Devolution and the Union
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
I am really sorry, but I have been too generous in giving way. Members overlook that point when they talk about the Barnett formula, and the hon. Gentleman may want to come back to it in his summing up.
Like it or not—the hon. Members for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) and for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) did not like it—the big jumping off point is now the vow. Whether Tory or Labour Back Benchers like it or not, that is the truth of the matter. The vow must be seen in the context of what was happening at the time it was made. On 10 September, the Prime Minister said:
“If Scotland says it does want to stay inside the United Kingdom, then all options of devolution are there, and all are possible.”
The right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the former Prime Minister—Gordon Brown, for those at home watching who might not be absolutely certain who I mean—said:
“The purpose of the Scottish Parliament should be to use the maximum devolution possible”.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We do not usually use a Member’s name, certainly when he is not informed of any discussion that may take place. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not have done that on purpose.
Mr MacNeil
I am always delighted to follow your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. If they want to strike it from the record they can. I was trying to make a wider communication point, but I understand and respect what you are saying.
The vow was surrounded by those remarks and the vow ended the option of the status quo; it moved the argument on. The muddle, of course, is what is meant by the vow. In this Chamber, I asked the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath whether, when he signed up to the vow, he knew what he was signing up to. My suspicion, after the Downing street EVEL declaration on the morning after the referendum, is that he was duped. He will know whether he was or not.
I am not sure what the three amigos meant by the vow when they signed up to it on the front page of the Daily Record. The “three amigos” is the collective name in Scotland for the leaders of the Labour, Liberal and Conservative parties—they are seen as much of a muchness. [Interruption.] There they go—the cackling starts again. I suspect that before the referendum the vow meant anything at all to keep Scotland within the Union. After 18 September, they meant it to mean as little as it possibly could.
On the Smith commission, we know what the Scottish people want: they want Scotland’s Parliament to control many areas of policy. Polls show that they not only support the Scottish National party; they support income tax, corporate tax, welfare and benefits, and pensions being dealt with in the Scottish Parliament. If the Smith commission fails the people’s hopes, the polls show that people well understand who the champions of Scotland are and who will put Scotland first. That is why the SNP has between 45% and 59% support in the polls. The complexion of this Parliament will change next May as a result. There are many trigger points that could cause a new, second independence referendum in Scotland. One is an exit from the EU. Another—the most likely—is the demand of the Scottish people for power to go to their Parliament to change their lives, their communities, their families and their neighbourhoods.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Members should address the Chair. The last two speakers have felt the need to face in the opposite direction rather than facing the Chair. I think that the hon. Gentleman wishes to give way to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil). I hope that Members will address each other through the Chair from now on.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) is making a thoughtful speech. Does he think that the Republic of Ireland would have had the same success without the powers that it now has under independence, or what we might call total devolution? Does he think that those powers have contributed greatly to what Ireland has now?
Fairness and Inequality
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
People who say that Wales’ tax take is not equivalent to its expenditure are quite short-sighted. They fail to realise that they are living in the United Kingdom, the tax take of which has not matched expenditure since 2001, and is not likely to do so until 2018. This is a UK that records a deficit year after year, and has a debt that grows year after year.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Obviously, Mr MacNeil will want to catch my eye to make his speech. I would not like him to use it all up now, so shorter interventions.
Mr MacNeil
Devil the fear, as my old Irish mother would have said, devil the fear—no chance at all. I think the hon. Gentleman will see, as he pays more attention to the words to come, that the only Tories on this side of the House are probably the red Tories.
I listed the books I mentioned earlier for a reason. We must be aware that we do not have to reinvent the wheel to get people more opportunities and chances in life. Much of the research and science has been done, and the information has been gathered. Perhaps if we stopped, looked and learned from what is around us we would stop falling into the same traps that different generations have fallen into. Why should inequality matter—why is it important? Is it merely because a number of influential professors with Nobel prizes have written books? I would contend that they have put intellectual bones on our instinctive emotions of sympathy and empathy for our fellow people when we see them in situations that disturb us and we think are wrong. This is why nations have international aid budgets and why we give to charity. Sometimes it can be argued that the money is not always best directed, but nevertheless it is useful in the main. It shows an underlying striving for fairness and is a reproach against inequality within the broad set of people.
