That this House takes note of the Report from the Constitution Committee Respect and Co-operation: Building a Stronger Union for the 21st century (10th Report, Session 2021–22, HL Paper 142).
My Lords, I am very pleased to introduce this debate on the report from the Constitution Committee, Respect and Co-operation: Building a Stronger Union for the 21st Century. I want to place on record at the start my thanks to all members of the committee and our staff and advisers, who worked very hard on this report and throughout my time as chair. This inquiry was very interesting and demanding and I think we can all see that it is a very substantive report. Therefore, there was an awful lot of work involved. I look forward to hearing the contributions of committee members and the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame—I may be the first to pronounce that incorrectly, but we look forward to the speech.
The timing of this debate is very interesting, because it is exactly a year to the day since we published this report. That highlights two things. The first is that, too often, reports from this House, which are very insightful, important and topical, are welcomed when they are first published but then go on a shelf and we wait a very long time before we manage to have a debate on them. That is a concern for many people on many committees and I think it is something that the House needs to do more to address.
Having said that, the timing of this debate proves the importance of the decision of the Constitution Committee to undertake this inquiry. It is right that we need the insight into the constitutional relationships. I hope this debate will not be dominated by the current controversy about Section 35 powers, so I will not go into that here, tempting though it is. However, the fact that the situation we are now seeing is so toxic illustrates the need for a change in relationships and attitudes, which this report outlines.
The report is titled Respect and Co-operation and that is not without good reason. Indeed, the title was chosen very carefully and reflects our conclusion about the future governance of the UK after months of taking evidence, both written and oral, visiting parliamentarians in Scotland and Wales, and having discussions with those in Northern Ireland.
Last year marked the centenary of the United Kingdom in its current form and we were conscious of that while we were doing our work. It was evident to the committee that many tensions existed in the UK and that they posed a series threat to the union but also our democracy as we know it. We are not just talking about tensions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; there is a devolution problem within England as well. There is a feeling in many parts of England that decisions about people’s lives are made in some distant, out-of-touch centre and this does not inspire confidence in our democracy.
The fact is that the UK is exceptionally centralised. We heard evidence from the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, who told us very bluntly that there is unanimous agreement that current arrangements are far from optimal. The UK is one of the most centralised countries in the modern developed world. He was very clear and many others supported what he was saying. There is a general belief that this overcentralisation is holding back the UK in economic and development terms, but also in terms of dealing with social policies.
My Lords, I declare an interest: I served with pride on the committee that produced this report. We worked very hard for more than a full year under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, whose fine speech surveying and presenting the report we have just heard. We benefited enormously from having the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, as a member; we also had the acute observations of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. We will hear from both of them shortly. To quote yesterday’s psalm, I think that, as usual, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, will come before your Lordships “with a song” that will give us a new perspective on the debate.
Two major themes have come out of all this work. First, in this age of hyperconnectivity, instant communication and heightened identity, a modern union must be based not entirely on the legalisms of history or overly rigid interpretations of our unwritten constitution but on consent and the renewed attractions of belonging to a United Kingdom that fits into the 21st century.
Secondly, we are not talking about saving the union, which sounds backward-looking. We are talking about building a better union for the 21st century and beyond. Scotland is an ancient kingdom of unparalleled talent and influence. The last 300 years or so of British progress have depended heavily—almost entirely—on Scotland and its leadership in almost every sphere. Its international footprint is huge across the planet, with respect and detailed patterns of co-operation between neighbours that are outlined so well in the Dunlop review, which I have referred to. They are the very minimum that we should have been practising in the past, but we clearly have not done so with either Scotland or the other devolved nations.
Much more that is positive and highly beneficial to both partners in the union that is Scotland and England is now required. At the moment, we are struggling in the quagmire between reserved and devolved powers. On present trends, if we leave things unchanged, ahead there stretches a long avenue of bitter disputes as we ceaselessly try to define the limits between reserved powers and devolved powers. It is a struggle that can only ever be settled temporarily, because of a background of very fast-moving conditions with which tidy legal definitions can never hope to keep up.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Lord to speak.
