United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Alan Brown and Pete Wishart

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown]

My hon. Friend is reminding Conservative Members of that point, and is it not the case that the EU has never forced a single infrastructure project on Scotland, yet clause 46 allows the UK Government to do what they want in Scotland against the wishes of the Scottish Parliament?

[Pete Wishart]

That is exactly the essence of what this is all about—this idea that somehow they know better for Scotland, better than the directly elected representatives of the people in the Scottish Parliament. It is an absurd suggestion. There is no evidence that they know better than the Scottish Parliament, and we will not accept that. I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughts.

The Government have suggested today that we are complaining about extra funding. First, is there any extra funding? Secondly, where does it come from? Thirdly, how much is it going to be? We could have a debate about extra funding if they could answer all those questions. I am looking at the Minister; maybe she could tell us. We have the devolved powers for a particular reason. It is because we want democratic control over the decision makers on everything from education to health to infrastructure to water—all the things that they now want to exercise responsibility over.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Alan Brown and Pete Wishart

3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I know he is tempting me to speak about the Labour party, but that is just cruelty. I will resist the opportunity to say a few words to Labour Members, other than: for goodness’ sake get your act together, because you have to be an Opposition. Not one of their Back Benchers is standing to be called in this debate today, which shows how humble they have become in this whole debate. However, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that it is a bit rich blaming a useless Labour party for sinking that last Brexit deal, because it was the hard Brexiteers who brought it down. They were prepared to sink their own Prime Minister and reject a deal because of their ultimate vision, objective and all-consuming obsession with the hardest of hard Brexits, which is what is being delivered today.

[Alan Brown]

It is ironic that the Conservatives are now saying, “You should have voted for our crap deal, but now we’ve made the deal even crappier, so get it up ye.” Does that not sum it right up?

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend has a very delicate use of phrase, and I have to say that nothing could be put more elegantly than that. That is well understood from this side of the House.

The Brexit deal could have been anything. It could have involved a customs union or single market membership. It could have been Canada-plus-plus-plus or Norway-minus-minus-minus, but it is none of those. It is the hardest of hard Brexits because nothing else was good enough for the Conservatives, and that is what is being passed today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alan Brown and Pete Wishart

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

1. What recent discussions his Department has had with the Scottish Government on the potential effect on the devolution settlement of the UK leaving the EU.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

2. What recent discussions his Department has had with the Scottish Government on the potential effect on the devolution settlement of the UK leaving the EU.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Alan Brown and Pete Wishart

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I do not know quite what the hon. Gentleman misses when it comes to these sorts of issues. I vote for issues that are reserved here in this Parliament and this House. Conservative Members are trying to stop me from voting, through English votes for English laws, so we are in a situation where these particular difficulties exist in the House.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Is it not also true that the Public Whip does not record the fact that there are England and Wales only votes that we are excluded from in this House?

[Pete Wishart]

The whole trend of EVEL legislation is to ensure that we do not vote on those particular issues; they have put in mechanisms to stop us doing that.

I will conclude, although I know that the House has very much enjoyed the alternative view on the issue. I want this House to move on in where we work and in how we do our work. But I have a sneaking suspicion, from my 17 years in this House, that neither of these things will be delivered any time soon.

Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Debate between Alan Brown and Pete Wishart

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend has a particularly good private Member’s Bill, and I encourage as many Members as possible to come along and listen to him speak about it. Back-Bench business and private Members’ Bills will probably be our most interesting business, given the laxity that we are going to see from Government Members, and we must have the proper time and arrangements for such business.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House spoke earlier about giving the House more time for private Members’ Bills. Is that not an almost pointless exercise unless the Government reform how private Members’ Bills go through the House, and unless they get their own Members to stop stymieing them?