My first engagement with the idea of inequality was in the religious education class in Craigston primary school at the age of seven or eight, or perhaps even six, with Mrs MacCormick, God bless her. Looking back, I often think that we were really doing philosophy classes rather than RE classes. The example given was this: “If you’re given a box of chocolates at home would it be best to eat them all yourself or share them with your brothers and sisters who have not been given any chocolates?” I have to say that this scenario created a tension in my mind given my great love of chocolates. As you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, I do not have so much a sweet tooth as a whole set of sweet teeth. I was caught in the tension between doing what was manifestly right and what I really wanted to do on another level. The consensus quickly grew in the class that it was best to share—even among six, seven or eight-year-olds. I am pleased to see you nodding in agreement, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I assure the hon. Gentleman that I was not nodding in agreement; I was just wondering whether there were inequalities within the chocolates.
Mr MacNeil
Very good, Mr Deputy Speaker.
It is a slight concern of mine, however, that the captains of industry, as they get called, or the high-bonus City bankers or hedge fund managers, have never had that experience at a young age and have not engaged meaningfully with sympathy for the situation that others may be in as they gobble all the chocolates of productivity that our economy has produced, believing instead that they are self-made men and self-made women who worship their own creators.
Michael Connarty
I would be quite willing to brief the hon. Gentleman later about the technicalities of why the vote was not called on that particular night.
The hon. Gentleman is talking about a sociological analysis, but some people have moved on since then and done a socialist analysis. When society is divided into those who support capital and those who support labour, what happens is that the forces of those who have the power in the land—the landed classes—join with the merchant class to support capital, and they have succeeded in increasing the value of capital by driving down the cost of labour. That is why we have the inequality we have, and that is the structure of the society we—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. It is very good to have a lecture, but not during an intervention. If the hon. Gentleman wants to catch my eye later, I am sure he will be able to do so and give me a lecture then.
Mr MacNeil
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that interesting intervention. As an MP for a left-of-centre party—sadly, the hon. Member for North East Somerset is no longer in his place to hear this—I am asking how it is possible that our society and, indeed, many other societies, particularly in the English-speaking world, can tolerate inequality, which has now grown to levels beyond those of the 1920s. Has something primitive been transmitted to our minds through the media? The belief that the poor are poor because they are undeserving and have not worked hard enough is a primitive thought. People have to be helped, because we are complex creatures living together in society. People have deep psychological needs and some can suffer from the paralysis of feeling swamped or depressed when they feel stuck or trapped.
Yesterday’s report by the Living Wage Commission, “Working for Poverty”, looked into the scale and problem of low pay and working poverty in the UK. The first shocking statistic I stumbled on came from the work of the Resolution Foundation, which had tracked low-paid workers for a decade between 2002 and 2012. Despite working for a decade, only 18% of those people had managed to escape low pay in that 10-year stretch. In other words, people in low pay had a four in five chance of remaining there.
The report further notes:
“1.3 million employees remained stuck in low pay for the subsequent decade, and a further 2.2 million workers held higher paid jobs but returned to low paid jobs by the end of the decade.”
That is and should be depressing. Imagine the feelings of the people we eyeball who have been living with that reality on a daily basis for a decade.
There is good news and bad news. Over the past decades, the wealth of this and other countries in the west has grown as productivity has increased. The bad news is that the fruits of that productivity have been disproportionately distributed. According to the BBC’s wealth gap analysis, as the wealth pie grew and there was more to slice up, many people got roughly the same slice of the pie while others took a share that would embarrass a lion.
Between 1997 and 2007, the income of the top 0.1% grew by 82% to an average of £1.179 million annually; the top 0.5% saw an increase of 66.5% to an average of £452,000 annually; and the top 1%, which, of course, includes the previous two groups, saw their income rise by 60%, but their rise was only about a quarter of that of the 0.1%.
Meanwhile, between 1997 and 2007—the happy decade, as some in financial circles call it, before the crash of six years ago—the bottom 90%, which includes most of society, saw their wages rise by only 17%, a disproportionate slice of the economic pie. Another way of looking at it is that the fraction of pay the bottom 90% were getting in comparison with the top 1% had fallen by a fifth over that decade. As Professor Stiglitz says:
“A corporate CEO will not exert less effort to make the company work well simply because his take-home pay is $10 million a year rather than $12 million.”
The “Working for Poverty” report contains a series of nuggets and goes fearlessly into some thought-provoking factors.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think the hon. Gentleman has got the message across.
