DEVOLUTION (Hansard, 31 July 1975)

Mr. Deputy Speaker
Mr. Stewart.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart (Western Isles)
My hon. Friends and I welcome the opportunity to be able to discuss devolution. We have heard some disquieting stories with evidence to support them, of strong opposition to any degree of devolution, especially from Labour Members. Some of the opponents are Scots and others are senior Ministers.
It is sad that Scottish Members of the Labour Party, with a few exceptions, should be foremost in opposing the right of their own country to make its own decisions. It is also sad because the initiative in the past for Scottish self-government, before the Scottish National Party was founded came from such members of the Scottish Labour Party as Tom Johnston, James Maxton, James Barr and George Buchanan. I am sorry to say this, but looking at the Scottish 2161 Members of the Labour Party today, I cannot find four men of the same calibre.

§ Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, Central)
The hon. Gentleman could not find one.

§ Mr. Stewart
Opposition from English Members is less surprising. Some are indicating that they will not vote for devolution even if it is decided in this House, but that will be the Government's worry when the situation arises.
The Labour and Conservative Parties in Scotland are split on this issue. It is knocking them to pieces. I shall not lose any sleep worrying about that situation. My party knows where it is going and it is taking the Scottish people with it.
Some of the ostriches in the Tory and Labour Parties in Scotland are still not aware of the tremendous tide which is flowing. They should think about what Victor Hugo said—that nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. The time for Scottish self-government has come now.
The opponents of devolution are bringing forward all kinds of odd arguments. One is that Scotland will be over-governed. It ill behoves the Tories, who are the main runners of this hare and who set up the regional council idea, to bring that argument in.
I served in local government in Scotland, as did many hon. Members on both sides of the House. We never demanded the reorganisation of local government on the scale which has been carried out. It was done to suit central Government, and it was originated by the Conservative Party.
Some hon. Members, particularly Labour Members, claim to be worried about the costs of a Scottish Assembly. In the first place, government in Scotland by Scots would be a lot cheaper than our contribution to Westminster. In any case, the cost is irrelevant. What would the Labour Party have said if Mr. Attlee, as he then was, had told the Indians in the late 1940s, "You cannot have self-government for India because it will cost too much to run your own affairs"? What a ridiculous argument. Whatever the grounds for opposing devolution in Scotland, surely that is one argument on which it is ridiculous to waste time.
2162 We have heard various conflicting statements from the Government. On 3rd February the Lord President, in the devolution debate, said that there was a possibility of publishing another White Paper setting out the plans in more detail towards the middle of this year.
On 12th February the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth (Mr. Ewing), said that the Government hoped to keep to the timetable, but warned that it was the Government's intention to get the matter right and indicated that it might take a little longer than expected.
On 27th June, in answer to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley), the Lord President stated that a further White Paper would be published in the autumn. I welcome the announcement today that the White Paper will be published in the second week in October.
We read of the Chequers meeting in January when the hardliners tried to throw out the Government's plans. I warn the Government that any double-crossing on this issue will be dearly bought by them.
In fairness and to avoid misunderstanding, I should say that I have no doubt of the sincerity in support of the principle of devolution of the hon. Member for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth, or of his personal intention of adhering to the timetable. I can say the same for the Minister of State, Privy Council Office.
I wish now to bring in a matter related to devolution but on a somewhat narrower basis since it concerns my constituency. I hope that in the plans for the various functions to be devolved to the Assembly the position of transport on the West Coast of Scotland will be the responsibility of a Minister in Scotland.
Only today David MacBrayne Ltd. has announced that after the end of October, it is to discontinue its cargo boat services between Glasgow and ports in the islands in the Inner and Outer Hebrides. That service is an essential part of the freight system in the area. The alternative offer of carrying goods by road haulage is unacceptable considering the type of freight carried on 2163 the vessel and the enormous costs involved in carrying them by road. This is a serious blow to the economic life of the area and I shall be asking the Secretary of State for Scotland to institute an inquiry into the decision of the Scottish Transport Group to take this action.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)
I am just wondering whether the hon. Gentleman is introducing something which is not relevant to the work of the devolution unit. He has spoken for about eight minutes so far and I have not heard any reference to the unit within the office of the Lord President of the Council. I do not think that references to the transport organisation in Scotland have anything to do with the heading we are discussing.

§ Mr. Stewart
With great respect, all I have said until the last few sentences has been concerned with devolution and the work of the devolution unit.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
All I heard was an attack on the Labour Party.

§ Mr. Gordon Wilson (Dundee, East)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for you, as guardian of the interests of the House while you are in the Chair, to defend the position of the Labour Party with which you are not connected while in the Chair? In connection with this point of order, is it not correct that it is a function of the devolution unit to prepare a plan for devolution which the Scottish Assembly will operate and that one of the functions will be to consider the transportation in the Western Isles?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I advise the hon. Gentleman to read Hansard when it is published tomorrow to see what the nature of the debate has been so far. I did not make any reference to the Labour Party at all. I was only commenting on what was said during the debate. If I have made a mistake I will apologise, but I know what I have heard. The question of the future of Scottish transport has nothing to do with the work of the devolution unit.

§ Mr. William Hamilton
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would like to defend the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart). I think 2164 there is a case for discussing all these matters. Transport is a very important function which may be devolved and I want to discuss the devolution of coal, gas, electricity, education and universities. I shall take a considerable time to develop my arguments. I beg you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to make a ruling that we can discuss every subject which is now under United Kingdom jurisdiction and which, under the devolution proposals, can be devolved to an Assembly in Edinburgh. The hon. Member for Western Isles has told us that his party knows where it is going. We want to hear where the members of his party are going and to tell them where we think they ought to go.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I am not going to respond to the hon. Gentleman's request for a ruling about how far the debate should wander at this early stage. I am asking hon. Members to show some regard for others who want to take part in the debate and to try, as far as possible, to stick to the subject chosen for debate.

§ Mr. Stewart
With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my remarks were directed to the subject of the debate. I was here for the speech of the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) and I think you are taking too restrictive a view of the purpose of this debate.
Earlier this year, the Scottish Office announced that it would subsidise the services on the West coast with about £2½ million. This is to be welcomed since it had proved impossible to make these services pay their way. I have advised local people not to have a bad conscience about such a subsidy because transport in London receives a Government subsidy and the railways are to have backing to the tune of £2,000 million in a package deal over five years. So difficult are the costs of living and development in my constituency that the Islands Council has secured approval for agreement with the NJIC to pay a weighting allowance of £3.50 per week to its workers.
The devolution unit should take account of the latest report of the Highlands and Islands Development Board in which it is shown that Lewis and Harris, unlike the rest of the board's area, except Sutherland, has suffered a 2165 decrease in population. The board produced an excellent document making out a case for a "road equivalent tariff". Unfortunately, the Secretary of State for Scotland will not accept this proposal, which would have given new hope to the West Coast islands.

§ Mr. Norman Buchan (Renfrewshire, West)
On a point of order. I originally had some sympathy with the hon. Member in his argument, but if we are to have a debate on the work of the devolution unit consisting of reciting the problems of all our constituencies I do not see how we shall ever get on with the debate. I would have suggested that it was totally out of order to discuss the individual difficulties of one constituency as opposed to Scottish problems generally.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I am obliged to the hon. Member for raising that point, but I do not intend now to give a firm ruling on this subject. This must be a matter for hon. Members. If hon. Members wish to wander about in their speeches I do not intend to make a ruling limiting them. I do not want misinterpretation of any kind.

§ Mr. Stewart
I am grateful for that ruling and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) sought to restrict the form of the debate.
The proposal by the HIDB was not accepted by the Secretary of State. I resent the attitude of Westminster Governments to transport problems in the islands. Financial assistance is given on the basis that it is some generous handout to which we are not really entitled. The underlying suggestion is that if we want to live in that part of the world we must bear the full cost. Yet subsidies to rail and road transport in the rest of the United Kingdom do not suffer from this impediment.
In Norway the communities living in the far north receive a far more sympathetic deal from their central government and they are able to enjoy a reasonable standard of living. Presumably the Government would defend us from an attacking Power, and we have the same right to be defended against economic forces.
It is shocking that a Government who claim to care for people should base their transport philosophy for the islands on the material capitalist attachment to the profit system. I hope that the devolution 2166 unit will accept as a high priority the need for fair shares in transport on the West Coast of Scotland.

§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian)
My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) and I asked for a debate on the costs of an Assembly. We were turned down by the Public Bill Office and by a distinguished and ever-helpful senior Clerk of the House. The Public Bill Office further told me that there was no way of raising devolution issues on these Estimates. In the form in which the inquiry was put to it, that was right, and I understand that we cannot discuss legislation as such on this occasion. I say that not in complaint but simply to protect myself from the charge of muscling in on a debate which has been begun at someone else's initiative, and I hope that the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) will take that into account.
There is a further, more serious, charge that I should like to meet head on, whether it is made by Opposition Members or by my own colleagues, and particularly since this matter was raised by my right hon. Friend the Lord President, earlier this evening. It is that from August 1974 until shortly after the General Election I accepted the party policy of a Scottish Assembly and that therefore I have performed some kind of U-turn. It is true that I was among the slain at the August 1974 conference in the Co-op Hall in Glasgow when the Scottish Labour Party accepted the idea of an Assembly. It is also true that I agreed with a journalist a few days after the election at a Press conference of Scottish Labour MPs that an Assembly should have teeth and that a phoney Assembly would be the worst of all possible worlds.
I contend that a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since last autumn. We now have the regions and we have had the symbolic episode of regional officers' salaries. We have had the economic situations and—I say this, not in a hectoring spirit because I shall return to it—the SNP conference. There have been clear indications that some Members of the SNP regard an Assembly as a stepping stone and as a means to an independent Scotland. This alters the situation as I see it.
2167 To be candid and blunt, I had assumed that some of my colleagues, who were the most ardent protagonists of an Assembly, had thought out their ideas more carefully than they had. I ask my colleagues to accept that some of us, rightly or wrongly, last autumn were firmly under the impression that once a Labour Government, who were committed to an Assembly, were re-elected, the regions would be frozen. This did not happen. Like it or not—and I do because I believe that the West of Scotland's problems are basically different from those of the Lothian Region, and different again from Grampian and the Western Isles—we have the regions and they are a fact of life.
I sincerely believe that the work of the devolution unit and the energies and talents of my right hon. and hon. Friends in that unit should be directed towards the devolution of decision making to the regions.
One of the most serious problems that we face, for example, is that of youth unemployment. Let my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, in his forthcoming measures, give the maximum possible power of decision making and financial control to Strathclyde and, perhaps, the Tayside Region where the problems occur. Indeed, it is positively better to direct available cash to these two regions than to a Scottish Assembly where each of us would be squabbling for our own share, regardless of need.
As a Lothian Member of Parliament I believe that the Department of Employment should concentrate its resources by devolving the power of decision making over those resources to Strathclyde to use as it thinks fit in Lanarkshire, Renfrew-shire and parts of Ayrshire, where the need is greatest. I ask the devolution unit to take this matter up with the Department of Employment.

§ Mr. Alexander Fletcher (Edinburgh, North)
The hon. Gentleman is advocating devolution of power to the regions. Will he not agree that events over the past few months in relation to regional government in Scotland indicate that the basic decisions made in the regions are essentially made by officials for officials, and that the councillors elected to these regions are absolutely powerless to take 2168 any measures that might be constituted as being in the best interests of the ratepayers who elected them?

§ Mr. Dalyell
This is tricky ground. It is related to the trouble that has arisen over regional councillors receiving comparatively little remuneration in relation to the jobs that they are expected to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central mentioned this. If this is a problem, one of the answers is to make it financially possible for regional councillors to spend more time on their regional duties.
I do not want to prolong this speech and if the hon. Gentleman will excuse me I shall not pursue the matter further.
For example again, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) is for ever telling us what a scandal it is that the Clayson Committee Report has not been debated or implemented. Let us be blunt. The reason for this is not that the wicked English have denied us parliamentary time. They have done nothing of the kind. It is that the Secretary of State and a number of my West of Scotland colleagues take a dim view, as indeed I do, of some of the proposals. It is surely not beyond the wit of Government, considering that we have had dry areas in the past, to devolve decision making over licensing to the regions. Indeed, I would argue that it is positively better to do so, since what suits the Lothian Region is unlikely to suit the Western Isles.
Will the devolution unit consider for a moment the spirit of the motion in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) and myself, which is on the Order Paper? I know that there may be legal difficulties but I am convinced and advised that they can be overcome.
As an aside, might one observe to those who are impatient about Clayson that they would achieve their objects years more quickly if such power were devolved in the next Session than if we waited for an Assembly to be set up and then waited for that Assembly to get around to discussing the licensing laws.
I intended to interrupt the hon. Member for Western Isles, because the question of the Island ferries is surely better 2169 dealt with by Strathclyde and the Western Isles rather than in Edinburgh. I should have thought that a very good example of where the Strathclyde region —certainly it was the philosophy of the Royal Commission, as I understood it—should deal with that kind of thing.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Harry Ewing)
I am sure that my hon. Friend would not want to distort the record. In order to get the record straight regarding the position on Clay-son, may I say that this is a matter which comes under my Department and that we had a two-day debate in the Scottish Grand Committee, so it is not correct to say that the matter has not been debated. The report, published in 1973, was circulated to a wide range of bodies to get opinions. My hon. Friend should be a little more accurate, because there was a Question about this matter on yesterday's Order Paper. Had it been reached and had we been in a position to give an Oral Answer, I would have been saying on behalf of my right hon. Friend that he will be in a position in the not-too-distant future to make a statement on this matter. Therefore, the Clayson Report and its contents, and the background and discussion, ought to be properly reported.

§ Mr. Dalyell
In no way do I quarrel with that. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will excuse me if I do not comment on it because I do not want to prolong my speech. However, of course I accept what he says.
As an aside, I ought to add that if I am charged with getting votes under false pretences, I would just comment-1 hope that the House will take it in the spirit in which it is meant—that concerning West Lothian, anyone to whom the creation of a Scottish Assembly really mattered has voted for Billy Wolfe, certainly since 1966 and probably since 1962, if they were of an age to do so. Whereas people may vote on steel, on unemployment and on all sorts of other things, they do not vote on an Assembly. I suspect that the forms of Government are not a major consideration in voting patterns. On the whole, most people vote for other reasons.
I come on to a subject which is crucial for me—cost. I think that we are in a different ball game. Once the regions 2170 have been established, jobs allocated and contracts signed and sealed, one cannot dismantle without enormous costs. We have to face the fact that the price of change and upheaval in local government is one major reason why our inflation rate is higher than that of other developed countries. That is why again and again I have asked the Lord President, to his mounting irritation, to publish a financial appendix to his White Paper. Indeed, I think that he is under a compulsory moral obligation to do so. Certainly, we shared a platform in Whitburn, and he was a great success.
But, every fourth Monday morning since November we attended, either at Congress House, Transport House or in Parliament, meetings between the TUC, the Cabinet and the Parliamentary Labour Party to discuss the economic situation. The Lord President heard the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer talking to trade union leaders about public expenditure. He heard Mr. Hugh Scanlon pleading in public and in private with the Government to recognise that manufacturing industry in Britain could not carry any greater burden of public administration.
The unchallenged TUC figures are alarming. Since 1961 the number of those employed in manufacturing industry in the United Kingdom—I could not obtain the separate figures for Scotland—has fallen from 9,200,000 to 7,900,000. That is a decrease of 1,300,000. In the same period the number of people working in public administration rose from 5.8 per cent. to 6.9 per cent. of all employed people.
The devolution unit must ask whether adding yet another tier of government will not make the position worse. In the debate on the economy the Prime Minister said that in one year local government costs exceeded 30 per cent. of the estimates, and that it exceeded 50 per cent. of the estimates in a two-year period. We must think of the total amount in terms of inflation, which is the central issue.

§ Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)
Does my hon. Friend accept, apart from the question of inflation, that this is a diversion of human resources away from more profitable enterprise?

§ Mr. Dalyell
That question may be of equally great importance.
The devolution unit must ask other questions. It must ask what the officials responsible to an Assembly will be paid compared with the pay of officials responsible to a region. Officials responsible to an Assembly cannot be paid less than the others. However, I shall not join in the all-too-easy pastime of slamming the latest salary awards in the Lothian Region.
The devolution unit must give its mind to the question of the leap-frogging of salaries, as, sure as fate, come an Assembly, regional officials will apply for Assembly jobs before the ink is dry on their existing contracts. It would not be human nature if they did not do so. It is no good the Lord President saying that it is too early to discuss salary structures. The attitude of Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof has caused too much trouble in recent politics.
I present another scenario. It requires no crystal ball, but it is a matter to which the devolution unit should pay attention.

§ The Minister of State, Privy Council Office (Mr. Gerry Fowler)
On a point of information, Mr. Deputy Speaker, which may be helpful to the House, I should point out that there is no such body as a devolution unit. It does not exist within the office of the Lord President. Two Ministers in the Privy Council Office have responsibility for devolution. There is a Constitution Unit within the Cabinet Office but there is no such body as a devolution unit.

§ Mr. Dalyell
I had better raise an eyebrow and pass on for time reasons.
I present this scenario. We may come to a clause in a devolution Bill on a steamy July night in 1976. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary may be away celebrating the 200th anniversary of American Independence. The House of Commons will be tired and bad tempered. Some of my hon. Friends sitting below the Gangway will be bubbling with anger about economic measures and cuts in cherished projects. Ministers will discuss a clause suggesting that the 140 Assembly men in Edinburgh should 2172 be paid what Members of Parliament are paid. They cannot be paid much less because many of them have to keep two homes going and they incur many of our expenses. I leave my colleagues to imagine this scene.
How does the Government Chief Whip, the Chairman of the London Labour Party, covering a population of 6½ million, explain to the Greater London Council, the members of which get only expenses, that the Scottish assembly men are to get the salaries which Members of Parliament get? How does the Chancellor of the Exchequer go to Leeds and tell Sir Karl Cohen's successors that the Scottish assembly men will be paid out of Leeds' taxes? What do we say to the regional councillors nearer home who run our own great regions, such as Strathclyde, or at least those who are not themselves elected to the Assembly? Now is the time to think of those problems not when we have made commitments in the Queen's Speech.
Supposing the hon. Members for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher) and Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) get their way and the regions are abolished? That is a possible option which has to be taken seriously. How much would it cost to disentangle all the contracts and how is duplication to be avoided between the Assembly and the regions? I have read the hon. Lady's speech, and it has to be taken at its face value and seriously. I put it in the form of a question to my hon. Friend who must equally be worried about duplication.

§ Mr. Iain MacCormick (Argyll)
Is it conceivable that the hon. Gentleman is saying that because we have created this silly monster Strathclyde it must be with us always? Would it not be much more sensible and cheaper to get rid of it and give some of its responsibilities to the Scottish Assembly and some to the district councils? Would not that be a much more intelligent way of tackling the problem?

§ Mr. Dalyell
I just gently say that the costs of changes and upheavals are massive and inflationary. I also ask the moral question whether politicians can ask local government officials at regional and district level once again to endure the kind of upheaval that has made many of them burn the midnight oil. 2173 We cannot go on chopping and changing. It gives conscientious officials ulcers, besides being costly.

§ Mr. MacCormick
Surely the hon. Gentleman appreciates that prior to the February 1974 election we asked the Government which the hon. Gentleman supports time and again to postpone or think again about the proposal. The Government went on with it. Why could not they have postponed it and reconsidered the proposal?

§ Mr. Dalyell
I took the trouble to say at the beginning of my speech that some of us were under the impression that the plans for the region would be frozen in October or November. To be fair to the Secretary of State, by that time many contracts had been entered into, and one cannot muck people around. It is not right for us by a wave of the hand to agree to yet another change in this decade. But I rely basically on the question of expense.
Again I ask, what will the devolution unit do about higher education? I hope that it does not take too much notice of the contribution made by Professor McIntyre at The Times Educational Supplement Conference which I and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East attended. He wanted to give the impression that he had been struck on some road to Damascus into giving higher education to the Scottish Assembly. [Interruption.] Does my hon. Friend wish to interrupt? I do not wish to be personal, but it is a fair comment that it is no accident that Professor McIntyre is a Professor of Scottish Theology, a subject that is not part of the general United Kingdom university pattern. May I have the assurance that the devolution unit has asked—would my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castle-ford (Mr. Harper) like to interrupt me?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman asked that. His hon. Friend is making no effort to interrupt him.

§ Mr. Dalyell
May I have the assurance that the devolution unit has asked, or will ask, Sir Brian Flowers, of the Vice-Chancellors, Professor Norman Hunt, of the UGC, and Professor Sam Edwards, of the Science Research Council, for their 2174 formal views on education devolution to a Scottish Assembly, and that such views will be made public?

§ Mrs. Margaret Bain (Dunbartonshire, East)
On the basis that the hon. Gentleman is arguing that the opinion of one man should not be considered as the summation of all attitudes within universities, does he agree that rather than the picking out of one or two individuals within the university system there should be a general meeting with everyone within the universities, including members of the staff further down the scale, those who are not at professorial or vice-chancellor level? When the AUT conducted its study it did not consult the university lecturers.

§ Mr. Dalyell
As my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) says, some of us have taken a great deal of trouble about this matter. In Glasgow and Edinburgh the AUT was overwhelmingly against the breakup of the UGC.

§ Mrs. Bain
When the AUT issued the statement it said that it was the result of very hurried consultations. It had not consulted all its members.

§ Mr. Dalyell
My understanding, from what I have been told by George Hammersley, secretary of the Edinburgh AUT, and Brian Ribbons, secretary of the Glasgow AUT, is that the AUT is overwhelmingly in favour of the UGC's remaining intact.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison (Edinburgh, South)
Does the hon. Gentleman know that he is dead right? I have also asked George Hammersley, and I know that what the hon. Gentleman says is completely true. The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) does not know the first facts about the matter.

§ Mr. Dalyell
I am not making a speech in that kind of spirit, and I hope that I shall not be tempted to do so. I must cut out some of the things that I was going to say for time reasons.
There is another change since my right hon. Friend the Lord President was kind enough to come to West Lothian. This relates to the SNP conference. I am not concerned with cheap points, but am I wrong to have the impression from the 2175 television and from talking to people who were at the conference that the SNP sees an Assembly simply as a stepping stone to Scottish independence—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and that more specifically that once an Assembly is established, more people will come to think that independence is credible? I do not think that I distort the SNP's position.
If one believes that independence, and the consequent break-up of Britain, is bad for the people of Scotland, is it wise to vote for an Assembly? I have always seen a situation in which every ill, real or imagined, will be ascribed to the fact that the Assembly has insufficient powers.

§ Mr. MacCormick
Is the hon. Gentleman trying to say that there is any particular level of devolution which is suddenly all perfect, and the only thing that will ever do for us? Is he saying that whatever measures the Government place before us will be right for all time, and must not be changed?

§ Mr. Dalyell
No. I simply think that the talent of—I was going to call it the devolution unit, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has corrected me so I will say "of my right hon. and hon. Friends"—should be directed into thinking of every possible decision that can practically be given to the regions of Scotland and which it is sensible to give them. I yield to no man in believing that decisions should be taken as locally as is practically possible.
The devolution unit must make a political calculation as to how long a Bill to set up a Scottish Assembly will take on the Floor of the House. In some quarters it has been said that six days will cover it—Second Reading, Committee stage on the Floor of the House, Report stage and Third Reading. I argue that this is dreamland. It would not be surprising if the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) took three days on his own. As one who heard him during the time when I was PPS to the late Dick Crossman, at the time of the Parliament (No. 2) Bill, I know that this would be more than possible. No one can shut the right hon. Gentleman up since a guillotine motion on a constitutional, devolution Bill—if any- 2176 one were sufficiently ill-advised to introduce it—would not be passed by the House. I recommend my hon. Friends to add to their no doubt considerable reading list during the recess Janet Morgan's book on the study of the House of Lords under a Labour Government. I read from page 214: The long days and ghastly nights of the Committee Stage were the despair of the Government Whips. Far more realistic is the opinion of the Government Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) that a devolution Bill would take 28 days on the Floor of the House. I hope that Ministers concerned with devolution will make it clear to every Cabinet Minister—the Chancellor with his Finance Bill, the Secretary of State for Social Services with her pensions and social measures, the Secretary of State for the Environment with his rents legislation, the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection with her counter-inflation legislation and all other Ministers who have cherished Bills and indeed, to my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) who is interested in urgent legislation for the ports—that at least half of the 58 days available to a Government for legislation on the Floor of the House will be taken up with devolution legislation.
I hope, before any commitment is made in the Gracious Speech, that this will be made abundantly clear to every member of the Cabinet committed to legislation outlined in our manifesto and arising from it. I am not as negative as I sound. I believe in the devolution of decision making. Now that we have regions, let my right hon. and hon. Friends use their considerable imagination and energies to see that they work out for the good of the Scottish people.

§ Mr. Iain Sproat (Aberdeen, South)
I congratulate hon. Members on the Nationalist benches on providing us with the opportunity to discuss this matter, although I am afraid that, as they will expect, I cannot congratulate them on very much else. I agree with them that this is an important matter which cannot be discussed too much. This is a good occasion to discuss it, although I must say that the Minister of State has rather 2177 thrown us into confusion by revealing that a devolution unit does not exist. Perhaps for the purpose of the debate we can use that phrase to cover whatever does exist.

§ Mr. Gerry Fowler
There has been long discussion in the hon. Gentleman's country about the Loch Ness monster. There is no evidence that it exists either. We should not, therefore, feel inhibited tonight.

§ Mr. Wyn Roberts (Conway)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you explain to me, as an interested party in this Consolidated Fund Bill debate—I have item No. 10 dealing with education in Wales—how we can continue to discuss the work of the devolution unit in the Lord President's Office when such a unit does not exist, as the Minister of State has confirmed now and in an earlier intervention?

§ Mr. Speaker
I have taken advice on this matter and am advised that it is in order.

