United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Alison Thewliss
This UK Government appear to have no intention of making up the shortfalls on any of those growth deals. The growth deal in Aberdeen was huge and ambitious in setting out to change and challenge the economy in Aberdeen, the end of oil and moving towards that just transition—
Alison Thewliss
If the hon. Member for Aberdeen has some more money from the UK Government for the growth deal, I would be happy to take his intervention.
Andrew Bowie
Aberdeenshire—but I will forgive the hon. Lady for that mistake. I want to take her back to her point about bridges. On investment in bridges, will she join my campaign to get the Scottish Government to release much-needed funds to replace Park bridge, Abbeyton bridge and Oatyhill bridge, which cannot be reopened or replaced because the Scottish Government are starving Scottish local authorities and their ability to maintain vital infrastructure? We might be able to give money to that if the Bill is passed next week.
Alison Thewliss
I would like to find out how much money the UK Government would like to put to that, because they have not put money to anything very much so far. I am sure the Scottish Government will hear his plea on that issue, and I hope to hear more about that.
Alison Thewliss
My hon. Friend is correct. These matters are clearly for the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to decide, and the Bill is overreach at a ridiculous level. Either this legislation is very poorly drafted, which from the Government amendments it would certainly appear to be, or they do not understand devolution, which seems perfectly clear from the interventions we have had. Are they intent on dismantling 20 years of devolved decision-making on these islands, just so they can stick a flag on something? It is pathetic.
Then we get to clause 47, titled “Financial assistance: supplementary”. Subsection (1) states:
“Financial assistance under section 46…may take the form of grants, loans, guarantees or indemnities…may be provided subject to conditions (which may include conditions about repayment with or without interest)…may be provided under a contract.”
This nefarious Minister of the Crown not only has the power under the Bill to build some infrastructure in our country that the democratically elected Parliament of Scotland has not voted for, but it also gives them the power to stick Scotland with the bill and charge us interest. Gee, thanks guys. What can I say? So generous. It is the Skye bridge all over again. That was the first PFI project in the UK. It opened in 1995 and was notorious for its tolls. The then Scottish Executive had to buy the bridge back a decade later in order to abolish the tolls, which raised more money than the bridge cost in the first place. Do we really want to return to that level of generous investment in Scotland?
Six years ago today, I was pounding the streets of Glasgow with hundreds of other activists, knocking on doors, delivering leaflets and having animated discussions about what a new country could look like. We are a couple of days out from the anniversary of the 2014 independence referendum, which was a watershed moment for so many of us in Scotland. I cannot begin to describe the feelings of hope and excitement there were in the city of Glasgow, where my own constituency voted for Scotland to be an independent country.
I could not have imagined that six years later, I would be standing here, a Member of this Parliament. I could not have imagined that I would have had to fight three elections in five years, and I could not have imagined that Scotland would have been dragged out of the EU against our will. In my worst dreams, I could not have imagined that I would be standing here today, defending the very fabric of devolution from a full-scale attack.
Alison Thewliss
If the hon. Member wants to tell me why he supports this attack, I will bring him in.
Andrew Bowie
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I wanted more to go back to a point about Scotland being taken out of the EU against its will. It is obviously still the SNP’s position to rejoin the EU, and she speaks eloquently and powerfully about this autocratic Minister taking decisions over spending and restricting the powers of Scotland’s devolved Parliament. She is aware of the restrictions and powers of the unelected and autocratic European Commission regarding spending and powers in Scotland. All the powers that are coming back from Brussels to Edinburgh would then be given straight back with all the restrictions that applied before, and then some.
Alison Thewliss
Those powers are not being given straight back. If we look at the provisions of the Bill, it is perfectly clear that, as the explanatory notes state:
“This creates a means for the UK Government to provide funding across a range of largely devolved areas that would sit alongside any funding provided by the devolved administrations.”
It is perfectly clear that this as an attack and an undermining of devolution. That is not just my opinion, but an opinion shared by legal experts around the world. The hon. Member is ignoring the truth of the situation. He must know that that is the case. When even senior figures in his party are saying that this is an attack on devolution and are resigning, he should see that that is the case. He knows that it is true.
Caroline Lucas
I do not think that is the logic of what I am proposing. It is perfectly possible to uphold the principle of devolution and that of saying that standards should be high. I do not quite understand why the right hon. Member has a problem with that.
The Government have a huge opportunity to reset the economy to create a just transition, with good green jobs to safeguard livelihoods and our precious and irreplaceable natural environment. The aim of amendment 20 is to make that opportunity a reality. I hope that a separate decision on this vital amendment will be possible, as it would do something different from the other amendments in the group—we are in a climate emergency, as this very House has declared—but if that is not possible, I hope we can return to it on Report, as no doubt many colleagues in the other place support the aims of the amendment and share my concerns. The amendment matters to millions of people around the country who care deeply about nature and the climate and are deeply concerned about the use of public money undermining those aims.
In conclusion, other amendments in this group are indeed vital. My amendment makes a separate but complementary point. It is about outcomes, not just process. The Bill takes breathtakingly wide powers following our departure from the EU. This is about how those powers are implemented. No other amendment in the group deals with that.
Andrew Bowie
It is an unusual pleasure to speak so early in a debate.
I am delighted to stand to support Government clauses 46 and 47 and to speak against the amendments in the name of the official Opposition and the Scottish national party and the other amendments. I have only been in the House for three years—it sometimes feels like 30, given what we have been through since 2017—but these amendments and the arguments, especially those from the SNP, against the clauses, are among the most remarkable things I have seen, despite what we have been through in the last three years. The governing party of one of the devolved nations in this country is tabling amendments and using arguments that would prevent more money being spent in that nation. It is frankly astounding.
Chris Bryant
I agree with the hon. Member about nationalism and separatism and all that, but we are a bit cynical and sceptical about offers from the Government at the moment. I have been trying to get £130 million outside the envelope for the flooding earlier this year in the Rhondda, but so far we have not seen a penny, not even for the coal tip that collapsed into the river at Tylorstown, which needs 60,000 tonnes removing. We still have not seen the £1.2 million. That is a Westminster responsibility.
Andrew Bowie
I am reliably informed by a former Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), that that is a devolved responsibility, which is one reason why the hon. Member should vote for the Bill next week and against the Opposition amendments this evening.
Not only are these arguments incredible; they are also based on a complete falsehood: that the powers in the Bill, which will allow the UK Government to spend directly on specific projects in Scotland—I will contain my remarks to Scotland for obvious reasons—for the first time in 20 years, will somehow undermine devolution. This is not true.
Alan Brown
As I said earlier, the Tory Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) has stated clearly that the Bill will create new powers of reservation. It is ripping up the devolution settlement. When will Conservative Members understand that there is a massive difference between protecting devolution and protecting the powers of the Scottish Parliament and what they see, which is an SNP Scottish Government? It is about respecting devolution and the Scottish Parliament.
