Israel and Hamas: Humanitarian Pause

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his statement, and I commend the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) for the integrity and courage with which she raised her concerns.

Does the Minister agree that the only way we will see a lasting and just peace in the middle east is through the establishment of a two-state solution in which Israel and Palestine are recognised as equal sovereign states with equal rights and equal responsibilities to uphold international law? Given that there are now credible accusations of war crimes against both sides in this conflict, will the Government confirm that they will give full support to the International Criminal Court to investigate without fear or favour all allegations of war crimes, regardless of who is accused of them, so that any perpetrator of a war crime, regardless of whose friend or foe they may be, is brought to justice before the international courts? Given that it is an offence in international law to supply weapons where they may be used in the commission of a war crime, what recent reassessment have the Government made of the legality of their arms sales to the middle east?

Finally, I do not know whether the Minister was in the Chamber to hear my plea on behalf of my constituent Dr Lubna Hadoura—I have written to the Foreign Secretary specifically about her—but will he agree to meet urgently with me and her, and with the Home Secretary, so that we can find an effective way to get the families of UK nationals who are still stuck in Gaza out while the peace lasts? If we do not get them out during a ceasefire, we might not get them out at all.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Peter Grant]

As has been said throughout the passage of the Bill, our chief concern has always been that too many provisions in it do not go far enough. I am pleased to say that the other place has tightened up some aspects of the Bill. It is disappointing that this evening the Government seem determined to oppose some amendments that could have addressed more of our concerns and, in at least one case, seem determined to make an amendment that makes things even worse.

In the interests of brevity, I will not go through all the Lords amendments that the Government are happy to accept; I ask Members to take those as read. The first Government proposal that I have some concern about is their motion to disagree with Lords amendment 7. I appreciate that they have tabled alternative amendments, which they might think say pretty much the same thing or better, but Lords amendment 7 explicitly refers to targets set by any of the UK’s national Parliaments. They are not mentioned anywhere in the Government’s amendment (a) in lieu. I hope the Minister can explain why the Government are opposed to giving targets set by the devolved nations of this Union of equals the same status as those set in this place, because some of those targets and activities will relate to responsibilities that are explicitly devolved to one or more of the other nations of the United Kingdom. It does not seem very equal that some Parliaments can have their targets effectively regulated and others cannot.

I do not have any issue with Government amendments (b) and (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 7, although it seems strange that they have been tabled as alternatives, because they are entirely compatible with it. In fact, the Government could quite easily have tabled them in the Lords at the time.

As was said by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), Lords amendment 10 is a good amendment. I do not understand why the Government want to take it out. Are they against financial inclusion? If they think that financial inclusion is a good idea but that this amendment is not best way to pursue it, I would remind them that they have had months to come up with a better amendment. “Take it back, don’t agree it just now, and we promise to bring something back in the near future.” However, we have been promised effective measures on financial inclusion since before I was a Member of this place, but it has not happened yet, and the problem is getting worse all the time.

To answer the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), it is all very well for the Government to find ways to make post offices the last bank in town, but they are being shut left, right and centre as well, so there is no long-term protection for access to cash, especially in our poorest and most deprived communities, of which I represent more than my fair share. It is no comfort to them to be told, “The bank has closed, but you can use the post office,” if, as I have seen happen literally at the same time, the Post Office is saying, “We’re going shut the post office, but you can still use the bank.” That does not give any protection or comfort whatsoever.

Lords Amendment 36, on illegal deforestation and so on, is also a good amendment that we would have supported. We are willing to accept the Government alternative as an improvement in some regards. The biggest concern we have—it is one on which we would very much want the opportunity to give the House the chance to express its will this evening—is about one of the crazy ways in which this place deals with things, especially once legislation has been back and forth between here and the Lords. If this House wanted to disagree with Lords amendment 38, as I think quite a few of us will, we will not be allowed to do that unless the debate finishes within three hours. The ability of the democratically elected House of Commons to scrutinise and perhaps overturn a decision taken by the undemocratic, unelected House of Lords along the corridor therefore depends on how many people want to speak, how long they want to speak for, and how fast they want to talk.

Lords amendment 38 is about politically exposed persons and the way they are risk-assessed in relation to money laundering. It makes a very broad assumption about the amount of due diligence that needs to be exercised to prevent money laundering in the case of a politically exposed person from the UK—someone who, in the words of the amendment, is

“entrusted with prominent public functions by the United Kingdom”.

The assumption is that they are always less of a potential money laundering risk, as are their family and “close associates”, whatever that means. That is far too broad and sweeping an assumption.

I do not have an issue with any regulation being worded in a way that is proportionate to the risk, and I can understand the attraction of being able to designate some individuals as less of a risk than others, but this exemption is far too sweeping. What do we mean by “entrusted with prominent public functions”? As we all know, we have had very recent examples of people who were entrusted with the most prominent public function of all—the office of Prime Minister—turning out to be totally untrustworthy. How do we define a “close associate”? Would, for example, Evgeny Lebedev have been regarded as low risk simply because he could accurately have been described as a close associate of the then Prime Minister, who himself has turned out, as the House now agrees, to have been untrustworthy? When is a close associate not a close associate?

