Debate on the Address

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I have been returned to Parliaments often enough to know that in the first few days it is supposed to be friendly, collegiate and jovial. There is barely a human being on the planet who I do not wish well, but I cannot feign joviality simply because some Conservative Members get irritated and would rather we in the SNP cheered up or just shut up. I cannot feign it when I represent many people who have long since lost the energy or reason to smile because of what successive Tory Governments have put them through. I cannot pretend that there is anything collegiate about this place when I have sat through debates in Committees, spoken up for constituents and talked about the real pain and distress that many of them have felt because of UK Government policies, yet the policies are still railroaded through and their pain and distress are ignored and intensified. There is nothing collegiate about that, so I will not be feigning anything. I will just be sticking up for my constituents and for Scotland.

During this long debate, I was softening, because I am a very soft-hearted person, until the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) got up to speak. I am going to pick up on just two of the many things he said that absolutely enraged me. The first was when he talked about somebody—I missed who it was—who had posted the number for the Samaritans in response to the Conservative Government getting their big majority. If he does not understand that thousands of people are in a really bad way and are very distressed that they will have to go through another five years of even worse policies and the impact they will have on them, he does not understand even his constituency.

The hon. Gentleman then talked about how the absolute priority must be letterboxes. Now, I am a letterbox anorak as much as anybody else in here, but he talked about how he was constantly damp and frozen during the election campaign and how he had to deal with all these horrible letterboxes, and he said that had to be an absolute priority. I am sorry, but I have loads of constituents who are constantly damp and frozen because they cannot afford to heat their homes, and he will have plenty of them as well. If they had heard him say that, they would feel extremely let down by him.

I will be collegiate about my predecessor. Paul Sweeney was a tough opponent, mainly because we agreed on so much and shared so many political interests. He is passionate about urban regeneration, restoring civic pride and the built heritage of Glasgow, particularly Glasgow North East, from where he hails. He considered it a huge honour to represent the area he grew up in. Politics can be really tough. It is not just a job we lose, and it is not just us who lose our jobs, so I wish him and his team well for the future.

I would like to redress a terrible faux pas that I made when the results of the election were announced in Glasgow. I paid tribute to my opponents’ campaigners and completely omitted to mention my own team. This has been pointed out to me once or 25 times in the past week, so now, from the bottom of my heart, I thank not just the voters of Glasgow North East, whom I do thank, but my brilliant campaign team, who were determined to move heaven and earth to get me elected—and they did. If it is not stretching it a wee bit too much, can I just say that one of them, Esther, celebrates her birthday today? Happy birthday, Esther.

What is in the Queen’s Speech for the constituents of Glasgow North East? [Interruption.] “Hee haw” I hear my colleagues say. Let us look at some of the issues facing some of my constituents. What is in the Queen’s Speech for people being forced to use food banks as they wait weeks for universal credit—support to which they are entitled—to arrive? Nothing. What is in the Queen’s Speech for the WASPI women, who should not have to be fighting but whose fight will continue, alongside many of us, until justice is done? Nothing.

What in the Queen’s Speech for people such as my constituent Donna from Carntyne, who is due to give birth in March but will do so alone because she does not earn enough for this heartless Government to allow her Tunisian husband to join her? Donna was a residential childcare worker—not highly paid but highly valued and absolutely necessary. She did that work by day and DJed by night and she still did not meet the minimum income threshold. What is in the Queen’s Speech for her? Absolutely nothing.

What is in the Queen’s Speech to help to stem the rising number of drugs-related deaths in Scotland—I refer to measures over which the Scottish Government have no control? Absolutely nothing. What is in the Queen’s Speech for EU citizens living in my constituency who have been stuck in limbo for the last three years? Nothing but more fear, more uncertainty and more hostility.

What is in the Queen’s Speech for children, often born here, whose parents cannot afford the £1,000-plus fee to apply for citizenship? Nothing, although now that the High Court has ruled these charges on children to be illegal, I look forward to the Government’s response. Finally, what is in the Queen’s Speech to help communities to transition to be greener and more sustainable? Nothing.

