Scotland's Future in the UK

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister – in the House of Commons at 1:18 pm on 25 November 2009.

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Photo of David Mundell David Mundell Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland 1:18, 25 November 2009

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, for the advance notice of it and for the extent to which both he and his predecessor have engaged with fellow Unionist politicians in Scotland during the Calman process. I also put on record my thanks to the commissioners for their work. The Conservatives fully supported the setting up of the commission and have played a full part in its work.

I look forward to reading the White Paper, but does the Secretary of State concede that the timing of it so near an election inevitably means that the issue will have to be revisited by the next Government? Does he acknowledge that his Government's White Paper should not bind any incoming Conservative Government? Conservatives accept that the Scottish Parliament needs to be more financially accountable, that the devolution settlement needs to be tidied up and that Westminster and Holyrood need to start working constructively together for the good of Scotland and Britain, but we will ensure those things through our own White Paper, not this Government's proposals launched in the dying days of this Parliament. Will the Secretary of State welcome that commitment and undertake to continue in the spirit of Calman, on the basis of consensus and momentum, regardless of who is in government, and resist the temptation to play party politics with such an important issue as Scotland's constitution?

Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that the guiding principle in deliberations on the Calman process has been, and must continue to be, securing Scotland's position within the United Kingdom? Is he as heartened as I am by recent polling in Scotland that demonstrates that there is very little support for separatism and an independence referendum? Does he accept Sir Kenneth Calman's view that the establishment of better working relationships between the British Government and the Scottish Government and between the Parliaments here and at Holyrood must be in place to underpin every other recommendation in his report? Given that most of the measures to improve relationships do not require any legislation, can he tell us what he will do to re-establish the good will between Westminster and Holyrood, which appears to have ebbed away?

Whatever differences we may have with the Labour Government about how to take forward the Calman recommendations, may I invite the Secretary of State to agree with me that they are as nothing compared with the divide between us and the Scottish National party? We are Unionists; they are separatists. We are in the mainstream of the constitutional debate; they are on the extreme.

However, does the Secretary of State also agree that there are no grounds for complacency? The Calman commission contrasts markedly with the so-called "national conversation", whose main participants appear to be insomniac cyber-nats. Is it not the case that the work of the commission, not Mr. Salmond's publicly funded, self-indulgent chit-chat, will endure and form the basis for taking-