Scotland's unsettled will
Dear David,
You have said that devolution or home rule, as I prefer to call it, is "the settled will" of the Scottish people. I am not so sure about that. Setting aside the still sizeable minority who are happy with the status quo, nationalists will accept home rule only as the first step to independence and the dissolution of the UK. I know that you and the Scottish Labour leaders believe that the establishment of a parliament with limited powers in Edinburgh will choke off the demand for independence. But it's rather a gamble, isn't it? It seems likely after all that the Scottish National Party (SNP) would use a Scottish parliament to foment conflict with the UK government and so fuel the demand for independence.
It was of course the strength of the SNP which converted Labour, and even briefly the Conservatives, to home rule. Indeed, it has always seemed to me to be a sad paradox that a strong nationalist party should create the necessary condition for a measure of home rule to be passed, but would then make it unworkable in the manner that the authors of such an Act intended.
In any case, I think that "settled will" is too strong an expression. The most I would grant is that there is a fairly settled inclination. The opinion polls support your view, but I remember that they did so by a large margin in the 1970s, and that the majority for home rule then crumbled until it got the support of only 33 per cent of the overall electorate in the referendum. (I voted "yes" then.)
Nor can I accept that support for Labour and/or the Liberal Democrats necessarily indicates support for home rule. Your own mentor Jo Grimond remarked that he consistently supported two causes-European union and Scottish home rule-and his loyal constituents in Orkney and Shetland had voted against both in referendums. They nevertheless returned him again in 1979. And our own borders, which have approvingly sent you and Archie Kirkwood to Westminster, also voted "no" in 1979.
But even if there is a settled will in favour of home rule, the scheme presently under proposal seems to me bad for two principal reasons.
First, it has been concocted almost entirely in Scotland and without reference to the rest of the UK. The assumption seems to be that if we say we want certain arrangements, we must have them. If, however, you accept that the union is a sort of contract, then it is surely wrong, unethical, to change that contract unilaterally. The wilful manner in which the West Lothian question has been disregarded seems to me both arrogant and stupid. I can see that any answer is likely to be awkward, especially for the Labour party; but I really cannot see why the English should be expected to agree to a constitutional change which would allow Scottish MPs to vote on education in England (and probably determine it by supplying Labour with a majority) while English MPs had no say on education in Scotland.
Second, the financial arrangements seem to me bad. The Scottish parliament is to be financed principally by a block grant from Westminster, which is to be determined as a fixed percentage of the public revenue. In addition, the Scottish parliament is to be allowed to vary the rate of income tax by 3p in the pound. I cannot see that in practice it would be allowed to lower it, while still receiving the same share of UK revenue, and I can see all sorts of difficulties in raising it. But if it is not to be used for these or other reasons, then we are going to have a parliament that has less fiscal responsibility than any local authority, a parliament that will determine how money is spent, but not where, by what means, or from whom it is raised. That seems to me a recipe for irresponsibility.
With best wishes,
Allan
31st August 1996
Allan
Dear Allan,
2nd September 1996
Your letter makes an assumption about my motivation on Scottish home rule which I cannot allow to pass (and kindly do not bracket me with "Scottish Labour leaders" whose recent gyrations on referendum questions have driven me close to distraction). It is not a question of "choking off" nationalist demands for independence. For me it is a question of putting right what was done wrongly in 1707 when the Scottish parliament voted under financial and other pressure to abolish itself. There was little debate about the merits or otherwise of the principle of the proposed union-it seemed a logical follow-through from the century old Union of Crowns and the disaster of the Scottish colonial experiment at Darien on which you have heard me speak at probably greater length than either of us cares to remember. No, the argument turned on whether it was to be an incorporating union, swallowing the Scottish parliament, or a federal union.
As for the "settled will," it has been expressed overwhelmingly in 20th century opinion polls, in the 19th century Scottish home rule association and the pledge of William Gladstone to seek "home rule all round." Had it not been for the Tory dominated House of Lords and dissension inside the Liberal party, Gladstone's vision would have been secured to the satisfaction of both Ireland and Scotland, and I assume Wales and England too.
