Women in the House of Commons

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Mr Sharma. I am not quite sure that that time limit will work for what I have here, but I will do the best that I can. I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for her speech and for her Committee’s work on its excellent report, and I thank all those who gave evidence to that Committee.

I share the disappointment of everybody who has spoken about the Government not taking on the recommendations. I hope that, now that we have a new Government, they may wish to revisit this and take another look at the recommendations, because they are good recommendations. I add to those who have talked about quotas, and I share their concerns: I suppose that quotas are not perfect or what we would want in an ideal world. However, we do not have an ideal world. Women are not equal to men in society—or in this building—so there has to be a disruptor to the selection process that starts to make the rules work a little bit more in women’s favour. If we leave it how it is, it will be a very long time before we actually see any change. Action on this is long overdue.

The right hon. Member for Basingstoke was right to talk about cultural factors and this building, the way it works and some of the behaviour that happens here. This is not new. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) referred to Winnie Ewing, who I will also refer to. Hers was one of the first political biographies that I read, and she reported that, in her time in this place, as the single female Scottish National party representative, she was

“interrupted whenever I spoke, I was regularly insulted and I was even defamed once or twice...I was even stalked by a Labour MP”.

She describes that stalking in some detail, although she does not name her stalker. That behaviour continued when she became a representative in the European Parliament as well. It took the chair of the European Parliament to write to the Speaker here to tell off those Members who continued to harass and upset her when she was in the European Parliament, which is completely unacceptable.

We know that that behaviour has not changed in recent years. My former colleague, Dr Eilidh Whiteford, was threatened with “a doing” in 2011 by a then Select Committee Chair, which is absolutely inappropriate. She felt that she had to withdraw from that Committee as a result of that. As we have seen from recent news of harassments, that is still a problem. It is still an issue, and we cannot be blind to it—we need to act.

Other Members have talked about their own experiences. My experience is that I have been well supported by men and women both in the SNP and not in the SNP. Like the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), I started as a local councillor, on Glasgow City Council. When I was first elected in 2007, the council was very male, pale and stale, and there was some very inappropriate behaviour by some of the older male councillors.

I had only been there for, I think, a matter of weeks before one of the male councillors thought it was appropriate to come up to my colleague and pat her on the stomach because he thought she was pregnant. She was not, but he should not have been doing that anyway; there is no need for that kind of behaviour. Some years later, when I was pregnant, a Labour councillor thought it would be appropriate, during meetings with other people present, to offer to deliver my baby. I made it perfectly clear how I felt about that kind of comment, but he persisted in making them because he knew I did not like it. There needs to be more challenging of those types of behaviours, because they are not funny; it is not a joke and it makes women feel uncomfortable.

I am glad to see that there has been progress in women’s representation in this place. In my own seat of Glasgow Central, none of the nine candidates were women in 2010, but three out of nine were women in 2015, and in 2017 it was the only seat in the country with an all-female candidate list. Progress has been made, but it is not enough. We need to think about how we support women when they get to this place. We need to look at maternity leave and support during pregnancy and we need to look at family-friendly hours. We also need to look at even more radical things. I have suggested before that we should have a version of the French suppléant system, in which Members could have somebody to job-share with or fill in for them when they are not here.

We also need to look at the impact of the boundary review and whether we can do more about safe seats and incumbency. To help to address those issues, the SNP has taken the approach that if a male MSP stands down, there will be an all-women shortlist in that seat to fill that gap. The former Member for Ochil and South Perthshire, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, is our national women and equalities officer. She has done a huge amount of work to encourage women to stand; she runs a women’s academy and is working to get women’s confidence up. That confidence is so important. Men will often put themselves forward for things after looking at the job description and thinking, “Of course I can do that,” when they can only do half of the things in the description. Women will look at the job description and think, “I couldn’t possibly do that.”

We need to encourage women to stand. We need to identify good women who have potential and ideas and things that they want to do to change the world. We need to get them to stand up and participate. We have seen a lot more female candidates coming forward in the SNP for council, which is a very important starting ground for people who want to get into politics and a very important part of politics. We need to support women in that. We cannot just encourage them and then take away any sense of structure. We need to keep that going over time and make sure that they continue to be supported.

