United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Alan Brown and Richard Thomson

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention, because it might have been signed off, but it was signed off in such a way that mired it in protracted legal disputes for years—[Interruption.] I am glad she finds that funny, but that was what delayed it more than anything else. It is only thanks to the diligence of the present Scottish Government that it got through at all. The dualling of the A96 and the A9, the Borders railway and the future rail decarbonisation are all major big-ticket investments that are happening under the current arrangements, which do not require any tinkering with the devolution settlement.

[Alan Brown]

For me, these infrastructure projects say everything about the Union dividend. It is a fact that it has taken an SNP Government to complete the M8 motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, the two biggest cities in Scotland. Under the Westminster Government, we did not even have a motorway running east to west in Scotland, which was a disgrace. Does my hon. Friend agree that another problem with Scotland delivering infrastructure is the fiscal constraints on capital borrowing? Westminster will not allow us to borrow enough money to invest in the infrastructure we need.

[Richard Thomson]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I intend to deal with some of those points later in my speech.

The hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) said on Second Reading:

“I want to see our two Governments working together as they do on city and growth deals the length and breadth of the country.”—[Official Report, 14 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 89.]

I absolutely agree with him: for as long as we have two Governments for Scotland, they should indeed work together.

However, citing that argument in support of the Bill is, I believe, fundamentally flawed because these deals already work and there is no need for a further encroachment on the devolution settlement to make similar deals work better.