................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 12.11.95
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Labour wants Scotland to have its own Parliament. Others say THAT would threaten the very integrity of the Union. I'll talking to the man who would be Scotland's first prime minister and asking him how he's going to prevent constitutional chaos. That's after the news read by MOIRA STUART. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Terry Dignan reporting there. George Robertson, you haven't thought through the consequences? GEORGE ROBERTSON: Yes, we have, and I think what that film didn't do is to underline the fact that the vast majority of the Scottish people, .... thirty-eight per cent of Conservative voters want a devolved Scottish parliament and believe that it will strengthen the unity of this country and not destroy it. HUMPHRYS: That may or not be true. The idea of devolution may or may not be a good one, but that isn't the point. It's the consequences that follow in its wake. ROBERTSON: Well, we've thought through the consequences. That's why we put this matter to a Constitutional convention. This wasn't the Labour Party in some back room and the back of envelope. This was a convention that included a competing political Party, included the churches, the Trade Unions, Local Government, the councillors of all hues, and a huge grange of civic groups who've come to a conclusion about what the best way of governing Scotland would be, so long as Scotland remained inside the United Kingdom, and stengthening that. And, that's what we're presenting to the British people today, a considered view of a consensus. HUMPHRYS: No doubt you have considered it in great detail. You've thought about the implications for Scotland. The question is whether you've have considered the implications and the consequences for the rest of Britain. ROBERTSON: We believe that this is good for Britain. For a start, it is what the Scottish people want. Secondly, it is the only way in which we're going to prevent the break-up of Britain, and it's good for democracy too. What we're doing here is nothing insensible. We're simply, sensibly, carefully, democratising an existing level of government. A Scottish Office that's got fifteen-and-a-half thousand civil services, covers nine departments of State, is run by four Ministers who enjoy thirteen per cent in the opinion polls in Scotland. It's a question about returning power to the people. We're not disadvantaging England in any way because the powers that the Scottish Parliament will have are, at the present moment, exercised by ten Members of Parliament out of seventy-two, four Ministers and five thousand quango appointments. It's about democracy not about breaking up this country. HUMPHRYS: Well, you say that. It's about again all of the focus of that answer was on Scotland. Let's look at the consequences for the rest of the union, the so-called West Lothian question that we heard about in that film. A Scottish MP will be able to vote on legislation affecting England, an English MP will not be able to vote on legislation affecting Scotland. That is fundamentally unfair. ROBERTSON: Well, we've made it absolutely clear that we don't see it as being right that you make an ...solution. You have two classes of Members of Parliament in the parliament of the United Kingdom. And, if there is going to be an anomaly created is it a greater or lesser anomaly than the anomaly that we presently have with five hudnred-and-seventy-eight non-Scottish MPs. English and Welsh MPs have determined decisively the impact of legislation that will only apply in Scotland. HUMPHRYS: So you accept that there is an anomaly here? ROBERTSON: There will be an anomaly, but the British system is filled with anomalies. John, you know that this is not a Constitution, a written Constitution we have. It is full with a whole series of anomalies that have been created. The biggest one of which is felt in Scotland that we have our own legal system, we have our own distinct and very different Education, Housing, Local Government systems. HUMPHRYS: I understand that. They've grown up over the years. ROBERTSON: But, our laws are being made by a Party that has only ten members of Parliament, and four Ministers who share thirteen per cent in the opinion polls. That is the biggest anomaly that we have lived with for some time. I don't see why therefore we should consider another anomaly but a lesser anomaly to be an obstacle to democratising the British Constitution. HUMPHRYS: You say a lesser anomaly. It's not a lesser anomaly because it's not going to be acceptable to too many people. ROBERTSON: Well, you say that it's not going to be acceptable. If you look back through the history of the last fifty years, yours and my lifetime, you will see that only for two very brief periods between