14:30 - The House divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 321 - Question accordingly negatived.
14:46 - The House divided: - Ayes: 334 / Noes: 5 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I beg to move an amendment, leave out from ‘engineering’ to end and add
‘and recognises that special relationships also endure with Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and other members of the Commonwealth as well as the Republic of Ireland and the United States; and believes that this will also be the case with Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom after the 2014 independence referendum.’.
I reassure the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) that he can call himself Scottish, British or even Milton Keynesian—it is really up to him. This debate is all about identity and what we want to call ourselves.
I thank the many hon. Members who have passed on their regards and concerns for my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie). I reassure the House that he is back home and making a full recovery. I fully expect him to be back in his place very soon, talking about the Laffer curve and endogenous growth theory as only he can.
Another person who is missing is the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). We were all expecting his presence today and to hear his words of wisdom on Scotland and the Union, but he is not here. He is a bit like Brigadoon: one gets a glimpse of him only once a year.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) on the motion. It is a good motion. I take exception only with the last two lines of it, as she knows. There is so much more that she could have added, such as the contribution that Scots have made to the Union and the United Kingdom. She missed out the enlightenment, for goodness’ sake, which is an important way in which the Scots contributed to the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom and the Union have also given much to Scotland. The Scots have helped to build and have shared the great institutions of the UK and the Union. We have fantastic cultural relationships and we have had great times. All of that is part of a social union and that will go nowhere. We will continue to be British after the independence referendum and when we secure our independence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
I am surprised to hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying, because he previously told this House that
“as Scotland moves forward to become a normal independent nation, all vestiges of Britishness will go.”
He went on to say:
“I have never felt British in my life. I do not even know what Britishness is.”—[Official Report, 12 November 2008; Vol. 482, c. 306-307WH.]
Pete Wishart
I expected that response. In fact, it said on Twitter that that intervention would be made.
I say to the Minister that, as we examine our relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom, we discover some of these fantastic ties. I accept that there will be vestiges of Britishness. That is a personal interest of mine. We are British. I live in Perth in the north of the island called Great Britain. It is called that because it is the largest of the British isles. I am British as much as somebody from Stockholm or Copenhagen is Scandinavian. That is the reality of geography and it cannot be denied. Hon. Members may want to take forward their obsession with separation by building a channel between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the only way they could stop us being British.
I accept that being British is about more than just geography. Of course there is something cultural about Britishness. However, Britishness is an invention. It was a necessary social construct to unite all the nations of the United Kingdom. That is why it is so hard to define and describe. We have heard some great and excruciating attempts to define Britishness. Who could forget the attempt of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, when he talked about
“British jobs for British workers”?
I remember the attempt by Michael Portillo, when he described Britishness as anti-fanaticism. However, Britishness is more than that. It is the combination of the 300 years that we have shared and endured across these islands. It is about everything from the industrial revolution to how we stood together in the wars; the Queen has been mentioned, and, of course, there are great pop and rock bands.
I was particularly disappointed with the views of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) who tried to scaremonger on the issue of culture. He said that British music would be no longer “our” music but “their” music—whoever “they” are. I played in a band for 15 years. I replaced an English keyboard player and the lead singer of my band is Canadian. To suggest that something as free-spirited as music can be confined to borders or frontiers is absurd and ridiculous. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West should be ashamed of trying to scaremonger about culture.
One good definition of Britishness—as has been mentioned fleetingly—was the opening ceremony of the Olympic games, which got close to describing and defining Britishness. Danny Boyle did a fantastic job with his cultural tour de force. The big irony, however, is that part of that fantastic presentation placed a strong emphasis on the country’s social ethos, and particularly on the NHS, which the Westminster Tories are currently disestablishing through privatisation. Already, part of that glimpse of Britishness disappears with that very statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
May I begin by passing my best wishes and those of the Secretary of State to the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie)? We wish him a speedy recovery. That is the only matter on which there is likely to be agreement with the SNP this afternoon.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) on securing the debate. She is a proud Scot, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). I entirely repudiate the sentiment implicit in the comments of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), that somehow only supporters of the nationalist cause can care about Scotland, be proud of Scotland, or make the case for Scotland. That is absolutely not the case.
