Scotland: Independence Referendum

Lord Gordon of Strathblane Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, in a debate so ably initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Lang. By happy coincidence, the three of us were introduced to your Lordships’ House on the same day in 1997. More importantly, perhaps, this has also provided a convenient occasion for the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, to make her maiden speech. I very much welcome the experience that she brings to the House from the Scottish Parliament, which will inform future debates as it has informed this one.

Frankly, I will be very relieved when 18 September has passed, not so much because of the result as the danger of permanent damage being done in the intervening period to what is a very close relationship. It is a severe test of any marriage when one party announces that it wants to consult about divorce. It is difficult to imagine things being quite as warm again in the future. There is a very real danger of that here. In everything we say, we must realise that, no matter what happens, we will all be living together in one very small island off the shore of Europe and we should avoid any statements that make relationships in the future more difficult than they need to be.

A lot of English people to whom I speak are as much hurt as puzzled as to why we are having a referendum on independence. They wonder what they have done wrong to cause the Scots to want to do this. It is very difficult to give them an answer. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, mentioned the Blair Government in 1997. Every senior post was taken by a Scot. Eight out of 22 in the Cabinet were Scots. It is difficult to portray Scotland as a downtrodden nation with those figures. It is easier to make a case that England has been rather abused in recent years. We need to address that.

There is evidence that the English are beginning to address it. I, along with most noble Lords, received a briefing from the Local Government Association this week, saying that devolution seems to work rather well for Scotland, so how about some devolution for us? How about devolution and more equal expenditure? The Barnett formula is under severe threat because, frankly, it is more than fair to Scotland, and we know it. That is why Nicola Sturgeon was so desperately anxious to get an assurance that it will not be re-examined. The English regions will start demanding their fair share, so some damage has been done already.

Damage has been done to Scotland because there is uncertainty where there need not be. Damage has been done to the SNP because the SNP was doing rather well in Scotland. Its first Administration introduced some fresh faces to Scotland and a fair degree of competence as well, which the public in general admired. Now it is showing what might be called it true colours and it will do the SNP harm. This is not its most popular policy. People vote SNP who would not touch independence with a barge pole. That may not be the case in future elections.

The SNP is anxious to pretend that nothing will change. It wants to keep the Crown, to remain in NATO and to remain in the currency union. However, things will change. In my view, we already are independent, in that no one will send tanks up from Carlisle if we decide to vote yes. We are a free nation—I fully accept that we are a nation—and we are entitled to be independent if we want. However, I do not think that we want to. I do not think that the Scottish people want to. The SNP knows that the outward trammels of independence would be unpopular in Scotland. We do not want a separate head of state. We want to remain in the currency union.

The SNP wants to pretend that everything will remain the same. However, in my view, if the SNP says that there will never be border posts, it must accept the consequent reality: if there are no border posts, we must follow the same immigration and terrorism policies as England, otherwise there will be border posts. Likewise, if it says that of course there will not be customs posts at the border, we cannot then pretend that we can have a different level of excise duty north of the border from that in the south. All that will happen is that pantechnicons will roll down the M74, pick up the cheap booze in Carlisle and come back up the road to the black market. All that we are looking for is a degree of consistency. In any case, if nothing is changing, you might well argue, “Why sell a 300 year-old house simply because you do not like the wallpaper in one of the rooms?”. That is what the SNP is effectively doing; it wants to keep the big things but change a few minor things.

Incidentally, I was greatly intrigued by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. As far as I can remember, there is a bit of a coincidence here. The man who founded the Bank of England, William Paterson, was a Scot and the man who was later behind the Darien scheme. This seems to come around every 300 years. The issue was shown up clearly in the Governor of the Bank of England’s speech, which was reasoned. He said that it can be done, but the question for Scotland is, “Do you genuinely think that you will have more influence over Bank of England policy as a foreign country or as part of the UK?”. Once you have asked the question, you realise what the answer is, and it is why, frankly, I wish the referendum were not taking place.

If one considers the issue of broadcasting, my own background, Scotland constitutes 34% of the UK land mass. It takes 1,154 transmitters to cover the whole UK, 235 of which are in Scotland. In other words, more than 20% of the transmitters are in Scotland serving 8% of the UK population. The same problem will arise with broadband. The Scottish Government are doing a good job of trying to roll out broadband, but it will be more expensive in Scotland, simply because we are a less densely populated country with difficult terrain. There is also reference in the White Paper to taking over BBC Scotland. Incidentally, there was a big hoo-hah a couple of years back under Blair Jenkins about a new digital channel. That has now been forgotten. We are going to take over BBC Scotland and then miraculously get all the BBC programmes for nothing. How that works, I do not know.

My concluding remarks relate to Scotland’s place in the world. One of the first television programmes I made was a series called “Scots Abroad”, because I was mesmerised by the achievement of the Scots in building the British Empire. Scotland benefited disproportionately more than the rest of the UK from the industrial wealth of the British Empire as a captive market, brought particularly to Glasgow and the west of Scotland. We also suffered more than the rest of the UK when our manufacturing industry ran down. However, the UK now exercises its power through soft power. I felt genuinely proud of London during the Olympics. London showed a warm side that most people had hitherto not noticed, including Londoners themselves. I hope that Londoners will feel just as proud of Glasgow when we hold the Commonwealth Games in the summer of this year.