§ 29. Mr. Canavanasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he will take steps to improve the opportunity of the House to deal with Scottish business.
§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Paymaster General and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Francis Pym)I have no proposals to make at the moment.
§ Mr. CanavanAlthough the Government have now clearly ditched any older commitments for genuine devolution, why is there such reluctance even to the idea of having the Scottish Grand Committee sit in Scotland now and again? Are the Government afraid that Scottish Tory Members and Scottish Office Ministers would be publicly exposed as the puppets of a discredited Government whose policies are so disastrous and unpopular that more than 50,000 people took to the streets of Glasgow on Saturday to demonstrate their opposition?
§ Mr. PymThis is an important matter. In recent weeks I have been considering the inter-party talks. In due course I shall bring forward proposals to the House as a result of those talks.
§ Mr. MillanI remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Government, as far back as 7 August of last year, said that they would recommend to the House that the proposals from the inter-party talks should be accepted by the House. Why is there this delay? These are extremely moderate proposals, but they would provide a little improvement in the way that we handle Scottish business. They should have been brought forward long before now.
§ Mr. PymBe that as it may, in the course of the last five or six weeks that I have held my present office I have been considering this, among many other matters. One of the matters remaining to be cleared up was, for example the important one of pensions, which we dealt with last week. I shall bring proposals on this matter before the House reasonably soon.