My Lords, the business we are about to begin is very important and there is a real desire to hear from every contributor. However, time is tight so, in the nicest way possible, I ask noble Lords to adhere to the time allocated to them. When the Clock reaches five minutes, I will stand up to maintain order in the debate.
My Lords, I begin with a word of thanks to those Cross-Bench colleagues who voted for the Motion to be debated. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, is to reply to the debate for the Government. In view of our happy co-operation in former lives, I hope that I may refer to him as my noble friend on this occasion. I see from the speakers’ list that I am allotted 15 minutes in moving the Motion. That is an unimaginable luxury but, in view of the long list of speakers, I shall try not to use all that time and so perhaps offer a little elbow room to other noble Lords. I am extremely grateful to the Government Chief Whip for the half-hour extension to the debate.
The Motion is couched specifically in terms of the hazards to the union posed by Brexit, but the seeds were sown long before. We have a worrying habit in this country of doing constitutional change in bits, as the occasion serves, but with little overall intent or co-ordination. I have seen the process at close quarters for 46 years, so I entirely understand how this has come about. The Government, often incoming, have their priorities and wish to demonstrate their authority. The business managers wish to make rapid progress with focused proposals. They do not much like Parliament going into what might be called seminar mode. And of course, there is the ever-looming phenomenon of “Events, dear boy, events”.
The result over several Parliaments is that we are left with a patchwork. Nowhere is this clearer than in the devolution of powers to different parts of the United Kingdom. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have different models of devolved government. They have developed independently and subject to the successive pressures of the moment; no one, I think, would regard any of them as wholly successful. Moreover, they are characterised by a sort of imperial condescension from the centre—from Westminster and Whitehall, but especially from the latter—and they are inconsistent. As a Welshman by birth and title, I think I may ask why Scotland and Northern Ireland can set their own rates of air passenger duty but Wales cannot. Indeed, why are justice and policing devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland but not in Wales? I am glad that my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd is addressing that question through the work of his commission. England, the largest part of the UK, accounts for some 85% of United Kingdom GVA and a little more in terms of population and GDP, yet, with the exception of London and a few city mayors, it has been largely omitted from these changes. Of course, that poses a pressing but ever more intractable “English question”.
My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane. He and I made our maiden speeches on the same day and he speaks with the greatest authority on constitutional matters.
Brexit raises fundamental issues, not least the question of trust in democratic institutions here and right across Europe. It is absolutely right, therefore, to consider afresh governance within the UK. Brexit is seen as, at best, a challenge to the stability of the UK and, at worst, leading inexorably to its break-up. However, the picture is much more complex. The biggest threat to the union hitherto—the 2014 Scottish independence referendum—took place at a time when no one thought Brexit a serious possibility and after 40 years of EU membership. That should give us all pause for thought. Yes, continued membership of the EU was an argument in the 2014 referendum, but it was neither a primary nor decisive one. Currency and fiscal questions were much more important. Nicola Sturgeon’s efforts since the 2016 vote to weaponise Brexit to justify a second Scottish independence referendum have so far failed. Support for independence remains at or less than the 45% level registered in the 2014 referendum. Why might this be?
First, there are around 400,000 yes voters in Scotland who support Brexit. Secondly, linking Scottish independence to EU membership is a hard sell for many nationalists. In their minds, throwing off the yoke of Westminster for that of Brussels is not the most persuasive pitch. Thirdly, if the Brexit negotiations demonstrate how difficult it is to leave a 40 year-old union, they also highlight how fraught it would be to disentangle a 300 year-old partnership. Alex Salmond’s confident assertions that Scottish independence could be negotiated in 18 months, incurring just £200 million in set-up costs, seem even more fantastical today than they did at the time. Nevertheless, the risks and challenges to the union should not be underestimated. However, the key point, which the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has already made, is that renewing the UK’s territorial constitution is necessary irrespective of Brexit.
Attention should be paid to the machinery of intergovernmental relations, which needs to be strengthened. We also need to look at the cross-UK synergies, weakened since devolution, which need to be reinvigorated.
We need to pursue a decentralised, pan-UK strategy for rebalancing the economy, driven by city regions across the country. This means moving away from seeing everything through a four-nation prism. Many of the problems confronting Glasgow, for example, are similar to those of Manchester or Birmingham. They provide embryonic structures which can be built upon. There are two years until the next Holyrood elections. Strengthening our union must be an urgent priority whatever our post-Brexit future.
