Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I certainly agree with the hon. Lady that more transparency is always helpful in highlighting where we need better opportunities for people to get into public life and politics, but we have to recognise that it is partly down to political parties to show that leadership and make that happen within their own organisations.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

2. What steps the Government is taking to tackle period poverty.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Last year, NHS England announced that it would offer period products to every hospital patient who needs them, and the Home Office announced plans to change the law to provide period products to those in police custody. In January this year, the Department for Education launched a scheme to provide access to free products in state-funded schools across England.

[Mr Carmichael]

That is welcome progress, although I would suggest that domestically there is still some work to do.

ActionAid tells us that one in 10 girls in Africa misses school because they do not have access to sanitary products or even private toilets. The Government have a target of eradicating period poverty in developing countries by 2030 and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) has introduced a Bill to improve transparency on that. Will the Minister meet me and my hon. Friend to discuss our Bill?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, and I am sure that we welcome the Bill. In 2019, the Department for International Development announced a global campaign of action on this very issue—to end period poverty globally by 2030. The global campaign was kick-started with an allocation of up to £2 million for the small and medium-sized charities working on period poverty in DFID’s priority countries.

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[The Prime Minister]

There are already more than 400,000 jobs in the low-carbon economy in this country, and the great south-west is going to play a leading role in the green revolution of the future.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Q15. The Shetland Space Centre, a limited company in my constituency, is working in partnership with Lockheed Martin to build a sustainable space economy in Shetland. Will the Prime Minister give me some assurance that the very welcome Government support for the space industry will be allowed to follow the best commercial and technical options, and confirm that those in companies such as Lockheed Martin are the people best placed to make such judgments?

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack]

The hon. Gentleman makes an exceptionally good point. That is a border we need to avoid, and it makes no sense to have any sort of border between Gretna and Berwick. As for the SNP opposing that, and the opportunity to reduce VAT rates and other things that would help people on the poorest incomes, I simply do not understand what it is thinking.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

If the Secretary of State truly values the trade between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, why is he prepared to countenance a situation in which we would lose frictionless trade between Scotland and Northern Ireland?

[Mr Jack]

As the Prime Minister said, there will be “unfettered access” between Scotland and Northern Ireland and indeed the rest of the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack]

I am happy to speak to the hon. Lady outside the Chamber about her concerns.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

On the subject of the quantum for the islands’ deal, to which the Secretary of State has already referred, will he confirm that he will pursue with the Treasury a basis that is different from the per capita funding of other deals, because otherwise the deal for the islands will never be a meaningful one?

[Mr Jack]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a very good point. Previously, these deals have been done on a per capita basis, but we recognise that the islands is a huge geographical area and that per capita would bring a very low outcome. We are in discussions with the Treasury about raising the quantum.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Julian Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. My conversations with young people in Northern Ireland are the most moving and humbling I have ever had, and I will do everything I can to ensure that the opportunities those women and men have are maintained and can flourish. All the young people I have met in Northern Ireland so far in this job show every hope for a successful future for Northern Ireland.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

4. What steps the Government have taken to ensure that customs regulations are the same in Northern Ireland as in the rest of the UK.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Julian Smith)]

The withdrawal agreement is clear that the UK Government are committed to protecting Northern Ireland’s position in the UK internal market, and we have guaranteed that Northern Irish businesses and farmers will continue to have unfettered access to the rest of the UK market. When the withdrawal agreement comes back, those clauses on unfettered access between Northern Ireland and Great Britain will be in it. Businesses in Northern Ireland will benefit from tariff-free access to the UK single market while also benefiting from future trade deals negotiated with the UK.

[Mr Carmichael]

It is one of the defining characteristics of a nation state that goods moving into a territory are subject to regulations that are not there for goods that move within it. That is why the withdrawal agreement is a threat to the future of the Union that is the United Kingdom. It is why the former Prime Minister was absolutely right to discount completely the possibility of a customs border down the Irish sea. Why has the Conservative and Unionist party changed its mind?

