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Scotland Bill

Much as I admire my hon. Friend, I obviously should not have given way, because he is distracting me from the argument that I wish to make, which is a simple one. I am not convinced of the basis for those differences, and neither are many of my constituents. I have affection for the way our different nations have been grouped into the United Kingdom, but I am anxious, because unless we start to face these questions and answer them soon a general sourness will enter into English politics, and we will not be able to judge where that sourness will lead us. In particular, I fear for the electoral standing of my party if it continues to feel, as many do now, that the Scottish Labour party tail wags the English Labour party dog. We stand in danger of being marked indelibly as a party in England that is not prepared to protect or to promote the English question. My new clause 8, which I know others wish to support, makes a plea: that we should move as quickly as we can to a position from which those on the Treasury Bench can spell out what the basis of the allocation of the main grants between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom should be, and, if there are differences, how we can defend them to our constituents on the basis of fairness—something that they feel in their guts—which is not possible at present. If we cannot do that, we should not envisage shortly—because these Parliaments move amazingly quickly towards their close—going into a referendum debate in Scotland about independence, or not until we have spelt out those differences and the logical basis for them, and can defend them to our English constituents.