Sewel Convention

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Peter Grant

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I hear the right hon. Gentleman’s disgust at the idea that someone could walk out of the House of Commons in protest at a decision they feel strongly about. Can he tell us how many times he has been part of walkouts in the House of Commons?

[Mr Carmichael]

I have indeed been part of walkouts. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me this extra minute, because it will not take the full minute to explain it. It was not perhaps the finest example of my parliamentary career, and if the SNP had been wise, they would have learned from my mistakes. They will now have to learn from their own.

The question of the frameworks is at the centre of this. The time we have left is ticking down quickly, and there is still no mechanism by which these frameworks will be agreed. My suspicion is that the Whitehall default is that it will have the final word. Clearly, that will not be good enough. If our Governments cannot decide on a mechanism between them, my suggestion to the House tonight is that it is for us as parliamentarians to come up with that. I do not have all the answers to this, but we already have mechanisms in our Standing Orders through which these things can be discussed. God forbid I would ever want to go back to us hosting the Scottish Grand Committee, but that is one forum in which we might reasonably expect to debate these things, on amendable motions, to reach a common position on which we can all ultimately agree.

As I said earlier, it is apparent that one weakness of our constitutional settlement is that we have no mechanism for Parliament to speak to Parliament. All the mechanisms are about Government speaking to Government. The other weakness of our constitutional settlement is that there is no mechanism for an honest broker in the middle of disputes between the Governments. That is where we now need to focus our attention. We need to move away from this mix of black letter law and constitutional convention, and ultimately, everything should be written down in a constitution.

UK Relations with Qatar

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Peter Grant

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

That is where the air conditioning comes in—that is why I say it is quite a remarkable feat of engineering. Having been brought up on the west coast of Scotland, where my antipathy to the game was originally instilled in me, I find the idea of requiring air conditioning to play football difficult to get my mind around. The Qataris understood that even holding the tournament in their coolest time of the year, February, as I believe they will do, would still be beyond what most teams would expect, so they are going to quite remarkable lengths. It will also be probably the most compact World cup we will have seen. The infrastructure to be put in place to get teams and officials from one venue to another is an exercise from which we could take some lessons.

I am encouraged by progress in changes in the law and by the existence within Qatar of organisations such as the National Human Rights Committee. The hon. Member for Southend West spoke at some length about the blockade against Qatar currently in place by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt. We must acknowledge that the allegations made by those countries in June are very serious. It is not my job, nor, I would suggest, that of any hon. Member, to be some sort of apologist for a Government. If there is evidence that the allegations made by the blockading countries have substance, we should take that seriously and Qatar must be accountable.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that Saudi Arabia has been named in documents from the United States Government —and, I believe, from the UK Government —as being potentially involved in fostering radicalisation in the UK. Does he agree that while any allegations against Qatar must be independently investigated, perhaps the Saudis are not in the best position to claim the moral high ground?

[Mr Carmichael]

The moral high ground is not an easy place for anyone to occupy in the region, and I do not think it helps us to stand there. However, there have been significant allegations in the past against the countries I listed, right the way back to 9/11 and earlier. I hesitate in picking up the bone that the hon. Gentleman has generously thrown me, because I do not think that the United Kingdom’s best interests will be served by picking a winner in the conflict. If we are to have a role, it should be to use our good relations and influence with all the various actors to somehow find a way to allow everyone some meaningful engagement with Kuwait, which seems to be the mediator of choice, and as a consequence perhaps find a way to step back from the brink.

In relation to the allegations that have been made and the 13 demands that came from the Saudi-led coalition in June last year, little hard evidence has come forward. The allegations about support for Islamist groups seem to be conflated with support or funding for Islamic State. That would be serious if it were proven, but in fact we see no evidence of that. It would be somewhat strange, shall we say, for Qatar to be funding IS while hosting the al-Udeid airbase and given the other ways in which it co-operates with us. I do not feel qualified to judge, but I observe in passing that Rex Tillerson said that the list of demands would be

“difficult for Qatar to meet”

because of that lack of evidence.

