Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Debate between Alex Salmond and Bernard Jenkin
Mr Jenkin
I will endeavour to be extremely brief. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her question, her participation in the Select Committee and her contribution to the report. The answer is that we are making recommendations about the conduct of inquiries, and I doubt whether the Government will like them because they would limit their control over the process. Most Governments establish public inquiries to avoid issues, not to explore them and open them up. Why did it take so long to get this inquiry? Our report is as much addressed to what the House must take control of itself in order to ensure that inquiries are better conducted in future.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
I congratulate the Select Committee, although I am surprised to hear the Chairman say that the jury is still out on the Iraq war. In terms of public opinion, the jury is in, the verdict has been delivered, and the former Prime Minister has been indicted and rightfully so, although I would have preferred more formal proceedings to those which he faced.
The crucial subject matter in the report boils down to two things. First, I congratulate the Committee on the invention of the letter of direction, which is similar to the financial direction that is part of Government accountability. Perhaps the Chairman could say a bit more about that and about why he thinks it would be effective in avoiding the total and absolute breakdown of collective responsibility that was identified in the Chilcot report.
Secondly, the Committee has not been able to make as much progress on the question of parliamentary accountability. If someone, such as the former Prime Minister, says one thing to the American President, and then says something else or does not say anything to the House of Commons, that is prima facie a misleading of the House of Commons. To avoid that accountability, either one sets up a series of inquiries with limited remits that are unable to adjudicate on that which was done, or one spins things out for so long that by the time there is an inquiry with a big enough remit everybody says, “Why are we raking over the past?” If we allow that to stand, there is no effective parliamentary accountability. Can the Chairman see that the timeous nature of parliamentary accountability and our responsibility can be effected in his report and a mechanism produced so that we have the obligation to take forward what our constituents demand, which is to hold any Prime Minister who behaves in the same way as the former Prime Minister to account in a proper and timeous fashion?
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. The letter of direction should not be a controversial matter, because we already have it in our procedures for financial matters, as he says. One or two former Cabinet Secretaries have bridled at that, but others are very much in support. It does not interfere with the substance of policy; it merely ensures that proper process is covered. We recommend not that the letter of the direction, which may come at a sensitive time or involve a sensitive issue, should automatically be made public, but that it should, if appropriate and at the behest of the Cabinet Secretary, be made privately available to an appropriate Select Committee, to the Intelligence and Security Committee, to members of the Privy Council or to the Leader of the Opposition. It is just another lever for a Cabinet Secretary to use to secure their independence and the proper process set down in the Cabinet manual that Prime Ministers have agreed to in principle.
On parliamentary accountability and the Prime Minister, it remains open to this House to set up a special Select Committee or privileges Committee to establish proper procedures and provide fair representation for the prosecution and for the defence, but it would be a completely new procedure. Nothing like that has been done in the era when we expect natural justice to be carried to far higher standards. We cannot have a posse of MPs, all of whom have known views on such issues, acting as some kangaroo court to arraign a former Prime Minister. That would be ridiculous and would not do this House any good.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability
Debate between Alex Salmond and Bernard Jenkin(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Alex Salmond
It is certainly an important point, and it is one that is being pursued by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and other Committees of this House. When the Cabinet Secretary was repeatedly challenged on whether the changes to the flow of information to the Intelligence and Security Committee would make a decisive difference to a Prime Minister who was hellbent on pursuing a particular course of action, answer came there none. It is not enough to say that we are going to change the institutions of government or that we are going to learn the lessons of post-conflict analysis, although we have been promised a paper on that in the near future. There has to be an essence of parliamentary accountability.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I was the Chair of the Committee when the Cabinet Secretary was asked that very question, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that my Committee does not necessarily take the advice of the Cabinet Secretary on our recommendations. We will be making recommendations that we are confident will prevent such events from happening again. Should this motion be carried, we will respect the view of the House and extend our inquiry in order to respect that view. I do not know, however, whether we can satisfy the rather less reasonable terms in which the right hon. Gentleman has presented his reasonable motion. That will be for the House to judge.
Alex Salmond
The motion speaks for me and for the other Members who have signed it. I welcome that intervention from the Chairman of the Select Committee. I looked at his robust questioning of the Cabinet Secretary and I am now filled with more confidence that significant recommendations will come forward.