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend is spot on. I share his frustration, as I think most in the Scottish National party do, about the way in which private Members’ Bills are progressed through the House. It is clearly unsatisfactory. I remember the private Member’s Bill sponsored by my colleague John Nicolson, which was stymied by the Government even though we had the necessary numbers here. The way in which certain Members of this House—none of them are in their place at this point—do all they can to talk out and filibuster private Members’ Bills is a disgrace to this House. Our constituents expect better than that. When their Members of Parliament are lucky enough, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) has been, to secure the opportunity to introduce a private Member’s Bill, it is right and proper for them to expect those Bills to be properly debated in the House. I hope at some point we will be able to reform the process.

We support what the hon. Member for Walsall South said about the sittings for private Members’ Bills. Of course the number should be doubled and I really hope the Government do that.

There has to be a proper arrangement and a proper understanding about the time allocated for Opposition days. The Labour shadow Leader of the House was absolutely right that we are entitled to three Opposition days per parliamentary Session and we now expect six, given that it is a two-year Session. I hope the Leader of the House will confirm that.

We have to get all these things worked out. The arrangements of the House are clearly unsatisfactory and there are lots of things we need to do. I spent a couple of weeks in the usual channels before my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) was put in place. I saw how the usual channels are working just now. There seems to be a misunderstanding about how the different parties’ requirements and expectations of this Parliament are to be met. I encourage the Leader of the House and the Whips Office to get a better grasp of the new reality of this House—this House of minorities, where nobody has a majority—and ensure that our business is equipped, shaped and designed to accommodate that new reality.

This zombie Parliament must get up and working. It must be allowed to do its work. It must allow the optimal conditions for scrutiny and empower us, as Members of Parliament, to do the work that our constituents sent us here to do. For goodness’ sake, let’s get on with it and let’s do it.

Plumbers’ Pensions

Debate between Alan Brown and Pete Wishart

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

Absolutely. These people are not city spivs. They have not malevolently tried to get out of paying their contributions. They are people like my hon. Friend’s constituent, who have conscientiously paid into schemes and never knew they would face a potential issue at the end of their working careers. It is so unfair that they are being exposed to issues such as this. These are the people who fix our central heating, get the washing machine working again, fix our broken pipes and repair the boiler.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Is it not strange that last year in the Budget, the Government found £6 billion to make cuts in inheritance tax and capital gains tax? This issue is actually about inheritance. I have a constituent who is unwilling or unable to pass on his business to his son, because of its liabilities. My hon. Friend has touched on a very simple solution, which is a change in the method of valuation of the pension liabilities.

[Pete Wishart]

I want to come up with a few suggestions for the Government about how they can resolve some of these real and difficult situations. My hon. Friend is right; it is incumbent upon the Government to work with us. This is not about having a go at the Government. We were all unaware of these unintended consequences. My plea today is that the Government do two things: first, acknowledge that there is a serious difficulty here, and secondly, work with us and the sector to resolve it.

I want to give a couple of examples that show how invidious the situation is for many of our constituents right across the country. One is a guy called Mike. Mike’s business was established in 1985 by his father. He joined the business a few years later as an apprentice plumber. Mike and his dad built a business like so many family plumber businesses that we are familiar with, which provided a professional service to customers and tried to ensure that its employees were looked after. Their business grew, and by 1990 they had a pension scheme for their employees and were paying sick pay and holiday pay through a scheme operated by SNIPEF. Over the years they have had many apprentices, and they currently employ 14 staff. Their employees have all been trained to the highest possible standard.

Over the past 26 years, Mike has paid something approaching £400,000 in employer pension contributions to the scheme. Mike’s father is now retired and seriously ill, and Mike cannot bear to share his worries about the business with him, despite the fact that they have worked so closely together over the years. Mike, like so many employers including the plumbers I met in my constituency, has only just been able fully to understand the magnitude and significance of section 75 and cannot believe its implications for responsible employers. Mike’s business is unincorporated and he now realises that by triggering the debt he will lose his home, his life savings and other assets that he has spent all his working life securing. In his words, he is faced with continuing to work and accruing a section 75 debt until he dies, because he fears the effect of triggering the debt.

