EU Parliament Elections: Denial of Votes

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Again, what I would say is that we will ask the Electoral Commission to review that for anyone who did comply with the requirements, although clearly we would need to look at what happened in that particular instance with that particular ERO. Ultimately, at the end of the day the UC1 is not an optional process; we have to comply with the Council directive. That is not something we have an ability just to vary.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

First, I would like to thank David Miller and his team at Glasgow City Council for doing their very best in the circumstances this shambolic Government have thrown at them. Those circumstances resulted in one of my constituents, who had registered in time when they moved into their property in Dalmarnock, not having enough time to get the UC1 form back and therefore losing their democratic rights. Will the Minister issue an instruction to returning officers to ask them how many people lost their votes in similar circumstances, and to ask for their advice on what the Government should do in response?

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Clearly, it is the Electoral Commission that will be conducting the review of how the election went, and I am almost certain it will be in contact with local returning officers to discuss any issues that were raised. Likewise, at that point it would certainly more than welcome and would probably be quite interested in hearing the experiences of how the process operated in reality.

Wales: Regional Development Funding

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I will be as brief as I can, Sir Graham. I thank the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on post-Brexit funding for nations, regions and local areas, for the work he has done in this area. It is important work and it has really exposed the lack of planning by the UK Government on a matter of such importance to Wales and Scotland.

It is quite disturbing that communities and charities have been waiting for years to find out what funding will be available after Brexit, and we urgently need from the Minister the details of this so-called UK shared prosperity fund. It is also important to note those issues that must be considered when setting up the fund, including its priorities and objectives, as hon. Members have already said, as well as the sums of money involved, the allocation method and model, the length of planning and who will administer it, because at the moment these matters are devolved matters, serving devolved priorities, which each devolved institution can decide upon and set the priorities for spending.

It is deeply worrying that, as the hon. Member for Aberavon set out, there appears to be a power-grab, plain and simple, because there is no clarity about what will happen. When questions have been asked about this, in local government questions and in other places, it has looked to some as though this process is a means of bringing powers back to the UK Government to decide what Scotland and Wales shall get, rather than Scotland and Wales deciding for themselves what they actually need. It is important that we do not lose that devolved power.

It is also critical for our communities and charities to know what the future funding will be. The EU funding will run out in 2020, and there are charities, businesses and all types of organisations the length and breadth of these islands that need to know, for planning purposes, whether or not they will have funding in just over a year’s time. Yet we still have not seen a consultation, even though the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has promised to publish full details. In November the Wales Office told MPs that a full consultation would be published before the end of 2018, and six months on we are still waiting. I seek some clarity from the Minister today on exactly what that consultation will look like and when it will begin.

The only real information that we have had was a written statement from last July, which consisted of a future planning framework for England, which does not reassure any of us today that Welsh needs will be taken into account. I know that my colleague in the Scottish Government, Aileen Campbell, has written to ask about that issue, but she has not had much by way of a response that will set out what exactly will happen in those inquiries.

What we know is that analysis from the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions estimates that the UK would have been entitled to approximately €13 billion of regional development funds from 2021 to 2027 if the UK stayed in the EU. If the UK’s Stronger Towns fund is anything to go by, the funding for the SPF will be only 10% of what the UK would have received from EU cohesion funds, so we need to know from the Minister today when this funding is coming, and will he guarantee that there will be not one penny less for Wales or for Scotland in the new fund?

National Security Council Leak

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

There was a thorough investigation. Every ministerial member of the National Security Council, and those officials and special advisers who might have had access to the material relating to the proceedings of that particular meeting, was spoken to and, as the Prime Minister’s letter yesterday made clear, co-operated fully with the investigation. The investigation report was presented to the Prime Minister by the Cabinet Secretary and, having studied it, my right hon. Friend came to the conclusion that there was “compelling evidence” to suggest responsibility on the part of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire. As she said in her letter to him yesterday, she took into account the fact that, in the findings of the investigation, there was a difference between the conduct of the former Secretary of State and his team compared with the conduct of other Ministers and their teams. That is why she came to the conclusion that she did. I repeat that this comes back to the question of Ministers serving in office so long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister. That is a principle that has applied to every Government in this country, and it is what applied in this case.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

By all accounts, the former Defence Secretary is the 38th person to lose their job in a Government riddled with incompetence and disloyalty, so it really is going some actually to be sacked by the Prime Minister. What she has described as a grave breach of trust has been enough to lead to his sacking, so why has it not been enough to call in the police?