We have some exceptional women in the SNP who I am very proud of. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston mentioned her mum, Lis Bardell, who is one of the most wonderful and exceptional encouragers in the party, and fearsome with it. We have a responsibility and a duty to make change and to make sure that, as the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn said, women get here and then get into positions of power where they can help to make change. Select Committee Chairs have huge power to influence, change and set the agenda. Without women in those positions, nothing will change in so many different areas, particularly those where policy hugely affects women. I thank Members for their contributions to the debate.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Masterton]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak, as a Scottish Conservative MP and as a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, on what I believe is being termed devolution day. I draw Members’ attention to the Committee’s—in my biased view—exceptional report, which our Chair, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), may well highlight at some point. The report was unanimous, and it draws on huge amounts of common ground between Scotland’s two Governments. That suggests that despite some histrionics, consensus exists on this area of the Bill, and that consensus will enable us to improve the Bill.

We must recognise that the debate takes place in the context of active, and now constructive, talks between the UK and the Scottish Government. That makes it a little difficult to debate the words on the page, because there are so many moving parts, but I will focus my remarks on where I believe clause 11 needs to end up and the route that the Scottish Conservatives envisage for getting there.

As has been addressed, several provisions of the Bill fall within the scope of the Sewel convention; in other words, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have been asked to give their consent to the Bill. The Scottish and Welsh Governments have signified that, unless the Bill is substantially amended, neither will recommend that consent be given. The UK Government’s position is, I believe, the right one. They are committed to working to obtain a legislative consent motion and expect to achieve one.

As Scottish Conservatives, we are committed to ensuring that the Scottish Parliament can give its consent to the passage of the Bill. As Members may not all be aware of the timescale, I will explain that the plan is for the Scottish Parliament to vote on whether to grant a legislative consent motion ahead of the Third Reading of the Bill in the other place. It is not an all-or-nothing event; it is perfectly possible for an LCM to be initially denied, and then for another vote on granting an LCM to be taken and passed at a later date.

Although, as readers of The Daily Telegraph will be aware, I have a number of issues with the Bill, by far the biggest concern regarding devolution is clause 11. It is my view that if we can fix clause 11, most of the other issues regarding the Bill’s impact on devolution will fall away. On Second Reading, I said that I would not allow legislation to pass that undermined the Union or the devolution settlement, and that remains my position today.

There are 111 powers currently exercised at EU level that do not fall within reserved competence under the Scotland Act 1998 and are therefore, under the scheme of the Act, devolved. Clause 11 will effectively hold those powers at Westminster level. Although that is a sensible interim measure, as the Scottish Affairs Committee heard in evidence during its enquiry, the interim phase has given rise to the “power grab” melodrama that we have heard from the SNP.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to tell us how interim interim is?

[Paul Masterton]

If the hon. Lady will bear with me, I am coming on to talk about that.

Clause 11 provides that the 111 powers that I have mentioned will be released to Scottish Ministers on a case-by-case basis once UK Ministers are satisfied that it is safe to do so. There is no timescale for that, and the process is unilateral. Under clause 11, the powers, once repatriated from the EU to the UK, are for UK Ministers to exercise or to devolve, as they see fit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes]

Having listened to this debate for seven hours and been in the Chamber for most of it, I can say that occasionally it was like watching paint dry. I want to comment on something that the Minister just said: that the Government cannot accept changes that would undermine the UK internal market or businesses. That seems a little ironic on the day the Prime Minister has shown how strong and stable she is and when we are in such a crisis over Northern Ireland and the issues relating to the Good Friday agreement.

Sadly, Democratic Unionist party Members seem to have gone AWOL; I assume that they are out discussing how to spend £1 billion. They, of course, were not part of the negotiations that led to the Good Friday agreement and were not happy when we brought in the institutional frameworks established as a result of the 1998 legislation. I had the pleasure of being in Mo Mowlam’s team during those negotiations. I was a very minor person in the process—as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Political Development Minister, my good friend Paul Murphy—but it was a great achievement of our Labour Government.

