It might be considered a trifle unorthodox to give a maiden speech leading from the Front Bench of your party, so I trust Members will forgive me but I am in fear of the Whips.
The Scottish National party will not oppose this Bill, and I would commend it rather more than my friend the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) would. As I am sure Members appreciate, the SNP takes a broader and more positive view of being a member of the European Union and, therefore, of funding it. As far as I could tell from her contribution, Labour wants to be tough on Europe without wanting to be tough on the causes of Europe.
Congratulations are due to the Government. Interestingly, if we look at the contributions the UK has made to the EU over the past 43 years, we see that the five years in which the UK made the largest contributions were the past five years. The £42 billion to £43 billion sum that the coalition contributed net to the EU in the past five years was roughly the same as the previous Labour Government had contributed in 13 years. The coalition therefore managed to double what it gave to the EU, which slightly contradicts the official position of the Government, which is to be tough on Europe. I can feel for some Conservative Back Benchers who are more anti-Europe in thinking that the line the Government take in public is not actually what they are doing in reality on the EU.
I am somewhat in awe of being here to make my maiden speech in front of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), as I recall that many years ago when I was teaching I used one of his books as a textbook, so I always treat what he says with great concentration and concern, but SNP Members are positive Europeans and we therefore will the spending for the European Union. The way I look at what we are proposing today and going to vote on later is that we are willing our contribution to the European Union to tackle austerity—quite the opposite of what the Chancellor is doing.
Interestingly, too, if we read the papers that come with the Bill, we find that the OBR reckons that in the seven years of the next spending period the UK will make much the same net contribution as it did in the previous five years. Although the Prime Minister has made much of the fact that he has got the formal budget of the EU for the next period down, Britain’s contribution in cash terms will be much the same. [Interruption.] Inflation will have reduced the real value, possibly by about 7%, depending on the outrun, but there is no cash reduction. We are going to be providing much the same contribution as we did in the past five years, so what has happened to the money that has disappeared with the reduction in the overall contribution limits? The answer is: other countries, such as Denmark and Austria, have negotiated smaller net contributions, in real terms and in cash terms. I can feel for the right hon. Member for Wokingham, because his Government are hardly managing to be as tough on the EU as they are pretending to be.
As this is my maiden speech, I cannot go home without saying a few words about my constituency. Given how technical this debate is, perhaps a few words of diversion before we get back to the serious business will not go amiss.
I have reached the age that we in Scotland call the age for “getting your bus pass”. I had expected that I would be spending most of my time after the referendum writing a few more obscure books on economics and tending to my improbably ambitious vegetable garden,
but suddenly the good folk of East Lothian sent me here to represent them. I could not be more pleased. My first and foremost duty—I have to put this on record—is to represent all of them whether or not they voted for me.
It is a pleasure to be in this august Chamber. Many, many years ago, as a small boy in Drumchapel, I fell in love with history. In those days, the history we studied in school was not the history from below but, by and large, the history of this Chamber. It was, as some Members may remember, the Whig interpretation of history, which was that all history was about the ever greater improvement of the British constitution—now, there are not so many Whigs left.
I appreciated those lessons, because this Chamber has always been kind to people of my persuasion—Scottish nationalists, people who want self-determination for Scotland. Though most parties here have disagreed with us, we have always had a fair hearing. Whether it was the radicals of the Highland Land League who came here in the 19th century, the Red Clydesiders of the Independent Labour party, or Members from the Scottish National party—we have always had a fair hearing. We may have taken issue with the Executive over the years, but never with this Chamber; we have always had a fair hearing. Indeed, in the past there has been conflict between the Executive and the Speaker. I am sure that if that happens in the future, the Speaker can expect our support.
Let me say a few words about East Lothian, which is the lovely, beautiful flat plain just to the left of Edinburgh. It is a county of small towns—Musselburgh, Haddington, Tranent, Dunbar, Prestonpans, North Berwick and Cockenzie—where people think hard and work hard. It is not a big metropolitan area; it is a county of radical tradition. From the eastern side of Scotland, the area has for centuries looked out to the North sea, to Europe and to the Baltic. Our outward-looking views on Europe and the rest of the world come, I think, from that geographical position. This idea of building positive links with Europe is what animates me. The trade links between East Lothian and Europe brought in new ideas. East Lothian is the county that introduced Presbyterianism to Scotland. We had the earliest mining communities, which added to our radical tradition.
We are the county that gave the world John Knox and Andrew Fletcher. Fletcher was the person who would lead the opposition to the Act of Union. In this context, I must mention the most renowned MP from East Lothian, John P. Mackintosh, who passed away in 1974. He is still remembered. He was a great constitutionalist and a professor of constitutional law.