[Julian Smith]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the key priority was to maintain no hard border on the island of Ireland—the thing that has ensured peace there for the last few decades. As I said, we will deliver on the commitments in the protocol on unfettered access for NI businesses into the GB market.

Principles of Democracy and the Rights of the Electorate

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I remember the cries of outrage on Prorogation and the demands that Parliament should return because we had so much to discuss. Opposition Members were desperate to discuss these things, yet here we are, mid-afternoon on a Thursday, two days in, and I think I can count the number of Labour Members present on the fingers of one hand.

None of us came into Parliament to avoid making decisions, to duck the issues or to indulge ourselves in parliamentary processes, but to the outside world this appears to be exactly what the House is doing.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, we were not elected to avoid making decisions, why did he seek to support a Prorogation when we still had 12 Bills outstanding?

[Oliver Dowden]

We could spend forever rehashing the political and legal arguments relating to Prorogation. The Government have accepted the outcome of the Supreme Court, although we disagree with it, and that has put an end to the matter. I do not think it will serve the House to discuss it any further. That is why we are back in this place.

To the outside world, all the House appears to do is say no: no to a second referendum; no to the single market; no to a customs union; no, no and no again to a deal. Perhaps most bizarrely of all, Her Majesty’s Opposition urge no to a no confidence motion. It is clear that we have reached an impasse. This Parliament becomes more entrenched and less effective by the day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden]

For the simple reason that I honestly do not believe that a second referendum would solve anything. I have yet to hear people who voted leave proposing a second referendum.

[Mr Carmichael]

Will the Minister give way?

[Oliver Dowden]

I am answering the right hon. Lady’s point, if the right hon. Gentleman will allow me.

The only proponents of a second referendum are those who wish to reverse the result of the first. If we were then in a position whereby we had one vote for leave in a referendum and one vote for remain in another referendum, how would that in any way solve the situation? Surely a better solution is to agree a deal and for the House to pass that deal so that the country can move on, which it so desperately wishes to do.

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[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I was very pleased earlier today that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) acknowledged that there is a common sense of good motive among Members of Parliament from all parts of the House. I confess that that has not always been reflected in the tone of many of the debates that I have attended, which has been a cause of some sorrow to me, because I believe that there is a huge amount of common ground in this debate on the principles of democracy and the rights of the electorate. Indeed, we were elected to Parliament to uphold those very rights.

I think most of us have a common dream—a dream of a society that is ever more prosperous and free; virtuous or, if not, at least seeking to become more virtuous; and happy, with people pursuing their goals and flourishing to their fullest extent, not trapped in poverty. The shadow Minister talked about the inhumanity and bureaucracy under this Government. I ask her please to read the Centre for Social Justice reports at the time leading up to the 2010 election, because they show that the state is never an instrument of kindness and compassion under any Government. It is always rule-bound and it is always inhumane. One of the things we all must do, which is not the topic of this debate, is to work out how to enable all the wonderful public servants in all our public services to be freer to express the compassion that they personally feel for other human beings. Members will find on the record a speech I made some time ago on just this subject in relation to the personal independence payment.

Now, I believe that democracy is the foundation of this common dream, and that foundation of democracy is something that I feel very deeply about: the moral, legal and political equality of every person. Every single person, irrespective of their actual merits, should be treated by our systems as morally, legally and politically equal. Somebody mentioned boundary changes earlier. My constituency happens to represent about the right number of people, but some constituencies are way too large and some are way too small. That does not reflect political equality.

Democracy ought not to be idolised. Goodness knows that things have gone wrong in the midst of this political crisis. I have referred to the economic crisis many times; I believe that we are in a profound crisis of political economy that goes way beyond the topic of any one particular debate. The fundamental issue at stake, though, is that we need to be able to restrain the coercive power of the state peacefully, at the ballot box.

