Andrew Bowie
Main Page: Andrew Bowie (Conservative - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)Department Debates - View all Andrew Bowie's debates with the Scotland Office
(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s reassurance on the constitution. The people of Scotland do not want another divisive, distracting and damaging referendum on ripping our country apart. That said, this Labour Government do have a bit of a habit of changing position on certain issues, with 25 U-turns in only two years. So can I ask the Secretary of State to confirm that, whatever else changes and whoever holds the keys to Dover House this time next week—and even if it is the one and only thing they stick to—there will be no referendum and no consideration of one? Will the Government dismiss out of hand immediately any move towards breaking up of our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Mr Alexander
Yes. Ours is a politics of solidarity, co-operation and togetherness. We had a manifesto commitment not only opposing independence, but opposing a further referendum, and we stand by that mandate.
Mr Alexander
I could not agree more. My own mother worked for many years in the NHS in Ayrshire, at Crosshouse hospital. The Scottish Government are, alas, letting those dedicated NHS workers down. After 19 years in power, they must account for their record on public services, from NHS waiting lists to declining school standards. We used to have an education system that was the envy of the world. The priority should be on delivery, not division.
Andrew Bowie
Famously, we have not heard very much from the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) on his plans for government, although we do know that he seems to be a fan of devolution and its job-creating opportunities—for him. Well, I can tell colleagues from experience: devolution ain’t everything it’s cracked up to be. In Scotland, we have had 20 years of SNP mismanagement, and a pervasive and deeply damaging devolve-and-forget mentality in London. Will the Secretary of State confirm that Labour will not be devolving any more power to Edinburgh?
Mr Alexander
I hardly think that the SNP mismanagement the hon. Gentleman rightly describes should damn devolution in the eyes of everyone in this Chamber. It is perfectly possible to drive a Ferrari into a ditch, which is pretty much what we have seen over the last 19 years.
Andrew Bowie
We have demonstrated that we are unafraid to step in and act when decisions taken by the Scottish Government are to the detriment of Scots and Scotland—for example, in the case of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill a few years ago. Will the Secretary of State commit today to urging the new Prime Minister to think long and hard about how devolution in the hands of the SNP is failing Scotland and Scotland’s economy, and examine how, on this Government’s watch, SNP Ministers have been able to jet around the world on taxpayer jollies, allow British civil servants to draw up plans to tear Britain apart, and spend countless hundreds of thousands pursuing a narrow, divisive agenda that is focused on pulling Scotland apart rather than growing it together?
Mr Alexander
An awareness of all those issues is not simply for the incoming Prime Minister, but for anybody who reads a newspaper in Scotland. What we have witnessed is a travesty of the potential of devolution. It is not simply the distraction of focusing on issues that are not devolved, but the SNP’s abject failure in policy area after policy area that is devolved: ferries, hospitals, schools—the list goes on.