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Report stage
Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I endorse and share the thanks of both the previous speakers to all those who have helped the democratic process to happen. Obviously, we are not particularly happy about the results of some of the votes, but that is what happens in life. If we go back to the day before this Bill got its First Reading, we will see that the six Treasury ministerial posts have been held by 21 different people. Who knows, we might have the same Minister on the Front Bench by the time the Bill comes back from the Lords, but I would not bet on it.

Among the people I want to thank personally are my very good and hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), who did such a power of work on his own in the Bill Committee, and someone who will not be a well-known name to most people here, although those of us who know her will understand she has been an absolute star, and that is Sarah Callaghan of the SNP research team. She joined a very good research team not long ago and she has been a fantastic support to me and my colleagues in preparation for this Bill, so I say thanks to Sarah.

I thank the Minister for the courtesy he has shown throughout political debates in which we have not always agreed, but in which I hope we have always been able to be courteous to each other. We will not oppose the Bill; we have reservations about it, but on balance it is just about good enough to get through.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I pause, lest there be further excitement—but no.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Responding to MPs’ Queries: DWP Performance

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I believe there would be major repercussions—Parliament would probably go into meltdown—if I declined to take the intervention.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Not from me. [Laughter.]

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

2nd reading
Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It gives me pleasure to speak on this Bill on behalf of the Scottish National party. I am going to agree with the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), for the first and probably the last time in either of our careers, in placing on record my thanks to his colleague the former Economic Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), for the constructive and courteous way in which he conducted a large number of debates with me during his time in office.

When the SNP decided to table a reasoned amendment asking the House not to give this Bill a Second Reading, we did so with a significant degree of reluctance, because there is a lot in the Bill that we see as not only desirable, but essential and, in some cases, long overdue. It is disappointing that the Government have chosen to package them with other provisions that give us very serious concern, and to package them in such a way that it will probably prove to be impossible to amend the Bill to take out the damaging parts.

For example, we welcome the provisions relating to the regulation of digital settlement assets or cryptocurrencies and on access to cash—we would have welcomed them several years ago, if the Government could have been bothered to bring them in. Our only real concern is that they do not yet go far enough. However, the dangers posed by other more substantial parts of the Bill are so great that they may be too high a price to pay to get those necessary pieces of legislation on the statute book.

In the Queen’s Speech we were promised a Bill that would,

“strengthen the United Kingdom’s financial services industry, ensuring that it continues to act in the interest of all people and communities”.

This Bill does not do that. In fact, the former Chancellor has confirmed what the Minister strongly hinted at: the Government’s main objective here is to force through a damaging, totally unnecessary divergence from our European Union neighbours, for no other reason than that they can.

The very first sentence in clause 1, which the former Chancellor thinks is a great idea, invites us to wipe out well over 200 pieces of legislation with no idea what will replace them. The Bill gives the Treasury the power to decide when and if each of those 200-plus laws is revoked and the Treasury gets the power to decide when, if ever, it will bring forward replacement legislation for them. Despite the Minister’s apparently not understanding our concerns earlier on, if that is done through secondary legislation in delegated legislation Committees, there will be no opportunity for the House to amend it, to make it better or to insist on legislation’s coming forward if the Government do not want to bring it.

The Bill gives the Treasury the power to amend or revoke Acts passed by this whole Parliament, and to revoke laws passed under devolved authority by the elected national Parliaments and Assemblies of three quarters of the supposedly equal partners in this Union. A Treasury whose Ministers were appointed by a Prime Minister who got the first-choice votes of 14% of her own Members of Parliament will be allowed to overrule Parliaments elected on a franchise of more than 8 million citizens. How can that be anything other than an unacceptable power grab? That is because of the Government’s obsession with purging our four nations, even those that wanted to stay in, of anything that they regard as tainted by contact with the European Union.

There has not been any attempt to sift the 200-plus pieces of retained EU law to identify which are helpful and necessary and which are potentially damaging. If it has an EU tag, it has to go. There is even a sweep-up provision in part 5 of schedule 1 that says that if they discover any other EU legislation hiding somewhere that was missed from the schedule, that will automatically go as well. We have literally been asked to agree to revoke legislation that none of us knows is there. Even the people who drafted the Bill do not know what that legislation might say. That would be a gross abdication of our responsibility as Members of Parliament.

I find it comical that barely 24 hours ago the sacked Prime Minister was still spouting nonsense about getting Brexit done. Now we are told that not only are there hundreds of bits of Brexit that have not been done yet—and that is only in financial services and markets—but that no one knows where they all are, how many there are or what they say. Brexit has not been done by a long chalk.

