Strengthening the Union

Bill Grant Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). I am trying to cheer myself up, as his crystal ball looks rather gloomy at the moment—I hope it brightens up as the weeks go past.

I am a staunch supporter of this sovereign country. It is a Union of nations—the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—which makes me a very happy Scot and very happy to be a Unionist. I do not want someone, a group of people or even a cult taking away from me my Britishness and giving me nothing back, except selling my soul back to Europe, which is the direction of travel SNP Members wish to take.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am sorry, but is the hon. Gentleman referring to the Scottish National party as a cult?

[Bill Grant]

I mentioned that a cult is driving forward the break-up of the United Kingdom. If you are suggesting that that is the SNP, that is entirely your choice.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. May I once again say that we do not use the word “you” when referring to Members across the Chamber? “You” means me, which is lovely if you are talking to me. I ask Members to stick to that, otherwise it becomes very distracting.

[Bill Grant]

I will do so, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Within my own home, there is not simply a matrimonial union, but also a micro-union of nations, given that I was born in Scotland and my wife was born in Nottingham in England. She and I work together as a team and have done so for quite a long time—some 47 years, which I might add is longer than we have been in the European Union. We work as a team, and teamwork is just as important for the constituent parts comprising the United Kingdom.

One may well ask, “Why support this historical and cultural Union when you’re about to leave the European Union?” Perhaps Sir Winston Churchill summoned it up best in days gone by when he said:

“We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonalty. But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.”

In more recent times, the Prime Minister has been endeavouring to ensure that the UK will form a new partnership with the European Union and has been aiming to build a fairer, stronger and more global Britain. Unlike others in the Chamber, I am confident that a deal will be achieved, despite the scaremongering we hear from various quarters.

It is clear that we must strengthen the precious Union between the four nations of the United Kingdom. As powers are repatriated to Britain, the right powers will be returned to Westminster and the right powers—many, many of them—will be passed back to the devolved nations. Indeed, in Scotland the SNP has suites of new offices in Glasgow and is recruiting a raft of new employees, which is strange if we in Westminster are taking all these powers away in what has been described as a power grab—I thank the SNP for that.

Developments since the 1707 Treaty of Union have in recent times included the emergence of devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. However, these devolved Administrations do not operate in isolation. Far from it: for example, much of the devolved Administrations’ spending is funded by grants from the UK Government—a common source and common pool to which all the nations contribute and from which they all benefit. One only has to think of the Barnett formula, which determines the annual change to the block grant and seeks to ensure that changes to funding in England are replicated for comparable services elsewhere in this United Kingdom.

The purpose of devolution was to devolve, not to divide, its aims and aspirations to make government more local for the four nations and apply localised solutions to localised issues.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the powers being devolved from here to the Governments in Holyrood and Cardiff should be devolved further down to local authorities and the areas distinct to them?

[Bill Grant]

I do agree with that; indeed, the hon. Gentleman has obviously seen the next line of my speech.

The journey has not made government more local, but has seen the weakening of councils and the centralisation of services such as the fire service—my own service—and the police service in Scotland, to the detriment of the aspirational vision and intention behind devolution.

The Scottish independence referendum of 2014 asked the question, “Should Scotland become an independent country?” My constituency of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock covers two council areas, East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire. Both returned a resounding no. They wanted to remain part of the Union, and that is the way it should remain, despite the continuing threats on a daily if not weekly basis about indyref2. No respect is shown for that decision—I think 28 of the 32 authority areas in Scotland voted to remain in the Union.

There are greater strength in numbers and greater economies of scale to be achieved when our nations are united, with their historical and cultural links. We need consensus not convergence, co-operation not conflict. The Joint Ministerial Committee facilitates partnership working on devolved issues at ministerial level and was referred to in a previous debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr). However, what really caught my attention was his suggestion of the creation of

“a new and powerful Department of the Union at Cabinet level”.—[Official Report, 20 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 142WH.]

That would help to bind together Secretaries of State for Departments of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. I believe the idea merits further consideration.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Is that not what No. 10 Downing Street is supposed to do?

[Bill Grant]

That is a very interesting point. [Interruption.] Yes, it is, but while things are very good, they could be better. Therefore, we need to improve on that good performance. We should be continually improving our performance to strive for a better set of circumstances.

