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9.12 pm
Mr. David Stewart (Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber): Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this historic debate. I add my contribution to the congratulations given to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his part in getting the Bill to the stage that it has reached. I know that, with his characteristic modesty, he may not want to acknowledge his place in history, but hon. Members of all parties may want to acknowledge it for him.
I want to concentrate on two main subjects: the role that the Parliament will play in rural areas, especially with respect to land use, and the issue of who will be eligible to stand for the Parliament in the 1999 elections. As the Member for the geographically largest Labour constituency in the United Kingdom--it stretches from the Atlantic to the North sea--I am extremely conscious of the real role that land has played in the history of the highlands.
In the emotive highland clearances, sheep were deemed to be more important than ordinary working-class men or women. More than 100 years ago, many ordinary men and women, six of whom were indeed elected, stood for Parliament under the banner of the Highland Land League and contributed to forcing through the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, which still gives security of tenure to crofters.
In 1947, a Nazi sympathiser in the Knoydart estate in my constituency refused his tenants any development capability. That led to the seven men of Knoydart laying claim to crofts to give them some rights over land use. In current times, we have some excellent examples of community land use, such as the Stornoway trust and the Assynt crofters; and in my constituency we have the islanders of Eigg who, through a consortium, managed to get control over their land when absentee landlords refused them permission to be involved in the running of day-to-day land use.
I welcome the setting up of the land reform policy group by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. It is an excellent step in analysing the use of land. We have to set land use in its proper context as part of a comprehensive, integrated and sustainable rural policy. I am convinced that the Bill is radical. I am convinced that the Parliament will be radical. My plea today is that we take a radical view of land use in the highlands.
In 1964, Harold Wilson set up the Highlands and Islands development board, a body which stopped the depopulation of the highlands and islands. It had the power to intervene in land use and to acquire land where it was under-used and underexploited.
I suggest that we need to consider four points in land use. First, we have to eliminate feudalism in land use--for example, the use of feudal superiors and vassals, which puts an historic slant on land use. It is outdated and needs to be changed. Secondly, we need to create new crofting land, which is not covered by existing legislation. Thirdly, we must provide farming tenants, who have security of tenure under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986, with the entitlement to buy the land. Fourthly, where there is to be large-scale purchase of land, especially in the highlands and islands, there should be conditional and legally enforceable land-use codes.
I also wish to touch on eligibility to stand for the new Scottish Parliament. Most of us agree that the new Parliament will provide an opportunity for new blood to be elected; for more young people and more women to be elected. I note from clause 15 that the Bill allows peers, ministers of religion and ordained persons to stand for election to the Scottish Parliament. However, thousands of local government employees who are politically restricted at present will not have the opportunity to stand. In Gandhi's terms, they are becoming political untouchables. They hold politically sensitive posts. They include middle managers, lawyers, architects and engineers--people who could contribute to the Parliament in terms of the quality of their abilities.
I understand that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is reviewing the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. My plea today is that Ministers examine clause 15.
Mr. Wallace:
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about local government employees' eligibility to stand for election. Where in the Bill is there a disqualification for local government employees to stand for election to the Scottish Parliament?
Mr. Stewart:
Under the 1989 Act, staff who earn more than £25,000 are politically sensitive and cannot stand for election to the Westminster Parliament, the European Parliament or the Scottish Parliament. There is an
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
I am slightly perplexed in following the hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart). He and other Labour Members talked about land use in Scotland, and the Secretary of State mentioned feudal tenure. It is ironic that one of the first acts of the Scottish Parliament will be to bring land use and tenure in Scotland into line with practice in England. That will just have to be one of those things.
I shall not consider at length the electoral system, although I pay tribute to the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) and for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson). I shall briefly reflect on the fact that many of the contributions of Conservative Members were not blanket criticism of the scheme or, rather, the proposals in the Bill. Perhaps I should not use the word "scheme" in a debate about Scotland. Those speeches were the beginnings of our party's response to how the English question should be addressed.
I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who made an impassioned speech, which I regret missing, and the speeches of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) addressed the possibility of moving towards a federal system in the United Kingdom, which is one way of tackling the West Lothian question. All hon. Members should consider how we English Members of Parliament should respond to the devolution agenda.
In many respects, the Scots, having spoken, have put the ball in the English court. That is their right and privilege; it is our job to respond. My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) spoke at length on the same theme. The hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) is not in his place, but I say to him that we should engage in that debate. I invite him to join me and other hon. Members on Friday in discussing the Referendum (English Parliament) Bill. That reflects the fact that we accept that there will be a different constitutional landscape at the end of this Parliament.