I want to quote Karl Popper, a very important philosopher who started off on the left. I believe he was a Marxist who fled from Marxism when one of his friends was killed in a riot and the people organising it had no sympathy, saying that you had to break some eggs to make an omelette. At that point, he started thinking about whether communism was in fact scientific. Popper said—I paraphrase his remarks slightly to reflect the spirit of the day—that “You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government, and I personally call the type of government which can be removed peacefully at the ballot box ‘democracy’, and the other ‘tyranny’.” And that is the fundamental point. The public must be able to withdraw their consent from a system of government, and have it removed and replaced with a system that they prefer. We need a general election now, because this House has clearly withdrawn its consent from today’s Government. The Government should therefore fall, and we should have a general election. It is unconstitutional—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) grumbles from a sedentary position. I cannot hear him, but I will take an intervention if he wishes to make one.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Surely the point is that what we get with a general election is a change of Government. The hon. Gentleman is talking about a system of government, which is a quite different thing.

[Mr Baker]

I am talking about both. I am talking about the principle of democracy, which is the stability that comes from both the Government and the system enjoying democratic legitimacy expressed through the ballot box.

My second point is about the European Union. I am here today, although I care about many things, because of the way that the European Union constitution was handled. It was put to referendums in Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, Austria, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Germany and Finland, all of which said yes. I had read the constitution and I knew that when the referendum came I should vote against it because it was too bureaucratic and therefore, I thought, likely to be inhumane. When it went to France and the Netherlands, they said no, and so referendums were cancelled in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and, yes, the United Kingdom.

But what did the European Union and those who govern it do? They did not change course and say, “It turns out we can’t get this system through the democratic consent of the peoples of Europe, so we must take another course.” As anyone who has read Open Europe’s side-by-side comparison of the Lisbon treaty, which replaced the European constitution, next to that constitution will know, they are functionally equivalent. What they did was an absolute democratic outrage. They changed the constitution of France to avoid a referendum and they made Ireland vote twice. That is why I am in politics.

The fundamental issue at stake today—

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

It is well known that there would be a multibillion-pound funding gap in the event of Scottish independence that could only be dealt with by significant tax rises or cuts in services. Those who propose independence have still not answered the question on where that money is to be found.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

A no-deal Brexit will be catastrophic for Scotland’s hill farmers, especially those looking to export sheepmeat to the European Union. That is not just my view but the view of the National Farmers Union Scotland and the NFU across the four parts of the United Kingdom. Can the Secretary of State give me and them some assurance that he will not just sit in Cabinet and watch their livelihoods destroyed?

[David Mundell]

I have been very clear throughout my time in Cabinet about the importance of agriculture to Scotland and the needs of Scotland’s agriculture industry, and I will continue to be so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

5. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the Fisheries Bill.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

I continue to work closely with colleagues on the Fisheries Bill, which will allow us to manage our fisheries sustainably and deliver on our promise to take back control of our waters. It will allow us to decide who may fish in our waters and on what terms as we become an independent coastal state.

[Mr Carmichael]

The last time that I asked the Secretary of State about the Fisheries Bill, he deflected the question by saying that

“we will see what happens when the Bill returns on Report.”—[Official Report, 16 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 1152.]

That was five months ago, and we have still not had the Fisheries Bill on Report. When are we going to get it?

[David Mundell]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear me say that it will be in due course.

National Security Council Leak

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I do not want to rush to make that assumption because normally all papers that are considered by the National Security Council are at an extremely high level of classification. The key point—I think this is the thrust of my right hon. Friend’s question, and I agree with him on it—is that the issue at stake was less the substance of the material that was disclosed than the principle of a leak from the National Security Council. The fact of that leak—that breach of confidentiality—is what puts at risk the mutual trust that is essential for all Ministers and advisers attending those meetings to have in one another, and the trust, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) said earlier, that we expect our allies to have in our respecting the confidentiality of the material that they share with us.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Prime Minister may or may not be right, and as far as the Government are concerned, her exchange of letters yesterday is the end of the matter, but surely when it comes to matters in this House, different considerations apply. The right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) and the Prime Minister are both Members of the House, and they now have very different versions of events in relation to a matter of some national importance. It is surely important that the House should know which of them is right. For that reason, surely either the Prime Minister has to publish the evidence on which she relied, or somebody else has to be allowed to mark her homework. It cannot be possible that both mutually contradictory versions can be allowed to stand.

