Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the House of Commons at 1:58 pm on 15 January 2013.
What irritated members of the SNP so much last week was that wherever I went in Scotland more and more questions were asked about them, and as that fact became more and more widely reported, it really did rile them.
As for what the UK Government are doing, they will be producing a series of papers on key matters such as European Union membership. The hon. Gentleman cannot blame them for doing that, given that last autumn his own party got into a terrible muddle when it turned out that the legal advice to the effect that nothing would change did not even exist. If the hon. Gentleman will not answer the question, who is to stop someone else from answering it?
Right at the end of the year—and it will not be until the end of the year—the SNP will produce its own White Paper. There will be a degree of balance between the two sides, and people will be able to pick and choose what they believe. Let me get my retaliation in first, and say that if the SNP’s White Paper is anything like the other material that it has produced on this subject, it could well be nominated for the Booker prize for fiction next year. Anyway, my basic point is that both campaigns must be funded adequately to ensure that there can be a proper and thorough debate.
I support the order. This is the right thing to do: no one can have any quarrel with that. I just hope that as these matters are discussed in the Scottish Parliament, people will go out of their way to ensure that the process is impartial, and that, in particular, the Electoral Commission will be allowed to act as a genuine referee. It should make the calls. It will probably disappoint both sides from time to time, but it is better for someone independent to hold the ring than for one of the participants to do so.