Points of Order

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Peter Grant

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise that I could not give advance notice of my point of order, because I had to remain in my seat hoping to catch Mr Speaker’s eye. In his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), who was on the SNP Front Bench earlier, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster clearly accused the Scottish National party of being a sectarian organisation. That is the second time he has done that from the Dispatch Box. I appreciate that it is not a question of order whether remarks are offensive, although I hope that, on reflection, the Minister will understand that those comments are not only deeply offensive, but a highly irresponsible accusation to throw at any organisation that works so tirelessly to rid Scotland of the cancer that is sectarian bigotry—a cancer that was very prominent in the community in which I and a number of my colleagues grew up. Can you advise me whether it is still the case that a Minister who says something untrue from the Dispatch Box must be given a reasonable chance to correct the record and that, if they refuse to do so, it is not possible for them to remain as a Minister in the Government?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

In fairness, it is up to the Minister whether they wish to. I do not know whether the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster would want to speak or not—that is his choice. If he does, of course I will give way. What I would say is that you would not expect me to comment on that. I was not chairing the debate, and, in fairness to Mr Speaker, if it was disorderly, he will have said so. That is the one thing I want to be clear on. In fairness to Mr Speaker, he will have done the right thing at that moment.

Exiting the European Union (Sanctions)

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Peter Grant

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I think that the hon. Gentleman has made the point that he wished to make.

[Peter Grant]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman has put forward his view and corrected the statement. The fact is that it is up the hon. Gentleman to decide whether to withdraw the comment; he has chosen not to and he wishes to carry on.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will move on to the plight of Guinea-Bissau, which we have heard described as one of the world’s poorest countries. It is not actually a poor country. If we look at the value of drugs trafficked through that country each year, we see that the GDP per person is massive. Unfortunately, that money comes from a trade that causes havoc and distress everywhere else. Guinea-Bissau is ranked 178th out of 188 countries according to the UN human development scale, making it one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. The average male life expectancy is now just 47 years, in a country that was once seen as a beacon for the future of African development. It has been beset by attempted military coup after attempted military coup; almost no Head of Government has held office for more than a few years before being removed, sometimes forcibly.

The European Union, with the United Kingdom’s support, has made strenuous and sustained attempts to help Guinea-Bissau sort out its economic and governance problems, but all too often those efforts have had to be abandoned because it was simply not possible to ensure that aid was going to the correct people and places, because governance had collapsed to such a degree. That is particularly tragic for a country that is already one of the poorest in the world. It is impossible to apply sanctions that do not have some knock-on effect on citizens, but we have to support the imposition and continuation of those sanctions. The sanctions themselves are not enough. They are a necessary part of what has to be a much more concerted and ongoing attempt to give the 2 million people living in Guinea-Bissau at least a decent standard of living. In the 21st century, we do not want to see life expectancy continue to be just 47 years.

I fully support many of the comments that have been made about Iran. Not that long ago, there seemed to be grounds for optimism. It looked as through that country was moving towards greater openness and democracy, with participation by all citizens, but over the past few years the situation has gone backwards very severely indeed. Iran has now gone back to the old days on human rights abuses, some of which have just been catalogued for us. We know of the desperate plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has now been in prison in Iran for a number of years, and her treatment there has been utterly shocking. We can only guess at the plight of who knows how many other Iranian citizens who do not have Members of Parliament or Government Ministers, either here or elsewhere, to speak on their behalf. It is worth remembering, however, that until the 1970s Iran had a brutal dictator with whom the United Kingdom was quite happy to trade.

I want to finish by saying that although we support the use of economic sanctions in these countries, there are other countries with similarly appalling human rights records but for which to date there has been no suggestion that sanctions will be applied. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) can chunter away from a sedentary position, but I am not making a party political point, because this has been a characteristic of successive Governments of all parties. Saudi Arabia has the death penalty for homo- sexuality, yet the United Kingdom trades arms with that country. Israel, according to the UK Government, is in breach of international law, yet there is no proposal for sanctions against the Government of Israel.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. These other countries are not part of the debate. I have allowed the debate to be opened up a little, but I cannot allow us to go on a world tour.

[Peter Grant]

I conclude simply by saying that we support the continued imposition of economic sanctions against those countries that would oppress their citizens and deny basic human rights to the citizens of Myanmar, Venezuela, Guinea-Bissau and Iran. We would also like to see the UK Government applying similar sanctions and restrictions on those who oppress their citizens in other countries with which the United Kingdom seems quite happy to trade arms by the billion.

Article 50 Extension Procedure

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Peter Grant

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I was only going to take the first one. Points of order should actually come after the final urgent question, but I know it is in relation to this urgent question and the Minister is waiting.