Sixty-four and Sixty-six, and between February and October/November in Nineteen Seventy-Four these were the only two periods where there was not an English majority of Labour MPs. All the Governments post-war have had majorities in England, so- HUMPHRYS: Indeed, you're arguing the case for a Scottish Parliament again, which I'm not. I'm not trying - I've accepted that that may or may not be absolutely sound and sensible and desirable in every single respect, save this one that we are talking about now, which is the consequences that flow from that, and that's what you've got to address, because if you can't deal with those consequences to the satisfaction of the people of the whole of United Kingdom, then you're in trouble. ROBERTSON: Yes, but I'm saying that we have lived with the anomalies up to date. There has not been some huge rebellion in Scotland over an anomaly that has been created. We had the Poll Tax- HUMPHRYS: So it's England's turn to have something foisted upon it that it doesn't particularly want. You said we've suffered for a long time now. ROBERTSON: Can I just say to you, that if there had been Scottish devolution and a Parliament in Edinburgh we wouldn't have had the poll tax, and England wouldn't have had the poll tax, because England got it a year after we had it in Scotland. I think we live within a system that is not neat and tidy. What we've got to understand is that whether or not that anomaly which may well with time, with decentralisation in the rest of the United Kingdom fade away, whether we can live with that anomaly. Can I say to you that this document the government produced for Northern Ireland, it makes it quite clear that Northen Ireland will get a legislative assembly. It's going to have a legislative assembly of ninety people, full powers over legislation, and there's not a mention here about reducing the voting powers of Northern Ireland MPs. HUMPHRYS: Right, let's come back to Northern Ireland again in a minute, but do you really believe that the English - lets just take the English for a moment - will live with what you have proposed? Sitting there quite calmly and saying, "Yeah, there's an anomaly. Therefore, it's not fair. But, dammit we've not been treated fairly in Scotland so you've got to put up with a bit of this.." That's effectively what you've saying. ROBERTSON: But it hasn't affected any legislation in the post War period. I detect no great upsurge of feeling that we can't live with in our un-neat and untidy Constitution. HUMPHRYS: We've never had anything quite like this before. We've never had in this United Kingdom a situation where one group of - and it's going to become even more extraordinary- ROBERTSON: Yes, you have. John, you have had it. For fifty years there was a Parliament in Northern Ireland in Stormont that legislated, and there was never any grievance, not a whisper was raised. No, but let me be absolutely firm about it. There was never a point during these fifty years of Stormont when the anomaly of Northern Ireland MPs being able to vote on Scottish, and on England and on Welsh affairs was ever raised in the House of Commons. So, we lived with that anomaly. Well, either there's a principle or there's not a principle. We're simply saying: is the anomaly bigenough to stop the democratisation of the United Kingdom, keeping the United Kingdom together because the Scottish people want to have a devolved Parliament in Scotland? HUMPHRYS: Let's be clear about something. We're not talking about stopping it happening. We're talking about doing it properly and are you seriously suggesting that the role model, the model we should all turn to is Northern Ireland? A lot of people are going to raise eyebrows at that. ROBERTSON: Well, I'm saying-This is not the role model. Northern Ireland is different to Scotland. But Scotland is different as well. Scotland's got its own legal system, Scotland has got its own Education system, its own Local Government system, its own Church, even its own paper currency. The fact is that Scotland is different, and what we're talking about is not tearing Scotland out. We're the bulwark against it. We're saying sensibly democratise the existing structure of Government in this country. If you say - if it said by anyone, this Government or by anyone else that nothing can be done in Scotland, what I find so contradictory. HUMPHRYS I understand that -We're back to that same point you see, and I keep trying to make it clear that I'm not arguing the rights and the wrongs of Scottish devolution. I'm not saying nothing can be done, nothing should be done in Scotland. What I am saying is that unless you get it right it's not going to be acceptable, and you offer the solution, or at least the example of Northern Ireland. ROBERTSON: I offer the principle. HUMPHRYS: Yes, but principles only work if in practice you can draw