12:34 pm
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it was a pleasure to listen to my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton introduce this debate, just as it was a pleasure as a member of the Constitution Committee to sit under her wise and effective chairmanship.
We know that the union is fragile and at risk. Institutional mechanisms will not successfully maintain the union unless proper care is taken by London. The demand for devolution has been a natural and proper expression of the wish by the peoples of Scotland and Wales to gain, in what should be the maturity of our democracy, a fuller measure of responsibility for their own government. Granted with good grace, as devolution was by the Labour Government in 1998, growing nationalism and separatism need not have followed. Respect and co-operation are not mechanisms but attitudes. For Boris Johnson as Prime Minister to describe devolution as a “disaster” was gratuitously offensive and foolish. For another Prime Minister, Liz Truss, to have publicly dismissed the First Minister of Scotland as an attention-seeker was inexcusably disrespectful to the holder of that office.
During our inquiry, we were struck by how little Whitehall departments were attuned to devolution and by how little officials in Whitehall knew or thought about it. The operation of the common frameworks was desultory. Legislation currently before your Lordships’ House, the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill, shows the Government of the UK as having acted less than diplomatically and courteously over issues of consultation, legislative consent and regulation-making powers. Mr Gove is always immaculately courteous and no doubt he will appreciate these considerations. His recent letter to the committee shows that he is taking steps to improve these matters. The Government have handled the intergovernmental aspects of the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill entirely appropriately.
It is good to see that Mr Sunak has observed the proper courtesies towards Ms Sturgeon and Mr Drakeford and has visited Scotland at an early stage in his premiership. Inevitably, the confrontation between the Governments of the UK and of Scotland over gender recognition will impose strain on the relationship, as is no doubt intended by the SNP Government. However, the constitutional mechanisms to resolve the issue are there. It is regrettable that the First Minister spoke of UK Ministers having
“not one iota of good faith”,
but Ministers should refrain from responding in the same coin.
The committee’s report has an important section on devolution within England. I have long believed that the public’s growing disaffection with our institutions of parliamentary government has one of its principal sources in central government’s repeated assaults on local government. The establishment of mayoral combined authorities was certainly a big step in the right direction, but devolution within England has been grudging and incomplete, characterised by deal-making, inconsistency, laborious and invidious competitive bidding processes, niggardly grants, and a refusal to provide fiscal freedom—which my noble friend referred to and the Mayor of the West Midlands has characterised as Whitehall’s “begging bowl culture”. If we are to revitalise local democracy and thence our national democracy, radical decentralisation is necessary.
12:38 pm
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the committee, for an excellent report. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I do not go into the detail of the report but offer what might sound a bit of a left-field observation. The report is subtitled Building a Stronger Union for the 21st Century. However, an assumption that we often bring to these debates is that what we had in the 20th century and before will automatically persist and that everyone buys into it.
Please forgive me for doing a segue into a different part of the world, but I did a lot of work in Kazakhstan in the noughties. I remember that on one trip, having done quite a lot of media work with young people there, it struck me on returning to the UK via Frankfurt that over there they would forgive corruption and all sorts of things because they were building something that they were investing in. They did not quite know where it was leading but they were building a future of which they were very proud. When I came back to the west, I was struck by the fact that we do not talk about our young people building anything. We have a set of institutions, particularly arising from the post-Second World War settlement, which we expect our young people to inherit and to buy into, but what are they building? You will sacrifice your life for something that you are building, not something that you simply inherit. My concern is about many of the young people, particularly those I have come across from Scotland, who are quite frankly either anti or indifferent to the union.
On the very first page of this report, the first line refers to the committee and then to “we”. It just bugs me; who is the “we” that we keep talking about? My generation cannot construct a narrative. When I came back from Kazakhstan, the concern I had then was about a new narrative for Europe, not one that we simply inherit but one we can build. The only people who can tell us this are the young people who will be around when we are long gone. What are the mechanisms we are building to enable younger generations to explore and articulate a vision for constitutional settlements that command not just their intellectual assent but their imagination, and into which they will invest their energy? I am afraid I do not have the answer. I puzzled over it in relation to a vision for a new Europe, but I also puzzle over what this might look like in respect of the union. If anything commanded attention and could show some leadership from Parliament in convening conversations that begin to identify how young people see the world and the union, it would have done something very important. I commend that to the Minister and hope that it will be taken seriously.
