I thank the Minister for his response, although clearly he does not agree with me or with the Law Society of Scotland on this issue. He mentioned fragmentation. Another word for that is devolution. The same argument about areas that are considered to be world-class could apply equally strongly to health, education, transport or housing. I can see no inconsistency
whatever in saying that throughout the United Kingdom we will have world-class health and world-class education but with differences—substantial differences in some cases—between the Scottish system and the system in other parts of the UK.
It seems to me that the point about business and partnerships was well taken by the Government of 1890 in this country, who made separate provision, as I said in my previous speech. Back in 1890 there was a Partnership Act—I am sure that the Minister will be able to get briefing on this in due course—that recognised the differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK, so what is being proposed here is in no way ground-breaking. It would be interesting to find out the colour of the Government back in 1890 when this measure was introduced, but it was long, long before the introduction of the new Scottish Parliament through the Scotland Act in 1999.
I also differ with the Minister in relation to going no further than, or implementing only, the Smith commission proposals. I think it is fair to say that that has been a pretty constant reference from the Government Front Bench. In quite a few respects the Government already have gone further—for example, the amendment in relation to abortion was not contained in the Smith commission report—so why not go further when it is a sensible measure, when it could be of advantage to Scottish consumers and Scottish business, and when it is something that is quite technical and detailed but has been given a lot of thought by the Law Society of Scotland and would make for sensible, better devolution?
I hope that the Minister might see sense and come back to us at the next stage with some amendments in this area but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.