My Lords, in my maiden speech in your Lordships’ House in July 2010 I expressed a hope that a new generation of politicians and leaders in the House of Commons, many of whom had been elected after 1999, might provide a fresh opportunity for reinvigorating the relationship between Westminster, Whitehall and the devolved Governments and Parliaments of the United Kingdom. At that time I said that I wanted to use my time in your Lordships’ House to celebrate and contribute to debates on the future of that multinational, multicultural union. For that reason if no other—even if I have been disappointed since by the performance of successive Governments, who have let us down in that fresh hope—I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, on securing this welcome debate today and on the work that he has done since entering your Lordships’ House in bringing a fresh and positive approach in looking ahead to the future of the United Kingdom. The balanced tone of his introduction was extremely welcome.
I do not want to concentrate in this debate on the old debates from 2014, 2016 and since about Brexit and the nations of the United Kingdom. I hope I can use the title of the debate loosely in order to say something about the future. In relation to Brexit I wish to make two points.
First, the lack of transparency and openness on both sides in the discussions between the UK Government and the devolved Governments on the way in which Brexit affects the devolution settlement is something I warned about in your Lordships’ House, and it has contributed to the situation we are in today with such a stalemate in the other place. Secondly, I think there is a real difficulty in many of the arguments that have taken place over the past two months in relation to the so-called Northern Ireland backstop. There is diversity in legislation throughout the United Kingdom, not just between Scotland and the rest of the UK or just between Wales and the rest of the UK, but consistently between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. To say that that diversity could not be part of the long-term deal that results from the other agonies of Brexit is wrong. The idea that there is some uniformity of legislative and constitutional approach across the UK is simply not true. It never has been, but it is certainly not true in the period since 1999.
My Lords, I shall focus on the English question and emphasise that England’s place within the union is also in flux and confusion. One Brexit-supporting placard outside Parliament on Tuesday read, “Save England’s Constitution” —but you cannot save something that does not exist.
After the confused debate on an English Parliament and English votes for English laws, it remains doubtful that England as such is an appropriate framework for devolution in a looser UK. In a blog for the Constitution Unit in December 2018, Sir John Curtice stated that opinion polls show,
“little evidence that there is a growing sense of English identity south of the border”.
The EU referendum highlighted the political and social divisions within England, and we all know that regional equalities between English regions are the widest in any European country. Flows of EU funds to universities, companies and other bodies in the poorer regions partly help to redress this imbalance, but there is no guarantee that they will continue after Brexit.
Unlike the Barnett formula, there is no political framework for fiscal redistribution within England. The bias in infrastructure spending towards the south has become a highly visible issue across the north of England in recent years. Disillusion with the northern powerhouse—now an empty slogan—is widespread.
The Government’s approach to devolution within England is top-down, based on city regions and elected mayors. For the north of England, they are becoming steadily more confused. Last weekend, the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse proposed the establishment of a “Department for the North”, with its own Secretary of State to sit alongside those for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—a major administrative change, if not a constitutional one. Can the Minister tell us whether this reflects the Government’s current position and when they will provide more detail on this interesting idea? Meanwhile, devolution for Yorkshire is stalled, with the same Minister insisting that Yorkshire has to have four city regions, while the overwhelming majority of Yorkshire local authorities, across all parties, support a “One Yorkshire” approach. Can the Minister tell us when we may expect a coherent government response to this proposal?
My Lords, future generations of historians mulling over and analysing the dysfunction and muddle of the Brexit negotiations will, I suspect, have particular difficulty understanding and explaining how the charge was led by a party that still calls itself the Conservative and Unionist Party and by the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, the hardest and purest of Brexit supporters, despite the risk, I would say with some confidence, of actual damage to the United Kingdom’s own union and very possibly its unity. No amount of prime ministerial labelling of the union, metronomically, as “precious” will conceal that reality. So all credit to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for shedding some light on this rather neglected aspect of Brexit before it is too late to do anything about it except bemoan it.
At the time, were we warned about these risks that would be incurred, especially in Northern Ireland, if the UK voted to leave? Of course we were. A few days before the vote, the two Prime Ministers who did most to build the Good Friday agreement, John Major and Tony Blair, jointly gave a stark warning. Since then, precursors of the damage to come—discord over the role of the devolved Administrations in the Brexit process, failure to constitute an Administration in Belfast and the turmoil over the Irish backstop—have multiplied.
