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Scotland Bill

My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord, ““Lord Barnett of Formula””. I have never disagreed with him before. I used to write briefs for him and he never paid the slightest attention to them. He was a brilliant Chief Secretary who did not bother about the arguments but simply explained that there was no money, which was a much better argument than any of the ones that I produced. I disagree with putting this new clause in the Bill for the reasons that have just been given. I disagree with looking at it in a Scottish-only context. I confess that I had forgotten the report of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, but I disagree with the kind of criteria that the noble Lord, Lord Lang, was reminding us of. That on its own is not enough. Periphery and distance matter. I do not know of any state that I have lived in—France, America—where distance is not a factor. The purity of the position taken by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, does not really work. If you have an extremely sparse population on highlands and islands, the cost of communications and that sort of thing is much higher. That sort of need may well be built in to the formula that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is talking about, but it is not just criteria such as poverty: it is the problem of dealing with poverty, which is more difficult if people are on a distant island. I do not know who to give way to first.