Independent Scotland (European Union Membership)

The Deputy Presiding Officer (John Scott): The next item of business is a European and External Relations Committee debate on its inquiry into the Scottish Government’s proposals for an independent Scotland: membership of the European Union.

14:41
... ... ...
16:18

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP): Presiding Officer, forgive me if I get a bit technical. I think that I am the only member who has in front of them the 328 pages of the European Union treaties, so I might quote them relatively liberally.

I will deal with one or two things that have arisen in the debate, and particularly with Alex Rowley’s comments on pensions. Three times I asked him to take an intervention and three times he had the opportunity to have greater clarity than he could provide. I say to him that, as a matter of verifiable fact, more than 1 million people who live outside the United Kingdom receive the UK state pension. About 600,000 of them live in Spain and the rest are spread around the world. That is not new, by the way: 30 years ago, for a predecessor to the Department for Work and Pensions in Newcastle I did some work on a computer system that delivered payments to those people.

On private pensions—the other kind of pension—Standard Life has been operating and paying pensions in China for more than 30 years and in Canada for 50 years. Pensions are an international industry. Indeed, Edinburgh used to be the place where more than 50 per cent of United States mutual funds were valued. Finance is international, Scotland is involved in pensions and pensions are paid transnationally. If Mr Rowley had accepted an intervention from me, we could have shot his point out of the water early.

Jamie McGrigor said that evidence has been omitted—I wrote that down, because that is what he said. He, too, would not take an intervention from me. I am glad that other members made it clear that the evidence is all in front of us. What certainly changed, after debate in the committee, were the conclusions that were reached from the evidence, but I have seen or heard nothing to suggest that any evidence was omitted.

Lewis Macdonald said that we can negotiate only bilaterally. That is interesting, because I myself have taken part in negotiations—curiously enough, in the boardroom of the Bank of England—at which 12 people were competing round the table and negotiating from entirely different viewpoints. The training in negotiation that I had from Scotwork, which is an excellent Glasgow firm, meant that I could negotiate, as could others who had similar training.

Lewis Macdonald: My point was not that there is a difficulty with negotiating only bilaterally but that we cannot negotiate with another party while at the same time representing that party in negotiations with someone else. That is simply not possible, although we understand that it is the Scottish Government’s proposition.

Stewart Stevenson: I realise that Mr Macdonald has limited business experience. I can assure him that in the business world what he has just described is done. For reasons of business confidentiality, I cannot say more on the record, but I would be happy to meet him and anyone else after the debate and give them chapter and verse on a private basis. [Interruption.]

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Order.

Stewart Stevenson: Let us talk a little about other things.

Neil Findlay: Will the member take an intervention?

Stewart Stevenson: No, I will not. Not from that source.

Article 16 of the “Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties” makes it clear that only newly independent post-colonial states can receive a clean slate in relation to treaties. Article 34.1 of the convention makes it clear that states that come from an existing state inherit, without option, all the treaty obligations of the predecessor state.

I absolutely accept that the legal position can be argued about and that there is a lot of opportunity for lawyers to have fun here.

Roderick Campbell: Will Stewart Stevenson give way?

Stewart Stevenson: Oh! A QC. Okay.

Roderick Campbell: On a small point of detail, we took evidence from Patrick Layden QC, who had very much formed that view in relation to successor states. He slightly changed his opinion when he gave evidence to us, but he says that the position is still tenable.

Stewart Stevenson: I am obliged to Roderick Campbell, who I think is the only member of the Parliament who is a QC, given that Gordon Jackson has left us—

Roderick Campbell: For the record, I am not a QC.

Stewart Stevenson: Willie Rennie talked about the difficulties in our keeping the pound. In fact, the opposite is the case. The question is whether we will allow people south of the border to keep the pound, because the pound sterling is, of course, based on the silver from Stirling. In July last year, the Bank of England allowed Danske Bank to start issuing sterling notes. If Danske Bank can issue sterling notes, I rather suspect that other people—perhaps even Scotland—might be able to do so, too.

Incidentally, the Bank of England notes do not say that they are sterling. Only the Scottish notes, the Northern Irish notes, the Manx notes, the Gibraltar notes, the Falklands notes, the Jersey notes, the Guernsey notes—aren’t there a lot of them?—say that they are sterling. Curiously enough, the Bank of England notes do not do so. Is that not interesting?

Michael McMahon mentioned climate change in relation to the United States. This week, Obama has laid legislation to tackle the coal industry for environmental, health and economic reasons, so I think that we can be quite clear that the United States will look at the evidence.

I try to read as many things as I can, and this morning I was reading Politiken, the Danish political journal, which was talking about this subject. It is quite clear that the Danes—as I know from the meetings that I have had with Danish ministers over the years—will be perfectly happy to sit with us in an independent Europe.

The reality is that it is probably the rest of the UK that has the problem, because protocol 3 requires that a country must be a democracy in order to be a member of the EU. The UK is not a democracy, because we cannot dismiss the majority of our legislators at an election. Scotland will be welcomed. The problem is elsewhere.

16:24