[Mr Lidington]

For the reasons that I have given in response to a number of earlier questions. The key issue here is less the substance of what was disclosed and more the fact that the disclosure was made in respect of proceedings of the National Security Council.

Exiting the European Union

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady was saying that she had objections to the backstop, or not, because there have been mixed messages from her side of the House. The risk with what she said about the economic consequences is that she is seeking to re-fight the referendum campaign of 2016. Whether we liked that result or not, the result of the referendum was as it was. No European leader has questioned the democratic legitimacy of that referendum result, and I do think that there would be some serious damage to what is already fragile public confidence in our democratic institutions were we simply to disregard it.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

On a slightly different matter, the Hansard Society says that 485 Brexit statutory instruments have been tabled but only 247—some 52%—have completed their passage through this House. I have here one of the ones for tomorrow. It is ridiculous in its level of detail—and all of this is supposed to be done by Brexit day. How much are the Government hiding in these SIs, and how can we in this House possibly hold them to account?

[Mr Lidington]

To judge by the size of that document, it is probably a combined statutory instrument which brings together identical changes in regulatory arrangements that have to be reflected in changes to different secondary legislative instruments. The Committees that deal with statutory instruments in this House and the House of Lords have expressly called on the Government to use combined SIs in that manner.

UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are seeing business confidence falling and investment falling. These things are matters of fact.

I will come to some more figures in a moment, but first I wish to talk about the UK’s standing in the world. People talk about democracy and the UK’s standing. They talk of unelected bureaucrats, but the greatest number of parliamentarians are the unelected ones in the House of Lords. That is not democracy. The European Parliament is elected, the Commission is accountable to that Parliament, and the Council is made up of the 28 elected Governments as well. That is a damn sight more democratic than this place is.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a good point about democratic accountability. I have been serving on the Committees for countless financial services statutory instruments that will take powers and give them to the Financial Conduct Authority, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Treasury, and the Government will not give them to MPs in this House.

[Stephen Gethins]

It has been extraordinary. As usual, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point about how the Government have tried to take powers away. They have tried to take votes from us and they have tried to take away our ability to hold them to account in a way that they just could not get away with in the European institutions, whether they like it or not.

On the lack of planning and that vote leave on a blank piece of paper, I think Donald Tusk was being restrained when he said that there is a special place in hell for those who backed Brexit without a clue about how to get there. For all those snowflakes who feigned outrage about his remarks, this is a man who fought the communists—he was living under a Soviet vassal state at that point, unlike others—and who stood up for and was arrested for his beliefs, yet when he points out the blindingly obvious, he gets dragged over the coals for it. What outrage. It was faux outrage.

Leaving the European Union

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

We all know that no deal would be an absolute catastrophe on so many different levels. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that her own deal will have a huge impact on the economy as well? Cutting immigration of EU nationals by 80% will be the ruination of many cities and towns across our country.

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the hon. Lady that we now have the opportunity, as a result of leaving the European Union, to put a new immigration system into place—yes, to bring an end to free movement once and for all; that was an important element of the referendum debate and the reason why, I think, quite a number of people voted to leave the European Union. We can now put in place an immigration system based not on where somebody comes from, but on the skills they have and the contribution they will make to this country.

Leaving the European Union

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend raises an important issue. I believe one reason people voted to leave the EU was that they wanted to leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and that is what we want to deliver.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister said that EU citizens in the UK will be able to stay and continue to access in-country benefits and services on roughly the same terms as now. Is she aware that my constituents and many of those of my hon. Friends have been finding it difficult to access universal credit on the basis that they have not been here long enough? Will she look into this, because it seems that EU citizens are already being denied their rights? It is a new hostile environment for EU nationals.