Turning to the specific powers in other parts of the Bill, we generally welcome the new regulatory powers and related matters in part 2, but the Minister will appreciate that we will want to look closely at the detail in the Bill Committee. I am concerned that the Committee will be pushed for time, despite the number of days that it has been allocated. Members will be well aware of concerns I have often raised about the inadequacies of the Financial Conduct Authority’s powers and resourcing, as well as its reluctance to use the powers that it has.

The Labour spokesperson mentioned the lack of effective anti-fraud measures in the Bill, which is a major concern. Financial fraud and scams are becoming a bigger menace every day, and they hit hardest the people who can least afford to be hit. Something I have noticed about a lot of the financial scams I have looked into on behalf of my constituents is that they have features that are not immediately obvious. They often involve company directors effectively soliciting loans from the general public in order to finance their own investments. Rather than put their own money at risk, they put someone else’s money at risk. If the investment goes well, the directors win; if it goes badly the victims lose and the directors walk away Scot free. That was an obvious feature in the Blackmore Bond scandal, but exactly the same thing happened with Safe Hands funeral plans. Safe Hands appeared to be a funeral plan scam, but that was not the case. The company blatantly lied to its customers about how their money would be safeguarded, and it used it to invest in potentially profitable but high-risk offshore investments. Although it appeared at first glance to be a funeral plan, Safe Hands was in fact a good old-fashioned financial services scam.

When Safe Hands was on the way down, regulations were coming into force that meant that funeral plan providers had to be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority, which I warmly welcome. However, we should provide the same degree of regulation and the same protection to customers for other “pay now, collect later” schemes. If a customer gives their money to a company that blows it and they lose their money, it does not matter whether they thought their money would fund at some future date the cost of a funeral, a wedding, their children going to university, or anything else. The risks are the same and the opportunities for fraud are the same, so the protection offered to customers should be the same in all those schemes.

We should not have to go through measures industry by industry picking up where scams take place. The key point is that it is not about the product or service that the company claims to be selling—it is about making sure the customer’s money is kept safely until the time comes for that product or service to be provided. We should legislate to prevent company directors from gambling recklessly with money that belongs to their customers. It is possible to address this with a fairly simple amendment to proposed new section 71K of the existing Act, and I hope to have an opportunity to table that in Committee.

There is more that we could do with a bit of imagination. I like the idea of designated activities as well as regulated activity—that is a positive step. There are ways that we could significantly improve the accountability of companies carrying out designated activities and, importantly, improve enforcement against those that go rogue. We could reduce the exemptions that they have, which many of them abuse to avoid having to produce meaningful financial statements. We could look at extending the circumstances in which directors of high-risk companies can be held personally liable for their faults.

I realise that the disjointed way that the UK regulates businesses means that those things fall under the remit of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy rather than the Treasury, so it may not even be competent to introduce them for consideration in Committee, but I ask the Minister and his BEIS colleagues to find a place in the Government’s legislative programme as soon as possible for these things to be considered. Too many directors of dodgy companies carry on with their scams because they think they can get away with it, and far too often they can.

As the Minister knows, because he responded to the debate, I spoke this morning in Westminster Hall about the regulation of cryptocurrencies. Incidentally, that is a good example of the fallacy in one of the arguments that the Minister advanced earlier. When we are talking about businesses, growth and stability are not the same thing. Some cryptocurrencies had almost supersonic growth and then evaporated. They had high growth but no stability whatsoever. Growth and stability may both be desirable—although, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) keeps reminding us, there have to be conditions attached to that growth and it has to be sustainable—but to conflate the two is a serious mistake.

The debate on cryptocurrencies is a useful reminder that the way that financial markets operate is changing at an almost bewildering rate. In fact, it is becoming difficult to define exactly what we mean by financial services and financial markets. The Bill makes provision for the Treasury to allow limited testing of new technologies or practices. It is effectively trying to legislate for things that have not been invented yet. I think the approach taken in clauses 13 to 17 is a sensible way forward, but we will be looking very closely at how the use of those powers is scrutinised. For example, Members should be aware, if they are not already, that clause 15 as currently worded will allow the Treasury to amend certain Acts of Parliament on the basis of a pilot test in one of the sandboxes without even waiting for the test to be completed to see what the results are.

Let me move on—briefly, because I am aware of the shortage of time—to some of the other matters covered by the Bill. I am extremely alarmed at the confirmation that the Government want to allow Ministers to call in and potentially overrule decisions by the regulators. Either our regulators are independent or they are not. The regulators must be accountable, but their accountability should be to Parliament. Accountability to a Minister is not the same as accountability to Parliament; it is a very poor substitute.

I share the concerns that have been raised about the lack of emphasis on sustainability, green finance and compliance with our climate change obligations. I also share the concerns that the provisions on access to cash do not go far enough and probably will not lead to action quickly enough. As I mentioned, the anti-fraud measures in the Bill are wholly inadequate.