As Tony Blair has so eloquently put it and John Major has also said, today the Good Friday agreement is in danger. Those of us who have looked at these issues understand that the agreement has three strands. One is the internal political situation in Northern Ireland, which is clearly not going well. The Assembly and Executive are not functioning and the civic forum that was supposed to be established under the Good Friday agreement does not exist.

Then there is strand 2, which is the Irish dimension, the North South Ministerial Council and the implementation bodies; it is supposed to cover agriculture, education, transport, the environment, health and EU programmes. Strand 2 is going to be undermined by the decision to leave the single market and the customs union.

Then there is strand 3, which is the east-west British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. We now understand that the Irish Government are right to express concerns about the position we face. I was in Dublin three weeks ago with the Foreign Affairs Committee. We also went to County Cavan. We drove along the road that goes from one side of the border to the other, and back across, through County Monaghan. The only way anyone knows they are in Northern Ireland is that there is a building with a “Fireworks for sale” sign. Fireworks cannot be sold in the Irish Republic, but they can be bought in Northern Ireland—that is a bit ironic, but we will not go there.

The reality is that we have fields on both sides of the border, cows that move backwards and forwards, farmhouses that are divided and institutional structures such as the veterinary organisations. We have the milk that is taken from cows in the south and cows in the north, put together in the same factory, mixed together with whiskey, and comes out as Baileys, which is then marketed as an Irish whiskey derivative, and there is an all-Ireland trade arrangement on that basis. Similarly, with tourism, Northern Ireland and the Republic are promoted together globally.

We are putting all this in jeopardy—putting it all at risk. We have to understand how difficult it was to get the Good Friday agreement and how not necessarily just the reality of the economics but the symbolism of the politics will come back, and people will have to think about their differences rather than what unites them. At the moment, there are many Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland because one can have either a British passport or an Irish passport—it does not matter. Will the European Court of Justice apply to those people living in Northern Ireland? Will they have protection even though they are living in the UK? These are interesting and complicated issues.

The Mayor of London, the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government have all said that we need to stay in the single market and the customs union, but above all we need to listen to the voices of the people of Northern Ireland, who want us to stay in the single market and the customs union. Although they claim the contrary, Democratic Unionist party Members do not speak for Northern Ireland—they speak only for one part of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland voted to remain. Northern Ireland wants to be in the single market. Northern Ireland, collectively, wants to keep the institutions of the Good Friday agreement.

It is fundamentally important that we recognise in this Bill that there are special circumstances relating to Northern Ireland. When I intervened on the Minister—eventually he gave way to me—he did not respond to my point, which was that there is no specific understanding of the differences in Northern Ireland. The all-Irish Good Friday agreement—Belfast agreement—institutional framework is crucial and fundamental, and we have to preserve it and keep it. We will break up the United Kingdom and we will cause dangers and conflict again on the island of Ireland. We will damage relations with our closest neighbour and best friend. We have such a good British-Irish relationship, as we saw when Her Majesty the Queen went to Croke Park, and as Mary McAleese told us when she was the Irish President at the time. That is at risk, and we must not let it happen. Please, please support the continuation of the Good Friday agreement.

[Alison Thewliss]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), because that was an absolutely perfect speech. It had to be made and I am glad that he did it.

We have talked in general terms today about lots of the things to do with the new clause and what it might mean, about clause 11, and about the 111 things that require some attention. I want to look at how issues of waste are dealt with within the EU. The EU waste framework directive flows into the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012. The European landfill directive, the European packaging and packaging waste directive, and various other EU directives are currently implemented by the Scottish Government. The EU sets the rules within those frameworks and directives, and the Scottish Government have flexibility, as do the other devolved nations, on how they implement them.

Without any certainty over what happens on the day of Brexit, we can have no deal, no certainty and no regulation of those matters. In Scotland, we have developed a circular economy strategy and made a lot of progress towards the implementation of the EU’s circular economy action plan. We have made more progress than the rest of the UK has, and we have made different progress. The directives have given us the flexibility to take a different road. Were the matter to come back to the UK Government, we could not be guaranteed the flexibility we need to make progress with the plans that we have already embarked on.

