Succession to the Crown Bill (Allocation of Time)

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Once again, I am in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. That is why it is so important that we should have proper time for this debate and to debate the full ramifications of what the Government are trying to do. The argument that the measure has been agreed by Her Majesty’s other realms is not sufficient. It needs to have been thought through properly in one of her realms first, before we see whether the other realms will accept it. Yes, there might be a child—a happy event for Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge—and let us hope that that is the case, but there would be no harm in allowing the legislation to be dated from today, even if that birth were to take place. There is no urgency. The succession is apparently very secure: the heir apparent is a youngish man and so is his son.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that we would surely hope that no other realm would spend any less time discussing the measure than it looks like we will spend on it this afternoon?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Of course, the sovereign is also King or Queen of Scotland, which is a very important title.

I do not wish to detain the House any longer, but I think that this is a matter of fundamental importance. We are changing that part of our constitution that is most precious in a rush, as if it is anti-terrorist legislation, and we are not allowing ourselves proper time to consider all the ramifications of what is entailed by Her Majesty’s Government’s position. I therefore hope that the House will consider accepting my amendment to make some improvement to the Bill, although I fear that it still will not allow sufficient time for all one might wish to discuss.

Leveson Inquiry

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not accept the underlying premise that all this can be settled by courts and the criminal justice system. Kate and Gerry McCann had their privacy abused and were subject to the most shocking and vile accusations, which they could not have possibly remedied through the law. The hon. Gentleman should read Gerry McCann’s evidence if he really thinks it is undemocratic or illiberal to suggest that maybe we should set up a system that can help people such as them. Gerry McCann went to the Press Complaints Commission and was basically told, “Sorry, there is nothing we can do.” Surely, one would have to have a heart of stone not to accept that there is something seriously, seriously wrong when there is nothing that helps Kate and Gerry McCann. I strongly refute the hon. Gentleman’s idea that it is illiberal and undemocratic to help them.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Given what the Deputy Prime Minister has said and what the Leader of the Opposition said earlier, the Prime Minister now seems to have become a marginal figure on this issue. Therefore, will the Deputy Prime Minister work with the Leader of the Opposition, the First Minister of Scotland and the Taoiseach na hEireann, Enda Kenny, to find, where possible, common ground in this free movement area of the UK and Ireland in press regulation?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Prime Minister has initiated the cross-party talks. They will happen shortly and I hope that, with good will, we can make progress. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Irish model. There are similarities between the Irish model and what Lord Justice Leveson is suggesting. They are not identical by any stretch of the imagination. In many ways, the Irish model is a much more direct form of the statutory establishment of a regulator than the indirect verification of a self-established regulator set up by the press. There is an important qualitative difference between the two, although, as I said earlier, it is remarkable that a number of British newspapers operate, as far as I can make out, relatively comfortably under the more exacting—dare it say slightly more illiberal?—system that exists across the Irish sea.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes, and that is why it is right that the Treasury and the Chancellor have been so assiduous in providing additional resources to ensure that the teams in Whitehall—Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and others—who crack down on tax avoidance are able to do so. The figures that we hope to be able to recoup in tax paid, which would otherwise have been avoided, are truly eye-watering. Billions and billions of pounds of tax will come into the vaults of the Exchequer which otherwise would have gone walkabout.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Q7. The newly published world prosperity index shows our Nordic neighbours, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, holding the top three spots. In the last quarter, the oil fund of our neighbour Norway grew by $29.3 billion to an eye-watering $660 billion—equivalent to £5,000 for each Norwegian family. Will the Deputy Prime Minister take this opportunity to congratulate the Norwegians on their society and their enviable prosperity?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Scottish National party’s arc of prosperity keeps changing. Last time I looked, it included Iceland, but now it does not. What will the hon. Gentleman do next? Pick out Malaysia or Indonesia? Try and be a bit more consistent, please!

House of Lords Reform Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, I feel slightly as though we are looking at the matter from opposite ends of the telescope. The problem has arisen because of the refusal of her colleagues and others to will the means to deliver something to which she is committed, under not only the coalition agreement but successive Conservative manifestos. I have been looking at the long pedigree of commitments in favour of an elected element in the House of Lords in Conservative party manifestos going back to 2001. Interestingly, the 2005 Conservative manifesto states that

“proper reform of the House of Lords has been repeatedly promised but never delivered.”