But, you will rejoin, we must face reality today. Indeed, the Convention scheme for home rule is a considerable improvement on the one for which you voted in 1979 in two crucial respects. First, it does give a tax-varying power so that if Scottish politicians took a different view from those south of the border, say, on investment in education, they would be free to raise income tax by 1, 2 or 3p to achieve that. The answer to that brilliant propagandist Michael Forsyth and his "tartan tax" gibe is not for Tony Blair and his colleagues to behave like headless chickens, but to point out that these same politicians would be answerable to the electorate. You complain that the Scottish parliament we propose would have less fiscal authority than a local authority, yet you voted for one proposed in 1979 with even less.
Second, there is an agreed system of proportional representation which makes it unlikely that it would fall under the permanent domination of Labour central belt politicians-one of the reasons why, as you observed, the outlying areas of Scotland were unenthusiastic about the previous scheme.
You mention the West Lothian question. First, I accept that there should be a reduction in Scottish MPs at Westminster. Second, I have no objection to the setting up of an English grand committee, excluding the Scots from voting on English domestic concerns if that is wanted. But the anomalies are nothing compared with the enormity of having Scottish legislation regularly voted on by an overwhelming majority of English and Welsh MPs whose constituents are unaffected by it. After more than 30 years representing this beautiful part of Scotland where we both live, I cannot tell you how deeply this rankles.
But to return to your main theme. I reject your "slippery slope" argument. If Canada had no federal system do you think Quebec would still be part of it? I doubt it. It would have voted to separate. I believe that the same is true in Scotland. I have argued privately in vain with John Major on this point. His is the gamble, not mine, and he could drive the Scots to vote for total independence.
I have been much influenced by meetings in Barcelona with that old fox Prime Minister Jordi Pujol of Catalonia. He argues for "non-secessionist nationalism." So do I. All the pre-1977 doubters in Spain have disappeared. The 1997 ones in the UK will do likewise once the Scottish parliament has been restored.
Yours aye,
David
1st September 1996
Dear David
You certainly make a better case for home rule than George Robertson does-perhaps because you believe in it more whole-heartedly-and I apologise for lumping you in with Labour's headless chickens. But however constant you and fellow Liberals have been, you cannot deny that Labour was converted to support for devolution by its fear of losing votes to the SNP in the 1970s, and has remained more or less faithful to it for that reason and because of its resentment of a minority Tory government. (This second reason being, I will grant you, a good one.)
There is no point in harking back to 1707-if only because I doubt whether a federal union established then would have survived the Jacobite risings-or to William Gladstone, although I concede that there was merit in his proposals.
But there wasn't a strong nationalist movement then, and, despite your reassurances, I think that with the sort of home rule now proposed, the tendency will still be to blame England for everything that is less than satisfactory, and that this will encourage the SNP.
Catalonia is a point in your favour-yes-although 20 years is a short time in the history of a country. As for Quebec, Scotland is more firmly part of the UK in a unitary state than Quebec of Canada in a federal one.
I grant you that the Convention scheme is an improvement on the 1978 Act. But the financial irresponsibility worries me now as it didn't then; and what makes you think that Labour will stick to the Convention's proposals for a measure of proportional representation? After all, the referendum is due to come before the parliamentary bill.
Yours aye,
Dear Allan,
I don't see why I should be pushed into defending the Labour party: after their shenanigans this summer I do not feel especially charitable towards them. But I do deny your assertion that Labour converted to devolution in the 1970s through fear of the SNP. In the 1906 election the STUC campaigned as "Scottish Labour" on a home rule platform even before the Labour party was formed. In 1918 the UK Labour conference adopted a home rule resolution. I could go on. What is fair is that Labour rediscovered their roots in the 1970s having failed to do anything in the 1940s or 1960s when they had the power to do so.
