Meeting of the Parliament 19 December 2019
In opening the debate for Scottish Labour at stage 1, I said that
“If we, as a country, were to want to move to a more direct democracy in which referendums are used more and more in decision making, the objectives that the bill sets out would be sound.”—[Official Report, 7 November 2019, c 63.]
As a result of its scrutiny of the bill, the Finance and Constitution Committee made a number of key recommendations on how to improve some of the bill’s fundamental flaws. Many of those recommendations have been accepted by the Government. Crucially, however, the recommendation on question testing has not. Today, we will hear from many members that the bill is an administrative procedure to facilitate future referendums, so that the current ad hoc approach to them need not be retained.
In my lifetime, there have been six referendums. Three were UK-wide, and three have been specific to Scotland and the constitution. The reason why there have been so few is that we live in a parliamentary democracy and abide by the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. I am not aware of any great shift in public opinion, or of demand that we move away from that principle.
The bill that we are debating paves the way for an independence referendum to take place next year. Indeed, when Michael Russell gave evidence to the Finance and Constitution Committee, he stated:
“We have never hidden the fact that I see this bill being used by the Parliament and the Government to create the referendum for independence”.—[Official Report, Finance and Constitution Committee, 25 September 2019; c 4.]
He went on to say that the SNP has no plans for any other referendums. I say again, today: on that basis, Labour cannot support the bill. We believe that it is not in Scotland’s interests to create, in the midst of the Tory Brexit chaos, even more uncertainty and chaos. Indeed, I suggest that it would, during this period, be impossible to put a clear proposition to the Scottish people.
What I cannot understand is that the SNP says that the 2014 referendum was a gold-standard referendum, but is now, in 2019, trying to pursue a referendum in which it would be impossible to know exactly what we would be voting for. Perhaps that is why the SNP is so determined to rig the question. It says that the question has been tested time and again, but I say that the proposition in 2014 and the proposition today are very different.
What the SNP is proposing for next year is independence in Europe. We know that the deficit reduction that would be required for membership of the European Union would lead to years of massive austerity in Scotland—that is before we even start counting the cost of the divorce bill from the rest of the UK, or the cost of a hard border with England.
The other point is that we do not know whether we would get entry to the European Union. Mr Russell tells us that Herman Van Rompuy, the former President of the European Commission, says that the path is open for Scotland to join the European Union. I ask what terms and conditions we would have to sign up to—never mind the fact that all 27 EU countries would have to agree.
I also draw Mr Russell’s attention to the comments of the European Policy Centre think tank, of which Mr Van Rompuy is president, which has
“said Scotland could not expect ‘special treatment’ and that the Scottish Government would have to accept all the obligations of membership, including agreeing in principle to join the euro.”
So, before the SNP starts rushing ahead for a new independence referendum to seek an independence in Europe mandate, I suggest that it must be able to explain exactly what that would mean for hard-working people in Scotland.
All our efforts over the next year must, surely, be focused on minimising the damage that Brexit will do to our country. That is what the majority of people expect from this Parliament and from the Government. That is what they want, and that is why Labour will not support the bill.
15:50