Mr MacNeil
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has intervened, but I am surprised that he says he is against nationalism, because we live in nations. That is why we have the United Nations of about 193 nations. I am not sure exactly what structure he favours. Is he is in favour of the abolition of the Parliament in Westminster and of the UK state?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must sit down. I will be helpful: we have had a good debate about chocolates, and I want to get back to inequality. I certainly do not want to get bogged down in the rights and wrongs of abolition. I know that he is desperate to finish his speech on inequalities, and I am desperate to hear it.
Mr MacNeil
My speech is about making lives better for people wherever they are from and wherever they are worldwide. That is the important point to bear in mind.
The “Working for Poverty” report even touches on the untouchables of our society—football clubs. It states:
“Research from Citizens UK shows it would take a full-time cleaner 13 years to earn what top footballers earn in a week. Football clubs are important institutions in communities across the UK. They should be setting an example to employers nationwide.”
I must praise the columnist for The Observer Kevin McKenna who, like me, is a supporter of Celtic football club in Glasgow, the richest team in Scotland. Sadly, a few months ago, Celtic refused to pay the living wage to all its staff at the ground. It turned Mr McKenna’s stomach that those subject to such wage inequality could rub along, shoulder to shoulder, with people earning tens of thousands of pounds a week. That has also turned the stomachs of many football fans, especially given that Celtic had cashed in on the story of Brother Walfrid, a Marist brother who now lies at rest in Dumfries, who started Celtic as a means to help the poor of the Glasgow east end in the 1880s. I do not mean to single out Celtic, but to give an example of the toleration of those in even rich organisations for the shocking pay levels given to people the whites of whose eyes they see daily. Frankly, it removes the shine, lustre and glitz from the big football clubs of our land when we realise that gritty reality and see it up close.
Mr MacNeil
It is disappointing that more Members have not engaged in the issues of poverty and inequality. Cynics would say that if this were a debate on Members’ pay, conditions and benefits or any other reform of the House of Commons, the Benches would be full. Alas, we are debating a topic far removed from that. That is why I have tried to humanise the debate.
I was not going to read Becca’s story from the Living Wage Commission, but it is a cracker of a story. The report states that she
“lives in Leeds and has worked in minimum wage jobs since she was a teenager. Now in her thirties, she has a degree and wants to start up her own business, but she can not find the money or the time.”
She says:
“I have pretty much always worked for minimum wage. I worked in an office photocopying for two years, I have worked in customer service, I once sat watching a TV screen and counting cars on clickers. I’ve done all sorts.”
That is another example of a person who is trying to better herself, but who is—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I have a good feel for the examples, as, I am sure, does the House. This should be the hon. Gentleman’s speech, not just a speech full of examples from other people. I have allowed a few examples to go, but I have heard enough for now. I want to hear from the hon. Gentleman, rather than other people.
Mr MacNeil
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is because of my modesty and kindness that I want to share the wisdom of others. I do not see myself as the sole well of wisdom. [Interruption.] “Thankfully,” say my SNP colleagues.
We have to consider how poverty and inequality are affecting young people. I spoke to a young person recently who said, “It’s difficult being young. Houses are expensive. We have tons of student debt. The costs of living are rising and wages don’t go up. It’s sort of tough being young at the moment.” That young person was right. I was at university when student loans came in. I followed a demonstration against student loans that was led by a student who later became an MP. I later saw him on television backing Labour’s introduction of tuition fees in 1998. I cannot remember his constituency.
There has been a sharp rise in the number of 24 to 34-year-olds who are living at home with their parents. As Joe Stiglitz said, that is not due to a rush of filial devotion, but because they have no choice. The economic cards are stacked against them. Youth unemployment is high in many countries. It is too high in Scotland and higher still in the UK as a whole. Instead of getting on with their lives, the young find themselves in a holding pattern.
The SNP has done what it can in Scotland by keeping tuition fees at zero, which is saving families from paying £36,000 for a four-year degree. Families risk having to pay that if we vote no to independence. We know that there are cuts down the line and some people think that this is a something-for-nothing society and that certain things should be taken off the table. We do what we can with the powers that we have, but we want to do so much more.