§ Mr. Sproat
Perhaps I should make it clear to those who do not know that I think it is time to think again about the way in which we approach the matter of the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. We must be cautious about what we promise the Scottish and Welsh people, otherwise we could find ourselves saddled with a monster.
I put to the House two propositions which I believe to be indisputably true and damaging. The first is that the Assembly idea, in both the Conservative and Labour parties, arose mainly from a fear of what the SNP was doing in Scotland. If we look back at every Scottish Conservative conference where this matter has been debated, it can be seen that it is a widely held impression among supporters of the Conservative Party in Scotland that a rejection of the Assembly concept will lead to the success of the SNP. That is a fear which we should not feel. It is the sort of fear which does not produce the best attitude of mind in which to construct a policy.
The second indisputable proposition which I put to the House before going any further is that there is no doubt that within the Conservative Party, and within the Labour Party, there is considerable confusion about what is wanted. I see 2178 no reason for shame in admitting that. We are seeking to find the best possible solutions to the problems of government in Scotland.
I am not ashamed to say that I disagree with certain of my colleagues on questions of balance. We have already heard about such disagreement from the Labour benches. I hope that we do not allow this matter to become a party political dog-fight. I hope that we shall reject the cheap political slogans which the SNP may try to direct at anyone who disagrees with its point of view, which no doubt it will direct to hon. Members on either side of the House.
The result of the confusion is that both major parties have said "We shall set up an Assembly." The trouble is that they said it before they decided what should be done by the Assembly. That is indisputable. It is a very unsatisfactory position from which to start such a momentous constitutional move. I have a great respect for the Ministers who are concerned, but I very much fear that the tone of the White Paper and the manner in which the House approaches devolution could be adversely affected by whether the SNP does well or does badly.
I undertake that if in the week before we began the debate the SNP was massacred at a by-election, many hon. Members would approach the question in a different frame of mind. That is why I say that we have adopted a dangerous approach. There is the danger of over-reaction to the threat of the SNP as differentiated from the search for better government for Scotland, on which we all agree.
The element of fear and emotionalism has played too great a part in what has happened so far. If that is not so, how can we explain why we committed ourselves to a concept before we had time to define it? I fear that we are in danger of paying too much attention to tactical matters and not entering into long-term strategic thinking. We are in danger of over-reacting to a temporary phase in the political situation in Scotland. We are in danger of letting that approach gravely damage the longer-term constitutional position.
I believe, in common with all my hon. Friends, and no doubt in common with some Labour Members, that we should be 2179 searching for ways in which to devolve power away from London. I have repeatedly given credit—perhaps I can do so again tonight—to the Labour Party for siting the headquarters of the Offshore Supplies Office in Glasgow. Perhaps that shows that I am trying my best not to be biased. I give credit to the Labour Government for deciding that the headquarters of the BNOC should be situated in Scotland. I agree with that decision. This is a meaningful devolution of power away from the centre, and it is an excellent move.
I look for more ways in which that can be done. It may be that the answer lies in some kind of Assembly. I am not against devolution or, indeed, against any form of Assembly, but we suddenly find ourselves facing the most extraordinary notions which are becoming wilder and wilder. We have heard proposals to the effect that the economic control of Scotland should be vested in a Scottish Assembly and that there should be a separate Scottish Civil Service and, indeed, a Scottish Prime Minister. We are being pushed further and further down the slippery slope.
Before the White Paper is completed, this is surely the time to inject into the debate far more common sense and less emotion. We are tinkering with some momentous matters which affect the whole constitution of the United Kingdom. This is not the occasion to over-react to the situation. I see the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) in his place. I am sure he will agree that there are many Tory voters in North Aberdeen who at the last election decided that they would vote for the SNP not because they wanted that party in power but because they thought it was the only way to get the hon. Gentleman out. I think that they were mistaken, but we all know that in various parts of Scotland the ranks of the SNP were swollen. I know that the Government must take these matters into account, but I believe that the question of devolution is getting out of control for reasons which are not justified.
I see many dangers in what we are now considering, and no doubt there will be many opportunities to go into those matters in detail. I wish to mention a number of the dangers. I believe that the United Kingdom, particularly 2180 Scotland, is in grave danger of being over-governed and that this has dangerous consequences. There are five different layers of government with five separate levels of bureaucracy. I refer to district councils, regional councils, the Scottish Assembly, the Houses of Parliament and the European Parliament. We are in grave danger of being choked and stifled by bureaucracy, and, indeed, impoverished by its cost. We are also in grave danger of being over-taxed. The Scottish people in recent months have seen soaring costs in local government and corresponding increases in the rates which they have had to bear. These costs are quite apart from the extra sums of money which we shall have to find to pay for the new Scottish Assembly. In Scotland, and no doubt in the rest of the United Kingdom, saturation point has been reached in the payment of rates and taxes.
Let us take one large area of expense, namely, the cost of the Civil Service. We have heard in this debate that the SNP sees a Scottish Civil Service as a stepping-stone to a Scottish Parliament. We have read about leaks from the Government on the powers they propose for the Scottish Assembly. I have no means of knowing how true or otherwise those rumours are, but obviously what is envisaged is a Scottish Assembly with its own Departments of State. There are over 700,000 civil servants in the United Kingdom. I am speaking now of Whitehall. I am not including those in the nationalised industries or local authorities. On a pro rata basis it is very difficult to see how a Scottish Assembly, with powers over trade, industry and economics, could be set up without at least 50,000 civil servants to service it. That is how I see it on the basis of the leaks that come out, especially from the Scottish National Party. An extra 50,000 Scottish civil servants would be necessary.
There are those who ask whether a new Civil Service would be needed. If a Scottish Assembly were to be set up, it is quite impossible to imagine that the same Civil Service could serve the Secretary of State for Scotland and also a Scottish Assembly. The leader of a Scottish Assembly would very likely be a Labour man—I look forward to the time, incidentally, when we shall have 2181 a Conservative Secretary of State—but this question does not depend on party. I am sure that the present Secretary of State for Scotland would find it absolutely intolerable to have the same civil servants serving him as were serving a Scottish Assembly. Therefore, there would have to be a new and separate Scottish Civil Service.
The cost of those 50,000 civil servants, on the basis of Whitehall, would be an extra £150 million a year on the overburdened taxpayers of this country for salaries alone. There are also many other costs to consider, especially those of running an Assembly. It costs £8 million a year to run the House of Commons. If we added up all these extra sums, the resulting burden upon the people of Scotland would, I am convinced, prove to be intolerable.

§ Mr. Hector Monro (Dumfries)
My hon. Friend is taking the extreme case in his argument. Will he consider taking a more practical line and envisage an Assembly which would basically deal with most of the legislation which we would like to see going through this House in relation to Scotland? Would he not feel that that was more practical than his present theory?

§ Mr. Sproat
I was dealing not with my hon. Friend's ideas which may be very good, but with those emanating from the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman, and from Labour Members and SNP Members. If their ideas were to be put into practice, a separate Civil Service would be required.
I take my hon. Friend's point, but I do not find that the extra burdens in this House are caused by extra Scottish legislation or that this is what makes my life here so congested. The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) mentioned the Clayson Committee. The reason why its report has not been debated more fully is not that we have not the time to do so but that, as has been said, people have different reactions to it. Similarly in the case of Scottish divorce law, in regard to which I have been campaigning, the difficulty has not been in making time for it but because for various reasons the Government do not believe in what some of us are trying to do.
Though I do not agree with it it is perfectly valid to say that there ought 2182 to be Private Members' legislation. I do not accept the argument, though it is a serious one, that the weight of Scottish legislation in this House is a formidable factor here. One of the findings of the Douglas-Home Report was that the amount of Scottish legislation going through this House was much smaller than people thought. I think that the figure was 150 Bills since 1945—most of them very trivial. I do not consider this to be a major factor in the equation, although I take my hon. Friend's point.
My third and last point concerns the dangers that I see. The proposals being put before the people of Scotland at this stage constitute, in my view, the slippery slope to separatism. For the first time in more than two and a half centuries, I believe that we are in grave danger of seeing an independent Scotland, and this is very serious. [Interruption.] It is typical of SNP Members to laugh at a statement like that. It is not a matter for amusement whether Scotland is independent or remains part of the United Kingdom. It is the most serious constitutional matter that we have discussed in this House for many years. But the laughter of SNP Members is typical of the hysterical and shallow approach that we see from them too often. Whether or not we are Scots, it behoves us to take a matter of this kind very seriously.
In my view, the policies of the Scottish National Party are based upon greed, selfishness and wilful misrepresentation. I use the word "greed" because it wants all the North Sea oil for Scotland. When it comes to the Selby coalfield, however, it does not say that all the coal there should remain in Yorkshire.
I ask the Minister of State to think very seriously about this matter. Those who want most desperately to achieve independence are those who believe most strongly that a Scottish Assembly ultimately will achieve that independence. There are other countries which run perfectly happily with a federalist system. A good example is Bavaria. But there is the world of difference between Bavaria, which is part of a country with all the drive that we have seen since the German states were united and where the political dynamism has been towards the centre in a country which is prosperous, expanding and confident, and giving away devolution in a country like the United 2183 Kingdom, where unfortunately we are not expanding, not prosperous and not confident. It may be that 20 years ago we could have done it much more easily than now. It may be true that in 20 years' time it will be possible to do it, but this is no time to be considering rash experiments in devolution.
I believe, too, that the future of the United Kingdom depends very much on what we can achieve in Europe. I want to see the United Kingdom remaining in Europe, with the maximum effort of our 55 million people going there. I do not want to see the United Kingdom divided in a way which will diminish and dilute our influence in Europe and in the wider world. We should be very anxious about this matter, especially because it is my own political belief that at the next General Election we shall see the Scottish National Party massacred.

§ Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarvon)
I wish to turn to the subject of Wales. For that reason I shall not take up in great detail what the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) said, save only to say that had the Conservative Party given serious thought to this matter, as he suggested just now, when the Crowther-Kilbrandon Commission was sitting, and had it given serious evidence and thought out the situation, its members would not now be trying to scratch round for a policy at the eleventh hour before this eventuality comes about.
As for Wales and devolution, there has been a saga in recent years. The Labour Party has wasted no opportunity recently to point out that it has supported the concept of devolution since 1955. Some Government supporters will recall how in distant years their party supported full self-government for Wales. That was when they were only aspiring to power. The concept disappeared rapidly afterwards. Since 1965, however, in the modern era of the Labour Party in Wales, its members have supported the concept of an elected council for Wales. Between 1966 and 1970 there were discussions about this in the Cabinet. The Labour Party gave evidence to the Crowther Commission and later to the Kilbrandon Commission supporting the idea of an elected council for Wales. The party went into the 1974 election giving assurances that 2184 the necessary work was in hand. It gave pledges in the October election to the effect that the Labour Party stood for bringing real and meaningful devolution to Wales and intended to give Wales a National Assembly with real powers that would have an impact on the life of Wales.
What has happened since then? Since last October all the promises and the momentum that was built up over six short months when there was a certainty of an early election have suddenly fizzled out. There has been little movement since the White Paper was brought out shortly before the election. We do not know what the Government's intentions have been over the past 16 months, and we certainly do not know what they have accomplished in terms of work. We had a discussion document, a White Paper, and I understand that another White Paper will be brought out in October. We have all the discussions and all the talk, but the substance of devolution seems just as far away today as it was 16 months ago.
I ask the Minister why the White Paper that is promised for October was not brought out before the Summer Recess. If his right hon. Friends have had 16 months to work on it as a Government and 10 years to work on it as a party, surely by now they have sorted out the essential details. Surely their constitutional experts have sorted out the intricate problems which are taking so long to be rationalised. All the matters that are pertinent to the White Paper could have been published now. We should have had the summer to discuss the White Paper and then the legislation could have been brought forward in October or November. Instead, we shall suffer further delays.
If the matter is as complex and as detailed as the Minister says, requiring a great deal of time, shall we not then hear the argument that we shall need weeks and months to have discussions and feedback on the White Paper before we have the legislation? Is this not just another step in the slower and slower process towards an eventual goal which I do not believe the Government have any intention of achieving?
I submit that a White Paper could and should have been published this month. This is a political delaying tactic. In the 2185 unlikely eventuality that the White Paper will appear on time in October, I wonder whether we shall have legislation through during the next parliamentary year and whether the Government will commit themselves—given the deep division on their own benches, not to mention the divisions in the Conservative Party—to getting the legislation through Parliament during the next Session. Or is it the fact that in their hearts they know—this is the reason for the delay—that they do not have the confidence or the solidarity of a party determined to put this issue into real substance? I suspect that the truth is that the Labour Party is so split on this issue that it knows that it cannot carry it through this House and, therefore, it is trying to play for time until the next election.
The sooner the next election comes, the better it will be for Wales and for the people of Scotland, because then they will have an opportunity to give their judgment on the delays that the Government have shown with this measure.
The Labour Party won the last election, and indeed the previous one, with a pledge on devolution. It makes one wonder what Labour's words mean now. We have witnessed U-turns in Europe and U-turns on wage freezes and industrial policy in Ebbw Vale and Shotton. Is this yet one more somersault? Is this another broken promise which the people of Scotland and Wales will have to suffer? The tragedy is that in all matters affecting Wales the Assembly could be playing a meaningful role if it had the necessary powers to get stuck into the problems. We have economic problems as well as problems of unemployment and low wages. There are problems facing the steel and agriculture industries in Wales. We need an Assembly to tackle and solve those problems. We do not want it as an airy-fairy ideal. We want it as a tool to do the job, because the job needs to be done.

§ Mr. Russell Fairgrieve (Aberdeenshire, West)
I should like to raise a question of importance which concerns all hon. Members who are trying to take a constructive part in the debate. The Scottish National Party wants to take Scotland out of the United Kingdom. Is it the policy of Plaid Cymru to take Wales out of the United Kingdom?

§ Mr. Wigley
It is the policy of my party to give Wales the maximum possible degree of self-government. We need that self-government. [Interruption.] It means going further than the devolution about which we are talking today. We have never tried to hide that.

§ Mr. Gerry Fowler
Would the hon. Gentleman define the maximum possible degree of self-government as what most of us would call independence?

§ Mr. Wigley
I personally reject the term "independence". I do not believe that any country today is totally independent.

§ Mr. Wigley
The United Kingdom is determined to have its own Parliament and process for passing its own laws at Westminster. That does not mean that it cannot play a role in the international sphere at the United Nations or in such organisations as the EEC. That is not necessarily a separatist policy.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Wigley
No, I will not. It is not a separatist policy. The United Kingdom is part of an economic unit called Europe. It is not economic separatism to retain a Parliament in London. The same applies in the context of a fully-self-governing Wales or Scotland. Those two countries can also be members of a greater economic unit. If Labour Members cannot see that point, they have more thinking to do than they have done on this issue.
In all things to do with Wales at this time, the Government have created delay after delay. We have had delay with the annual report of the Welsh Office on affairs in Wales. We are still waiting for it. We have had delay in the taking of action on the Daniel Committee's report which is in the hands of the Secretary of State. It still has not been published. There has been delay in the implementation of the Bowen Report. That was published two years ago, but there has been no action on it.
There has been delay on the recomendations of the Crawford Report. We are still waiting for the Government to take 2187 action. In all directions we have had delay. We have had plenty of empty words but no action. This is a Government of inaction, of platitudes and of procrastination. They will grasp no nettle and will not seriously hold to any problem.
The Government's policy in this context is cosmetic. This is a cosmetic exercise not only in the lack of powers which have been proposed but in the timescale. I believe that, however well-meaning Ministers may be, they are tied down by the soft belly of the Labour Party at Cabinet level. The Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for the Environment are slowing down the process. They do not want to be tied to the promises given by the Labour Party at the election. If we had an election in Wales now, I believe that the false prospectus which they issued at the last election would cost them dearly.
The Government are doing a disservice to everyone because of the uncertainty regarding devolution. This is a disservice to local government in Wales which does not know which functions might be taken from it. The intention of having a Welsh Council, not a Parliament, will inevitably lead to some centralisation as well as decentralisation.
There is uncertainty about the Welsh Development Agency. What will be its relationship with the Assembly? No one knows.
There is uncertainty about the democratisation of the health service in Wales. That is greatly needed. There is uncertainty about the implementation of the Water Act. We need real changes in the water industry.
All this delay is costing Wales valuable time. The people are suffering because 2188 they do not know when there will be any real action and what that action will contain. It is a tragedy for Wales because London, due to its economic bankruptcy, is incapable of sorting out our economic problems. Yet we shall not be given the power and the responsibility to get on with the job ourselves. If London cannot do the job, the least we ask is the power to have a go at doing it ourselves. I am sure that we can do no worse than is being done now.
It has been said that decentralisation by central direction is a contradiction. I suspect that central direction is the background to the delays in the programme for devolution. I do not believe that the Government have their hearts in devolution. They do not want to see this transfer of power from London to Cardiff and Edinburgh. Wales will get only a modicum of meagre crumbs of self-determination when the Labour Party has suffered the dire electoral consequences which it deserves to suffer for delays over this issue.
There are signs that this is already happening in Wales. The local elections in Glamorgan and Monmouth have shown losses to Plaid Cymru. That pattern will continue and be reflected at the next General Election. Wales has been faithful to the Labour Party for far too long and the disillusionment it suffered from 1966 to 1970 is being repeated. Once again a Labour Government are going back on promise after promise. A Labour Government are following Tory policies, and it is no better for us in Wales to have a Labour Party with such policies than it is for us to have a Tory Government. We have no interest in keeping in power a Government of words and not action. If there is no change in this outlook, the best solution for Wales and Scotland would be the earliest possible General Election and a new Government.

§ Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea East)
I would only say to the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley)—better cosmetics than the ugly face of separatism which he and his fellows represent.
He was clearly in difficulties when trying to define the constitutional position of his party in relation to Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. In fairness to him, he is not wholly a member of the folk-lore wing of his party. He has had some experience in industry, but his party has talked recently of separatism for Wales with the country having all the trappings of sovereignty including seats at the United Nations and in the EEC and as many of the trappings of an independent State as feasible. The hon. Member for Caernarvon has said that delays would not be acceptable. I believe that delays would not only be acceptable but desirable, if anything produced to this House had the possibility of developing into the sort of Assembly that the hon. Member for Caernavon and his hon. Friends would like to see. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House would want delay if there were any potential in the Government's proposals for development into that sort of Assembly. I have every confidence that there will be no such potential.
The hon. Member for Caernarvon said that Wales had been good to the Labour Party. It is fair to say that the Labour Party has been good to Wales. The hon. Member gave the Labour Party credit for recent constitutional developments in Wales. We established the office of Secretary of State for Wales in 1964, fulfilling an election pledge, and the distinguished first holder of the office was Mr. James Griffiths. There have been successive additions to the powers and responsibilities of the Secretary of State with the process developing by trial and error. Additional responsibilities have been given as the Secretary of State and the Civil Service have appeared capable of taking them on. These developments were continued to some extent by the Conservative Party and this evolutionary process continued on 1st July this year when the Government handed over additional industrial and economic powers. All this has been a natural development 2190 in accordance with the normal way the British constitution has developed.
Some of us fear that the Welsh Assembly, which may have responsibility over a whole range of the Secretary of State's present responsibilities, may be a totally new dimension and outside the sensible process of development which we have seen since the inception of the Welsh Office in 1964. Such developments would be wrong and unwelcome.
I was born and brought up in Wales and I represent a Welsh constituency. There are two broad approaches to the question of an Assembly. There is one starting point, which is that Wales is a nation. It must have all the attributes of statehood, a separate Parliament and a seat at the United Nations, which the hon. Member's colleagues talk about. It seems that this is somehow necessary because of the inherent nationhood of Wales, whatever may or may not be the benefits to the Welsh people of that starting point.
There are others whose approach is radically different, whose concern is rather with the better governance of Wales and who ask themselves under which constitutional system the well-being of the people in Wales would be best preserved and enhanced. The answer to that second question may be some form of Assembly, and I think that it is. But the responsibilities devolved upon that Assembly, and the growth potential within that Assembly derived from the second approach, will be radically different from the first.
Let those who, possibly for romantic reasons, dally with the separatists beware. They remind me in some way of those liberal French aristocrats before the revolution about whom one percipient observer said, "Those who are playing with the flames will one day be devoured by them", and they were, and mightily so.
The relationship of the separatists with those romantics who sit with them is rather like the relationship of some people in the so-called Popular Fronts who dally with members of the Communist Party but who know very well that at the first practical opportunity they and their policies will be ditched. That is a risk 2191 of which people should be very well aware.
My fear is that for some—the SNP has said this openly and frankly—the Assembly is only the half-way house on the way to separatism. Let those of us who do not believe in separatism take this fact to our own hearts and consider how far we are prepared to go along this road with them and co-operate with them, knowing that what they desire is radically different from our own aims.
There are more practical sides to devolution. I had not intended to participate in the debate, but seeing the serried ranks of separatists on the Opposition benches I thought that rather than permit a separatist feast it would be helpful to have a representative from a party which can claim to be the Welsh party, and not just from a party which did not have but 10 per cent. of the total Welsh vote in two General Elections in 1974 and which had its views on Europe radically repudiated in the referendum.

§ Mr. Buchan
So were the views of the Labour Party, I regret.

§ Mr. Anderson
Not the views of my Government or the views of the majority of moderate opinion in this country. In so far as one can draw any conclusions about recent political trends, I ask the hon. Member for Caernarvon to look carefully at his own county of Gwynedd and to see how the views of his party on Europe were so substantially repudiated by his own people in the referendum.

§ Mr. Wigley
The hon. Member may be aware that I was in some disagreement with my party on that issue. In my county of Gwynedd I recommended a "Yes" vote and a "Yes" vote was cast. No doubt the hon. Member will interpret that vote as a growth in the influence of Plaid Cymru in the area.

§ Mr. Anderson
It is always difficult to take up this issue with the hon. Gentleman. I do not want to embarrass him because I fear that he is not beyond redemption.
In relation to the reaction in Wales to the question of an Assembly, by chance I received a letter from my city council 2192 dated 18th July signed by the town clerk, Mr. Rees. It states: I am directed by my Council to draw to your attention their concern over the proposed setting up of a Welsh Assembly. The Council are critical of additional expenditure being incurred on these proposals during the present economic situation. That sentiment, which I expect is held by both sides of my city council, will find a ready echo in all parts of Wales. I see that the spokesman for the Opposition agrees. Apart from the point made about priorities in Government time in the next Session and the need to accommodate all other Bills within that period, the concern of our people about escalating public expenditure both at central and local government level is one to which the Government should pay close heed at present.
My city council is concerned only with the present proposals of the White Paper for an executive Assembly in Wales as opposed to the legislative Assembly proposed for Scotland. The question has to be asked whether the executive Assembly as proposed for Wales is a real stopping place or whether there will be irresistible pressures by those who have an empire-building syndrome or who hold the view that all our problems can be solved by a Welsh Assembly to proceed to the next stage. I can visualise the arguments as the vested interests start arming and pushing us further along that road, possibly to eventual separatism.
Lack of enthusiasm has been mentioned, and a point has been raised about the cross-voting in Aberdeen. Certainly in a number of Welsh constituencies there was a degree of voting in favour of an anti-Labour coalition. The obvious example is Carmarthen, which distorted the Nationalists' success at the 1974 election. There is a danger that the Government will introduce proposals at a time after what appears to be a tide for devolution has passed and the Government's proposals will be stranded, as if on a sandbank.
In February this year the Leader of the House said that the great devolution debate was over and that he wanted us to discuss just the nuts and bolts, whether there should be dual representation, the size of constituencies and so on. It is sad that there has not been a wider 2193 debate in Parliament because of the constitutional implications involved.
The Leader of the House gave the impression, to me at least, that the Government had only just woken up to the complexities and the constitutional intricacies of the issues—they were sleep-walking in a constitutional minefield—and the impression was that while having this Welsh Assembly one could still preserve intact all the existing constitutional structures; we could have our Welsh Assembiy and still have Welsh local government in exactly the same form after reorganisation. There must be a large question mark over whether one can at the same time have a Welsh Assembly, the larger county councils after reorganisation, the district councils and the community councils. We must be prepared for yet another local government upheaval as a result of a Welsh Assembly. That is one of the delusions under which I fear the Government are currently labouring.
Another delusion is that this House can continue in exactly the same way following devolution to a Welsh Assembly. My view is that if the Assembly—first at the executive level, and later at the legislative level—takes over those areas of policy currently overseen by the Secretary of State, there will be relatively little left for the representatives of Welsh constituencies here in Parliament. Certainly what may be called the welfare rôle of Members of Parliament will be taken away—that is, those things which we meet every weekend in our surgeries, where the shoe really pinches on our people, health services, education and so on.
This Parliament will be pulled in two directions. On the one hand, the broad range of welfare functions closest to our people will be taken away from here and we shall find it more difficult to question the Secretary of State. On the other level, macro-economic and foreign policy questions may well increasingly flow to Brussels. So we shall have a two-way split, pulling power away in two directions.
There will inevitably be pressures for lower representation from Wales at Westminster. Conservatives may well welcome this. As a Socialist I find it an alarming prospect, possibly condemning England to 2194 eternal Conservative Governments. But it is clear that there are profound implications for this House and for the work of this House as the process of devolution continues.
One is bound to be reminded of the rôle of the Ulster Unionists in the House. When I was first in Parliament, from 1966 to 1970, they were neither fish nor fowl. They were clearly not accepted in Northern Ireland. They were swept away on a tide in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were not accepted in this place. Indeed, their presence here was resented when there was a Government with a small majority and their votes appeared to have some importance. Not one Ulster Unionist attained any significant office during the whole time that I recall, although I think that Mr. Chichester-Clark was Minister of State at the Department of Employment. But no other Ulster Unionist achieved a high governmental office.
Hon. Members should contrast that with the rôle played by Welshmen in this Parliament over the ages. We have had our Prime Minister in Lloyd George. We currently have the Foreign Secretary representing a Welsh seat. We have a large number of Welshmen in the Cabinet, holding superior offices—[An HON. MEMBER: "And Mr. Speaker."] It was with a certain modesty that I thought I should not mention Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I was just wondering where the expatriates came in.

§ Mr. Anderson
There must be an answer to that, Mr. Speaker, but I cannot think of it off the cuff.
It is clear that as a result of our integration into the United Kingdom we in Wales, at a personal level, have been able to play a most significant rôle in this Parliament. One has to ask whether the career structures and the possibilities for our own people will be the best that are possibly conceivable if the process of devolution continues. There is the personal level, but that is not the important thing from the point of view of the people of Wales. The real question is about the power when decisions are made which affect the well-being of Wales.
As a result of devolution and of more power flowing to Cardiff, will there be the real weight for Wales at Cabinet 2195 level, where for the foreseeable future the decisions which vitally affect our people will be made? On certain models of devolution, that weight will not be there and would be seriously threatened in the future.
I could continue. I was thinking of following the line taken by the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) and discussing transport policy and education policy in my constituency. Smokescreens have issued from the devolution unit, or constitution unit, which were alarming from the point of view of those who, like myself, prefer a more evolutionary approach. It has been said that the Government's proposals will be in favour of devolution at every turn. There is a danger that if education were devolved to Wales the decisions would be made on a narrow and parochial basis. The Welsh have traditionally trained more teachers than they need, although many of their people attended colleges of education outside Wales. If the education budget were under the control of a Welsh Assembly, there would be a danger that the Assembly would adopt a parochial view and endeavour to produce teachers simply for the needs of Wales. [Interruption.]

§ Mr. William Hamilton
Order. Let the man speak.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)
It is for the Chair to call for order.

§ Mr. Anderson
There is a danger that if decisions were taken on a parochial basis there would be a more separatist outlook on education, about which such an attitude should not exist.
There are smoke signals coming from that devolution unit. However, I have every confidence in the Secretary of State and the Government. Those smoke signals do not belie the true facts. When the White Paper, or the White Paper with green edges, is produced, its proposals will follow the evolutionary tradition, which I favour. It would be unfortunate if the Government, like generals, looked over their shoulders and found that the troops were not following. I am sure that sensible proposals will eventually be produced, as the Government are aware—as are the people of Wales—that the 2196 important decisions will be taken in Westminster and Whitehall. The voice of the Welsh people must be heard strongly here. There is a case for an Assembly to bring under control the all-Welsh ad hoc bodies dealing with subjects such as water and health, which have proliferated in the past. On that limited basis many of us accept the need for devolution. Beyond that we have considerable doubts. The debate about the constitutional implications of devolution has not yet begun either in this House or in the country.

