Constitutional Law

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the House of Commons at 1:46 pm on 15 January 2013.

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Photo of Charles Kennedy Charles Kennedy Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Substitute Member) 1:46, 15 January 2013

Over many years, the more I have heard from successive honourable and very good friends, such as those sitting on the SNP Benches right now, the less I have sought to try to explain anything on behalf of political nationalists. That, I think, is altogether a bridge too far. I have had a hard enough time over 30 years trying to explain the Social Democrat party, the alliance, the Liberal Democrats, the meaning of federalism and all the rest of it, without taking on additional baggage that is, I am glad to say, somebody else’s responsibility.

My second point relates to the issue of the nature of the Scotland that we have now, and what that should tell us, as we pass this order, about the conduct of the debate—the factual and political debate that will ensue. Like others who were in this Chamber at the time, I am reminded of the dog days of the Thatcher and then the Major Administrations, who set their faces like flint against any prospect of Scottish devolution, despite it being

“the settled will of the Scottish people”,

as the late great John Smith said, as evinced through vote after vote in ballot box after ballot box over election after election the length and breadth of the country. The best we got was the charade of a travelling circus, courtesy of Michael Forsyth, called the Scottish Grand Committee, which would jet into Stornoway and jet out after a few hours, having shed little in the way of light on matters. In fact, as time went on and parts of Scotland got more wise to what was happening, it generated a well-organised local or regional demo at the expense of the Conservative Government on the issues of the day that were pertinent to the borders, the Western Isles, the highlands or wherever.

As that went on, and as all three political parties experienced that frustration, I think we were against what we saw as the undemocratic control of Scotland and certainly the deeply unhealthy centralisation of power here in London. An awful lot of us voted yes with enthusiasm for devolution and welcomed the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, although—I will be honest—we never anticipated, particularly under the voting system used, that one day a majority SNP Government would be returned. I congratulate SNP Members on that historic breakthrough. We also never anticipated that a majority SNP Government in Holyrood would display the self-same centralist tendencies that were the hallmark of the Thatcher and Major Administrations. In particular, those who represented parts of Scotland outside the central belt in the outlying parts of Scotland—I know that this feeling is shared by some right hon. and hon. Members representing central belt constituencies, too, not least as far as local authorities are concerned—did not anticipate or vote for a devolutionary process that was transferring over-centralised power in the south-east of England to over-centralised power in Holyrood and across the central belt of Scotland.