An exciting proposal in the White Paper that will tackle inequality is to follow Sweden’s example on child care. Parents of early-years children in the UK face the highest child care costs in Europe. Parents in Scotland spend about 27% of household income on child care, compared with the OECD average of 12%. Independence would give us the opportunity to make transformational changes to the way in which Scotland provides child care services. That will allow women, in particular, to work without worrying about the cost of looking after their children. With independence, the benefits of their work, such as economic growth and tax revenue, will stay in Scotland and contribute to the costs of child care provision.
The Scottish Government plan to have a universal system of high-quality early learning and child care from the age of one up to school entry. At the end of the first year of an independent Scottish Parliament, every three and four-year-old and vulnerable two-year-old will be entitled to 1,140 hours of child care. That is the same amount of time as children spend in primary school each year and is equivalent to 30 hours per week over 38 weeks. That is an important aspiration. It demonstrates one way in which we should be moving our society forward. It would certainly be a way to reduce inequality.
It has been argued that inequality has caused the rise in household debt because people try to keep up with the Joneses. There are more pernicious examples of what inequality can do. Professor Paul Krugman states:
“Before the financial crisis of 2008 struck, I would often give talks to lay audiences about income inequality, in which I would point out that top income shares had risen to levels not seen since 1929. Invariably there would be questions about whether that meant that we were on the verge of another Great Depression—and I would declare that this wasn’t necessarily so”.
In the end, it turned out that that was the case. Once again, we are not arresting the growth in inequality. Are we on the verge of repeating the same mistake? I wish that we would learn, but we seem not to be doing so.
Some voices in the world are talking about inequality. Yesterday, the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, made a speech about tackling inequality in New York. My only criticism is that, when one looks at the detail, it is quite timid. The Pope has said:
“The promise was that when the glass was full, it would overflow, benefiting the poor. But what happens instead, is that when the glass is full, it magically gets bigger nothing ever comes out for the poor.”
The church and nation committee of the Church of Scotland addresses that issue frequently and, as I said, the Church of England’s Archbishop of York has also done great work. A number of US Senators are aware of the problems and what is happening.
In my view, Governments should concentrate on growth and jobs. The deficit obsession and austerity cult has taken demand from the economy and probably led to a slower recovery—we have probably lost years as a result of the policies that were followed. We cannot fully prove that because we do not have a controlled environment in which to do so scientifically, but the feeling among many economists is that growth has not returned as strongly as it should have done, and that when it did come back it was three years delayed.
We are in food-bank Britain; we have the bedroom tax hammering people. VAT, one of the most regressive taxes, has been increased to 20% in this Parliament. That is a real shame and something that hits people disproportionately. We have had the cut to the 50p tax rate. That probably cost £4 billion to £5 billion in revenues, although the Commons Library has stated that behaviour alteration should mean that it will cost only £0.5 billion. Only £0.5 billion? That means that the cut to the 50p rate of tax has cost the Exchequer and not raised any extra revenue.
In the debate last Thursday—I am coming to a conclusion, Mr Deputy Speaker—it was sad that many of those Members who had the opportunity to speak in a very time-limited debate made no real mention of the future, and there was no mention at all of poverty. Unfortunately, we seem to have made a god of money, and we treat those who do not get hold of it as somehow inferior beings. In fact, as somebody once remarked, the cure for cancer might well be found in a child living in a poor household. They should be given a helping hand and an opportunity for their future because—who knows?—they could help us some day.
I have a couple of final reflections. It was said of Nelson Mandela that he not only liberated the blacks in South Africa, but also the oppressors. When I look at inequality I see, of course, great insecurity at the bottom, but I also see insecurity at the top. People realise that when the safety nets are removed, they themselves are a step or an accident or two away from going down. If those people do not have a society with safety nets in place for their own security, they can never fully relax. They need to get more and gather more because—who knows?—they, a relative or a friend might need it.
That struck me very strongly when I was at Alabama state university on an exchange programme with a US Congressman and we went to see a game of American football. We were taken to the president’s box of the university, and there were people who had made it in life. I met a man from Leeds, but it struck me that despite having made it, the talk was all about health insurance, health care, and what sort of plan people had—conversations we do not have in this country. In reality, there was deep insecurity because the social nets were not there to help everybody. When the nets are not there for the poorest and most vulnerable, we, our friends, our relatives, the relatives of relatives and friends of friends, are all but one step away. It is not a nice situation to be in, and I could see the fear in the whites of their eyes. Even though they personally had made it in society, there was massive insecurity around them.