In Scotland and Northern Ireland, as others have said, there were clear majorities in favour of remaining in the EU. The democratic legitimacy of those votes is indisputable, but you do not often hear that recognised by supporters of Brexit—and you never hear it recognised by the DUP. Overriding that legitimacy with the leave votes in England and Wales is precisely the sort of majoritarian supremacy that fuels the cause of Scottish independence and of the union of the two parts of Ireland. Will that be different if Brexit goes ahead on the basis of leaving with the Prime Minister’s deal, or without a deal at all? I doubt that. The contrary is far more likely—and I would include Wales, even though its voters opted to leave.
My Lords, I very much welcome the debate in the House this afternoon. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who spoke before me, that this was a United Kingdom vote, not a regional vote. I could point to parts of this United Kingdom that also voted to stay within Europe. Do we treat them differently? I do not think so. The vote, as far as we are concerned, was right across the United Kingdom.
A week is a long time in politics and the uncertainties over Brexit will certainly intensify over the next number of weeks, with our precious union very much at the heart of the storm. The issue of the union has been central to much of the criticism levelled against our Prime Minister. It was specifically cited by many of those Cabinet Ministers who resigned their ministerial posts several weeks ago. They realised that the integrity of the United Kingdom should not be undermined simply to comply with the EU’s desire to protect its own single market. Of course, in Northern Ireland, the focus has been on the deal agreed with the EU by the Prime Minister and the so-called backstop, a deal which puts the union, which she professes to cherish, at such grave risk.
These are critical times for our precious union, and we must all act in the national interest. I agree with noble Lords: our union is evolving, and has evolved over the last 100 years. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have different devolution models, but that should not stop us protecting this union. In Scotland, Scottish nationalists are pushing for another referendum on independence. In Northern Ireland, we know that people use Brexit to frustrate the union. Unfortunately, this Government, and especially the Prime Minister, have allowed the border to be used by some people in Northern Ireland as a political stick to beat her with in negotiating a deal with Europe. That is the tragedy of this whole thing. I have to say to the House, we have been let down by a British Prime Minister who gave us so many promises on the backstop and the border, and then agreed to a deal that certainly creates a major problem for ourselves as unionists in Northern Ireland.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hay, who correctly reminded us that the question on the ballot paper in 2016 was of course whether the United Kingdom should remain or leave, not constituent parts of it. I would like to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for not only bringing this important issue before your Lordships’ House but, above all, the constitutional expertise he invests in trying to find and take forward a sustainable and workable solution to our imperfect and—as I think we all acknowledge—asymmetric union.
As I said in my own debate on this topic a year ago, above all, and like many in this House, I increasingly find that my unionism drives and underpins my political opinions. Unsurprisingly, in 2014 I voted no, and Scotland remained part of the United Kingdom. My decision in 2016 to vote to remain in the European Union was, like that of many in Scotland and Northern Ireland, more than influenced by my fears for the impact on the union of a leave vote.
My concerns failed to understand that, even for those Scots who voted to remain in the United Kingdom in 2014 and to remain in the European Union in 2016, remaining part of the United Kingdom and avoiding a further divisive independence referendum was far more important. In underestimating that feeling I was not alone. Many in the unionist commentariat in Scotland saw the end of the union coming with a UK leave vote in 2016. It is little wonder, therefore, that Scotland’s First Minister saw her opportunity on 23 June 2016 to once again start the process of an independence referendum, which she continued by asking for a Section 30 order in February 2017. The Scottish people gave their judgment on that in the general election of 2017 and the Scottish National Party lost half a million votes and 21 Members of Parliament.
I understand the motives of those who wish to see a “big bang” moment to protect our union. However, I am not quite as convinced as others in your Lordships’ House of the need for a constitutional convention or, indeed, a new Act of union. In the excellent debate in this House in December it was correctly identified that further constitutional change could not be top down—something I wholeheartedly agree with. I am not convinced that there is the public consent necessary for a further constitutional convention, or for the referendum that would need to follow a new Act of union to guarantee that consent. I fear that, certainly in Scotland, such a referendum on a new Act of union would not be a calm, dispassionate discussion on the pooling of resources in the UK but rather, once again a divisive and passionate independence referendum filled with fake news.