The Government appear to think that the biggest problem facing financial services regulation is that parts of it were designed and implemented in partnership with our nearest neighbours and trading partners. I think the biggest problem is that, again and again, the regulators fail to act, or act so slowly that it is far too late, and effective enforcement becomes almost impossible. I remind the House that about half of the £46 million lost in the Blackmore Bond scandal was paid by customers to the company after the Financial Conduct Authority had been not only given full details of what the company was up to, but told exactly where and when it could go to witness its illegal activities at first hand. It did nothing for three years.

The Financial Conduct Authority tells us that it does not have sufficient powers to act in the way we would like it to act. It is certainly obvious to all of us that it does not have the resources to properly carry out the responsibilities we ask it to carry out just now, let alone the new ones we intend to give it. At the moment the Bill does not address that.

We will not oppose Second Reading this evening, but that should not be taken as a guarantee that we will allow the Bill to be read the Third time unopposed. If the Minister wants our support in the Bill’s final stages, he has a long way to go to persuade us that it will make things better, rather than worse, for the victims of financial crime.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee, Mel Stride.

Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for having given me notice of his intention to raise it. As Mr Speaker has said many times from the Chair, and as those of us who occupy the Chair have repeated, the veracity or otherwise of statistics and the interpretation of statistics is the very stuff of political discourse and debate. The hon. Gentleman is right to ask the questions, and I am quite sure that he will find a way of asking those questions directly of Ministers. He is absolutely right to say that it is important that statements made in this House are absolutely correct and true, and if an error has been made inadvertently, I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will note the points made by the hon. Gentleman, and his request for the matter to be looked at again will be referred to the appropriate Minister. There is of course a system for correcting errors and mis-statements, which Ministers and others can use if necessary.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—for reasons that will become clear, I was not able to give you advance notice of this—it is well accepted that it is at the discretion of the Chair as to how long they run an individual item of business, but that can sometimes cause difficulties for hon. and right hon. Members who want to take part in the following item of business and have to judge when they need to be in the Chamber. Colleagues can be left with the choice of potentially spending a long time in the Chamber at the previous business and so missing important business such as Select Committee sessions, or alternatively running the risk of being late for the start of the next item of business because they were in Select Committee.

Are you aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, of any consideration being giving to amending the practice of the House, possibly by following the example of other Parliaments, so that the timings of important items of business can be known with a bit more predictability? That would allow Members, who have all got very busy diaries, to plan out their working day with a bit more certainty than they can just now.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. There is no need for him to apologise for not having warned me of his intention to raise it, because I have heard that question put on many occasions over several decades. The fact is, and it would be good for people who pay attention to our proceedings to know this, that Members of Parliament have in one day to undertake a huge variety of different duties: attending Committees, asking questions, taking part in debates, meeting constituents and doing a whole range of other duties that we all do diligently.

I am the first to agree with the hon. Gentleman that it can be very difficult to work out a reasonable balance for the working day and manage to fit in, in a timeous way, everything that has to be done, and I can only say to him that one person’s long statement is another person’s late-starting debate. We are in the middle of exactly that situation at this very moment, which is probably why the hon. Gentleman has raised the matter now. The previous statement could have lasted for another half-hour, but my fellow Madam Deputy Speaker decided that sufficient Members had taken part, and the occupant of the Chair has to balance one item of business against another.

The hon. Gentleman makes a plea that I think will be echoed by most of our colleagues, and I can only say to him that Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers do understand this. If he seriously wishes that the matter be considered, I suggest he raise it with the Chairman of the Procedure Committee; it would not be unreasonable for it to be raised, but I would be very surprised indeed if the problem were to be solved.

Bills Presented

Air Pollution (Local Authority Audits) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Mr Barry Sheerman, supported by Caroline Lucas, Geraint Davies, Luke Pollard, Helen Hayes, Christine Jardine, Neil Parish and Dame Angela Eagle, presented a Bill to make provision for local authorities to conduct annual audits of air pollution in their area and associated emissions by public and private entities; to require those local authorities to prepare reports on those audits; to require the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament on those audit reports; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 244).

Ministerial Disclosure (Fixed Penalty Notices) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Mr Alistair Carmichael, supported by Ed Davey, Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Tim Farron, Layla Moran, Christine Jardine, Jamie Stone, Wera Hobhouse, Sarah Olney, Munira Wilson and Sarah Green, presented a Bill to require Ministers of the Crown to disclose that they have been issued with a fixed penalty notice; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 25 February, and to be printed (Bill 245).

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

And now we come to Peter Grant.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I could never have thought that I was about to be called, Madam Deputy Speaker.