It is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, and I appreciate very much the tone he struck. I am participating in this debate as a former Constitution Committee member, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for the skilful way in which she chaired it in tackling a big subject. I also look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame. I know from government colleagues how valuable his legal expertise has been on a range of public policy issues, and he is a great addition to the House.
I want to make just two points. The first is the need to avoid a fatalistic pessimism about the union’s future. The Constitution Committee is not blind to the strains besetting the union, but it is confident in its future as a resilient and adaptable asset. Scottish independence is posed as the most immediate threat yet, despite recent turmoil, the independence cause has not achieved the breakthrough its supporters hope for. There are no new credible answers to the currency, borders and fiscal questions that so concerned Scottish voters nine years ago and still concern them today.
Of course, relying on your opponent’s weakness is not enough. Unionists must offer their own positive alternative vision, and since 2014 it is unionists, not nationalists, who have been thinking afresh. The Constitution Committee’s report promotes a co-operative union, and building a unionist consensus around this idea is more than achievable.
As we have heard, the Prime Minister, unlike his immediate predecessor, shows a welcome willingness to work with devolved Governments. Triggering Section 35 does not invalidate that. Section 35 is part of the devolution settlement—a safety valve, if you like, ensuring that devolved legislation does not inadvertently affect how the law operates across the UK. So, for all the hyperbole, there is no constitutional crisis. There is a legal disagreement that will be resolved.
My Lords, I and the whole House look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame—I apologise for my pronunciation. Mind you, having said that, it will not make him feel any better. As the immediately preceding speaker, I can imagine how nervous he will be, so I say that he will feel a lot better once it is over.
I am pleased to take part in this debate even though I was not one of the members of the committee, although I wish I had been. It is a tremendously interesting committee that has had the opportunity to explore and probe some of the most profound issues at the heart of what is still our unwritten constitution, with all the benefits and drawbacks that being unwritten can bring. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Taylor on chairing the committee and on having introduced the debate today, and I congratulate the clerks and all the other members who have made it a very important and timely report.
Why do I say timely? After all, I agree with my noble friend that it is a great regret that reports take so long to be debated in this House. However, when it comes to timeliness, you have to admit that to have the debate on a Friday when Section 35 was triggered on the Monday is about as timely as you could possibly get. I know that today’s debate is not about the events of this week—the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and so on—but the fact is that the Bill was passed, and it opens up an aspect of the debate about the future of the union that was not there when the committee was undertaking its discussions, deliberations and report. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, and others, some issues are devolved and others are not. I am sure the current clash will be discussed in the courts, and I cannot predict what the outcome will be, but what does it tell us about the strength of the union and the basis of what it will be like over the next 25 years, given the way that it has evolved over the last 25?
My Lords, I am honoured to speak for the first time in this House on such an important topic and in a debate that sees the participation of so many distinguished noble speakers. I begin by expressing my gratitude for the professional and patient support that I have received from officers and staff of the House, especially the doorkeepers, who, among other things, helped make my introduction a wonderful occasion for me and for my family, who travelled from Reggio Calabria, the city in southern Italy where I was born and grew up. I was very lucky to have as supporters two dear friends: the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton.
The future of the union may seem an unusual topic for someone who moved to Britain only after his 23rd birthday. I have now spent most of my life in Britain. My career as a barrister, and as an academic specialising in international law with a wider interest in political philosophy, has been almost entirely here. Britain welcomed me and gave me opportunities that few other countries would afford newcomers. It was just over a decade ago that I naturalised as a British citizen. I suspect that means I am newer to being British than most of your Lordships.
I say this because millions of Europeans with settled status are now becoming eligible to apply for British citizenship, and they should be encouraged. The absorption of this large number of new citizens will be an extraordinary event in the life of our country. We should celebrate it as it will show, once again, the strength and enduring appeal of the United Kingdom. A key strength is that, as a multinational state, we are a polity defined by pluralism. We do not feel threatened by multiple, complex identities.
