not confined to the United Kingdom. There is the Quebec problem in Canada and that of Catalonia and the Basque country in Spain. Even in Napoleonic France there are pressures for recognition of regional identities. Part of the solution may be to recognise multiple identities. In time the European Union identity, the United Kingdom identity and the internal national identities may all be considered valid. Perhaps we have been too complacent and inflexible. First, we should be ready to sing the praises of the union, which has given us all a greater weight and led to a greater sharing of resources within it. I note with regret that when on 17 January, for example, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence announcedthe establishment in the Vale of Glamorgan of the training centre for the entire UK Armed Forces, no voice in Wales that I heard stated that this was one of the benefits for us in Wales of the union. Secondly, we should give a warm welcome and recognition to the Scottish and Welsh dimensions of our national politics, including incrementally transferring more power to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, but also avoiding centralising power in Edinburgh and in Cardiff by strengthening local authorities. In short, we should seek creative ways of reshaping our constitutional arrangements to respond to this search for identity, perhaps like Spain evolving an autonomy à la carte, which may be necessary because of the disproportionate population and the economic weight of England, and because of the lack of a sufficient regional identity in the English regions shown in the referendum in the north-east. The fact that England does not wish to be divided into smaller units means that a classic federal solution is unlikely, but we are probably sleepwalking according to the normal British tradition in the direction of a quasi-federal structure. At some point along that road, we shall have to consider a constitutional court to adjudicate on disputes and other features of classical federalism, but there are many termini on the road from the current unitary Government with their devolved Administrations to fragmentation and independence.