In a few weeks’ time, the United Kingdom will start to apply import controls to goods coming from the European Union. Last year, when the European Union started to apply its controls, a large number of small and medium-sized exporters, particularly in the Scottish food and drink industry, felt that they were simply left to sink or swim. What assurances can the Government give that small import businesses in Scotland will not be hung out to dry next year in the way that small exporters in Scotland were left hung out to dry last year?

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate and to expand on the reasons so passionately set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) as to why the SNP will vote against the Bill this evening. The purpose of the Bill is to give legislative effect to the Chancellor’s Budget. That Budget was a regressive Budget. It was an austerity Budget that turned its back on millions of those worst affected by the covid pandemic. It is a Budget that severely damages the interests of my constituents, so it is a Budget, and this is a Finance Bill, that I cannot and will not support.

Austerity is not an economy necessity. It is a political choice. It has been the first-choice response of almost every British Government of every complexion during my adult life, so it is maybe not surprising that so many people seem to have forgotten that there is a different way, a fairer way, and in fact a much more effective way to respond to an economic crisis. All we have to do is to care as much about the millions in these four nations who do not have enough to live on as we care about the lucky handful whose only problem is that they cannot count how many billions they have.

There is no disagreement about the fact that we need to start to repair the economic damage caused by the pandemic and by the measures that had to be taken in response. There are lessons to be learned, but perhaps the most vital lesson of all is that the inequalities that have been deliberately created and deliberately maintained in our society by successive Governments have also made our society as a whole much more vulnerable to the ravages of the disease. We know that the economic costs of covid have fallen much more heavily on the people who could least afford them. To give just one example, the British Retail Consortium did a survey that confirmed what we would probably have expected: during the pandemic, highly-paid people such as Members of Parliament have got better off and now have more savings than we had before, while most of our constituents on low incomes have been using up their savings just to survive, and many of them effectively have no savings left at all.

Presumably, the way we respond to that is to use the powers in the Finance Bill to redress that balance. Well, no—that is not the priority of this Government. In clause 5, we see a multi-year freezing of the income tax basic rate limit and, much more damaging, a freezing of the personal allowance at £12,570. It is not easy to find a way to change an income-based tax system so that we collect more tax but target the impact on people on lower incomes, but that is exactly what the Government propose to do. If it is accepted that the Treasury needs to collect more money in real terms from income tax, we should at the very least make sure that the impact in real terms is equally spread. In fact, the SNP would argue that whenever the time comes to increase taxes, those of us who are lucky enough to be on high incomes should be asked to bear a wee bit more of the pain.

I know that the Government will point to other provisions, such as clause 31 and the one-off uplift in working tax credit. In principle, that is something the SNP supports, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central mentioned, the way that it is implemented could harm some of the very people it is supposed to help. The eligibility criteria are crude, to say the least. It will not be at all easy for recipients to work out for themselves whether they qualify. What assessment have the Government made of the number of payments that they expect to be made in error, and are they seriously then going to chase down the recipients of those erroneous payments as if they had committed some kind of fraud, when in fact they have done absolutely nothing wrong?

I was interested to hear the comments of the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), on freeports. “Freeport” is obviously a buzzword that the focus groups have told the Tories goes down well with the party faithful, so they have decided to invent, or rather reinvent, something that looks like a rehash of 1980s-style enterprise zones but call it a freeport because that sounds like a better term. Leaving aside the terminology, how do the Government know that the provisions in clauses 109 to 111 will create new investment and new jobs, rather than just move investment and jobs that would have happened anyway, as the Committee Chair asked? How will they make sure that those who buy and sell land in a designated freeport area are investing the tax breaks they enjoy in creating jobs on the site, rather than just siphoning the money off into the profit and loss account of an offshore investment trust somewhere?

Almost a third of the Bill’s clauses relate to the plastic packaging tax, and no doubt the Bill Committee will want to spend a proportionate amount of time scrutinising the details, but for now, I draw the Minister’s attention to the National Audit Office report on 12 February this year. The report found that, although the Chancellor in his Budget speech last year was able to tell us how many tonnes of carbon the tax would save,

“the exchequer departments did not set these as measures of success in the Tax Information and Impact Note”.

A previous Tory Government brought in tax information and impact notes in a blaze of publicity, announcing that they would support better parliamentary scrutiny of tax policy, but how can Parliament scrutinise the success of this new tax if the key measure of success announced by the Chancellor does not even appear on the success radar of the Department that has to implement it?

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central raised the more general point about the woefully inadequate scrutiny that the often massive decisions in Finance Bills receive. I know that the Government will point to the number of minutes, hours, days or weeks that people have spent talking about it in Parliament, but talking about it and reading prepared speeches is not the same as proper scrutiny. For example, in this Bill we can accept, reject or amend clause 32 on the tax statement of payments under the self-employment income support scheme, which is fair enough for those who qualify, but we cannot redress the glaring injustice of the excluded millions who do not qualify at all. We can accept clause 31 or amend it to make it a lot better, to support working people whose income has been affected by covid, but we cannot vote to remove the 30 September cliff-edge when the furlough scheme is removed, because that would be an inadmissible amendment. Although the Bill can be improved in Committee and made slightly more fit for purpose, we are powerless to force the Government to undo some of the deliberately disastrous flaws and omissions in existing support schemes.