Andrew Bowie
I would have to see the details of what my hon. Friend the Chair of PACAC said. I would have to study it before responding, but I must stress that creating more powers is not ripping up the devolution settlement. That is not the case. The founding father of devolution, Donald Dewar, a Scottish Labour Member—there are not many left in this place these days—stated that devolution was a journey, not a one-way street. We need to have a discussion about where powers are best held, and that is what we are doing here today.
What is most remarkable about these arguments and the amendments that have been tabled by the SNP today is that they are drafted by parties that want to take Scotland and Wales back into the European Union. The SNP made much yesterday, and has again today, of the Competition and Markets Authority and the Office for the Internal Market, while the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke about autocratic Ministers of the Crown spending in Scotland. The hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) yesterday decried the need for the Office for the Internal Market, claiming it was unnecessary, undemocratic and appointed, and complaining that it would
“decide whether a Bill met the test of the internal market, putting permanent constraints on the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and the Northern Irish Assembly.”—[Official Report, 15 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 248.]
That is quite remarkable from a party determined to take Scotland back into the European Union, but then maybe I missed the complaints from SNP Members when, in August 2015, the unelected and unaccountable European Commission suspended the payment of more than £45 million to the Scottish Government, under the European social fund, due to accounting “irregularities” and because it had not been given specific assurances from the Scottish Government as to how the money was being spent.
I must also, then, have missed hon. Members’ complaints to the—again—unelected and unaccountable European Commission when it threatened to fine the Scottish Government £125 million for botching up the farm payments system in 2015-16. I hate to break it to the SNP, but the restrictions placed on member states in order to preserve the internal market of the European Union are much—inordinately—more prohibitive than anything we are proposing here today.
After Brexit—indeed, because of Brexit—the Scottish Government will be free to spend, and indeed mis-spend, and free to exercise their expanded and increasing powers as they see fit. Nothing in the Bill threatens that in any way whatsoever—no powers to curb spending or cut revenue, no powers to fine for messing up payment systems, more money, more power, protecting jobs. What on earth is it in the Bill that the SNP could be objecting to so much? Why on earth is the SNP so happy to accept EU cash, with all the rules and regulations around spending and how it is spent, but will not allow the British Government to spend directly on specific projects that will benefit the lives of individual Scots?
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Bowie
I am spoiled for choice, but I will give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central.
Alison Thewliss
I have a question for the hon. Gentleman. Why does he feel it is appropriate for the UK Government to spend money on courts and prison facilities in Scotland?
Andrew Bowie
I think it is appropriate for the UK Government to be able to spend on projects that will benefit people in every corner of the United Kingdom, and that is why I am voting for the Bill next week and why I am going to oppose the amendments tabled by the hon. Lady. I will tell the Committee why the SNP is so against the Bill—because with the SNP, it is Brussels over Britain, any day of the week. SNP Members do not care that this Bill protects jobs. They do not care that it enshrines in statute the existence of Scotland’s most important market. They do not care that it could mean more money for Scotland’s starved local authorities.
Patrick Grady
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is obviously passionate about Britain, and good luck to him, because he is not going to have that passion available to him for much longer once we are independent. Is he content with the idea that the Bill will gain Royal Assent without the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or indeed the Northern Ireland Assembly? Is not that the real power grab—the undermining of the Sewel convention? That is shaking devolution to the core. That is the power grab that is happening here. Is he really content with that?
Andrew Bowie
To be honest with the hon. Gentleman, I would be trying to convince his colleagues in Edinburgh that this is a very good Bill and they should give it legislative consent and see it sail through the Scottish Parliament. But they have refused to give legislative consent to Bills that have become law in the past, and I am sure they will do so again.
I return to my point about Scotland’s cash-strapped local authorities. In north-east Scotland—I see the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) in his place—Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council are two of the lowest funded local authorities in the country, despite contributing more in revenue to the SNP Scottish Government than almost any other local authority. The idea that the Scottish National party would vote to deny them more funds to spend on specific projects truly is a kick in the gut.
Andrew Bowie
I will avoid commenting on the meagre amount of chips that you get in the House of Commons Dining Room. I was one of the loudest to complain about the state of my fish and chips. On the hon. Gentleman’s point, I cannot believe that a Member representing an Aberdeenshire seat is defending the fact that the Scottish Government give it one of the lowest amounts of funding for any local authority in the country. The people of Aberdeenshire will be listening to him, and I am sure they will explain to him their dissatisfaction with that comment.
I urge the hon. Gentleman to try explaining that to constituents next door in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, the people of Durris and Drumoak—a community divided due to Park bridge being closed, possibly never to reopen. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) groaning. The mask is slipping from the Scottish National party. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) underlined that when he earlier described these bridge closures as “wee pet projects”. These are communities divided because the Scottish Government are not funding Aberdeenshire Council to the requisite level to fix those bridges and reconnect those communities. The fact is that, unless it is in Glasgow or the central belt, the Scottish Government just do not care.
Patricia Gibson
I was groaning in despair because all the hon. Gentleman’s remarks deny one fundamental principle: that the people of Scotland are sovereign. The people of Scotland are represented by a democratic Parliament in Edinburgh, and there are clearly defined devolved areas that are the responsibility of that sovereign Parliament. This Bill denies that. Why can he not just be honest enough to say so?
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Lady is powerful and passionate in making her case, but this Bill does nothing of the sort. This Bill reinforces devolution, with over 100 powers coming from Brussels to Scotland, and it is for the Scottish Government to determine how they are acted on and how the money going to Edinburgh is spent.
The fact is that the SNP has been found out. They do not like this Bill because they know that it will demonstrate the relevance, the strength and the spending power of the British Government to the people of Scotland, and that endangers their grand plan: the separation of our country. For that, really, is all the SNP cares about—not people, not jobs, not the health service, not Scottish Water, as we heard earlier, and not powers over minimum unit pricing of alcohol. Those are all a front—a distraction. They do not like this Bill, despite the fact that it will benefit Scotland, because it promotes and unites our United Kingdom. That is the policy of the SNP, and it is clearer today due to these amendments than at any time before. The SNP would rather that Scotland was poorer if it meant that the United Kingdom Government had less power. That is the truth of it; it is clear from these amendments.
I am delighted that the British Government are enshrining the internal market in statute. I am delighted that we are voting to protect jobs in Scotland and around the rest of the United Kingdom, and I am delighted that, once again, this place will be able to directly spend money that will benefit the lives of my constituents. I am delighted that we are binding our country together, with no threat to the NHS, no threat to the existing powers of the Scottish Parliament and no threat to devolution. I will take great joy in voting down these amendments tonight. I will be voting to strengthen the Union, enrich Scotland and protect jobs. The SNP will be doing the opposite.
Alun Cairns
It is a privilege to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. It is also a pleasure to follow the excellent contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), who underlined the position in relation to Scotland. Most of my comments will relate to Wales, but they will relate equally to each of the nations of the United Kingdom.