[Peter Grant]

In reply to an earlier question, the Minister stated that, on many occasions, the House has considered and rejected amendments that sought to revoke article 50. As a matter of fact, those amendments have never been selected for debate, and therefore they have never been considered and voted on by the House.

Mr Deputy Speaker, can you advise me, first, on how we can give the Minister a chance to correct his error? It is always better to correct one’s own error. Secondly, and more importantly, can you confirm that, given such amendments have never been selected, there is no impediment in the Standing Orders or in “Erskine May” convention to one being brought forward and considered at a later date?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

As we both know, that point of order is about correction, and the hon. Gentleman has put it on the record. I do not think we need to go any further than that.

Petitions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Peter Grant

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

We all know the rules of the House, and I have explained what will happen and what the procedures are. Come on, now.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that most people would be astonished that two apparently important debates that were timetabled for six hours collapsed after about two and a half hours. There have been reports, which some may think credible, that the Government Whips have sought to engineer that situation deliberately.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I am running out of patience with the points of order now. Can I just say that that was up to Members of this House on all sides? Please do not put the complaint to me. Members should have spoken if they wanted to keep the debate going. I am sorry, but I think we ought to realise that it was up to Members to keep the business going until 7 o’clock, the moment of interruption. Right, let us move on.

Legislating for the Withdrawal Agreement

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Peter Grant

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

If Members are down to speak, I do not want to hear their speeches in interventions. Can we please just stick to interventions?

[Peter Grant]

The right hon. Gentleman touches on something that Members on both sides of the House have referred to in the past. We know that a lot of very significant businesses right across the whole spectrum of the UK economy have serious concerns. They are telling Ministers in private what their concerns are. They are bound to be saying it in private, because they do not feel that they can go public for various reasons. Obviously, businesses do not like to go public about things that they think might bring down their business. That is how the Government can get away with simply pretending that there is not really a problem, or claiming that anyone who highlights a problem is somehow being unpatriotic or not getting behind British business.

The Minister talked in glowing terms about all the trade deals that we will be able to negotiate in the blink of an eye after we leave the European Union at the end of a transition period—or implementation period, or whatever it is being called this week. Of course, an implementation period does not give us certainty; all it does is extend the period of uncertainty by a year or so. It is bit like someone who is heading towards the edge of a cliff thinking that maybe it is good if they can prolong the uncertainty about just how high the cliff is until the last possible moment, but who does not use that period to back away from the worst potential consequences of their decision. An implementation period that causes a cliff-edge Brexit at the end of 2020 is not really much better than a cliff-edge Brexit at the end of March 2019.

The Minister talked about all these trade deals that somehow we cannot do just now. I cannot understand how Germany manages. Germany seems to manage to trade very effectively and very profitably with a lot of countries that the United Kingdom does not trade with or trades with on very poor terms. What are the Germans doing right? What are the German Government good at, with regard to running their economy, that this Government are not good at? I do not have time to give all the answers.

European Union Citizenship

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Peter Grant

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I apologise to his colleagues that I missed the start of the debate. The reason was that, like the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who spoke a few minutes ago, I am a member of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, and some of us had the privilege of meeting a delegation from the Parliament of Slovakia who are in Westminster.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he does not have to give a reason for intervening. Don’t worry about that; we just want to hear your intervention.

[Peter Grant]

It is highly relevant, Mr Deputy Speaker, because most of the people we met were born in the shadow of the iron curtain. They now have the right to travel all over western Europe and a great deal of central and eastern Europe. Does the hon. Gentleman share my bafflement that while those people are celebrating their fairly recently won right to travel everywhere, we have a Government here that seem determined to take measures that might endanger the right of future generations of UK citizens to travel as freely as our Slovakian friends can travel now?

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Peter Grant

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I do not remember saying that Britain does not have a role to play in the world. What I said, and I will say it again, is that the role in the world the UK Government appear to have decided for Britain is not a role that the people of Scotland will be comfortable following. Nobody would deny that any country in the world has a role to play. If the Official Report shows that I said anything different, I will withdraw it. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The Front Benchers have had a good go tonight. If they are going to intervene, it has to be with very short interventions. I am very sorry but, if people give way, others might fall off the list.

Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Peter Grant

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The answer is that it is for the Government, not for me, to respond on that point. There has been a question about whether this is binding. What is binding is the need to carry forward the debate. Let us have no more ado.

[Peter Grant]

The third scenario—many of us are increasingly convinced that this is what has happened—is that the detailed analysis indicates that the damage caused by Brexit will be even worse than any of us previously feared. Yes, that would weaken and fatally undermine the UK’s negotiating position. It may well be that the analysis shows that Brexit is such a catastrophic decision that we should not do it at all. What kind of Government in possession of that information would choose to hide it, rather than to act on it? It seems to me that the only scenario in which releasing any of the information can possibly undermine the UK’s position is if that information shows that the damage caused by Brexit is worse than any previous analysis has indicated.