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United Kingdom: Treaty of Union

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean for introducing this debate. However, I believe that it should have been a government Motion to celebrate 300 years of the union. I agree with my noble friend that it is very disappointing, but typical, that the Government have done so little to celebrate one of the great success stories of modern Europe. There have always been, and always will be, friendship as well as tensions between Scotland and England, just as there are within Scotland and within England. Scotland is dominated by the central belt whereas in England it is London and the south-east that is the powerhouse. Opinions change over time and the pendulum swings between the advantages and disadvantages of any union between the two countries. John, Earlof Caithness in 1289 supported the proposed marriage of Margaret, the Maid of Norway and heiress to the crown of Scotland, to Prince Edward, heir to the throne of England. However, his son Magnus supported Robert the Bruce and signed the Declaration of Arbroath. Alexander, Earl of Caithness voted against the Treaty of Union in 1706, which was very unpopular throughout Scotland. He was the last surviving Peer of that old Scottish Parliament. Only six years after the Treaty of Union in 1713, the Earl of Findlater moved a Motion for a Bill to break the union which was defeated in this House by only four votes, all of them proxies. So restlessness on both sides is nothing new, but this time it is set against a very different background due to what has happened since the end of the last war. In Europe we are extremely fortunate that we have enjoyed such an unprecedented period of peace. One of the ingredients of the union from the English point of view was to bind together with the Scots against the French. When the present situation is taken for granted and there is no common enemy that is often the time when friends reassess and question their relationship. The empire has gone. When I was growing up I lived in Britain; that did not stop me shouting for Scotland at Murrayfield—whereas now the UK is just another European country. Many in Scotland believe that it has moved from being a partner in a global imperial enterprise to being a region in a member state and part of their resentment of the EU is a sense that it is part of their downgrading. Then, of course, there is devolution. The West Lothian question has been well aired so I will not comment further on that. But I would like to pick up a point that my noble friend Lord Forsyth made. He told us that the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, said that English votes for English laws would be a Trojan horse for separation. That is not what he said in 1980. He wrote: "““Most of all, a revised Scotland Act could embody some form of the ‘in and out’ principle. Under such a principle the remaining Scottish MPs at Westminster would not be allowed to take part in the proceedings of the House when it was debating England or Welsh domestic matters ... Labour … may be expected to consider a plan along these lines in the future””." The Chancellor has clearly reneged on his beliefs. We have heard that Scotland receives more from the taxpayer than some parts of England. On the other hand there is concern in Scotland that the English continue to have an attitude of arrogant superiority which was exemplified by William Attwood's pamphlet in 1704, The Superiority and Direct Dominion of the Imperial Crown of England over the Crown and Kingdom of Scotland. So what of the future? There is no question that Scotland can be independent, even perhaps if it allows Orkney and Shetland to go back to Norway. There are smaller and less prosperous countries in Europe. The two questions the Scots have to determine are whether they would be better off or whether they would be better governed by being independent. If the evidence from the performance of the Scottish Executive is anything to go by, the answer to the second is probably no for those of us who live in the far north. I think that we did better under a Westminster Government than we would under a Scottish one dominated by the central belt. So far as local government is concerned, it will barely exist in Caithness as from May, for the Scottish Executive have built on the disastrous reform that we made when in government with the creation of the Highland Council by centralising even more power in Inverness. Will Scotland be better off? Again I have to answer no to that question on the evidence to date. From the perspective of Scotland as a nation, I believe that each of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom can exercise greater influence in the world and achieve more together than would ever be the case if they were separate nations. When it comes to the vital concerns of terrorism and defence, there is no doubt that sitting at the top table is very much in Scotland's interest. That is very important in all the international fora and particularly in the EU. It might well be that how we handle this within the union needs to be reassessed for there is a strong perception north of the Border that in our negotiations within Europe the Scottish voice is not being taken enough into account. To the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, I would say that the reality of working in Brussels is being able to form a blocking minority when one's interests are jeopardised. As from 1 January this year, 91 or more votes out of a total of 345 will be enough to block a proposal. At present the UK has 29 votes and thus only needs to ally with another 62. If Scotland was to be independent and accepted as a member of the EU, then it is likely to have only seven votes whereas England and Wales might well stay on 29 but at worst reduce to 27. It would be very much harder for Scotland to put together a blocking minority and it would stand a greater chance of having alien legislation forced upon it. The other perspective of being better off is purely the cash one. An independent Scotland could choose one of two options. It could follow the Irish model which, as we have heard, has become good only by following a low-tax, deregulatory, free-market and pro-business agenda; or it could follow the Scandinavian model, which is what the Scottish Executive lean to, of high taxes and socialist intervention. The main driver in the Scottish economy is the financial service sector, which contributes one-fifth to the gross value added. As a proportion of the total economy only the United States has a larger financial service share than Scotland. Since 1999 this sector’s GVA has averaged 3.1 per cent. However, only 20 per cent of its output is for the Scottish market; of the rest 90 percent is for the English consumer. Even with this success story the annual GVA in Scotland has been less than that of the UK in five out of the last seven years and on a par with it for the other two. It has never in this period exceeded the UK’s. This underlines the importance of the financial sector to the future prosperity of Scotland. Separation from England would pose a whole new challenge to it and London would become a powerful and aggressive competitor. The question for the English is, do they really care? Whatever the Scots did to help create a prosperous union, an empire and more recently to protect our freedoms in the last century, is history. The Scots are increasingly seen as an expensive addition in an unequal treaty. Should there be independence for Scotland the political landscape of England would change hugely. The Labour Party would clearly be a loser but some would shed no tears over that. More worryingly there would be increased tensions between the affluent south-east and other areas. The arguments that are being deployed now about the Scots would resurface for another area of England. The Act of Union may not have merged England and Scotland into a single country but it has lasted 300 years and brought many benefits to both countries. There is no comparison to it anywhere in the world and it has been a very great achievement. It is now being questioned in a way not seen for hundreds of years. Devolution is but a slippery slope and has not been the success it was intended to be. It is unfinished business as more powers have been sought for the Scottish Executive. The logic of the next step, independence, is that it does not need positive argument. If the union is to persist it must be argued for now. It needs to work better and more fairly if we are to keep something as successful as this union, but I would rather try than let it go by default or lack of interest.