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I have described an unsatisfactory and probably unstable system that has come about through a variety of political pressures and aspirations, often worthy in themselves but with unco-ordinated and piecemeal results. Were we not now set to leave the European Union, in any event, significant centrifugal forces in the years ahead would put the integrity and stability of the UK’s devolution settlement at risk. The profound Brexit changes now in contemplation will, I suggest, only increase that risk. I am sure that noble Lords taking part in the debate will have many expert perceptions of how the months ahead may put further strain on the union. I note that your Lordships’ Constitution Committee has described our territorial constitution as “in flux” and our European Union Committee has said that,
“the European Union has been, in effect, part of the glue holding the United Kingdom together”.
What are the main hazards? The first is the Brexit process itself, bearing in mind that in the referendum, two of the constituent parts of the UK voted differently from the other two and differently from the overall result. Secondly, the repatriation of powers will be contentious. Central government will want to protect the UK-wide single market by retaining substantial powers in London, but Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast will not see it like that. Also, the repatriation process will, I think, take longer than anyone at the moment predicts, which is not going to help. The complex exchanges over the Scottish and Welsh continuity Bills and the referral of the Scottish Bill to the Supreme Court demonstrate that there are serious unresolved tensions. The Scottish constitutional relations Secretary has referred to “constitutional vandalism” and has said that he,
“could not conceive of circumstances”,
in which the Scottish Parliament would give its consent to further UK Brexit-related legislation.
Our departure from the EU will intensify debate about the fair funding of the different parts of the UK. It is a commonplace to say that we must move on from the Barnett formula, but it is not yet clear how we should do so. In Northern Ireland, the issues of borders and backstops are already causing great concern and contention, and lurking behind those issues is the aspiration of some for reunification. There is also the risk, identified by the Scottish Government, that future customs arrangements might give Northern Ireland a competitive advantage among the parts of the United Kingdom.
In Scotland, a significant proportion of those who supported independence in 2014 did so on the basis that an independent Scotland would or could become a member state of the EU. The UK having left the European Union would, in the case of Scotland, remove the long-standing unwillingness of the EU to countenance subnational aspirations, as would still be the case with Lombardy, Catalunya, Flanders and so on. This might be a seductive prospect in the context of any indyref2.
Intergovernmental relations within the United Kingdom are the concern of the Joint Ministerial Committee, which has now been in existence for 20 years—20 years this year, actually. This should be the key forum for the discussion of developing relations, but both the Scottish and the Welsh Governments have expressed dismay at the way it is operated. Her Majesty’s Government have the opportunity to make this a much more effective mechanism to support the Brexit process. I trust that this is something that will receive close attention, as recommended by our EU and Constitution Committees and the equivalent committees in Scotland and Wales. I hope that in his reply to the debate, the noble Lord will be able to tell us the Government’s current thinking on how the JMC might be overhauled.
The House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has suggested that separate English representation on the JMC would be a way of addressing the English question, although how this would be achieved in practice is not entirely clear. It is a pleasure to pay tribute to the work of the Interparliamentary Forum on Brexit, which brings together the chairs and convenors of the committees scrutinising Brexit at Westminster, Edinburgh and Cardiff with, understandably in the current circumstances, the participation of officials from Belfast as observers. The forum, which happens to be meeting at Westminster today, offers a mutually supportive and constructive approach which so far has not, I think, quite been replicated in the JMC, which the forum has described as “not fit for purpose”.
Noble Lords may be chafing slightly at my listing a litany of problems without any suggestion of how they might be cured. In the excellent debate in your Lordships’ House before Christmas, there were calls for a constitutional convention or commission. In replying to that debate, the noble Lord who is now on the Front Bench said that the wide-ranging nature of the issues raised meant that any convention looking into them would take years to do them justice. I have a lot of sympathy with his point of view. It would be hard to argue that such a convention should be anything other than comprehensive, which might further reduce the likely glacial pace of such an initiative. Time is not on our side.
I do not suggest that the Act of Union Bill, which I introduced in October, has all the answers, but at least it seeks to address the problems in an holistic way. I must be careful not to offend against anticipation—this is a debate on the Motion before us, not on the Second Reading of the Bill—but perhaps, with your Lordships’ permission, I may say a few words about it.
