Debate on the Address

Alex Salmond Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give me a moment in which to answer, because I only have two minutes left? The fact is that within our constitution—our unwritten constitution, which we play with at our jeopardy, if we do not think through what we are doing—we have different pillars. We have the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary, and of course there will always be tension between them. If we all agreed all the time, what would be the point? In what way would we be a democracy? There will be times when we disagree and, in the end, human rights is about protecting minorities. It is about protecting the weak against the strong. Yes, there will be times when people whom we wish to have no truck with at all will rely on basic rights and we must give them to them. That is the British way, and it is one that we are proud of and should remain proud of, and we should never allow it to be undermined.

[Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), the Prime Minister hinted, and then the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) blurted out, that there might be afoot an attempt to change the Standing Orders of this House to restrict the voting rights of some Members of this House. Surely such a change would fundamentally breach the principle that all Members of this House are equal before the Chair, and would such a change, if conceived itself as an Order, have to be considered by you or the Procedure Committee, or undergo some thorough investigation? Otherwise, as you will understand with your experience, Mr Speaker, any majority Government could change Standing Orders to restrict the voting rights of any Member without so much as a by-your-leave.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me a few minutes’ advance notice of his intention to raise this point of order. He has raised an extremely important point, on which I shall take appropriate advice, and which, as he would expect, I will give the most serious thought. I hope he will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to say anything beyond that this afternoon. Perfectly legitimately, he has raised it, and that is my response today.

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[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and to hear him speak so passionately on behalf of his constituents. Many comparisons have been made with 1992 when a Tory majority Government were elected despite the odds and the predictions. Of course, the hon. Gentleman was the 1992 election personified—on that night, his election was the indication that the Conservatives would be returned.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) on proposing and seconding the Gracious Speech so appropriately and well.

[Alex Salmond]

I am trying to recall Basildon man and the 1992 election. What on earth happened to that 1992 Tory Government? How did they get on?

[Mr Dodds]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I join others in congratulating and welcoming him on his return to the House. I remember him here before he went back to Scotland to serve as First Minister. I will leave it to others to judge the record of the 1992 Government. In this Queen’s Speech debate, we will look to the future.

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[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I believe that this is a watershed Parliament for a watershed election. The question that will predominate throughout this Parliament will be the question of who governs us and how. That applies not only to the European issue, to which I will return in a moment, but to the Scottish question and the human rights issue, because each contains seminal questions—constitutional issues of a kind that have not been addressed properly for far, far too long. Now we have a Conservative Government who will address them.

I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for his victory, and I pay tribute to the small C conservatives of this country, from every home and every part of the regions of this land, who not only decided that they wanted the security and the stability with which the Conservative party with a big C was able to provide them, but whose common sense led to the pulverisation of the Liberal Democrats and at the same time the rejection of the potential alliance of the SNP and the Labour party, which, certainly from what I saw on the doorstep, scared people witless.

The bottom line is this: we now face very big challenges. I look at the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond); he will present us with a challenge, I have no doubt, and so will Members around him. He would be under a misapprehension, however, if he thought, as I did, in the light of a potential coalition, that it would be like the days of Parnell, because the House of Commons has changed very substantially since then. We have a solid phalanx of a majority of 12—[Interruption.] Yes, we do, and it will prevail in relation to the matters that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind.

On the Scottish question, we also have the issue of the Standing Orders. As I said earlier in an intervention, the legislation that devolved the functions has already been passed, so it is a matter not for legislation but for the Standing Orders of the House. I believe strongly that we will get that through. I know that we will have points of order and all sorts of shenanigans from the SNP, but this is an internal matter reflecting the legislative change that was made in 1997—

[Alex Salmond]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir William Cash]

I will certainly give way to the right hon. Gentleman, but he may not remember that in the debate in 1997—when the Labour party held the majority of the seats in Scotland—I actually proposed the idea of solving the West Lothian question by making changes to the Standing Orders.

[Alex Salmond]

If in that 1997 Parliament some nefarious members of the Labour Government had decided to restrict the hon. Gentleman’s voting rights by means of amending the Standing Orders, would that have been legitimate?

[Sir William Cash]

The question has been dealt with by legislation and the functions have been devolved. I was intrigued by the nuanced approach taken by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), but it must be conceded that because the Scottish Parliament has control over health and education it is unfair for Scottish Members of Parliament—it cannot be denied that they won a great victory in Scotland—to interfere in matters that belong properly and exclusively to English Members of Parliament.

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[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my colleague and friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris), although I confess that I do not completely concur with his economic analysis. I will come to that later.

I congratulate the hon. Members for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) and for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) on their excellent speeches, which I greatly enjoyed. Moreover, I compliment the SNP on being here in such large numbers. I feared that no one would be listening to my speech, and now I have a very large audience. I remember that when I made my maiden speech, I had the great pleasure and privilege of following the Speaker, who spoke only for a very short time—less than Winston Churchill, who spoke for one and a half hours, I think. [Interruption.] To be fair, it was a short speech—less than 40 minutes, I seem to remember.