Let me elaborate on some of the aforementioned. I assume that information on the green energy deal to aid communities to become greener and more sustainable will be forthcoming at some point. I urge the Government to be very careful about how whatever it is they plan to do is implemented. Nothing should discourage people from participating but, unfortunately, the last attempt by the Government to do this, the last green deal, left many people penniless and mistrusting. Putting right what happened to those people will go some way—some way—to lifting the suspicion that many now feel.

Not long before losing my seat in the 2017 election, I was made aware of the issue of green deal mis-selling in the Barmulloch and Balormock areas of my constituency. A constituent who I have come to know very well— Mr Dougie Wilson—turned up at every surgery to update me on what was by then coming to light. That started me on a road that I am still on—a road that I stayed on, in solidarity with the 60 constituents affected by this, when I lost my seat. I am a little further along in terms of getting justice for people, but truth be told we have got nowhere near as far as we should have done because of the shambolic response from previous Governments. If this truly is a clean slate and fresh start, as the Prime Minister alluded to, I urge the Government to do what the SNP Government have to do as part of their day job, which is to mop up the mess left behind by the last UK Government.

Let me read something that one of those constituents said to me. This is important. May is 84 years old and she is widowed. She was told by a company approved by the UK Government that the cost of her green deal products would be nominal, that she should not worry, it was a Government scheme and they would pay the bulk; she would have pennies to pay. That was followed up by, “Hurry up and sign, or you will lose out.” This is what she said to me:

“When I got the paperwork with the figures on it I was so shocked I had an asthma attack. I was very distressed and panicked to see that I had somehow signed up to a loan of £10,000 with interest of £8,000. I am from a generation of people who save up if they want something. Other than my mortgage, I have never taken out debt, and although that sum might seem low to some people, it was horrifying to me.

At the time, I did not say anything because I was too shocked, too embarrassed. I am 84 years old, I felt stupid for not knowing what I was signing. I felt ashamed and I felt vulnerable. I did not feel in a position to complain. I thought I had no choice and I blamed myself. I don’t blame myself any longer.”

She does not blame herself any longer because she has the support of the fantastic Green Deal Action Group in Glasgow North East, which is made up of 60 of her neighbours, all of whom have different mis-selling stories to tell, all of whom this Government have heard from, but most of whom have been ignored or fobbed off. Let me be clear: they will not be getting fobbed off any longer. Apologies, cancelled credit agreements, refunds and compensation are what I am asking for. This is an issue that affects people not just in my constituency, but across Scotland. I am very grateful to those of my colleagues, particularly on these Benches, who carried on the fight and formed the all-party group on green deal mis-selling, for which I provided the secretariat.

I said that there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech on drug deaths. Last year, in Scotland, we lost 1,187 of our citizens to drug-related deaths. The Scottish Government have set up a drugs death taskforce, which is made up of a range of experts, including those with lived experience. They are looking at the changes that they can make, but some changes cannot be made without the permission of the UK Government. The Scottish Government want to allow injecting drug users to use a safe and supervised health facility so that, if they go into overdose, someone is there to get help, but they—the grown-up, democratically elected Government of Scotland—are not allowed to do that.

I join the calls of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) who has led the charge on this in the way that only she can. I join in her calls for the devolution of powers to enable Scotland to provide safe injecting facilities, and I will say more about that on a future occasion, but I am one of those people with lived experience of drug addiction. I lost a family member to a heroin overdose. He died, yes, because he injected heroin, but also because when he went into overdose, instead of calling for medical assistance his friends took fright and fled the scene because they were scared that they would be arrested. It is absolutely clear to me that he could still be with us today if those facilities had been available, as he would have been allowed to feed his terrible addiction in relative safety. Disappointed as I am not to see anything in the Queen’s Speech to help people in that position, I will work with other families, with drug users in Glasgow North East and with campaigners such as Faces and Voices of Recovery UK to fight for whatever measures are necessary to preserve lives and to make those lives worth living.