The Secretary of State described the Bill's arrival on the Floor of the House as a milestone, but, as he also said, there is a strong sense of anti-climax in the debate. The long campaign for a Scottish Parliament,
the overwhelming dominance of pro-devolution parties in Scotland, Labour's dramatic general election victory in May last year and the decisive result of the September referendum all contribute to the perception that tonight's vote is not an historic decision. The moment of destiny has already passed. The Bill is about putting into effect choices that have already been made.
When the Secretary of State first sat down at his desk in St. Andrew's house after the general election, he will have found that the Scottish people enjoy high levels of employment; that unemployment is below the European Union average and falling; that there is record inward investment; strong and sustained growth; and that public services, though one would never believe it from Labour rhetoric, are better funded than ever before.
Scotland still has its problems, but it has undergone an unprecedented transformation over the past 18 years--like that of the rest of United Kingdom, but, in many ways, more dramatic--from a backward-looking, strike-torn failure into a modern, vibrant and confident nation. Long may that positive outlook continue. That is not only the legacy of the successful record of the previous Conservative Government but Scotland's latest dividend from the Union of the United Kingdom.
The Union is not a dogma or a blind faith but a constitutional settlement which has secured the interests of all the nations in it for nearly 300 years. It is difficult to grasp the enormity of the consequences of this measure, which is no less than the recasting of that constitutional settlement. The Secretary of State described the Bill as a catalyst for change. There has been plenty of change for the better over the past decade or so, much of which the other parties did their best to resist. It is our responsibility to ensure that, as far as possible, the new constitutional arrangements do not disrupt or set back that change. That is the objective of Conservative policy on the Bill.
The Conservatives campaigned long and hard against devolution because we fear the risk of breakdown in the relations between a Scottish Parliament and Westminster. That risk remains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) has described. The debate has centred extensively on that danger, because therein lies the slippery slope towards total isolation for Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) painted a graphic picture of how that could occur.
That is why--I am grateful to the Secretary of State for quoting my Edinburgh speech so extensively--Conservatives are now determined to engage in the process of that major change to our constitution. That is why our candidates will fight the forthcoming elections in order to win and participate. It is vital that all responsible and reasonable voices are heard. That is the only way in which the new Parliament will become a stable and secure part of a new United Kingdom constitutional settlement, for it is the Union which has served Scotland so well in the past and is Scotland's lifeline to the future.
The new Parliament must acknowledge and recognise the advantages of the Union. It must exercise restraint and finesse in all things, but, above all, in its relations with Westminster and Whitehall. The reason we still fear for Scotland's future is that the parties that have hitherto dominated Scotland have advanced their case for the
Parliament on the false premise that Scotland has done badly from the Union. Nothing could be further from the truth, but those parties have revived old suspicions and hatreds that are ultimately destructive.
When in opposition, Labour and the Liberal Democrats spared no opportunity to whip up nationalist sentiments against the English where there was political advantage in doing so. It is to be expected that the nationalists should be past masters of that technique, but it was deeply disturbing to see serious political parties ride on the nationalists' coat tails.
Our concern now is that the Edinburgh Parliament might be dominated by the same left-liberal alliance, spiced by the poison of nationalism, which foolishly, or cynically, has so far succeeded in persuading so many Scots that Scotland has had a bad deal from the Union. If that is what is meant by "new politics" north of the border, we are happy not to be part of it.
Now is the time for all Unionists to make common cause. In making common cause with Unionists from other parties, I will repay the Secretary of State the compliment of quoting him, when he pointed out in yesterday's debate that the Edinburgh Parliament as proposed is not the reincarnation of the pre-1707 Parliament. He reiterated:
"it is unashamedly a settlement within the United Kingdom".--[Official Report, 12 January 1998; Vol. 304, c. 34.]
We have never doubted the commitment of the Scottish people to the United Kingdom, but when the Secretary of State signed the Claim of Right it was fair to doubt his because there is nothing in the Scottish Constitutional Convention's Claim of Right--[Interruption.] I am glad to note that I have irritated the right hon. Gentleman because what I am saying is obviously true. There is nothing in that Claim of Right or in any of the convention's recommendations that recognises the ultimate sovereignty of this Parliament. By contrast, clause 27(7) implicitly acknowledges that--grudgingly perhaps, but, none the less, it is in the Bill, and we welcome that as progress. To acknowledge the sovereignty of Parliament is to acknowledge what it is to be part of the United Kingdom.
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