Clauses 46 and 47—part 6 of the Bill—are fundamental to the future of the United Kingdom, particularly as we leave the European Union and after one of the most challenging times in terms of public health and the economic difficulties ahead of us. This is a time when the nation needs to come together and when the might of the UK Government to support every part of the United Kingdom will be extremely important. So these clauses are excellent news for all nations of the UK. They empower a UK Minister to support and contribute to the economic, social and cultural needs of every nation, whatever part of the country someone comes from. More importantly, at a time when our nation is at a greater risk of fragmentation, these provisions make the UK Government relevant to constituents in all nations. A UK Minister can at last respond to their calls if a devolved Administration choose to ignore their needs.
The devolved nations host some of the most deprived communities in the UK. West Wales and the Valleys has qualified for the highest levels of EU aid for 20 years, and gross value added there was about 70% of the UK average. I have long argued that a persistent wide wealth gap will create tensions in any nation, and since devolution the current legislation has prevented a UK Minister from acting in support of constituents and communities in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in devolved policy areas, even in those areas where GVA is at the lowest levels.
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Gentleman has been very generous with his time, and I am listening intently to what he is saying. I do take the point about the fiscal framework and local authorities, and I get his point regarding the per head spend, but that figure amounts to £50 million less that they can be spending on infrastructure projects and roads. I heard what he said about the growth deals, the sector deal and investing, and I would back him and join him in all those campaigns, as he fully knows—perhaps except for borrowing powers for the Scottish Government—but I stress that I hope that he would join me in my campaign to see Aberdeenshire Council being treated fairly and, given the revenue it has delivered to the Scottish Government, getting a fair share to spend in the north-east of Scotland.
Richard Thomson
As I was about to say—the hon. Member was doing so well until he said he would not back the borrowing powers, which is very disappointing because it could change so much—legitimate criticisms can be made of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities funding formula. I voiced them myself when I was the council co-leader in Aberdeenshire. However, the Bill will not resolve or change that. I hope that the hon. Member would agree that if we are to make changes to that, they should be based on factual analysis and evidence, rather than just recycling old tropes.
Richard Thomson
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As I say, if this were backed up by additional resources, we might be having some different discussions, but it still would not make the case for this encroachment on devolved powers.
Andrew Bowie
I am listening very intently to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, as I did to what the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) said, and I actually agree with a lot of what he has said, yet he has made no argument for not giving the Government more powers to spend. Yes, there are areas where the UK Government could be and, in my opinion, should be spending in Scotland, but there is no reason to vote against giving them more powers to do just that and support our local authorities to develop and deliver infrastructure projects in Scotland.
Richard Thomson
On the contrary, there is every reason to do that precisely because I have been making the argument—I do not know how carefully the hon. Member has been listening to it—that there is absolutely no need to encroach on the existing devolved settlement to deliver all the things that we are being told need to happen.
Frankly, this is nothing more than an arrogation, a usurpation and a trespassing on the principle that the decisions taken exclusively for Scotland should be made in Scotland by those who are directly accountable to the people of Scotland, taking us back to the bad old days prior to devolution, when Ministers of a party elected on a minority of the votes and seats could nevertheless rule the country without going to the trouble of winning an election beforehand.
Devolution was once described as
“the settled will of the Scottish people”—
as a way to accommodate legitimate desires for growing democratic aspirations within an old Union. That was certainly how it looked until 1997, and it is how it has looked for many in Scotland until recently, but the Union that Scots were invited to vote for in 2014—the balance that existed between Parliaments, Governments and institutions in London, Brussels and Edinburgh—has already gone. The failure to back an amendment of this nature shows that the very principles of autonomy, consent and respect that lay at the heart of the devolution settlement are also about to go.
People who voted in 2014 to be part of two Unions—the European Union and the British Union—can now see that they can only possibly be part of one. If this amendment falls and is not taken on board by the Government, it will show that the entire basis of devolution—that decisions should be taken for the people of the devolved nations and regions by those elected by and directly accountable to them—is being similarly trashed.
If the UK Government wish to depart from the EU and to deploy their majority to crush these principles, there is very little that I or my colleagues can do in practice to stop that, although there is plenty that can be done outside this place. For all that I used to make the argument that one day, the Scottish Parliament might have its wings clipped by a politically motivated activist Conservative Government, I never imagined for one day that a Government would come along so stuffed full of John Bull as to make it actually happen.
The polls across Scotland—I am sure that private polls in the Scotland Office confirm what the public polls say—show that increasing numbers of Scots know and understand that to re-attain EU membership, independence is required. If the Bill is passed unamended, it will become equally clear that independence is also required to preserve Scotland’s hard-won democracy and autonomy. It will give me no satisfaction to be proven right, from back in 1997, about where devolution might end up. There is if not yet a settled will, very definitely a settling will in Scotland that that is the case. If yet more of the Scottish people reach the conclusion that independence is now the only way to protect Scotland’s Parliament, this Government, having acted in haste, will be left to repent at leisure and in not very splendid isolation.
Dehenna Davison
There are multiple devolution Acts, which I am happy to email to the hon. Lady if she wants to find that out for herself. Let us not forget that the British people have demonstrated the right and power to operate with sovereignty time and time again.
Andrew Bowie
Does my hon. Friend not agree with me that it is rather concerning that a member of the governing party of Wales does not seem to understand what powers they have in Wales to spend on and support the Welsh people?
Dehenna Davison
As in so many things, I completely agree with my hon. Friend.
Pete Wishart
It is probably just as well I have eaten, because I would otherwise consume that with no problem at all. Can I just say to the hon. Gentleman that we would take the authority of the EU looking over Scotland any day, rather than rogue state UK. I say that very candidly and sincerely.
Pete Wishart
No, I won’t. [Interruption.] I might give way later, as the hon. Gentleman is a prize on the Government Benches, and we will of course want to hear from him in time, because I enjoy our little exchanges.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill
Andrew Bowie ExcerptsTuesday 14th July 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I have been listening intently to what the hon. Lady has been saying, and at the very beginning of her speech she lamented the fact that it has been so long since we implemented the recommendations of a boundary review. The explanatory note to amendment 1, to which she is now speaking, says that the amendment
“aims to maintain the status quo”.
Does what she said not prove that the status quo has not been working, hence why we have brought forward this Bill?
Cat Smith
Quite the opposite: I am arguing that under the status quo the only blockage to the passing of a boundary review has been the Government, and they would, under this Bill, still have the power to put up the same block as they have the past two times that a boundary review has failed to go through this House. It is worth noting that if it was not for parliamentary oversight, we would have a 600-seat Parliament today. Perhaps that is an example of parliamentary scrutiny at its best.
