"The 40 per cent rule was unfair and unprecedented, and we did not accept it."
Bruce Millan, former Secretary of State for Scotland, House of Commons, 20 June 1979.
In 1979 a majority voted for a parliament and didn't get one, under a rule invented for that day's two votes alone and carried over the votes of most of Scotland's own MPs, and ten years later the same country got the poll tax first.
The receipts
The source list for this chapter, as the publisher maintains it. Archive links are given wherever a cited page could move or die.
- The Cunningham amendment: George Cunningham MP (Labour, Islington South and Finsbury); carried 25 January 1978 by 166 votes to 151. HC Deb, 25 January 1978, vol 942, c1542, confirmed 1 September 2026. The Committee divided, 166 to 151, on Cunningham's sub-amendment; the provision as amended was then carried in a second division the same night, Ayes 168, Noes 142. The provision: an Order in Council for the repeal of the Scotland Act 1978 to be laid before Parliament if the Yes vote did not reach 40 per cent of the registered electorate. House of Commons Library Research Paper 97/92, Scotland and Devolution (Oonagh Gay, 29 July 1997).
- The result, 1 March 1979: Yes 1,230,937 (51.6 per cent); No 1,153,502 (48.4 per cent); Yes as a share of the electorate 32.5 per cent unadjusted, 32.9 per cent adjusted. House of Commons Library Research Paper 97/113, Results of Devolution Referendums (1979 and 1997).
- The register adjustment: the electorate reduced by about 40,200 (deaths, double registration, prisoners), raising the adjusted Yes share; the gap to 40 per cent was around 265,000 votes. The "dead voters swung it" claim does not survive this and is not made in the book (see registers/discarded-claims.md).
- No 40 per cent threshold was applied to the 1975 EEC referendum, the 1997 devolution referendums, the 2014 independence referendum, or the 2016 EU referendum (carried on 37.4 per cent of the electorate).
- George Younger, HC Deb (aftermath of the 1979 result): "67 per cent of the Scottish electorate are either positively opposed to the Scotland Act or do not feel that they want it enough to bother to vote for it."
- Bruce Millan, Secretary of State for Scotland: "The 40 per cent rule was unfair and unprecedented, and we did not accept it." ### From old chapter 8
- Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 (Royal Assent 15 May 1987); Community Charge in force in Scotland 1 April 1989.
- Local Government Finance Act 1988; Community Charge in force in England and Wales 1 April 1990.
- The Scottish and the English and Welsh charges as the same tax with the same structure, differing in commencement only: Michael Mates, debating the Local Government Finance Bill: "The same system must apply in Scotland as applies in England and Wales." HC Deb 18 April 1988, vol 131, c580, confirmed 1 September 2026. CORRECTED: this was previously cited to 19 April 1988 as "the same tax". The whole sitting of 19 April was read and carries no such England-and-Scotland comparison; the only "same tax" that day is John Maxton at c788, on second homes within Scotland, which is a different point.
- "We now have the advantage of a certain amount of experience in Scotland": Michael Mates, in the same speech and at the same column, HC Deb 18 April 1988, vol 131, c580.
- Women's refuges handled differently in England and Wales: the Minister confirming that a different procedure "is indeed envisaged for England and Wales", Community Charges (Scotland) debate, HC Deb 19 April 1988, vol 131, cc790 and 800-801.
- Community Charge Benefit: rebate of up to 80 per cent of the charge for those on the lowest incomes, applying in Scotland from the 1989 commencement.
- 1985 Scottish rates revaluation: average rise around 24 per cent; around 70 per cent in Perth and Kinross; business rises of well over 100 per cent in Jedburgh; around three-quarters of the worst-hit in Conservative or Independent-controlled council areas.
- Cancelled England and Wales revaluations, due 1978 and 1983.
- National Archives release of 1985 to 1986 Cabinet and Number 10 papers, December 2014, under the thirty-year rule.
- Oliver Letwin, Number 10 Policy Unit memo to Margaret Thatcher, circa November 1985: "extremely keen to use Scotland as a trail blazer for the pure residence charge"; "undetected gremlins lurking in the proposals"; "should rather use the Scots as a trail-blazer for the real thing"; "trying out an extremely radical system in a significant part of the country" (as reported by the BBC, The Scotsman and others).
- Stephen Sherbourne note to Margaret Thatcher, 30 April 1985: "Better a bad conference in 1985 than a bad election in 1987".
- Nigel Lawson, Cabinet-level warning that the proposal "would be completely unworkable and politically catastrophic".
- David Willetts, Number 10 Policy Unit paper on public spending (same December 2014 release): "have their snouts well and truly in the public expenditure trough"; "to find a politically acceptable way of putting them on the same diet as the English". Cited as evidence of Whitehall attitudes to Scottish spending generally, not as a document about the Community Charge.
