Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the House of Commons at 4:19 pm on 15 January 2013.
I was coming to that very point. The Electoral Commission will test the question. Any advice it offers will be evidence-based. It will not be based on supposition by any Member of the House or of any other place, nor on opinion or myth; it will be based on evidence and rigorous testing.
The job of the Electoral Commission is to ensure that the question is clear, understandable and decisive. If given that right, it will ensure that the question is unbiased and fair. Crucially, by accepting the decision of the Electoral Commission, the question will be seen, across Scotland and across the world, as unbiased and fair. It was somewhat surprising, therefore, to hear the chief executive of the Yes Scotland campaign be very clear in his evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee about the Electoral Commission advice:
“There is always room left to disagree.”
Yes, we can disagree, but trusting an independent body to deliver a fair question is another thing altogether.
While those words are deeply concerning they also, I fear, reveal a worrying capacity for those in the yes camp to play fast and loose with vital checks and balances in the process. It is not just on the question that they appear prepared to ignore advice; given the SNP proposals, the issue of campaign funding also appears to be in its sights. The SNP Government want spending limits. That is absolutely reasonable and to be expected, but unfortunately, they want the spending limits to be set by them, not by the independent Electoral Commission. The spending limits will be set by legislation, but the SNP will control the legislation. There is a majority Government—in effect, a dictatorship in the Scottish Parliament—who will seek to do what is to their advantage.
The SNP has already proposed spending limits at half the level, or even less, than those suggested by the Electoral Commission. It is worth considering the impact of the Scottish Government’s proposals. One of their proposals is that each campaign can spend a maximum of £750,000. That is half the £1.5 million allowed through the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. It is less than the £1.2 million that all the council candidates from each party could have spent collectively during last May’s council elections.
I recognise that winning control of the great city of Glasgow and many other places was important for us as a political party, and more importantly, it was an opportunity for political parties to deliver their principles and values in local authorities, but are we seriously suggesting that the referendum on the future of Scotland—the most important decision we have made in 300 years—deserves to have less spent on it and is of less importance than a council election? I do not think so. That point needs to be reflected in the proposals for the spending framework.
The SNP proposals will have an impact on other interested parties; for example, the trade union movement. Unite has approximately 150,000 members in Scotland, yet the SNP proposes that organisations such as Unite are limited to a maximum spend of £50,000. It does not take a mathematical genius to work out that Unite will not even be able to pay for the postage of a letter to each of its members, never mind pay for a leaflet or an envelope.
It does not take a political genius to work out the SNP’s motives. There can be no convincing reason why the SNP would choose to set those limits. The court of public opinion will come to the conclusion that yet again, the SNP is seeking to manipulate the process for its own ends. I hope that it will rise to the occasion. I shall give SNP Members the opportunity to say whether they prefer to abide by the decision of the Electoral Commission or whether they wish to reconsider it. I hope that they will address that when they speak in the debate.
By passing the motion we are setting out a clear legal position on the referendum, and by doing so we are passing responsibility from this place to the Scottish Government, and to all Members of the Scottish Parliament. That is a heavy responsibility that lies with the SNP Government and SNP Members because, perhaps uniquely in the Scottish Parliament, the party has an overall majority and a resulting built-in majority in committee, which places a greater responsibility on the party of government to live up to the highest ideals, judged not as members of the SNP but as parliamentarians and first and foremost as democrats. If done right, the legacy, whatever the outcome of the referendum, can be a Parliament of which we can all be proud, and a result in which we can all have faith. I commit myself and, I am sure, every single member of my party, to working for what is in the best interests of Scotland, whatever the outcome of the referendum. I hope that members of other political parties will do exactly the same. Scotland deserves nothing less.