But I don't deny that the SNP has been a useful pressure group. I cannot take them more seriously than that. Some of those I know and respect such as George Reid, Neil MacCormack and Paul Scott share my sense of a proud but stifled patriotism. Others allow it to become narrowly nationalistic in the horrid sense of parties we found with the same name in South Africa and Germany. In spite of their claims that there would be no customs posts at the border, they have (post-Dunblane) come up with sickeningly distasteful and opportunistic proposals such as having a separate gun law.
Do I trust Labour? John Smith was an old university friend and I have no doubt about his party's commitment. And I have no reason to doubt Tony Blair's commitment either. What I have come to question in the last few weeks is not his commitment but his competence-but that should not worry you.
(Incidentally, your mention of the Jacobite risings reminds me that I should have cited the 18th century opposition to the treaty of Union. The "settled will" of the Scottish people is no modern invention.)
Yours aye,
David
September 2 1996
Dear David,
I will not force you to defend the scarcely defensible. All I would say is that Labour forgot its home rule roots when it was convenient to do so, and remembered them when the SNP gave them a fright; and that the same fear of votes seeping to the SNP informs such commitment as they have.
I am prepared to concede also that a Scottish parliament would bring some benefits, and I do not buy the scaremongering nonsense that suggests business would flee Scotland. At the same time, if we had had a Scottish parliament since 1979, some good things (the sale of council houses and allowing parents some choice in where their children go to school) would probably have been denied Scots.
You speak of a "proud but stifled patriotism," which is a good phrase, but then I find my own patriotism to be equally proud and not at all stifled. What does worry me is the nationalists' wish to stifle 300 years of history, and to deny me the right to be British and Scottish.
Of course I know you are not a nationalist in this sense any more than I am, and that you believe that the Convention plan for home rule will work to strengthen the union by giving greater scope to its diversity. That is a noble ideal, and I wish I could believe it.
But it seems to me we are being offered either too much or too little: too much because the establishment of a separate parliament as envisaged by the Convention rather than, say, the much more limited scheme proposed by Alec Douglas-Home's committee, seems to me likely to institutionalise conflict between Edinburgh and Westminster, and thus give an opening to the SNP; too little because the very limited fiscal autonomy of this parliament will keep it dependent on Westminster and preclude it from developing a sense of real responsibility.
It is a gamble either way, I grant you, for all those who consider themselves Scottish unionists, or, if you prefer, Scots who value the union, and recognise how much we have in common with the country which Walter Scott called "our sister and ally." The sad truth is that, as Lord Home put it, "it is virtually impossible to debate devolution sensibly, while every step towards it is hailed as advance towards separation from England."
Yours aye,
Allan
3rd September 1996
Dear Allan,
I want to begin my last response by agreeing with Lord Home's observation with which you concluded your letter. Yes, the SNP campaign for independence is a positive hindrance to a sensible solution. But that should not deter us from making the attempt.
Indeed I would argue that the break-up of the 1707 union holds less terror for most Scots than it used to because we are all safely inside the political and economic union which is modern day Europe. That has always held greater attraction for the Scots, not just because of old alliances but because of our university, church and legal links with continental systems. So my view is that the real threat to the union-which you and I both value -lies in an intransigent attitude towards reform of it. Are we really saying that it is beyond the wit of man in this country to achieve what others seem to manage. Yes, there will be arguments between Edinburgh and London, but so what?
Next time Major invites you to breakfast in Edinburgh, can I suggest you take with you two Conservative quotations? The first one is from Malcolm Rifkind in 1976: "Scotland is the only territory on the face of the earth which has a legal system without a legislature to improve, modernise and amend it." The fact has not changed just because over 20 years Rifkind has moved from independent-minded backbencher to leading cabinet member.
The second quote is from fellow borderer Lord Home explaining that he was voting against devolution in 1979 because he was sure that the Tories would come up with better proposals: "I should hesitate to vote 'no' if I did not think that the parties will keep the devolution issue at the top of their priorities."
Yours aye,
David
