European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Redwood and Patrick Grady

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

Some of the SNP Members do protest too much. I seem to remember that they actively fought two referendums in recent years and managed to lose both of them. For my part, I am very happy with the result of both referendums; I managed to find myself on the winning side in both cases. I believe in respecting the views of the Scottish people, who decided that they wished to remain part of the Union of the United Kingdom, and in respecting the views of voters in the United Kingdom, who said they did not wish to remain part of the European Union. That is a very clear set of messages.

This Union Parliament, in the interests of the special Scottish considerations, said that only Scottish voters would decide whether Scotland stayed in the Union or not. Although many of us had strong views and were pleased that they decided to stay, we deliberately decided that it was appropriate to let Scotland decide, because in a democracy, a country cannot be in a union that does not volunteer freely to belong to that union. The Scottish nationalists, by the same logic, must see that people like myself—the 52%—have exactly the same view on the European Union that they have on the Union of the United Kingdom. There has to be voluntary consent. When the point is reached where the majority of a country no longer wishes to belong to the European Union, it has to leave.

I would have been the first to have said, had the Scottish nationalists won the Scottish referendum, that I wanted the United Kingdom to make all due speed with a sensible solution so that Scotland could have her wishes. I think I would have wanted rather more independence for Scotland than the Scottish nationalists, because I think that if a country is going to be a properly independent—

[Patrick Grady]

On a point of order, Sir Roger. I keep hearing the right hon. Gentleman talking about the “Scottish nationalist party”. I do not know what party that is, but the Members on these Benches belong to the Scottish National party.

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Roger Gale)]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that that is not a point of order for the Chair.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Redwood and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

I am not prepared to go that far. I think that there can be problems in the euro currency zone between Germany and the Netherlands, because they do not have the full range of common policies that they may need. At present, it appears that the Dutch and German economies are sufficiently synchronised for the arrangement not to cause problems in the Netherlands, but that is clearly not true of Portugal, Spain, Ireland or Greece. The fact that there are more countries that it does not fit than countries that it does fit implies that there is something wrong with the fundamental architecture of the euro. That is why I am anxious for us to bear it in mind, when we are debating the issue of how much welfare discretion there should be, that a common welfare system is normally one of the characteristics of successful currency unions.

Yes, I do believe in redistribution. We all believe in redistribution. We believe that, in a civilised country such as ours, we should tax the rich more and give money to those who need support. We have arguments about how much the amounts should be and about the conditions, but we all believe in transfers, and we all believe that the balance must be right.

When I asked the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan to say how much more an enlightened Scottish Government would like to give, by means of welfare payments, to tackle immediate problems of low income or poverty, she was not able to tell me. That was a pity, because I took it that her intention, and the purpose of the amendments, was to give the Scottish Executive power to increase benefit levels in comparison with the levels, or the range, of benefits currently on offer in the Union. I did not think that SNP Members were seeking these powers in order to be meaner than the Union Government are proposing to be, and I see them consenting to that. I feel that this debate would be richer and fuller if they shared with us the amount of extra money that they would like to spend.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Surely the point is that it is for the Scottish Government, whatever their colour, to decide how they want to use the powers. Perhaps one day a Government of the right hon. Gentleman’s colour will be using them. However, no Government would be able to use any powers that had been vetoed by the Secretary of State.

[John Redwood]

That brings us back to an important and interesting question. At what point does the transfer of power become destabilising for the currency union and the common transfers that make up our common country? That, surely, is one of the issues that were examined in the referendum, when a majority of Scottish people felt that they wanted to remain in the United Kingdom and in the currency union. Having read and listened to what was said by those who were actively involved in the debate, I suspect that the currency union was rather central to the securing of that vote, and that it was when the parties of the Union said that Scotland should leave the currency as well as the UK, if that was the wish of the Scottish people, that the majority voted to stay in the Union.