The Bill is the result of the work of the Constitution Reform Group, which consists of members of all the major parties, including the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, both of whom are in their place. The group is convened and chaired by Lord Salisbury, a former distinguished Member and indeed Leader of your Lordships’ House, and the Bill has been drafted by the outstanding parliamentary draftsman Daniel Greenberg. It seeks to replace the present top-down method of devolution with a bottom-up method, in which the constituent parts of the United Kingdom—and perhaps the regional parts of England—would decide which powers they wished to pool for greater solidarity and effectiveness. It would replace the central imperial condescension, to which I referred earlier, with a devolution settlement properly owned by its participants. It would also include something perhaps missing from the present arrangements: the R word—respect.
The Bill is comprehensive but it does not attempt to provide a full written constitution. It does not, for example, touch those parts that work perfectly well, such as the courts and the judiciary. But it does seek to address the areas of difficulty, some of which I have outlined. It would not try to bind a subsequent Parliament—no Bill can do that—but it offers an overarching settlement with an indication of how primary legislation of, as it were, the second tier could fill in some of the detail. And there is a lot of detail to be filled in. In a sentence, it aspires to be a plan B. As each day passes, I become more and more convinced that we need a plan B.
The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has proposed a new Act of Union. I sympathise with its underlying purpose to provide a coherent UK framework within which powers are exercised. However, I am sceptical of federal-like solutions. First, there is the problem of England. No federal state in the world has one component part representing 85% of the whole population or has as few as four federating units. There is also scant evidence that this is what people in England want. The British Social Attitudes and Future of England surveys offer little sign of a growing sense of English identity. Attitudes have hardly changed in the past 20 years. England’s laws decided by English MPs is, in surveys, more popular among voters than either creating a separate English Parliament or a set of regional assemblies.
Secondly, there is the problem of the SNP Government in Edinburgh. I have difficulty seeing SNP Ministers agreeing to renew their constitutional marriage vows in a new Act of Union when their raison d’être is to sue for divorce. Moreover, a big-bang approach as described simply provides the SNP with a fresh platform to argue for more powers, and risks hollowing out the UK, when the Scottish Government are struggling to use the powers they already have.
A more incremental approach is required. Over the past 20 years significant powers have been devolved to Holyrood, Cardiff and Belfast. However, less attention has been paid to the glue—the institutions and mechanisms —that holds together the UK. Reform here has not kept pace with the extent of devolution which, once the repatriation of powers from Brussels is settled, will arguably have reached a natural limit.
The piecemeal approach to constitutional change since 1999 has done great damage to belief in politics and government and the future of the union in the UK. While I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, that not everything that has happened since devolution has been successful, it has also not been a disaster, which is what was predicted. There is incredible positivity around some of the diversity of legislation, policy initiatives and leadership across the country, but we face a new challenge following the referendum of 2016. So far the Government have not met that challenge.
There is an opportunity here. Perhaps the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the first of those devolved Parliaments gives us another opportunity to do this. There is an opportunity to look again post-Brexit at the way in which the UK state relates to the different constituent parts of the UK and at how in practice we exercise government between Whitehall, Westminster, the devolved Parliaments and the devolved Governments. There is a need for much more accountability and transparency in whatever relationship occurs. I have never been a supporter of the joint ministerial committees. I did my best to abolish them when I was First Minister. I think they are the wrong mechanism. We need a much better and stronger relationship than committees that meet on an occasional basis and are just talking shops. We also need the UK Government to restructure themselves. The outdated posts of Secretaries of State should have gone a long time ago, and they need to go now with a new relationship inside Whitehall between Whitehall and the devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
As the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, said, the national institutions of the UK need to reform and change too. Twenty years on, there has been virtually no real change in the way in which the national institutions of the UK relate to the devolved Governments and Parliaments and take account of the diversity of identity. If the Government seize the opportunity to take that approach post-Brexit, perhaps we will see the positive approach of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, reflected in our future constitutional arrangements.
The Prime Minister repeatedly claims that the Conservatives are “the party of union”. It is much more the party of England, and predominantly of southern England at that. Senior Conservative Ministers overwhelmingly represent Home Counties constituencies. One of the major flaws in our first past the post voting system is that it exaggerates the regional differences between our major parties, with Labour representing the north and the industrial Midlands of England, together with Scotland and Wales, and the Conservatives the comfortable and wealthy south.