[Stephen Kerr]

My hon. Friend is making an important point, just as the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) did in his intervention. In Canada, for example, the current Prime Minister is the equivalent of a Secretary of State for the Union—such is the importance of driving the Union forward together.

[Bill Grant]

I believe the UK Government must do more in every policy area and, as my hon. Friend says, at every level to ensure that we do not simply devolve and forget. The UK Government still have a role to play in the devolved nations, and we must remember that the Scottish Parliament was never designed to replace Westminster, but rather to complement it.

I am confident that the leader of the main Opposition party in the Scottish Parliament, who relentlessly supports the Union, will nevertheless always stand up for Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom. Together as a United Kingdom we achieve much, but despite the scaremongering, I believe that our best days as a Union are yet to come. As another Scot, Robert Burns, said:

“O let us not, like snarling tykes,

In wrangling be divided;

’Till slap come in an unco loon,

And wi’ a rung decide it.

Be Britain still to Britain true,

Amang oursels united;

For never but by British hands

Maun British wrangs be righted.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross]

No, I will not give way. How dare SNP Members say the £4 million annually that this UK Government are paying to mitigate their policy is wrong? That is absolutely scandalous, and armed forces personnel in Scotland will be viewing—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman keeps shouting. I think that is extremely—[Interruption.] He continues to shout, and it is extremely disrespectful to our armed forces personnel who have been supported in mitigating his party’s policies.

I do not have an awful lot of time left, but I want to mention the cuts commission, because it leads on from what I have just said about defence. The cuts commission —or the growth commission, as the SNP would try to call it—was many months in the making and the report was shoved out one Friday on a bank holiday. We all wondered why it was not published to great fanfare. It is because there is so much bad news for the SNP in its own cuts commission.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies mentions

“the Commission’s proposals for immediate cuts to defence”—

very interesting for my seat in Moray and others around Scotland—

“and other spending currently undertaken by the UK government.”

That is not me saying that; that is the IFS saying that the SNP’s cuts commission will lead to immediate cuts to defence. John McLaren of Scottish Trends made an apposite point when he said:

“Scotland will be moving from a deficit equivalent to nearly 6% of GDP towards a 3% target. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out the implications.”

The implications for our constituents in Moray and across Scotland are that, under the SNP and its cuts commission, we will see more cuts to local authorities and more cuts to the NHS, and I will not accept that.

[Bill Grant]

Does my hon. Friend sense, as I do, that the SNP’s objective is to get independence for Scotland at any price? The SNP will pay any price and the people of Scotland will be the victims of its desire to break up the United Kingdom.

[Douglas Ross]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a very serious point. The outcome of independence does not matter to the SNP; it simply matters to the SNP that it gets independence and separates from the rest of the UK. And it does not matter that it affects my constituents in Moray, with cuts to NHS Grampian, one of the poorest funded health boards anywhere in Scotland. That is why I have been joining protestors across Moray against the downgrading of our maternity services; that is the outcome we have from an SNP Administration in Holyrood after 11 years of them in government.

I wanted to make many other points. I wanted to briefly highlight power grabs, something that, again, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire mentioned. I think there is a power grab going on, and it is by the SNP, because it wants to grab these powers from Europe, and it does not want them in Holyrood or in Westminster; it wants them back in Europe. That is a power grab—the SNP grabbing these powers to give them back to Europe. The fishermen in my Moray constituency do not want that. Many of the one third, we are told, of SNP supporters who voted to leave the EU must now be wondering what their party is promising them because the policy is for the hated common fisheries policy to go straight back to the EU. So many other policies that are currently ruled by Europe would go straight back to the EU if the SNP ever got its way. [Interruption.] I have seen the wink in your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I know my remarks must now come to a conclusion. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Again, SNP Members cheer because someone had an opposite view from them and they are about to finish their speech. They can give it out but they cannot take it.

This Conservative Government are strengthening—[Interruption.] SNP Members keep shouting. This Conservative Government are strengthening the Union. More powers have been devolved to Holyrood by this UK Conservative Government since 2010 than any others, making it one of the strongest devolved Assemblies anywhere in the world. As a result of Brexit, with so many more powers going to the Scottish Parliament and to Holyrood, it will just get stronger. That is how we are strengthening the Union.