The Local Government Information Unit recently produced an excellent briefing on waste disposal and Brexit. The briefing raises specific concerns about the future UK directive, which could well be less ambitious than our plans. We have heard a lot from various Tories in the past about cutting red tape and regulations, but doing so could have a serious impact on the interesting and important issue of waste collection. Scotland’s zero waste plan is award winning and ambitious, as we are on climate change. We should have full control over it, and we should not have to drag behind the UK if it does not wish to step forward as quickly as we do.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady says that the plan is ambitious, but, in practice, waste from Scotland is simply being transferred into England, and there is very little enforcement of the so-called zero waste plan.

[Alison Thewliss]

I would take issue with that, and our plan is ambitious. An awful lot of our plan depends on the existence of a European market for waste. Lots of waste goes backwards and forwards to Europe for processing.

There has been no clear detail from the Government about what they mean by an interim period or a temporary period before further powers are released to the Scottish Government. We already know that the market for waste exists, and taking that market away will create uncertainty. Businesses face huge uncertainty, because there is a big private market in waste; I have a large processing facility in my constituency, for example. The Confederation of Paper Industries has said that its members need to be sure which regulations they will have to operate under. If paper is going into European markets, it needs to meet the standards required by those markets, so we need the regulations in place to allow that to happen.

Hon. Members might not know that paper is a £6.5 billion industry. The UK is the world’s largest net importer of paper, and the industry is doing quite well out of the Bill, which is producing huge amounts of paper. The regulations determine our participation in the paper market, and certainty is important. We need clarity, so that we can make progress on recycling and other things that we have started on. If our ability to work under directives is taken back to the UK Government, who do not share exactly our environmental ambitions or links to European markets, where does that leave Scotland?

There is uncertainty as well for local government. If we do not have the rules or the framework, can we just throw our waste in the street and the council is no longer obliged to collect it? Those things are underpinned by EU waste directives about the processing and treatment of waste, and without them there is no framework at all.

I want to speak briefly about where the power lies in another area. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) and a couple of hon. Members who are no longer in their places mentioned food and food labelling, a lot of which is dealt with by the European Food Safety Authority. Of particular interest to me is the labelling and marketing of infant formula. I am fairly sure that the Scottish Government may wish to act to regulate infant formula further, but the UK, as has been evidenced in questions that I have raised on the issue, may not wish to do so.

The UK has long used EU law as a means to get around the full implementation of the international code of marketing of breast-milk substitutes. If we are no longer in the EU and we can set up the frameworks ourselves and make progress on the issue, why should the Scottish Government have to lag behind? Why should we have to wait while those powers are held at Westminster for an indeterminate length of time—it has been described as temporary and interim, but how long it is we do not know—when we want to make progress on policies?

The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) made a very good point about organ donation and presumed consent in that, when the Welsh Government had such powers, they made progress and had a good policy, which has led the way in the UK. In Scotland, we have had the smoking ban and other progressive health policies. If action on such policies is wrapped up in frameworks or EU directives, how can we be certain—in the context of clause 11 and of this Government not accepting any amendments that would give the devolved Administrations competence in these areas—that the devolved Administrations will be able to take the action we actually want to take, and how long will we have to wait for Westminster to give us back our powers?

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

1. What humanitarian support her Department is providing to Yemen.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

3. What humanitarian support her Department is providing to Yemen.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Penny Mordaunt)]

Yemen is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 21 million people in need of aid. The crisis will lead to famine unless all sides allow immediate commercial and humanitarian access throughout the country. The UK is playing a leading role in the current humanitarian and diplomatic response.

[Penny Mordaunt]

We have been very clear that although we understand the coalition’s security concerns, they are not incompatible with allowing food and other supplies into the country. A huge diplomatic effort is being made, led by the Prime Minister, and she is using her visit this week to press further still. There has been movement in getting some aid and commercial supplies through, but that will not be enough. We need to keep pressing, and that is what this Government will do.

[Alison Thewliss]

The Foreign Secretary met a range of international partners yesterday. Unfortunately, the communiqué from that meeting seemed to talk a lot more about weapons than about getting aid and commercial goods into Yemen. Will the Secretary of State tell me a bit more about what the UK Government are doing to get aid and commercial goods into the country? Aid agencies know that the country needs not just aid but commercial goods. Each day, 130 children are dying in Yemen. We cannot wait any longer.

