The Secretary of State for Scotland marks his first year into the role by firing an uncharacteristically aggressive salvo over the SNP’s bow

Michael Moore is not what you would call a bruiser but in the context of what Lib Dem ire can look like, he is in the ring and limbering up for a fight over the constitutional debate.

It’s a conscious change of modus operandi that he hopes will force the SNP into spelling out exactly what it means by independence. He is talking tough and seeking answers.

In Lib Dem terms, that means he is politely pointing out that the SNP has dodged some key questions about what independence will look like. For instance, he says, will Scotland have its own currency, what defences will it have, what will its relationship be with Europe, how will its economy work, what will happen with welfare payments and how much would independence actually cost?

To be honest, they’re fair questions and ones many in Scotland have been asking since the electorate took the fairly contrary step in May of voting in a party to government that has at its core a belief that the majority of people that voted for them don’t actually agree with. But by very dint of the result, the question of whether independence could happen is very much to the fore.

Following the 2007 election, which returned a minority SNP Government, the opposition parties responded to the fear of a move towards the Nationalists by establishing the Calman Commission which recommended a number of increased powers for the Parliament that were designed primarily to stem any further drift from the Union.

That seemed secure before May when the SNP was unable to even bring forward its proposed bill for a referendum on independence because the parliamentary arithmetic would have meant sure defeat.

But the very fact that the SNP achieved a second term in government, and this time as a majority has shocked some of the unionist parties into life. Michael Moore is no exception and hence his newly acquired bullishness.

As Scottish Secretary, he will be responsible for steering through the new Scotland Bill which proposes strengthened powers for the Scottish Parliament, and faced with a nationalist government in Holyrood with a clear mandate to do as it pleases this suddenly becomes a much more delicate exercise.

The SNP was originally opposed to large swathes of the Scotland Bill and was not part of its precursor, the Calman Commission, but it has recently about turned and voted in favour of the bill, with some added caveats. It basically wants more: more borrowing powers, control over the Crown Estates; and the rights over corporation tax.

These demands, along with the enhanced parliamentary strength and the certainty of a referendum on devolution have, no doubt, led to Moore’s change of approach.

He says questions need to be addressed before the debate about the referendum can really begin and he says he finds it ‘strange’ given what the SNP stands for, that it has taken so long to get this clarity.

Speaking ahead of a lecture to the David Hume Institute in Edinburgh, he is rehearsing his new demeanour. He doesn’t really do angry.

He’s a pretty relaxed kind of guy, so I ask him if now is the time for a Liberal to play hard ball.

“I know everybody likes their aggressive metaphors and so on but what I am simply trying to do tonight [with this speech], and Danny [Alexander] will tomorrow be repeating, and others in the party will come back to this same territory over the weeks and the months ahead, is to repeat the simple, straightforward messages about what the Scotland Bill is about.

“We are also beginning to ask questions of the Scottish Government about what it is doing on some of the domestic agenda because we haven’t heard much about that since May and to also remind people that the UK Government has a very important and ongoing role in Scotland.

“So yes, they [the SNP Government] will be challenged but this debate can’t go by default and I am determined to make sure that all the bits of it are properly heard.” As the man that will be responsible for steering the Scotland Bill through Westminster, which he says will bring increased and unprecedented powers to the Scottish Parliament, Moore meanwhile says he sees no contradiction in accusing the SNP of being obsessed with the constitution instead of the bread and butter issues of getting the economy on track, when at the same time asking them to be up front and expansive about what independence actually means.

“What I am seeking to do now, and in speeches that I and colleagues will make over the next few weeks, is to reinforce the messages about the Scotland Bill, remind people of how radical it actually is in terms of the significant financial accountability that it brings to the Parliament, the new powers that it gives to MSPs, reminding people too of the different responsibilities of both Scottish and Westminster Governments and that while we get a lot from the First Minister and others about the extra powers they want, we are reminding people that there are a lot there already at his disposal.

“In terms of economic development: he has Scottish Enterprise, Visit Scotland, the higher education system, etc which means there are billions of pounds there to direct towards improving Scotland’s economy, so let’s remind people of that.

“Of course, since May, there is an interesting debate about mandates but I’m very comfortable with the respected mandates that both governments have. Let me be clear, what the First Minister achieved, what the SNP have achieved, with their majority and that historic outcome in the Scottish Parliament is something I have congratulated them on many times. It gives them many more responsibilities, many more opportunities. They now can innovate in a way that isn’t constrained by some of the normal comings and goings of politics and we’ll see if that develops.

