Scotland: Independence Referendum

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, very much welcome this debate and would like to congratulate warmly the noble Lord, Lord Lang, but with a slight touch of envy. I entered in vain the Private Member’s Ballot to try to secure a debate on precisely this subject, so I very much welcome his successful efforts in so doing today, and the manner in which he introduced it.

I am very glad that the terms of the debate are about the implications for the United Kingdom as a whole, because I have been worried that, particularly south of the border, we have been somewhat sleepwalking towards this situation and not really considering its full implications or how much we should treasure the union that has been so widely appreciated in comments around the Chamber today.

I come to this debate as a borderer—in fact, I frequently walk across the border in the magnificent Cheviot hills—and as someone who was born and brought up north of Hadrian’s Wall, which is sometimes misleadingly referred to as the border, even though we know that in the days of the wall England and Scotland did not exist in anything like the forms that we know today. However, as a borderer, I have always felt utterly at home in both Northumberland and the Scottish borders, and the thought of having an international frontier, and possibly even a different currency, naturally alarms and dismays me.

Let me say clearly that I respect the right of people in Scotland to have a referendum and to decide their future, but I hope that in making their decision they will think of the effect on the rest of us and of our common sense of identity and who we are. Many of us south of the border—I include myself in this—do not want to have to increasingly define ourselves as exclusively English rather than British. There is the even more alarming thought of becoming a foreigner in part of what we think of as our common heritage and country. Many of us are genuinely British. It has been referred to today how many of us have mixed ancestry. I certainly have some Scottish ancestry, although I doubt that I could qualify under the terms of the consultation that the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, has just outlined—although I am married to a Mac, so that might help. But many of us have that mixed background and have roots in all parts of the UK.

It may be worth adding that many people have come to live in Britain in recent decades, and they chose to settle in the UK rather than in England, Scotland or Wales. Their sense of belonging will also be greatly changed if there is a yes vote north of the border.

Being mixed is a cause for celebration. I was intrigued to note the statistics released by the Macsween haggis company, showing that 60% of its production went to England. Having participated in a Burns night in east Sussex this year, I can well believe it.

My desire to see the union continue is also influenced by my political affiliation. This may not have been stressed much in the debate, but many of us are party-political animals and very much value our political links across the union. Many of my closest political friends are from Scotland and Wales. That is not perhaps surprising given the many important and emotional ties between Tynesiders, Clydesiders, people in the south Wales valleys and the various industrial parts of England. The people in those areas have worked closely together since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to try to improve living and working conditions and mounted many campaigns with common motivations, principles and ideas. In fact, the National Health Service encapsulates perfectly what I am trying to say. After all, it was created by a Welsh Secretary of State, Aneurin Bevan, in a Government headed by an Englishman, Clement Attlee, under a party founded by a Scot, Keir Hardie. That vividly illustrates what I am trying to say. I am sure that those with other political affiliations will certainly not want to see their strong political affiliations and ties broken through this process.

I strongly support devolution in the UK but regret that it has developed in such a way as to be increasingly confused with national identity. While identity is an important part of devolution, it is not the whole story. Devolution is also about decentralising and taking decisions at the most appropriate level. I regard the outcome of the devolution vote in the north-east of England as a tragedy but believe that the issues it raised have not gone away and will, I hope, be revisited at some time in the future.

In conclusion, if there is a yes vote next September, I will wake up the morning after that feeling that I no longer belong to the country I thought I did. It will be traumatic for many of us but I hope fervently that that will not happen and that in the next few months we will celebrate what we have achieved together and resolve to achieve even greater successes in the future.