That sounds more like a prediction than anything else.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

This latest episode of omnishambles shows the public that Westminster is unreformable. Twentieth-century democracy has patently failed. Does the Deputy Prime Minister understand that this is yet another example of why, in the 21st century, Scotland would be better off making all its own decisions with independence rather than continuing under the cronyism in the House of Lords?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that one of the virtues of a reformed House of Lords would have been a voice in the second Chamber for the Scottish people as well as for the English and Welsh people and for all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom; we have spoken about that before. At the moment, that second Chamber has a very high preponderance of people from the south-east of England. There is chronic under-representation, not only from Scotland but from Wales and the north of England. That would all have been balanced by reform. I do not think that that point argues in favour of ripping up the United Kingdom altogether, but it does argue in favour of pushing for reform once again in the future.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

Yes, but what worries me is the prospect of ending up with a party list system which, as we know from the experience of the European Parliament, has no legitimacy with the electorate, is not regarded as a way of electing people to represent their interests, and has been entirely discredited, regardless of the view one takes of the European Union as a whole. For that system of all systems to be chosen for the purpose of deciding membership of the upper House is totally incomprehensible to me, never mind entirely regrettable.

I say specifically to the Deputy Prime Minister, because clearly it is his party that is behind the Bill, and perhaps the only party that would care much if the Bill never saw the light of day, that if he wants to eliminate the defect he rightly referred to of the continuing presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords, that can be done very easily by means of a simple legislative measure. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to get rid of the extraordinary nonsense that we have almost 1,000 peers, that can be done by a compulsory retirement age. If he wants an opportunity to deal with the other anomalies in the House of Lords, he does not need to go down this road. The only argument for going down this road is if he believes in a democratic upper House which, by its very nature, will then share primacy with this House of Commons. Let him, if he wants that, admit that, rather than try to conceal that fact behind words that do not carry conviction.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

rose—

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I take no pleasure in not being able to support the Government and the coalition, in which I am a very strong believer, but it would be unworthy of anyone to argue that a constitutional measure which will have a profound impact on the well-being of this country and of our political system should in any way be influenced by its impact, if it were to be defeated, on other legislative proposals.

I have not voted against my party on a three-line Whip for a very long time. I last did so in the 1970s. I do not know what effect it will have this time on my future ministerial career. All I can say is that the last time I did it, in the 1970s, two years later Margaret Thatcher appointed me to her Government. So my right hon. and hon. Friends should be of good heart and vote as they believe, and that means voting against the Bill and against the programme motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Johnson]

It is a shame that that was said by a Government Member, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fundamental point about why Labour Members have sought reform—originally abolition, but then reform—of the other place. To me, I am afraid, it represents institutionalised snobbery.

I do not agree with Walter Bagehot’s comment that the cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it, but neither do I agree with the constant stream of self-regard that comes from those on the other side of Central Lobby about how it is the greatest, most expert revising chamber ever to be devised in the world. They have certainly been very expert at preserving the status quo. I am quite prepared to listen to and debate the very strong arguments for the status quo made by Members who, despite manifesto commitments, are perfectly entitled to come here and make that case. Incidentally, that is not the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), who believes in a unicameral system. However, the consensus that we have been inching towards says that the status quo is indefensible in a modern, 21st century democracy, and that view is reflected in the proposals in the Bill.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does the right hon. Gentleman ever feel that some of those voices arguing for the status quo are perhaps looking to their own jobs at some time in the future?

[Alan Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman tried to intervene on the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), and now he has got his intervention on the record.

The first question is, “Do we need to reform the House of Lords?”, and the answer is, “Of course we do.” The second question is, “Are these the right reforms?” I think that they broadly are. I say that not because they are Clegg’s reforms, but because they are Cook’s reforms. One of my great heroes is the late, great Robin Cook. There was no greater parliamentarian and no greater defender of this place. As Leader of the House, he sent us through the voting Lobbies seven times. We voted against every option, from a fully elected to a fully appointed House of Lords. The option that nearly got through—it failed by only three votes—was an 80-20 split. Incidentally, the other place voted almost unanimously for a wholly appointed second Chamber.

After that, Robin Cook worked with the current Foreign Secretary, the current Leader of the House, the current Lord Chancellor and another great Labour parliamentarian, Tony Wright, the former Member for Cannock Chase, to develop the argument with the “Breaking the Deadlock” proposals of 2005. Those proposals are very similar to this Bill, and to various other attempts, such as that of the Public Accounts Committee and the White Paper published by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) in 2008. The Labour Cabinet agreed to that paper, which incidentally involved a 50-50 split between elected and appointed Members.