What Iraq demonstrates is that there are currently no effective checks and balances in our system, that the Prime Minister had the ability to create the circumstances in which this House followed him into an illegal conflict, and that all the memos from the higher echelons of the civil service will not mean a thing—rather like the Cabinet Secretary’s evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. That should be of little surprise to us.
European Affairs
Debate between Alex Salmond and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Alex Salmond
They are the ones I made at the start of my speech in suggesting that the debate should be focused on the importance of Europe in terms of social policy, the environment, why we should have solidarity in terms of refugees, and the achievements of Europe in keeping the peace in Europe, ensuring prosperity and workers’ rights. These are the arguments we are going to focus on.
It is important to pursue the end of my current point, however. The Foreign Secretary has just said no further process or vote in this Parliament would be necessary for the Government to invoke article 50, because what Parliament would gainsay a referendum vote across the UK? But in the possible circumstance that Scotland has just voted in favour while the UK has voted against, what self-respecting Scottish Parliament, having a vote, as is indicated through the Sewel convention procedure, would not vote in the way the Scottish people had voted in such a referendum, by exactly the same argument?
Mr Jenkin
Even if Scotland were to vote to leave the EU, the case the right hon. Gentleman is making for proper consultation and a proper constitutional process would be just as powerful. Does he agree that whatever the outcome of the referendum, the Government remain answerable to Parliament and they should not proceed to any precipitate or even self-harming action, which a precipitate move to article 50 might be, unless they have consulted Parliament and gained its consent for the next steps? In my view, that might require some discussion with all our European partners and consultation with other parts of the United Kingdom.
Alex Salmond
I was pointing out that if the Government’s position that such a process would not be necessary because there had been a referendum vote, where does that leave the Scottish Parliament, if, under the conventions I have cited from the Library document, it was to have a parliamentary vote, having had a positive popular vote—a yes, an “in” vote—for Europe, using exactly the same argument as the Foreign Secretary now deploys to announce the democratic short-circuiting of parliamentary convention? The Foreign Secretary should think through the implications of this argument.
Someone else has thought through those implications. This is another first for me as having agreed with the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) for the first time in 30 years, more or less, I now find myself agreeing with the former Prime Minister Tony Blair for just about the first time—certainly for the first time in the past 10 to 15 years. He made the following comment in a French radio interview—we hope the translation is good:
“In my opinion…if the United Kingdom votes to leave Europe, Scotland will vote to leave the United Kingdom.”
As I say, for once I think the former Prime Minister has put his finger on the heart of it.
The First Minister of Scotland has also alluded to these possibilities and she is well justified in doing so, because during the referendum campaign of 2014 one of the arguments made by the no side was that we would jeopardise our position in the European Union if Scotland voted yes. That sounds ironic now, given the process we are going through, but none the less that was one of the key arguments. Secondly, she is justified because during last year’s general election, she described exactly these circumstances as being a change in material circumstances which would justify another referendum and she then received a mandate of 56 out of the 59 seats in the House of Commons from Scotland. When the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), from the Labour Benches, says that we will vote as one United Kingdom and dismisses this point as if it was of very little consequence, he should remember that it is exactly that attitude which resulted in the Labour party not only being part of one United Kingdom, but having only one Member from Scotland to represent it in that United Kingdom.
The arguments I have made about Scotland could also be applied to Wales. Certainly, the Welsh opinion polls show a much less clearcut position on the European issue. This Library note also points out that in 2011 the people of Wales voted in a referendum massively for part of a referendum settlement that included the instruction that members of the Welsh Executive were to be compliant with EU law. They already have a pre-existing referendum mandate which could embrace parts of the European cause.
In summary, I would say two things to the Government in this campaign. First, they should recognise that in order to build an “in” majority, which is the objective, there will have to be a great deal more reflection and emphasis on the arguments that are likely to inspire support from a range of political opinion, as opposed to arguments that will fend off the remaining Eurosceptics who have decided to vote no. Secondly, in particular, the Government should have a great deal more sensitivity to that range of arguments than has been displayed thus far. In the space of the past week, since the referendum was announced, the Prime Minister has disregarded the Leader of the Opposition, and the views of the First Ministers of Wales and Scotland on the timing of the referendum. That is not an auspicious start in having the sort of broad campaign that can result in victory.