[Penny Mordaunt]

The communiqué did speak about what we are doing. In addition to the diplomatic efforts, a large part of my time since I have been in post has been spent looking at the other possible options in order logistically to get what is needed to the people who need it. There are immense problems, but we are looking at plan B—what else we can do. The key thing, and the only way to get the full supplies in, is to open up those two ports, and that is what we are pressing for.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Rory Stewart)]

I have recently returned from a visit to Zimbabwe. These are early days, and we need to watch very carefully what kinds of economic and political reforms are introduced by Mr Mnangagwa’s Government. However, if such reforms are forthcoming, there is a great deal that the British Government can do: first, in supporting governance reform; secondly, in supporting the business climate; and thirdly, in getting International Monetary Fund support for the Government of Zimbabwe.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

T6. On Monday evening, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow presented its excellent report on “Global Citizenship in the Scottish Health Service”. [Interruption.] What discussions have taken place between DFID and health service officials across the UK about harnessing the huge mutual benefits of supporting health staff to volunteer overseas? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I hope the Secretary of State heard that question amidst the clubbable hubbub. It is very important that the question be heard, otherwise the hon. Lady will have to blurt it out again.

Proportional Representation

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Sir Roger; I will try to keep to time. In preparing for the debate, I texted my modern studies teacher from high school to ask quite how long I have been thinking about this particular issue. She reckons it is probably since the start of third year at high school. The organisations supporting the debate should have produced a bingo card for all the arguments raised; we would probably have had a full house about an hour ago.

There is a package of measures other than the electoral system—votes at 16, House of Lords reform and, most of all, our engagement with our constituents—that we need to have a better democracy. However, a good voting system that is fair, representative and allows a wide range of views to be heard and represented in Parliament is very much the most important. It seems that our system is increasingly discredited and increasingly does not represent a wide range of views.

We have experience of proportional representation in Scotland—not only in the Scottish Parliament, which has been talked about quite a lot, but in Scottish local government. I was lucky enough to be elected twice to Glasgow City Council under the single transferrable vote system. That system removed, at a stroke, the one-party state that Glasgow City Council had been for many years and brought a range of new voices on to the council, including Greens, Lib Dems and a Tory. That brought a huge range of views to the council, to the point where research by the Electoral Reform Society found a council officer saying, “It gave us our council back.” There was actually debate and discussion, which is something we should very much value. That was a positive experience.

Constituency size has been mentioned. I think Glasgow had three and four-member wards, which achieved all three or four members being a strong voice for the area and campaigning together in that area on local issues, such as the closure of the local sorting office. That amplified the issue. On the negative side, a constituent could be represented by a councillor who for years had done hee haw for them, but they then had somebody else they could go to who could help and be there for them. That was a positive for many of my constituents. While mine was a larger council ward, I certainly found that I had that link with people, and I still have that link with a lot of those constituents because it is in the same area as my parliamentary constituency. That has been a good and positive experience for those people. They had known nothing but Labour councillors until that point, but they now have the opportunity to be more widely represented, which is absolutely a positive and is more reflective of their views. Having politicians competing in an area for interest and votes can only be a good thing, because they will try to get their work done that bit better and faster.

The European Parliament list, which is a closed system, has its limitations, as has been raised. However, in the Scottish National party, as in the Labour party, the list is decided by party members. We have the second largest party membership in the UK, so that is quite a big pool to draw from when selecting representatives for that list. That is a good thing and should be encouraged.

One disadvantage of our current system is that it has so many things that are negative and skew it. As was mentioned, marginal seats are targeted, with parties throwing all kinds of money at them to try to win them back, whereas voters who do not live in a marginal seat are lucky to get a couple of leaflets through the door. That is not a good and representative system, and we need to think a bit better about how we get around and change those things. PR, under which all votes count a good deal more, would certainly be one way to change that, particularly when asking for second or third preferences from constituents, as happens in Ireland, which has a far more competitive system where people fight for those votes. Electors in that system want people fighting for their votes.