Other speakers will, rightly, point out how far devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has altered old assumptions about the British constitution. Reductions in the powers of English local authorities in recent decades and cuts in central support for their funding, which are still continuing, have left England the most centralised state in the democratic world. The shrinkage of local democratic government has contributed to popular disillusionment with politics as such, and the psychological distance from England’s west and north to London has fuelled discontent further. Of course, it is not easy to agree on a map for devolution to English regions across the Midlands and the south—but, with London as a city now an outpost of devolution in an otherwise centralised England, we have to address the issue.
Devolution within England, as well as to our other three nations, should also feed into constitutional reform at Westminster. I have been one of a long succession of Ministers who have tried to promote reform of the Lords, and I still bear the scars of that experience. A stronger second Chamber, more effectively checking executive power, would appropriately be constituted on the basis of regional representation, whether directly or indirectly elected, as the coalition Government proposed. However, both Conservative and Labour Front Benches continue to oppose a stronger second Chamber for fear that it would limit the power of a Government—executive sovereignty, of course—with a majority in the Commons to push through their legislation unamended.
Brexit will shake the union of the United Kingdom, but it will also worsen the growing divide between the richest and poorest regions of England. That divide, and the disillusion it has bred, must be addressed through constitutional change, as well as through economic redistribution.
The Government’s own studies indicate a considerable and continuing loss of economic growth as a result of Brexit, and the less prosperous parts of the country, among which Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland undoubtedly rank, are likely to suffer disproportionately. The much-trumpeted prize for the UK of having its own trade policy is likely to result in concessions to trade partners such as the US, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Argentina that will damage sheep and beef farmers in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Even fishermen, among the strongest supporters of Brexit, are likely to be disappointed as the cruel deception of the Government’s claim that access to markets and access to waters are totally different things is shipwrecked on the rocks of the EU’s interests in the post-Brexit negotiations.
Then there will be the discord that is likely to reign over the exercise of the UK’s miserably diminished influence on the shaping of EU policies post Brexit. Are there not likely to be differences between Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast and Westminster and Whitehall over trying to influence trade and regulatory measures in Brussels? Will Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales not fight their corners in Brussels, thus further weakening the influence of the UK? Of course they will—and each setback in the unequal relationship between the UK and the EU will foster the sense of separation.
If even a part of these admittedly gloomy predictions is borne out, our union is in for a rough ride in a post-Brexit world. Would it not be more sensible and honest to recognise now that continued membership of the EU is far more likely to consolidate the unity of the UK than its leaving the EU, and then to give all four nations that make up the United Kingdom a say on whether to accept the deal that the Prime Minister has negotiated or whether to remain in the EU? Of course, that could result in an outcome similar to that in 2016, in which case it would have to be accepted, but we would at least have demonstrated that we had paid some attention to the attitudes and opinions of all parts of the union and that we regarded the stability of the union, which today’s debate has so usefully brought to the fore, as something that we not only paid lip service to but really meant.
The Prime Minister talked about her beloved union. In fact, at her party conference she talked about her “precious union”. If the Prime Minister really believes in what she says—I believe she does—the integrity of the United Kingdom should be the most important issue for her in the future and in future negotiations with the European Union. We continually said to the Prime Minister that the road she was travelling would leave many issues for the unionist community in Northern Ireland in particular, but also the whole community. I do not think we should allow anybody—Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland—to find a way of damaging this beloved union.
However, I am not complacent about our constitutional settlement. The Clause 11 debate during the passage of the withdrawal Bill demonstrated that our inter- governmental relations are not perfect, as has the detail of Brexit. Last year, I could speak optimistically of the devolved Administrations’ understanding of the importance of the single United Kingdom market and of the desirability of legislative consent Motions in the Scottish and Welsh Administrations. I am afraid that our intergovernmental relationships were not strong enough to broker that reasonably. That underlines the importance of ensuring that future intergovernmental relations become an arena not purely for debate but for agreement, where the principals do not leave the room and immediately take to platforms for press statements. That might require a statutory basis.
In my opinion, the union—certainly in Scotland—has survived the Brexit stress test so far, but until we properly institute an improved, robust and regular opportunity for proper intergovernmental engagement, I fear that more stresses lie ahead.