EU Referendum: Timing
Debate between Alex Salmond and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
The right hon. Gentleman talks about how outrageous it would be to have just a six-week referendum period, but if the designation of the two campaigns is delayed some weeks into the 10-week referendum period, that is what we will finish up with. Does he agree that it would be outrageous for the Government to corrupt the process of this referendum by delaying the designation of the in and out campaigns in the way the Minister suggested might be the case?
Alex Salmond
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We also agree on another aspect: purdah in referendum periods has not previously been properly observed in this place and by this Government, although it has been observed by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Administrations. Having a long purdah period, with a purdah period for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections, and then a further purdah period for a referendum on European issues, would mean that those Administrations had a double purdah period, which cannot be a good thing for governance. I know that that point will not be lost on the hon. Gentleman.
Let me get to the nub of my concern, apart from the patent lack of respect. We have already seen the start of the European referendum campaign, and a thoroughly depressing start it has undoubtedly been. Yesterday’s ludicrous exchange about on which side of the channel there will be a giant refugee camp just about sums up this miserable, irrelevant debate. The truth, of course, is that it does not matter; it will take at least five years to withdraw from the European treaties, and by then we could have 10 times the number of refugees or indeed none at all. No one knows how the bilateral arrangements between Britain and France will be affected. This is a pointless, pathetic, puerile debate, typical of what looks like it will be a depressing campaign—the political equivalent of a no-score draw.
As we anticipated, the lead responsibility for this state of affairs lies with the Prime Minister—this whole mess is of his creation. The time to propose a referendum is when we want to achieve something important, such as Scottish independence, not when we want to achieve nothing at all, as is the case with his sham Euro-negotiations on points of little substance. He has set out the terms for this depressing campaign, which is, to quote the Scottish play,
“full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
The chance of those who are anti-European Union of winning has always been greatest if the campaign is reduced to a competition of scare stories—a war of attrition—to find out who can tell the biggest porkies. That is exactly what is unfolding before our eyes. It is almost as if the Better Together campaign from the Scottish referendum had split in two. We now have two versions of “Project Fear” from opposing sides in the Europe poll. At this rate, the only thing these two campaigns will scare is the voters—away from the polling stations.
The Prime Minister is gambling this country’s entire European future on his sham negotiation and this shame of a campaign—even Jim Hacker would have fought on a more visionary platform on Europe. We need to fight an entirely different campaign in Scotland. People want to hear how we can build a Europe that acts on the environment; faces down multinational power; shows solidarity when faced with a refugee crisis; acts together when faced with austerity; respects the component nations of Europe; co-operates on great projects such as a supergrid across the North sea; and revitalises the concept of a social Europe for all our citizens. That will be a Europe worth voting for, not the Prime Minister’s teeny-weeny vision of nothing much at all.
European Union Referendum Bill
Debate between Alex Salmond and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
I will certainly undertake to put that in front of my Committee. It depends on the Government: if they table amendments 35 minutes before the deadline and a recess period and are then determined to discuss them on the first day back, it makes it very difficult to scrutinise matters, as the Electoral Commission has attested. I invite my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe to make sure that any regulations he introduces under new clause 10 are published in draft so that we can properly give them pre-legislative scrutiny, take proper advice on them and make objective recommendations to the House without being rushed or bounced into them.
One of the advantages of amendment (a), which my right hon. Friend has kindly accepted, is that the temptation to bounce the country into a referendum has been significantly reduced. If we are to have a sensible referendum debate, there has to be a proper period for discussion of the outcome of the Government’s negotiations and the merits or otherwise of remaining in or leaving the European Union. I am sure that was the Government’s ambition when they originally proposed the idea of a referendum. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in winding up.
Alex Salmond
I wish to speak to amendment 11, tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends.
The Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), had my rapt attention and much of my agreement until he produced the remarkable argument that if purdah was good enough for Tony Blair, it should be good enough for the House now. I am afraid that the alliance of scepticism against the Government’s motives was dissolved as a result of that one phrase, that one single disastrous rhetorical flourish.
The hon. Gentleman made another point with which I disagreed, and I want to put this on record before I come to the points on which I agreed with him. He wandered into a period outside the purdah and asked whether at that point the Government had the right to publish a White Paper giving their point of view, backed as a democratically elected Government by the civil service. Of course they have the right to do that, but the House should be concerned about whether the restrictions should apply during the 28-day purdah period, or perhaps for a week longer were the Electoral Commission to have its way. I think that they should, and I shall illustrate that view with a cautionary and moral tale from the Scottish referendum.