Moving swiftly on, the key tests for the Queen’s Speech are these. Does it promote freedom? Does it promote equality? Does it bring unity to Britain? Does it bring strength? I would say—I will run through the arguments—that on all those counts it fails. The reality is that the Britain we are living in today is more divided than it was five years ago. It is more divided economically. I represent part of Wales. That is where the whole series of cuts has taken effect, be it in welfare, be it in the public services that many of our regions and nations depend on. Where has the investment been? It has been in London and the south-east. So we have seen imbalances. We have seen disproportionate attacks, with the bedroom tax and other severe cuts. Now, as I mentioned earlier, some Oxford University research is basically saying that, with £12 billion of welfare cuts in the pipeline, we will see another 1 million people relying on food banks. Already 1 million people do so. That is not the sort of country that many Opposition Members want to live in.

Nationally, we are seeing division. We are seeing division over Scotland. Scotland has risen and voted the way that it has for reasons that we can understand and need to discuss and debate and appreciate and respect.

There are also divisions over Europe. We are now talking about severing ourselves from Europe, and even renouncing the human rights and other great values that came from these proud islands. I think the Queen, in uttering her Speech today, will have thought that she has given much better speeches in the past, if I may put it that way.

There has been some suggestion that the economy is in great shape, but there are 800,000 fewer people earning over £20,000 now than there were five years ago, because the Conservatives have chopped up full-time jobs into zero-hours jobs, part-time jobs and low-paid jobs. They can say, “Look, we have created all these jobs,” but when we look at the overall amount of production, which is also indicated in productivity, we see that they have dismally failed because they have not invested in skills and they have flattened consumer demand. It is a complete nightmare.

I do not agree with the analysis of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West. I would point to the fact that, in the 10 years to 2008, the British economy grew by 40%. In 2008 we had a banking crisis, not of our making—[Hon. Members: “No!”] Look at Iceland; look at Greece; look at the United States—are Conservatives Members blind or just plain stupid? We had a global crisis. [Interruption.] Please be quiet. We had a global crisis, and Obama and Brown intervened with the fiscal stimulus. They stopped a world depression and they got Britain growing by 2010.

In 2010, the Tory Chancellor arrived and he announced that 500,000 people in the public services would be sacked. Those people stopped spending and started saving. Consumer demand flatlined and we have had a flatlining economy since. Debt, as a share of the economy, has grown from 55% in 2010 to 80% now. The Tories have borrowed more in five years than Labour did in 13—and we had to bail out the banks. Is that success? No, it is absolute failure. So why did the Labour party do so badly in the election? We should put our hands up: we did not explain the economic narrative effectively enough, but that does not change the fact that we are in an appalling mess thanks to what the Tories have done.

What would be the prospects for future growth if we did not stay in the EU? The EU is a platform for international companies from India, China and elsewhere to enter the biggest economy in the world—Europe. We will have a referendum. The Labour party has now said that it wants a referendum, because the nation has decided we should have one, but international businesses are thinking, “Hold on, all bets are off. We are not going to invest in British production. We will go to France or Germany because we do not know whether Britain will stay in the EU.” Tata Steel, Airbus and Ford—in Bridgend in my constituency—are saying, “Hold on, we do not want to face tariffs of between 5% and 100%.” The Conservatives say that we will renegotiate and then we will have a vote, but the reality is that the Prime Minister will support staying in Europe without reform. To a certain extent, he is dithering around to pacify right-wing Tories and UKIP, putting the tactical interests of the Conservative party before the strategic interests of Britain, and that is disgraceful.

We see the same pattern of disgraceful short-termist political activity with human rights. We are part of the human rights convention, and we have a proud record on human rights, democracy and freedom as a beacon of hope in an uncertain world. Now we are saying, “We don’t like those human rights, so we will have our own.” If we do not agree with universal human rights, how do we think Vladimir Putin feels? He passed a law on Saturday that stops people saying things that might undermine the values of Russia. He is focusing on foreign-funded organisations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and saying they are dodgy people saying unhelpful things. Their workers could face imprisonment for up to six years. Putin is looking at us and saying that Britain appears to think that human rights are not universal, but culture-relative. We can have one set of human rights, Putin can have another and China yet another. Is that what we want? Of course not, and it is outrageous to suggest it.

In any case, learned lawyers have pointed out that the human rights changes will not happen because the Human Rights Act underpins the constitutional settlement in the devolved nations. It is also underpinned by international treaties, so the proposal is ridiculous and has been kicked into the long grass. But it says a lot about the Conservative party.

Other proposed Bills include the enterprise Bill. What does that have to do with improving productivity and infrastructure, and increasing skills? Nothing. All it says is that the Government will cut red tape by £10 billion. What does that mean? Normally it means that health and safety will be cut. The strike Bill is another example. The Conservatives say, “You have to have 40% of the workforce to have a legitimate strike.” In my constituency, the turnout was 62% and my vote was 42%, so 25% of my constituents voted for me—

[Alex Salmond]

That is low.

[Geraint Davies]

I know it is low by SNP standards. It certainly would not be enough for a proper strike under these proposals. In reality, it is very difficult to achieve 40% and it does not happen in local government. It is an attempt to change the balance of power in the workplace, another aspect of which is the creation of all those zero-hours jobs without any rights.

The way forward for Britain is greater productivity, high-wage jobs, high skills and a high-value, export-driven focus. It is not through hobbling people, taking away their wealth and making them work for a pittance.

The Queen has seen us through a world war and seen Britain emerge from the fire of war to create a health service, a welfare state and housing, out of a state of virtual bankruptcy. Now, we have ended up with penny-pinching Tories hobbling Britain. I hope that in our discussions we can think about growth instead of cuts to get down the deficit, and that we can work together to build a stronger, better, fairer Britain for all our children to share.