Andrew Bowie
It will not surprise anybody that I rise in support of the Bill. The current boundaries of the parliamentary constituencies resulted from the fifth periodical review in Scotland. That was based on data gathered between 2001 and 2003, and completed in 2004. I was thinking about that earlier on, and I had a look at what was happening in 2004. What was in the news? Labour were seven years into a majority Government; the Hutton report was released; the European Union expanded, with 10 new countries joining; “Friends” aired for the final time—Rachel got off that plane; something called Facebook was launched at Harvard University, but I am sure it will never catch on; and Tony Blair banished—sorry, sent—Peter Mandelson to Brussels as our European Commissioner. It was a much simpler time. I was 17 and looking forward to my final year at school. My point is that this Bill is long overdue.
When the last Boundary Commission report altered the boundaries of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine to their current state, the population in my constituency was just over 81,000. The population of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine now stands at an estimated 97,041, which is an increase of 16,000. Interestingly, the electoral roll has also grown by about 10,000 in that period. That will come as no surprise to those of us who have witnessed the growth of Portlethen, Westhill and Banchory over this time.
This legislation and the resultant review are long overdue. The geography of many towns and settlements in my constituency has changed beyond all recognition, such has been the scale of house building over the past two decades, and that story is replicated in some form in every constituency across the United Kingdom. Constituencies are not stuck in aspic. People move, the economy evolves, and populations rise and fall, so it is welcome that the Bill requires the Boundary Commission to report every eight years from July 2023. We should never again be in a position where we wait what will be, by then, 19 years between reviews. Not, of course, that we have been waiting 19 years between reviews, because we all know that there have been various attempts and, indeed, various reports from the Boundary Commission between 2010 and now, but today I am glad that we will finally see progress and that in 2023 a report will be implemented.
There must be equal representation of all people in this place, wherever in the United Kingdom they live. Every vote should count the same. How can we have confidence that that will be the case? How do we know that Liberal Democrat shenanigans and parliamentary arithmetic will not get in the way of implementing the commission’s recommendations, as they have done in the past? [Interruption.] I will tell hon. Members why. It is because the single most important part of the Bill, clause 2, removes us MPs from the process. It is frankly ridiculous for MPs to vote on boundary changes. While I would never suggest that—
John Spellar
Is he saying that Parliament has been ridiculous for almost the whole of its existence? What was wrong with Parliament being involved in the final stage?
Andrew Bowie
I would never suggest that anybody who was in Parliament for all those years was in any way acting ridiculously, and I do not think that it was ridiculous, but it was quite clear that none of the commission’s reports would ever be implemented. The parliamentary arithmetic prevented them from being implemented, whenever it was attempted to do so.
David Linden
Part of the point that the hon. Gentleman is missing is that it is not just Members of Parliament who have that oversight; it is also their noble lordships in the other place. Is he aware of that?
Andrew Bowie
I am fully aware of that; I was speaking about the entirety of Parliament. I am going to get back to my speech, because I am conscious of time and I know that Madam Deputy Speaker would like me to wrap up quite soon.
I would never suggest that Members of this House would have anything but the good of our country and their constituents as their motive for supporting or opposing legislation in this place, but the practice of MPs voting essentially on whether to abolish themselves is wrong. We saw it with the previous iteration of this Bill in the last Parliament: there was talk of deals and swaps; colleagues and friends were eyeing each other suspiciously over the top of newspapers in the Tea Room, looking out for trip hazards at the top of stairwells. One almost fancied an early retirement, as one of my good friends said to me on my 32nd birthday.
Likewise, we cannot see essential boundary changes stymied by political machinations, as we did in 2012 when Nick Clegg abandoned the then boundary review, worrying that his party would lose about 15 seats. It is important that we oppose amendment 1 in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, which would seek—as it says in the explanatory statement—to “maintain the status quo”, because the status quo does not work. The draft Order in Council giving effect to recommendations no longer being subject to any parliamentary procedure or approval before it is made is an important and positive move, and hon. and right hon. Members should oppose amendment 1, which would remove it. Of course it remains in Parliament’s gift to create new primary legislation to manage this, as it always has.
I turn briefly to the Scottish National party’s new clause 2. I must admit that I was rather disappointed to see that it is so depressing in tone. Protecting seats in the devolved nations is, of course, an admirable thing to fight for, but to do so at the expense of English constituencies is deeply unfair. Had the new clause in the name of the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) sought to protect the number of English seats, I may even have found myself walking through the Division Lobby with my friend on the SNP Benches.
Andrew Bowie
I will not because of the time.
I am fully aware that SNP Members do not view us as one nation, but we Conservative Members most certainly do. We believe that there should be equal representation for every seat in the United Kingdom. I shall not detain the House any longer. This is a good Bill and it should have our full-throated support this evening.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Everyone on the Opposition Benches accepts that this parliamentary boundary review is overdue. I think we all also accept that what we want to achieve is equality in the weight of each individual elector’s vote. However, we found from the evidence that we took and our deliberation in Committee that that is not possible.
There are local circumstances that require flexibility in how we construct our parliamentary constituencies, and I very much favour flexibility for the Boundary Commission to be able to get on with its job. We heard from Mr Bellringer from the Boundary Commission, who said that greater flexibility allowed the commission the opportunity to facilitate local concerns and make the best of representations from local communities, and it allowed him to do his job more efficiently. We do not represent individuals alone. We represent communities. I firmly believe that if we create flexibility, we can protect the communities that the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) referred to earlier. That is why the 5% rigid limitation that the Government want to impose is wrong.
The Boundary Commission wrote to the Committee with some additional evidence, in which it said that
“a ward is a unit of electoral administration”.
Breaking up wards therefore needs to be avoided because it creates difficulty in administering elections. But if that is true, it must also be true that to go across a local government boundary is even more disruptive. What we have to create for the Boundary Commission is the flexibility to avoid circumstances that force it to decide that a parliamentary constituency must take orphan wards from a neighbouring local authority area or bits of communities from a neighbouring area that do not really match up to the communities in the main body of the constituency. We must accept the need to minimise disruption of that kind, so we need to ensure that the people making the recommendations on parliamentary boundaries have the maximum flexibility to do their job.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Let me repeat and remind the House that, overall, the package represents a £600 billion package of investment in the UK economy. The best single thing we can do is get our economy back to health by getting our people back into work and getting the virus defeated and under control, and the best thing that the Opposition could do is stop equivocating—doing one thing one week and one thing another week—and decide that they emphatically support ending the lockdown and emphatically support kids being back in school rather than being bossed around by the unions. We are the builders; they are the blockers. We are the doers; they are the ditherers. We are going to get on with it and take this country forward.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I must say I find the suggestion absolutely astonishing and shameful. There have been no discussions with the Scottish Administration about that, but I point out to my hon. Friend what he knows very well: there is no such thing as a border between England and Scotland.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Yes. By the way, I forgot to thank the right hon. Gentleman and other colleagues for their kind words about Wilfred. I want to thank him for that; I forgot to say that, and I will be marked down if I don’t. So thank you. Listen, I share the right hon. Gentleman’s aims. We will do our level best to make sure that the outlines of this attract the widest possible consensus; I think that they can and ought to. I am delighted by his call for a prohibition on “political arguments about the constitution” and I think that would be warmly welcomed across this country.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con) [V]
Public Services
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. The Home Secretary has updated my ministerial implementation group on some of the increased risks of child abuse during the pandemic. I will report back to our group and to her the very important point he makes.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con) [V]
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. As he mentioned, one of the real positives to come out of the past few weeks has been the collaboration and close working between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations, which has avoided confusion and delivered clear, uniform messages and allowed those fighting the virus on the frontline, such as our amazing staff at NHS Grampian, to know that all levels of government are working for them. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that that collaborative approach will continue and that it is imperative that all our Governments continue to work closely together, demonstrating that the Union is still working?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. Of course, we recognise the competence of the devolved Administrations in their respective areas, but in dealing with the pandemic I have been impressed, cheered and reassured by the way in which Ministers in the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive have recognised that we are all in this together. As we seek to ease the restrictions there at the moment, the closer we can work together the better.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I think the House should be clear that we do not wish in any way to deprive any part of the UK of the labour that it needs, and we have special provisions to ensure that Scotland is properly catered for. As I say, we have doubled the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. But we will respond in due course to the stipulations of the Migration Advisory Committee.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I know my right hon. Friend is very fond of the north-east of Scotland, having visited twice in the last year, so will he commit here today to delivering the long-awaited oil and gas sector deal so that we can work with that industry as it transitions to net zero and make Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire not just the oil and gas capital of Europe, but the energy capital of the world?