similarities and here the similarities are so wide apart. Northern Ireland has what - seventeen MPs, Scotland has seventy-two. Northern Irish MPs aren't involved in the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in the way that they have. They don't affect, automatically contribute to the Governnment's majority in the way that Scottish MPs do. The differences are profound, and it's in those differences that the danger lies. ROBERTSON: But we have a United Kingdom made up of differences, and we want to maintain the different system, maintain the United Kingdom, but you can't do it by saying- the Prime Minister saying that Northen Ireland will have its legislative assembly and that will keep them in the union. I don't think that's right, I don't think that's right at all. Mr David Trimble, who is actually a much greater Unionist than the Prime Minister- HUMPHRYS: There is a certain difference between what David Trimble wants and what the Prime Minister said he can have. ROBERTSON: Well, absolutely. But I ...today's Scottish Sunday Mail, Mr Trimble actually pronounces on Scottish devolution. He says the existence of an assembly in Scotland does not imperil the Union, and he called the Prime Minister making an ass of himself, inconsistent. HUMPHRYS: With respect he would wouldn't he? I mean, come on, what do you expect him to say in answer to a question like that? Of course he would say that because he wants an assembly. ROBERTSON: Well, we're not certain whether Mr Trimble wants that or not. But he's saying that he does not believe that it would endanger the United Kingdom if Scotland was to have a Parliament on the model that we've put forward. Look at other countries that have managed to get over these so-called obstacles that you're talking about. What about Spain, that has managed this variable geometry? We're not slaves to symmetery here. HUMPHRYS: Because there is consensus you see. If you really want to talk about Spain, and I don't because the complications of that are immense, but there is a consensus in Spain, and what I am suggesting to you, is that you will not get the consensus you want because of this anomaly that you dismiss but to many people may seem hugely important. And, let me repeat it is that Scots MPs are going to be able to vote on English legislation, English MPs are not going to be able to vote on Scottish legislation? You don't have an answer to that problem. ROBERTSON: But why is it that for the last sixteen years there has been English and Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs who have decisively determined the legislation that will apply only in Scotland. That was surely an anomaly that we had to-. HUMPHRYS: But Scottish MPs also take part in that? ROBERTSON: Yes, they do. HUMPHRYS: Where is the similarity? ROBERTSON: But the laws that brought the Poll Tax to Scotland, the laws that took water out of elected public control for the first time in a hundred-and-fifty years were all determined by people who were not Scottish. What we're saying is, let some of these decisions, that don't threaten England - these are not-none of the powers of the Scottish Parliament are going to threaten any of the English regions or England as a whole. HUMPHRYS: I've not raised that, yet. Well, that's arguable, and we'll come to that in a moment, because some of your own colleagues in the north say differently. ROBERTSON: That one of my colleagues in the north said. HUMPHRYS: And he's not alone as you well know, but let's look at this fundamental issue. You keep defending it on the basis of what is right for Scotland, and I'm not for the umpteenth time arguing against that - that's not what the debate is about. The debate is about doing it in such a way that it is going to be acceptable to the whole Union. That's what you're failing to do. ROVERTSON: No, I disagree with that entirely. Every opinion poll that has been carried out since 1992, has shown not only a huge majority in Scotland in favour of a Scottish Parliament inside the United Kingdom, opinion polls in England have shown exactly the same thing. The dissent, the rebellion that you talk about is non-existent. We've debated this matter for the last twenty years. The Labour Party at its National Conference has endorsed the idea of a Parliament with precisely the powers we're talking about with virtually no dissident voices at all. So, you can't claim when the Prime Minister puts it at the very top of the national political agenda that people are not aware of what's going on. And, yet, all the tests of public opinion show that people want to see Scotland recognised in a democratic way and still remaining inside the United Kingdom. HUMPHRYS: I'm not arguing that point at all, but we're back to the idea that the English will cheerfully accept the notion of Scottish MPs voting on their health matters, their Education