SCOTS AWAY!
John Vincent notes a fall in the birthrate north of the border, and explains its political meaning
THE SCOTS are a dying breed. I say this as a simple statement of fact, and because it has political consequences. The Scottish fertility rate last year was 1.55. The year before that, it was also 1.55. To each Scot- tish mother, that is, there are but 1.55 chil- dren, against the target figure of 2.1 needed to keep a population from declin- ing. And the trend in Scottish fertility over the years has been firmly, even relentlessly, downwards. (In 1981 it was 1.84, in 1991 1.70.) Let us not speculate as to causes. It may be drink, drugs, diet, poverty or a prefer- ence for cars over children. It may be none of these things. We do not know. But Scot- tish low fertility is distinctive in its lowness. It is much lower than in England or Northern Ireland. We are all dying out, but the Scots are dying out faster than oth- ers. This raises the political question of how much representation a dying breed deserves.
As far as representation in the Edin- burgh parliament is concerned, there is no problem. Were the Scottish population half what it is now, the case for a devolved parliament would remain unaltered, and the number of its members a mere matter of local convenience. The only political reality that matters is the number of Scot- tish MPs at Westminster.
Here the question of how one represents a dying race becomes very tricky. It is not as though we have not faced this issue before, in the case of the Union with Ire- land, and got it all wrong. To begin with, the Act of Union of 1800 gave 100 seats to populous pre-Famine Ireland, as if that could settle matters for all time. But emi- gration and Famine put paid to that: by 1914, Ireland, with a much reduced popu- lation, still had 105 seats, while the popu- lation of Great Britain, though greatly increased, had not increased its parlia- mentary representation in proportion.
So, over a mere century, things can and do go wildly astray, and, in constitutional terms, a century soon goes. By 1914, an Irishman's vote was worth about twice that of a British voter; yet in 1800 he had been under-represented, as it was thought, last- ingly. At that unknown date when the last Scotsman has 1.55 children by the last Scotswoman, their lonely offspring will still elect a solid bloc of around 50 to 70 MPs to Westminster. Can this be right?
Roy Jenkins and his mates are spending the next year in quest of a fair electoral system. Fairness is (one hopes) indivisible: one cannot be in favour of some kinds of fairness and turn a blind eye to some kinds of unfairness. Yet fairness between the nations is an issue that sticks out like a sore thumb. Scotland has 72 MPs where, if it were treated as England is, it would probably have 58, while Wales has 40 MPs when 33 is probably all the number of its electors justifies. Even before one consid- ers the Scottish extinction argument, or the Scottish duplication argument (two lots of Scottish MPs with one MP's work- Are we there yet, Dad?' load), Scotland and Wales are seriously over-represented; indeed some of the worst over-representation occurs not in the dif- fuse populations of uplands and islands, but in the concentrated populations of the industrial areas.
Again, the matter can be argued, not by inferences from recent low fertility rates, but from actual population figures. This points to the same conclusion: since the Scottish population since 1951 has been virtually static, while that of England has been substantially rising (and will go on doing so till 2031), there should be a rela- tive shift in parliamentary representation away from Scotland towards England, to reflect this rather large change in propor- tions.
When Blair appointed the commission on fairer electoral systems under Jenkins, not a dog barked. It looked like a PR fan club set up to nod through PR on a plate, whenever Blair's deals with the Liberals so required. Blair's oversight was to for- get that committees of luminaries have their own momentum. They start to dig, think, ask their questions, enlarge their agendas. Though perhaps a tame fan club where PR is concerned, they may have minds of their own on a whole range of other subjects. They may bring trained legal minds to bear on the law relating to Boundary Commissions, which is unbe- lievably antique. They may, like all White- hall departments, wish their conclusions to be informed by demography. The likes of Lord Alexander and David Lipsey have not come thus far in British public life only to lend their names to turning a blind eye to the social sciences, or to sup- porting an annually increasing under-rep- resentation of England.
Roy Jenkins has a passion for fairness. Will fair play for England enter into his search for a fair electoral system? Or will he, like the Duke of Wellington on a famous occasion, argue that the unre- formed system is perfect — and face the laughter of history for neglecting what lay under his nose?
The Scottish people will one day become extinct. Precisely when that day will be, I leave to mathematicians more exact and laborious than I to calculate. Let us note, however, that in 1995, for the first time in modern Scottish history, deaths exceeded live births. And when we explore the micro-sociology of Scottish constituencies, we find that death rates are much the highest in Labour areas, which are already over-represented. Here is perhaps the ultimate obstacle to a fair electoral system: the Grim Reaper him- self, who always tends to be over-repre- sented at Westminster. Roy Jenkins and his team may have a longer agenda than they first expected.
John Vincent is the author of Disraeli (1990 and An Intelligent Person's Guide to His- tory (1996),
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