The Scottish referendum was regulated not by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—PPERA—but by the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013. The Act made provision for a statutory purdah period in Scotland during the 28 days leading up to the referendum. According to the explanatory notes, part 4 of the Act provided that,
“for the 28 day period ending with the date of the referendum, the Scottish Ministers and certain public authorities in Scotland cannot publish any material providing general information about the referendum, dealing with issues raised by the question to be voted on in the referendum, putting any arguments for or against a particular answer to the question to be voted on, or which is designed to encourage voting in the referendum.”
In other words, acting in their capacity as Ministers, they were not allowed to use the Government machine during the purdah period to advance the yes cause to which they were all committed. I must point out to those on the Government Front Bench today that nobody interpreted that to mean that this First Minister or any other Scottish Minister should not take part in the referendum campaign. The explanatory notes to the Act went on to state:
“However, this rule does not apply to information made available following a specific request; specified material published by or under the auspices of the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body; any information from the Electoral Commission, a designated organisation or the Chief Counting Officer or any other counting officer; or to any published information about how the poll is to be held.”
In a situation that was every bit as disputatious in regard to the arguments for and against, those measures in the Act were passed with hardly any dissent, rancour or suspicion of motives. It was accepted that that was the right thing to do. Perhaps the Government should have suggested something similar for this referendum, instead of doing whatever they were doing during the recess, unless they are seriously arguing that the constitution of this country involves a much simpler process for a European referendum. Had they done that, they would not now find themselves in this embarrassing position.
Mr Jenkin
I think the right hon. Gentleman and I are in agreement about the role of civil servants—obeying the Government of the day but not carrying out instructions that would put their Ministers in breach of purdah. There should be something in the civil service code that makes it clear that the yes and no campaigns of a referendum are the equivalent of political parties in an election, but the code contains nothing about referendums. I have great sympathy with the point he is making about the enforcement of purdah, because the north-east referendum had exactly the same problem as he is describing; John Prescott announced new proposals in the last few days before the referendum and we could not get anybody in government interested—they said it was a matter for Ministers.
Alex Salmond
The Chair of the Select Committee cited Tony Blair approvingly, presumably to encourage Labour Members’ support, but attacked John Prescott to move them away. None the less, the hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point.
European Union Referendum Bill
Debate between Alex Salmond and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Alex Salmond
The hon. Gentleman makes the point that what Governments do outwith the purdah period is quite different from what they can do within that period. Is he aware that there was referendum unit in the Treasury, which during the 28-day purdah period was briefing in favour of the no campaign in the referendum? Can that possibly be right? Should not that sort of practice be stopped before an upcoming European campaign?
Mr Jenkin
There is a serious question about whether civil servants should be closely involved in referendum campaigns over a period much longer than 28 days. There is a serious problem for the civil service if it allows such things to happen. That is why one of the main recommendations of our report is the addition of a paragraph to the civil service code to the effect that what applies to civil servants in general elections should apply to them equally in referendums. That would prevent civil servants who are put in difficult positions, and perhaps asked to do things that they know are not in the spirit of the code, from acting in such a way.
The underpinning of the principle of civil service impartiality during a referendum now rests on section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. If we do not press the amendment, we consent to the removal of that protection from the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Minister cannot ask us to do that. It is an issue of principle, and he is asking us to accede to completely the wrong principle. As I have said, I believe that he has been given very wrong advice. Far be it from me to speculate about how many Eurosceptics there are among the permanent secretary community, who might want a bit of extra freedom about what they get Ministers to do during a referendum campaign.
I am deeply disappointed that the Labour party has abandoned all its principles, but we know that it is split on the matter. On Second Reading, it was in favour of scrapping purdah. At Prime Minister’s questions, it was against scrapping purdah. Last night, Labour Members were going to vote for amendment 11, but today they are no longer going to do so. I think that they are in a bit of a muddle, and I suspect that quite a few pro-EU Labour Members would like to help to rig the referendum in favour of the yes campaign. [Interruption.] I see I have provoked the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). In the interests of brevity, I shall not invite him to intervene.
Unless we insist that the provisions for purdah remain in the Bill, we are acquiescing in the dilution of an important principle.
Mr Jenkin
I should correct the right hon. Gentleman. The correct title of the group to which he referred, to which I and others such as Mr Speaker and one of the Deputy Speakers, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), belonged, was called the White Guard.