matters, whatever it may be, and they having no power to do the same in return. Your own Robin Cook, who is an extremely Senior Member of your Party has accepted that a Scottish minister, Scottish MP, could not be the Minister of a quote "English department", that's to say one that dealt with Education or Health for instance. What's the difference between that and an MP? ROBERTSON: Well, some four years ago Robin expressed a professional opinion about the relationship inside the Cabinet. Decisions about who will serve as Ministers are decisions that will be taken at Westminster- HUMPHRYS: That isn't the point. ROBERTSON: -and not in Scotland. I still return this and I emphasise this. HUMPHRYS: This was an important principle, this was a very important point of principle where the Party is concerned. ROBERTSON: Yes, but there has been a point of principle over the years that where a situation has existed where laws have been implemented, the whole running of Scotland is at present being done by four Ministers, ten Members of Parliament out of seventy-two who don't represent anything other than thirteen per cent of Scottish opinion. Now that must be an anomaly like so many other anomalies in the British system. What about Ferdinand Mount (phon) Mrs Thatcher's, former head of the policy unit, who said that the West Lothian question was not insurmountable. In an un-neat and untidy Constitution it's a question of goodwill, and you haven't been able to produce other than a few voices on that film of an indication that there is a huge rebellion about recognising in Scotland what's going on, but I will say that you've a very impootant point here, that the government say they are going to make no changes in Scotland at all. They say that the Scots can vote for separation, but they can't vote for devolution, and I say that that is a form
ula for a tinder-box in Scotland. I want to make sure that Scotland is a full partner in Britain, and it's also- HUMPHRYS: Maybe a tinderbox in Scotland, potentially, but you're stoking up a furnace in the rest of the United Kingdom. So.. and what you seem to be saying to me, in this interview, is: we know there's an anomaly - an anomaly - not the easiest thing to say - but we're not going to do anything about it. You're just going to have to lump it! We're not offering a way out of this. ROBERTSON: But, are you saying that we must clear up every anomaly.. Is that what you're saying? HUMPHRYS: Oh, I'm saying..... ROBERTSON: In order that anyone will accept anything? In order to keep the country together? Because, otherwise, why aren't they proposing for Northern Ireland something? Something that.. HUMPHRYS: We touched on that but what I am saying to you is - and, since you ask me the question - am I saying to you that you have to think this thing through very, very carefully before you tinker with the British Constitution? My answer is most firmly: Yes, of course you have to because there will be .... ROBERTSON: And we have and we will. HUMPHRYS: But, you're not offering me any solution, at all. You're saying that there's going to be an anomaly, so be it, because the Scots have been treated unfairly for a long time. ROBERTSON: .. The British Constitution works in practice. It, probably, wouldn't work in theory. That's the way our Constitution has developed over the years. And, the Prime Minister, the arch anti-devolutionist is now a devolutionist, so far as one part of the United Kingdom is concerned. And, he doesn't think that it will be a problem if Northern Ireland MPs simply continue to come to Westminster and to vote on all of the issues. HUMPHRYS: Right. ROBERTSON: If somebody as pro-Unionist and as anti-devolutionist as that believes that that is the principle, then, the principle can apply to Scotland. And, I don't believe that there is a failure of goodwill in this country that we say that that was insurmountable and that democracy must be held back simply and waiting for some perfect answer in an imperfect Constitution. HUMPHRYS: So, you're saying: we're not offering a particular solution here, because there are things you could do - exclusion, the in and out thing, as you say; that Scottish MPs couldn't vote on matters to do with English affairs.. ROBERTSON: Well that's been looked at over the years and rejected, deemed to be unworkable by so many people. HUMPHRYS: But, the reason you have objected to, the reason that you have rejected the various solutions on offer is that they simply don't suit your Party political interests. That's the truth of it isn't it? ROBERTSON: Not at all. I've made the point about the arithmetic. It may not ... watching this programme. But it is not the case that Scotland has always produced the majority for Labour governments. Scotland has got a dominance.... HUMPHRYS: Well look at the situation at the moment for heaven's sake, if you were to win the