In the end, Labour proposed a 100% elected House in the 2010 manifesto. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) knows, because he was a member of the Cabinet at the time, we knew that we might have to concede an 80-20 split because anyone who is serious about pursuing House of Lords reform does not want to take on the disestablishment of the Church of England at the same time, because that is a recipe for permanent procrastination.

“Breaking the Deadlock” said that there should be single terms covering three election periods, as did the royal commission under Wakeham in the late ’90s and as have various other documents. It said that Members would be elected by proportional representation, as did our election manifesto in 2010. The reason for that is to keep the primacy of the Commons. When a large proportion of the second Chamber is elected, we need to ensure that they do not seek ministerial office, that they are not after a career and that they will not be difficult with elected local MPs and seek to replace them. That is why everybody who has looked at this matter in any depth has come to the conclusion that there should be long, single terms with no further right to stand again.

All of the current proposals are right. I should probably say that they are nearly right before I get into trouble with the Whips—there are obviously some improvements that can be made in Committee. However, to get a consensus and to take advantage of what is an unprecedented opportunity to do something about this issue, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said, I believe that a referendum of the British people is needed. I ask those on the Treasury Bench to consider that. To have legitimacy, the proposals have to be approved by the public. We can then ensure that they are implemented in full.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Joint Committee took evidence from the Australian Parliament, and Members ought to look at that evidence and pay heed to Australia before giving away our primacy.

The most worrying thing of all is that as the primacy of the House of Commons is challenged, the unique link of accountability between the elector and his or her representative in Parliament—their Member of this House —will be undermined, so Parliament’s very accountability will be undermined as well.

Quite apart from the fact that there is no reasonable question to which the right answer is 450 extra elected politicians, having a second House of Commons at the other end of the corridor will not increase the chances of holding the Government to account. It will do exactly the opposite. A clash between the two Houses and a squabble over when and whether the Parliament Acts could be used will lead to a challenge in the courts, and I for one do not want vital political issues to be decided not by Parliament but by the judiciary. Our electors expect us to take responsibility, and they expect the buck to stop with us, their MPs. We ought to fight to preserve that.

I turn to the matter of consultation. The subject of Lords reform may have been talked about for 100 years, but we are not considering it in a proper, wider context. Reform of one part of Parliament is reform of Parliament as a whole, but we have been able to consider only the narrow proposals that the Deputy Prime Minister has put forward. I sat on the Joint Committee for eight months, and we recommended a constitutional convention so that the subject could be properly examined in context. The Government have ignored that recommendation, and now we face the possibility that we might not even be able to examine the Bill fully here in the House of Commons because of a narrow programme motion. At the same time, the Government are afraid of a referendum. They are afraid to ask the people. No constitutional convention, no referendum, no proper scrutiny in the House of Commons—that is not democracy.

[Mr MacNeil]

May I do a cursory self-interest check? Will the hon. Lady rule herself out now of ever taking a seat in an unreformed second Chamber?

[Mrs Laing]

No, I will not rule that out—not that I ever expect to be offered a seat, and certainly not by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I am probably not the most popular Smartie in the tube today, but I do not care about that: I am here to do my duty for democracy.

The Bill ignores the will of the people. Only one year ago, we had an expensive nationwide referendum in which the people overwhelmingly rejected a proportional representation voting system. The Deputy Prime Minister now ignores the will of the people. PR for this House was rejected, so he says, “Let’s introduce it for the other place.” What contempt! What duplicity! Why does he do it? The answer to that non-rhetorical question is that a proportional election system will give the Liberal Democrats a permanent hold on the balance of power in the second Chamber. That is not democracy; it is blatant party political advantage. It is short term and small-minded, and I certainly cannot vote for it.

There is very much more to say on this subject, and I hope the House votes to give all the time necessary for proper scrutiny of such fundamental parliamentary reform.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who, if the proposals are passed, would end up being represented by the same regional list of senators as myself in Dudley—although how anyone could represent effectively both a rural community such as Hereford and a former industrial centre such as the black country is something we might ponder during the course of this debate.

I have always believed that the House of Lords should be reformed. It is clearly too big; it is indefensible that hereditary peers remain; and it is completely wrong that Members can fail to turn up for years and retain their membership, when they would be booted off a local authority if they failed to attend for six months. That said, however, there are major problems with the Government’s proposals.

