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United Kingdom: Treaty of Union

My Lords, I must first thank my noble friend Lord Forsyth for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue. We all know why Mr Gordon Brown has belatedly stepped forward as a defender of the union. He fears that his perfectly honourable ambition to be Prime Minister and effective in that role may be under threat. We also know why Mr Peter Hain, equally ambitious, is presenting himself as the passionate defender of the union. It appears likely that the Labour Party will be dismissed from office by a thoroughly disillusioned Welsh electorate in the May elections for the Welsh Assembly. Mr Peter Hain’s campaign is particularly curious. If you really want to defend something, it is a mistake to put all the blame for the fact that it is threatened on those who share your views. Conservatives share his opinion that the advantages and benefits of the union are compelling. He is also right that the case does not rest on economic arguments alone, but even more on the family ties that bind us. Yet in the Western Mail he alleges that, "““our shared values are now under threat as never before from an opportunist coalition of myopic Tories and the narrow separatists of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalists””." At Welsh Questions in another place last week he attacked the leader of the Opposition and the shadow Secretary of State for Wales for what he termed, "““their disgraceful policy of wishing to break up the United Kingdom by joining an alliance with Plaid Cymru to create second-class status for Welsh MPs””.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/1/07; col. 768.]" It is an odd constitutional doctrine that if the governing party loses the confidence of the electorate, other parties should not try to find common ground to provide an alternative Administration. I believe that it is their duty to do so. Even more absurd is the charge that it is myopic Tories who are to blame when it has been a succession of Labour Governments who have been blind to the foreseeable consequences of their own devolution measures. In 1976 Tam Dalyell, a Scotsman sitting for a Scottish seat, placed the problem in the centre of the debate when he posed the West Lothian question. Speaking in another place on Labour’s White Paper proposals in that year and after referring to the fact that Scottish and Welsh MPs would be powerless in their own constituencies, I said: "““In another respect they will be privileged because they will be able by their voices and their votes to decide in England the policy on a whole range of matters; the structure of the education service and the organisation of the National Health Service, for example, which in their own parts of the United Kingdom will have been transferred elsewhere. I do not believe that this situation would for long be acceptable to this House””." Almost exactly 30 years ago, in January 1977, we debated the Government’s Bill. The explosive nature of the West Lothian question had become even more apparent, and the indignation of the English electorate was being roused. Twenty-one years later, debating the then Government of Wales Bill in this House, we came back to the issue. I spoke of, "““the dog that did not bark in the night … in the debates in another place. I refer to the English dog. I fear that in due time he will bark and may bite … It is an issue that we would be foolish to put completely on one side … if we care for the stability and good government of Britain as a whole””.—[Official Report, 21/4/98; col. 1061.]" The next time the dog appeared it was in the very well trained and placid form of the Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking in the previous Session. Unless we find a solution, we may not be so fortunate on a future occasion. It is likely that next time it will be a dog with a vicious bite. Mr Hain in his Western Mail article referred to the historic and fundamental principle of equality between all Members of Parliament and suggested that English votes for English laws would result in second-class status for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. He seems not to understand that Labour’s devolution legislation has already destroyed the historic and fundamental principle, creating a situation in which the English may well believe that they are now the second-class citizens. The union of our country is too valuable to be left in this dangerous state of instability. We have no option but to return to the proposition so admirably presented by my noble friend Lord Baker. I press the point of the social reason that I referred to earlier: the family ties that bind us. A few years ago I wrote a family history. I concluded the introduction with the observation that, "““the intermingling of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish blood (and the history of those nations) that has produced my children and grandchildren is a characteristic of families that is … unlikely to be exceptional. That fact appears to me to be significant when confronted by the current wave of nationalist sentiment and at a time when the unity of the United Kingdom is under threat … My grandchildren have every reason to take pride in their common heritage from all four nations in the British isles””." A vast number of others on these islands are in the same position. Let us join battle to defend the union, not on the grounds of personal ambition, however honourable that ambition may be, but because we are all members of a family with a shared history, shared interests, shared values and shared hopes.