It is also important that we talk about how we set politics up. Constituency size is an issue, and the European Parliament constituencies are perhaps too large. That is a factor in people not knowing who their representative is, but some of it comes down to the representative and their ability to communicate and connect. It is a burden on those people to try to represent such huge constituencies. However, where there is a balance, as in Scotland with regional lists, it is a good and fair balance, and people can make those links, make that change and actually connect with their constituents. We need to do a lot more connecting, but we also need to look at the fundamental structures of the system, because it is not working at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. The Government welcome this debate on the merits and drawbacks of adopting proportional representation and the opportunity to address the important issues raised by hon. Members. It is fantastic to see such a strong turnout in Westminster Hall for this three-hour debate.

Members have made their arguments eloquently, and we have had a good-natured and high-quality debate that has shown us at our best. Clearly, how we select our representatives in Parliament is of fundamental importance, and Members rightly have strong views on the merits and disadvantages of various voting systems that have sometimes, as we have seen, gone beyond the traditional confines of party politics. The choice of voting system is central to our democracy, which is why such debates are important. I thank the 103,000 petitioners who triggered the debate, as well as the Petitions Committee and its representative, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), for giving us the opportunity to have it.

The Government are committed above all to ensuring that the laws governing our elections are clear and generate the greatest degree of confidence. Under the first-past-the-post system, electors select their preferred candidate for their constituency. The candidate with the largest number of votes wins, and the party with the largest number of elected candidates may form a Government. The electorate understand well how their representatives in Parliament are selected under the first-past-the-post system, and it makes it easier for electoral administrators to deliver an election accurately and quickly. The Government therefore do not support proportional representation, as we consider it to be more complicated without delivering the same benefits as first past the post.

[Alison Thewliss]

The Minister might not be aware that using the single transferable vote system for local government in Scotland allows us to use electronic counting. Has he attended any electronic counts in Scotland to see how simple and well-operated they are?

[Chris Skidmore]

Devolved legislatures have the ability to choose various voting systems; the Government provided those freedoms in the past. I have not attended an electronic count, but I understand that there have been a number of difficulties running them in Scotland. I also understand that we have given Wales the freedom to consider electronic voting in future, and I look forward to seeing what comes from the pilots there.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) mentioned, we committed in our manifesto not only to retain first past the post for parliamentary elections but to extend it to elections for police and crime commissioners and Mayors. In line with that, the Government have no plans to change the voting system for elections to the House of Commons. We will seek to legislate on that matter—

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I can confirm that Glasgow will continue to have a considerably higher concentration of jobcentres not only than the large cities in England but compared with most other large cities in Scotland. We have redesigned the estate to make sure that we can provide well for our client base, but from bigger jobcentres. There are a number of things we can do from larger jobcentres to help unemployed people that it is not so straightforward to do from smaller ones.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Bridgeton jobcentre in my constituency will close and people will have to take two buses to get to Shettleston. Will the Minister give a commitment that not a single one of my constituents will be sanctioned for being late because they could not get there on time because of his cuts?

[Damian Hinds]

We expect people who are not in work to have the working week effectively available for their job-search activities, including visiting the jobcentre and, of course, applying for jobs. As I think the hon. Lady already knows, the rate of sanctions is down significantly. The vast majority of people do not get sanctioned every month, and we run a policy of having a reasonable approach. If people have a good reason for not being at an appointment, they will not be sanctioned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am told by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that he may have excitement coming soon.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

9. Whether the additional funding provided to Northern Ireland announced in the Government's agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party will have consequences on funding for Scotland.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

11. Whether the additional funding provided to Northern Ireland announced in the Government's agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party will have consequences on funding for Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is excessive noise in the Chamber. To my certain knowledge, at least one retired teacher is in the precincts of the Palace observing our proceedings; she would want there to be a seemly atmosphere.

[Alison Thewliss]

The running total given by the UK Government to city deals in Scotland since 2014 is already dwarfed by the sums given by local government and the Scottish Government. If £1.5 billion can be found overnight for the DUP deal to hold up this Tory Government, when will the Government find the money for the Tay cities deal, the Ayrshire growth deal and the Perth deal?