The Prime Minister
Yes. Not only that, but we can do it in such a way as to continue this country’s reduction in hydrocarbon emissions.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Oliver Dowden
The hon. Gentleman has raised a large number of points. First of all, I can of course reassure him that the independence and integrity of the civil service will be upheld. I notice that he has taken an interest in Dom Cummings’ blog; he is very welcome to register his interest in applying for such a role. However, the point that the hon. Gentleman was making is important: if we are to have a good civil service for the 21st century, it is essential that we harness all the talents of this nation. That includes, for example, people with data analytics skills and a diversity of talent.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I know that my right hon. Friend agrees with me that this is a Government for the entire UK—one of Scotland’s two Governments, in fact. In the spirit of civil service reform, what thought has he given to moving more civil service jobs out of London—to the north-east of Scotland, for example?
Oliver Dowden
As ever, my hon. Friend raises an important point, and I look forward to joining him this Friday in the north-east of Scotland. I am sure that we will discuss exactly those sorts of opportunities. Recently, I saw a large new hub being created in Edinburgh so that we can bring together Government services for Scotland in one place.
Debate on the Address
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Ian Blackford
Indeed it does. There is not much that can be added to that, because the image of the Prime Minister playing with his phone and not listening to the Scottish National party says it all.
The people of Scotland did not vote for this Prime Minister. Scotland did not vote for this Conservative Government, and we certainly did not vote for the con of a Tory plan that has been set out today.
In December 1967, my old friend Winnie Ewing proclaimed that
“the march of time can bring anomalies between elections, so that sometimes a Government may have a majority in this House but be in a minority in the country.”—[Official Report, 6 December 1967; Vol. 755, c. 1551.]
In Scotland, that is certainly the case. Here in this place, we face a Tory Government we have rejected, implementing a manifesto that Scotland rejected. For too many years, Scotland has been held back by successive Tory Governments we did not vote for.
Scottish National party MPs have today set out an alternative Queen’s Speech to deliver for the people of Scotland. With a renewed and strengthened mandate, our expanded SNP team will focus on our priorities—on Scotland’s priorities: stopping Brexit and protecting Scotland’s NHS from any grubby Trump trade deal; dealing with the climate emergency; and, once and for all, putting an end to Tory austerity. Instead, the Government’s Queen’s Speech sets out another Tory programme that the people of Scotland rejected. Despite the fact that Scotland voted to remain a member of the European Union, we now face being dragged out against our will.
We often hear about losers’ consent, but the fact is that Scotland voted to stay in the EU to maintain our rights as EU citizens. This Conservative Government do not have the consent of the people of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament or our Government to take Scotland out of the EU. We ask that the solemn right, claimed by the people of Scotland, to determine the form of government best suited to our needs be exercised. This House accepted that claim of right as a principle, on a motion that I moved in July 2018. It is the Scottish people who are sovereign.
In that context, it is right for the House to respect our Scottish Parliament and last week’s election result. But of course, in the last Parliament, the Tories ignored our interests and sidelined the will of the Scottish Government, intent on bringing forward a deal that will destroy our economy and risk jobs and livelihoods. As the former EU permanent representative to the EU, Sir Ivan Rogers, said, that pledge will create
“the biggest crisis of Brexit to date”
in late 2020. He said that “get Brexit done” was
“diplomatic amateurism, dressed up domestically as boldness and decisiveness.”
From selling off our NHS to selling out Scotland’s fishing communities, the Prime Minister will inflict hardship on our communities as the cost of delivering his damaging Brexit.
The voices of the people of Scotland are being silenced—80% of their representatives in this House are not listened to by a Tory Government showing contempt. That is why we stand up for Scotland and against cruel, punishing policies and narrow, backward-gazing politics. Instead, we are determined that Scotland’s right to choose our own future will be delivered, not simply because we in the SNP want that, but because the people of Scotland demand it. We stood on a mandate to give Scotland the right to choose its own future. I put the Prime Minister on notice that SNP Members will never stop fighting this Government for that case and for our mandate—for a fresh independence referendum—to be respected.
Ian Blackford
I see the hon. Gentleman seeking to intervene. Will he accept democracy and Scotland’s right to choose?
Andrew Bowie
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Will he accept democracy and that last week, 55% of Scottish voters voted for parties that want to remain in the United Kingdom? There is no mandate for a second independence referendum in Scotland. The Scottish people are not calling for a second independence referendum. They want us to get on with the day job. Fix your own backyard before coming in here, demanding a referendum on Scottish independence. [Interruption.]
Ian Blackford
Well, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) says, “What absolute tosh!” The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) cannot get away from the fact that we won the election. We are here standing up as a voice for Scotland, and he lost most of his colleagues. They were rejected at the ballot box; they have been reduced to rump. The fact of the matter is that we on our side have 80% of the seats. The Government can only wish that they had such a mandate and such a majority in the rest of the UK. The reality is that no democrat can deny that we won the election. We demand a right to have a referendum. The Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament have a strong record for bettering the lives of citizens across Scotland, and we know that with more powers and with independence, we can and will do so much more.
Today, the Scottish National party has published our alternative Queen’s Speech. The people of Scotland voted to lock the Prime Minister out of Downing Street and escape Brexit. Scotland voted to choose a better future, and our plan is to deliver that better future. We want to see a national health service protection Bill to stop the NHS across the UK being at risk from a US trade deal. It would guarantee that trade deals would not undermine the founding principles of the NHS that we cherish so much. We will continue to make the case and work to ensure that Scotland’s voice is heard. Our nation has the right to choose its future. We will also deliver in Scotland a Bill to increase parental leave with an additional 12 weeks to be ring-fenced for the father in order to encourage take-up, as well as to increase statutory maternity and paternity pay.