Just as Nelson Mandela liberated the blacks and the oppressors, so too does the arresting of inequality liberate the poor and the rich—not quite in equal measure, but it certainly liberates them both from the insecurity that inequality brings to us all. We should work to get rid of inequality, and I hope that when we have independence, we can prove that one of the best ways of fighting inequality and poverty is through the prosperity that I expect we shall bring to Scotland.
Fishing Industry
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman said that we needed to establish whether the fishing of endangered stock was targeted or non-targeted. I know that during the autumn at least one boat contained 400 boxes, and I am sure that all the other boats have done the same. That should serve as a guide to civil servants and scientists who are formulating some sort of policy.
The one thing that fishermen do not want to do is go on a fishing trip and load their boats with fish that have zero value. They do not want to steam out, fill their boxes with fish that they did not intend to catch, do not want and cannot sell, and then have to steam back and land them on a pier. That is the worst of all worlds for a fisherman.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We need short interventions. There is a danger of Members’ trying to make speeches by means of interventions, which worries me. Six more Back Benchers and two Front Benchers have yet to speak. I do not want to have to impose a time limit, but it is looking likely.
Aviation Strategy
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I will try to charge through what I have to say and if any political enemies or friends wish to intervene to give me another minute or two, they would be most welcome.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
You could try to intervene on yourself.
Mr MacNeil
I can always try, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I know the importance of aviation. I fly probably more than any other MP—at least four times a week and sometimes six times a week. At least, I did until flights in my constituency were vandalised by the local council, which axed 60% of inter-island flights between Stornoway and Benbecula and Barra and 100% of flights to the most vulnerable island community. That was all the more strange given that they were public service obligation routes. While the council can make arguments about rurality and peripherality in Edinburgh, London or Brussels, the arguments hold no weight it seems once it secured the money within its own corridors of power. Indeed, flights used by people going for cancer treatment have been described by the council leader as 10-minute tourist flights, which is very disappointing. The flight was not 10 minutes and the councillors he dragooned into voting to axe flights to these communities have not been to visit them since their election. The upshot of this transportation vandalism is that travel from one end of the Outer Hebrides to Edinburgh, London or Brussels is faster for most of the week than going to the other end of the Outer Hebrides.
Why do I mention this? The debate has concentrated on the south-east of England and Heathrow, about which there seems to be a love-hate relationship. London has tremendous connectivity, with 360 destinations—almost one for every day of the year—which I think is more than Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam enjoy, although the individual airports are better.
Air Passenger Duty
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
Surely the idea behind devolving APD would be to cut it to make Scotland more competitive.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I warned the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar Mr MacNeil) that he would be at the bottom of the list, but there is a danger that he will fall off the list because the amount of time available is disappearing.
Fuel Prices
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. The price of fuel went down and up in a certain way, as if to disguise what was happening, so it was difficult to get to the bottom of what was going on because fuel is not tied to a regulator.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. On interventions, it is not fair for Members who have already spoken to use up the time of others. A lot of Members want to get in and we ought not to be so generous.
Daylight Saving Bill
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to speak so quickly that it is hard for him to be understood?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
That is not a point of order. It is up to the Minister how quickly he speaks. We do not place a limit on how fast or how slowly Ministers speak, and thank goodness for that.
Fisheries
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I urge the hon. Gentleman to think before intervening. He has already made a speech, and we are running out of time. More Members have indicated that they wish to speak. It is up to the Member in charge but, to be honest. I would be disappointed if the hon. Gentleman intervened.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
May I tempt the hon. Gentleman, who I know is a committed Europhile, to extend that logic? If the Scottish Parliament foists a system on local government, and if the UK Government foist a system on the Scottish Parliament, would he want the European Parliament to foist an electoral system on the House of Commons?
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. That is a temptation, but this is about the abolition of regional Members. We are in danger of being dragged around Europe, Scotland and the UK, so I think we should get back to new clause 1.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
I would love to know why the Minister thinks that London rather than Edinburgh should have responsibility for whatever portion of Antarctica we are talking about. Is he ashamed of Scotland? Why should it be London? Why should Scotland not have that power? What is he ashamed of?
The Chairman
Order. We are discussing health. We are not discussing Antarctica.