“There were three parties committed to Calman and we got a very significant mandate for the Scotland Bill and over the last year we have made very good progress with that. I hope that by the way we constructed the foundations of the bill through Calman and developed the legislation responding to opinion from the Scottish Parliament, from Westminster and elsewhere to change it, that we have given a good model of how constitutional change can take place. Yes, the First Minister is wanting to see further change and we are talking about that and in a debate about his six demands but his biggest agenda, which he is strangely quiet about, is about independence and it would be great to see something start to come out about what is meant when Mr Salmond talks about independence and, when we get to it, what will the questions/question be in a referendum?

“We have got a very challenging job with the overall UK economy, we are continuing to have absolute focus on that, but we will inevitably keep returning, for as long as we don’t get details, on what the proposition about independence is.

“Independence: it’s a nice simple world and I am absolutely clear that it means separation from the rest of the UK, but we do get some different voices and different definitions floating around and we need to nail that.

“It is really quite strange that we are at the level of debate that we don’t even know what the SNP means by its own cause célèbre. We need to know what they mean by it and then we will be able to take a view. We can’t simply cruise through the next couple of years without clarity on that. It’s not about the politicians – we can argue whatever we choose to argue about – but the great body of Scottish business, the broader Scottish public, they have to understand what the SNP wants from this and what the proposition is and none of that is clear and it is really startling.” I suggest that as a federalist, Moore might actually like the prospect once it is spelled out?

“I am not going to speculate on that! The point is that, as a federalist, I want to see the continuation of the UK and, as a party, we will continue to advocate that. We know what we think about that and it is surprising that the SNP doesn’t appear to know what it thinks about independence.” What is his strongest argument for staying in the Union?

“The fact is that our economy is more secure, and has greater opportunities and fewer risks if it is part of the UK. Take a simple look at Scottish exports and our exports to England are enormous. Why build up barriers between Scotland and England when we are trying to dismantle them elsewhere in the world?

“Having a common approach on employment law, having common regulation of business whether its health and safety and so on, across the UK makes it much more straightforward for businesses that are growing and want to relocate in different parts of the UK and not having to worry about different rules and the costs. It just makes it an awful lot more straightforward.

“The economy is a big area and some of the questions I want answered are: is it the same currency you want, is it a different currency?

And if it’s the same currency then how are we meant to be influencing from Scotland what is happening in an English institution which is primarily focused on the English economy, with no ongoing responsibility for the Scottish economy?

“I want to look at financial regulation; there are huge investments in the financial world, not just in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but across Scotland. How would that work in an independent Scotland?

“In defence, whether it’s from our membership in NATO or our involvement internationally through organisations like the UN and EU, Scotland is part of the UK and is therefore at the top table. We are on the Security Council and we won’t be on the Security Council if we are an independent country. We can’t expect that we will just get breezed through on membership of organisations like the UN and EU and other international bodies.

“Our clout at places like the World Trade Organisation where the Scottish whisky industry has got a huge amount of issues that it regularly needs resolved at an international level, and as a member of the UK and part of the EU we have real clout. Why would we give that away?” Put like that, I ask him why he thinks the SNP would give that away.

“You must ask the SNP that! I’ll be fascinated by the outcome. I think the reality of it is that perhaps they haven’t got a well thought out notion of independence. They ought to have, considering it is meant to be their article of faith, but I imagine that like any party, there will be a range of opinion on that. We know there is a range of views from the more pragmatic wing of the party to the more fundamentalists’ view of independence, but in the last couple of months, the notion of ‘independence light’ its being floated and this rather bizarre idea that we might retain defence bases in Scotland and somehow have a different foreign policy but share the armed services. I can’t quite work out how that might have worked in, for instance, Kosovo where the First Minister quite famously took a different view from others about the intervention. And I don’t have the first notion how that would have worked in Afghanistan or Libya or any of these other international operations.