The SNP new green deal will build on the transition towards a greener, sustainable future. We will continue to press the UK Government to match Scotland’s net zero emissions target by 2045, putting oil and gas receipts into a net zero fund focused on measures to battle climate change and putting tackling the climate emergency front and centre of our priorities. That is what a responsible Government do.
Unlike the Conservatives, our ambition is to end poverty, not to increase it by a failure to act or to show leadership. Poverty is not inevitable. To fight it, we will work to end the disgraceful two-child cap on tax credits and the associated rape clause. We call on the United Kingdom Government immediately to end the benefits freeze and to halt the roll-out of universal credit. We will use every device open to us in this place to make the case that we cannot allow our citizens to be dragged into debt, hardship and despair by this nasty, careless Tory Government. We want to bring forward an equal living wage Bill, meaning an increase in the living wage to at least the level of the real living wage and an end to age discrimination.
The Scottish National party MPs reject the wholly immoral replacement of nuclear weapons at a cost of over £200 billion, and we call on other parties to follow us, to say no to Trident and to remove those weapons of mass destruction from the Clyde.
We want to help our pensioners by ensuring that the BBC licence fee remains free for those aged over 75. We will not abandon those women born in the 1950s, and, just as we have done in previous Parliaments, we will demand that this Government deliver justice for the 3.8 million women born in the 1950s who are being denied their pension by this Conservative UK Government. We will be pressing for an NHS funding boost from the UK Government that matches the current Scottish level and for constitutional change in abolishing the House of Lords and extending the franchise to include 16 and 17-year-olds.
This expanded SNP group is determined, and we are ready for the challenge. The Government think they can do what they want with Scotland and get away with it. That will not happen on our watch. The Tories are risking our economy and reducing opportunities for citizens.
The choice is clear: an outward-looking country with a vision of tolerance, inclusiveness and prosperity for all, or the offering of the Union run by a Tory party that does not care about Scotland. The Tory programme for government will push child poverty to a 60-year high and devastate our economy. The hardest of Tory Brexits risks up to 800,000 jobs in Scotland. The Tory manifesto means that day-to-day spending on public services outside health will still be almost 15% lower in real terms in 2023-24 than it was at the start of the 2010s. Austerity has hit communities hard, and it is not going away—more of the same from the Tories. Despite the climate emergency, there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to make real progress on reducing emissions. The UK Government have already failed to match the Scottish Government’s 2045 net zero emissions target. That is just the start of it.
Yes, the Conservatives can say that England and Wales have had their say, but what about Scotland? We had our say, and Scotland rejected this Prime Minister and rejected the Tories. Those of us who represent the people and the will of Scotland will use every avenue open to us to protect our people against this Government and their shoddy plan.
Before I close, I want to appeal to Members across the House. In the previous Parliament, Members conducted themselves in less than acceptable ways on occasion. People across these islands have recognised that, and they are fed up with it. Let us start this Parliament with respect and let the strength of our arguments win the case, rather than drag this place into the gutter.
Finally, in setting out the SNP’s clear opposition to the Government’s Queen’s Speech and offering our alternative, I have set out to the people of Scotland the tale of two Governments, of two parties, of two futures. I started with the words of Winnie Ewing, and I want to begin closing with the words of another parliamentarian. Let me remind the House of the words of Charles Stewart Parnell, who said that
“no man has the right to fix the boundary of a nation. No man has the right to say to his country, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further’”.
Now Scotland must have the chance to choose its own future: one shackled to the Brexit destruction imposed by Westminster, or one with hope, opportunity and ambition and with an independent Scotland in the European Union.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Andrew Bowie ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Mrs Main
Perhaps the arithmetic in the hon. Gentleman’s particular tribe is not as good as it might be. The Conservatives have not had a working majority for three years; there have been difficulties. However, the hon. Gentleman has fallen into the trap of seeing Brexit as a “political tribe” decision.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Just about everyone in the Chamber said that they respected the result of the 2016 referendum and stood on manifestos in 2017 saying that they would honour that result. Why does my hon. Friend think they have backtracked and are retreating into their political tribes in respect of this very important issue?
Mrs Main
I can only hazard a guess that certain parties saw it as politically expedient to suggest or imply, in 2008 in the case of the Liberal Democrats or in 2017 in the case of the Conservatives and the Labour party, that they would indeed offer, or respect, a referendum. Now too many of the parties are finding it politically difficult.
This is not about us. It is not about individual parts of the United Kingdom and individual constituencies. That is not how the referendum campaign went. Nobody came and asked us questions on a constituency-by-constituency, country-by-country or region-by-region basis. We are in this mess now because we have turned the issue into a political football.
Debate on the Address
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I have a huge amount of respect for the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who was diligent and well-respected as a Minister and is proving to be the same on the Back Benches. Clearly, we have a bit of a disagreement about Brexit. If we have spoken on these Benches about the risk of a no deal, it is because that risk remains very real. Many people might say it remains an extreme possibility. It is one that the Government seem willing to contemplate, despite the fact that, if there is a majority for anything in this House, it is for avoiding no deal. That will be the situation we end up in come the end of this week, one way or the other.
Several Members have commented that this is a slightly unusual Queen’s Speech, with a slightly unusual atmosphere and slightly unusual timing. For the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), who opened the debate, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) and myself, it is taking place during our 40th year. We have all celebrated our 39th birthdays; indeed she and I share a birthday, so we will look forward to celebrating that next year. Who knows what situation we will be in. The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) noted that the temperature goes up and down, but we have a role to fulfil, which SNP Members take seriously, as the third party in this House and as the largest party in Scotland. We have never claimed to speak for all of Scotland, although I would draw the House’s attention to the remarks made by our former leader, Angus Robertson, in his first speech after the 2015 election, when he recognised that we won considerably more seats than was proportionate to our vote and that we did have a responsibility to be aware of the broad range of political opinion that exists in Scotland. But there is consensus in Scotland, and every constituency in Scotland voted to remain in the EU. We will not shy away from speaking up for that point of view.
This Queen’s Speech is also slightly unusual because this debate is taking place while the SNP annual conference is going on in Aberdeen. No matter how many representations my predecessor and I make through the usual channels about according our party the same respect as all the other parties get in terms of a conference recess; or about how the parties should work to obliviate the need for a conference recess, here we are nevertheless. But it is political party conferences that are the place to lay out manifestos and make broad political declarations and plays to attract voters, not the ceremonial opening and the state occasion of the Queen’s Speech. However, that is what today’s Queen’s Speech has had: all the hallmarks of a political manifesto targeted at the perceived priorities of a narrow range of voters in particular parts of England and Wales.