§ Sir Anthony Meyer (Flint, West)
Our Scottish colleagues must be a little worried by the evident absence of rancour which prevails between the Welsh Members of Parliament speaking on this issue. It is explained by the fact that, unlike the situation in Scotland, Plaid Cymru represents no conceivable threat to either of the two major parties, except possibly in a few rotten boroughs in the heart of Labour South Wales.
I propose to follow the two highly intelligent, if perhaps somewhat lengthy, speeches from Government back-bench Members in being unreservedly critical of the Gadarene rush towards devolution. My remarks concern only Wales. I shall not venture to express any views about devolution in Scotland, although many of my reasons for opposing devolution in the Welsh context must hold good for the United Kingdom.
Despite my earlier remarks, I have a high regard for those representatives of Plaid Cymru who are present in the House. They at least believe in what they say. In that they differ from the Labour Party, which in this matter has followed a most inglorious policy of flying from what is supposed to be a terrible enemy and is now in the humiliating posture of abject flight from something which it is not sure exists at all.
The Kilbrandon Commission was set up at a time when nationalism appeared to be an almost irresistible force. It seemed only common prudence to give some ground to it. The commission's report represents the confused reactions of a large number of highly intelligent men who, confronted with something which they reckoned had to be given way to, produced a series of uneasy compromises, none of which commanded any 2197 enthusiasm from the members of the commission as a whole and few of which have been received with enthusiasm by any organised group of people outside.
By the time the commission came to report, the steam was already going out of nationalism. By now the balloon is totally flat. It may revive, particularly if European union becomes a reality, as I ardently hope it will. If we had a European political union there might be a great deal more to be said for far-reaching, extensive devolution. Political devolution makes no sense in a political unit the size of the United Kingdom. It might make much more sense in a political unit the size of Europe. Whether we are talking of Europe or only of the United Kingdom, the one certainty is that the people do not want it.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) put this and kindred issues very clearly in the remarkable speech he made in yesterday's debate on the Employment Protection Bill when he said that democracy was a matter of counting heads—one man, one vote. He went on to say that there was another view of democracy and that it is active participation by the concerned. Active participation by the concerned is a valuable asset, but it is not democracy—it has absolutely nothing to do with democracy. Often active participation by the concerned is the very reverse of democracy because frequently what the concerned want is not what the majority want."—[Official Report, 30th July 1975; Vol 896, c. 1855.] That is true of the nationalist movement in Wales and perhaps also in Scotland. There has to be far more evidence than we have seen so far, and certainly far more evidence than is provided by a few by-elections in a few rotten boroughs, that people want devolution as opposed to telling the Labour Government what they think of them.
We need far more evidence that people are happy to bear the additional cost of the salaries of what in Wales are to be called senators, and the salaries of the officials who will be required to service this new body. We should like to be enlightened about this non-existent unit and to hear from the Minister the latest thinking about whether there is to be a separate Civil Service in both Scotland and Wales to service the Assemblies.
2198 We need more evidence that people are happy to bear the soaring costs of constructing what will have to be a purpose-built building to house the Assembly. It is clearly unthinkable that anything so radical, new and innovatory should be housed in an adapted building. Against all this expense—not a conjectural expense, but a certain, costed expense—must be set the alleged benefits of bringing government closer to the people, of getting people more involved, of getting the active participation of the concerned.
I do not think anybody can seriously argue that any of the half-hearted compromises put forward by the Kilbrandon Commission, and now being considered by the Government, will do anything to enlist the active participation of the concerned. I doubt whether anything short of the total independence which the Scottish National Party overtly, and Plaid Cymru are little more carefully, are demanding would do that. I doubt whether anything bringing in its train hardship, suffering and the need to stand together against a hostile world will enlist the active participation of the concerned. If it did, it would enlist it at a material price which few would be prepared to pay.

§ Mr. Buchan
The minority Kilbrandon Report approached the matter from a different direction, which might involve this kind of active participation without the necessity of the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. That is the emphasis on democracy. That was the kernel of the minority report, and it impinges on what the hon. Gentleman is saying, as being the means of achieving active participation.

§ Sir A. Meyer
That is a valid point, but the minority report, although it put its finger on the problem very accurately, did not come up with a set of institutional answers which would have given material satisfaction to the feelings which it correctly identified.
The plain fact is that the people of Wales, as of the other parts of the United Kingdom, are hopelessly over-governed. There are already far too many civil servants, both national and local. As the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) pointed out, the proportion of 2199 administrators being carried by industry is reaching a level at which it entails serious inefficiency and a great deal of discontent. These civil servants, local and national, are being carried on the backs of the ratepayer and the taxpayer.
The situation has become considerably worse since the measure of local government reform, which was the worst mistake made by the previous Government. The new counties and districts, although bigger, are no more economical than the old. There is as much overlap between county and district as there was between the old counties and the old boroughs, nowhere more evident than in planning, where the lunatic decision was taken to transfer planning down to the districts.
The new councils, larger and allegedly more efficient, have spawned beneath them, in Wales at any rate, a whole new layer of community councils, each with its own mayor, chain of office and annual civic dinner, all to be paid for, directly or indirectly, by the ratepayer. On top of all this, it is proposed that we should have the new and even more expensive layer of a Welsh National Assembly.
If there had to be a change—and I would very much have preferred that there should not be—if it was really necessary to give institutional expression to nationalism, which is apparently so irresistible, I would have settled for the abolition of the new, enlarged counties and their combination into a single Welsh regional authority. That authority would have the powers now enjoyed by the county councils. At least administratively from the point of view of cost this would have been a tolerable solution, although I do not pretend for one minute that it would have gone any way to satisfy the urge for national expression.
At least it would have provided some kind of focus without actually breaking up the United Kingdom and it might, temporarily at any rate, have taken some of the steam out of devolution until such time as, as has now happened, devolution lost its own steam anyway. This solution has been rejected, but it may happen the other way round and we may find that if we set up a Welsh National Assembly and it gets into its stride it will be the county councils which will wither away and find themselves losing their functions to the 2200 Assembly at Cardiff. It is for that reason that the initial enthusiasm of some of the leading people in local government in Wales for the idea of a Welsh National Assembly has lately shown considerable signs of waning.
The ship of state is being launched on a wave which is already receding. It is not a swelling tide. If we commit ourselves irrevocably to this course of action we shall, I fear, be repeating without having learnt it the lesson so clearly set out by Professor Parkinson in that immortal work of his when he said: Examples abound of new institutions coming into existence with a full establishment of deputy directors, consultants, and executives, all these coming together with a building specially designed for their purpose. And experience proves that such an institution will die. It is choked by its own perfections. It cannot take root for lack of soil. It cannot grow naturally for it is already grown. Fruitless by its very nature it cannot even flower. When we see an example of such planning—when we are confronted with examples by the building designed for the United Nations"— and no doubt later editions of "Parkinson's Law" will say: when we are confronted by the building designed for the Welsh Assembly the experts among us shake their heads sadly, draw a sheet over the corpse, and tiptoe quietly into the open air.

§ Mr. Gordon Wilson (Dundee, East)
May I say on behalf of my hon. Friends on the Scottish National bench how much we welcome all those who have joined with us in this debate and discussed, however widely, the remit and functions of the devolution unit, whether or not it exists. Certainly we know that the office of the Lord President is entrusted with certain constitutional functions which are costing certain sums of money. It is therefore under that pretext, if I can call it that—a sound pretext—that we are considering the work of this unit.

§ Mr. Gerry Fowler
Can we clear up this terminological point? I do not want to be a bore but the Constitution Unit, which is the proper name, is in the Cabinet Office and not in the Privy Council Office.

§ Mr. Buchan
Why is Harold not here?

§ Mr. Wilson
I agree with the remarks so ably put by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan). Unfor- 2201 tunately we cannot seem to tempt the Prime Minister into this House on any pretext these days. I am glad to hear that not only do we now have one body which is working on the constitution but that we apparently have two bodies. Perhaps it is because we have two that they have been twisted with each other and we cannot get anything out in terms of a definitive White Paper which says exactly what the Government intend.
This debate is not taking place in a vacuum. The hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) should be aware that in Scotland at least—I cannot speak for Wales—there is a substantial volume of opinion in all parties, including ours, in favour of the maximum legislative devolution. It is true that in some parties a split is developing on the nature of the Assembly and on whether there should be an Assembly at all.
I cannot understand why such a split should be developing within the Labour Party. As I read its manifesto, it was clear that it was committed to devolution in the form of an elected Assembly for Scotland. I would have thought that any Member elected on that basis would have grave difficulties in arguing himself out of the position adopted in the manifesto.
I do not think it is right for the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) to suggest that all the votes representing devolution or self-government would go to my colleague Mr. William Wolfe, the chairman of my party. When considering devolution and self-government we must also bear in mind party loyalties. That has been reflected in the polls in the past. Leaving aside the position of the SNP in West Lothian, it is for the hon. Gentleman to establish his viewpoint in the light of the Labour Party's manifesto commitment, which he undertook to uphold when he became a candidate for the Labour Party at the last election. We must also bear in mind the comment which the Lord President made about the meeting he attended in West Lothian at which devolution was discussed.
As for the Conservative Party, I think that we have heard only the views of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat), someone who is against devolution.

§ Mr. Sproat
I am not against devolution.

§ Mr. Wilson
We know that there are others in the Conservative Party who are in favour of a Scottish Assembly. Maybe we shall hear some contributions from them at a later stage.
In many ways the Conservative Party in Scotland tends to resemble a dismasted drifting hulk. All sorts of views emanate from the Conservatives at present. I am not sure whether that is because they are in a state of confusion or whether they are reconsidering their whole existence.

§ Mr. Buchan
The hon. Gentleman will accept that a number of different views are held by those in the Conservative Party, but does he not accept that that is the position in his own party?

§ Mr. Wilson
I have not noticed any opposition on the part of my hon. Friends on this score. The hon. Gentleman should be satisfied with the divisions in his own ranks without trying to create divisions elsewhere.
I welcome the White Paper which is being promised for the second week in October. That is a small march forward. At least the Government are now committed to a definite date for a White Paper. I only hope that it will be much more solid in content and material than have been other productions from the Lord President's office, if I may steer my way through all the terminological divisions of the constitutional work that is done by Her Majesty's Government.
Certainly there has been much slow work. Many of the opinions being expressed within the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in Scotland on this issue would suggest a wish to restrict any powers that an Assembly might possess. There is a degree of disquiet developing among many folk about the Government's intentions. There are certain powerful figures in the Government who may be intent upon stultifying or negativing the work of the Lord President's Department. There have been enough reports in the Press to that effect, although I accept that we cannot trust everything we read in the papers. However, the frequency of such reports suggests that there must be a germ of truth in them somewhere. If the 2203 Minister can give some information to help the House to clarify the matter and to allay disquiet on the nature of the Assembly being proposed by the Government, that would be welcome.
I put two specific questions to the Minister relating to the functions which I hope he might see fit to have transferred to the Scottish Assembly. My first question concerns energy policy. Clearly Scotland occupies a position that is quite different from other parts of the United Kingdom in that it will soon be an energy-exporting country. The policies of energy-exporting countries are very different from those adopted by countries which have to import energy. I should like to see this aspect coming under the control of the Scottish Assembly.
With regard to coal, it is perfectly true that the Selby coalfield has been discovered in England, and we are perfectly happy about it on this bench. We would welcome the prospect of oil being discovered off the English coast, because we do not wish England to suffer, just as we do not wish Scotland to suffer. There is no reason why, from our surplus, we should not be able to buy coal from England at the market price, just as we could sell oil to England at the market price.
It is sensible for any country, in considering its energy policy, to deploy whatever investment capital is available towards alternative energy sources. There have been recent reports of fairly substantial coal seams extending under the Forth. These would have to be explored further and decisions taken on the nature of the investment which would follow. Were these seams to be as rich and worth while as has been suggested, I am sure that the Scottish Assembly would wish to devote funds to this development.

§ Mr. Dalyell
The Kinneil Valleyfield exploration underneath the Forth is exceedingly expensive. Frankly that kind of experiment has to be financed out of the proceeds of the English coal industry.

§ Mr. Wilson
If Scotland had resources from other forms of energy, and if it was politic to continue with experiments 2204 of that sort and to exploit the energy resources of Scotland in the long-term sense, it would be wise to do so. My point here is that in relation to that policy, whatever the political implications, it should be a Scottish Assembly that would look at the investment which might be made in relation to energy.
In the electricity industry there are two boards in Scotland which are presently under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland and which, I suggest, should come under much closer scrutiny by the Scottish Assembly. I find myself quite frustrated frequently, in finding out information about the boards, that they are not always under parliamentary surveillance. This is a point which is made frequently. It was certainly made in the Committee considering the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill, of which I was a member for some time. Members of Parliament want to be able to ask Questions on the nationalised industries more effectively than is the case at present. I hope that the unit, under whatever name it now has, will consider this question of energy in its full sense. It would be sensible for all these things to be co-ordinated.
I should like to see the nuclear generating capability of Scotland examined in greater detail, because I am rather worried about some of the present trends. I should like to have these matters debated and discussed, and the Scottish Assembly would be the ideal place for this.
The second function which I should like to see sent to the Assembly is the reform of domestic legislation. I recognise that probably the Government cannot make a statement on this here and now. When I questioned the Lord Advocate three weeks ago he gave an answer which was very cagey about the law reform possibilities of the Assembly, and I think I know his reason for it. He did not wish to step into territory which is the property of the Minister who is to reply to this debate. Will be now confirm, however, that in terms of legislation it is the Government's intention that law reform in Scotland on matters like those dealt with by Clayson, registration of title, which is vital, the conveyancing system, divorce, reparation, bankruptcy and so on would all be able to go to the Assembly and be processed there? I think it would be 2205 a natural extension of the functions of the Assembly that it should be able to deal with the indigenous legal system of Scotland.
I say a word about costs. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South said that the regions were costing a great deal of money and that he did not wish to see this form of profligacy repeated. I agree with him. I believe that the regions themselves should go. That in itself would lead to simplification. Unless I be taxed with the retort that this is a quick view of the Scottish National Party, I might point out that we have maintained all along that Scotland should be organised on rural and urban districts—allpurpose authorities. We opposed the building up of the regions because we could see the empire-building which was likely to occur.

§ Mr. J. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)
I am very interested in this. Is the hon. Gentleman say that it is his party's policy that the regions should go totally? This is very important. I am one of those who think that Scotland is hopelessly over-governed and that some tier has to go. But are the Members of the hon. Gentleman's party clear that it is the regions which have to disappear—lock, stock and barrel?

§ Mr. Wilson
Yes, and that is consistent with the view which we propounded to Wheatley. It is also consistent with the view which we put to this House more than a year ago that the new regions should not come into existence and that they should be frozen until the work of the unit had been completed. The way that the regions have developed and the way that costs and rates have escalated do not give us cause to change that view. We should have preferred to see more ad hoc bodies. Once structures are erected with rating powers, automatically they build up in manpower as well as in power itself.
We hear a great deal of talk about the cost of devolution and about the increase in the number of civil servants which will result. We should be thinking more not of building up new Departments in Scotland but of transferring them. Scotland already meets its share of the costs of the United Kingdom Civil Service. If central Government functions are transferred, 2206 that should lead to simplification and not to an increase in the number of civil servants. I for one would want to keep a keen eye on the effects of Parkinson's Law which says that offices expand to fill the opportunities available for them. Therefore, from the outset great care should be taken to ensure that in transferring real powers we do not go in for over-manning in the Civil Service.
When it comes to wasting money, someone should turn his attention to this place. I read a Parliamentary Answer today that the number of cars in the pool available for Ministers was about 220.

§ Mr. Grimond
No, it was 205.

§ Mr. Wilson
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Their cost was given at more than £1 million a year.

§ Mr. Grimond
The hon. Gentleman is wrong again. It was £1.25 million.

§ Mr. Wilson
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman again. Then we have the garage downstairs. I used it for the first time this week. I had never penetrated it before. I was astonished to discover that it goes down five storeys—I hasten to add that I have not been that far down, but I notice that the lifts go down five floors. Unless the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) happens to know, I am afraid that I cannot say what the cost of that was. It must have amounted to millions of pounds. But such an edifice, if a massive hole in the ground can be called that, is a waste of money. I do not know what lunatic decisions were taken about it, but it was waste of the worst order.

§ Mr. Malcolm Rifkind (Edinburgh, Pentlands)
Does the hon. Member agree that even if his hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) was not out of order in discussing during this debate the problems of MacBrayne's, he might be moving slightly out of order in referring to the lifts in this building?

§ Mr. Wilson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who obviously seeks the chairmanship of one of the Committees of the House. I take the point, but time is moving on.

§ Mr. Dalyell
The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) will not complain if he finds that the playground 2207 of the Royal House is a bit small for all our cars.

§ Mr. Wilson
One of the advantages of Edinburgh is that walking might be appropriate. I either walk here or use the Underground. I am merely making the point that costs can escalate, and this must be borne in mind. If we have a Parliament which is overcrowded with business, as this one is, and where there are few controls over expenditure, we may waste a vast amount.
I turn to the EEC. In the few months left to it before it drafts its White Paper and comes back from its holiday, the unit must consider what the rôle of the Assembly will be with the EEC. Since the referendum the EEC has constituted an entirely new element in the political life of the United Kingdom as well as Scotland. Nothing will be the same again. As the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) has rightly said—I am sorry he is not present this evening—it represents a transfer of sovereignty. There is a need for representation in the EEC, and this might include the Council of Ministers.
I was pleased to note in a reply from the Lord Advocate that he is playing a quite active rôle in Common Market matters concerning law reform. I hope that the Government will take into account the need for full Scottish representation on all Common Market bodies.
I wish to make an apology to the Minister because I shall not be able to stay to the end of the debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame".] I prefer to make an apology rather than slink off as some other hon. Members might do.

§ Mr. Rifkind
Why is the hon. Member not staying?

§ Mr. Wilson
Because I have to run some people home.

§ Mr. Rifkind
We all have to do that.

§ Mr. Wilson
I thought I was being polite to the Minister.

§ Mr. Sproat
The hon. Gentleman is an insult to the House.

§ Mr. Wilson
I shall look at the Minister's comments in the Official Report and study them with the greatest of interest.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)
I confess some surprise at the choice of the topic for debate, namely the work of the devolution unit. I hope that the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) and his colleagues will not think it remiss of me if I say that I did not think they were interested in devolution. As I understand it their policy, despite the difficulties which they sometimes encounter when the words "separatism" and "self-government" are used, has always been that they do not believe that devolution is an answer to Scotland's problems. If that is the case, they should not be surprised if I express some surprise that they should take such a close interest in the workings of the devolution unit.
The devolution unit is about devolution and not about independence. I am a little concerned about what the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) said. I shall refer to him at this time because he may not be with us much longer. The hon. Gentleman continually says—he has done so on almost every occasion he has spoken, and certainly this week—that there is disquiet in the country and that the work of the devolution unit has been held up or slowed down for some reason or another.
My right hon. and hon. Friends the Lord President of the Council, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Under-Secretary of State and the Minister of State, Privy Council Office have repeatedly said over the past two or three months, or possibly longer, that the work of preparing the plans for devolution, the White Paper and eventually the Bill are on target and that there is no delay. Yet the hon. Member for Dundee, East, despite all the assurances that he is given, gets up and with authority—I do not know what his authority is, because he can presumably refer only to Press reports which feed upon his Questions to Ministers and statements—still continues to say that the work of the devolution unit is being held up. It is not being held 2209 up. The hon. Gentleman knows that perfectly well. He is simply scare-mongering and trying to cause disquiet in the country.

§ Mr. Gordon Wilson
The hon. Gentleman may like to know that I intend to stay to hear the end of his speech. Did he not read the reports—admittedly in the Press, but that is the usual place where one reads reports—of the abortive conference at Chequers which was convened to discuss devolution? On the strength of those reports, does the hon. Member consider that the work of the devolution unit might have been impeded in the way I suggested?

§ Mr. Hughes
I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and other hon. Members appreciate that I am still bound by the Official Secrets Act. If I believed everything that I read in the Press concerning what happens either in this House or in the Government, I should be driven silly trying to make out what was going on. If the hon. Gentleman bases his authority on Press reports of what happens at Chequers, he is not doing his job properly as a Member of Parliament. He should base his authority not on anonymous or partly anonymous reports in the Scotsman, the Glasgow Herald or whatever paper it is, but on what my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench say on this question.
We must understand that the devolution unit has an enormously difficult task. For the first time in the history of this country, we are considering having a written constitution. Whereas one can re-write or make modifications to a written constitution, it is virtually impossible—not impossible, but difficult—to start to write a constitution. I am not aware of any previous exercise where a unitary parliamentary system has been changed into a devolutionary system with separate Parliaments, except following some cataclysmic event such as war, a serious uprising or other difficulty of that kind.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
Norway and Sweden in 1906.

§ Mr. Hughes
They are not adequate comparisons.
We are beginning a serious constitutional matter of enormous complexity. Therefore, it is important to make up our 2210 minds where we are going. It is important, once we produce the plans, that the devolved Assembly should work. The Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru must come clean with us on their approach to the Assembly. [Interruption.] I am not concerned about who is not here. I am concerned about the people who are here. If the hon. Lady the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) wishes to make a speech, I shall have the courtesy to stay and listen. Perhaps she will let me get on with my speech.
What is the Nationalists' approach to the Assembly? I apologise to the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) for missing his speech, but the approach of his hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East was different from the SNP approach at elections and party rallies throughout Scotland. The Nationalists' close interest in what is happening in the devolution unit leads us to the conclusion that they believe that the Assembly will remain in operation for a number of years trying to tackle the enormous problems now facing Scotland. In the country, however, the SNP says that it wants independence and that nothing short of independence is good enough.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
I must make this clear. We are faced with this conundrum whenever there is a debate on devolution. Our answer is quite straightforward and is on the record. We will take part in the Assembly and do our best to make it work. At the same time our aim is independence for Scotland, and we will be fully entitled to press for that even after the Assembly is set up.

§ Mr. Hughes
I do not think that answer is satisfactory. The SNP is denying what it fought the election on. SNP Members cast aspersions on my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) because he was questioning the wisdom of devolution. They say that they will work within the Assembly, but how long will they give it? They cannot answer that question because they know that the only way their policy can continue to command some support in Scotland is if they constantly denigrate and try to break up the Assembly. The more effective the Assembly proves to be, the less will people be concerned with 2211 independence. What is the Nationalists' policy? Will they stand on a bogus prospectus at elections and say that they will give the Assembly a chance to work?
What I find so reprehensible about hon. Members in the SNP is their suggestion that a major or minor constitutional change or the granting of independence to Scotland will miraculously and quickly cure all Scotland's endemic problems such as housing and unemployment. They know it is not true. An Assembly or an independent Government would need time to work. The SNP Members are the real enemies of devolution. They cannot afford to make it work. They should make clear to the people of Scotland where they stand.
The hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) got into the same difficulties as did the hon. Member for the Western Isles to a lesser extent about the aims of his party. The hon. Member for Caernarvon used the expression "maximum of self-government". He found it difficult to answer when he was asked whether he meant independence or separatism. What he really meant was the establishment of a nation State. I am pleased to see that the SNP are all nodding in agreement. We must ask what it is about Scotland which needs the creation of a nation State.

§ Mrs. Bain
Because it is a nation.

§ Mr. Hughes
Of course the Scots are a nation, and no one denies that. It is a question of culture. There is no reason to suppose that nationhood automatically needs the creation of a nation State. In the United States the Red Indian tribes are ethnically, linguistically and culturally a separate nation. Does that mean that there automatically must be a nation State for those Red Indians? There was a long debate in the 1930s about whether the Negroes of the United States represented a separate nation and whether they should have a nation State of their own.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
Is the hon. Member denying that the Negroes are Americans?

§ Mr. Hughes
Of course not. That is precisely the point. Because the Negroes in the United States are ethnically and cul- 2212 turally different, it does not follow that they are not Americans or that they should have a separate nation State. It also does not follow on that basis that the Scots should have a separate nation State.
The only country I know that operates on the basis of nation States is South Africa, where the South African Government take the view that each of the Bantu tribes is a nation unto itself because of its culture and so on, and therefore each should be a nation State. The practice, of course, does not always follow the theory. Curiously, they do not carry that to its logical conclusion because the culture, the language and, I suppose, the beginnings of the English-speaking people in South Africa are totally different from those of the Afrikaans-speaking people. No one in South Africa argues that there should be separate Afrikaans-speaking or English-speaking nation States. There is not, therefore, this automatic equation between nationhood and the nation State.
I wonder exactly what a nation State of Scotland would be composed of. It could not be based on racial purity. As far as I know there are no racially pure Scots. It could not be based on language. To some extent, of course, Plaid Cymru bases its claim on language, but there is no Scottish language which is universal to Scotland. Therefore, I do not think that the question of nationhood is necessarily the basis on which one could plump for a nation State.
The hon. Member for Dundee, East made a most interesting speech. He began to describe, I think for the first time in this House, what sort of Scotland we should have. That has always been the missing part of the package. The hon. Member began to develop his ideas about local government. He said that the authoritative view of the SNP was that the regions should disappear, and I think he suggested that there should be more ad hoc bodies in which local government and other sectors would be represented.
I believe that we have far too many ad hoc bodies in Scotland already. They are not democratically developed and they do not have proper democratic representation. I would include in those the economic planning committees appointed by the Secretary of State. No doubt the Secretary of State makes the wisest possible choices in appointing these bodies, 2213 but my admiration for the Secretary of State does not lead me to the conclusion that those ad hoc bodies should continue.

§ Mr. Gordon Wilson
I am very glad to hear the hon. Gentleman discussing these matters. They are important. In my remarks I was considering ad hoc bodies which would be performing joint local authority functons, whose members would be appointed from the district, would be elected councillors and could fulfil special task. I would differentiate quite substantially from other bodies for which the membership would be appointed. I agree that the membership of such bodies would be anti-democratic and I should not necessarily approve of that particular arrangement.

§ Mr. Hughes
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me on that. Although I am quite certain that the Secretary of State made an excellent choice in the appointment of area health boards, I would rather see the area health boards under some kind of democratic control than being appointed. There is a case for institutions like the Scottish Development Agency and the nationalised industries being responsible to some kind of democratic control, which would also include worker participation, but I do not want to be diverted too far from the particular debate before us.

§ Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith (North Angus and Mearns)
It is too dangerous.

