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Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 4) Order 2009

My Lords, it is always good to get the Scotland Act out and to blow the dust off it, but I do not think that we are blowing hard enough. I am content with this mild and sensible measure which gives permission to the Scottish Parliament to act on its own behalf. However, I am not content with this parliamentary and statutory procedure. It is unnecessary and fundamentally patronising. After 10 years of successfully reinstated national government, is it not time to complete the Scottish democracy project? Is it really the Government’s intention to keep the people of Scotland in a semi-democracy which is a condition similar to requiring a teenager never to grow up? Will the noble and learned Lord agree that Scotland in particular and the United Kingdom in general need a constitutional overhaul leading to either a properly constituted federal state, which would please my noble friends, or, even better, to a confederal state, which would please not only those who seek full Scottish democracy, but lead the United Kingdom back to its origins, as achieved in 1603?