As far as I can see, at least a third of the Bills will be subject to the English votes for English laws process, in whole or in part. Those are all in areas where the SNP Government have already shown themselves to be much more progressive and have a considerably more enlightened vision. We are not cracking down just to be seen to be tough on crime; we are working towards the rehabilitation of offenders, recognising the difficulties that can be caused by short sentences and finding different ways to bring people who have fallen foul of the law and fallen into criminality back into the fold of society. We are sent here to speak for Scotland and then the rules of this House continue to exclude us, through that EVEL process.
The Bills that will apply in Scotland already seem to be a source of concern; even since the Queen’s Speech was delivered my inbox has filled up with dozens of emails with concerns about the proposals for voter identification. The SNP wants to expand the franchise and make it easier for more people to vote, starting with 16 and 17-year-olds, and extending the franchise for elections to this place to include our friends and neighbours who are European nationals, but it seems as though this Government’s proposals want to narrow the opportunity for people to take part in our democratic processes. That is equally true of the immigration Bill and the end to freedom of movement, which, as all SNP colleagues who have spoken have said, will be a social, economic and cultural disaster for this country.
This theme of narrowing, isolation and an insular approach comes with Brexit, and the notion of global Britain that the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East spoke of is just increasingly a joke. I was recently in Malawi, where I went to visit the high commission, which had a pop-up banner saying, “Apply, come to Britain. Britain is great. Come and take part in our Chevening scholarship.” The night before, I had met stakeholders who could not get a visa for love nor money for their Chevening scholarships. So the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, and Brexit is the exact opposite of the vision of a global Britain. Much of the legislation that has been outlined today is going to have to help to try to clean up the mess that Brexit could leave behind.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman, who is making a very good speech, with lots of pertinent points. Surely, however, he would agree that the most narrow, isolationist and separatist agenda being displayed in this House today is coming from SNP Members, who want to break up our United Kingdom. Surely that is narrow, nationalist and isolationist. Surely breaking up our United Kingdom, the most successful political union the world has ever seen, is the most isolationist policy being put before the House at the recent time.
Patrick Grady
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) pointed out, the EU has secured peace on the continent of Europe throughout the history of its existence. Of course what we want to do as an independent country is join the family of nations. The way to know that a country is independent in the modern world is if it is part of organisations such as the EU, the UN and the World Trade Organisation, all of which are partnerships of equals, where the different member states, through the mechanisms that exist, can have their voices heard. I have just said that Scottish Members, including the hon. Gentleman, will be actively excluded from at least a third of the Bills outlined today because of the EVEL process. So I do not think the point he is trying to make stands up well.
It is becoming abundantly clear that there is no good outcome to Brexit—there is no good way of leaving the EU. If there was a better deal than membership of the EU, all the other members would want that deal and the EU would not exist. It stands to reason that the best possible deal we can have is the one we already have, which is membership.
The global challenges, which have been outlined in the Queen’s Speech and the speeches we have heard today, of poverty, the climate emergency, people trafficking, animal welfare and online harm all require a global response, with countries working in co-operation with each other. This Government are determined to pull the UK out of one of the most important mechanisms for delivering that. The Queen’s Speech, in effect, recognises that, because it has to put in lots of different frameworks and structures to deliver on those issues, when we already have one that is working exceptionally well. That shows, as I said to the hon. Gentleman, the importance of Scotland’s alternative: our opportunity to genuinely share sovereignty in a partnership of equals. In the EU, legislation comes forward through the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, where the different member states are represented on a fair and proportionate basis, and their voices are heard appropriately. That is the point of independence. The SNP’s vision is internationalist: it is about Scotland rejoining and taking its place on the global stage. That is the vision that is being articulated at our conference this week.
Sadly, this SNP conference is the first I have missed in around 15 years, and I think only the second one I have missed since I left university. That is partly because of my duties in the House and partly because, as the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) said, I had the immense privilege of being the only parliamentarian from Scotland to be part of the delegation for the canonisation of John Henry Newman in Rome yesterday. There are undoubtedly lessons from that. I think we were praying for many different things—the hon. Gentleman’s recollection is perhaps not quite the same as mine—but that was an opportunity for ecumenism, in respect of both theological and political experience, which was quite useful given the week that we are going into.
I hope and expect that by the time of the SNP conference next year—perhaps not by the time of the next Queen’s Speech, because that could be sooner than we would have expected—several Members, including myself, will have celebrated our 40th birthdays. I expect we will have had another Queen’s Speech, and I hope that the SNP will have been returned in even greater numbers, solidifying the mandate that we have to give the people of Scotland a fair say and a choice in their future. I hope we will be taking our country closer than ever before to the independence that we so badly need, so that we can continue to work as if we live in the early days of a better nation.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
It is a pleasure to be called on the first day of this debate on the Loyal Address. In fact, never in the modern history of this Parliament has an intake of MPs had to wait so long between their first and second Gracious Speeches as those of us who were elected in 2017. It is fully 846 days since Her Majesty last addressed Parliament in the other place, and 841 days since I spoke in that debate, delivering what was my maiden speech. That in itself is hard to believe, for in the interim, while so much has changed, so much, sadly, has remained the same. On that stupefyingly hot June evening, after I had bored those unfortunate enough to be in the Chamber with my tour around Deeside, Donside, the Geerie, the Mearns and North Kincardine, I raised concerns that businesses and people in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, and indeed around Scotland, needed certainty and stability in our country and in our economy. I concluded that evening by making this plea:
“What...this country”
does
“not need is further uncertainty in the shape of another referendum on Europe or another general election, and they certainly do not need another referendum on Scottish independence.”—[Official Report, 26 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 403.]
As I said, so much has changed, and yet, sadly, so much remains the same. For what have we heard from the Opposition so far today? Sadly, it was almost exactly the same as we heard two and half years ago. The SNP is obsessed as ever with referendums—so obsessed, in fact, that it is currently taking a referendums Bill through the Scottish Parliament to
“provide a legal framework for the holding of referendums on any matters within Scotland’s control.”
That is all well and good, except that the trouble is that the SNP has not yet worked out that the essential element for any referendum to have meaning is that the interested parties accept the result—it is not very hard. So here is a novel idea: how about, before inflicting further division and uncertainty on the people and businesses of Scotland, the SNP accepts the result of the two referendums held within the past five years and works with us to make membership of the United Kingdom, outside the EU, work for Scotland? Until that day, the SNP can never claim to be working in Scotland’s national interest, only for its own narrow political interests, and it can never claim to offer the certainty and stability being cried out for by businesses and people all across this country.
Then there is Labour, which, in the time it has taken the Conservatives to negotiate two deals between this country and the European Union, has not even concluded negotiations within its own party, or even among its own Front Benchers. What is it this week? Is it a referendum and then an election or an election and then a referendum? Is it remain, is it leave, or is it a deal? Labour—a party with more plot twists than an episode of “The Real Housewives of Cheshire”, except that it does not take a Wagatha Christie to work out who is stabbing who in the back in this augmented reality. As for the Liberal Democrats, they have nothing to offer other than ripping up the result of a referendum that they were one of the first parties to call for.