[The Prime Minister]

The scheme that the Home Office has set out is very clear about the rights that EU citizens would have, and the withdrawal agreement, which I think the hon. Lady voted against, also sets out clearly the rights of EU citizens upon our leaving the EU, but I will ensure that the relevant Department looks at the issue she raises.

No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I have no confidence in this Government and I never have done. I have no confidence because of how the Department for Work and Pensions treats people. I have no confidence because of the constituent who was sanctioned because they were visiting their dying father. I have no confidence because another constituent was sanctioned while waiting to start a job with the DWP. I have no confidence because of the way people on the personal independence payment are treated. I have no confidence because of how the two-child policy and the rape clause have been pursued against vulnerable women in our society: they must be scrapped. I have no confidence because of the closure of Glasgow’s jobcentres.

I have no confidence in the Government because of the implementation of the hostile environment, with refugees having been left waiting and constituents unable to be with their families. I have no confidence because of the constituent who lost out on his wife’s visa because he was £7 under the threshold. I have no confidence in the Government because of the good character test that is being applied to children, some of whom cannot get citizenship because the Government think they are not of good enough character. While speaking of good character, I have no confidence in the Government because the Home Office told my constituent that he could not get citizenship because he had volunteered with the Red Cross and that that was a sign of bad character. I have no confidence in the Government because of their pursuance of section 322(5) of the immigration rules, whereby people have lost out on leave to remain because they had made a legitimate change to their tax returns that the Government thought was somehow wrong.

I have no confidence in the Government because of their abject failure to deal with Scottish limited partnerships and to reform Companies House. It is almost as if they like money laundering in this country. I have no confidence in the Government because of their refusal, despite all the evidence, to allow Glasgow to pursue supervised drug consumption rooms. It is expected that drug deaths in Scotland will top 1,000 this coming year, but the Government refuse to act for ideological reasons, so I have absolutely no confidence in them.

I have no confidence in the Government because they fail to realise that young people deserve a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. They think that under-25s are not worth the same when they go out to work. This pretendy living wage fails to give people the dignity in work that they deserve.

I have no confidence in the Government because of their failure to tackle the real and present danger that Brexit will cause to all our constituents. They have put their head in the sand and are refusing to accept that the single market and the customs union are the best way forward.

I do have confidence in the people of my constituency. I have confidence in the people of Glasgow and the people of Scotland who voted for independence with such hope in 2014, and I know that when Scotland gets its chance again it will have no confidence in this Government and lots of confidence in itself.

Leaving the EU

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

May I gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that, actually, the Conservative party is in government in this country and we will deliver on the referendum of 2016?

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

This Prime Minister and this Government have been engaging in acts of outright fuddery—the spreading of fear, uncertainty and doubt—with the bizarre spectacle of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury running up and down with planted notes saying, “No food” and “No channel tunnel”. Is it no surprise to the Prime Minister that people in Scotland, as they watch this ridiculous spectacle, are starting to think that we could do a lot better running things ourselves?

[The Prime Minister]

It is entirely right that we are taking those mitigation measures in relation to no deal to ensure that we can deal with that consequence should that be the situation in which we find ourselves. I say to the hon. Lady that she and a number of her colleagues, including the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), the leader of the SNP in Westminster, talk about listening to the voice of the people, but listening to the voice of the people means accepting the result of the 2014 Scottish referendum.

European Council

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The motion will, of course, be amendable when it comes before the House in January. However, I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that this is about ensuring that we can get the assurances from the European Union—that is what we are working on—and bring them back to this House, having listened to the concerns that have been raised by Members of this House.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister said in her statement that she is working on tackling the spread of deliberate, large-scale and systematic disinformation. Does that include the disinformation of Vote Leave and things printed on the side of buses?

[The Prime Minister]

A number of things were said on both sides of the campaign during the referendum on the European Union. The task we have before us is not to relive that referendum, but to get on with the job of delivering on it.