HC Deb 01 March 1989 vol 148 cc273-4
14. Mr. Salmond

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last made a speech outlining the Government's position on the constitutional status of Scotland.

Mr. Rifkind

I last commented on constitutional matters in a speech to Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale Conservative Association on Friday 10 February.

Mr. Salmond

Will the Secretary of State elaborate on his speech at Melrose and explain why he argued that whereas independence was a matter for the Scottish people to decide, devolution was a matter for the United Kingdom and for Parliament? What is his reaction to the point made by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) in last month's Radical Scotland that To all intents and purposes, Scotland is an occupied country in which the ruling power depends for its support on a power base which is outside the country.

Mr. Rifkind

If the hon. Gentleman's Budget proposals, which we were told about last Friday, are anything to go by, that seems to be the view of the SNP. When we heard about the hon. Gentleman's Budget proposals, my officials contacted the headquarters of the SNP, but were told that nothing was known about them. When we examined the details, we discovered that according to the hon. Gentleman, the defence expenditure of an independent Scotland would represent about 5 per cent. of current United Kingdom expenditure to defend some 35 per cent. of the land mass of the United Kingdom. Therefore, it seems that the Scottish Nationalist party either would want to leave an independent Scotland defenceless, or would wish to depend upon the English Government to defend Scotland after independence. What price independence then?

Mr. Galloway

Is it not a breathtaking effrontery for the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) to ask the Government such a question when the SNP is conspiring with the Government to paralyse any possibility of constitutional progress in Scotland? Is it not the case that the Government and the Scottish Nationalist party are two sides of the same coin and that Scottish constitutional progress is caught between the hammer of Thatcher unionism and the anvil of SNP sectarianism?

Mr. Rifkind

Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first invite to join the SNP.

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