§ Mr. Hughes
The idea of having smaller local authorities working together on an ad hoc basis has been tried in the past when we had a joint planning committee composed of the local government from round about. I see the hon. Lady for Moray and Nairn nodding her head. She knows that the county councils that used to exist before regionalisation, and Aberdeen Town Council, had that kind of planning committee. I was not satisfied, although I was a member of that local authority, that these planning committees worked. If anyone were to tell me that the ad hoc way in which the previous local authorities conducted planning matters was a success because they were charged with strategic planning—and there has not been any proper strategic planning—I would say that ad hoc bodies are the worst possible alternative to choose.
2214 I do not want to debate the whole of local government reform with the hon. Member for Dundee, East tonight. However, he should think again about whether it is the regions or the districts which should go. Perhaps it has to be a combination of the two. However, that is something that the Assembly should decide; it is not something for us to decide.
A great deal has been said about the cost of the new regions, the great costs that they have had, the explosion of salaries and all the rest. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), who I am sure will read this debate thoroughly, has recently complained about the growth of the costs of the area health boards for Orkney and Shetland. He said that the establishment of these separate boards, which are small units, has burgeoned beyond all comparison. It does not follow that smallness is cheaper or more effective.
Finally, I turn to economics and the EEC. I become concerned when people say that we must establish independence in order to get a seat round the top table in Brussels. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) has developed this theme over the past months, as indeed have the Scottish National Party Members. It started with the view that there should be separate Scottish Commissioners. The view was then expressed that we should be represented at the top table in Brussels. I do not know what that means. What worries me is that people seem to think that getting a couple of Scottish Commissioners, or even one Scottish Commissioner or representation at the top table, will somehow make the cure of the ills of Scotland easier. I wish that the problem were so easy as to be resolved by the mythical concept of being represented.
The trouble is that people tend to over-simplify. The one thing we must understand is that over-simplification will simply lead us into disaster. It may be argued that in what I am about to say concerning the development of the EEC I am perhaps over-simplifying. All I can say about that is that I honestly have not fully thought through exactly what the rôle of the United Kingdom should be within the EEC now that we are a permanent part of it or precisely what 2215 should be the rôle of, say, Scotland in the EEC, or the rôle of any of the existing nation States, such as Denmark or Germany, because it is too early to work this out properly.
It has been said that economics knows no frontiers. We have had the argument from time to time about multinational companies. I do not suggest that even in the EEC we could completely master the multinational companies, because they are international and not merely within the boundaries of the EEC. However, there is a case for thinking about whether the rôle of the Parliament of the Nine, as we now are, should be strengthened and whether we ought to have some supranational government.
I am sure that these are matters which have exercised the minds of hon. Members of all parties. Precisely how should this mechanism develop if it is to be a real union and economic community? Ought we to be thinking about breaking down the nation States which exist? Should we be having some supranational government? Whether that is directly elected or partly elected does not matter.
I do not believe that at present we ought to be thinking of setting up more nation States within the EEC. We ought to be thinking much more deeply and longer about the relationship between the countries which have been in the EEC all along and those which have now joined permanently—and we must accept that as a fact of life. We have much thinking to do on this matter. It is far too simple to say that one solution is the best solution. I have found myself thinking about whether in time what will develop is a supranational EEC with perhaps some kind of federated system within it. As I have said, I have not thought this through fully, but these are the implications about which we ought to be thinking.
The purpose of devolution is to have good government. The purpose of good government is two-fold: to make certain that decisions which can be taken locally are taken locally, and that they can be seen to be taken thus. That also begs the question whether within the United Kingdom we should always have the same kind of structure, be it in local govern- 2216 ment or otherwise, because we seek uniformity.
One of the tragedies of local government reform is that we applied a virtually uniform system throughout Scotland. The regions and the districts apply throughout—apart from the Islands, and there were reasons for that. I am not sure that at the end of the day the Islands will get the best of local government because of the structure that they have. Leaving that aside, however, the purpose of devolution is to see good government locally determined.
It is also a question—it comes down to this in the end—of economics. This does not mean simply the raising of taxes and the planning of industry. It boils down to who controls the economy of the country and to what uses it is put. It has almost become a cliché to quote Nye Bevan's phrase "the commanding heights of the economy". I believe, however, that for the people of Scotland, England and Wales, and even the people of Northern Ireland, unless we can get the ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy, none of us will prosper and none of us will go on to see some kind of emancipation from poverty and from the poverty of choice. That is my basic quarrel with the Nationalists and the Tories—that they believe that by constitutional or structural change in administration we shall begin to cure Scotland's problems.
It is a basic change in economic structure that we need, which means that people will for the first time have the power of the economy in their own hands—real participation. Then we shall begin to move towards a really democratic society in which people's values will be important and they will have an important rôle to play in society. That cannot be done by narrow nationalism. The Nationalists are mesmerised by the romanticism of nation status, which is quite the wrong approach. They should begin to look away from that and consider the real problems of the people.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison (Edinburgh, South)
I shall be brief and to the point. I am not in favour of political devolution. I hope that hon. Members will think carefully about this problem and that the people of Scotland and 2217 England will devote their attention to the matter. The partnership between England and Scotland has been one of the most successful in history. As a Conservative, I am not prepared to lend my name to anything which might lead to its break-up.
An Assembly is unwise and unnecessary it is a move towards complete separation. There would be constant friction between it and Westminster. I do not know what this constitutional unit, or whatever the rotten thing is called, is thinking about it, but I hope that it will address its mind to the question.
We have just had a vast local government reorganisation in Scotland. It might be a good idea to allow it to settle down before making any more moves and disturbing the population. I suspect that an Assembly will be vastly expensive, with the payment of members, staff, civil servants and the purchase and alteration of the building. We do not hear a word about the cost from this absurd constitutional unit.
What will such an Assembly do? We cannot devolve industry and commerce because they are intermingled throughout the United Kingdom. We cannot devolve agriculture and fisheries because they involve treaties with other nations. The Assembly could not handle labour relations or trade unions, because the unions are organised on a United Kingdom basis. It could do nothing about transport, because the railways and aircraft operate in the United Kingdom and abroad and not simply in Scotland. The Assembly would have nothing to do. At the moment, all these subjects are covered adequately by the Secretary of State and the local authorities.
The increased expenditure caused by local government reorganisation and the scandalous waste of money that has resulted in some instances, not to mention the duplication of work, would simply be repeated. I hope that people in England. Scotland and Wales will realise that adding another tier of government will simply worsen the situation in which already we are over-governed.
I am a Conservative and a traditionalist. I believe that many Government supporters are traditionalists. I ask that these matters, which affect our con-situation, be carefully examined and thought over. The Act of Union is likely 2218 to be involved if we push too far. I refer hon. Members to Section 3 of that Act. It would be highly undesirable to interfere with or to infringe the provisions of the Act of Union.
I request that the Conservative Party and its leaders review their attitude to devolution. There is nothing wrong or blameworthy about rethinking policies. It is often wise to do so. I believe that the majority of people, whether in Scotland or England, want less legislation. They want stability. They do not want constant chopping and changing about. They want to end all this nonsense. An Assembly will either be a ludicrous talking shop or a dangerous excrescence leading to further over-government, more taxation and an oppressive burden on the long-suffering people of Scotland.

§ Mr. Hamish Watt (Banff)
Although we are concerned about the slippage in the timing of the devolution Bill, we are even more concerned that the devolution unit or whatever it is called should get the package right. It is tempting to push on and fail to obtain the right machinery. The Assembly will quickly arrange its own affairs, but it will need a blueprint from which to work. The duplication of the Westminster system would be a tragic mistake. In setting up the Assembly we have a unique opportunity to correct some of the past mistakes and to rid ourselves of some of the unnecessary frustrations caused by the Government.
Meaningful devolution must mean that decision-taking machinery is transferred totally to Scotland. The devolution of 99.9 per cent. of the decision taking is not enough. It will not do. Unless there is 100 per cent. decision taking in Scotland, an excellent opportunity will have been missed. I look forward to the day when Ministers will stand at the Dispatch Box and say "This is not a matter for this House. It is a matter which must be dealt with in Scotland." If that happens, we will have arrived at the right situation. The world will know that Scotland has achieved meaningful devolution.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
The hon. Gentleman should use the right language, 100 per cent. devolution is not devolution. It is independence.

§ Mr. Watt
The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. We need 100 per 2219 cent. decision-making power over those items which are devolved to Scotland. I do not want agricultural questions to be handled at Westminster. I do not want questions on matters devolved to Scotland to be answered from the Treasury Bench here.
Will the Minister take this opportunity to break up some of the abominations of Ministries which have grown up at Westminster? One of the worst is the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. There may be historic reasons for those functions being grouped together, but those reasons no longer apply. It is totally misconceived in the present day and in the context of the EEC for one man to represent both the producers and the consumers of food. I ask the Government to consider a complete regrouping of these responsibilities of the Assembly.
Rag-bags of Ministries have grown up whose functions are no longer clear. For example, many Departments are responsible for the various sections of the fishing industry—the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Department of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the Department of Trade and the Treasury. I ask the Minister to shake out the powers of the various Ministries and group them more realistically as we move towards the Assembly. It is essential to get the machinery right.
I did not take part in the preceding debate on the green pound. I should have liked to speak of the current malaise of the agriculture industry. But if the machinery of government is right, the Assembly will rapidly cure many of the ills suffered by the agriculture industry. I am most concerned that the mechanism should be right.
The Assembly will herald a completely new era for Scotland's agriculture and fishing industries. With a Department of Trade working specifically for Scotland, the export potential of Scotland's indigenous industries will be fully realised. The prospect is exciting and a challenge to which I look forward with enthusiasm. Scotland's past has been bleak, but with a properly set-up Assembly the future is bright. The return of a Parliament to Scotland is a fabulous opportunity in which this generation is privileged to participate.
2220 The Scottish National Party is as anxious as is the Minister to see the job done quickly, but we are equally anxious that he should not skimp the job. His efforts and decisions of the next few weeks and months may decide the pattern of a system which will have to be made to work for generations to come.
There is no reason why the setting up of separate Ministries with separate portfolios should lead to a proliferation of civil servants. As we shorten the lines of communication, so we shall cut the costs of government. By cutting out much of the travelling done by civil servants between London and Scotland we shall save money. I do not believe, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) believes, that the setting up of the Assembly need necessarily be costly. With the abolition of the regions and a proper balance of government, the administration can be profitable and efficient.
What is more, we shall give back to the people a feeling of belonging, because in the Scottish context we shall all be much more closely involved. The fishing industry especially suffers from a feeling of remoteness. The Minister has an opportunity to give back to the people of Scotland our Government and to bring back much closer to them the decision-making machinery that we in Scotland have lacked for so long.

§ Mr. Norman Buchan (Renfrewshire, West)
This is the first time that I have risen at nine minutes to nine o'clock and have started to speak at 10 minutes to midnight. I have not worked out how it happened, but it has meant that I have expected to speak after every other speaker for the past three hours.
The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) is one of my two favourite Scottish Nationalists. The other is the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart). The hon. Member for Banff fortunately knows nothing about Scottish nationalism and, therefore, talks some quite original stuff. The hon. Member for the Western Isles is not really a Scottish Nationalist but a West Highland patriot—and good luck to him. That is what his speech was about tonight.
I want to deal with the continual harping on the question of slippage. I do 2221 not know why this canard is being spread by the Scottish National Party. I do not know what it has to gain. I do not believe that its Members are gullible enough to believe all the things they read in the Press. I believe that they make a statement, the Press reports the statement and then they seize the report and put Questions to the Minister. It is a vicious circle. They have become masters at the art.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
The hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth (Mr. Ewing) once said that the Government wanted to get the whole matter right and that this might cause some delay. I think that that is on the record in Hansard. He said it openly, and it was a fair point. To that extent our accusation has some validity.

§ Mr. Buchan
If that is the extent of the accusation, the Scottish Nationals should have said so. They have made continual attacks in the Scottish Press on the question of slippage being a deliberate policy. Now we hear that a Minister has said that the Government must get the matter right and that therefore, there might be some delay. The hon. Member for Banff also said that we must get it right. The Scottish Nationals know that they have been spreading a myth. The hon. Gentleman has made an admission of myth-making. That is a strong Scottish tradition, but we should not always use it in our daily politics.
The hon. Member for Banff said that we must get it 100 per cent. right, and that 100 per cent. of the matters devolved should be sent to Scotland. Why are the Scottish Nationalists so concerned with getting the package right when they have all said that they want to destroy it? They want to use it as a means of creating independence.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
I am sorry to have to answer this question again. We do not want to destroy it. We shall make it work, but we are still going on to our aim of independence and going on to develop it.

§ Mr. Buchan
The Scottish Nationalists have made clear before, and they have made it clear again tonight, that that is not what they intend to do and that they intend to use it as a means of bringing 2222 about independence. That is surely the only honourable position that they could have. That makes sense. Why excuse themselves for it? There is no reason to do so.

§ Mr. Buchanan-Smith
They want it both ways.

§ Mr. Buchan
They do. But that is not uncharacteristic of them. I was struck by the laughter on the Scottish National Party bench when one of my hon. Friends referred to the Indians of America being a nation. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) need not shake her head, because she was one of those who laughed. Perhaps they laughed because they thought themselves superior to the Indians, whom we hear about speaking with forked tongues. But they are very good at speaking both ways.
The hon. Member for Banff spoke of agriculture. I urge him not to pursue the idea of separate Ministries for agriculture and food. It sounds good and goes down well with a farming audience—just as the idea of having a consumer affairs and food Ministry separate from agriculture would appeal to housewives. The hon. Member nods his head to both propositions. The SNP believes its own myths. The great error made by the Government was in putting so much to do with food costs and pricing in a Ministry separate from agriculture. Food pricing must be part of an intelligent agricultural policy. We should bring back from the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection to the Ministry of Agriculture some of these functions. That is the only way to cope with the combined problem of the housewives and the producers.
The hon. Member for Banff wants a completely separate agricultural policy for Scotland, separately administered and with separate pricing and subsidies. As soon as he has got that, he must have a border, frontiers, customs posts and everything else. Again the SNP tries to do it both ways. It says that it wants a totally separate Ministry of Agriculture and at the same time it says that it does not want frontier posts and borders. There cannot be one without the other. However much the SNP tries to con its membership, it should not try to con the people of Scotland.
2223 The new situation in the EEC was raised by the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley). He referred to the U-turns obtained by the Labour Party. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) confessed that he had changed his views and to an extent could be accused of making a U-turn. Such a U-turn is as nothing compared with the Spaghetti Junction-type U-turns made by the SNP.
There is nothing wrong with deep divisions in a party as long as they are honestly held and argued. There is everything wrong with the same people enunciating the same deep divisions as policies. That is what is dishonourable. There should be deep divisions on this because we are dealing with a serious problem. Any problem that can make the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Hutchison) make a speech for 10 minutes must be serious.
I want to examine some of the previous attitudes of the Labour Party and the Labour movement and see how we have arrived at our present situation. I say this as a long-lasting devolutionist. I believe in devolving power. I do not like power in the hands of a small group of people, whether they be in the board room or the Cabinet. I want to give power to the ordinary people. I want to do that whether they are black, brown or white, whether they are Scots or English. The only definition of a nation that I can give is that people are a nation when they feel that they are. We Scots certainly feel that we are a nation. We have our nationhood. We have a sense of nationhood in excelsis—some of us in extremis. But it does not follow from that that we should have statehood. That is a quite different thing. In this context reference has been made to the United States, but the same is true of virtually every country in Europe.
I remember the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn participating in the special debate that was held when Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviet Union. The hon. Lady said that that sort of invasion was what came out of multi-nation States. The hon. Lady called for the dismemberment of multination States, meaning the Soviet Union. It did not enter her mind that Czechoslovakia was 2224 a multination State. That was because she considered Czechoslovakia to be the innocent party and therefore it could not be multinational. Many of those who listened to her on that occasion felt that she was insensitive, but I did not. I took the view that it did not even enter her consciousness.
It does not follow that it is necessary for a nation to create the apparatus of statehood. Certainly I want to establish the sense of Scotland as a nation—indeed, Scotland's whole tradition has been towards that end—but I do not want to see the creation of the apparatus of statehood in an expression of nationhood. Perhaps I might say that it is appropriate that the devolution unit should be the responsibility of the Lord President rather than of No. 10. If responsibility had rested with the incumbent of No. 10, it would have been necessary for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to honour us with his presence instead of engaging in the Helsinki proceedings.
I have had thrown at me the thinking of Keir Hardy. I do not know how many people have studied him closely, but let me make it clear that he gave only a cursory glance to Scottish nationalism. It was a proposition that was accepted without the consequences being admitted. It was not appreciated that to create such a distinction was to cause a problem. He wanted both the one and the other. Similarly, John Maclean was concerned with a workers' republic in Scotland only in the last six or eight months of his life. It was Republicanism and Socialism that motivated John Maclean. He went for a separate Scotland merely because he objected to participating in the Communist Party on a British basis. His attitude was based on a narrow technical point. That is not something that should be thrown at my colleagues and myself.
It is true that one strand of the Labour Party has been Morrisonian, technocratic and monolithic in its attitude to the structure of society. Another strand derived from the bourgeois democratic tradition has been radical and anti-Morrisonian. That is the attitude that is now prevailing. The working population is now demanding more industrial democracy and more workers' control. In many ways that is an expression of the demand for more democracy, and especially from Scotland. 2225 There is a demand for more control of industry and politics by the ordinary people.
There is nothing new in the argument now going on in the Labour Party. The present position is inevitable given the present strands of opinion. In recent years a constitutional commission has been formed and a report was issued. However, I am a devolutionist who became rather more worried about the Assembly as it came nearer. I became worried because I could see it approaching on the wrong basis. It was being fostered by the Nationalist Party because of a greed for oil. Equally I acknowledge the genuine dissatisfaction of people in Scotland with the record of the Labour Government between 1964 and 1970 and with our failure to deliver the goods. If a radical party fails, its supporters will find an alternative. They found it in the SNP. That is the history of the matter.
It is true to say that there are many movements towards devolution. I think it was the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) who suggested that one such movement had taken place because of a fear of the SNP. That has not been my approach. If anything, I have become more hesitant. I have tended to move in the opposite direction. If we move towards an extension of democracy, as it were, on the basis of greed and with an exaggerated sense of nationhood, I can see only disaster.
If SNP Members disclaim greed, I ask them what they would have said if great oil deposits had been found off Yarmouth and Lowestoft and not in Scottish waters, and if the English parties had said that no oil would go to the people of Scotland. I know that I would have fought the issue on behalf of Scotland, but would they have taken up the fight? Would they have welcomed such a claim being made by the English people?

§ Mrs. Winifred Ewing (Moray and Nairn)
I would.

§ Mr. Buchan
The hon. Lady says that she would. That is very interesting in view of her party's present policy.

§ Mrs. Ewing
I think that the hon. Member has misunderstood me—I hope not deliberately—because I say on behalf of my party that we wish that much of 2226 the oil had been found off the coast of England. I am certain that in that event our case to get out of this House and have a House of our own, with all respect to yourself, Mr. Speaker, and a Speaker of our own would have been stronger. I believe that it would have happened more quickly if the oil had been found off the English coast. We would have welcomed that situation.

§ Mr. Buchan
I think that the hon. Lady is absolutely right in the first half but the second half contradicts the first, because I think she said "our oil" at the end. We know that if massive deposits of oil had been found off the coast of England SNP Members would have dropped their nationalism on the spot and said "This oil must, of course, be shared with the people of Scotland." That is what they would have said, and they know it. That is the danger of the present position.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
It should be noted that when my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) said that the hon. Lady would have fought for a share of English oil to come to Scotland, she was shaking her head and saying that she would not have fought for that. Therefore, she would not have said that the Scots had a right to any oil resources in England. I am very interested to note this.

§ Mr. Buchan
With all respect, there has been a lot of confusion among Members on the SNP bench, especially when they were shaking and nodding their heads at the same time. It was the best argument I have seen for having television in the House. The point would have been taken.
I want briefly now to look at the new position that has arisen as a result of the referendum on the EEC, because we must all accept that we are in a new ball game. What are the conclusions to be drawn from that? I want first to look at the circumstances of it. The circumstances are that the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party opposed continued membership of the EEC and were beaten. As a result, a movement has developed within the Labour Party which was not difficult to predict. We predicted that it would happen and the quarter from which it would come. The argument is that 2227 now that we are to remain in the EEC there must be separate Scottish representation.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison
The hon. Member says that the Labour Party was opposed to Britain's staying in the EEC.

§ Mr. Buchan
Yes.

§ Mr. Hutchison
Not all of it—not even the Prime Minister.

§ Mr. Buchan
I did not say any such thing. I always try to be as accurate as possible.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Renfrevvshire, West (Mr. Buchan) said earlier that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Hutchison) spoke for 10 minutes. According to my records, the hon. Member spoke for only six minutes.

§ Mr. Buchan
You will agree, Mr. Speaker, that that is still a record for the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South. When I was a Minister he had a very bad habit of standing up after I had made a long speech in Committee, saying "Why?" and sitting down again, leaving me stranded about five yards from the civil servants. It was most effective. Six minutes is a lot longer than that.
The fact is that the Labour Party qua Labour Party opposed Britain's remaining in the EEC. The Government qua Government were for remaining in the EEC. The SNP was opposed to it. The Labour Party and the SNP were beaten. To be even more accurate, most of the Government said "No". A majority of the Cabinet said "Yes". A majority of Ministers as well as a majority of Members of Parliament said "No". But this is not the argument at the present time. It is of importance only in filling in the background.
The Scottish Nationals now say that there should therefore be separate representation. I agree. It is my desire to spread representation and devolution as soon as possible. There are good reasons why there should be representation. But that is not the argument. The argument is about the view put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) that there should be Scottish 2228 representation, up to and including membership of the Council of Ministers. With respect, that is an argument not for representation at Brussels but for a Scotland separated from England.
I discussed this matter on a radio programme with the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain). She at least said straight away that we could not have repreesentation on the Council of Ministers without first becoming a separate State. I know that some of her colleagues have said the opposite. But the hon. Lady has said that, and she is right.
The historical parallel is the attempt of the Soviet Union in 1945 to get 16 representatives at the United Nations because of the 16 Soviet Republics. It was refused and was given three as a kind of sop, but only one seat on the Security Council. The same would prevail here. If we had separate Scottish representation on the Council of Ministers, Germany would immediately demand about nine representatives for the Lander. But that would not happen, because not only would we have to be separate but we would have to be more separate than any other group of countries in order to prove the point to the Council of Ministers. We would have to carve our separation from England before we had any case for representation.
I resent this back-door smuggling in of separation on the basis of representation at Brussels. It must be fought out on its merits at present rather than in an indirect way.

§ Mr. Dalyell
When the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) made her "Jonah and the Whale" speech at the European Parliament—she described the relationship between Scotland and England as that of Jonah and the Whale—the reaction of the Germans was to ask whether we were suggesting that Wurtemberg or Bavaria should be hived off from Germany.

§ Mr. Buchan
I understand the point about Wurtemberg and Bavaria, but I do not quite follow the analogy of Jonah and the Whale. In any event, the SNP is attempting to get the best from both sides.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire sees the logical outcome of the 2229 present position as an ultimate Scottish withdrawal from Westminster and a Scottish Government with representation at the European top table as of right. I should have thought that that was clear demand for independence. But my hon. Friend writes in his article in Highway: There will be no need for a border on the Border, or any of that nonsense. But there will. The moment that we are a separate country, the moment that we apply Scottish answers in matters like agriculture, we must have a border and we must have border taxation. That is how Europe works. It works on a system of manipulation of border taxation. Unless my hon. Friend and the SNP are driving for a European unification and a unitary State of Europe, and pushing hard for it, I think against the wishes of most people in this country and in this House, they must not make such comments.
My hon. Friend makes the same proviso again: Most importantly, there must be no fission of the British trade union structure. It would be daft, and unnecessary, to break our unions into Scottish, English and Welsh components. But we cannot have it all ways. I wish that those who advocate this would decide which way they want it. It may be the fault of too many people wanting to have it any way. The danger we are in is that some of us will exploit entry to the EEC as a means of bringing about separation. How does this tie up with the Assembly point?
I shall be a little ruminative about how I see the future. I respect the Scottish Nationalists. I wish, in a sense, that they had not conducted the kind of campaigns that they have conducted over the past three or four years based upon oil. I believe that their campaigns released a kind of conscious and curious greed, as well as materialism and dishonesty. The oil will not last for too long. Many people take the view that the Assembly will polarise the position between Edinburgh and London. That brings me to the rôle of the SNP and others concerning a separate Assembly.
If there were a number of assemblies within a State, the problem would not arise. There is not much likelihood of one of the 51 States of America breaking away in that sense. Indeed, when there 2230 was a massive break-away of a number of American States a civil war was fought to preserve the Union. In Canada one State may quarrel with the central Government, but there will be counterbalancing by a number of other States.
If we polarise demand between Edinburgh and London, each argument will become an argument for our own control. People will ask "Why have we not got 'X'?" and the answer will be "Because we do not control our own destiny" The dishonesty creeps in when people think that they will always be better off as a result and that only good will follow. It is not true that only good will follow, because the whole of human history indicates that sometimes damage will follow.
The Members of the SNP have agreed with me on all these points, and that is why I say that they will argue for more control. I cannot see how that can fail to provoke a political response. They would put forward the argument that separation on each and every issue was a good thing. It is no good my saying to my constituents that they cannot have a new school because we are building a new school at, say, Kidderminster and have used up the country's resources, because they would say that they had an Assembly to look after them. In Germany the Lander are not affected in such a way because there the drive is centripetal, towards unity, and there is no danger of drawing the region out. Ours will have come about not because of our understanding that we need to extend democracy and give power to the ordinary people but partly because of a movement to separate. If that happens only damage can accrue, because the future of oil will be short-lived. I do not want to discourage people from taking decisions of this kind because the political institutions are already set up.
Moreover, damage will accrue because of the strength of our market south of the border. We have a good prospective economy in Scotland. Instead of being able to take advantage of the market south of the border, we should be inhibited. There would be grade danger of our being unable to keep our present technological mix. There are problems facing the people in Linwood. There are 6.000 or 7,000 men in danger of losing their 2231 jobs. There will be competitive incentives. If we try to operate a separate incentive scheme to encourage industry to go to Scotland, other areas in England must protect themselves, and they will have among them Scottish people working. That leads me to the further point: must all Scotsmen be foreigners south of the border?

§ Mr. Watt
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a small country like Sweden, which has two separate motor car companies, is the sort of example we should follow or go for?

§ Mr. Buchan
Of course. Scotland has Linwood and Bathgate. There is also the question of Nordic union. We will talk about that kind of union later. Sweden also happens to be bigger than Scotland and has a better economic structure than Britain and Scotland are likely to achieve in the near future.
If we are to stop this movement into polarisation leading inevitably to separation, we must consider whether the Assembly will be allowed to work. We must consider how to prevent any possible wreckers. This matter must be decided once and for all. We must not, through the artificial political structures which we establish, allow ourselves to drift into an accidental separation which the people of Scotland do not want.
The position must be put squarely to the people of Scotland: "Do you want an independent Scotland?" If they say "Yes", they would have said "Yes" to an Assembly in any case, so there is no loss to anyone there. It would have happened anyway. But if they say "No", as I believe they will, we are then enabled to try to make our devolved Assembly work. I think that we should go ahead with a devolved Assembly. I am in favour of it. We should try to let it work because the people will have so decided.
In that situation we would have to ask something more of the Scottish National Party which claims to put its trust in Scotland. If the Scottish people so decided, would the SNP accept that decision and continue to trust them?

§ Mrs. Bain
Yes.

§ Mr. Buchan
The hon. Lady says "Yes". Is there anyone else on that 2232 bench who is likely to say "Yes"? That is what we would like to know.
I believe in devolvement. I also love Scotland. The Members of the Scottish National Party love an entity called Scotland rather more than they do the Scottish people. But that can be helped and transformed when they shake their minds free of their obsession with statism. I do not like States. I like people, not States.
The offer which I have suggested requires a sense of responsibility, understanding and humility on the part not only of the SNP but of all of us. It will require a lot of toleration, understanding and courage. I wonder whether SNP Members are capable of providing it.

§ Mr. Russell Fairgrieve (Aberdeenshire, West)
I should like to start by making clear the position of the Scottish Conservative Party. In 1965 the then Sir Alec Douglas-Home asked my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr Heath) to set up a series of policy groups, one of which concerned the machinery of government. That committee, called the Douglas-Home Committee, called for a directly-elected Assembly in Scotland. That has since been confirmed at a Scottish conference only this year by an overwhelming majority of 500 against six. The great majority of Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament are also in favour of a directly-elected Assembly.
If my arithmetic is correct, 1965 was 10 years ago—before the Hamilton by-election which first brought the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) to this House. Therefore, it was not fear of the Scottish National Party which made the Conservative Party in Scotland go for devolution. It felt that it was correct.
That decision was reached before Wheatley and Kilbrandon. The Wheatley and Kilbrandon Reports have caused the difficulties and the need to look at other possible policies.
The reform of local government has put the Assembly into a different light. We now face the prospect of community councils, district councils, regional counils, the Assembly, Westminster and Strasbourg. We would be the most over-governed country in western Europe, and the cost would be terrific.
2233 If we are to have an Assembly—the majority of Scottish Conservatives support the idea—something must be done about all those tiers of government. Without spelling out the details, something must be done to combine the regions and districts. I know that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) is worried about this, but it will have to be faced. We cannot have the present number of tiers.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Is the hon. Member saying that the Scottish Conservative Party is in favour of altering all these contracts solemnly entered into? Imagine the expense of it. We could not do this to those local officials who have burned the midnight oil carrying through these ulcer-giving activities.

§ Mr. Fairgrieve
I accept the difficulties, but the alternative is no Assembly and I believe that there should be an Assembly.
A first priority will be to decide the powers of the Assembly. The more powers that are taken, the fewer will he the number of Scottsh MPs who should be allowed to come here as of right. That is inevitable.
I think of the number of Scots who have been here. Some have been Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. Nobody ever knew who was Prime Minister of Ulster, and that is how an independent Scotland would be looked upon by other parts of Europe. I wish my party to continue to give leaders to the British nation and not to only a small part of it.
We believe in devolution—not just political devolution, but devolution in other activities as well. The Scottish Council executive, of which I am a member, has asked for years that British firms should not take their headquarters away to England. We said that long before it became a political issue. It was an industrial decision to say to firms that they should come back to Scotland, and this has been happening. In the past 10 years, we have also seen political decision making by Government Departments coming back.
There is a need for an Assembly because at the moment we have bodies like the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland talking about mammon instead of God because there is no Assembly in which such discussions can take place.
2234 The SNP wants total Scottish independence—

§ Mrs. Bain
Nothing less will be good enough.