It is right that this Budget and this Finance Bill should start the process of rebuilding the economy after covid, but as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned, the Government seem hellbent on taking us back to exactly the same unfair, unequal and divided society that we had before. In fact, they will probably succeed in making it even worse than before. Of course, the Tories do not want to talk about the fact that their own analysis shows that the long-term economic damage of the covid pandemic will be less than the damage of the self-inflicted and totally avoidable disaster that is Brexit.

It is an indication of how out of touch the Government are with my constituents, and with the people of Scotland generally, that the Tories, the official Opposition in Scotland, have already surrendered in the Scottish Parliament elections. They are not even pretending that they want to try and form an alternative Government after 6 May. They are delivering glossy six-page leaflets that literally have no policies on them. They are not even pretending that they have anything positive to say or to offer in Scotland—which, after all, is kind of what Scotland has been saying to them since 1955.

The Bill will get its Second Reading tonight, it will get through the Committee and it will become law. Its regressive provisions will be imposed in Scotland against the will of three-quarters of our people, no doubt to great cheers from the socially distanced Government Benches. But let me say this to them: enjoy imposing this Finance Bill on Scotland’s people, because in just over three weeks’ time, those same people will take a decisive step towards making sure that their time for imposing their policies on our country comes to an end.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I appreciate that this is a Finance Bill and technically it can go to any hour, so the House could be sitting until 11 o’clock or midnight, but I ought to say something to Members who are not in the Chamber but who I hope might be listening. It sometimes seems that Members who are at home and participating virtually do not pay attention to the rest of the debate. If they are listening, let me say to them that there is something a little bit distasteful about those who are sitting at home making very long speeches and keeping the entire operation of the House of Commons going till well into the evening. Everybody has the right to speak on the Finance Bill and it is very important that they do so, but it is generally recognised, and I particularly recognise it today, that that which can be said in 10 minutes can usually be said more effectively in five.

Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) is setting out the context of his remarks. What he says is, of course, not a matter for me, but if he exceeds the parameters of the debate, I will stop him and insist that he stay within them. At the moment, I think that he is erring a little but will soon come back to the main purpose of the debate. I am also certain that he, appreciating that a lot of people wish to speak and that his speech is not time limited, will not take an awful lot longer.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It goes without saying that I will at all times respect any judgments made by you and by any other occupant of the Chair.

I have said all along that I think that the people of England have made a catastrophic mistake, but sometimes democracy means that people must be allowed to make mistakes and then to sort them out. I rather think that the Government could have made a better fist of sorting out the mistake than they have over the last two years, but we shall see how that pans out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting his language. “Misinterpretation” I can allow. Of course, the matter of sovereignty is subject to many interpretations—indeed, volumes have been written about it—and it is not for me to judge whose interpretation of the meaning of sovereignty is correct, but the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) is not out of order in what he is saying.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am happy to refer the hon. Gentleman to the good reporters of Hansard, who, as we know, never make any mistakes when they record the decisions of this Parliament.

It was disappointing that the exchanges between the two main Front Benchers tended to go into the nitty-gritty of customs and trade. It may be understandable, because that is where the battle lines have been drawn recently, but our relationship with the European Union is fundamentally about people.

Once again, the Front Benchers have not spoken enough about the millions of people who are currently living in one another’s countries as a matter of right, and who are seriously concerned about what their future will be. They have not yet spoken about the fact that in a few weeks, many of our great universities will welcome further waves of ambitious, talented young people from Europe and from other parts of the world who will feel that they are coming to a place that is less welcoming than it was a few years ago. The Government can deny it, and the Minister can shake his head, but people from other European countries who live here believe that they are less welcome now than they were before. Racism has been emboldened since the referendum in a way that it was not before.

I accept—I have accepted it for a while—that there is very little that is likely to happen that will prevent Brexit from happening. I am still hopeful that it can happen in a way that respects the will of the peoples of the four nations. I want to live in a country that sees itself as an equal of all others. I want to live in a country that is not only attractive to workers, students and visitors from all around the globe, but that welcomes them all with open arms and open doors. I will continue to live in such a country. At some point in the not too distant future, a decision will be taken as to whether that country remains part of the Union represented in this Parliament.

Rural Crime and Public Services

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek permission to raise a matter arising from comments made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) during Prime Minister’s Question Time earlier today. I have advised the hon. Gentleman of my intention to raise a point of order this evening.

During Question Time, the hon. Gentleman stated that Scottish National party Members of the European Parliament had

“voted to back the European Parliament in an attempt…to keep the UK inside the common fisheries policy”.