I want to pick up the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the letter. It says that the Government wish to use civil servants to explain the position arising from the renegotiation during the purdah period. If the referendum is not going to be about the Government’s deal with the EU, what is it going to be about? The letter says that the Government want to use the government machinery for precisely the purpose that they should not be allowed to use it for.
Alex Salmond
That is an excellent point. I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s memory as to the White Guard as opposed to the White Rose group. I am delighted to receive the information that Mr Speaker was a member. I cannot believe that he was unsuccessful in an election anywhere, but I am delighted to have that information. No doubt I shall use it at some point in the future.
I am afraid that I have just got the letter through Twitter and have not had a chance to examine it fully. The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point that goes to the heart of the profound issues that he and others have raised.
European Union Referendum Bill
Debate between Alex Salmond and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Alex Salmond
I remember when John Major, as Prime Minister, ironically thanked the right hon. Gentleman for resigning from the Cabinet so that he could consolidate and secure his leadership of the Conservative party.
The SNP’s attitude is that we are a pro-European party. We believe that controlling 99% of our taxation revenue would be genuine independence, as opposed to the sum of 12% that we control at the moment or the 20% or so that we will control under the proposals that we debated yesterday. That is why we are proud to say, as are so many other countries, that we can be independent within the European Union. The idea that the right hon. Gentleman portrays—that a country cannot be independent in the European Union—is not widely shared across the continent. It might just be that the right hon. Gentleman and his friends are wrong in being out of step with all other Europeans, as opposed to him and his friends being correct about their idea of independence within the European construct.
The question of whether or not there will be collective responsibility in respect of the referendum is capable of being answered as a matter of principle. I hope that the Foreign Secretary or his colleague will address it in those terms when they wind up the debate this evening.
Alex Salmond
I am in the fortunate position, as Mr Speaker said, of not being bound by the 10-minute rule. I will give way a couple more times, but I understand what Mr Speaker said about allowing other Members to get in.
Mr Jenkin
Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why the same arguments that were deployed by people like him to say that we should join the euro—thank goodness we did not—are now being used by people like him to say that we cannot possibly consider leaving the EU? Does that not underline that he is Braveheart in Scotland, but slaveheart in Brussels?
Alex Salmond
One wonders how long it took the hon. Gentleman, when he was lying in bed this morning, like the Prime Minister, working out how he would deploy that bon mot in the debate, to come up with that.
The hon. Gentleman mistakes me, incidentally. He should reflect on the speech that I made in this Chamber only last week. I am not one of those people who argues that the UK could not possibly be out of the European Union. In my speech last week, I warned against a parade of establishment figures talking down to people and saying, “You can’t do this. You can’t do that.” I am not one of the people who argues that case. The essence of my case for being in the European Union is a positive case about what Europe should be doing, not about what it should not be doing. I hope that at some point in this debate, we will get to the stage where what is said to be wrong with the European Union is not things like hard-working Polish people being able to repatriate their child benefit to Poland. There must be more to this country’s relationship with the rest of Europe than matters of such smallness.
I will move on to the essential nonsense of this referendum and why my party will oppose it in the Lobbies this evening. When someone proposes a referendum, it should be because they are proposing a significant constitutional change, whether it be the alternative vote, Scottish independence, Scottish devolution or Welsh devolution, and they are looking for democratic sanction—the sovereignty of the people—to back that change. That is not the position of the Prime Minister. Nobody seriously believes that he wants to take this country out of the European Union. The referendum is a tactic that is being deployed as a means of deflecting support from UKIP and as a sop to Back Benchers. Nobody believes that the Prime Minister wants to take the country out of the European Union.
The suspicion, which is already developing in this debate, is a result of that essential contradiction in the Government’s proposition. The suspicion is coming, incidentally, not just from the hardened Eurosceptics—or Europhobes, perhaps—from whom we have heard on the Government Benches, but even from the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who questioned why it looks as though the Government are trying to stack the deck in the referendum before the campaign has even begun. The questions about the campaign limits and the purdah period are coming not just from people who are opposed to the European Union, but from Members of great experience who are concerned that the Government are already moving to imbalance the referendum campaign.