§ Mr. Fairgrieve
It was interesting to note from the speech of the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) that Plaid Cymru apparently wishes Wales to remain as part of the United Kingdom. Plaid Cymru and the SNP sit on the same bench, but they differ on this fundamental matter.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
We are two different nations.

§ Mr. Fairgrieve
I gather that they are both meant to be Nationalist parties. One is for independence and separation, and the other wants to remain part of the United Kingdom.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas)
I wish that hon. Members would allow the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Fairgrieve) to continue. I am very interested, though I am completely neutral as long as I am in the Chair.

§ Mr. Fairgrieve
I thank you for your interest in my few brief remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I have spent all my life in industry. The United Kingdom is one economic unit. If Scotland is separated off, the whole economy will have to be broken up. With the present structure of British firms, that would be a total impossibility. If we cannot break up the economic integration, political separation is a non-starter.
Europe is an important new aspect to this question, particularly in view of the referendum result. My friends in the SNP—if I have any—know that for year after year, to the point of boredom, I have been asking for the implementation of Article 138(3) of the Treaty of Rome. This calls for direct elections and would enable Scotland to send directly elected Members there instead of their being selected by the Westminster Government. I enter one caveat. At present the United Kingdom goes to Europe with the muscle of 55 million people behind it, like Germany and France. Already we have seen a British Minister—the present Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland—go to Europe to negotiate on behalf of the 2235 whole British nation, not just for 5 million of its people.
It is interesting to note that during the 14 years of the Common Market, whereas the veto has been used by the bigger countries it has not been used by the smaller States. That is because they know that there would be no point in their trying it. That is another reason why we must go to Europe as the United Kingdom.
One of the first jobs of the Assembly without a Civil Service should be to think out its own position, to debate how it will work in the United Kingdom and how it will work with Europe. As a Conservative I am certain that the future of a Scottish Assembly lies within the United Kingdom as part of the EEC.

§ Mrs. Margaret Bain (Dunbartonshire, East)
I am delighted to speak after the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Fairgrieve), who stated at the start of his speech that he would clarify the Conservative Party's attitude to devolution. He has clarified it, and it is obviously still an attitude of total confusion. I was delighted at your own remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about your neutral interest in this debate. Like many other hon. Members you are no doubt grateful to the SNP for having the ability to raise this subject tonight. A quick calculation shows that the debate has been going on for four hours, during which time members of the SNP have spoken for only 48 minutes.
The devolution issue is of crucial importance to us. This is the first opportunity we have had to raise it since the window-dressing debate in January when the Secretary of State for Scotland summed up by talking about his experiences in the Highland Light Infantry. That reflected the total demoralisation within the Labour ranks in Scotland. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) stated recently that at grass roots level the Labour Party was in a state of demoralisation. A quick perusal of Labour Party research reports, which are not published but which filter through to the newspapers, shows that the Labour Party will lose many seats in Scotland at the next election, probably because the 2236 Minister responsible for devolution is sleeping on the issue.
The Labour Party in this situation is hoist by its own petard. It decided to come out in favour of an Assembly for Scotland because it felt that it had to do something to save its seats at the last General Election. It now has to give an Assembly to retain its seats at the next General Election. Indeed, the Labour Party has found its Catch 22. It is finding it difficult to deny the growing aspirations of the Scottish and Welsh nations who demand the right to their self-respect and dignity, and to carve out their own political future.
When I listen to comments about regional problems within the United Kingdom, I become angry. Only yesterday, when I made a point about the Scottish situation, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer), who has not stayed to listen to this debate, shouted "What about Merseyside?"
I put it to the Minister, who I am glad to say has now awoken, that if the Labour Party wants to talk about regions, I can talk about regions. I can talk about the region of Strathclyde—I am one of its Members of Parliament—with its vast social and housing problem.

§ Mr. Buchan
Why, therefore, object to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller) also talking about regions? I do not follow the logic. Why should he not be free to complain?

§ Mrs. Bain
I do not object as long as he does not try to classify Scotland as a region, because, as the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) has already admitted, Scotland is a nation. I can talk about Tayside with its unemployment problem and the Grampian Region with its fishing problem. We are talking about the nation of Scotland, not about a region of a nation. We are talking of an entity which no one tonight has tried to deny, including the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes).
I find it distressing that there is this negative attitude from Members of Parliament for Scotland who are seeking hurdles to place in the way of devolution and who are trying to scrape around a barrel to say that it will cost too much. If only some other hon. Members had the 2237 honesty of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Hutchison), who always categorically states his total opposition to devolution. I would much prefer that other hon. Members had this attitude. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South asked what rôle the Scottish Nationals would play in an assembly.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
As the hon. Lady so charmingly corrected my geography about Dundee, may I correct her geography about Aberdeen? I am the Member for Aberdeen, North.

§ Mrs. Bain
With all due apologies may I remind the hon. Gentleman of my previous statement—East, West, Name's best, and I would rather be at hame.

§ Mr. Sproat
So would we.

§ Mrs. Bain
Some hon. Members should not speak so long.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North asked whether Scotland would play a constructive rôle in the Assembly. Of course it wishes to play a constructive rôle because we regard devolution as a dimension. Devolution is not a once-forall step. It is a dimension, and within the Assembly we have to work out the future of Scottish government. We shall not say that we must stop here, because the people of Scotland will decide the powers that the Assembly should have. Give us the Assembly and let us see what the people of Scotland want. The people of Scotland do not want a talking shop. They do not want another tier of Government which will be irrelevant to the problems with which they are faced. They want a situation in which they can take decisions which will be of great importance to them.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North said that we were trying to over-simplify the situation. He asked about the role of Scotland within the EEC. We want the rôle of Sctland within the EEC to be the same as the rôle we want Scotland to play within the United Kingdom, which is a rôle of partnership. I disagreed with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South when he said that Scotland, England and Wales had been partners. We have not been partners, for the simple reason that we are not equal. We cannot be equal, in a situation in which, for example, during the local government 2238 reorganisation the vast majority of Scottish Members of Parliament voted against a particular piece of legislation and yet it was passed by this body.
We are not saying that the Assembly will be a panacea for all our ills. We have never claimed that. However, it will give us machinery to work out our destiny, to try to solve our problems and to say that we have the dignity and self-respect to make our decisions and not blame everything on the English. If we make mistakes, we blame ourselves. By giving the people of Scotland a government, we would be giving them the right to blame themselves for their own mistakes and not look for a scapegoat. Conservative Members may laugh, but they have denied the people of Scotland that kind of confidence for a long time.
The issue should not be clouded by the very trite arguments of certain Conservatives. I find it very amusing that at one minute I was said to be a romanticist and the next minutes I was a materialist—a filthy materialistic person looking for money. Those of us on this bench are all pre-oil Scottish Nationalists. We were all Nationalists before oil was discovered, and we would be Nationalists if there were no oil under the North Sea.

§ Mr. Sproat
The hon. Lady would not be here if oil had not been discovered.

§ Mrs. Bain
The hon. Gentleman may say that. However, I want to put to the House the importance of oil within the context of the Scottish scene. In 1968 we had a spectacular victory in Hamilton, which struck a blow of fear in the hearts of the Labour Party. [An HON. MEMBER: "And the SNP."] In the following year the Labour Government produced a Scottish budget, in which they said that we in Scotland needed the English connection. They said that we could not possibly survive. They said that we were too poor to go it alone, too poor and to stupid. That is what the Unionist parties have been saying to the people of Scotland—"You are too poor and too stupid."

§ Mrs. Bain
The hon. Gentleman rises to his feet, but as an educationist he will accept that that was what was put out. If people are told the same thing often enough, they will begin to believe it.

§ Mr. Hughes
Never at any time have I or any of my hon. Friends said that the Scottish people were too stupid, and neither have the Tories said that. We have never said that the people of Scotland were too stupid to run their own affairs. This kind of mythology is deliberately misleading and misrepresents us. If the hon. Lady looks back over the debates and discussions over many years, she will find that we have always taken an honourable position. The argument about Scottish self-government does not rest on whether Scotland is too poor or otherwise. We said in 1968 that if the people of Scotland wanted independence the question of poverty of resources ought never to come into the matter.

§ Mrs. Bain
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention. However, both major parties are on record as asking where the people of Scotland would find within their country leaders of the calibre required, administrators, ambassadors and so on. That is on record, and hon. Members are aware of it.

§ Mr. Hughes
Will the hon. Lady give way? [Interruption.]

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas)
Order. The hon. Lady is addressing the House. I got order for the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Fairgrieve), and we must have the same order for the hon. Lady.

§ Mrs. Bain
I shall return to the point I was making—

§ Mrs. Bain
—which was that the Labour Party told us that we were too poor.

§ Mr. Hughes
Will the hon. Lady give way?

§ Mrs. Bain
No. I want to develop my argument.
Originally we were told that we were too poor to have self-government and that we had to allow this very generous body, Westminster, to look after us. Now we are being told that we are selfish and greedy because we want to see the wealth that is around Scotland coming into Scotland to eradicate the disgusting inheritance of Scotland, particularly in my area, the Strathclyde Region, where we have appalling conditions in housing and we 2240 are expected to send our children to appalling schools which suffer also from a lack of staff. We wish to give the people of Scotland the opportunity to eradicate these social problems.
That is why the Assembly will be important. We shall be setting up the machinery which will give us the opportunity to look at the situation and to work out our own future and destiny, and we shall not have Big Brother telling us what to do.

§ Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, Central)
I want to rebut some of the assertions of the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain). The first which should be corrected is that all those on her bench were in the SNP before the oil was discovered. One need look no further than the hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Reid) and the Member on her right, the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt). One was in the Tory Party. The other was in the Labour Party only a few months before he was elected for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire. He was in the Labour Party and was touting around for a seat. He thought that we would do well in his own locality for the SNP, and so it turned out.
That is one inaccuracy, or a deliberate lie—I would not put it as high as that—in what the hon. Lady said. If she is referring only to the few of her hon. Friends who are here, even that is not true, because the hon. Member for Banff was not in the SNP pre-oil.

§ Mrs. Bain
He was so.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that?

§ Mr. Watt
I joined the SNP in 1967. There was no word of oil in the North Sea at that time.

§ Mr. Hamilton
If that is the case, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman can tell us when he officially left the Tory Party. It is possible, from our point of view, to belong to both at the same time, because we see little difference between them.

§ Mr. Watt
I left the Conservative Party virtually hard on the heels of the election in 1966, when the Tories took such a battering, when it was obvious that they 2241 had no policies relevant to Scotland's needs and they were so out of touch with the Scottish people that they would take a further battering in the election to come. I am sure that this will go on still.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I am glad that I allowed the hon. Gentleman to intervene. He is writing Scottish history in every word he speaks.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
The hon. Member, whether inadvertently or not, is falsifying. My hon. Friend proved that he was in the SNP before oil.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I am a generous minded fellow, and I am prepared to concede that the hon. Member left the Tory Party and joined a Scottish Tory Party called the SNP. He left the sinking ship and thought that he was joining one which was more seaworthy.

§ Mr. Buchan
For the sake of greater accuracy, the first round of licensing for oil in the North Sea was in 1964.

§ Mr. Hamilton
That is true. But I think that the hon. Lady was implying that no oil had been discovered when she and her colleagues joined the SNP, and that that was before the SNP made its headway.
The other point on which I would take up the hon. Lady—this is the kind of myth which is perpetuated by repetition in an attempt to persuade the Scots and others that it is true—is that I do not recall anyone ever having said that the Scots were too poor, stupid or selfish to run their own affairs. That is an unworthy accusation to make of anyone. I challenge the hon. Lady or any of her hon. Friends to produce a quotation from any speech, Tory or Labour, to that effect. She must either confirm that accusation by quotation or withdraw it. She is sitting there chewing to keep herself awake at this late hour. She must either confirm or withdraw the very serious accusation she has made against the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the Labour Party that some people at some time have said that the Scottish people are too poor, stupid or selfish to be allowed to govern themselves. I shall willingly sit down and give her the chance to do so.

§ Mrs. Bain
I have no intention of withdrawing my remarks.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I must insist. The hon. Lady cannot get away with it like that. She made an accusation that members of the Labour, Tory and Liberal Parties said that the Scottish people were too poor or too stupid to govern themselves. That is clearly on record. I ask her either to confirm or withdraw that statement. She said that she would not withdraw it. She has not confirmed it. I again give her the chance to react, if she can. If she cannot confirm it, I presume that she is telling deliberate lies.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
It is possible to express one's feelings without using the unparliamentary expression "lie".

§ Mr. Hamilton
I shall rephrase the sentence and try to bring myself within the rules of order. The hon. Lady's memory may have forsaken her for a few moments and she cannot quite recollect the quotation.

§ Mrs. Bain
The hon. Gentleman may like to read some back editions of Hansard.

§ Mr. Hamilton
The hon. Lady may wish to refer me to the statement. She made the accusation. I want to pin her down to saying who made it. She made the accusation that Members of Parliament said, either inside or outside the House, that the Scots were too poor or too stupid to govern themselves. I have challenged her several times to verify, confirm or deny it.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I am glad to see that the hon. Gentleman has recovered from his illness and has acquired such a fine sun tan in the process. He must have visited the Riviera with his children during his alleged illness, which prevented him from asking a Question about the accident in Arbroath, which is in his constituency. I had to ask the Question in his absence. I am glad to see the hon. Gentleman here looking so well. He must have made a complete recovery.
I return to the other point made by the hon. Lady. She claims that Scotland is 2243 a nation. My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) said that England was not a nation. The Shetlanders do not think that they are part of the Scottish nation. That is the dilemma of the Scottish National Party, which made many promises to the Shetlanders. When we discussed the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill, Members of the Scottish National Party said that they would first take the oil before they allowed the Shetlanders the right to secede. The Shetlanders made it clear that if there was any devolution they would rather be linked to Westminster than to Edinburgh. I could go further. They would probably prefer to be linked to Norway rather than to Westminster or Edinburgh. If the Scottish National Party or the Labour Party are to carry devolution to its logical conclusion, we might say that as the Shetlanders and the people in the Western Isles voted differently from the rest of the United Kingdom in the EEC referendum they should have the right to opt out of the EEC. Does the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) want the Western Isles to leave the EEC if that were possible? That is devolution. The people of the Western Isles and the Shetlanders said that they did not want to remain in the EEC. Does the hon. Gentleman accept their decision or does he say that they should be overruled by the majority decision taken by the people in the remainder of Scotland? The same argument applies on the assembly.
We have now established the principle of government by referendum. We have taken the most important constitutional decision for centuries by means of a referendum, and we are all bound by that. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) could not get to Strasbourg fast enough. As a good democrat she accepted the democratic decision. She was there and she was under the table in five minutes.

§ Mr. Douglas Henderson (Aberdeenshire, East)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I heard the hon. Gentleman make an imputation against my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing). Will you rule on it?

§ Mr. Hamilton
No, I made no imputation. I said that the hon. Lady was hell- 2244 bent to get there. She was there within hours of the decision having been taken on the Floor of the House that she should go. She was quite ready to go. I was sitting opposite her when we were entertained by the Mayor of Strasbourg. I made no imputation.

§ Mr. Henderson
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My recollection is that the hon. Gentleman "used the words under the table within five minutes".

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Personal charges are not welcome in this place and, indeed, are out of order. If those words fell from his lips I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw them.

§ Mr. Hamilton
If there was any imputation in my remarks, of course I withdraw them. I just said that the hon. Lady was very eager to get to Strasbourg and she enjoyed herself very much. Everyone saw it, and I was glad that she was happy to be there.

§ Mrs. Winifred Ewing
I am not unduly sensitive—after all, I have been here for some time—but the hon. Gentleman is almost compounding his previous remarks. Perhaps he would be fair enough to agree that on the first day I was at Strasbourg after the decision of the House I managed to make a speech and that I worked very hard all the time I was there.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I am not disputing that. The Lady complained that no one listened to her, but everyone has a choice and some speeches are not worth listening to. She had only herself to blame for that. I listened to it from behind the door and I was ashamed for her sake. To translate a bit of nonsense into five languages is a difficult exercise.
The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Fairgrieve) made a good point on the issue of the EEC. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn visited Europe before entry. She made very pleasant remarks from my point of view, but they were almost struck from the record from her point of view. She made a pro-EEC speech which was recorded in the pamphlet produced by the Common Market. She clearly enjoyed her visit on that ocasion too. She said that it could make democracy more powerful and that it was a meaningful institution. Of course she is right.
2245 The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West spoke as an industrialist. He said, with truth, that the United Kingdom economy, for good or ill, is one economy, an integrated economy. That is one reason why it is virtually impossible to separate the statistics. Attempts have been made to produce separate Scottish budgets, and it has been virtually impossible to do. When the attempts have been made they have been derided by Members of the Scottish National Party. [Interruption.] Of course it is a British Budget, because it is a British economy. That is the point that the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West was making. But he did not go on to say that not only is it an integrated national economy but it is being increasingly run by multinational companies.
The leader of the SNP said in his opening speech that the SNP knows where it is going. I want to put one or two questions on that statement.

§ Mr. Henderson
Is this Question Time?

§ Mr. Hamilton
The hon. Gentleman can please himself whether he answers. I understand that the SNP has an official winder-up.
In Scotland as in the United Kingdom —they are not more prevalent in Scotland than in England—we have multinational companies. My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West referred to the battle between capitalism and Socialism. That is the essence of the debate, not whether one is a Scot or an Englishman. I am instinctively opposed to capitalism, not to Scots, Englishmen or Welshmen, or any creed, colour, race or whatever.
I believe that this is a battle of economies and political philosophies rather than of nations or nation States. The economy of the world is being increasingly run by multinational companies, which often have budgets bigger than those of a large number of States.
In the debate about the Adjournment of the House next Thursday I quoted an example in my constituency, Burroughs Machines. I take it that neither the SNP nor the Tory Party does anything other than welcome such companies into Scotland. If there were a separate Scottish Assembly, would the SNP do everything in its power to attract firms, as I have in 2246 Glenrothes, where we have a Swedish firm and American firms? I think that in Ireland there are Japanese firms. Would the SNP actively encourage such firms to come to Scotland?

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
Yes.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Then I ask SNP Members a further question. Burroughs Machines is an anti-trade union firm. It does not believe in trade unions. Three or four years ago the shop-floor workers managed to obtain trade union recognition. My unpaid agent, Mr. Jimmy Stevenson, is a worker in that factory. He is on the staff. In March he sought to get the staff trade union recognition. The American management of Burroughs said, "We had better have a ballot of the staff after the holidays." My agent was one of the four members of the staff who wanted that ballot. On the Thursday, half an hour before he went on his holidays, he was told, "Don't come back after the holidays. You are redundant."
Before that, my friend Jimmy Stevenson had been elected as a district councillor for Kirkaldy District Council. As a result he was attending a lot of meetings of the Kirkaldy District Council —which would not be abolished by the SNP. I had received personal assurances from the Burroughs management that it would allow its employees as much time off as they wanted for such public purposes. Within months of his getting time off for his public authority work, the management said to Jimmy Stevenson "We will put you on a part-time contract."—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I can tell the hon. Gentleman what happened on the day his friend was going on holiday. I know the story, because I was in the Chair when the hon. Gentleman gave this full story about seven hours ago.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Not the full story. I am filling in the details.
We are promised the Assembly next year. Burroughs will still be in Glenrothes next year. It has knocked out my trade union pioneer. Presumably the Assembly will contain some of the hon. Members from the SNP bench. How would they deal with a company like Burroughs and its industrial relations policy? We are told that the SNP knows 2247 where it is going. But we do not know. It is important to know what that party would do with companies like that which sack a man and, although he has been with the firm for five years, base his redundancy pay on the part-time contract he was given three months before he got the sack. What is the SNP's view of that kind of industrial relations?
If we get a Scottish Assembly, as I hope we do, will there be separate industrial relations legislation in Scotland, different from that in England? If so, what will happen to Burroughs Machines with factories in England and Scotland?

§ Mr. Watt
And Portugal and Spain.

§ Mr. Hamilton
If there are factories in England and Scotland and protection for workers is more all-embracing in England than in Scotland, what would stop Burroughs from clearing out of one country and moving to the other?

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
What stops it now?

§ Mr. Hamilton
Nothing at all. I would like it to be understood in the context with which I am dealing. Would worker protection legislation be identical in England and Scotland? If not, footloose multinational firms would move from one country to another. That is precisely what we want to stop by getting into a bigger unit.
I return to the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West about an integrated United Kingdom economy. I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that we want to go further than that and look towards an integrated European economy. The multinational companies must be controlled, and they can be controlled only by a multinational political unit.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
No.

§ Mr. Hamilton
That is how I see it. I note that some of my hon. Friends look uncomfortable. Presumably that is because they were anti-Common Market and do not believe in the concept I have put forward.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
I am not the least bit uncomfortable about my hon. Friend's remarks about the EEC and the fact that I and some of my hon. Friends opposed 2248 it. I accept the existence of the EEC. I accept that we shall have to think through the precise kind of political control we shall get within the EEC to try to control the multinational companies which spread their business around.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I am glad that my hon. Friend takes that view. It seems that he is now accepting the result of the referendum, as do the majority of my colleagues. I want to know how a separate Scotland would fit into that situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West made this very point. The SNP argues that it wants separate Scottish representation in all the institutions of the EEC on the same basis as Luxembourg, Denmark and all the other EEC countries. It will get that only with complete separation. In other words, there would have to be a separate Scottish Prime Minister, a separate Scottish Foreign Secretary, a separate army, a separate navy, a separate air force—in other words, complete separation.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
Certainly, an independent nation.

§ Mr. Hamilton
There we have it on the record. The leader of the SNP states, with all the authority at his command, that he wants a separate Scottish navy, a separate Scottish army and a separate Scottish air force. Does the hon. Gentleman want a separate Foreign Secretary?

§ Mr. Stewart
Yes.

§ Mr. Hamilton
We are dragging it out gradually.

§ Mr. Stewart
When is the hon. Gentleman going to come to the monarchy?

§ Mr. Hamilton
I was leaving the best to last. Does the SNP want a republic?

§ Mr. Stewart
No.

§ Mr. Hamilton
It seems it does not want a republic. Would not the SNP put the matter to a referendum?

§ Mrs. Winifred Ewing
Yes. It is gratifying that the hon. Gentleman has realised that we are the official party in Scotland. Unfortunately the Scottish National Party is not the subject for debate, but I can answer the hon. Gentleman's question. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are believers in referenda. He knows my views on the matter. I 2249 have always said that as a democrat I would put any serious issues to referenda and accept the verdicts.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Does the hon. Lady agree that there should be a referendum for the Scottish people before we discuss the powers and functions of the Assembly? It is important to know whether we shall have complete separation. Before we decide what powers the Assembly will have, should there not be a referendum so that the Scottish people can decide whether they want complete separation? The powers and functions of the Assembly will depend on the answer that is given to that question. The hon. Lady has already said that she believes important questions should be put to the Scottish people by way of referenda. There is no need for the hon. Member to repeat tediously the authoritative position of the SNP.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
I am getting seriously concerned about my hon. Friend changing his mind on referenda. It is bad enough to find that, but now I find that Members on the SNP bench agree as well. This really fills me with concern, because what is being asked is that the work on devolution should be abandoned until this question is settled once and for all.

§ Mr. Hamilton
The hon. Lady the Member for Moray and Nairn has said here in the House and on television that she believes that important issues ought to be put to the people by a multiplicity of referenda, and I presume that an important issue would be for the Scottish people to decide whether or not they want complete separation, because the functions and powers of an Assembly would depend first of all on the settlement of that question.

§ Mr. Buchan
Many SNP Members have accepted that separation should be the subject of a referendum. The real question that should be posed is whether the SNP would accept a decision if it went against them. That would be a test of their faith in the Scottish people and of their honesty.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Presumably the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson), when he winds up, will answer that question too.
If the decision were against complete separation, would the SNP accept that? 2250 If they would not, that makes a nonsense of the hon. Lady's suggestion. By inference the hon. Lady is saying that they would accept it. if the Scottish people said "No, we do not want that separation", that would alter the terms of reference of the unit within the Cabinet Office, because then we would have to decide just exactly how much devolution there should be. It would knock the stuffing out of what the Leader of the SNP has said. He has already said that he wants a separate Prime Minister, a separate Foreign Secretary, a separate Chancellor of the Exchequer and the rest.
The consequence of that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West said, must be border controls, customs barriers and so on. It is no good the Scottish National Party saying they would not have them, because the decision would not lie with them. It would lie down here. The English would erect them. Of course they would. The Scots could not separate and unilaterally go their own way without expecting a reaction from the 45 million English. If the Scots had separate taxation and separate immigration laws and so on, the English would see that there were barriers put up, and there would be smuggling across the border.

§ Mr. Buchan
It is not a question whether the Scots or the Welsh or the English desire it. The point is that they would have to do it or they could not operate. The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) must understand, with his knowledge of the EEC—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman has had the privilege of addressing the House for half an hour and there are other hon. Members waiting to speak. Now he is making not an intervention in his hon. Friend's speech but an independent point.

§ Mr. Hamilton
My hon. Friend is making me speak for longer than I wished. The point is a valid one. The barriers would be erected by the English. If the Scots said, "We want to be separate", the English would say "All right, we will jolly well see that you are separate". They would take the decision.
One of the first to clear out of Scotland would be me. That might give great satisfaction to the SNP, but I think that 2251 it would be a loss to Scotland if that happened, because I am an Englishman —and I am not particularly proud to be English; it is not my fault that I am English; I did not ask to be born in England; I was not consulted on the matter—and I have been accepted in Scotland for what I am for 25 years. Sometimes people in Scotland question my parentage, but they do not hold it against me. I am instinctively inter-national, as I think the Scots are.
We English have no specific English national dress like the Scots have. We have no distinctive English culture. We have no particularly English music. The English do not parade their nationalism as blatantly as do the Scots. I am not saying whether that is good or bad. It just happens to he the fact. I do not give a damn where any man or woman was born. What I instinctively accept is that no one is my superior and no one is my inferior, wherever he may have been born.
I think that the SNP is needlessly creating this kind of division which my party stands for removing. Although the Nationalists disclaim responsibility for the activities of the Tartan Army, they can- not completely dissociate themselves from the emotions and motivation of those stupid people—

§ Mrs. Winifred Ewing
Shame.

§ Mr. Hamilton
That is the kind of thing that is created. Whether they were responsible—and I do not think that they were—they create this kind of feeling among an irresponsible section of the community. I do not think they realise the danger that they are creating, but they must bear a heavy burden of responsibility for that kind of thing.