It is true that some regard multinationalism as a vulnerability. A number of multinational states in European history have failed, but I congratulate the report of your Lordships’ committee on, among other things, challenging the idea that there is some inevitable law of historical destiny that the union is up against. This does not mean that we should be complacent, but it does mean defending the union—all its constituent parts included—without accepting the premise of those who want to see its demise. The idea of a union of peoples across different islands, built on common purpose and founded on laws, may be old but it is certainly not outdated. On the contrary, this idea of statehood is better suited to modern values and identities than the alternatives being proposed.
My Lords, it is a great honour to follow a fellow historian, the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, to welcome him to your Lordships’ House and to praise his lustrous maiden speech. His learning, experience and scholarship take him deep into one of the crucial, perpetual questions of our time: the sustenance of liberty, which is now under threat in ways and places that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago. I await with relish the book on which he is currently working, Can Liberty Last?—I fervently hope that the answer is yes—and many fine contributions to come in this House. My new noble friend, if I may call him that, brings his powerful intellect and word power to the defence of the things your Lordships’ House holds most dear. He is very welcome.
I declare my membership of the Constitution Committee and the advisory council of These Islands and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for her leadership of the Constitution Committee. We did a lot of work, but she always made it fun.
When I was young, in the 1950s, we were rather proud of our largely incomprehensible constitution. It brought, so we thought, great flexibility in being unwritten, with very little going wrong that could not be put right by a bit of judicious tweaking by Olympian figures in authority deploying restraint, wisdom and a gift for muddling through. It is not so now. The constitution is still baffling, but very few think it is working well. The union, in particular, has come under serious and protracted strain with the rise of the SNP. And yet, the Constitution Committee has come up with a rarity. The document before us brings a shaft of light amid the thickets of pessimism in which our country seems trapped on so many fronts. The central message of our report is that the union still has vitality and could have still more if somehow a spirit of optimism and mutual respect can be applied to shared problems and future opportunities.
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Some of the reasons for individuals feeling cut off from decision-making are to do with the pace of change in the modern world—new technology, the information revolution, the problems of climate change and even the pandemic. However, there are issues, especially with our withdrawal from the EU, that have tested our system of government, and Brexit itself has undoubtedly led to greater tensions between the devolved institutions and Whitehall.
We have to acknowledge that part of this is due to political differences, but as the committee pointed out, there are measures that can be taken to improve working relationships. However, we say in the report that the arrangements and attitudes pre-Brexit did not put us in a good position to face those challenges.
Similarly, in dealing with Covid, at times the Government were provocative and damaged relationships unnecessarily. In the earliest stages of Covid, the Prime Minister included First Ministers in the COBRA meetings, quite sensibly, but then decision-making moved to the Cabinet Office and First Ministers, the devolved representatives, were excluded. That was unreasonable, given that it is obvious that pandemics do not respect boundaries and that joint working would have been beneficial.
I mention this because, although the committee made specific recommendations about some of the formal factors such as the regularity of formal meetings, we concluded that it is still the case that attitudes, perhaps on all sides but certainly in Whitehall, need to change—hence the relevance of our report’s title, Respect and Co-operation. I have seen the Government’s response to that report and the recent correspondence from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up to my noble friend Lady Drake, the current chair of the committee. The tone of some of it suggests a calmer and more reasonable approach. If so, that is to be welcomed, although some people might think that the past few days have called this into question. The real test of relationships in future will be how much institutions and individuals are willing to embrace the principles and spirit of respect and co-operation. I must flag up the retained EU law Bill, which will test those very significantly.
The committee made some positive and constructive proposals. I cannot deal with all of them in the time available, but I want to raise some key points. The first issue is the working of the Sewel convention and the process of legislative consent. We felt that the legislative consent process generally worked well from 1999 but political change and implementing Brexit has put it under considerable strain. We did not recommend that the courts should be involved, as we believe that this is a matter for Parliament and something we must take on board, but we did recommend a strengthening of the way in which this House scrutinises Bills which require, or could be considered by the devolved institutions to require, legislative consent.
