Strengthening the Union

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate.

We should speak about some of the positives of our great country, these great nations with so much in common. As I have said before, it came from a man with vision. James VI of Scotland and I of England saw the opportunity in Great Britain. He commissioned the Union flag and regularly pushed for full Union in the United Kingdom. The pushes for the Union were not just with him: they were in 1606, 1667 and 1689—I am sorry the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is not in his place; we could go history notes on history notes—before finally in 1707 we had the Parliament of Great Britain. Historian Simon Schama was right when he said it was a “full partnership” that became

“the most powerful going concern in the world...it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history.”

That partnership shows that Scotland is not a victim; it is a leader in the United Kingdom.

What have we achieved? We hear a lot in this House about all the negatives of Westminster: how bad it is, what a disgrace it is, how much it has let people down. That is right, Madam Deputy Speaker, it did let people down: through the industrial revolution, the political enlightenment, the abolition of slavery, the establishment of the NHS, the creation of the welfare state and being a key player in the creation of the United Nations and a whole structure of local governance that has kept peace and security in our world for the past 60 years.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the positive benefits from this Union. Does he agree that one of the key aspects of that great litany of achievements is that Scots have been at the front, leading those achievements throughout history? That is something to which, as an English MP, I pay proper tribute.

[Luke Graham]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I could not agree more. My office has been involved in helping out a constituent who is championing the cause of a former constituent of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) who was involved in the foundation of Singapore. Often overlooked in favour of Raffles, my constituent is making sure that this noble man from Perth receives the recognition he so rightly deserves.

Our Union enabled us to have victories not only on the battlefield but in sports stadiums, with Scottish athletes bringing 19 gold, 27 silver and five bronze medals in summer Olympics since 1997—trained, funded and championed by Team GB. In science and technology, it is not about competition between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom but working together. One fine example is that of the Boulton and Watt steam engine. The first one in Scotland was in my constituency in Clackmannanshire, used by the Kennetpans distillery. Clackmannanshire led the way in technology then. I hope that, through the geothermal project that I hope the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will support in this House, Clackmannanshire will once again lead the way in technology and renewable energy.

It does not stop there. We also had Dolly the sheep, funded by PPL Therapeutics and the then Ministry of Agriculture. The Forth Road bridge, which was an engineering achievement of its time, was 78% funded by Westminster. More recently and most excitingly for the “Star Trek” fans in this House—I know there are many on the SNP Benches—a collaboration between a Scottish university, the University of Dundee, and an English university, the University of Southampton, funded by UK Research and Innovation, created a tractor beam. How forward-looking could we be?

What is the Union about? It has to be about more than money. With almost the equivalent of one fifth of Scotland’s population living in England, it is about the shared values that we hold of democracy, justice and international humanitarian aid, as demonstrated by the nurse, Pauline Cafferkey, who was saving lives abroad in Sierra Leone under the British flag, before falling victim to Ebola. When she returned home to the United Kingdom, she received life-saving treatment in London before returning home to Glasgow. That is what true Union is about.

In the United Kingdom, we are proud not just of the nations, but of our proud regions and counties. That is why in supermarkets people champion Devonshire custard as much as they do Perthshire strawberries. Rather than there being just a homogenous bloc of Scotland versus England, people want to know the county, town and village—all around the country—from which the products are sourced.