§ Mrs. Ewing
Disgraceful.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I want to address one or two questions to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has been waiting patiently. We recognise that a Scottish Assembly is coming. If it is inevitable, like the poor girl about to be raped we had better lie back and enjoy it. But there is no evidence of that kind as far as I can see. The Leader of the SNP was right when he pointed out that my hon. Friend the junior Minister in the non- 2252 existent unit said that there might be a slippage of the timetable. I think that it is foolish to make a timetable, because there are enormously complicated questions to be decided.
Perhaps I might for a moment or two discuss the nuts and bolts of this issue. They have not been mentioned at any great length in this debate. We have not decided, as far as I know, on the size of this Assembly. We have not decided on the nature of it—

§ Mr. Rifkind
That is what they will do.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I want a progress report. I am putting the question to my hon. Friend, indeed, to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East, who may have some ideas about the size.
The discussion paper, "Devolution within the United Kingdom" specifically states in the final paragraph: Anyone who wishes to express a view should do so in writing as soon as possible. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether the SNP has produced an official document dealing with the nuts and bolts of the composition of the Assembly, in particular its size, the nature of the constituencies, the method of voting, the regularity of elections, whether there should be Scottish Members of Parliament remaining at Westminster as well as attending the Assembly and whether the Secretary of State for Scotland should remain in the United Kingdom Cabinet or have a completely different rôle in Edinburgh.
If there is complete separation, I cannot envisage the English allowing any representative from a completely separate Scottish Assembly taking any part in a Westminster Government. They would have no part to play, not even an Ulster role. I assume that in those circumstances the SNP would completely exclude every element and trace of Scottish representation here. Is that right? It is important to spell out these matters. Am I correct in thinking that the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) is now indicating officially that he does not want any Scottish representation whatsoever in Westminster?

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
We would be independent.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I understand he is making it clear that there would not be 2253 a single Scottish voice heard at Westminster.

§ Mr. Stewart
The hon. Member is making very heavy weather about a number of matters. If he studies a copy of the Scottish National Party's manifesto, he will find that all these matters are clearly answered.

§ Mr. Hamilton
On the contrary, I shall put a few more questions to the hon. Gentleman after I have put some more questions to my hon. Friend the Minister.
The hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire is on record as wanting a separate Scottish Civil Service. Is that the official SNP policy? As far as 1 know, the SNP is not officially on record as wanting a Scottish Civil Service. Does the SNP have in mind the creation of a separate Scottish Civil Service? Is that the official position or is that something that is merely in the mind of my hon. Friend? I want to know from the SNP, and especially from my hon. Friend, whether it is in mind to have a second Chamber in Edinburgh, because that is a matter which may be important to some people. If that is the case, how will it be elected and paid for? What will its functions be?
We have heard from the SNP tonight that the existing regions would be abolished. Therefore, a new tier of government would be established—namely, the Assembly—and the regions would be abolished.

§ Mr. Dalyell
My hon. Friend is a former Chairman of the Estimates Committee and, therefore, understands financial matters. It is all very well to speak about abolishing the regions, but what compensation would there be for contracts which had been broken for thousands of people? There are contracts in writing and they are law.

§ Mr. Hamilton
This is an important consideration. That question will be best answered by the Minister. Has there been any attempt to cost the establishment of such an Assembly, taking into account the compensation payments that are likely to arise from the abolition of the regions? These are not trifling, stupid questions. They are realistic.

§ Mr. Gerry Fowler
I am sure my hon. Friend does not want to mislead the House. It may be the policy of the SNP to abolish the regions, but it is not the Government's policy. Therefore, I do not think that it is proper for him to address that question specifically to me.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison
As there does not seem to be any representative on the Opposition Front Bench, I should like to say that my policy is that we do not have any Assembly at all but go on just as we are.

§ Mr. Hamilton
The hon. Gentleman, in his filibustering speech, made it abundantly clear that he did not want anything to do with an Assembly. However, it was the Labour Party's official policy at the election that we should have an Assembly, and we shall carry out that promise. There will be an Assembly. I want to know from the Minister how far the Government have got with that policy. We are seeking something in the nature of a progress report. The SNP is anxious to get answers to questions, and I am putting some questions which hon. Members opposite have omitted to put. They have not posed several questions to which I think it is important to obtain answers.
My hon. Friend said that it was Government policy to maintain the regions. Therefore, Scotland will have community councils, district councils, regional councils, the Assembly, Westminster and Brussels. Would it be possible for any one man to be a member of that lot? Some people in Scotland, who are already members of both district and regional councils, have their eyes on the Assembly. Indeed, some officials in the regions are receiving greater salaries than the Prime Minister. Unless it is spelt out, it will be possible for an individual to be paid at district, regional, Assembly and Westminster level and also to be a member at Brussels. Therefore, he could have five separate forms of payment for doing those jobs. It is important for the taxpayer and the ratepayer to know whether that will be possible under the Government's proposals.
I should like to address some questions to the Leader of the Scottish National Party. The hon. Gentleman, I repeat, 2255 said that the SNP knew where it was going and made it clear that he and his colleagues want separate Armed Forces for Scotland. I do not know whether he has worked out the cost of what he would regard as a credible separate Scottish air force, army and navy. Would he hive off the Scottish coal industry completely, financially and in every other way, from the rest of the United Kingdom coal industry? The hon. Gentleman is not moving his head either horizontally or vertically. I do not know whether he is asleep.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
No. Just bored.

§ Mr. Hamilton
One of my hon. Friends posed a question about the universities. The SNP is clearly divided on that matter. Some of its Members believe that they ought to remain under the University Grants Committee while others believe that there ought to be separate Scottish control of the universities. In that event would they allow English, African, or other students to attend Scottish universities? Would the universities be international? The true meaning of a university is that it is open to all nationalities. The SNP claims to know where it is going. It is important to know the answers to these questions.
If the SNP Members want a separate regional policy for Scotland, how will they stop firms moving south of the border if the grants, subsidies and loans in the English regional policy are more generous? They cannot ignore what happens across the border. The same situation will arise with income tax and a number of other taxes. If income tax was lower in England, how would a separate Scottish Government prevent people moving out of Scotland? If taxes were lower in Scotland. how would they stop people moving in from England to take advantage of that fact? These are not trivial questions. They need to be answered. If there is any slippage in the unit dealing with these matters, it will have been caused by questions like these.
I must tell the Government that it would be idle to presume that legislation on this matter will be non-controversial or that it could get through the House in a day or two. A long time will be needed for consultations both before and after the 2256 legislation is framed. Representations will be made by trade unions, industrialists, local and national politicians and by the regions of England. The Kilbrandon Report was concerned with devolution generally and not just devolution to Scotland and Wales. The regions of England will be very much concerned and affected by any Government decisions relating to Scotland and Wales.
I have been a Member of this House for a number of years and I have never found any great emotion about the machinery of government. The SNP is right when it says the Scottish people—they are no different from any others in this respect—are concerned with the security of their job, the quality of their children's education, they are not concerned with the kind of government that provides those things. It could be a benevolent dictatorship for all they are concerned. "Participation" has been the "in" word for some time and there is a popular belief that the people are anxious to participate. I do not believe that is true. If we look at the record in trade union and local elections, we find that the turnout is derisory. As long as the wage is right, the rent reasonable, the job secure, and the school adequate, the people do not give a damn how these services are provided. There is not much evidence to show that many people are actively concerned to make the decisions.
My experience in the Labour Party is that very often there is difficulty in finding candidates to stand at local level—although that is perhaps not the situation at national level—and in maintaining local parties. The SNP, when at the pinnacle of its power in my constituency a few years ago, won control of Glenrothes District Council. Its candidates were so astonished that they did not know what to do. Within a few weeks they had all resigned and the Labour Party took control by default. The SNP did not have a clue about running a district council. It is time we pricked the balloon about how anxious people are to make decisions for themselves.
The debate has been useful in pinpointing some of the problems and pinning down the SNP on what it really stands for. We have obtained some information from its Members, but we are still not certain of their views on housing, education, agriculture and a whole lot of 2257 other issues that affect the lives of ordinary working men and women. I hope that before the debate ends there will be some attempt by the SNP to spell out its policies on these issues. It is no good its supporters saying that they will wait until they get the Assembly before telling us. When the Government provide the elections they will have to come up with policies, but it is important for people to know them now.
I think I have said enough to show some of the difficulties. It would be idle for the Scots to presume that there will not be a reaction—and, I suspect, a hostile reaction—in England to what is done in Scotland and Wales if similar favourable treatment is not afforded to the English regions. There will be rows. There will be, I was going to say violence, but there will certainly be great discontent if Scotland is seen to get more favourable treatment.
There is one factor which has never been mentioned and which the Scots will have to face. Has the hon. Member for Western Isles any idea of the size of the National Debt?

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
Yes, £26,000 million.

§ Mr. Hamilton
No. The figure is £40,125 million, as shown in Table 1 of the Annual Abstract of Statistics for 1974. Scotland's share of that—and this Parliament will see to it that Scotland takes its share—on a per capita basis is roughly one-tenth. Scotland would have to shoulder a debt of £4,000 million or £800 per man, woman and child. The Scottish National Party had better spell that out to the Scottish people. I put that thought to the hon. Member for the Western Isles because I shall make it clear to my constituents.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
Does the hon. Gentleman imagine that we are not paying our share of the National Debt now?

§ Mr. Hamilton
It is being shouldered on a United Kingdom basis, and the Scottish people would have to take all the disciplines. It would not all be advantage. It would be shouldered in much the same way as the National Debt is shouldered. It is important for the Scottish people to understand that they would have a Scottish National Debt. This Parliament would insist that they took 2258 their proportion of the United Kingdom's National Debt as it exists. I hope that Members of the Scottish National Party will spell this out to the Scottish people in their future gyrations on policy.

§ Mr. Alexander Fletcher (Edinburgh, North)
The rather leisurely way in which this debate has been conducted will, I hope, not mislead anyone about the tremendous importance of the subject before us in the early hours of today.
The particular significance to the Minister is that the Government are due to present a White Paper in the autumn of this year setting out more detailed proposals on the whole question of devolution in general and of Scottish and Welsh Assemblies in particular.
I am a little disappointed that in the debate tonight more time than is necessary has been spent attacking various parties and personalities across the Floor of the House, which has not been particularly constructive to the point we are trying to discuss and understand. We have not been very helpful to the Minister in the considerations taking place, and if we do not like the White Paper in November to some extent we have only ourselves to blame for the lack of ideas and constructive thought that has gone into the debate so far. I am obviously hoping to remedy that in the next few minutes, in my usual modest way.
However, it is a pity that we have spent, not only on this subject but on many political subjects, a disproportionate amount of time attacking each other's policies rather than providing some good solid ideas about what the situation should be.
The only other criticism I would make is that fear is used to a greater extent in the devolution arguments by both sides. The Scottish Nationalists suggest to the Scottish people that they are being deprived of something and are being held back. There is the fear of the anti-devolutionist who says that we cannot play around with the constitution and that if we go any way towords an Assembly, the danger is that we shall start on a slippery slope that has a horrible ending.
We should be able to discuss the subject fairly rationally, discover some of the directions we might go and try to understand some of the attitudes that 2259 have been developing among hon. Members and people generally in Scotland and England during the past few years. We have already heard tonight from people who might be described as diehard Unionists—they come from all political parties—who believe that they were panicked into a devolution commitment which they think is now ill considered and likely to launch Britain down the slippery slope of separatism. This argument seems to endorse the status quo as the defence against nationalism, and it leads to an understandable tiredness with the deluge or change and reform which has marked the past few years. But this is a view from Westminster rather than from Scotland, and it one which seems insensitive to the restlessness which is as evident in Scotland this year as it was last year.
This restlessness with over-centralisa-tion affects attitudes in industry and the trade unions as well as in Government and with Government. If this restlessness seems less troublesome this year than it was last year, this may be due entirely to the firm commitment made by all parties which fought the election in Scotland last year to have an Assembly set up before yet another General Election takes place. I think that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) was suggesting that the SNP did not make that commitment.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
indicated assent.

§ Mr. Fletcher
If we are talking about the majority of seats in Scotland and the two major parties in Scotland, we must accept that the Conservative Party and the Labour Party made a firm commitment regarding the Assembly during the election last year.
A second attitude to devolution which seems to be developing is now called the minimalist approach. This suggests that the manifesto commitments might be met by setting up a talking shop in Edinburgh, following the enactment of a piece of legislation which would no doubt be described by the Government Front Bench as the "Regeneration of the Constitution Bill."
That is an approach which is broadly supported by some leading and respectable political figures as a sensible and 2260 gradualist approach to devolution. But it is open to the serious criticism that it is really a matter of "How little can we get away with to try to appease nationalism, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to fulfil the election pledge made last year?" That is not good enough in the situation in which we find ourselves and in view of the commitments we have made.
The third attitude is the maximalist approach. This is a view which I share, not merely because I think that I understand the restlessness which exists in Scotland but because I see the commitment to an Assembly not as a threat but as a source of potential benefit to the United Kingdom. I should like to see some of this restlessness in my English friends rather than their considering that devolution is just some little local difficulty in Scotland and Wales.
The constitutional reforms I would advocate would make the regions of England, including the South-East, envious of the autonomy captured by Scotland and Wales and would act as a spur to the English regions to follow this example. One purpose of Assemblies in Scotland and Wales would be to lead the way for regional government in England, even though obviously, for historical reasons, the Scots and the Welsh Assembly would be quite different in form from whatever form of government might be set up in various parts of England.
It is a reasonable rule when advocating changes of this kind in the structure of government that there should be no increase in the total size of the government machine. Therefore, in arguing the case for a directly-elected Scottish Assembly, which would have the power to raise revenue in Scotland and would not, therefore, be merely another gathering of big spenders, I would also advocate changes in the structure of local and of central Government.
The first and obvious change is the abolition of regional authorities. The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has twice tonight mentioned contracts—presumably he means the individual contracts of people employed in the regions. That is a matter of concern to all of us who are interested in getting the structure right, but it cannot be posed as an insurmountable problem when we 2261 are trying to get the structure right of local and central Government. This can be overcome in the light of our experience already with the new regional authorities and the commitment to an Assembly.

§ Mr. Dalyell
This is a serious concern. The Assembly will take over many of the local authority functions of the regions, because it will then become an executive local authority in its own right. Is this what is intended?

§ Mr. Fletcher
The Assembly as I see it would be a top tier of local government in Scotland as part—only part—of its functions. It would take over the duties of the regions which could be considered the top tier of local government.

§ Mr. Dalyell
This is the basic objection. It is no accident that the hon. Member who makes this proposal comes from North Edinburgh. What some of us are very concerned about bluntly is Edinburgh government. It is all very well to make this suggestion when one represents parts of the capital city and a famous constituency, but if local government functions are to be attached to the Assembly things will be rather different if one conies from Ayrshire, let alone the Western Isles.

§ Mr. Fletcher
I cannot support that part of the hon. Member's argument. I am fortunate enough to represent an Edinburgh constituency. Edinburgh manages very well at the moment with the legal profession and the Government organisations and commerce and industry generally. I am not trying to say that Edinburgh should necessarily become some massive capital city. It would be the obvious place to centre government in Scotland, but if other hon. Members have other suggestions I shall be happy to consider them. I am also happy to say that I saw in the Press yesterday that the Secretary of State has decided that the headquarters of the Assembly should be in my constituency. That is a decision that he took without any pressure from me, so I cannot be blamed for that.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
Would the hon. Member pursue a little further and more clearly what he means by the Assembly taking on some of the functions of local government? The present relationship 2262 between the Government and local authorities is that the latter have statutory duties. Are we saying that in the Grampian Region, for example, some of the local authority functions, either in that region or in the city of Aberdeen district, would be directly or executively controlled by the Assembly?

§ Mr. Fletcher
We have to realise that we are talking about an Assembly and a kind of structure that we do not have at the moment. We are going into a completely new area. The transfer of functions which are at the moment local government functions to an Assembly means that they will no longer be local government functions. The ground rules for those functions, as conducted and managed by an Assembly, would be different from the ground rules for the same functions if they remained part of local government.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully. Devolution of power and decentralisation seem to run counter to the argument to centralise local government functions under an Assembly which controls Scotland. It is the other way round. More of the functions transferred from Westminster to the Assembly should be further devolved to the local government system to be decided on by the Assembly.

§ Mr. Fletcher
I want to see the maximum of functions of government devolved to the districts. We must organise local government so that it is as near as possible to the people concerned. There are functions which can best be managed on an all-Scotland basis by the Assembly. There are other functions which can best be managed on a United Kingdom basis at Westminster. I think of Scotland as setting the pace in a pilot scheme. I hope that Scotland will become the envy of the rest of the United Kingdom if there is good thinking in the White Paper and the legislation that will follow. The people of Scotland will be pacesetters in a structure of government which did not exist formerly in the United Kingdom.
The abolition of the regions will help to reduce the cost of bureaucracy. This is not an insignificant factor when we are trying to understand and reshape the structure of Government.

§ Mr. Dalyell
We know that upheaval and change stoke inflation.

§ Mr. Fletcher
The regions are not run by the elected representatives. The experience of the past few months suggests that the regions are run by the senior officials for the senior officials and not by the elected councillors, who seem to be powerless in any situation requiring the authorisation of the expenditure of money. The Secretary of State said that he was powerless to intervene. There must be something sadly wrong with the structure of local government in Scotland when the Secretary of State cannot intervene and when the regional authority councillors appear to be powerless to intervene at a time when a great deal of spending is taking place.

§ Mr. Dalyell
There are to be in effect 140 full-time Assembly-men. Their salaries and those of their officials must be paid.

§ Mr. Fletcher
I do not think that that proposal will cost a lot less than the present cost of running the regions, in terms both of councillors and of staff.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
The hon. Gentleman must not confuse the situation. Salary increases were agreed by joint councils in which councillors controlled expenditure. The senior officials are charged in the statute with the executive running of the different departments. Although in some senses cost is not a serious issue, the salaries and conditions of local government staff are protected. Some local government officials received £70,000 golden handshakes as a result of the way in which the commission approached the question of local government officers' salaries. However the jobs were redistributed, the money would still have to be found. We cannot cut a man's salary.

§ Mr. Fletcher
It all adds up to a good deal for the officials and a bad deal for the ratepayers. There is something wrong with a system which allows that to happen. Parliament is faced with a challenge. If we are to make changes to bring about decentralisation, and not merely a facade of decentralisation, we must devolve power to the elected representatives in the proposed Assembly. The concept of the regions was produced 2264 in the late 1950s. There was a White Paper on the subject in the early 1960s. There was a Royal Commission on local government in the late 1960s. Its recommendations are being implemented halfway through the 1970s.
Much has happened to politics in Scotland since these ideas were first produced. It is a tragedy that the House insisted on putting through the reorganisation of local government in 1973 when the Royal Commission on the Constitution was sitting. The two operations were completely independent of each other. That is not entirely the responsibility of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Labour Members were not very quick to catch on to that. It is easy to criticise with hindsight, but that was a major mistake. To insist that because we have set up regional authorities we should keep them and add another tier of government in the form of an Assembly would be for the Labour Government to compound the errors made by the previous Conservative Government.
The office of the Secretary of State should go if we are to have an Assembly with meaningful powers. The Assembly should take over the domestic affairs which were previously conducted through St. Andrew's House upon the responsibility of the Secretary of State.

§ Mr. William Hamilton
Does the hon. Gentleman visualise a situation in which Scotland does not have a representative in the United Kingdom Cabinet?

§ Mr. Fletcher
Not at all. I have great ambitions. There is nothing to stop my becoming a Cabinet member of the British Government.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
Not as a Scottish Minister.

§ Mr. Fletcher
Not as a Scottish Minister, no, but as a Scottish member of a British Government, as can happen now.

§ Mr. Sproat
Does my hon. Friend envisage that Scotland will have the same number of Members of Parliament although there would be no Secretary of State?

§ Mr. Fletcher
Yes, I envisage the same number of Members of Parliament.

§ Mr. William Hamilton
The hon. Gentleman wants to have his cake and eat it.

§ Mr. Fletcher
Not at all. This place is overloaded. There are too many Members of Parliament.

§ Mr. Sproat
The amount of work will not diminish.

§ Mr. Fletcher
There are 635 Members of Parliament, 71 of whom are Scottish Members. This has nothing to do with whether there is a Secretary of State or Scottish Ministers. The balance between Scotland and the United Kingdom must remain the same. If the House decided to reduce the total number from 635, the Scottish Members should be reduced proportionately. I do not want Scotland to demote itself within the context of the United Kingdom.
The biggest single breakthrough in this restructuring would be in finance. Scotland would have an opportunity to abolish the rating system and replace it by local income tax for which the Assembly would be responsible. Block grants would be given by the Assembly to the district councils, and Westminster would continue to make a block grant to the Assembly because local income tax would not finance all the activities that took place through the Assembly.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
If there is a case for the Scottish Assembly to have additional revenue-raising powers in addition to the block grant so that it may determine the pace of expenditure, there surely remains a case for local authorities to have the right to raise additional revenue through local income tax so that each area decide its own priorities and whether it wants to persuade its people to pay more to get more services.

§ Mr. Fletcher
This is a very complex subject. I am simply trying to put forward some ideas.
There are various ways in which this could be done. The principle I am trying to apply is that of not adding more levels of taxation or representation. I am anxious that the Assembly should be revenue-rasing, on the principle of no rep-representation without taxation. [Interruption.] I said it the other way round deliberately. I want people to be responsible. If an Assembly is set up with- 2266 out revenue-raising powers, parties will fight the elections with great promises, and if the party that gains control cannot fulfil them it will blame Westminster for not supplying the cash.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Have mercy on public administration. It may be all very well for lawyers from North Edinburgh to have local income taxes, but let the hon. Gentleman think what the proposal would do to the Inland Revenue. It would mean the break-up of the Inland Revenue as we have known it.

§ Mr. Fletcher
I cannot believe that those now administering rate assessment and collection in Scotland could not, with a reduction in staff, switch over to some sort of local income tax [Interruption.] There will be a great deal to chew over in the White Paper and the legislation that will follow.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Ridiculous.

§ Mr. Fletcher
At least some of us are trying to put forward some ideas, instead of indulging in a constant gnat-bashing exercise, which is the main contribution from Labour Members.

§ Mr. Fletcher
The whole point that I am trying to make is that we made a mess of local government reform, and we must try to get this right. The pressure is on the Minister and his colleagues to get the White Paper out by the autumn and to have the Bill next year. Let us get cracking. I am as interested in the subject as anyone else. But I do not mind if the Minister takes extra months or an extra two years, because the most important thing that he can do on behalf of every hon. Member is to get it right.

§ Mr. George Thompson (Galloway)
I am glad to follow such a thoughtful and reflective speech as we have just heard from the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher).
We have heard a great deal of talk about slippery slopes. It is always presumed that they are for descending. It never seems to enter people's heads that they can be ascended and that one can climb up a slippery slope if one sets one's mind to it. There is an old Scottish proverb that "It takes a stout hert to a stey 2267 brae." I hope that the Minister has that stout heart and that he will successfully surmount the stey brae.
One hon. Member said that the English had not paraded their nationality or their nationalism. That is probably true when an Englishman looks at himself, but he should bear in mind the words of Robert Burns: O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! When a non-Englishman looks at the English people, he is well aware that they have their own culture and national personality, and we are glad that that is so. The English do not see it, because they live in it. They live and move and have their being in it.

§ Mr. William Hamilton
Can the hon. Gentleman tell me what the English national dress is?

§ Mr. Thompson
I suppose that it might even be said that the clothes I am wearing are a development of an older English working-class national dress. I am sure that my ancestors did not parade in this sort of garb.
It is a question of what the Scots and the Welsh want. The English people have to settle for themselves how they will run their country. I would not presume to interfere. if they see certain good things turning up in Scotland and Wales which they wish to imitate, who are we to stop them? If, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North hopes, Scotland becomes in a sense an experimental area and the English see good things coming out of it and want to imitate them, let them do so. I would hope that in turn, if we saw good things in England, we would want to imitate them in a Scottish sense where we could.
We must remember that history does not stand still. The decisions that the Minister will take in formulating his White Paper, or the decisions the House will take in legislating, are not necessarily the last word. All through the last election campaign I kept saying that the Scottish people and the same goes for the Welsh and English, would stop this process in their own country when they had what they wanted. It may be that when a measure of devolution comes to Scotland the Scottish people will say 2268 "Yes, this is what we have been looking for." I shall still be saying to them "No. I think you could have something better because you could have independence." But it will be up to them to decide whether they wish to stay with what they have got or whether they wish to move forward. They may wish to move forward within a decade or within a century. History is in flux.
We are not capable in this House of putting up a barrier to prevent events from moving on. We must not take the view that we can do so. We know that no Parliament can bind its successor, for the very good reason that events march on. It is clear that we will not have time, even if we wanted, to dismantle the new system of local government which has just come in before we legislate for an Assembly, if the Government mean their timetable seriously, and I accept their assurances that they do. If this is so, is it not the case that local government reform will be for the Scottish Assembly? It will be up to all the parties there to present their policies for local government reform to the Scottish people for their choice at a General Election.
One of the excellences of a small country is that organisations are bound to be relatively small. This means that the number of people involved in the organisations is likewise relatively small, so that the personnel get to know one another. They may already know each other, having passed through the same university college or training school.

§ Mr. Buchan
There may even be some people working.

§ Mr. Thompson
Of course. Let us hope that we all work as hard as we can. I certainly try my best, and I can safely say that I have never been in another occupation that demanded that I should be present anywhere as a worker at twenty minutes past two o'clock in the morning—except the Army. I remember guarding a NAAFI canteen with a pickaxe handle at this time in the morning many years ago, before a certain gentleman in Russia made us all sit up and rush to get our revolvers back again. I must say that I found it quite pleasant beneath the stars. I do not say that this personal contact is not possible in a large country, but there has to be greater effort 2269 to achieve it. It has often to be done on a regional and not a national scale.
Another question that I put to the Minister concerns a particular body which I choose to mention as an example, although there are other bodies similarly involved. Many years ago when I was a forestry worker there was a Forestry Commission (Scotland). Then there was an amalgamation. The other evening I had the pleasure of regaling the House with an account of monoliths and tnegaliths, but this amalgamation resulted in the creation of a monolith with headquarters at Basingstoke. Then, like the businessman in the advertisements in the London tube trains, the monolith was sent packing not to Glenorchy but to Corstorphine. It would probably have found a few more sizeable forests if it had been sent packing to Glenorchy, rather than to one of the most salubrious suburbs of Edinburgh.
I used to have doubts in my simple peasant mind about such movements. I wondered whether they were not in part to be seen as a means of building organisations and structures to hold the United Kingdom together. I suggest that the devolution unit, or rather, I should say, the Ministers in charge of devolution, must consider the place of the Forestry Commission and other similar bodies. Are we to revert to having a Forestry Commission (Scotland)? It would seem to me that we should do so.
I have always believed that self-government would have a beneficial effect on the psychological health of the Scottish people. In most of our difficulties in future we shall know that the fault lies not in our stars, not in the English or in England, but in ourselves in Scotland. We shall have to set to and tackle our own problems in our own way. To my mind that will be a good thing. If the Minister can help to bring this about, he will have done a great deal for the people of Scotland in the way of restoring the self-respect and self-confidence of the Scottish people.

§ Mr. Hamish Gray (Ross and Cromarty)
There are two features of the debate which slightly disappoint me. The first is that we have had no contribution in favour of an Assembly from the Labour benches. That is a great pity 2270 since some Labour Members are so keen on devolution. It is a pity that this evening they did not wait to give us the benefit of their researches. They have been working extremely hard on this matter and we would all have been most interested to hear what they had to say. There can be no doubt that they have been working hard, but whether we agree with their findings is another matter.

