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United Kingdom: Treaty of Union

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Forsyth for initiating this debate. I joined the Unionist Party in Scotland many years ago and recall, even at time, that a union jack draped the platform in some of the meetings—something I expect the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, will never had had the pleasure to have seen. Nothing that has happened since those days has changed my allegiance from my party, as there is no doubt that the unity of the United Kingdom has been very beneficial to Britain’s influence in the world. However, there is definitely a feeling of uncertainty creeping in in Scotland and even friends who are not political are starting to wonder what has changed and what the future holds. In other words, is the union under threat, and if so, why? I should have thought that the cause is pretty obvious. If there is an election pending—as there is—and if the Government in power are having a rough time, people look around for an alternative. In Scotland’s case, that seems at the moment to be the SNP. All Governments that are in power for several years are liable to fall from grace. This Labour Government are no exception, what with the Iraq war and all the recent antics in the Home Office, to name just two events. Yet they have by law to face the Scottish electorate in May. The Government, albeit with liberal involvement in Scotland, are of the same political persuasion both north and south of the Border. If we examine the alternative, it is of an SNP that is determined to take Scotland out of the union and which tells the electorate that they would be better off as a separate nation, like the Republic of Ireland, where corporation tax is 12.5 per cent as opposed to 30 per cent in the UK—people are envious of a low tax rate. Surely, however, a Scotland governed by a socialist SNP will be almost certain to follow the exact opposite path to that which has made Ireland rich—low tax on those who came to invest there and create the wealth so successfully. As a leading article in the Spectator this week said, any Scot loyal to his country’s greatest economist—Adam Smith—would rapidly conclude that the wealth of Scotland is best preserved by keeping the SNP far from power, and that all the SNP would achieve would be to increase Scots’ public spending while cutting off the cross-subsidy from England which sustains it. In the light of this, and speaking more as a businessman—having been involved in many Scottish companies and even as chairman of a joint Scottish bank—surely it is time for the captains of industry in Scotland, collectively and individually, to take the floor. They should not be standing on the touchline but getting into the game. After all, if Sir Thomas Farmer can come out for the SNP, where are the unionists who have so much to lose from even a threat of a break up? The time is now. Listening to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, one would think that he bore no responsibility for where we stand now with the union. Yet it is the lopsided arrangement, as has been said by so many noble Lords today, of what passes for the Scotland Act that is aggravating the situation. If Tam Dalyell had been ennobled by the Prime Minister to sit on the Benches opposite, he would explain much better than I can why some call the current arrangements a constitutional anomaly. Speaking as a past chairman of a large pension fund I am afraid that I cannot forgive the Chancellor for virtually killing off good, defined benefit schemes by his total removal of ACT in one of his early budgets and for which we have suffered ever since. Not least to suffer have been the workers who have now had to put up with defined contribution schemes as a poor substitute. As the bully in the Scottish playground said when challenged by the teacher, ““It wisnae me””—and I do not need to interpret this for the noble and Learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. But it was him. And if the Chancellor appears to say any different of the threat to the union now and blame everyone else, he is saying, ““It wisnae me””. And I reply with, ““It willnae do””. For he and his colleagues, by agreeing to a lopsided and flawed arrangement which is the devolution settlement, is entirely to blame. As for his attack on the Conservative and Unionist Party, he has a nerve to do so. As the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, said on another matter, I will not take that from him. No, let us hope sense prevails in the May elections and the Unionist Party succeeds in stopping the SNP from obtaining power. When it is all over, a serious debate has to take place. I was interested and pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, saying that there was work to be done. Yes, there is work to be done. Work must be done on the removal of the Barnett formula and sorting all the financial affairs and Scotland and rest of the United Kingdom. There is also work to be done on what purports to be the West Lothian question. If this Government do not take the initiative, their successor must, if all the advantages of the United Kingdom are to be preserved.