I have loads of example, which I might send to the Minister for his reflection and views, but I will give one more. Kyle’s business—another family business—was started by his father in 1982. Until recently he was a 50% shareholder, but in 2015 he bought out his partner for more than £100,000 and, at 52, he now owns 100% of the business. He currently has one plumber in the scheme and has contributed £242,000 to it over the past 37 years. Kyle has a young family and is worried sick about his potential liability. He has made all but one of his employees redundant and is now working for another company. He would like to close his business completely and sell off his business property, but he knows that doing so would trigger a huge debt. His time is now split between running his own company and working as an employee for another.

Kyle has contacted SNIPEF and has been told that his liability is an incredible £1.7 million. He is worried beyond belief, he cannot sleep at night and he feels totally destroyed and depressed. He says he just wants to curl up in a ball and die. Plumbers in our constituencies have done nothing wrong, but they are left in that condition. I have given real-life examples that we must address. I have many other examples, and I will pass them on to the Minister.

I want the Government to do a couple of things. I know the matter is difficult and technical—I have looked at it and understand the Minister’s difficulty in resolving it, but resolve it he must. First, let us agree today that the issue is huge and acknowledge that something must be done to resolve it. The Minister could make a start by considering the problem of the debt being triggered by the departure of the last active scheme member working in a business. The Pension and Lifetime Savings Association has said that employers are artificially retaining a single active member so as not to trigger the scheme.

The Government could also look at how the debt is calculated. It is based on an insurance assessment of the scheme’s value, which will obviously inflate its value. Surely it could be calculated by technical measures looking at the way the scheme operates and the actual membership. The phantom liabilities, or orphan liabilities, must be dealt with, because they inflate the scheme’s value. No one knows where the people to whom those liabilities relate are, and they no longer participate in the scheme, yet the valuation is kept artificially high. To enable us to move forward, there should be exceptions for small and micro non-associated family businesses. The Minister has an army of civil servants available to try to resolve the matter, and a pensions Bill is going to be introduced, which will allow him to look at it. I hope very much that he will do that.

I want to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) a few minutes to speak, as she has been looking at the matter and SNIPEF is based in her constituency, but I have a plea for the Minister. We know that something is going on, and he has acknowledged that—I have seen some of his helpful responses to hon. Members who have raised these concerns. Will he please work with us? These people have done absolutely nothing wrong. They are the cornerstone of our community and provide a service to it. My appeal is that MPs, the Government and the sector work together to resolve some of these issues.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Debate between Alan Brown and Pete Wishart

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown]

My first time on a Bill Committee was during the passage of this Bill, and the journey has certainly been interesting from start to finish. In Committee, as outlined by the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), we had a vote that was not a vote and then a re-vote, but that will hopefully not be the future. Today, it was good that the Secretary of State gave the SNP complete credit for the Government defeat. We are happy to take that, but it was actually the result of work across the House and the amendment of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes).

I was slightly frustrated by today’s proceedings, because I hoped to table an amendment relating to cash retentions, which is a big issue in the construction industry. It represents another missed opportunity for the Government. Our attempt to table an amendment proves that we are not about grabbing headlines, and we have been serious from start to finish in what we are doing.

[Pete Wishart]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has some words of consolation for the Secretary of State, who seemed to be unduly upset about the temerity of SNP Members to come to the House and vote in the interests of Scottish workers. Does my hon. Friend have any advice to help him to get over his grievance?

[Alan Brown]

The Secretary of State could give us further devolution for a start. If we had been given more powers in the Scotland Bill, as we wanted, perhaps the Government would need to worry less about us.

Another interesting aspect of what we have seen today is the Government’s last-minute so-called “concessions”, and we are going to get amendments that we do not know about, in the House of Lords. The Government need to make up their mind whether they are in favour of the House of Lords and what is being done in there or not. Only last week they were not happy with what the House of Lords is doing but today we are supposed to vote with the Government because the Lords will save us—I do not know where we are going with that.