Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Crawley and John Lamont

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

7. What assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the Government’s spending decisions on (a) public expenditure and (b) the cost of living in Scotland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)]

Without pre-empting the details of the Chancellor’s statement tomorrow, I can say that the Government’s position is that, while tough decisions will be necessary, we remain committed to targeting support at the most vulnerable people in our communities across this land. As well as benefiting from a record block grant settlement to the Scottish Government, the people of Scotland benefit from higher levels of public spending, as is demonstrated through the Union dividend of about £2,000 a year per person.

[John Lamont]

I hope that, as the Member of Parliament representing Govan, the hon. Member will join me in welcoming the £4.2 billion defence investment in Glasgow’s shipyards for the building of those five Type 26 frigates, which will support hundreds of jobs in his constituency.

The UK Government will always act to help the most vulnerable people in our society. The Government are helping to protect households from significant energy bill rises through the energy price guarantee, holding down inflation, and that is on top of the targeted support for the most vulnerable, including £1,200 in direct payments this year. As for other measures, I encourage the hon. Member to wait for the Chancellor’s statement tomorrow.

[Angela Crawley]

Last week I hosted a cost of living event in Hamilton, and every day I am inundated by people contacting me about the potential loss of the triple lock on pensions. My constituents were just getting by before the cost of living crisis, but they are now avoiding supermarkets, struggling to pay heating bills and fearing starvation and hypothermia this coming winter. Will the Minister act now to prevent pensioner poverty and call on the Chancellor today to guarantee the triple lock on pensions and to ensure that they rise in line with inflation?

[John Lamont]

As I said earlier, the focus of this Government is on supporting the most vulnerable people in our society, and we will always take this responsibility seriously. The Government will act, as they always do, to take the action necessary to support the constituents that the hon. Lady has mentioned. She mentioned the potential effect of Government spending decisions. I will gladly tell her about the very real effect that the SNP Government’s spending decisions are having in Scotland: they have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on ferries that do not float; a fortune has been wasted on malicious prosecutions at Rangers football club; their mistakes have cost hundreds of millions of pounds to fix Edinburgh Sick Kids and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow; and, worst of all, they have spent millions of pounds pushing for another independence referendum that does not match with the priorities of the people of Scotland.

Family Justice Reform

Debate between Angela Crawley and John Lamont

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) on securing the debate, and wish her well in seeking reform of the law. I shall not labour for long, because of course, as we have heard, Scotland has a distinct legal system, and I do not want to lecture or give lessons from Scotland. I simply want a sharing of best practice between the two nations, and to ensure that where legal reform is necessary we seek to proceed in tandem, so that there are not huge disparities between England and Scotland.

For clarity, I will mention that the area of family justice reform covers marriage, civil partnership and cohabitation; what happens when a relationship ends—separation or divorce; and the relationships between parents and children, including parental rights and responsibilities and the interplay of children’s panels incorporating the rights of the child. In Scotland we have gone further than most of the other nation states in the UK to ensure that the voice of the child is paramount, and that it is ultimately the principal consideration in a divorce or resolution settlement about custody of children. However, I want to echo the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Fareham and reinforce what she said, encouraging continual reform and review of the process, as family life evolves. We no longer have the 2.4-child nuclear family that the system was perhaps built around. It is necessary to consider the legal system now and how family life will evolve. Valid points have been made about no-fault divorce and encouraging shared parenting, and they are worth considering. I hope that the Minister will take what the hon. Lady said into account.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who spoke about Scotland’s distinct legal system; his learned experience will be welcomed by the House. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, explained that Northern Ireland also has a distinct legal system, which does not necessarily recognise common-law or cohabiting partners. I hope that protections in that regard, and in connection with the rights and responsibilities of grandparents, may be strengthened. That would be a welcome adjustment.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk spoke about work that has been done in Scotland on family justice and reform, and what will happen as of 2018. There is a strategy for review of this area of law, including the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. That is clearly necessary because things have evolved; as a law graduate I recognise that there is a need to review and update the law continually, as family life and society evolve. As I said, it is necessary for the voice of the child to be at the heart of the principle.

[John Lamont]

As to grandparents’ rights, I wonder how the hon. Lady would accommodate that question. The Scottish Government have considered it in the past and have refused to confirm that they want to amend the law proactively to accommodate it. I wonder what her view of that is.

[Angela Crawley]

Personally, I am happy to say that I think grandparents should play an active role in their grandchildren’s lives. There is room, in the next review period, to consider the role of grandparents, but as I sit in this place I have no locus in the matter and my opinions are frankly irrelevant. However, I agree that children and their grandparents should be able to have a relationship, and there is room in the review for consideration of the role of kinship carers, as it is not simply grandparents but also aunts and uncles, or other relations, who often take on parental responsibilities or care-giving roles.

I believe that there is room for the Children (Scotland) Act to be transformed into something fit for 2017, and fit for purpose in the future. That is why I fully support the motion, and why I argue that we need continually to review family law and to consider the possibility of consulting on simplifying the process and making it more user-friendly. That is our ambition in Scotland—to make the process easier for families. Families have a difficult enough time when relationships are dissolved; the last thing they need is to be pulled through a family court system that does not necessarily make sense to them or seem user-friendly.

In Scotland, we have made a specific commitment to encourage legislation on domestic abuse, which includes coercion and controlling behaviour. I hope that that will be replicated across the UK. I think that it is necessary to cover all aspects of family law, including domestic abuse and violence, and that there should be protections for anyone who finds themselves in that dangerous situation.

An area of law that has not been covered, which is not specifically relevant to the title of the debate but is relevant to the area, is gender recognition. The Government have on several occasions had the opportunity to respond to the inquiry by the Women and Equalities Committee on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I hope that there will be progress across the UK, as there has been in Scotland, and a commitment to non-medicalisation, self-identification, and the ability for anyone who identifies themselves as transgender to have recognition in law for their chosen gender. It is entirely reasonable and fair and I hope that the Minister and the Government will take the opportunity to respond to that aspect of law reform in the debate.