David Mundell
We have learned tonight that London SNP has control over Edinburgh SNP, because it is the Westminster SNP Members who determine the response to the Scotland Bill, and not their colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, who have a completely different point of view on a number of these measures.
The Scotland Act 1998 provides that the regulation of certain health professions is a subject matter reserved to the Westminster Parliament. Clause 13 implements the Calman recommendation to reserve the regulation of all health professions, not just those specified in the Scotland Act. The clause re-reserves the regulation of health professions, and I can confirm that the Scottish Parliament’s Scotland Bill Committee has stated that it is not opposed to the re-reservation of powers to the UK Parliament. The Scottish Parliament will vote on the Scotland Bill on Thursday, and we await the outcome of that vote, as I have said previously. Further, devolution is not a one-way street, and the Scotland Bill, like Calman, is about delivering a balanced package that works for the people of Scotland, as the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) said. The Scotland Bill does just that: it updates the Scotland Act with a two-way transfer of powers.
Since Royal Assent of the Scotland Act, the regulation of any health professions not regulated by the legislation listed in section G2 of schedule 5 has been a matter that falls within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. The Westminster Parliament was, therefore, unable to introduce legislation to regulate such professions without such legislation also being approved by resolution of the Scottish Parliament. Although the Scottish Parliament has had the power to introduce for Scotland separate legislation in respect of the regulation of these health professions and any other health professions not included within section G2, it has chosen not to do so and instead has approved the use of the existing, reserved machinery orders made under section 60 of the Health Act 1999 to regulate new groups of health care professionals.
The Calman commission criticised this mixed economy and considered that the current situation was unnecessarily time-consuming and cumbersome owing to the need to obtain agreement from the Scottish Parliament. The commission also pointed out that the current mixed economy presented risks in terms of consistency that could lead to the fragmentation of standards across the UK and threaten the mobility of practitioners across all four countries, which is a point that Members have raised. The Government agree that there are risks with the current situation. The Calman commission also noted that the current processes gave the Scottish Parliament some influence over the regulation of reserved professions—for instance, where there are orders and regulations relating to the regulation of professions that cover both devolved and reserved matters. The commission also took the view that there should be a common approach to the regulation of the health professions.
The Government have accepted the arguments made by the Calman commission, so the clause re-reserves the regulation of all health care professions currently regulated by legislation. It also has the practical effect of reserving to the Westminster Parliament the subject matter of the regulation of any new health professions in the future.
Notwithstanding the reservation that the clause will deliver, the UK Government will continue to agree policy in relation to the regulation of the health professions with the Scottish Government. The UK Government, through the Department of Health in England, will continue to engage closely with officials in the Scottish Government—and, for that matter, with the Administrations in Northern Ireland and Wales—to develop future policy proposals concerning the regulation of health care professionals. This will ensure that the views of the Scottish people will be taken into consideration as we go forwards, but in a manner that will deliver a consistent approach to regulation that works for the whole of the UK.
Daylight Saving Bill
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman has made a very good point. That is also one of my concerns, but I should like to see a compromise. I wish that others would meet me halfway, rather than railroading us into a situation that we would not enjoy.
Let me return to the issue of Indiana for a moment. The Indiana experiment showed that people spent an additional £5.5 million on energy—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a compromise. He has been speaking for quite a long time, and he has the right to do so, but many other Members wish to speak as well, and I know that he wishes to allow them to do so.
Mr MacNeil
One thing that I am certainly not trying to do, Mr Deputy Speaker, is talk the Bill out. That is not a parliamentary tactic of which I approve. However, some may think my speech long-winded, and I apologise for that. At your instigation, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall try to proceed a wee bit more quickly.
Safety is an important aspect of this issue, but data relating to the saving of lives are often based on projection. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), changes were made in the 1960s. We know that the most dangerous hours of the day are 8 am and 3 pm. The Bill would send 8 am further back into the darkness, although 3 pm would probably not be affected, as it is always light at that time.
Public Spending
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Lindsay Hoyle(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Questions must be addressed—and the Minister must respond—not to the former Government, but to this Government and to today’s statement.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
How much does this review bring into question private finance initiatives or public-private partnerships that, at their inception, had bogus public sector comparators and have cost the public purse a lot more over the period? Will the Chief Secretary also ensure that there is no threat to the service provided by search-and-rescue helicopters, despite the suspension of procurement for helicopters? That service is vital to island communities such as mine.