“Look, we have rightly said that we will make a strong positive case for the UK. We will talk about the good, strong, positive reasons for retaining our membership of it and whether it is about the economy or the security we get by being part of these international organisations or the border issues of the social union and that people get the same pensions in Scotland as the rest of the UK. We will also reflect on the fact that our families are spread across the UK and there are cultural strings and ties across the border that I am keen to see continue. But while making the positive case as strongly as possible, it is really essential that we ask the questions of the SNP that will resolve the uncertainties so that, among others, business knows what might be involved for the future and that we also get to the bottom of what the costs are going to be.” Moore is more confidently forthright than the pugilist he may want to appear in any fight over the constitution with the First Minister.

I wonder how he has found dealing with Salmond.

“I find him perfectly straight forward. I remember him as an MP at Westminster and it is clear what he wants to achieve and in our dealings with the Scotland Bill since May we have had very good, constructive meetings and he’s been following through on all the things that he agreed to provide in terms of papers and so on and we have been living up to our joint commitment to working constructively together and making sure the respect agenda is not just a slogan to bash each other over the head with.

“It is really important not just that the First Minister of Scotland but that all the First Ministers and their ministerial teams have good working relationships with their counterparts in Whitehall. The First Minister has had a number of meetings in the last year with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Deputy Prime Minister and obviously with me, and Chris Huhne has seen him many times. And that is a huge contrast with what went before and it is very important that all of us are in a dialogue and I think people in Scotland would not forgive me, or the First Minister, if we let politics get in the way of getting on with things.

“If we narrow it back to the constitution debate then I think that it is understandable that he has the right to ask us about the propositions we put forward. I do, however, have questions about how and when and why he does it. It was really late in the day, for instance, to come along with some pretty profound changes for the Scotland Bill. But in the end he has a mandate to deliver an awful lot in Scotland and we have a mandate to do what we are doing at a UK level. We have to work together and I hope that in spite of the political argy bargy that that is something that will mark out our relationship with the Scottish Government differently to what preceded us.” It is just over a year since Moore, the MP for the Borders seat of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, was thrown into the political spotlight when he rather unexpectedly became the Secretary of State for Scotland, and he has clearly grown in stature in that time. He has been a strong presence as Secretary of State for Scotland in the last 12 months and while it has clearly not been an easy year, not least because the Scottish elections happened just as the Coalition was making some of its most painful funding decisions, he has given the impression of a politician totally comfortable with his responsibilities and fully aware of the political consequences, including the almost near wipe out of his Scottish party colleagues at Holyrood in May.

“We had a dreadful time in May and lots of great friends who should still be in the Scottish Parliament are not there and the Parliament will be the poorer for that. As a party, we have been looking hard at what went wrong and, as one of the UK ministers, I take huge responsibility because there is no doubt that the context of the election was very difficult indeed. But I do think that colleagues do respect, no matter how painful, that this was just bloody awful timing.

We had to make some very difficult decisions about spending without any benefits being realised and that was the context of the election being fought.

“A key theme for me throughout this summer has been that there were no recriminations.

People are sore and have to come to terms with what has happened but from everybody, through from Tavish [Scott] to candidates that hoped to be MSPs and are not, that there is no point in moping…we are eternally optimistic and we are getting on with what we are good at, which is representing constituents and working hard on campaigns throughout Scotland and that is what we are doing.” Does he feel things can be turned round for the party in Scotland by the 2016 Scottish election?

“I retain my natural liberal optimism and the evidence of the last few months, in terms of talking to friends in all parts of the party, at all levels of the party, and not just in my own part of the country, there is a real determination, there is an absolute need for a liberal voice in Scottish politics. And with Willie, we have a charismatic, strong, really energetic leader who has already made his mark and that is really helping members and others to get on and get out there and do their jobs and campaign to get elected next time.

“It is sometimes boring to repeat but let’s not please forget the serious state of the country’s finances and the economy, the real crisis that isn’t just happening to the UK’s economy and finances but across Europe and in the US. And I do sometimes despair about some of the debate that seems to act as if, somehow, the UK could have ignored everything that was happening elsewhere and the reality of how the economy was, and ploughed on as before – that wasn’t sustainable; there was a national crisis and in those circumstances, it was the responsible thing to do for two parties to come together and be clear about what they wanted to achieve together, but also retain their identity about how they see things going in the future And we have had healthy dialogue with our coalition partners and we still have a long road to go to get things sorted but we are on the road and determined to see it through.

He may still have many questions on independence but there is one thing Moore is absolutely certain of. When you ask him whether independence is inevitable, he is as sharp as a right hook.

“No….”