First, the lesson of Scottish and Welsh devolution is that constitutional reform cannot be undertaken piecemeal. Those changes, which I supported, resulted in imbalances between Scotland and Wales and England and its regions, which have still not been resolved. The lesson is that a comprehensive and coherent view is needed of the relationship between the individual and the state, and of what powers should be exercised at national, regional and community level, before constitutional reform is undertaken.

[Mr MacNeil]

Are not the hysterics we are hearing in the House today reminiscent of the hysterics heard in 1979 about a Scottish Assembly, and in 1997 about a Scottish Parliament? There are hysterics only within these four walls, but when these things actually happen, the sky does not fall in.

[Ian Austin]

As I said, I supported the proposals for devolution, but I think the previous Government made a mistake in not undertaking them as part of a far-reaching, comprehensive and coherent view about the arrangements for governing Britain as a whole. Reform of the House of Lords needs to be properly thought through as part of a wider package of constitutional reforms to deal with the regional and national imbalances that are the result of stalled devolution.

For example, a renewed approach to regional government is needed. It is ironic that the Bill proposes that Members be elected from the English regions, which the Government have been doing all they can to abolish in all other respects. They claimed that the regions did not exist when they abolished the regional development agencies, regional spatial planning and all the rest. We have regional government in this country in the NHS, the police, planning, transport policy, housing and regeneration, but they are run by faceless civil servants in England, and by politicians in London, Scotland and Wales. I would prefer to have proper regional government and proper regional accountability for those powers and then to establish a revising second Chamber drawn from the regional assemblies.

The Government are proposing far-reaching reforms, which have huge implications for the way the country is run, and are doing so without a referendum. We had to have referendums for voting systems, for Scottish and Welsh devolution, for a regional assembly in the north-east and for directly elected mayors in some quite small cities, but the people of Britain will have no say in huge changes to their Parliament.

The central question is whether the House of Lords should be elected. I do not think it is possible to defend, as a point of principle, appointments and patronage. I am a democrat and I am in favour of devolving power to the people. That is one of the reasons I became interested in politics and got involved: I wanted to ensure that ordinary people have as much power as possible over the way the decisions that affect them in their daily lives are taken. Clearly, the current system is one of appointment, not election, but what we have to decide is whether the changes that the Government propose are appropriate and will do the job.

First, whatever the Government say, having an elected House of Lords will inevitably change the relationship between the two Houses. That is bound to happen. The Bill promises that this House will retain primacy, but simply asserting that and ensuring that it happens in practice are very different. It is not credible to say that nothing will change, when it is inevitable that people who have been elected will claim a democratic mandate and assert their authority. Secondly, there is no question but that elected Members of the second House will claim democratic legitimacy in our constituencies. That is bound to happen. In this debate and during the detailed scrutiny of the Bill that follows it, I want to see how the Government and this House will deal with those huge questions.

There are other issues we have to deal with. It is pretty clear that 400 new senators will bring huge additional costs. They will immediately demand the same level of resources, staff and offices and all the rest as we have, even though they will have no real constituency. Of those 400, the west midlands will have about 35 representatives elected from a regional list. Voters will have very little idea who they are voting for. I spent the weekend asking people in Dudley if they could name their MEPs. Michael Cashman and the other six west midlands MEPs do a good job, but the current system ensures that almost no one knows who their MEPs are. I take more than a passing interest in politics and I struggle to name all seven of them off the top of my head.

What I do know is that the introduction of a regional list system for those elections has resulted, to our great shame, in Britain being represented in the European Parliament, for the first time, by people standing for a racist and fascist party. It is pretty clear to me that if we go ahead with a similar system for a second Chamber, all sorts of cranks and extremists will get elected.

The idea of people being elected for a 15-year non-renewable term is appalling. One of the reasons that politicians work hard, particularly in marginal constituencies, is that we have to answer for our views and actions at the ballot box. The proposed system, which prevents people from being held to account for their actions by seeking re-election, appears to be based on the most appalling elitist view that listening to the public and taking their views into account is a bad thing.