I am conscious of the passage of time, so I will finish by drawing the House’s attention to an opinion piece from the Financial Times on 19 April headed “The continuing blockade of Qatar makes no sense”. It points out first the most recent ratcheting up of the conflict, with reports about Qatar being turned into an island instead of a peninsula by Saudi Arabia’s excavating a Suez-style canal on the land border, and various unpleasant things being put into that canal. It is a good, measured piece that I commend to all those who have an interest in the region. It concludes:

“Short of volunteering for vassal status it is difficult to see what more it”—

Qatar—

“could do, beyond some gestures. Rather, the onus should be on the states that created the crisis to bring it to an end.”

It goes on:

“Toning down the rhetoric would be a start. Lifting the blockade incrementally should be the next.”

When the Minister responds, I would like to hear what he thinks the United Kingdom can do, inevitably working with the United States, which has a well-documented significant interest in the region. I think President Trump has spoken about some sort of discussion at Camp David later this year, and I hope that would be helpful. Frankly, Qatar being at odds with its neighbours has an impact beyond its border and those of its neighbours. It leaves us in a situation where the Gulf Co-operation Council, the most important body in the region and the means by which we western nations should seek to engage with Gulf countries, is unable to operate in the way it is intended to. For a region as important to us as the Gulf, for all manner of reasons—economic, trade, security—that is surely where our interest as a country must lie. In looking at our relations with Qatar, we must identify what our interest is and how we might further it and go beyond it in the wider interests of the region.

Leaving the EU: Agriculture

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Peter Grant

Thursday 1st February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant]

It would be nice if the Government’s approach to Brexit was based on evidence, facts and proper analysis, rather than ideology. The hon. Gentleman also welcomed the opportunity to have what he described as an informed debate about immigration. I think it would have been nice if we had had an informed debate about immigration, rather than the desperately ill-informed debate we had up to, through and since the referendum. We have not heard enough about the enormous benefit that immigration brings to these islands and will continue to bring if we allow it to do so.

The hon. Member for Gordon reminded us at Brexit questions this morning that, as far as agriculture is concerned, one size does not fit all. In fact, the danger is that one size very often does not fit anything, so nobody gets the result they need.

Anyone can work out that the needs of a hill farmer or crofter in the highlands of Scotland or in Wales are very different from the needs of a dairy farmer in the south of England, or indeed of a fruit grower in lowland Scotland or lowland Perthshire. That means that whatever framework is put together has got to be capable of being adapted and applied flexibly to ensure that the decisions taken are those that are most suited to where they are being applied.

I do not have an issue, and neither does the Scottish National party, with recognising that in some areas of public policy there are huge benefits to having one framework and one set of rules to apply everywhere. For example, animal welfare standards are common throughout the United Kingdom—good idea. Let us face it, they are going to be common throughout the United Kingdom and the European Union, because we will still want to be able to sell our stuff across the Irish border, so Northern Ireland will have to fit in with European Union standards in the longer term.

It is essential that a decision that something will be taken on a UK framework basis is a decision by consensus. I am waiting, as are a lot of people back home in Scotland, to hear the Government confirm that no UK framework policy will be decided without the consent of the devolved Administrations, and that once it has been agreed that something needs a UK framework, the content and detail of that framework will be agreed by consensus among the four equal partners in the Union, not simply imposed on us by a Government in Whitehall—nor indeed imposed on the farmers of England by a Government in Edinburgh.

[Mr Carmichael]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

I will give way very briefly indeed.

[Mr Carmichael]

What view do the hon. Gentleman and his party take of the NFUS suggestion that any decision should be taken on the basis of some form of qualified majority voting?

[Peter Grant]

I am not convinced that defining a specific voting system now would be particularly helpful. I would not have a problem with the system being more devolved in England, if only there were a government structure to allow that to happen, because farmers in Devon do not necessarily need the same response as the farmers of east Anglia—but that is for the people and representatives of England to sort out. If decisions are to be taken that will affect farmers in Scotland, it is essential those decisions are the right ones for Scotland. The best place for decisions affecting Scotland to be taken is in Scotland—if we want to, we can replace Scotland with Northern Ireland, Wales or even Cornwall.