The records of the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries and of the plenary session show that on both occasions the SNP’s representatives voted against the proposal mentioned. I also have a letter from Ian Hudghton MEP confirming that on both occasions the vote of SNP Members was contrary to the way described by the hon. Gentleman today.

I absolutely accept that the hon. Gentleman acted in good faith, but given that it is now clearly established that his comments were mistaken, I seek your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, about how the record may be corrected.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Chair has no responsibility for what any Member says in the Chamber. He has taken the opportunity to raise what appears to be a genuine mistake on the part of another legislature, in keeping its records, and I am glad that he has informed the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), who has unwittingly made a mistake in giving a certain piece of information to the House.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) asks me how he might put the record straight. I would say that he has been wise and clever in using the device of a point of order to make sure that those on the Treasury Bench, the Hansard reporters, everyone else in the Chamber and those paying attention to these proceedings are aware that an error has occurred, and he has now taken this opportunity to put the record straight.

Seasonal Migrant Workers

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I do not think that that criticism applies only to the Home Office. I think that it applies to the entire Cabinet and, indeed, the entire Government. There is still far too much of an obsession with immigration as a bad thing that must be brought down at any cost. It is becoming clear that if the Government are to get anywhere close to delivering the headline reduction in immigration that they claim would be a good thing, the health services and the agriculture sector will suffer, as will a great many industries.

I was somewhat surprised by what was said by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). He made some valuable points, but he is in complete denial about one fact. Although this problem is not entirely the creature of Brexit, and existed to an extent before Brexit, anyone who claims that Brexit is not making the problem worse really needs to return to planet Earth. It is patently obvious what one impact—one inevitable consequence—has been, not only of the result of the vote itself but of the vile xenophobia that characterised so much of the debate. It was always going to be a consequence, and we are seeing it now, whatever the hon. Gentleman may try to tell us. It has made the United Kingdom a less attractive place for people to want to live and work in: it has made us less appealing.

The hon. Gentleman blamed part of that on the fall in the value of the pound. I wonder what might have caused the value of the pound to go through the floor so suddenly, some time towards the end of the third week of June 2016. I wonder what it might have been that upset the international economists and business people at that time of the year. It did not seem to affect the dollar or the euro, so it cannot be blamed on global changes. Perhaps the Government tend to try to blame other factors.

Even the House of Commons Library, which is not generally renowned for taking sides in political debate—indeed, it is rightly renowned for not taking sides in political debate—tells us in the briefing that it prepared for today’s debate that since the closure of SAWS, and particularly in the run-up to the UK’s exit from the European Union, employers have been finding it more difficult to recruit staff from overseas. The Government’s responses, including the assurances that we were given on 6 July 2017 about the reintroduction of SAWS or a similar scheme, have still not been taken any further.

There has been mention of a consultation paper published a couple of days ago by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The foreword is written by the Environment Secretary. We in Scotland remember very fondly promises from the Environment Secretary, who assured us that one of the consequences of Brexit would be that Scotland could have control of its own immigration policy. Perhaps the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk would like to go and tell the Environment Secretary that he had clearly taken leave of his senses if he thought that that was ever a possibility.

In all the 64 pages of the consultation paper, the word “seasonal” appears once. The crisis facing parts of our agricultural sector as a result of the inability to attract seasonal workers is hardly even recognised by DEFRA’s flagship new consultation paper—and, presumably, draft policy. When it refers to the labour force that is needed in agriculture, it talks of the investment and skills needed to mechanise. It talks of engineers and science and technology workers. It talks of things that are needed in some parts of agriculture, but those things will make no difference whatsoever to the soft fruit industry, and to other parts of agriculture where mechanisation is simply not realistic. That gives the worrying impression that the soft fruit industry will be allowed, literally, to wither on the ground.

Since the Government wrongly abandoned SAWS in 2013—and we all remember the Home Secretary who made that decision, who knew better than all the farmers, the NFU, NFU Scotland and all the rest of them, who knew more about how to run agriculture than the people who worked in it—the difficulties faced by the sector have been made substantially worse, and will continue to become substantially worse.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman and I appreciate that this is an important subject in his constituency and he has made some important points, but I point out to the Chamber that if the second debate that was due to take place this afternoon had not been cancelled, the time limit on Back-Bench speeches in this debate would have been approximately seven minutes, which is normal for a debate of this kind on a Thursday afternoon. The reason the second debate was cancelled was not in order that some Members in this debate could make speeches twice as long as they would have done in other circumstances, but because of the very unusual weather conditions under which we are operating. While Members might be aware only of what is happening in this Chamber, I have in mind the hundreds of employees in this building who will have great difficulty getting home to their families today, and every extra minute taken in speeches in here is stopping somebody getting a train and having to get a later one that might now be cancelled. The hon. Gentleman is a most hon. Gentleman and he normally sticks very carefully to time limits. We do not have a time limit this afternoon, but he has taken twice as long as he would have taken if I had put a time limit on in normal circumstances. I am sure he will bear that in mind.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Pete Wishart]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The ruling you have just made is very important, and I wonder whether it might be worthwhile abandoning this afternoon’s business now so that Members and staff can get home sooner because of the inclement weather.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I have neither the power nor the inclination to abandon the business. I am, however, making an appeal to the decency of Members, and say that sometimes if one is making a point it can be made just as effectively if made more quickly.