§ Mr. Gray
I shall not give way. The hon. Gentleman has already had his fair share. It is a pity that those who are so keen on devolution are not here.
The main arguments which we have heard in favour of massive devolution have, not unnaturally, come from the Scottish Nationalists. They would not expect me to go along with them all the way in what they advocate. I totally disagree with the separation and the separatism policies for which they stand. At the same time, some of my hon. Friends have been floating ideas. Some of them have been thought through and some obviously have not. However, they have ideas about devolution.
I believe that the question of devolution is something which we all accept in some degree regardless of the side of the House on which we sit. What we do not accept is the degree of devolution—indeed, total independence—which the Scottish National Party advocates.
I have stood on election platforms at three elections now and advocated an Assembly for Scotland, and I am certainly not going back on that now. I have always believed in an Assembly for Scotland. Initially the recommendation was for a directly-elected Assembly, but the Conservative Party at the February election considered that an indirectly-elected Assembly would be a quicker means of getting an Assembly started, and that having got it established it would then be there and it could evolve from that state. Presumably the idea would have been that it would become a directly-elected body.
When the present Government announced that they were going to take steps to create a directly-elected Assembly we went along with them. Those of us who believed in an Assembly felt that if the Government were proposing to have 2271 a directly elected Assembly we should be prepared to accept it.
I have been most interested in some of the speeches in this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher) launched some very interesting ideas, but the one thing he had slightly forgotten was that the whole question of an Assembly and its powers, and what it will eventually do, will depend on the functions that this House gives it.
The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) made a very interesting point when he mentioned the possibility of having a referendum before an Assembly is created. The hon. Lady the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) said, I think, that she believed in a referendum for all sorts of things. I have always been opposed to the principle of referenda, but we had one for the Common Market question. It may just be that it is worth considering having a referendum before we proceed along this path at all, because I am absolutely certain that the one thing the people of Scotland do not want is total separation or total independence. Therefore, having sorted out that question, it might be easier to decide what the powers of an Assembly should be.
We shall have to wait to see what the Government produce. We are not able to discuss this in detail now because we do not fully know their intentions.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
This is the first debate I can recall in which so many people have raised the question of having a referendum before the establishment of an Assembly. It is a totally new point. Does not the hon. Gentleman take the point that if we were to convince the people of Scotland—and, indeed, all hon. Members of this House—that we should have a referendum before any work was done on passing a Bill on devolution, this would delay devolution and would not be a good thing?

§ Mr. Gray
The hon. Member must not misrepresent what I said. I was not advocating a referendum, What I said was that the hon. Member for Fife, Central had raised a very interesting point which I think deserves further consideration before we proceed along these lines.
2272 One of my hon. Friends mentioned the reorganisation of local government and criticised our party for what we did in that way. Our party would have been criticised 10 times more if we had done nothing. We knew that there were no votes in reorganising local government, but there had been an outcry for it. The Wheatley Commission had sat. The mistake was that the Wheatley Commission was not told to look into the financial side of local government. It should have been given a money remit as well. Had that been done, we might not have had the criticism of reorganised local government in Scotland that we have now.
I am disappointed that a number of my hon. Friends and a number of distinguished Members on the Government benches have such grave misgivings about a measure of devolution for Scotland—an Assembly. I feel that this is something which we could accept as being in the long term for the benefit of Scotland. I have made it clear already that we are not talking about a separate or independent Scotland. We are talking about a greater measure of devolution for Scotland. All of us in this House and outside it have advocated this for a very long time.
Hon. Members are perhaps being rather pessimistic, and they are not accepting the challenge which is offered. I believe that we can make it work but, as is always the case, until we have a White Paper and know exactly what the Government propose it is difficult to debate it in anything other than vague terms.
We have talked a lot tonight about the EEC. Whatever criticisms hon. Members may have of the EEC or of EEC legislation, the question of our entering the Common Market was not rushed. For years successive Parliaments considered this matter very carefully, and when the legislation eventually came before Parliament it was the product of the thinking of a series of Governments in the past.
I go along with those who have suggested to the Minister that probably the most important thing of all is that the Government must not be panicked into legislation necessarily this autumn. The Scottish Nationalists will do everything they can to panic the Government into 2273 a hasty decision. It is 10 times better for Scotland that this legislation, if necessary, is delayed slightly and that we get the right answer at the end of the day—[Interruption.] That is typical of the Nationalists. We hear the giggles and squeaks from their bench whenever anyone mentions delay. We want to make sure that we get it right. We all know that the Nationalists want this in a hurry, because they are afraid of what may happen to them if anything goes wrong with the oil.
The Scottish National Party had no credibility before the oil came. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn made a fleeting visit to this House as the hon. Member for Hamilton. She won a by-election, and she went out at the General Election. She had no oil to back her at that time. The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) was not elected because he represented the SNP. He was elected because he was Mr. Donald Stewart, the Provost of Stornoway, and, as I have said in Committee, he had a jolly sight better voting record for the Labour Party than his predecessor. I do not say that in any carping way, because there is no Member of the SNP for whom I have a greater regard.
Those were the two seats which the SNP had before the advent of oil. The remainder have come in on the barrel, and they will go out on the barrel—

§ Mrs. Winifred Ewing
Wishful thinking.

§ Mr. Gray
No, it is not. The fact that they are wobbly all over Scotland and losing their appeal is the reason why they are so desperate—

§ Mr. Gray
No, I will not give way to the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt). That is why they want to get this going in a hurry—

§ Mr. Gray
Nor to the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn—[Interruption.] I intended to make a few brief remarks—[Interruption,] The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn squeaks all the time, anyway, whether one gives way to her or not. She is always chirping away.
We want to emphasise to the Government that, much as we want to see this 2274 legislation coming forward, we must be sure that we get the right answer.
My other comment to the Minister—I hope that he will pass it on to his right hon. and hon. Friends—is that we have had just a small sample tonight of the kind of prolonged argument which is likely to take place when we face the legislation. If the Government intend to introduce the Bill in the next Session, they must be prepared to sacrifice some of the other measures which they are also seeking. I think I am right in saying that the Bill will have to be taken in its entirety on the Floor of the House. That means that the time available for other legislation will be very limited.
If the Government try to clog the machine in the way they have done this Session, we shall never get the Bill through. Scottish National Party Members have tonight given us just a taste of their ability to argue various points, and I hope that the Government will take this on board.
I welcome the fact that the Government will produce a White Paper and I look forward to seeing it. I wholly support the principle of a Scottish Assembly and hope that the Government will give us proper legislation in due course.

§ Mr. Andrew Welsh (South Angus)
I find the highly personal remarks of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) beneath contempt. However, I have no intention of repaying him in his own coin which he so liberally and viciously spread around.
The Assembly has now been more or less housed. As it is now seeing to its own needs, I hope that when it is in operation it will ensure that it can similarly decently house the Scottish people.
Those responsible for devolution must ensure that governmental machinery is available to allow the Assembly to complete its task. This will mean at best a complete Cabinet system with fully-fledged Ministers ready and able to meet the governmental needs of Scotland. There will have to be Ministers for each major area of national life backed up by adequate executive machinery. These will represent the basic governmental muscle power required for the regeneration of Scotland.
2275 Those responsible for devolution must ensure that the decision making in Scotland is done by people living among and aware of Scotland's needs. There must be democratic control by the Scottish people. Anything less must stand condemned as being inadequate and parochial.
We desperately need a Scottish Housing Minister with adequate drive and energy to meet one of the worst housing problems in Western Europe. If the devolution unit does its job properly, such a Housing Ministry will be recommended. This will mean an end to government in Scotland by part-timers who hold a whole host of other portfolios. It will mean an end to the mentality of putting "Scotland" in brackets with Scotland always lagging behind English legislation as some kind of afterthought. Co-operative housing is being considered as a third force or alternative which will allow people to share in house ownership. The Government-sponsored committee now looking into this matter has met 13 times. It has not met in Scotland. It has not taken evidence in Scotland. It has no plans to visit Scotland. However, its report will be made available to the Scottish Office.
Are we to assume that when the Scottish legislation follows the English legislation as surely as day follows night, or as night follows day, it will be based on English research data and English experience? The development unit must try to find an end to this sort of situation.

§ Mr. Gerry Fowler
I do not want to be repetitious. I am aware that the hon. Gentleman has a prepared speech in his hand. However, I should have hoped that earlier in the debate he might have gone through his speech and substituted "Constitution Unit" for "devolution unit".

§ Mr. Welsh
I was using a shorthand term that was used by other hon. Members. I hope that if the machinery is created a start can be made on Scottish initiatives and decision taking based on the actual Scottish situation. The present poverty of the governmental machinery hides a similar dearth of adequate financial provision. The Scottish Estimates show that the money at present allocated is not enough. Glasgow alone needs 2276 practically the whole sum at present allocated if it is to solve its housing problem. If only one city is capable of soaking up such a large percentage of the finance at present allocated annually to Scotland, what hope is there of solving Scotland's housing problem. What hope is there for Bowhouse or for Ferguslie Park?
It is ironic that Strathclyde contains the heaviest pockets of urban deprivation yet at the same time has 61 per cent. unemployed in the construction industry. Recent warnings have come from that industry that unemployment will increase. There is a need for these workers and for their skills, because there is an obvious task for them to perform.
If the Secretary of State will not act, those responsible for devolution must ensure that the Assembly is equipped to fulfil the task. Those responsible for devolution must ensure the decision-making power and the financial teeth for the Assembly to allow it to undertake that task.

§ Mr. Buchan
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Welsh
I should like to finish what I am saying. The Secretary of State has said that he does not know—

§ Mr. William Hamilton
Give way.

§ Mr. Welsh
The Secretary of State has said that he does not know how much is needed to bring Scotland's houses up to minimum tolerable standards. Indeed, he cannot hold out any hope of a longterm solution. This is an indication of lack of adequate thought and research into the whole situation. The Secretary of State should know the answers but he does not. Those responsible for devolution must ensure that the Assembly is equipped to answer these and similar questions.

§ Mr. Buchan
Which questions?

§ Mr. Welsh
We need funds and a research organisation capable of constructing an adequate framework and analysis of Scotland's housing problems. We need Government machinery and the financial resources to carry it out in harness with all appropriate sources.
The Government know about the Department of the Environment's report on 2277 urban deprivation. It will be to their shame if they do not produce Assembly proposals adequate to meet and solve this problem. While they are doing that, it would be of great assistance to know exactly how much of Scotland's oil revenues will be allocated to the task of building Scottish houses. The Scottish people have a right to know how much of their natural asset will be plundered from them and how much will be set to rebuilding and renovating their homeland.
We notice that the first oil from Scottish territorial waters has physically been landed near London. Where the oil physically goes today, the revenue will surely follow. Let those responsible for devolution awaken the Secretary of State for Scotland.

§ Mr. Gerry Fowler
I think that even the hon. Gentleman will concede that the oil to which he referred was what might he called English oil on the analogy of Scottish oil because it came from what would on any natural division of the North Sea be English territorial waters.

§ Mr. Henderson
It is under the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts.

§ Mr. Welsh
The question remains, where is the oil revenue going? The answer is obvious. The cash is there and the need is there. Let those responsible for devolution produce a devolution plan to match this task for the sake of Scotland's future.

§ Mrs. Winifred Ewing (Moray and Nairn)
I am glad to be called, albeit at this late hour. I have great affection for the Minister. I hope that after his winding up speech, having told us lots of encouraging things, I shall like him even better.
I think that the hon. Gentleman will have a fairly easy task in summing up the debate, because so few constructive proposals have been put to him by his hon. Friends. I look forward to a brief speech from the hon. Gentleman, but I am sure that he will have a lot of ideas of his own to put forward, because they have been singularly lacking so far.
We have had a debate not so much about the devolution unit as about the Scottish National Party. We are pleased to have a debate about the SNP at any time that the small number of Labour 2278 Members from Scotland care to have one. They have strayed so far from the subject of the debate that the Minister will have a much easier time than if they had poured into his ear the constructive proposals which they rightly realise can come only from hon. Members on this bench. That is why the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) has presumably asked so many questions which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) will answer when he sums up.
I should like to limit my remarks to my portfolio, which concerns the EEC, and rehearse the patriotic arguments about which we have already heard so much. I should like to think that the Minister will seek powers in the proposed Assembly to scrutinise intensively all EEC legislation as it affects Scotland. This is a matter on which I would probably receive support from other parties. The Lord Advocate has given more than one set of encouraging replies and yesterday he said he would make sure that legislation coming from the EEC would be scrutinised.
Scrutiny is not a simple matter. As the hon. Member for Fife, Central was careful to point out, I have taken my seat in the European Assembly and I know just how many important regulations affect our domestic situation. They cover such a wide range of subjects that I could not list them all. I do not intend to speak for an hour like some other hon. Members and I hope that I shall not make a tedious and boring speech.
The Lord Advocate has said that it is his function to scrutinise law reform as it relates to Scotland, and he would surely agree with me that whatever other powers are given to the Assembly, the ability to scrutinise EEC legislation must be one of them. Laws that might affect Scotland are pouring in from the EEC and it is better to know about them in advance than to complain about them after they have taken effect. A vast bulk of paper work is involved. There is tons of it. It is very difficult to get to know all the regulations and there is likely to be a problem of enforcement. The chairman of the Chief Constables' Association in Scotland has said it is impossible to know all the regulations and that it will be difficult for the police to enforce them.
2279 If EEC legislation is unacceptable to Scotland, there will be a need for action to prevent it passing into law. If it is acceptable, other action needs to be taken. As we sit here debating the Assembly, there is legislation coming from the EEC which needs to be scrutinised from the Scottish angle. We already have a precedent for scrutiny of law reform from a Scottish angle because of our different system of law. We have a Scottish judge in the EEC and many Scottish trained lawyers there. This point has been taken in Europe and the existence of a separate legal system for Scotland was guaranteed in the Treaty of Union in 1707, but I will not go into that now.
The laws of the EEC affect vital areas such as agriculture, horticulture, fisheries and industry. It would be wrong to have an Asesembly which did not have power to scrutinise this legislation. There has been a growth of legislation in such matters as crofting which is excellent and specialised. Matters such as transport, which has a social element, and shipping are also included. We reserve the right to introduce subsidies to transport in order to assist remote areas. We should like to think that more will be done. Will there be any interference with our rights to consider that? There should be a strong element of subsidy to encourage remote areas to keep their populations, but that is a dangerous word to use in the EEC.
I remember my first visit to Brussels when I represented the Hamilton constituency. I am not ashamed at losing that seat. I did my best to keep it and I very nearly succeeded. On that visit delegates from my party were concerned about matters of this kind. We met some top civil servants of the time. One phrase was used which did not attract me to the EEC, but Commissioner Thomson assures me that in the intervening years the EEC has changed its policy in this respect. The phrase was that hill farmers would have to go to the wall. That phrase has a nasty ring to it and I did not like what it implied. In Scotland one of the top civil servants used the phrase in the company of myself and of several SNP members.

§ Mr. Dalyell
I do not believe it.

§ Mrs. Ewing
I was there and so were six other witnesses.

§ Mr. William Hamilton
What nonsense.

§ Mr. Buchan
Will the hon. Lady give way?

§ Mrs. Ewing
No, I will not give way on that point.

§ Mr. Dalyell
She is talking absolute rubbish.

§ Mrs. Ewing
I was in a meeting with top civil servants on this.

§ Mr. Hamilton
They did not say that.

§ Mr. Dalyell
No civil servant said that.

§ Mr. Buchan
Will the hon. Lady give way now?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The debate has gone on for a long time and the hon. Lady should be allowed to proceed.

§ Mrs. Ewing
I can easily obtain the names of the persons involved. They are in a record, but they are not in my head.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Produce them next week.

§ Mrs. Ewing
The Mansholt plan also said it.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Rubbish.

§ Mrs. Ewing
I referred back to this meeting in a conversation I had with Commissioner Thomson recently. He said that I should not worry about the matter because the policy of the EEC had changed in the intervening years. I welcome that change, because if hill farmers were to go to the wall that would not suit the economy of Scotland.

§ Mr. Dalyell
What absolute rubbish the hon. Lady is talking.

§ Mrs. Ewing
I do not propose to entertain any argument on that point. Those events took place as I have described.
I wish now to turn to horticulture where we are encouraging people, who work very hard in an industry which is useful and important to many parts of Scotland, to break their panes of glass and to go 2281 out of business. If that is to be the result of EEC policy it is important that hon. Members should be in Brussels and speak out against that policy.
On fishing, the EEC policy was hammered out before Britain joined. One can perhaps excuse it to some extent, therefore, on the ground that the pond was not so big. Now that Britain is a member that policy must be halted. That is the kind of thing that a strong Assembly in Scotland could speak up about.
That policy as at present constituted cannot be permitted to come into force on its due date. This question concerns the survival of a whole industry in Scotland. I am sure that it must affect the English side of the industry just as much. We have heard ambitious speeches from all hon. Members on this subject. That is one of the reasons, apart from the question of scrutiny for urging that the Assembly should have a district department within its Civil Service to consider ways in which it can cope with EEC policy and regulations in the best interests of Scotland.

§ Mr. Buchan
We are talking about a devolved Assembly, not a separate State. The hon. Lady is suggesting that in a devolved Assembly there should be a scrutiny organisation. What is she proposing as the feed-back on that? Will she recommend, in addition, representation at all levels of the EEC, including the Council of Ministers? If that is the case, it is a separate argument.
Secondly, will such a body of representatives in Brussels perform the duty of Members of Parliament or Assembly members and report back to the British people allegations such as the one about the civil servant who said that hill farmers must go to the wall? Would they report back to their own people that this had been said so that the truth could be checked?

§ Mrs. Ewing
I have reported this incident to the House on several occasions. The hon. Gentleman has not been present, but this is not the first time I have told the story to the House and it may not be the last time, although as I believe that the EEC has generously changed its policy the matter will not arise in future.
The hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions. I have thought about the ques- 2282 tion of scrutiny since yesterday when the Lord Advocate gave such encouraging replies and I believe that the scrutiny should be conducted under the umbrella of the Lord Advocate and that he should have additional help. The Assembly would have to have a separate department to cope with aspects of the EEC policy which affect Scotland.
I turn to the question on which the hon. Gentleman anticipated me, namely, that of direct representation.

§ Mr. Buchan
We want the name of the civil servant.

§ Mrs. Ewing
I do not have it in my head. I shall not be delayed by this because I have already answered the point. It happened before many witnesses and it was referred to in my speech with Commissioner Thomson, who admitted that that had been the policy, but it has since been changed. The hon. Gentleman can ask Commissioner Thomson about that. I try to be relevant, but sometimes it is rather difficult and Labour Members who filibuster quite disgracefully, boringly and impolitely and who lower the standard of this House will not tempt me into losing the relevance that I like to have.
Scotland should have direct representation across the board in Europe. It is rather strange that here we have a nation —and the case is conceded that we are a nation—

§ Mr. Buchan
Conceded?

§ Mrs. Ewing
We are a nation. Luxembourg has half the population of Edinburgh, yet it is a Member State and has its seat at the table of the various institutions. That is what we want.
I had the good fortune to catch the President's eye on my first day at the European Parliament. The fact that it was a Wednesday was not my fault, as the House will remember, and I made this point in my speech. It may interest hon. Members to know that far from the unworthy, rather rude remarks of the hon. Member for Fife, Central, my speech was well received. I was told by the British civil servant that normally—

§ Mr. William Hamilton
It was not. No one was listening to it.

§ Mrs. Ewing
Normally speakers do not look at the Chairman but just at the headphones and ignore him. However, I had an actively interested audience. Later I was congratulated by members of the delegation of Luxembourg, Holland, Denmark and Ireland, some of whom said that they agreed heartily with my point. I was congratulated by the Rapporteur, Mr. Bertrand, the next day and after my speech, which was listened to with rapt attention—[Interruption.] —I have said that they do not normally listen, but they listened to me. Anyway, we are on record—[Interruption.] Considering that the hon. Member for Fife, Central took an hour for his speech and my hon. Friends never interrupted with a word. I think I am entitled to make one last point on the matter. That is that at the end of the report of my speech—and it is in the minutes—appeared the word "applause".
My party always supported the idea of the referendum. Even if a referendum result does not go the way one likes, If one is a democrat one has to accept it. That is what I had to do. I am disappointed that it went the way it did. But immediately it went that way, we thought it was right that we should have a place in the European Parliament, and the Labour Party appeared to agree with us. We took our place and do not apologise for having done so.
However, I have a considerable mail bag, across the board, from people who vote for other parties and tell me so, and from members of other parties, apart from supporters. There was a gut reaction in Scotland following the referendum result— "All right, now that we are in, let us get on with it. We are glad you are going because you will speak up about things that affect Scotland." I have had considerable support from people in other parties for my position there.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Will the hon. Lady name these people in other parties?

§ Mrs. Ewing
I have an enormous file of letters.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Name some.

§ Mrs. Ewing
Some come from West Lothian, and some from my hon. Friends' 2284 constituencies. I do not have all the names in my head, but many good Scottish names were among them.
Our view is that wherever there is an international forum, Scotland should be there. That is why, after I visited the Parliament in January, before it was announced that there was to be a referendum, I took the view that there was a forum and that my party, if its members so agreed, should send a representative. That is still my view. I would take that view in relation to any forum—the United Nations, the EEC or the Commonwealth. Where the nations meet, we should meet, because we are internationalists and want an international voice.
That is precisely why we are members of this party. It is because we want Scotland to be on the same basis as Holland, Norway, Denmark, Canada or Australia. We want to be there when the nations meet because we dare to think that while we may have nothing superior about us, we have an individual contribution to make. Perhaps people from all parties would consider that Scotland has an individual contribution to make.

§ Mr. Gray
I think that the hon. Lady did the right thing in going to Europe and I wish her success there. However, does she not agree that there are members of the SNP who are wholly disgusted she has gone to Europe? They have told me so.

§ Mrs. Ewing
There will be some. There must be some, because our official campaign was opposed to it. I shall not say that there may not be some hon. Members—[Interruption.] We may be as disunited on this as the two major parties, but there is no cause for worry. We have no splits in our party. Hon. Members can rest assured and sleep. We shall lose no sleep about it.
I should like to pose a question about devolution. [HoN. MEMBERS: "About time."] Once again, I really cannot take criticism about relevance. What I have said has been particularly relevant. I am sure that I have been one of the most "relevant" speakers in the debate.
As regards devolution, it has been said that customs borders would be required, and so on, between Scotland and England. The hon. Member for Fife, Central said that if we ever established such a border 2285 he would leave Scotland. But he insists that customs borders will be imposed by the English.
The subject discussed when I attended the European Parliament was political union, closer integration. During the referendum campaign, those who were for our staying in hedged on that subject, but it has now come out from under the carpet. If pro-EEC Members are for political union, customs borders become irrelevant. Such talk has always been irrelevant. Perhaps England might want them with Scotland, but there is no reason for Scotland to want them.
I should like to know how those hon. Member who are critical view political union.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
If there is political union, the need for customs borders becomes irrelevant only as nation States disappear. Why should we set up new nation States now?

§ Mrs. Ewing
As usual with those who favour the EEC, the hon. Member has not said how he feels about political union. in a political union of Europe, Luxembourg. Holland and Denmark would be units. I am not in favour of political union, because Scotland would be helpless, but those who are must accept that there will be units. Why should Scotland not be a unit?
We are a nation with only the trappings of nationhood—the Scottish Office and some devolution—and look how long it took to achieve them. We want to be normal, like Norway. No one laughs at Norway, Denmark, Sweden or Holland —[Latiehter] This is a hilarious subject to many hon. Members but we take it seriously. We do not hold our views for materialistic or romantic motives. We want nothing that is not ours—the dignity of making decisions that affect the community of Scotland, in our own country, in a democratic way.

§ Mr. Douglas Henderson (Aberdeenshire. East)
The hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) drew attention to absent friends. I would say, in a neutral way, that a significant feature of this debate and a pointer to the future of the proposed legislation is the absence of hon. Members for English constituencies. I say that neither critically 2286 nor approvingly. There is one present, and there is the Minister waiting to reply to the next debate, but no English Member has made a contribution to the debate.
I doubt whether many of the speeches have been of much help to the Minister—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)
Many of them were not relevant, never mind of assistance to the Minister.

§ Mr. Henderson
I shall try to be relevant. The almost hypnotic influence of my hon. Friends and myself on Government supporters and members of the Conservative Party seems to have changed the style of the debate. Instead of a discussion of the work of the unit, whatever its title, there has been a debate on the theoretical policies of the Scottish National Party, in which distorted views were expressed. It is incredible that hon. Members, with their political skills and sophistication, should ask elementary questions about the policies of the Scottish National Party on the coal industry, the universities, the army and taxation. We regard that as an attempt to change the structure of the debate so that it is no longer helpful to the Minister.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
As the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends put down the topic of the debate they should not be surprised that the policies which they espouse should come under scrutiny. That is the purpose of the debate. The hon. Gentleman may remember a similar debate initiated by the Scottish National Party about the role of the conciliation and arbitration service in the teachers' dispute. Its Members spent the evening discussing Scottish education and denied the Minister the right of reply. The hon. Gentleman need not complain about tonight's discussion.

§ Mr. Henderson
I am not prepared to go into history. I was not present in the debate to which the hon. Gentleman refers. However, as I am assured by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) that as usual it was the Members of the Conservative Party who were responsible for the difficulties on that occasion, the hon. Gentleman may feel that it is appropriate for him to withdraw his allegation.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
The hon. Gentleman is correct when he reminds me that the debate was initiated by the Conservative Party, I apologise for my imputation against the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends.

§ Mr. Henderson
That is a most gracious withdrawal. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's views.
As the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) mercifully appears to have left our midst, I do not propose to go into all the major points raised by him.
However, he gave the clear undertaking that he would be one of the first to clear out of Scotland after it became independent. That provides an additional incentive to every Member of the Scottish National Party to bring that date much closer. Indeed, other hon. Members may also feel that that is a good idea.
I hope that the Minister will indicate the Government's thinking on four headings—functions, finance, the organisation and framework of the Assembly, and relations with the rest of the United Kingdom and external bodies.
The vast body of reasonable opinion in Scotland believes that the Assembly will be a laughing stock unless it has an economic and industrial function. However that may be defined, however grey the area and indistinct the shape, a great deal of the pressure for the transfer of power from London to Edinburgh is based on the fact that the Scottish people feel that the economic forces in these Islands have not worked in their favour in the past. However fairly or unfairly, however right or wrong, there is a strong feeling that they wish to take decisions and responsibilities in these areas in their own hands. If the Minister comes up with a scheme which excludes from the proposed Scottish Assembly powers in the areas of trade, industry and employment, he will disillusion many people, and those who press this view on him will be the wreckers of any Scottish Assembly, not the members of the Scottish National Party or any other party.
Clearly, we must have powers in relation to industry and employment. I quote from the Scottish Council Research Institute report on economic development and devolution which lends support to that view: 2288 The last decade provides conclusive evidence of the inability of the central Government of the United Kingdom to provide the necesary stimulus to economic development in Scotland. That is a clear and firm statement.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
Not necessarily true.

§ Mr. Henderson
It may not necessarily be true, but I am trying to show that there is a strong body of opinion, right or wrong, which the Government cannot ignore. If it is not true it is for the Government to prove that it is not true. We have a strong feeling in Scotland that until we have control of these functions, until we have control of our own economic destiny, we shall never get out of the pit of the unemployment situation and the record of demand management in the United Kingdom with its stop-go policies which are always applied at exactly the wrong time.

§ Mr. Buchan
I understand that the hon. Gentleman wants control over industry and the economy to be devolved and put as much as possible in the hands of the people.

§ Mr. Henderson
Yes.

§ Mr. Buchan
In that case why did the SNP oppose my amendments to the Scottish Development Agency (No. 2) Bill to introduce workers' co-operatives in Scottish industry?