Mackintosh sat on the Labour Benches, but I was lucky enough to have an old friend of his and his former campaign manager helping me in my campaign. I have always said that Mackintosh was a hero of mine, because of his genuine commitment to constitutional reform in the UK and to home rule for Scotland. He was very clear that home rule was something different from devolution. Piecemeal devolution—granting a concession here and a concession there, a change here and a change there—has hardly resolved the issue of the Scottish desire for self-government. The moves have been grudging. If there has been tension on both sides of the Chamber and argument, fractiousness and debate, it is because those of us on the SNP Benches feel that we are getting
piecemeal concessions. The majority of people in Scotland want self-government. We voted for self-government in the referendum last year. Home rule within the Union must mean home rule. Mackintosh argued for that. Perhaps if we had had home rule in 1970s instead of the piecemeal drip that we have had ever since, we might have been able to move forward, and we would not be holding this debate.
I have heard Members vie with each other over which is the most beautiful constituency in the UK; they are all beautiful. In East Lothian, we have a saying, which has been current for several hundred years, which is that East Lothian is the garden of Scotland, and it is. In the east of the constituency, lush volcanic soil has created wonderful arable agriculture and great dairy farms. To the south are the dark Lammermuir hills, which keep the wind off and on which the sheep still graze. To the north, there is a lovely sea coast, which has an important fishing industry. We have a wonderful verdant county.
I am here representing our farmers, and let me say to the right hon. Member for Wokingham that those farmers are not fans of the referendum or of withdrawal from the EU. They are hard working, and do not depend on simple subsidy. The uncertainty that will be produced by a referendum and by the possibility of Scotland being taken out of the EU—most Scots will vote to stay in—is the primary worry of our farmers. One reason I am standing here today is to argue in favour of staying in the EU and of defending the ability of our farmers to access the European market. However, I have not been sent to this place to give a travelogue.
I was asked one question time and again on the doorsteps in East Lothian: why is it that in Scotland’s garden—the bread basket of Scotland—hundreds of children go to bed every night hungry? If there is any place in this United Kingdom where there is a gap between the failure of this Government’s austerity policy and welfare cap and the ability to create food, jobs and economic activity it is in East Lothian. We cannot be the bread basket of Scotland and have children go to bed hungry every night. That is the contradiction. The Government’s dogged policy of austerity—austerity here and an attempt at austerity in Europe—is simply leading to social divisions across the UK.
I am talking here to those the Government Benches, especially the right hon. Member for Wokingham—I am using him as a foil, because I have spent many decades reading his economics and I want to respond rationally to him. We on the SNP Benches believe that we must maintain a serious approach to the deficit—that is not in contention—but the Chancellor’s austerity policies are an ideological fixation. The Chancellor wants to run a primary budget surplus out of ideological intent. Yes, we must reduce the deficit and the budget, but we can do it in an intelligent and rational fashion that does not lead to the social crises that are emerging in places such as East Lothian.
Why we should not run a primary budget surplus at the moment is quite simply because all the UK is doing is growing roughly on trend, but whether we do that over the next period is questionable. It is foolhardy to try to run a primary budget surplus if we are only growing at trend. What we should be doing is running a more modest deficit, probably at around 2% to 2.5% of GDP, roughly on trend, and continuing that to give ourselves the resources to solve some of the structural
problems in the economy such as our massive current account trade deficit and low productivity. If we do that and grow the economy in a structural sense, that will ultimately give us the resources to pay down the deficit. I would rather do it in that rational, conscious fashion than have an ideological knee-jerk reaction.
I have wandered far, Madam Deputy Speaker, and you have been very patient, so I shall draw to a close. We are in this place to have a rational dialogue, not to demand or to rampage. During my tenure, as well as representing as best I can the people of East Lothian, I want in some sense to help to heal the divisions between the four great nations of these islands. We want our self-government, and my final point to the right hon. Member for Wokingham is that I would like to see an English Parliament voting on English laws. That is what comes from Scotland’s having independence. I think that within a generation we will have four independent Parliaments in this Atlantic archipelago. We will co-operate, we will have a common market, we will discuss this and that and we will probably have a common defence policy, but we will achieve that by recognising the right of the four nations, and certainly of Scotland, to be self-governing and independent. The family of nations can then treat each other as equals.
Until we do that, we will continue to have to argue in this place for Scottish self-government and for our rights. Once we are a separate family, we will come together as four nations. What is wonderful about these islands is that we have four separate, wonderful nations, vibrant and creative. Co-operating as separate nations, we will challenge the world. Unless we do that we will continue to be caught up in the constitutional debate that has been going on for the past hundred years.
I commend the Bill, which says that Europe is a family of nations. So is the family of British nations, but for that to be a genuine family Scotland must be self-governing with its own sovereign Parliament.
2.32 pm