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United Kingdom: Treaty of Union

My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on the historic sweep of his introduction and for giving us the opportunity to debate this issue—even though I felt that his contribution deteriorated into political point-scoring. Like him, I was listening to the ““Today”” programme and heard Alan Johnson give a perfectly reasonable response on the introduction of British citizenship to the curriculum. Clearly, coherence is in the ear of the listener. Like many of your Lordships, if you scratch my skin on nationality then the British bit does not run very deep—I would describe myself as a sort of European mongrel—at best going back to my DNA inheritance from grandparents. Nevertheless, after a few generations we feel a loyalty to the concept of the United Kingdom: at least, most of us do. I want to respond to another point made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth: he said that the way to get over the concept of what it means to be British is to teach history. Now, I am a fan of history and believe that it has an important place, but telling today’s young people about what happened 300 years ago will not necessarily get them to understand what it means to be British in today’s multicultural society. In my view, they want ideas about its relevance to today’s society, not why we chose to get together 300 years ago. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, that Scottish nationalism, at its worst, wants to celebrate the glorious victory at Bannockburn and weep over the atrocities of Culloden. That does not really seem a recipe for taking us forward. The criticism of the current state of play seems to centre on devolution and what a terrible curse it has been. That analysis implies that there would have been no criticism whatever if we had just left the union as it was with no devolution. Apparently, everything in the garden would have been rosy. I find that hard to believe. I think that it was a reasonable accommodation at the time and has served us reasonably well. It is not perfect, as more learned commentators have said. The British constitution over the years never reaches a state of perfection, but it just about manages to work its way forward and balance the anxieties of the various parts of our society. I thank my noble friend Lord Anderson, although he is not in the Chamber, for reminding us of the problems that can arise from the struggles for national identity. We are certainly seeing a resurgence of that across the world and we cannot ignore it, even though those struggles, as in the example of Canada that my noble friend gave, do not always find a perfect way forward. I was surprised when the noble Lord, Lord McNally, accused the Government of being the most centralised. They have their moments, but they are still the Government who introduced devolution, the most decentralising measure, so I found that remark a bit paradoxical and a tad unfair. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, saw devolution as much more of a curse and failed to recognise that it was a necessary solution to retain a United Kingdom. I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, because it was a measured analysis of the state of the union and suggested how it can develop. I share some of the views of my noble friend Lord Soley about regional governance, although we have not yet managed to popularise that approach—perhaps because there is now an innate fear that with another layer of government comes another layer of expenditure. We must work through that problem. I was also indebted to the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, for giving us their personal historical account. I found it fascinating to hear of the pragmatic and expedient decisions that took place even with regard to the claiming of expenses. I had not thought about that influencing the state of the union, but I should have realised that ““plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose””, as they say. I was also interested in the point made by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, when he talked about the global world that we live in now and how, at the same time, we must recognise people’s understandable desire to feel a sense of national identity. That is indeed a telling point. Those who want to take us down the road either of an English parliament or of undermining the status of current MPs from all parts of the union are fanning the flames. They say that it is the dog that does not bark. They are the very people who are encouraging the dog to bark. I share some of the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, that this is a dangerous road to go down. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for giving us the opportunity to debate the nature of the union and to celebrate it. Long may it continue.