[David Mundell]

I am surprised at the hon. Lady’s tone because the Government have committed to delivering city deals across Scotland. There will imminently be some exciting news about Edinburgh. I would have thought she would welcome that, rather than simply politicking.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously, decisions on this issue are being taken by the Birmingham local authority, but it ill behoves any Member of the Labour party to stand up in this House and complain about the issues with public spending that we have had to address, because they are the direct result of the failure of a Labour Government to manage our economy.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

rose—

European Council

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I indicated earlier to the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson), those issues will be part of the negotiations. But I am bound to point out that I stood at this Dispatch Box as Home Secretary and argued for the United Kingdom to remain in the European arrest warrant, during a debate in which the Labour party was trying to stop us getting the legislation through.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Members are chuntering “It’s true” and “It’s not true” from a sedentary position. It is all very well, but it is rather unfair to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who wishes to unburden herself of a series of important thoughts that the nation should hear.

[Alison Thewliss]

Every week in my surgery I see constituents who are already worn down by the incompetence, intransigence and unkindness of the Home Office. What steps will the Prime Minister take to give the Home Office adequate funding to deal with all the additional EU nationals who will now need to be processed?

[The Prime Minister]

The Home Office is well able to deal with the issues that it will be addressing, and it will be ensuring, as I indicated in an earlier response, that the process that people will go through will be streamlined and light-touch.

Northern Ireland

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I welcome another of my hon. Friends to his place. He is exactly right. The city deals and the city region deals have proved one of the most successful innovations of this Government. I look forward to the people of his constituency benefiting from them, as people in constituencies across the UK already have.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State for Scotland is not in his place—no doubt he is off somewhere polishing his brass neck—so I will have to tell the First Secretary of State that the city deals arranged in Scotland have come at a cost to local government and the Scottish Government. The UK Government are paying only £678 million, whereas the Scottish Government and local government in Scotland have put in £1.3 billion. How much are local authorities in Belfast and in Northern Ireland as a whole expected to put into the city deals?

Grenfell Tower

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The fire and rescue service has representation at the meetings that I have been chairing in relation to the response to Grenfell Tower. The issue of the advice that has been given to residents has been raised with it. Obviously this matter will need reflection and consideration, and I would expect it also to be one that the inquiry will look at.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

May I ask that as part of the inquiry an assessment is carried out of the capacity of the fire service to respond to incidents such as this, particularly with reference to crewing and high-reach appliances?

[The Prime Minister]

The fire service was able to respond in this instance, but of course when the inquiry looks at these issues I would expect that to be one that it considers.

Debate on the Address

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I commend my hon. Friend for his work in this area. I know that many constituents have come to him who are enormously affected by the changes. It is important that the Government reflect on the impact of the changes and that they change course.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Ian Blackford]

I need to make some progress; I apologise.

We know that a decade of austerity will see the highest inequality since the Conservative Government under Margaret Thatcher. While Tory Members might proclaim cuts to Government spending, they mean real pain and hardship for people across the country. The SNP has consistently opposed austerity and we are offering a credible alternative. Our approach to the public finances would balance the UK budget for day-to-day spending by the end of the Parliament. It would set debt on a downward path and, crucially, free up an additional £118 billion of public investment over the Parliament to grow the economy, safeguarding public services and protecting household incomes—a clear alternative to five more years of Tory austerity; investment and hope, not more destructive cuts.

Those on low incomes who rely on in-work social security, and the vulnerable and the disabled, face a further £9 billion of additional social security cuts from this Tory Government. There is an alternative. Where Labour has only pledged to reverse less than a quarter of those cuts, SNP MPs will stand against all the further planned cuts to social security. Our pensioners, too, now face real pain from Tory austerity. The Government’s intention to remove the triple lock and raid the winter fuel allowance will hit pensioners hard, at a time when their budgets are hard pressed. In the highlands of Scotland, 77% of pensioners are in fuel poverty. Until we have driven fuel poverty out of our society, we need to make sure that we are standing up for the rights of our pensioners.