[Mr Lidington]

What we are talking about is a leak inquiry, carried out on the instruction of the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary, by another appropriate official, into the unauthorised disclosure of the proceedings of the National Security Council. It is an internal Government matter, just as any such disclosure and any leak inquiry would be considered a matter for the Government concerned—Labour, Conservative or coalition. I really do not think that it would be right to be in a position where the House collectively tried to establish itself as an investigating authority into internal matters relating to the conduct of Ministers as members of the Government, or the conduct of officials as members of the Government. Those are matters that it is quite proper for the Government to determine, and it is then for Ministers, as I am doing this morning, to come to explain the Government’s decision and be held to account by the House.

Proportional Representation: House of Commons

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith]

I do not intend to go through the different PR models available, because I am establishing the principle, but I believe there are models of PR that prevent the accession of small extremist parties to a parliamentary system. Germany has such a system.

The recent British Social Attitudes survey found that only 8% of voters identify strongly with a political party. Polls regularly report not only diminishing support for the two parties, but a sense that “none of the above” is an increasingly attractive choice for British voters. That is best expressed by a gradually reducing turnout. In 1950, 84% of voters cast their preferences at the ballot box. In the 2017 election, turnout was 68%. There is other firm evidence that voters are losing confidence in our representative democracy. The report by the Institute for Public Policy Research on the 2015 election established that less than half of 18 to 24-year-olds voted, compared with nearly 80% of those aged 65 and over. That is a worrying trend.

The past 30 years have seen the emergence of a dramatic divide in how people vote, especially as far as the age demographic is concerned. The evidence is clear: voters increasingly demonstrate that they no longer trust the two main parties to manage the democratic process. Both Labour and the Tories have traditionally held a huge responsibility under first past the post. In an electoral process that offers only limited opportunities to change the political colour of a constituency, we have relied on the two major parties to provide candidates who are capable of taking on the coveted role of Member of Parliament, and to provide a well-thought-through programme for government that is realistic and promises to meet the needs of the country. Increasingly there is a feeling that both parties are failing to take those responsibilities seriously, to the extent that voters are no longer content to be managed by political parties. They increasingly seek plurality, so that they can sift for themselves the range of policy choices available in any given election. Voters no longer want to be patronised by the democratic process; they want to be empowered by it.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I commend the hon. Lady on her speech and on the candour and force with which she makes her points. What she says is true not just of national government but of local government. May I offer her the example of local government in Scotland where, since 2007, councils have been elected under the single transferable vote? We have seen the end of single-party monoliths across Scotland, and that has been absolutely rejuvenating for local democracy in Scotland.

[Angela Smith]

I completely accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point. I restricted this debate to Westminster, but that does not mean that I believe these principles do not apply to local government—they do.

Our 19th-century voting system is unfit for the 21st century. As one respondent wrote on the Facebook page accompanying this debate, the system acts as a straitjacket, denying voters the multiplicity of choices they crave. Another respondent, Benny, commented that PR

“would make sure that every vote counts, enabling all voters to feel more involved in the democratic process.”

If we are serious about changing our politics, we must start with how we elect our Parliament. We need reform to ensure fairness and integrity in the electoral process, and that means acknowledging the case made by events in the past few years for a more pluralistic system that gives back control to voters.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The Barnett formula has been honoured. As the hon. Gentleman will know, there are Barnett consequentials where moneys are allocated to devolved matters within England. That is not the case in the recent additional amounts to support the Northern Ireland budget. It is also the case that in the recent autumn Budget the Chancellor announced changes that resulted in an additional £950 million for the Scottish Government.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The economy of rural Scotland would suffer serious damage if the Government’s proposals for tariffs on foodstuff were ever to be implemented. The National Farmers Union of Scotland has called for that to be rethought. Are the Government listening to it?

[Mel Stride]

The Government are most certainly listening to all those who have concerns about the introduction of tariffs where they are not in existence, as is currently the case between ourselves and the EU27. Once again, that is why the deal that is before the House, which has been negotiated with the European Union, is so important—because that would mean that we would not run into those particular difficulties.