My Lords, to speak for the first time in your Lordships’ House is a great honour and very humbling. I am delighted to follow the noble Earl in this debate. I take this opportunity to thank the noble and learned Lords, Lord Wallace, Lord Mackay and Lord Hope, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and many others for all their kind words since I have been in the House. I extend heartfelt thanks to all who have made my introduction and my early days in this place so smooth. The doorkeepers, the clerks, the attendants, the Library, catering and all the officials and other staff are due a very big thank you. Like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, I am sure I will have many opportunities to call on their advice in future months and years.
To my supporters at my introduction, my noble friends Lord Plumb and Lady Byford, warm thanks are due. In many respects, the fact that I entered politics at all is due to my noble friend Lord Plumb, who many years ago recruited me to work for the European Democrats, the family of Conservatives in the European Parliament. I had the good fortune to work on the same shadow ministerial team as my noble friend Lady Byford. I yield to no one in my admiration for my noble friends’ collective knowledge and experience of farming, the countryside and rural affairs, which they share with my noble friend Lord Jopling, a former Minister for Agriculture in the other place.
I was born in Edinburgh to a line of pharmacists. Anybody who over the years went to the chemist in Elm Row or to George Cowie chemist on Dublin Street or to the chemist in North Berwick could have been served by my grandfather or one of my uncles. My father, my uncle and my brother took a medical path, but I followed my mother’s interests in languages and history and embarked upon a legal career. I studied law at Edinburgh University. I remember being a student of JDB Mitchell, who introduced the first six-month course on the implications for British constitutional law of joining the European Union in 1973. I entered the Faculty of Advocates in 1982 and benefited from the rigorous training. At the time, professional training was serving a Bar apprenticeship with a firm of solicitors before undertaking a period of devilling with a devil master. Both parts of my training straddled the longest case in Scottish legal history, in which Strathclyde Regional Council’s attempt to add fluoride to the water supply was thwarted by a pensioner who wore dentures who petitioned the Court of Session because she could see no personal benefit from adding a potential carcinogen to her drinking water supply. Needless to say, the council lost. I was fortunate to have as my apprentice master the much revered Evan Weir of Simpson & Marwick, who ultimately became the Auditor of the Court of Session. My first duty as a Bar apprentice was debt collecting, but my most memorable experience was being asked to take evidence productions to court in Mr Weir’s car. Imagine my consternation when the vehicle broke down outside the then venue of the sheriff court. It was not my most career-enhancing moment as I faced Mr Weir, who questioned my driving skills rather more than the age or unreliability of his car.
The fact that Scots law is closer to Roman law stood me in good stead when I subsequently practised European law in Brussels before going on to advise the Conservatives in the European Parliament. Therefore my background is very much in European law, European politics, transport, farming, the environment and the countryside. I was transport spokesman in the European Parliament for a number of years, held a number of shadow ministerial positions in the other place, and for five years I was honoured to chair the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee in the House of Commons, which covered all aspects of farming, flooding, food production and animal health.
My political career took a circuitous route, with 10 years representing part of Essex and Suffolk in the European Parliament, and then the Vale of York and
subsequently Thirsk, Malton and Filey in the other place. I am immensely proud of my Scottish heritage and roots, and particularly of our Clan Mackintosh motto, “Touch not the cat bot a glove”. I leave its interpretation to your Lordships.
I must not forget my Danish roots. My mother was born and bred in Copenhagen. Denmark’s loss of independence when occupied by Nazi Germany in the Second World War is a constant reminder to me and my family of why a strong Europe has ensured democracy across this continent in the intervening years. I firmly believe that the union of the United Kingdom and the UK’s union—a customs union and single market—with the European Union are the bedrocks of our economic strength and place in the world. I counsel all those who refer to the Schleswig-Holstein question to beware of the fact that the conclusion of the war in 1864 led to the loss of one-third of Danish territory to Prussia. That is one thing we should be careful of in the debate today.
This debate is important because it makes good all the conclusions and recommendations of the Smith commission and the political agreement of the main parties. However, I have two main concerns. One was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and others and is the implications for airports in the north of England of air passenger duty being confirmed as part of the revenue-raising powers. I would like to understand how that will be calculated, how that will be raised by Scottish airports and what economic impact it will have on English competitors, particularly in the north of England. My other concern relates to not just the fiscal framework, which is being discussed at length by noble Lords, but the sheer number of secondary regulations giving legislative teeth to the Bill before the House today. In particular, Clause 14 has a number of subsections that leave much to secondary legislation. When the Minister replies, will he say to what extent there will be parliamentary scrutiny not just of the fiscal framework but of the enabling regulations, which presumably will not meet the same timetable as the rest of the Bill?
The fact that the main parties agree and support the main provisions of the Bill does not negate the absolute need for parliamentary scrutiny by both Houses. The statute book numbers many Acts on which all parties agreed that led to enormous practical difficulties of implementation. Two immediately spring to mind: the Act setting up the Child Support Agency and the Dangerous Dogs Act.
This debate and this legislation are historic. The Bill gives effect to the Smith commission, and makes good the promise made by the Prime Minister in the immediate aftermath of the Scottish referendum last year not just to the people of Scotland but to the people of the United Kingdom as a whole.
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