[Ian Blackford]

I find that quite extraordinary, because the real-terms cut to the Scottish budget over the last 10 years has been about £2.9 billion and it is simply because of Tory austerity. Yes, we support the Barnett formula, because it is applied on a needs basis. It is interesting that others have wanted to take it away. It is not the SNP who are a threat to the public finances in Scotland; it is those who want to attack the Barnett formula. Let me make it absolutely clear: in any back-door deal that is done with the DUP, if there is any increase in spending in Northern Ireland, which we would of course welcome, that must be reflected in the Barnett formula. Scotland must be protected by any deal that the Conservatives do.

SNP MPs will oppose the removal of the triple lock, so that our pensioners still see the pension that they worked for rise, and we will continue to support the WASPI women in their campaign to secure fairness. The Government must act with speed to address the WASPI issue. The Prime Minister and her Government must reflect on the circumstances that the WASPI women are in and put in place mitigation.

The most startling impact of austerity is the effect it has on children in working families. The incomes of the poorest third of working-age households will fall by 10% over the next four years, driving a further 1 million children across the United Kingdom into poverty. It was no wonder that in the last Parliament the previous Secretary of State for Work and Pensions wanted to redefine child poverty, because the numbers are quite simply eye-watering and shameful. By 2021, more than 5 million children across the UK—a number equivalent to the total population of Scotland—could be living in poverty, in one of the richest countries in the world. Above all, austerity erodes our public services, at a time when we need more than ever to ensure that our public services are well funded and delivering for people in our communities. In this Parliament, SNP MPs will champion our public services.

Over the past 10 years, the SNP Scottish Government have prioritised the health service and we will continue to do so. Our NHS, like health services across the world, faces real challenges. However, in Scotland, patient satisfaction is at record levels. Our hospital A&Es are the best performing in the United Kingdom. Many nurses in Scotland are better paid than in the rest of the UK. Our health service in Scotland will be £2 billion better off by the end of this Parliament. However, we want to go further. If the UK Government chose to increase health spending per head of population in England to the current Scottish level, which is 7% higher, that would mean more money for the NHS, not just in Scotland but across the UK. It would increase the health budget in England by £11 billion more than inflation by 2022, and it would deliver funds to support up to £1 billion of additional investment in Scotland’s NHS.

Ensuring that everyone has a safe, warm and affordable home is central to the SNP Scottish Government’s drive to make this country fairer and more prosperous. Over the last parliamentary term, the SNP Government invested more than £1.7 billion in affordable housing. We are delivering more than 30,000 new affordable homes, and our target is 50,000 affordable homes by the end of this Parliament.

High-quality and well-funded public services, a growing economy with investment in business, and a fairer and more equal country are the alternatives to austerity. Given that they were denied their majority by the public, I had hoped that this Queen’s Speech might signal a Government who were more willing to listen and compromise, but I see scant evidence of that today.

In the last Parliament, the SNP was a real and effective opposition. It was the SNP that led the challenge to the proposed cuts in working tax credits which led to a coalition, here and elsewhere, that forced the Government to change course. It was my friend and colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who championed the campaign against the changes in tax credits for families with more than two children—what became known as the rape clause. We ask the Government again to revisit that issue.

[Alison Thewliss]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the campaign against the rape clause. Does he agree that there is a great contrast between the Scottish Government’s launch today of a social security system that describes social security as a human right and the fact that the rape clause breaches women’s and children’s human rights?

[Ian Blackford]

I absolutely agree. I see that the Prime Minister is present. I hope that she has listened very carefully to what my hon. Friend has said, and that the Government will reflect on the issue and deal with it in short order.

In conclusion—[Hon. Members: “Hurray!”] I could happily go on.

Faced with a right-wing Tory Government pursuing an austerity agenda that they have little mandate to implement, the SNP will table its own amendment to the Queen’s Speech, which will seek a change of direction towards the progressive policies that our public services and the economy need. In this Parliament of minorities, the SNP will take every opportunity to further Scotland’s interests. SNP Members will be prepared to work with parties throughout the House to deliver more progressive, fairer policies that will serve the interests of the people of this country. In this Parliament, SNP MPs will ensure that Scotland’s voice is heard louder and clearer than ever before.