I am mindful of the fact that we have spent a considerable amount of time on this group of amendments, so I will not detain the Committee for long at this stage.
We have had a very good debate; in fact, two very good debates. On the first, there is among the three Opposition parties a broad measure of consensus that the Bill is capable of improvement. I will hold the Secretary of State to his word when he says that he will take that away and look at it. I remind him that while he might win a majority quite easily in this House, the Bill will also be scrutinised in the other place. I urge on him further consideration and suggest that the proposals brought forward by me and others tonight—I do not intend to press mine to a vote, but others who choose to do so will have my support—are reasonable.
I was very disappointed by the Secretary of State’s response on the constitutional convention. Ultimately, if we are to continue with this Union, a federal structure is inevitable. That will have to be grasped sooner or later, and the way in which that will be done is through the calling of a constitutional convention.
There has not been the same level of consensus on our other debate about the proposals for full fiscal autonomy. It has not been a particularly good debate: it has been characterised more by the heat it has generated than the light. Like the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), I favour the idea of evidence-based policy. I am not without sympathy for those on the SNP Front Bench when they say that they could do things differently with the extra powers that would be given to them. However, to simply say that it could all be done by generating extra economic growth is not good enough.
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When the deficit is of the scale outlined by the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), it is incumbent on those wanting us to go down that road to say exactly what it would mean. What sort of reductions in public expenditure and what sort of increases in taxation would be necessary? What would be the new level of borrowing and how would it fit into a new fiscal framework?
Essentially, I do not think that the SNP’s proposals sufficiently respect what the people of Scotland voted for in the election. They voted for the continuation of a Union—