Devolution Referendum By Autumn

According to the new Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar, a referendum on Scottish devolution will be held this autumn.

Mr Dewar said he hoped the necessary legislation would be on the statute books by the close of Labour's first session of Parliament.

Mr Dewar damped down expectations that a Scottish Parliament would be set up within a year. However, the Government would press ahead with devolution, "at the best possible practical speed", he said. He did not spell out the exact timetable.

Asked if he assumed there would be a Scottish Parliament by this time next year, Mr Dewar said, "No, I don't assume that. That would be very arrogant.

"There is going to be a debate. There is going to be a passage through both Houses. There is going to be the machinery for setting up, getting organised and ready.

"But this is an important reform which we are going to get right as well as move forward with great determination," he told the BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.

There would be a great deal of debating time on the issue in the Commons, Mr Dewar said. But he hinted that much of the Bill would be handled in a Commons committee, away from the main debating chamber.

"We want proper discussion, but we also want to make progress on a measure that has been given an overwhelming mandate," he said.

But he insisted, "There's no question of railroading (the reforms) through. It's got to be really looked at in proper detail." The Bill for setting up the Parliament will not be published until after the referendum.

But Mr Dewar denied that this meant the Scottish people would not know what they were voting for, saying a White Paper would set out the details of the proposals before the referendum was held in Scotland this autumn.

A referendum was necessary, despite Labour's clear general election victory, because opponents of the plan said the election did not indicate support for devolution.

"We've decided to take that head-on. It's a democratic reform and we believe it should have a democratic buttress," he said.

Mr Dewar confirmed that the Labour government would be campaigning for a "double yes" vote: yes to both the question of whether there should be a Scottish Parliament and to whether it should have the power to raise or lower tax rates.

Mr Dewar also made it clear that if a Scottish Parliament were not controled by Labour and voted to raise tax, the Labour Government would not step in to stop it.

"If we don't get elected to that Scottish Parliament and an administration comes to office which wants to use the power, then that is an issue entirely for it and for the electorate in Scotland," he said.

Mr Dewar hailed growing signs that the Conservatives were rethinking their "last-ditch die-hard approach to devolution".

One of the Conservative leadership candidates, Stephen Dorrell, has already softened his stance on devolution, and some grass-roots Tory activists in Scotland are now publicly admitting that, with devolution seeming inevitable, further opposition on the principle is pointless and they should concentrate instead on the detail.

Labour is believed to be looking at the idea that legislation would specify the powers to be retained by Westminster, rather than those to be devolved to Edinburgh, but Mr Dewar denied that any reduction in the Scottish parliament's powers was being contemplated.