- Northern Ireland excluded from the Community Charge; domestic rates retained there throughout (House of Commons Library, SN03648).
- George Younger, Secretary of State for Scotland 1979 to 9 January 1986, then Defence Secretary. Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary of State for Scotland 11 January 1986 to 1990, in post for the 1987 Act and the 1989 commencement.
- Cabinet sub-committee, December 1985, discussion of accelerated introduction in Scotland and Wales (four-year and six-year transitions respectively).
- Conservative manifesto 1987: "We will legislate in the first Session of the new Parliament to abolish the unfair domestic rating system and replace rates with a fairer Community Charge." General election, 11 June 1987: Conservatives 376 seats, 42.2 per cent of the UK vote.
- Scottish general election results, Conservative: 1979, 22 seats, 31.4 per cent; 1983, 21 seats, 28.4 per cent; 1987, 10 seats, 24.0 per cent; 1992, 11 seats, 25.6 per cent; 1997, 0 seats, 17.5 per cent. Labour the largest party in Scotland, in votes and seats, at each of these elections.
- Non-payment in Scotland: Danny Burns, Poll Tax Rebellion (AK Press, 1992), a participant history of the campaign, recording that by April 1990 "official figures for Scotland showed nearly a million people hadn't paid a penny". First Anti-Poll Tax Union formed in Maryhill, Glasgow, April 1987; Strathclyde and Scottish Anti-Poll Tax Federations.
- Abolition of the Community Charge and replacement by the council tax from 1 April 1993.
- Publication review additions, 9 October 2026 (the advocate merge; each tag is the edit it sources): - (07-A03#1) HC Deb 20 June 1979, vol 968, cc1327-1462, 'Scotland Act 1978 (Repeal)': motion moved by the Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr George Younger), 'That the draft Scotland Act 1978 (Repeal) Order 1979, which was laid before this House on 22 March 1979 in the last Parliament, be approved'; 'The House divided: Ayes 301, Noes 206', Division No. 15, 10.14 pm, list from c1461; 'Question accordingly agreed to. Resolved'. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1979/jun/20/scotland-act-1978-repeal (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261009093407/https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1979/jun/20/scotland-act-1978-repeal). Seats mapped from the list of the 71 members returned in Scotland at the 1979 election (Wikipedia, 'List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1979–1983)', checked against the qualifiers Hansard prints in the list itself). - (07-A03#2) HC Deb 25 January 1978, vol 942, cc1424-1553, Scotland Bill, Committee, Clause 82 (Referendum): 'Question put, That Amendment (a) to the proposed amendment be made', 'The Committee divided: Ayes 166. Noes 151.', c1542; Division No. 78, 10.27 pm, list at cc1543-1546; Tellers for the Ayes: Mr William Hamilton and Mr Tim Renton; Tellers for the Noes: Mr James Hamilton and Mr James Tinn. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1978/jan/25/referendum (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261009093343/https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1978/jan/25/referendum). Vacancy: historic Hansard people page, Mr William Small, Glasgow Garscadden 'February 28, 1974 - January 18, 1978', https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/people/mr-william-small (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261009093431/https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/people/mr-william-small/index.html). Seats mapped from the October 1974 to 1979 list of Scottish members (Wikipedia, 'List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (October 1974–1979)'), checked against the qualifiers printed in the division list.
- Wales carried the same rule. The Wales Act 1978 (c. 52) contained the same forty per cent requirement for its referendum of 1 March 1979 (Bennett Institute, University of Cambridge, "Brexit and a people's vote: lessons from the 1970s", 25 July 2018, archive requested 9 October 2026). gov.uk, alongside the Scotland Act 1978 gate.
- Millan and Younger, 20 June 1979: HC Deb vol 968, Younger (moving the repeal order, by then Secretary of State) "67 per cent." at c1332; Millan (from the Opposition) "unfair and unprecedented" at c1341 (api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard, read 10 October 2026).
- The 25 January 1978 division (No. 78, c1542): Ayes 166, Noes 151; tellers for the Ayes William Hamilton (Fife Central) and Tim Renton, for the Noes James Hamilton and James Tinn.
- Mates's New Clause 1, 18 April 1988: moved to scale the personal community charge to ability to pay; defeated 295 to 320 (Division No. 262, c644).
- Letwin and "snouts" reporting: BBC News, "Secret papers reveal push to 'trailblaze' poll tax in Scotland", 30 December 2014, bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-30610043; The Scotsman, "Scots 'snouts in the spending trough' said PM aide", 30 December 2014.
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