Pete Wishart
I never made any such claim; everybody here is a proud Scot, and I said no such thing. The SNP has managed to get just one 10-minute speech in a three-hour debate. We have heard one side of the case—[Interruption.] We should have more time. [Interruption.] Even now I am being shouted down. Surely in this debate the SNP should have got more time than we have been allowed today.
David Mundell
I am not an expert on procedure, but I understand this debate is being curtailed because the SNP is going to force two Divisions. That is simply a stunt, and those of us who are involved in Scottish politics are very familiar with the SNP preferring to pull stunts than talk about the issues of the day.
I particularly want to thank the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) for his excellent speech. It is heartening to hear Members from other parts of the United Kingdom state how much importance they place on Scotland remaining in the UK. As he said, the whole of the United Kingdom would be the poorer if Scotland left.
In 2014, people in Scotland will face their most important political decision in 300 years. A vote for independence in the referendum of that year is not just for Christmas 2014; it is for life. As the motion states:
“Scotland has always made, and continues to make, a significant contribution to the UK over the 305 years of the Union”.
The Government believe that Scotland is stronger within the United Kingdom, which Scotland helped to shape, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) said, but we also recognise that the biggest constitutional question of all needs to be settled once and for all. That is why Scotland’s two Governments worked together constructively to reach an agreement on the referendum process. Regardless of the result, that constructive relationship will of course continue as we move forward. That does not mean that in the unlikely event of a yes vote, the remaining UK would facilitate Scotland’s every wish, any more than an independent Scotland would unquestioningly facilitate the wishes of the remaining UK. Inevitably—although some have sought to deny it today—there would be two separate countries and therefore two sets of interests, sometimes mutual, sometimes at odds, as is currently the case with our closest international allies and as will always be the case between separate, sovereign states.
The SNP likes to talk about partnership and about neighbours working together. These days, it even likes to talk about us all being British, even though the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire told us previously he did not know what Britishness was and had never felt British in his life. You couldn’t make it up, but the SNP does. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West highlighted, the SNP amendment even pretends that it can wrench Scotland out of the UK and nothing will have changed. Do not be fooled: working together is what the United Kingdom is all about, but the SNP wants to break it up. Partnership is what the United Kingdom is all about, but the SNP wants to rip it up. If Scotland votes for independence in 2014, it will leave the United Kingdom—leave all that we have achieved together over the past 300 years and all that we will continue to achieve by remaining together.
Gregg McClymont
The credibility of the First Minister has been a central issue in this debate. What does the Minister make of Justice Leveson’s finding on the First Minister’s attempt to lobby on behalf of Sky and the possibility that that might have rendered the Government’s decision on the Sky issue unlawful?
David Mundell
I do not find that surprising. On several recent occasions the First Minister has been brought before the Scottish Parliament to explain things he has said that have been found to be untrue.
By putting together the various aspects of the debate—the economics, the international influence question, the fact that we Scots helped to make this United Kingdom —we get a compelling case for Scotland remaining in the UK, and many Members have made that case today. The UK Government are looking forward to making the positive case for Scotland within the United Kingdom. Today we have shown why twice as many Scots want to remain in the UK than support independence. They are people who know the difference between patriotism and nationalism; people who know, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) said, that the saltire is a symbol of our nation, not of nationalism; people who know that being Scottish and British is not a contradiction but is the best of both worlds, whereas the SNP wants to take our Britishness away from us; people who know that Scotland helps put the “Great” into Great Britain and make our Kingdom united—
David Mundell
People such as the hon. Gentleman, who I am sure will contribute positively to the debate.
Mark Lazarowicz
Yesterday I had the privilege to attend the launch of the green investment bank in Edinburgh. It is supported by all parties, including the SNP, and it is a wonderful example of the UK working together. It is the UK green investment bank, and it is hard to see how it could have been headquartered in Edinburgh if Edinburgh had been in a separate state.
David Mundell
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the positive benefits that flow to Scotland from remaining part of the UK, and about the positive benefits the UK gets from Scotland’s expertise in financial services, which was one of the key reasons that led to the green investment bank being headquartered in Edinburgh.
This has been a heated debate, as such debates always are, for the topic is very important to the people of Scotland and the people of the rest of the United Kingdom. I believe that people, including me, who know in their bones that we are better together will deliver the result Scotland and the United Kingdom want in the referendum in 2014. We do not fear the debate to come; we welcome it—and we would have liked this afternoon’s debate to have been a little longer, rather than its being curtailed by having two meaningless votes.