I said at the start that I would not feign joviality. I talked about the fact that no matter what we say and no matter how good a point we make, the UK Conservative Government are not listening, but that will not stop me, because I learned a very valuable lesson when I was elected in 2015. I met a group of women in Springburn in my constituency, and they were excited because two days earlier they had watched me speak in a debate on benefit sanctions. I told them how I felt that I had wasted my time and that I was banging my head against a brick wall because it changed nothing as nobody on the Government Benches was listening. They told me never to think like that. Yes, they want us to change things for them, but they told me that just knowing that someone who understood what they were going through was in this place, speaking up for them and fighting on their behalf, and being able to see and hear me do that meant so much to them. It made them feel that they were not voiceless.

So I will fight for the justice that my constituents need and deserve, but even if this Government are not listening, never again will I feel like I am wasting my time. Speaking up for the constituents of Glasgow North East is what I will do every day until the day we all walk out of here for the last time and head home to Scotland to build the socially just, compassionate and independent Scotland in which they deserve to live. We know that it will happen. This Government may be in denial, but deep down they know it, too. Independence is coming very soon, and Members should be sure of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Crispin Blunt]

I would be delighted to take up that invitation. There are a number of issues on which the hon. Gentleman and I work together, and I look forward to discussing those issues in Scotland as well as the whole issue of drug policy. It is clear that Scotland faces the same scale of challenge on drug policy as Portugal did in the late 1990s that led to a radical change of policy in Portugal. On the basis of the evidence, many would argue that the change Portugal has made has been of huge benefit to its people. One only has to examine the figures—this will obviously be very close to the heart of the hon. Member for Glasgow North East—to see that deaths from heroin overdose in Portugal, which were at a catastrophic level in the late 1990s, have dropped in the most astonishing manner. However, the position in Scotland—a country of comparable size—is that the figures remain of a horrifying scale, as the hon. Lady said.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Does the hon. Gentleman understand that that is one of the arguments for independence because we do not have the option to do what Portugal did—we cannot make that decision in Scotland? The Scottish Parliament could decide it wants to do it, every Scottish council and every person in Scotland could say, “Yes, we want to do it,” but we would not be able to do it because we would still have to ask permission from the hon. Gentleman’s Government, and just wait and see whether they said yes or no.

[Crispin Blunt]

Indeed. Well, guess what? The hon. Lady has an ally over here, as someone who wants to ensure that we have sensible policy, based on evidence across the whole United Kingdom. [Interruption.] Mr Deputy Speaker, you rightly drag me back to the Queen’s Speech.

The background to this Queen’s Speech is, of course, the huge sense of relief that exactly a week ago the country gave its Government the authority and majority to escape the awful trap we found ourselves in after the outcome of the 2017 general election. The nation has given a mandate for a one nation Government. The Gracious Speech makes it clear that it is those principles that will define our approach, and I am happy to give it an unqualified welcome. There is mention of the integrity and prosperity of the United Kingdom being of the utmost importance—and so are the values and principles that should underlie the new role that global Britain will play under a one nation Government. I will return to how those principles will inform our future foreign and security policy in a moment, but I first want to reflect on the scale of the opportunity now available to this Administration, led by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