Although I am in favour of democracy and elections, I shall be following this debate and the subsequent scrutiny of the Bill and amendments with great interest, to see whether the concerns I have expressed today can be dealt with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The House of Lords has more than 800 Members, and that is far too many; it has Members who are there simply because of who their fathers were; and in this Parliament it has had so many Liberal Democrats from Wales appointed to it that it sometimes seems there is none left to populate the Assembly. The House of Lords therefore needs reform, and for that reason I will vote to support the Bill’s Second Reading tomorrow. If there is no reform with this Bill, there will be no reform in this Parliament.

I will vote against the Government’s programme motion, however, because the time that it allocates is wholly inadequate. This Bill is so important to all aspects of our parliamentary system that it must be considered in its entirety, and all Members who have views that they want to express should be permitted to do so.

I specifically asked the Whips to maintain strong opposition to any programme motion for this Bill primarily because of the Government’s appalling behaviour in respect of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. By their deeds shall ye know them. I spent a great deal of time in this Chamber waiting to speak on the aspects of that legislation which affected our constitution, and on the relationship between Wales and the United Kingdom, but, in the words of the great Diana Ross, “I’m still waiting”, and I have no doubt that if this programme motion is passed I will have no opportunity to make my views known on the profound inadequacies of this Bill.

My fundamental view is that it makes no sense to undertake such a profound review of the second Chamber without taking into account the massive constitutional change of devolution. It is high time that we approached constitutional reform in a holistic way. Every change to a part of our constitution affects the whole, and we currently have more inquiries and commissions on different aspects of our constitution than I can ever recall. We should scrap the lot and undertake a single constitutional review, looking at the procedures of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the devolved authorities, with the aim of arriving at a single, settled constitution.

If there is one lesson to be learned from devolution, it is that it opens a Pandora’s box of proposals to change the powers of the body it has created: the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the London Assembly all pressed to change their powers immediately upon being provided with them. I have no doubt that any change to the second Chamber will lead to exactly the same process, unless it is accompanied by a constitution defining its powers. That is a massive flaw in the Bill.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman says that the Scottish Parliament looked for a change of powers immediately upon its creation, but that is not true. In its first eight years it was run by an unambitious Labour-Liberal Democrat Government and did not look for any change to its powers. It is only now, with an ambitious Scottish National party Government looking for further powers, that that is happening.

[Ian Lucas]

That statement is simply untrue. There was further devolution to the Scottish Parliament and to the National Assembly for Wales, and it happened throughout the course of devolution’s development in the United Kingdom.

There are further flaws in the Bill which we need to discuss. Creating separate types of Member of the second Chamber is wrong: having elected Members, appointed Members and bishops will create confusion and undermine the democratic principle. Having bishops as Members is wrong, too. Giving precedence to Church of England clerics is an extraordinary thing to do, and it is even more inexplicable on this very day, when the Church of England has decided not to appoint women bishops. Is not having such a clause in the Bill a breach of the European convention on human rights? Will the Minister give a specific response on that point?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) said, little consideration has been given to the proportion of elected Members allocated to each part of the United Kingdom. It appears to have been done on a purely mathematical basis that takes no account of the different nations within the UK. That point was well made by Dr Paul Behrens of the university of Leicester, who refers to the very different approaches taken in the United States and German constitutions.

The use of the 15-year term that many Members have mentioned is appalling, and I am amazed that it has survived from the draft Bill. I have not spoken to anyone who supports it, and I was astonished to hear one or two Members do so even though they are in a tiny minority. It is a recipe for the creation of isolated, narcissistic Members of a second Chamber who will have no connection whatever to the real world.

Those are just a few of my concerns on the specifics of the Bill; I have many more and I am sure that more will occur to me as we discuss the matter. I have no doubt that further issues will arise when the Bill is considered in detail, because it is a bad, bad Bill—badly drafted, badly drawn and based on a compromise that is not working. My concern is that proper consideration will not take place because of the inadequacy of the time that is allocated. The result will be a very bad Bill going to the Lords, where it will no doubt be scrutinised at greater length, and the reputation of the House of Commons will be diminished still further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

It is an honour and a privilege to speak in a debate of such fundamental importance. We have heard some truly fascinating speeches from Members on both sides of the House. I personally take the view that the weight of argument is firmly on the side of those who do not support the Bill, but we have heard some interesting speeches across the board. It is a particular honour to sit next to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), who made what must have been a particularly difficult speech.

The economy is struggling, the eurozone is tanking, the banks are in crisis, and Syria is burning. Our constituents must be blinking in bewilderment at the time, effort and political energy being expended—

[Mr MacNeil]

Has the hon. Gentleman made many speeches in this House on those subjects, or is he just here to talk about House of Lords reform?