next Election, you would have to - you would use - you need your Scottish MPs. ROBERTSON: John, the opinion poll lead in England for the Labour Party is greater than it is in Scotland, at the present moment. So, there is nothing to say that there won't be a majority of Labour MPs from England because there was a majority of Labour MPs from England in 1974 to 1979, despite the fact that there was a minority government from '66 to 1970 and from 1945 to 1950. HUMPHRYS: Right. ROBERTSON: So, we're talking about a purely hypothetical situation where the Scots make the difference to legislation that will apply only in England. But, in contrast, I can point to sixteen years where the Scots have had legislation decisively affected by people outside of Scotland. And, in one way, and I've made the point - and, I'll make it again, the Poll Tax was introduced by the Government in Scotland before it was introduced in England. Had there been a Scottish Parliament, the English would have been spared that particular affliction. HUMPHRYS: So, there'll be no question of either of reducing the number of Scottish seats. ROBERTSON: That's a different issue entirely because if the principle, if the principle has to do with voting on matters that are not Scottish then that's a completely different issue. HUMPHRYS: Are you open minded on that one, then? Are you prepared to pursue that? ROBERTSON: Well, I think, that if Seventy-Two is the right number of MPs to represent the Scots in Parliament on the economy, on economic affairs, on Foreign and Defence policy and Social Security and Employment policy now, it would still be right. HUMPHRYS: But it's not right now, is it? Because they're over-represented. We all know that. That is a statistic, an arithmetical fact. ROBERTSON: Well, because of history, because of geography, because of a whole series of arguments. But, mainly one that says that one part of this union of nations should not disproportionately overwhelm the other parts of it, we've got the present representation. In 1986, the Home Affairs Select Committee with a Tory majority looked at this whole question and concluded that this was the right representation. And, so democratising the Scottish Office is not an argument for raiding Scotland's ... HUMPHRYS: But, it's interesting that you praised in Eighties - your own language - the Northern Ireland example earlier - when Stormont was operating, as its own Assembly in Northern Ireland, they cut the number of MPs. If the same sort of cut was to be applied to the number of Scottish MPs in a similar situation you'd be down to forty. ROBERTSON: If that was a principle that the Government agreed........ HUMPHRYS: But, you're prepared to accept bits of the principle from Northern Ireland but not other bits of it. You've taken the bits that you like and not the rest of it. ROBERTSON: John, John. The Northern Ireland proposal for devolution from the Prime Minister doesn't include any reduction in the number of MPs coming from Northern Ireland. Indeed, they're going to increase the number of MPs. HUMPHRYS: But, what happened under Stormont that was the case. ROBERTSON: They increased the number. HUMPHRYS: Yeah. ROBERTSON: When Stormont was abolished and when Direct Rule came they increased the number. HUMPHRYS: Yes. Exactly. Because ... done here an in fairness. ROBERTSON: But, the Prime Minister is not suggesting now that they be reduced. He's saying that they will keep the same numbers of Members of Parliament despite the fact that they will have a legislative assembly in Northern Ireland. So, if there is a principle here, involving Northern Ireland, let the Prime Minister and the Government be utterly right in that we are convinced that the right number to represent Scotland is seventy-two because in ten days' time we have a Budget and a Finance Bill. Votes on taxation, votes on Public Expenditure. They all apply to Scotland. Why should simply because we're going to have devolution and we're going to democratise the Scottish Office should the number of Members of Parliament from Scotland be reduced? HUMPHRYS: There clearly are principles involved in this whole area but you are not prepared to look at them, because you are concerned only - you're blinded by the Scottish interest, that's the reality, isn't it? ROBERTSON: No, I'm not! The nation's interest is my concern. I believe that Britain is a good country, that we are British. The Scots want to be Scottish and they want to be British, at the same time. They want to have a decisive say over their own affairs but they don't want the break-up of Britain. We're offering the only way in which Britain can remain united - safely and securely united - but the Scots will still have a democratic voice, decisive voice over their own affairs. HUMPHRYS: George Robertson, thank you very much, indeed. ROBERTSON: Thank you. ...oooOooo...