Comment

At 10.26pm, as Henry McLeish prepared to wind up the last debate of what has been an unsung and at times mind-numbing slog through some of the technicalities of home rule, there were by my count 26 MPs on the Government benches - out of 418.

It wasn't much better up in the press gallery, where I counted two note-takers from Hansard and one bored reporter from the Press Association.

Ironically, Tuesday was the 100th anniversary of W E Gladstone's death. He would have applauded the outcome but deplored the indifference.

Opening the Third Reading, Donald Dewar noted the absence of ''histrionics or high drama''. One of the most significant pieces of this Government's reformist agenda has made its way unscathed and largely unnoticed through the legislative process.

Those who, more than a year ago, warned of inevitable conflict - ok, I was one - were proved woefully wrong. The rebellions, the rows, the knife-edge votes did not materialise. Labour's mega-majority made the outcome inevitable. Resistance was useless.

The Tories tried. They persisted, despite the occasional ''mind your own business'' sneers from the Labour benches, with their argument that devolution isn't just about Scotland. Yet there was always something mildly improbable about English MPs taking an interest in the workings of a body so far removed from their everyday concerns.

But when historians come to write the definitive history of how Scotland got its first ever democratically elected Parliament, they will be surprised by how few Labour names crop up in the Official Record.

It would be unfair to single out those noticeable by their chronic absence. But only a minority of Scotland's 56 elected representatives - and next to none of Labour's English MPs - took an interest in the Scotland Bill's progress.

Those who did will win praise for their diligence and devotion. But in the case of John McAllion, Ian Davidson, and Michael Connarty they will not win what they longed for - a seat at Holyrood.

Which is a shame, because McAllion at least knows a thing or two about livening up proceedings.

After expressing his disappointment at the thinly-attended House and the flat atmosphere, he produced the debate's biggest laugh.

He could find no sign, he said, of the English uprising Tories claim will follow Scotland's switch to Home Rule on the front page of that night's London Evening Standard. Its banner headline was not about historic events inside the Chamber. ''It reads 'Labour chaplain gropes wives','' he said.

In the uproar that followed, he admitted the groper was in fact an Army chaplain, before going on to praise Labour's rejected three.

''They are excellent parliamentarians, and they would grace any Parliament anywhere in the United Kingdom if they were given the opportunity to stand,'' he said.

Alex Salmond's troops were out in force. They smiled like winners, big Cheshire cat grins aimed straight at Donald Dewar and Henry McLeish across the floor. The SNP's leader came close to smacking his lips as he looked forward to the battle ahead with a ''brave heart''.

He too had praise for the distinguished contributions to the debates of the three who failed. ''Clearly the best advice to aspiring candidates was not to turn up to the debates.'' For the SNP, he reminded the Government, the passage of the Scotland Bill is not an end but a beginning.

Unnoticed, the legislation now moves on to the Lords. The Upper House will have to decide how much of its summer recess it wants to sacrifice in the name of trouble-making.

But predictions of a showdown may be premature. Now that legislation banning hereditary peers will be in the next Queen's Speech, and with the likelihood that the Government will have to satisfy its MPs by moving against fox hunting, their lordships must decide in which ditch to make their last stand.

To paraphrase the Scottish Secretary when he launched the Bill, there will be a Scotland Act by the autumn.