[Dan Byles]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am here today to speak about this extremely important issue, but I speak regularly in this Chamber about key events and intervene in others. I am not one of those Members who chalks up short speeches on TheyWorkForYou and then judges themselves by the number of speeches they have made rather than their quality.

As I said, our constituents are blinking in bewilderment at the amount of time we are spending discussing this issue, but discuss it we must—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We will, of course, publish the financial implications. The hon. Lady is right to highlight an issue that has not been given sufficient attention—how unsustainable the status quo is. Are people really comfortable with a second Chamber that will soon be composed of 1,000 or more members, in which more than 70% are there through nothing more than political patronage and in which they receive £300 tax-free just for turning up?

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Given that the House of Lords is often seen as a lifeboat for ailing political careers, so that there are vested interests in this place that are very much against reform, will the Deputy Prime Minister lead by example and guarantee that, in the event of his attempts at reform being unsuccessful, he will not take up a seat in the Lords?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly hope that my reform proposals will be successful.

Party Funding

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I have indeed issued that invitation. So far, the Leader of the Opposition has remained strangely silent.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The revelations that Peter Cruddas and the Prime Minister have spoken about Scotland and its referendum in rude and pejorative terms mean that Westminster can have no part in Scotland’s referendum, but does the Minister agree that if any law has been broken it is a matter not for politicians but for the police?

[Mr Maude]

Obviously that is the case, and if there is any suggestion of any illegality, no doubt it will be investigated. Frankly, it is not this Prime Minister who has been interviewed by the police but a leader of the Labour party.

Diamond Jubilee

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

On behalf of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru, I add our congratulations to the Queen and wish her well on the tremendous occasion of her 60th jubilee.

This is my second speech on an Humble Address; the other was six years ago on the occasion of the Queen’s 80th birthday. Of the six Members who contributed that day, only two have done so again today: the Prime Minister did so from a different position, but I speak from the same place and am happy to provide continuity for the Humble Address.

Her Majesty has had a long and impressive reign. I noted from a recent TV documentary that 60 years ago she pledged to serve the “imperial family”. Time has moved on, and so has the Queen, although not her inner gracious qualities and decorum. The imperial family has changed into a Commonwealth, as the Prime Minister noted earlier, and Her Majesty is now Queen of 16 independent states, a number that may be added to in coming years—a veritable growing family.

In the year of Her Majesty’s 80th birthday, six years ago, she cruised around the Hebrides—my constituency, Na h-Eileanan an Iar—perhaps her favourite destination in all her realms. Before she becomes our longest reigning monarch—God willing—on 9 September 2015, I hope that she may again have the opportunity to cruise around the Hebrides, as this year may be a bit busy for her.

In my childhood it was always a high point when Her Majesty visited the islands south of Barra, and travelled there in peace, and the three masts of the royal yacht Britannia were visible behind the hills when it was anchored in Vatersay bay.

Finally, I say in Gaelic—the old but also the modern language of Scotland—“Meallaibh ar naidheachd a Bhanrighinn Elasdaid is tha mi an dochas gum bi ioma Bliadhna sona roimhibh.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil. [Interruption.]

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Q2. It seems, Mr Speaker, that the SNP gets more reaction from Labour than their own Leader does. Does the Prime Minister agree that in Scotland the people are sovereign, and therefore for improvement they have the right to determine their own constitutional future as they see fit?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course this is an issue for the people of Scotland, and I think we should bring forward the date when we put to the Scottish people the question of whether they want to stay in the United Kingdom—which I dearly hope that they do—or to leave the United Kingdom. But the point that everyone needs to understand is that options for further devolution—options for changes across the United Kingdom—are matters for all of the United Kingdom, and matters that all of the United Kingdom should rightly discuss.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am confident that when my hon. Friend sees the terms of reference he will see that there will be time for the commission to examine this matter, make its proposals and enable there to be a full discussion with all the political parties in this House, and then for this House to take a decision on how it wants to move forward.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Does the Minister agree that the English are every bit as good as the French and the Germans, and can surely govern themselves without any help from the Scots? Surely the answer to the West Lothian question is very simple.

[Mr Harper]

There is a very simple answer, and I know what the hon. Gentleman thinks it is. I do not agree with him, most Members of this House do not agree with him and we will do everything we can to make sure that this United Kingdom stays together.