The UK needs a reformed second chamber

Devolution is a generation old - but Westminster has done little to adapt

Labour’s backtrack on its promise to reform the Lords is being welcomed in some quarters

Nicola Sturgeon has announced that she won’t be standing in next year’s Holyrood election. Most of the other remaining ‘class of ‘99’ MSPs, who have sat in Holyrood since it reopened, have said the same.

Whatever Sturgeon does next with her wealth of experience and knowledge of Scottish affairs, she won’t be going to the Other Place as the House of Lords is sometimes called.

There are no supporters of Scottish independence in the Lords. Even Gordon Brown, Scot and former Labour PM, has more self respect than to accept a sinecure there.

Labour once promised to reform the Lords and create a Senate of the Nations and Regions. But now its plans have been watered down to little more than tinkering with the membership and they have appointed 30 more peers.

Devolution is a generation old but Westminster has done little to adapt, to accommodate Scotland as a stronger, more confident country and to share sovereignty.

If the UK is going to work in the long term, it desperately needs a reformed second chamber where Scotland is formally represented.

Many countries with a federal structure - the US, Canada, Switzerland, Germany - have second chambers where the different areas discuss and vote on laws, taxes and international issues that affect each differently

Instead the UK has a fatcat-cafe, the House of Lords. The few Scots who have crawled their way in to it have no right to represent Scotland - or anyone except themselves.

Scotland has 57 MPs in the Commons - but they are supposed to represent their constituencies, not their country.

The lack of a serious second chamber is a problem because Westminster’s decisions often impact differently on Scotland and there is a gap between the two governments that important stuff is falling into.

Compare the UK’s plan for investment in Scottish infrastructure to what is happening in similar-sized independent countries - eg Denmark.

Scottish political commentator Andy Maciver wrote recently in a Herald column entitled “Why are we always in the slow lane when it comes to infrastructure”:

“The primary issue is that major infrastructure build can no longer take place from within the public purse.

The money the Scottish Government can find down the back of the sofa cannot pay for even one new road, tunnel, bridge or railway, let alone all of them. Instead, these must be paid for by private capital, and private capital must be borrowed.

Peer countries borrow, build, and pay back through tolling. We can’t, because borrowing powers (and for that matter powers over road and vehicle tax) are not remotely adequate.

It is frankly baffling that supporters of independence fail to deploy this argument more regularly.”

Also Westminster’s taxes are introduced without any consultation or assessment of how they will impact Scotland.

For example, the National Insurance tax increase will have a disproportionate effect on Scotland.

The UK Government is only going to compensate Scotland for the tax rise’s effect on public services by offering it a population share of the English bill. But Scotland has more doctors, nurses etc per head - partly because of its geography, as a large country with a dispersed population. The shortfall will impact Scotland’s budget.

Scotland has also given more generous pay settlements to public sector workers. How could the Scottish government have foreseen the NIC rise when it agreed those? The Labour Party said in its manifesto that it wouldn’t raise NI.

The changes to farm inheritance tax are also going to heavily impact Scotland, which produces a disproportionate share of the UK’s food and drink exports.

This poorly planned tax is one more pressure that is likely to reduce the number of farms, affecting Scotland's food security, exports and economy. Again with no warning or consultation - even though the Scottish government is supposed to have responsibility for managing agriculture.

Energy is a big one. Energy poverty in Scotland is 31% - compared to 13% in England.

That is in part because huge swathes of Scotland doesn’t have access to the gas network and households there pay four times as much to heat their homes.

Yet the UK government thinks it preferable to use public money to turn off wind turbines rather than offer the people of these areas a cheaper tariff.

It is not clear that anyone in the London rooms where energy tariffs are being discussed knows or cares about the energy poverty disparity between Scotland and England. The writers of the Financial Times ‘Lex’ column certainly don’t.

“Cheaper power prices for Scottish households would not be popular in southern English constituencies,” they wrote recently in an insouciently ignorant summary of the issues.

Westminster holds the great offices of state. It represents Scotland on the world stage. It has recently taken the decision to slash the overseas aid budget to below what every EU country except Hungary spends. This may be popular in England - but are Scots comfortable with walking away from refugee camps in conflicts which were caused by the British Empire?

Scotland didn’t vote for Brexit and feels the loss of EU membership sharply. The life chances of young Scots are being impacted by Westminster’s refusal to entertain a youth mobility scheme.

Scottish businesses were big exporters to Europe and are experiencing the pain of the increased regulation Brexit caused. The few international trade deals that the UK government has signed have not been good news for Scotland.

Scots too tend to be more aware than the English of what is going in Northern Ireland and they can see that the trade border down the Irish Sea that Boris Johnson said would never exist is growing higher all the time.

In a second chamber, Scotland could explain the effect that policy proposals would have on her people, resources and economy. As Quebec does in the Canadian Senate.

It has taken a generation to establish Scotland as an autonomous community within the UK. Without reform, the next may conclude that devolution is not enough.