As the late Iain MacLeod so memorably put it, the socialists can scheme their schemes and the liberals can dream their dreams, but we at least have work to do. So while the other parties in this place have spent two years obsessed with plots, schemes and ways of trying to bring this Government down and deny the will of the British people, we did get to work. First under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and now under the current Prime Minister, this party and this Government have been delivering for all the peoples of our United Kingdom, including—and, I would say, especially—for Scotland. This Conservative Government have delivered over £900 million extra funding for the Scottish Government, meaning that the Scottish Government’s budget will have increased in real terms to £32 billion by 2020. We have delivered city and regional growth deals across the country. We have frozen spirits duty, supporting our vital Scotch whisky industry. We have had VAT lifted from Police Scotland and the Scottish fire and rescue service.
We have continued to support our oil and gas sector, to the tune of £2.3 billion, maintaining our globally competitive position and making the North sea basin the most attractive basin in the world in which to invest, while introducing the transferable tax history mechanism. We have recently righted the wrong—and I admit that it was wrong—of convergence uplift money not getting to Scotland’s farmers by delivering not just £160 million to them but an additional £51 million to ensure a fair funding settlement for the agriculture industry across our United Kingdom. Unemployment is at its lowest level in half a century and youth unemployment is at its lowest level ever. We have taken millions of the lowest paid out of tax altogether, cut tax for millions of others, and ensured that military personnel will not be punished financially solely for being based in Scotland, combating at least in part the regressive and failing policy of taxing middle-income earners more for doing the same job north of the border than they would be in any other part of our United Kingdom. In doing this, we are also the first major economy to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, cementing our place as a global leader in the fight against climate change.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving all the reasons why it is better for Scotland to be within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does he, and does everyone in this House, recognise that when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, it is better to be together within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and very good to have our Scottish comrades on board as well, because they are part of the great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Andrew Bowie
I could not have put it better myself. I agree with every single word that the hon. Gentleman has spoken.
Patrick Grady
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain why that argument then does not pertain to membership of the European Union. As I have explained, if Scotland were an independent member of the European Union it would have its own voice at the top table where decisions are being made. What is happening in this House is that those of us who are Scottish MPs are actively excluded from decision-making processes. If the UK partnership is so strong, why is the European Union not such a good thing for the UK to be in?
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Gentleman will be fully aware that I campaigned and voted to remain in the European Union. As a democrat, however, I recognise that I lost that referendum and we have to follow through with the will of the British people as expressed in the referendum. I will always contest those who say that Scotland would be better off outside the United Kingdom. That argument falls flat on its face. It would be bad for business, bad for the economy and bad for the people of Scotland if we were to rip apart the most successful union of nations that the world has ever seen.
Luke Graham
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does he agree that some of the rhetoric from SNP Members is completely hypocritical? Does he also agree that they fail to see the irony of advocating for one union and yet coming into this House and trying to break apart the very Parliament that we sit in? We are one country. We are not a club of international states. We are one country, one state; four nations, one state. It is something very different that they fail to appreciate.
Andrew Bowie
My hon. Friend will be amazed to hear that I agree 100% with what he says.
Today, in this bold, ambitious and positive one nation Queen’s Speech, we, this Government, outlined how we will be investing in our NHS, investing in culture, investing in schools and investing in our police—all of which, of course, means extra funding for the Scottish Government to spend on priorities north of the border, benefiting constituents in my part of the world. These are the actions of a bold Conservative Government governing for all and delivering for the peoples of our whole nation—our one nation. The term “one nation” is bandied about quite liberally these days. You will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that it comes first from Benjamin Disraeli in his novel, “Sybil”, which I remember struggling through at university. Through the young Chartist, Morley, he first spoke about how in this country there existed:
“Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets”.
He was talking about the gap between the rich and poor of mid-Victorian Britain, but it is a sad fact that Britain today seems at times like a country as divided as anything that Disraeli may have imagined—between remainer and Brexiteer, dealer and no-dealer. Although they are all of our one United Kingdom, it seems at times we have before us two nations between which, again, there is no intercourse or sympathy. I know that the majority of Members across the House are as concerned about this situation as I am—a situation where Members who simply hold differing opinions can be called traitors, and where simply because a person seeks a different outcome, they can be classed as an enemy.
There is only one way to bring this country back together and to end this interminable and angry debate which is doing such damage to the body politic and to public debate in this country, and that is to deliver on the will of the British people, as expressed in the referendum in 2016—not at any cost, but to support a deal and support this Government, to leave the European Union on good terms. That surely must be the resolution of this House. There is simply no other credible option. Only then can we reunite this country, move on and get on with delivering this bold, ambitious and truly one nation agenda, which I for one look forward to arguing for and implementing.
Anna Soubry
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker.
We talk a great deal in this place about Brexit, but the one thing that we have not talked about—or actually addressed—is the causes of Brexit. I want a democratic revolution. What happened to the commitment in the 2010 manifesto that I was proud to stand on as a Conservative under the leadership of David Cameron? It included a promise that we would reduce the number of Members of Parliament and look at the boundaries to make sure that all constituencies were properly represented and we had a fairer system. That has completely gone.
I would go further and have a radical reform of local government. One size does not necessarily fit all, and I pay tribute to the courage of Conservative borough councillors in my constituency who did the right thing by making the case—bizarre though it may sound—for the abolition of the very borough council that they sit on. Like the hon. Member for Mansfield, they recognise that we need a new unitary system in the county of Nottinghamshire. We also need a much stronger role for our parish and town councils, if we take out the district and borough council levels in our county authorities. We need to put power back into the hands of local councillors who will represent people at a parish or town level. Give them more power and the ability to raise money, because they will spend it wisely on their communities whom they directly represent.
While I am on the subject of a democratic revolution, we have to have honesty in politics now. The trust between us and the electorate has been broken. Long before Brexit, people were disillusioned and fed up. One of the reasons was that too many politicians, especially in this place, were not honest with people about the tough choices they faced. They promised everything—often admirable things which could never be delivered in reality. That pragmatic and honest approach is needed.
To be honest—it might get me into trouble with the Nottingham Post—the city of Nottingham should expand. If we were being honest about how to do things better in the city, that is what we would say. But if we do, we run the risk of headlines and criticism. That lack of honesty is one of the reasons why the immigration debate is in the pitiful state it is and—at its heart—is why we have Brexit. Too many politicians could not be trusted to have an open, honest debate based on evidence. On that basis, we look at the Conservative party and see the drift to the right—
Anna Soubry
The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but the fact is that 21 members of his party were effectively expelled from the party for having the temerity to put their country before their party. They were, in effect, expelled. Joseph Stalin would have been proud. As for the Labour party, that too is in the grip of neo-Marxists who would take us into a command economy, making promises that they could not deliver.
I think there is a great deal that we should be talking about. Whether it is the fact that we should be bringing British citizens back from northern Syria, or the fact that there was no mention of housing in the Queen’s Speech, a huge problem—