Let me tell right hon. and hon. Members who do not share my view on Europe what exactly will happen if we go into the campaign and the polls start to close or perhaps the no side even moves ahead. We will find Sir Nicholas Macpherson parading things in front of Select Committees of this House; we will find civil servants compromising their impartiality; and we will find the Prime Minister suddenly making a promise, a commitment, a pledge or a vow, and saying that he has found some new policy initiative to turn the argument, in total defiance of any idea of a purdah period.
My advice—and it is free advice, honestly given—is that Members should lock things down in the Bill, otherwise all their worst fears will come into being. With great respect to the Foreign Secretary, they should not trust his bona fides in saying that he just wants a fair game and fair play. If we want to secure a proper and decent referendum and avoid the deck being stacked, we should lock it into the Bill through amendments.
We have detailed reasons for opposing the referendum in its current form. I say to the Labour party that I am surprised by its argument, “We lost an election, and we therefore have to change our policy”, as the acting Leader of the Opposition said just the other day. Does that apply to all the policies that Labour fought the election on, or just to the policy on the referendum?
Scotland Bill
Debate between Alex Salmond and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State not only on his appointment as Secretary of State, but on surviving his election, with some glory to himself.
I commend the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) for his performance at the Dispatch Box because he did the House a great service just now: he put the Scottish National party on the spot. Let SNP Members put down that amendment in favour of full fiscal autonomy. The hon. Gentleman may oppose it, but he may find quite a number of Conservative Members voting for it. It might go through. We know that the SNP is calling for what it does not really want because it would leave the Scottish Government with a deficit in their budget of at least half the health service spending in Scotland. We want less of that kind of dishonest politics in the House. I commend my new hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), who called for more trust in this debate. That needs to come first from the SNP, whose whole purpose is not to trust but to promote distrust so that it can break up the Union.
I am bound to ask the Secretary of State whether this Bill is really “it” for the future of Scotland. Is this the full and final settlement that will stabilise the Union of the United Kingdom? I hae ma doots. I will certainly support the Bill, but it comes with a number of problems. It is based on the vow during the closing stages of the referendum. We read that vow on the front page of the Daily Record, which, I say to the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), hardly represents the fount of learning and wisdom from which we would expect him to learn. Would he commend The Sun in England, for example, as our Bible, any more than I would commend the Daily Record as his Bible? [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman should not be provoked.
What did that vow mean? Interpreting that extraordinary vow has been part of the difficulties of the Smith commission.
Mr Jenkin
I will give way in a moment.
We already have a devolution settlement that is pretty opaque, and this Bill will make it yet more opaque, more difficult to hold to account, and more difficult to explain to voters who does what. On the question of spending, the situation is now perverse. We have SNP Members, who do not think that they should be in this House because they want a separate country, seeking to use the funding mechanism—the outdated Barnett formula—as a pretext for interfering in decisions that should now be wholly determined by MPs representing English constituencies.
Alex Salmond
I have done that many times. On the subject of the Daily Record, the Prime Minister seemed very happy to use it last September, so is it not quite reasonable to quote what it is saying today? Also, if I remember correctly, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) once stood for election in Scotland. Will he remind the House how he got on?
Mr Jenkin
I beat the SNP candidate into fourth place—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—and Tommy Sheridan into fifth place. At least I stood in a Scottish general election, unlike the current SNP leader. She seemed to take part in the general election as if she were a candidate, even though she was not; it was a rather odd way of conducting a general election campaign. I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman did not call for full fiscal autonomy. He is now in retreat from that demand, because he knows that it is not what he wants.
Alex Salmond
The acoustics of the House must require attention. I did, I do and I will continue to call for full fiscal responsibility. With regard to the First Minister, is it not remarkable that she emerged as the unanswered star of the general election campaign without contesting a seat?
Mr Jenkin
I hope that the House noted that the right hon. Gentleman has retreated from full fiscal autonomy to full fiscal responsibility. People do not like politicians playing with words, which is exactly what he is doing. The fact is that he does not want full fiscal autonomy because he knows that it would result in dramatic cuts to public spending in Scotland.
On the question of taxation, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South ought to reflect on the fact that one of the problems identified by his hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) is that Scotland would be setting tax rates and having effects that English voters do not have for their own tax rates, which is exactly the same argument that we made against the Scotland Bill in 1997-98. He might reflect on how we have got into that situation. [Interruption.] Oh yes, because the Scotland Act 1998 allowed the Scots a 3% variation in income tax. They never used it, but it set up the very anomaly that the hon. Member for Swansea West complained about.