English Votes on English Laws

Debate between Pete Wishart and Alistair Carmichael

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael]

First, may I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin John Docherty) on a truly magnificent maiden speech? He was unfortunate that his time was limited, but I am sure the House will hear more from him in the future.

If there were any doubt about the need for this debate, it has surely been dispelled by the way in which it has been conducted and by its content. Several issues have come to light. First, the Government are going to create two tiers of MP: that will be the inevitable consequence of their double majority. Secondly, English Members of Parliament will have a veto, but, according to the Leader of the House, a veto will not be afforded to the Scottish Parliament, because the Government insist on the continuation of the Sewel convention.

The most important issue, and that which causes most concern, is the politicisation of your role, Mr Speaker, because you will be put in the position of having to arbitrate on these questions and then not have to give any reasons for your decision. Surely that means that we will be left to speculate on the Chair’s reasons, and such speculation cannot be sensible or, indeed, healthy in a political forum. We will be excluded not from debate, but from decisions. That is no way to run a Parliament.

The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) said that she was acting on the resentment of her constituents. I do not doubt that that resentment is real, but I invite her to reflect on whether that is really the proper basis on which to proceed with changes of this sort. What she is supporting will merely reinforce that resentment, rather than address the underlying reasons for it.

I am not going to burst into song, but if I were I would turn to the late great Johnny Nash, who said:

“There are more questions than answers

And the more I find out, the less I know”.

I am afraid that that is where we are.

[Pete Wishart]

I beg to move—

Scotland Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Alistair Carmichael

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend always gets right to the heart of the matter. We know that everything in this Bill that we have been trying to secure is supported by the Scottish people. It is also supported by the massed ranks of SNP Members here, and by the 60% of the Scottish people who want everything devolved to the Scottish Parliament other than foreign affairs, defence and treason. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) forgot to mention treason in his list of powers that would remain reserved. An opinion poll last week showed not only that we won more than 50% of the vote but that we are now on course to win 60% of the Holyrood vote next year. It showed that there is a clear desire to ensure that we move forward progressively.

I shall turn to the central issues in the Bill, starting with the permanence of the Scottish Parliament. That was about the most useful thing to emerge from the Smith commission’s report. It followed the vow that was reported in the Daily Record as stating that the permanence of the Parliament should be a predominant issue. We were disappointed that the draft Scotland Bill could not find an appropriate form of words to encapsulate that proposal. The thing that has struck me is the Scottish people’s surprise that this House could actually do away with the Scottish Parliament. I do not think that people really believed that that was the case. We have to resolve this issue.

The Scottish Parliament is now the key focus of the national debate on our nation and our political culture in Scotland. As we have continued to secure more and new powers for the Scottish Parliament, it has become an intrinsic feature of what we are about as a nation. The fact that this House can simply decide, perhaps on a whim, to abolish the Scottish Parliament is totally unacceptable to the Scottish people and has now to be put right. We have this one opportunity to address it by getting our amendment through this evening—we could sort this out.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) because he recognised that situation when he was Secretary of State for Scotland. He said—I paraphrase him and I will let him intervene if I have this wrong—that something must be done about it. It was then thrown over to the new Secretary of State to pick up; it now falls in his lap, and he has to address it and ensure that we get what we want, which is the permanence—

[Mr Alistair Carmichael]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept, however, that by doing this through primary legislation any solution—any form of words—is always going to be imperfect, and that the only way we will genuinely recognise the political reality that is the permanence of the Scottish Parliament is through a written constitution, and for that we need a constitutional convention?

[Pete Wishart]

There is very little I would disagree with the right hon. Gentleman about on these things, and I agree that there is a real requirement for a written constitution in this country. But let me suggest another way we can get the permanence for the Scottish Parliament, as set out in our amendment 59: by putting this to the Scottish people in a referendum. The only way then that the Scottish Parliament would ever be abolished or done away with would be on the say-so of the Scottish people, as a directly expressed desire through a referendum. I hope the right hon. Gentleman supports us in that amendment this evening, because it is the way to go forward.

That deals with the permanence issue. We have not heard much about another matter, despite several of my friends from south of the border having spoken in this debate. I refer to new clause 2 on the constitutional convention, which I believe the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) is still to speak to. That has been a long-standing policy of the Labour party and it was central to its manifesto at the last election—I have to say that Labour did not have a great deal of success when it was put to the people of England. My problem with this idea that Scottish devolution and our constitutional journey should be mashed together with a UK-wide look at the constitution is that it would slow down our very clear progress and our clear statement of where we want to go. The cause of English devolution moves at an almost glacial pace, and any suggestion that we have to be slowed down, as England rightly works out what it wants to do, has to be rejected this evening. Just piggy-backing Labour’s concerns about a constitutional convention and about English devolution on to a Bill about Scotland, and the things we were promised in the vow and that were progressed with the Smith commission is totally unacceptable. I say to the Labour party: do the work yourselves. There is no need to bring it to a Scotland Bill in order to progress this agenda. Bring in your own piece of legislation. Bring it in however you like and we will play a part in that. There are interesting things to be discussed on the further progress of constitutional change all over the UK.