I know that the Procedure Committee is looking at this issue; I hope there can be progress here because I note that the Government’s response said:
“We will carefully consider the Committee’s recommendations”.
Personally, I take that as meaning the long grass and that little in the Government’s attitude may change. If that is the case, it is even more important that Parliament steps up its game in ensuring that it is fully aware of problems arising from legislation when there is a question about legislative consent. Moreover, I share the concern of many people in this House that the Government are increasingly looking to use secondary legislation as a means of avoiding the legislative consent process that is required for primary legislation.
I turn to devolution in England. Bearing in mind the evidence of Councillor Jamieson about us being the most centralised country in Europe and the developed world, we were told that local government has been the sector of public service delivery most affected by job losses throughout the decade of austerity while, at the same time, there has been a growth in Civil Service numbers. There is no doubt that those involved in local and regional government believe that they could deliver more, and do so both effectively and efficiently, if they were given the opportunity.
Personally, I can understand why Ministers—from all parties—want to interfere, want to set targets, believe that they know best and, indeed, want to fulfil their political commitments, many of which derive from a political mandate. I think they find it difficult to say, “We won’t interfere or try to micromanage”. However, if we are talking about efficient and effective delivery, we need Ministers to acknowledge that there are problems with the current system and its structures, which cause difficulties in delivery and add up to people feeling alienated from the decision-making process.
We were given significant evidence—it is worth reading—of the problems that confront local authorities when they have to bid and compete with each other for small amounts of money. It can be costly for them to prepare that bid with no guarantee of success. They often have to go through an elaborate process of box-ticking and, they tell us, are often denied essential data. Councillor Jamieson said:
“The current process is very contractual. It is very much about a deal”—
a deal that is delivered by central government deciding what should happen, which we have seen recently with yesterday’s announcements. We heard more about this issue yesterday in terms of the levelling-up fund and some of the reaction to it. Local authorities’ reaction—I share their concern—was summed up by Andy Street, the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, when he said that
“this episode is just another example as to why Whitehall’s bidding and begging-bowl culture is broken … I cannot understand why the levelling up funding money was not devolved for local decision-makers to decide on what’s best for their areas.”
That confirms what others have said: we really need a proper framework. No one is saying that one size fits all, but we need a proper framework for devolution in England so that we can transfer powers and resources. Those in local government simply do not have confidence that that is the direction of travel at the moment. Again, respect and co-operation should be the theme.
One other point I want to highlight is the potential for improvement in interparliamentary relations. I must place on the record the work done by the Lord Speaker in this respect by encouraging the Interparliamentary Forum to function well and committees to visit. Our committee found our visits to Scotland and Wales extremely useful; I hope that others can build on that work. However, I mention the need for UK Ministers to be willing to attend and appear before the devolved legislatures; this sometimes happens but the Government will not write it into the Ministerial Code. All of us who are members of committees know that it can be difficult to get Ministers to appear; I just have to live in hope on this point.
In conclusion, the attitude at the beginning of the devolution process was “devolve and forget”. I think we have moved on, but Whitehall cannot carry on as if nothing has changed. Both civil servants and Ministers need to accommodate the changes. It is always painful to let go of any power, but it will be damaging if we do not make devolution work because it is important for the success of the United Kingdom and all its component parts. When we devolve, we must apply the principles of respect and co-operation. I beg to move.
For example, short of building a wall between Scotland and England, people can never be prevented from travelling and mixing, or families prevented from living between the two neighbouring states. Industry and trade conditions, woven together over centuries, can never be neatly kept apart, as the opposition of Holyrood to the Australian trade agreement implies that they can. It cannot be done. Security can never be split. It must cover every part of the British landmass to operate properly. For these integrated areas of life in the UK to work, there must be a new level of trust and respect and a new understanding, however much it is devolved in law. Throwing the legal book at the parties on either side cannot lead to consent. The only possible mix is one of practical arrangements, constantly being refreshed to meet new conditions, all within our joint, unwritten and highly flexible constitution.