We should be in no doubt about how much the Prime Minister is the author of this opportunity. Before the leadership election, following our drubbing in the European Union elections last June, I did not think that anyone could deliver an exit from the European Union without an electoral alliance with the Brexit party. That is why I hesitated and delayed my support for my right hon. Friend when he was running as a candidate for the leadership of our party, despite the fact that he was self-evidently the best equipped to lead. Perhaps I was drawing on my experience of my exit from the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee in 2017, when I found that I was challenged on one side for not being a Brexity enough. I would say that no, I was not a “believer” as such; I thought it was the right conclusion for the long-term interests of the United Kingdom based on my assessment of the evidence. On the other side, I was then successfully challenged by a new, articulate, personable and able Conservative voice for remain, who made a strong case as to why he should be marking the then Foreign Secretary’s report card. Combined with the support of my hon. Friends elected in 2015 and their understandable desire to have one of their own on an important platform, I suddenly found that my expectations of what I was going to be doing in the 2017 Parliament were rather disagreeably and abruptly changed—a feeling that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) would have had when she saw the results of the 2017 election. She dutifully tried to make the 2017 Parliament work in order to deliver Brexit, and we know the story. That Parliament was elected on a mandate to deliver Brexit. As she said in her own contribution, some reneged on that promise to the electorate and have now paid the price, as the electorate were able to revisit the issue.

Perhaps unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, I was able to find a more enjoyable and productive role on issues that we have touched on today, particularly drug policy reform. It is good to see the hon. Members for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) in their places. We have worked together on this incredibly important issue and look forward to progressing that work in this Parliament by making the case for a policy based on evidence. But my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead was not able to square the impossible circle. It was only when we went back to the country, who made their decision a week ago, that we were able to escape the situation.

My assessment in June this year was that there would have to be a Brexit alliance to enable us to escape the position we were in. I thought the Conservative party would have to come to an accommodation with the Brexit party to get the kind of result we have today. There would have been a price to pay for that, because we would not have been dealing with a Queen’s Speech set in the same terms as this one. The Brexit party would have had its own view and the Conservative party would have taken reputational damage as the price of that relationship. The true triumph of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is that we have been able to effect this majority without that arrangement. I did not think he could do that and most of this House did not think he could get a withdrawal agreement with the European Union, yet he has managed to do both. And now what is open to us is the kind of prospect available for a one nation Government delivering on the values and policies that sit in this Queen’s Speech.

Let me now turn to the detail of the Queen’s Speech and reflect on some things on the basis of my experience in government. I welcome the royal commission to review and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice process. There is a theme that informs Britain’s place in the world and the values that we stand for, and that is justice. We cannot really face the rest of the world if the standards of the bit of our justice system that works immensely well and runs efficiently and to the highest possible standards—the commercial courts in London where the world’s companies come to have their cases adjudicated in British courts—are then not reflected in the rest of the justice system under which British citizens have to operate. Having worked in the Ministry of Justice when it was unprotected from the costs of the necessary fiscal adjustment following the 2010 election and the financial crisis that we inherited, I know that this has to be addressed. We have to find a way of making sure that all the elements of the criminal justice system are able better to work with each other, and to reflect new technologies and take those savings where we can, but also of improving the service that is delivered to all our citizens.

I want to deal with the question of Britain’s role in the world and the values that are going to underpin that. I wholly agree that we need to look at an integrated security, defence and foreign policy review that must also cover all aspects of international policy, from defence to diplomacy to development. I know that we do not comment on intelligence matters, but our intelligence agencies are an important part of the defence of the United Kingdom, and I ask Ministers to ensure that they are part of the consideration of how we use the resources that we make available to our security, defence and diplomacy. That is all part of the picture.

As the Queen’s Speech makes clear, the United Kingdom’s interests will of course be promoted by Ministers. Freedom of speech, human rights and the rule of law have to be the values that global Britain stands for. The challenge to Government Members over the next four and a half years is not only to destroy the canard that we have heard about what Opposition Members appear to believe about the nature of the Conservative party—that ought to be relatively straightforward to do—but to inculcate those values in Britain’s place in the world. It is about justice, the international rule of law and the maintenance of the global international institutions. There is a space for the United Kingdom to stand up for the kind of values that will make our children proud. In the way that the political discourse has taken place during the election campaign and the years that preceded it, they have been sold a total canard about the Government who have just taken office. We have four and a half years to put the United Kingdom in a place where we can be really proud of the values that we stand for both at home and abroad.