Scotland Bill

I actually agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that point. Indeed, I see the Bill as the start of a process that must continue, because we risk putting an intolerable strain on the Union if we proceed with constitutional change that relates only to Scotland and not to the rest of the United Kingdom, particularly in relation to the different parts of England. As far as the future of the English constitution is concerned, the only point on which I am clear is that there is absolutely no consensus on the shape that it ought to take. I stood at the Dispatch Box often enough during the previous Parliament, answering questions from both sides of the House, and being told, “This is what we need”, and I rarely heard the same proposition twice. It is for that reason that, if we are to have a written constitution, we must first have a constitutional convention, because we will never build the necessary consensus for this sort of constitutional change merely within Parliament. That was the experience with Scotland’s constitutional convention in the 1990s, and it was then the lesson of the Smith commission and, before it, the Calman commission.