Within that framework, many more powers can be devolved. The sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament can continue to be shared in practice, if not in theory, on the basis of being lent to a second Parliament in Scotland and, if it demands it, in Wales too. In Northern Ireland we already have one, in Stormont, although as we debated in this Chamber an hour or two ago, it is currently mired in local problems. As for the monarchy, that can continue to be shared. Most sensible SNP supporters—all but the extreme separatists—want that. Defence can be shared, foreign policy and external trade policy can be worked out first and shared, far more consensually than in the past, and then pursued by a joint and agreed team. For the rest, respect, real trust, good will and lots of reasonable flexibility can handle all the arrangements and keep our two old nations nicely in constant unison, powerfully reinforcing and renewing the union, to the infinite benefit of both and the other devolved nations as well.
It is all in our report before us today. I am biased in favour of Scotland, but I am also biased in favour of the union. For all the past bitterness, for all the arguments over our relations with our European neighbours and for all the differences, including even the gender ones which are in the news today, this is the formula that commands the real support among the utterly sensible majority of the Scottish people.
My second point flows from the first. Let us not overreact to unduly pessimistic assessments of the union’s prospects by attempting an overambitious new constitutional settlement. Devolution represented a significant constitutional change. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown admit now that in 1997 insufficient attention was paid to devolution’s centrifugal forces and, therefore, to the importance of also strengthening the bonds holding the UK together.
Gordon Brown has produced a new constitutional blueprint that builds on the Constitution Committee’s own recommendations, and I agree with much of it. However, he proposes to increase significantly the role of the courts in resolving disagreements between the UK and devolved Governments. I worry that this will interfere with what should be a process of political dialogue and negotiation and thus inadvertently make our constitution more brittle and less stable. His report also promises yet more powers for Scotland and Wales—what it describes as
“the independence of Scotland and Wales within the UK”.
Devolution is unquestionably an unfinished project, yet the keys to its completion are extending English devolution and reforming the centre and intergovernmental relations, not devolving more powers to already devolved institutions.
More powers will never satisfy those who want full independence. The Brown commission proposes, for example, that the Scottish Parliament be given the power to enter into international agreements. That seems unwise, to say the least. The way to strengthen the union is to demonstrate the value of working better together, not creating new opportunities to drift apart. Scots are already frustrated that the Scottish Government do not focus on the day job without providing them with more scope to trespass on reserved policy and to further develop an independent foreign policy. If the union means anything at all, surely it is the ability to speak clearly with one voice on the world stage. I commend this report to the House.
The starting point for many of your Lordships is that we live in this unique union of four nations, which has developed over the centuries, and many would like to find a way to continue to do so. I ought to point out at this stage that I am one of those who hope that the union remains. In many families, people have relations all over the country and across borders. I do not know how many do but, in my own case, one of my grandmothers was born and bred in Scotland. For her entire life, she was identifiably Scottish to the end. My Dad, as a result, was half-Scottish and tremendously proud of his Scottish ancestry. It was a great privilege for him to be invited to address the Scottish Parliament in one of his pre-session moments of reflection. He was of course very concerned at the thought that Scotland would vote for independence, although that did not turn out to be the case.
Turning to the committee’s report, it is tremendously good analysis. It outlines the pressures that have built up over the years, including the financial crash, the information and technology revolution, the effects of climate change, the impact of Brexit—which is not by any means yet at an end—and the Covid pandemic and, of course, the new and emerging threats that we are now living through as a result of the invasion of Ukraine. It also draws wonderful parallels between constitutions and poetry and plumbing. I do find that a wonderful analogy.
The report has many excellent features and I have time to mention only two, which have almost been mentioned by others. First, there is the codification of the occasional practice whereby UK Ministers can and do appear before committees of devolved legislatures. That would be an excellent idea and it could be incorporated into the next edition of the Cabinet Manual, which we were discussing only a short time ago. The committee also calls for a new interparliamentary forum, which would bring Members of the legislatures of the UK Parliament and the devolved Parliaments together on an equal basis. That would also be an extremely good thing; the EU Bill coming towards us has been mentioned and that is a very good basis for it. Perhaps the Minister could tell the House whether there are, as I understand it, plans for such an initial meeting to take place in this House before very long.