§ Mr. Henderson
We are straying from the principle. My party was in good company, as we were supported by the Government Front Bench in resisting that amendment. If the hon. Gentleman cannot convince his own right hon. and hon. Friends, he has precious little chance of convincing anyone else.
The evidence of the performance of the Scottish economy and the effect on it of remote control is confirmed by other work that is being done. I refer to John Firn's work in Glasgow University on the external control of regional policy. He discusses the type of regional incentive Scotland should have and refers to the large part of Scottish industry which is under external control. We must reverse that trend, as Canada is doing, and make sure that a greater area of the economy is within the control of people who live, work and have their being in Scotland. 2289 The effect of external control on regional policy is one of the most important areas to be examined, and the control of regional policy is one of the most import ant functions which the Scottish Assembly should have.
There is strong feeling that not enough has been done in retraining. If we are changing from an economy which is heavily based on older industries to one which is based on newer industries, the need for retraining is much greater. Compared with the Swedish figures, the Scottish figures are lamentable. In those areas Scotland must be able to take initiatives and, if necessary, adopt policies which are different from those of the United Kingdom.
It has been fairly said in the debate that if we adopt different policies there is a possibility that our policies or facilities will be less attractive than those offered elsewhere in the United Kingdom. We must have confidence in ourselves and decide that we shall take decisions. We cannot be cushioned from the effect of decisions. We must take them in Scotland, and if we make a mistake we must be a democratically-elected body which returns to the people of Scotland and faces the electoral consequences. Some Members have shown in this debate that they want to have their cake and eat it.

§ Mr. Buchan
That is what worries us.

§ Mr. Henderson
We are telling the Minister "If we are to have this Assembly, for heaven's sake let it be one with real responsibility and power". If it is not, the people of Scotland will feel badly let down.
I come, secondly, to finance. There are precedents in many countries for a form of devolved taxation. I hope that the Minister will tell us that his unit is looking at the possibilities. For example, VAT might be a devolved tax available to the Assembly. There is a different sales tax between one State and another in the United States. It would be administratively possible for the proceeds from VAT to be at the disposal of the Scottish Assembly. One can envisage national insurance contributions being collected there. It would be possible— and this will be one of the ways in which the Government's proposals are judged— 2290 for oil revenues to be made available to the Assembly.
Thirdly, I turn to the organisation of the Assembly, the executive structure, the number of members. Presumably, some of these matters will be set out in the Bill. But I plead with the Minister not to include in the Bill too detailed a scheme and too restrictive a set of proposals. I believe that it is for the Assembly to make many of the decisions in this area. We must know the number of members, the basis on which they are selected, the constituencies and the method of voting. But I should be most unhappy if I thought that the Minister would lay down hard and fast rules about how the executive within the Assembly was organised and what the names of the officers of the Government would be. Those are properly matters for the Assembly to decide.
Similarly, in relation to the Civil Service support, the point was made that it must be an independent Civil Service. It cannot be responsible to United Kingdom Ministers and to Ministers, or whatever they may be called, in a Scottish Government at the same time.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
The Civil Service in Scotland at present is responsible to the Scottish Ministers, and nobody else, when they are working in the Scottish Civil Service, but it does not need to be a totally independent Civil Service to avoid divided loyalties, which I think is the hon. Gentleman's point.

§ Mr. Henderson
I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. The problem—and this is one of the grey areas—will be whether the Secretary of State for Scotland will remain, whether the civil servants are to go through for payment on his Vote or are to be entirely chargeable to the Assembly, or are to be paid under some other system. Certainly, they must be responsible to the Ministers in the Assembly.
I should like to see reasonable and fair rules for transferability with the Civil Service of the United Kingdom, because there are many Scotsmen working in the Civil Service in London who would welcome the opportunity to return to Scotland to work, if they were working for a meaningful Government. There may well be people, such as the hon. Member for 2291 Fife, Central, who will feel happier coming to work here rather than working in Edinburgh.
The point about local government has been raised ad nauseam. It would be a matter for the Assembly to decide what form of reorganisation of local government should take place. That should not hold up the legislation on this matter. There should be no need for the sort of delay that the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty mentioned.
I think that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) talked 17 times tonight about contracts to be bought out and so on. Surely it would be possible to have provision for transferability of these civil servants or public servants in the regional authorities to the public service of the Scottish Government. It would be possible to use some of these highly-skilled people in the Civil Service.

§ Mr. Dalyell
This involves the question whether the Assembly is to have the execution functions now entrusted to local government.

§ Mr. Henderson
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman's point eludes me to some extent. Perhaps he can explain it in more simple language.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
At the moment the position is that the executive functions in local government are there by statute. If the Assembly were to begin by taking over the executive functions of local government it would be necessary to deal with the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. It is a question whether local authorities are to have broadly the same functions and responsibilities as they now have or whether the detailed day-to-day work is to be done by the Assembly and not by local authorities.

§ Mr. Henderson
This is a slightly different concept from what I have been discussing. I have been talking about meaningful devolution which means having real power, becoming a real Parliament. The reorganisation of local government functions is something at which the Assembly would look and about which it would take decisions.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes
I accept that the lateness of the hour makes it difficult to explain the position. At present the 2292 distinction between central and local government is that broadly, central Government provides most of the money and legislates on how local authorities shall function. I agree that it would be for the Scottish Assembly, once set up, to change local government re-organisation, if it wanted. The question is whether the Assembly is to take on the executive functions at present held by local government?

§ Mr. Henderson
This is rather a lengthy point.

§ Mr. Henderson
I do not want to have a long dialogue on this point, and that is what is developing. It would not be helpful. There is the question whether there should be the ability to make a transfer of civil servants from the local government service to the new Assembly. That may well be something to build into the Bill or to make sure that nothing restricting it is inserted into the Bill.
There is also the point about the relationship with the Government of the United Kingdom and with other bodies. There have been articles in the Press and speculation elsewhere about the idea that the House of Commons or the United Kingdom Parliament should retain an over-riding veto on the legislation of the Assembly. If there is a feeling in Scotland that its democratic decisions can be overruled, that will not be a happy way in which to start relations between the two governments.
I would hope, even if for technical reasons something of that kind has to be built into the legislation, that there would be clearly stated a convention that only in the most extreme circumstances—which might be illustrated—would the Government ever use that veto. If we are talking of a body which has Big Brother looking over its shoulder all the while, it will not gain the respect and moral dignity and will not carry the conviction of the people of Scotland. Our policy on this is quite clear. We wish to see a real transfer of power to Edinburgh. We wish to see a good start to the Assembly. We make no bones that we shall continue to fight until Scotland is independent. Let there be no doubt about that. We believe that this gradual approach has much to commend it. We 2293 hope that what the Minister will say will reassure us that the Government are serious, that there is no slippage and that they will bring forward meaningful and practical proposals.

§ Mr. Buchan
The hon. Gentleman promised to deal with the problem which I posed involving the working of the Assembly and the referendum. I understand that the hon. Gentleman favours the evolutionary method, but I asked him whether he would deliberately exploit the problems that arise before the Assembly has a chance of settling down. There will be teething problems, and I want to know whether the hon. Gentleman will exploit them in a separatist manner. Similarly, would he exploit a referendum decision?

§ Mr. Henderson
Of course, one can foresee teething troubles, and it would be a strange political party—and this must apply most of all to the hon. Gentleman's party—that did not exploit such problems to its own political advantage. The hon. Gentleman would be one of the first to exploit a problem if he thought that exploitation would accrue to the benefit of his party.

§ Mr. Buchan
So it is party before country. Now we know.

§ Mr. Henderson
That is not an unusual experience for the hon. Gentleman. We would put Scotland's interests first all the time. The question that the hon. Gentleman asks about a referendum is a matter that he should put to the Minister. Let him ask the Minister what the Government intend to do. I am not yet sitting beside the Minister. I hope to heaven that I never do, as it would mean having the hon. Gentleman sitting behind me instead of on the opposite side of the House.
I hope that tonight the Minister will say something worth while. I hope that he will be able to reassure us about the pace at which he is moving, and that he will take full account of the views put to him in the debate.

§ Mr. Malcolm Rifkind (Edinburgh, Pentlands)
I think that the House has probably surpassed itself over the past six and a half hours in that it has been debating a devolution unit which the 2294 Minister assured as at the beginning of the debate does not exist. This has been a convenience to the House in that it has enabled the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) to talk about the reception that her speeches get at Strasbourg, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) to talk about the plight of Red Indians and the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) to talk about how the lifts work in the Palace of Westminster. The hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) also took advantage of a wide-ranging debate.
Despite the opportunity that those varied and magnificent subjects provide for someone in my position, I do not intend to succumb to the temptation of taking advantage of it. It is my intention to be brief. I am conscious of the fact that having debated this matter for six and a half hours we have effectively prevented many other Members who balloted from taking part in the Consolidated Fund Bill debate. I must express the view that I think it unfortunate that certain hon. Members chose to speak for a very long time, thereby ensuring that Members high on the ballot have had to wait until the early hours of the morning to get an opportunity to speak. I do not intend to follow their example. I intend to speak briefly, to put one to two points to the Minister and to comment on some of the matters that have been raised.
It amuses me, and interests me, that SNP Members claim to be speaking on behalf of the people of Scotland. Every time that they do so I am reminded of the referendum on the Common Market. I seem to recollect that until the referendum took place SNP Members went round Scotland claiming to represent the people. They were shocked and disappointed when they found that the people of Scotland did not agree with them. From John o'Groats to Gretna Green the views of the SNP were rejected.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
Not in the Western Isles.

§ Mr. Rifkind
I was careful to remain on the mainland. Clearly the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland will go their own way.

§ Mr. Stewart
Does the hon. Gentleman include Orkney?

§ Mr. Rifkind
No. I apologise to the people of Orkney.
Clearly the people of Scotland demonstrated that on a major issue affecting them they consider that their interests are identical with those of the people of England and Wales. It is clear that they considered themselves to be members of the British nation and that they were taking a common decision affecting their destiny.
Another matter of considerable interest to come out of the debate is the SNP's objectives. For a considerable time we have questioned SNP Members as to their objectives. We have asked them whether they include amongst them independence, which we maintain to be separatism, or some sort of limited devolution. They have often used the word "self-government" instead of "independence" in describing their objectives. They have used it deliberately. I suggest they have used it to suggest to the people of Scotland that somehow they can have what the SNP seeks without dismembering the United Kingdom.
The dishonesty of that argument became surprisingly and dramatically clear this evening. We had Scottish National Party Members saying that self-government was their objective, and the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) saying that it was his party's objective. When they were pressed, it turned out that, although they all conveniently used the same phrase, and the hon. Member for Caernarvon was honest enough to accept that self-government was not full independence—he expected Wales in some sense to remain within the United Kingdom, within a common political unit—the Scottish National Party is trying to deceive the British and Scottish public by suggesting that independence and self-government are somehow synonymous. They use the phrase "self-government" because it is innocuous and somehow suggests that at the moment the people of Scotland are not self-governing.
I suggest that the people of Scotland are no less and no more self-governing than the people of England and Wales, that they are represented in a basic democratic tradition, and that no individual in Scotland is denied any political 2296 right that any individual in any part of the United Kingdom has.
We know that there is to be a White Paper published in the second half of October. There has been considerable suggestion, if not a definite statement, that it is the Government's view that the Bill to be produced in the early part of next year will be to provide Assemblies for both Scotland and for Wales, and I ask the Minister to consider whether this is necessarily a desirable way to go about it. This will be one of the most important constitutional issues to be determined by the House. It does not automatically follow that what is good for Scotland is good for Wales, or vice versa.
But I put to the Minister an open question whether there might not be an argument, not to consider a single Bill, to cover two quite separate matters, but to consider two pieces of legislation dealing with different situations and requirements, just as with the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies there was no suggestion that a common piece of legislation would have been sufficient.
We have tended to assume that somehow the Bill to be produced in the early part of next year will attempt to be the final say on devolution for the foreseeable period, and we know, as the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has said, that this clearly will lead, if there are controversial powers in that Bill, to major and very lengthy debates, with much opposition from Members of different parties.
There may be a way in which this problem could be resolved much more satisfactorily, because there is broad agreement on all sides of the House as the desirability of an Assembly. This comes not simply from the present Government. One hon. Member who was very critical of an Assembly—I think it was the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan)—nevertheless accepted that there might be a good case for an Assembly.

§ Mr Buchan
I am not only a believer in an Assembly. I am a maximalist in relation to an Assembly.

§ Mr. Rifkind
I take the hon. Member's point. Perhaps it was the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) 2297 who said that, although he was not very keen on the idea, he was not necessarily hostile. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) said that he was fully in favour of devolution, and that there might even be a case for some form of Assembly.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison
My hon. Friend said that there was broad agreement about having an Assembly. I can assure my hon. Friend that there is no such thing and that I for one will oppose this with every resource at my command. I have no doubt whatsoever that many of my English colleagues will do the same, and many of my Scottish colleagues, and that many Labour Members, if they have the courage to speak out, will do so, too. In no circumstances will any of us make any move to break up the United Kingdom or take any step towards that.

§ Mr. Rifkind
I freely pay tribute to the consistency of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Hutchison) on this subject. But I chose my words carefully. I said that there was broad agreement. I did not say that it was unanimous. What is more, my hon. Friend knows that our party at its conference carried a motion in favour of the Assembly by an overwhelming majority, that the majority of our Scottish colleagues favour a directly-elected Assembly, that the Leader of our party endorsed a Scottish Assembly, and that that is the policy of our party. My hon. Friend and I each know our respective positions on this, and I do not suggest that his views are other than those which he has put forward.
I suggest that, given what I have described as a broad measure of agreement for an Assembly, if the Government wished to produce an Assembly which met the basic requirements of the vast majority of Scottish Members of this House, the legislation would have a much better chance of an early passage through this House. Although this would not be the final form of devolution suitable for Scotland and perhaps for Wales, it would be more acceptable for it to be composed like that for the time being.
There are certain difficulties in any course which is adopted. There is the difficulty of determining whether and, if 2298 so, to what extent there should be industrial or economic powers given to it at a time when we are in the middle of a very severe economic crisis. Our attitudes to economic devolution and the granting of economic or revenue powers must be coloured by the present crisis. We cannot escape that. Yet it would be absurd when establishing an Assembly designed to operate for many years to come, to say that decisions which might be made in the midst of an economic crisis could necessarily be the best decision for an Assembly.
There is another and equally important factor. Once an Assembly was established and operating, the question whether its powers were sufficient—whether powers should be taken away from or added to it—could be argued in a more objective fashion. At present, anyone who speaks against certain powers is accused of being against an Assembly, and anyone who speaks in favour of those powers is accused of going down a slippery slope and making separatism and independence inevitable.
We want to say that a majority of hon. Members in all the parties support a Scottish Assembly. Therefore, let us have that established so that it is no longer a matter of contention, and then we can argue about possible extensions of powers on the basis of the merits of the arguments and not on the basis of other irrelevant considerations.
One aspect of the White Paper which disappointed me was the way that one of the few unanimous recommendations of the Kilbrandon Commission—that there should be a different form of election to the Assembly—was summarily dismissed without argument, consideration or any explanation why it should be refused.
I do not ask the Minister to give a definite assurance on this matter, but I hope that he will leave the matter open and agree to consider whether) some other form of election might not be appropriate. I believe that it would be a mistake to assume that the electoral system operating in Westminster was necessarily the ideal one for the Assembly.
I hope that the Minister will not approach the debate and the arguments advanced in it as being merely a formality. There have been a number of constructive suggestions—perhaps fewer than 2299 one might have hoped—and I hope that there will be time for them to be taken into account before the Government publish their White Paper.

§ The Minister of State, Privy Council Office (Mr. Gerry Fowler)
This has been a lengthy debate. I strongly suspect that when we receive Hansard on Saturday morning some of us may be reminded of the dictum, "Never mind the quality, feel the width".
There have been some useful contributions to which I shall allude. I assure the House that we shall examine carefully all the suggestions that have been made in the course of the debate.
I shall begin by directing my remarks to the subject of this debate, because I do not think that every hon. Member who has spoken in the debate made sufficient effort to do so.
As I tried briefly to explain during interventions, there is no such thing as a devolution unit. There is a Constitution Unit but it does not operate within the Lord President's Office, by which I assume was meant the Privy Council Office. It is responsible to myself and the Lord President in the sense that we exercise ministerial oversight over its work. However, the fact that it is in the Cabinet Office is important, because it is not unique in working on devolution within the Government. Its task is largely to co-ordinate the work of staff of other Departments as well as making its own contribution towards devolution in the processing of particular topics. There are, for example, staff in the Scottish and Welsh Offices working if not full-time, virtually full-time on this matter. There are ministerial links. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth (Mr. Ewing) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) have a specific responsibility within the Scottish and Welsh Offices for liaison with the Lord President and myself.
Therefore, the staff of the Constitution Unit are concerned with co-ordination, in the same way as all the staff of the Cabinet Office, as well as with the devising of policy.
I think that it is appropriate—perhaps Ministers do not do this often enough— 2300 for me to pay tribute to the work of our officials, who have been very hard pressed over the past few months. There has been much discussion about the timetable this evening. It is clear that the Government did set themselves a singularly stiff timetable, but that means hard work not only for Ministers, but for all the officials who serve them. I am grateful for everything that they have done.
Perhaps I should emphasise what one or two hon. Members have mentioned in the course of the debate: we are attempting something unparalleled not simply in this country but in any country in the world. One cannot look at the evolution of federal systems and find a parallel. In general they have grown from the bottom up. One cannot even look at the West German federal system and say that that was created de novo at the end of the war. We all know how recent were the roots of that system in the quite separate States and Principalities of Germany. We are attempting to do something that has no precise parallel in any other country.
Why are we attempting to do it? I speak as a Celtic Englishman by origin, but still very much an Englishman. In my view the argument has nothing to do with nationalism interpreted as separatism. I am a convinced devolutionist. I wrote about the subject approximately 10 years ago. I am a devolutionist because we live in a world where decision making becomes ever more remote from the people. Irrespective of membership of the EEC, more and more decisions are, of their very nature and by necessity, taken at international level.
It is right and proper, therefore, to examine the accretion of power to the central governments of national States which has taken place over the past 150 years and ask whether it is necessary that all of these powers should be exercised at central government level. Is it not possible that some of those powers could be exercised at a lower level with an increase in the democratic feel of the process of Government without loss of efficiency? I should regard that as an important criterion. That is why I am a devolutionist. Indeed, I am a devolutionist for machinery of democratic government reasons.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) made a notable 2301 contribution to the debate. I agree with him that we must distinguish the romantic argument for devolution to Scotland and to Wales, which is concerned with the historic nationhood of those countries, from the argument which stems essentially from good democratic government and its requirements in the late twentieth century. I am not using the word "romantic"' in a derogatory sense. I recognise the power—particularly the emotional power—of that argument.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison
Who is the Minister to throw away 270 years of history and tradition? Why is he taking it upon himself to make these absurd changes for which nobody has asked?

§ Mr. Fowler
I imagine that the hon. Gentleman might have asked in 1707: who were they to throw away 1,000 years of history? The argument can be played both ways. I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that I merely represent the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison
Which will not last long.

§ Mr. Fowler
There may be two views on that last intervention, made from a seated position. However, the debate has ranged wide enough and I will not be drawn on that subject.
This is a singularly difficult exercise. That is why we must get it right. I agree with those who have said that we shall not get every detail right the first time round. That would be an impossible hope. On the other hand, we must get it as right as possible in the sense of producing something which is workable without disrupting the unity of the United Kingdom but with the benefit of improving greatly the way our system of government works.
The suggestion has been made, particularly by Members of the nationalist parties, that the Government have lost momentum since last October. I think that was the phrase used by the hon. Member for Caernarvon. That is untrue. We have been going as hard as any Government could have gone at the development and evolution of our proposals.

§ Mrs. Bain
Would it be a useful reminder for Labour Members to have on 2302 their desks the result of the October election? That might produce action a wee bit quicker.

§ Mr. Fowler
I am afraid that the hon. Lady yet again, as so often happens, reveals her party's innocence of government. I noticed this point in the speech by the hon. Member for Caernarvon, too. I do not blame the Nationalists. It would make no difference if every Labour Member of Parliament had on his desk the results of the October election. All that matters is that Ministers and officials working with them who are concerned with the development of our proposals should keep up the pressure. It is not a question of everybody putting in his own little oar in the development of the White Paper. I can assure the House that, in terms of the schedule for production of a White Paper, we have no reason to believe that we are slipping behind schedule. I put it that way rather than saying that we are not slipping behind schedule because I do not want to give the impression, so complex is the nature of this task, that it would be impossible for us not to slip at some point. Every time we come to a particular topic in this area, we find pitfalls and unexpected snags. I could never guarantee that event X will happen on day Y, and I would be silly to try. That is different from suggesting as some nationalist Members have, that there is something sneaky going on or that the Government are slipping behind in their programme and not really trying.
I do not want to make a Nat-bashing or nit-picking speech, but whenever this subject has been debated in the House, there has been much political posturing on the nationalist benches. We all know why that is. If they say often enough that the Government do not mean it and the Tory Party do not want it, they convince themselves—that is not difficult—they convince certain major organs of the Press in Scotland and they may even begin to sow doubts in the minds of other hon. Members on both sides. There is no truth, and there never has been any truth, in the suggestion that the Government intends to slip behind in its programme for devolution. I hope that is the last we hear of this suggestion. The Nationalist Members occasionally behave like the chorus in a rather bad Greek tragedy whose principal function is to 2303 cry "Woe" at every opportunity. Fortunately, there is no disaster.
I notice that the view of the hon. Member for Caernarvon on self-government was not the same as that of his colleagues in the SNP, despite the fact that the leader of the SNP called the hon. Member his hon. Friend. The view of the hon. Member for Caernarvon is also far from the unanimous view of Plaid Cymru. Despite the fact that it has only three Members, it is as disunited as any party with 300 Members. Not all its Members took the hon. Member's line with regard to the EEC. His speech revealed that it is possible to support a Nationalist party even to the point of representing it in this House and yet not have a separatist philosophy. It is separatism we are talking about when we discuss destroying 2,000 years of history in this island.
The leader of the SNP indulged in some scare stories. The fact that a story stating that certain of my hon. and right hon. Friends take a particular position—and I notice the cast of the drama changes every week—appears in The Scotsman or the Glasgow Herald does not make it true. Again, I strongly suspect that we have reached the point where hon. Members on the Opposition benches, even for the most innocent of reasons, are beginning to believe their own propaganda. That is the most dangerous mental state for any man to get into. I wish to deny that there have been totally abortive conferences at Chequers, or whatever the tale is. There is nothing in these stories.
I should be unwise to follow the hon. Member in the rest of his speech which appeared largely to be concerned with MacBrayne's. As we have more debates on the subject of devolution, I hope that we do not continue to use them as a peg on which to hang our constituency problems.
One or two hon. Members said—and I have sympathy with them—that it was more important to make sure that we got the package right in the sense in which I was describing it earlier than to make sure that we get it a month or two earlier than might otherwise have been the case. This point was well made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher). I. was most fascinated, how- 2304 ever, when the point was made by the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt). His attitude in the debate was responsible and was not fully in accord with that of many of his hon. Friends. I had every sympathy with him when he said that it was very important to group the powers together properly.
He said, I think, that above all one should devolve a coherent package of functions which made sense as well as a set of component elements which also made sense. I agree with him entirely. This is an infinitely complex job and I am grateful for the sympathy he showed over the difficulties.
I cannot easily answer tonight many of the questions that I have been asked. The reason is obvious enough. If I were to answer those questions I should remove the need for a White Paper in any event. The House would have the White Paper read into the columns of Hansard.
It might be as well to explain why we cannot announce a series of decisions one by one to the House on the components of the devolution package. The reason is that the functions must hang together. Even the constitutional side of the question, even the financial elements, must hang together with the functions as a coherent whole.
It would make no sense to have a series of legislative and executive functions and then to devise constitutional machinery which was quite inapposite for the proper scrutiny of that legislation and the proper performance of those executive functions. That is why, although decisions are taken provisionally, and have been for a considerable time, it is necessary to consider the whole final package to see whether it makes sense. I am sure the House will forgive me if I do not deal with many of the questions.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison
The House will not forgive the Minister. We are here to get answers. Why does he not give them? He talks about people hanging together. I hope that he hangs with them.

§ Mr. Fowler
I am always grateful at this time of the morning for a bit of old-fashioned Edinburgh politeness.
I should refer to the matter of local government which has arisen time and again in the debate. I intervened in the 2305 debate to say that the Government have no present proposals for any change in the Scottish system. Several hon. Members drew attention to the fact that it would be possible to devise a devolutionary package so that future powers in respect of local government rested with the Assembly just as much as with Parliament. That would be a possibility. I shall go no further than that.
That is the principal comment that I want to make on local government, save to record my own surprise at the suggestion by the hon. Member for Dundee, East that we might solve the problem by abolishing the regions in Scotland and replacing them by a series of ad hoc bodies. That would be a singularly unpopular suggestion in any of the component parts of the United Kingdom.
I was asked a series of questions to which I shall simply allude. First, will there be a separate Civil Service? I cannot easily answer that without anticipating the White Paper. I can answer the question of buildings in relation to the Welsh Assembly. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is considering this as a matter of urgency. He is making arrangements and he hopes to make an announcement before too long.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) returned to a question which he has raised in this House before, namely, the question whether we could have a financial appendix to the White Paper. At the root of all this is the fact that he wants some estimates of the likely cost as opposed to the cost of the present system of a devolved system of government in Scotland. It may well be exceedingly hard to produce anything that would count as accurate estimates, save possibly on quite arbitrary assumptions and within a very narrow range, namely, the cost of administering the Assembly rather than the services for which it is responsible. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall continue to look at the question, whether in the context of the White Paper or in other contexts, how we can give as many estimates of that kind to the House for the convenience of Members when they debate devolution.

§ Mr. Dalyell
I understand my right hon. Friend's difficulties, but, when we 2306 are engaged in a major conflict against inflation that could engulf us all and when we have heard what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to say, can he be happy about the imprecisions?

§ Mr. Fowler
As I do not accept that the costs of transferring the administration of functions already administered by Government to Scotland are necessarily great, apart from the element to which I drew attention, namely, the direct cost of administering and servicing the Assembly rather than the functions for which it is responsible, I do not agree with my hon. Friend. However, it could well be that he will be proved to be right and I shall be proved to be wrong. We shall have to see.
My hon. Friend also asked me about the universities and suggested that I might consult specifically Professor Samuel Edwards, Professor Sir Norman Hunt, Sir Brian Flowers, and so on. I can assure him that I have already consulted representatives on the staff at universities. I have already talked to eminent academics. I shall not give an undertaking, however, that I shall talk to specific academics, because that would be the wrong way to proceed. It is much more important to get the general feeling of the staff and, for that matter, the students of the Scottish universities than it is to talk to a few people, however eminent they are.
On the other hand, I must dissent from the view of the hon. Lady the Member for Dunbartonshire, East, who attacked the evidence of the AUT—merely, I suspect, because she did not agree with its conclusions—on the ground that it was very hurried. Perhaps I may say, in the friendliest spirit. that I hope that hon. Members on the Nationalist benches will begin to come to terms with the fact that there can be unpalatable facts in politics and that one must not simply dismiss evidence because one does not like it.
I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central about the possibility of a second Chamber. He will see that in the context of the White Paper of last year, that was not then in the Government's mind. He also asked about costing, and he posed 'a series of further questions. I hope that he will bear with 2307 me when I say that he will get the answer to all of them in the White Paper, and that he should not have too long to wait. He is right when he says that this legislation will be exceedingly difficult legislation. Personally, I hope that more hon. Members than have been present in the House tonight will begin to study our proposals in some depth and that we can debate the matter further, at considerable length, in the coming Session of Parliament.
Let me deal finally with the questions asked by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) whether we are determined that there shall be an Assembly with real responsibility and real power. I would regard it as a fatuous and futile exercise to create an Assembly for Scotland that was merely cosmetic and did not have real responsibility and real power. I began by saying that I am motivated in this by a desire to improve the machinery of democratic government. I emphasise the word "democratic". I do not believe that we would achieve that if this were merely a cosmetic exercise. We would have the opposite effect—of destroying faith in democracy in Scotland. That is why it is imperative that we get it right and that it is an Assembly that has real power and real teeth. I hope that we shall achieve that objective and that we shall achieve it to time.