[Peter Grant]

I certainly take on board your comments, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I was winding up anyway. Had there been a proposal from the Government to amend the Standing Orders today to bring forward the moment of interruption, I do not think any of us would have opposed that—even those of us who had known since Wednesday that we were not getting home until tomorrow.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Since that is a challenge to a point I have just made from the Chair, I say that it is not always necessary to make rules in order to have people behave with decency and consideration. The hon. Gentleman is one of the most considerate and decent Members of this House and I am making absolutely no criticism of him; I am merely pointing this out, and he is not the only Member who has exceeded the seven minutes that would have been the time limit.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you again, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The scheme was abandoned wrongly, erroneously, arrogantly by a Home Secretary who would not listen to those who would be most affected, and that continues to be the tone of most of what the Government do in relation to both Brexit and almost anything else—and of course they always say it is all the Scottish Government’s fault.

The reason why we are having this debate and having to consider reintroducing this scheme is the Government’s continued obsession with freedom of movement being a bad thing that has to be stopped. Freedom of movement of people, and of goods and services, and of ideas and beliefs, is an unqualified, unreservedly good thing, and I want to see it retained as far as possible. I ask the Minister again, although it is not her decision to make, to please go back to her Government and say to them that the way to prevent the massive disruption to our agriculture sector, and other sectors of our economy, both public and private, is not simply to urgently reintroduce SAWS to deal with the difficulties we will face this year, but to reconsider their unilateral decisions about freedom of movement, and to look again at whether we want to isolate ourselves from the biggest trading market in Europe. If we remain in the single market and the customs union most of the difficulties raised today will be reduced, if not solved entirely.

European Union (Approvals) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I will not rise to some of the nonsense the hon. Gentleman is speaking. Will he confirm whether he is familiar with the resolution of the House requiring Ministers to get either clearance or an agreement to waive scrutiny from the European Scrutiny Committee, and will he confirm that when the International Trade Secretary—I think it was him, but I cannot be sure—signed CETA, he did so knowing he did not have the Committee’s approval? The resolution does not say it has to be discussed at a Backbench Business debate or by an APPG; it quite clearly says it has to be cleared by the Committee, but it was not at that time—

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We are a little more lax because this is Committee stage, but I kind of forgot the hon. Gentleman was intervening rather than making a speech. I should not have let him go on for quite so long, but I am sure he has made his point now.

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I commend the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this debate and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin John Docherty) on his outstandingly passionate speech. I hope he will not mind my mentioning that he has had other reasons over the past week for earning our warm congratulations and best wishes. We all wish him well in the new life that he is leading. All the best to him.

My hon. Friend started the preparations for the birthday of Robert Burns by quoting from not only the greatest work that Robert Burns ever wrote, but arguably the greatest humanitarian work in the history of literature. I was a bit disappointed because I thought he was going to continue with a section of that song that would almost sum up this debate in a few words:

Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,

Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that,

Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,

He’s but a cuif for a’ that.”

I have to confess, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I was very careful indeed not to check the dictionary before I came in here because I have a nasty feeling that if I had done, I would have realised that the word “cuif” could not be used in the Chamber. I am not entirely sure what it means.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman should know that as far as I am concerned, anything said by Robert Burns can be used in this Chamber.

[Peter Grant]

I am very grateful indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker, not least because I intend to quote the bard later on.

I find it astonishing that when we started the process of review of and consultation on how to repair the fabric of this undoubtedly magnificent and historic building, it was based on the assumption that Parliament would continue to operate in exactly the same way as it presumably always has done. May I suggest that a golden opportunity was missed to start to reform the processes of not only this Chamber, but the second Chamber?

Indeed, this might be an opportunity to ask ourselves why we need a second Chamber at all. Other modern, inclusive, democratic countries manage perfectly well with one Chamber. If we think about it, the argument that the second Chamber is good at scrutinising and checking the actions of the first Chamber suggests that we are saying that the first Chamber is not doing its job, so perhaps we should literally get our own House in order and then consider whether we want another House just down the road.

Middle East

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Grant

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that comment. The question I asked of the Prime Minister last week was based on that very point. It is one thing to remove Daesh—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I was going to let the hon. Gentleman finish his sentence, since it is St Andrew’s day.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I finished at that point as I was expecting to be told that my time was up, but that did not seem to materialise.

It is one thing to remove Daesh; it is quite another to remove the circumstances where organisations such as Daesh, the Taliban and al-Qaeda can continue to flourish.