I want to mention one thing very briefly, which was understandably not in the report: the consequences for the union if it were to be dissolved. I think of the international consequence for the UK. It just seems unthinkable that whatever remained—the rump—would be able, for example, to retain its seat on the Security Council as a permanent member. Although these wider considerations do not often play a part in our discussions, it would also be a tremendous loss of what we call soft power were we to find ourselves in that position.
My time is up but I commend the committee on its excellent report. Had I had longer to do so, I would have continued to commend it in further ways than I have been able to do.
On constitutional reform, there is no abstract model that can give the answers we need. As the report suggests, solutions must continue to be found in specific and practical proposals, subject to two caveats. First, like the report’s authors, I believe that this is no time for more transactional solutions or—as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, pointed out—quick fixes, but rather for an approach that is constitutionally more coherent and principled. The second caveat is that we should not, whether by accident or design, move towards some weak association of separate entities which are slowly drifting apart from one another. We should not dilute the union into a loose confederal arrangement. That would, I fear, jeopardise its future.
If the United Kingdom were to dissolve, we would all be diminished—not just in these islands but across the European continent. There are probably no political certainties in European history, but the stability, reassurance and moral leadership provided by the United Kingdom to people across Europe in times of conflict and turmoil comes closest to one. The war in Ukraine has shown this once again.
I am optimistic about the future of the union. I have confidence in the resilience of our institutions and in their ability to continue to bind us together, but we need to hone our constitutional sensibility. To be sustainable, constitutional reforms require thoughtful argument and broad support. Your Lordships’ House plays a vital role in promoting both. It is the greatest privilege to have joined your Lordships as a Member of this House and I look forward to contributing to its work as best I can.
For a short while, I thought this document could have a different distinction—that of the least influential Select Committee report ever—for one of the three 2022 Prime Ministers thought that the solution lay in a single insight: that she should simply ignore the First Minister of Scotland and not talk to her. I have to admit that this was not a possibility that had occurred to your Lordship’s committee. In the end, it turned out to be the only policy of Liz Truss’s premiership that was implemented, albeit for only 45 days. Therefore, Mr Sunak’s working dinner with Nicola Sturgeon in Bute House last week came as a great relief to me and, I am sure, to many others. Who knows, the Constitution Committee may be in business once more in the ideas market, for it is in everyone’s interest, in every part of the kingdom, that the union, in all its devolutionary aspects, works well in both its mechanics and, perhaps above all, its human relationships.
I will finish with a few rather personal words about the union with Scotland. I have been a union man since I was 10 years old, when I first went to Scotland in a tiny Ford Prefect full of camping gear and family, driven erratically by my father from Finchley to the Isle of Skye. Since then, to adapt the opening lines of General de Gaulle’s memoirs, I have always had a certain idea of Scotland—of how we have fought and bled together, taught and read together, invented and manufactured together, politicked and organised together, laughed together and wound each other up, generation upon generation.
My fear is that the road to Scottish independence, if it happens in the coming decade, will be paved by a degree of English indifference for all of the centuries of lives lived together, the intermingling of families and much more. But what a loss it would be for England to lose the intimate companionship of Scotland, whose people have contributed out of all proportion to their numbers, across a mighty range of human endeavours, not just within these islands but across the globe.
The great Walter Lippmann once described public opinion as “maps in the mind”. In my mental map, whatever transpires, there will always be the union. If, as would surely happen, the Anglo-Scottish border eventually became coterminous with the EU’s boundary, there would be customs controls at Gretna, Carter Bar and Berwick. But there will never be customs posts in my mind. If dual nationality is on offer, my wife and I will be first in the queue, pleading her mother and my grandmother. If the Constitution Committee’s report adds but one ounce to the chances of survival of this most special of all the special relationships, it will be worth every minute we spent preparing it, for it is one of the profoundest questions facing the kingdom to come.