Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

For a few days now, we have been playing a guessing game in the Parliamentary Private Secretaries’ WhatsApp group about the possible subject of this debate. The running joke, of course, was that, whatever it was—fisheries, education or colonising the moon—it was actually going to be about separatism. So imagine our surprise when SNP Members just dropped the pretence and brought forward this debate. It is the sort of transparency and honesty that their colleagues in Holyrood can only dream of and then promptly forget again.

As a card-carrying member of the Conservative and Unionist party, it will come as no shock to Members that I am not in favour of smashing up a successful 300-year-old Union based on petty spite and grievance, but it does give me the opportunity to point out that there is a special Union connection today—St Patrick’s day—as St Patrick was a Welshman. That is proof that we have been doing this for quite a while now.

Like a lot of people in this Chamber, I campaigned in the 2014 referendum. I did not personally have a vote, but I felt that I should get involved because it was my country that the Scottish National party was trying to smash up. I would hope that, if one of their populist cousins such as the UK Independence party or the British National party came to power here, people would come down from north of the border to support the Unionist majority in our fight against that particular brand of divisiveness; that is what families do.

My seat of Heywood and Middleton is in the north-west of England, and in a very real sense we are the Union region. We are the only region to be represented by MPs from all four of the home nations. We border Scotland and Wales, as well as four other English regions, and they make us who we are; they enrich us. Apart from the strategic placement of the Pennines to keep the Yorkist hordes at bay, we do not want any borders with them.

The SNP does not have a mandate for another divisive referendum; it is barely getting on with the day job that it was elected to do. It is spending all its time avoiding democratic accountability as MSPs and airing its dirty laundry in public. Unless people specifically went out in 2016 in the hope that their children’s hospitals would be closed and their schools would slide down the PISA rankings, it is very hard for SNP Members to justify the claim that they are delivering what people voted for. It looks increasingly like another diversion tactic to move the focus away from yet another botched policy or another sex scandal swept under the First Minister’s living room carpet.

[Mark Fletcher]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. A few times, he has alluded to the fact that, irrespective of the question, when it comes to the SNP the answer is always separatism. Does he agree that the SNP increasingly resembles some sort of Nigel Farage tribute act?

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[Chris Clarkson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely spot-on.

It will come as no shock to Members that I am a bit of a geek—I recently watched the BBC’s 2016 Holyrood election coverage. The First Minister was asked what her priority for the next Parliament would be. Based on the past five years, we might reasonably assume that it was a second independence referendum, or perhaps shutting down free speech, which is one of the few policies that her Government have actually managed to deliver. Instead, she said it was education—a subject on which she wanted to be judged. She then managed to avoid having a debate on the subject for over two years. It could simply be that she forgot to do so, like she forgot conversations with senior civil servants, other MSPs and, indeed, her own husband.

That forgetfulness seems to be the reason the First Minister has forgotten her “once in a generation” pledge from 2014 and her promise to respect the result. I politely suggest to our nationalist colleagues that they should focus on the day job, or they might find that the electorate have a slightly longer memory than the First Minister.

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[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) and a rare pleasure to be able to agree with our Scottish Liberal Democrat colleagues.

I could wax lyrical about my love of Scotland. New Zealand, the country of my birth, has a deep affinity with Scotland. It was forged from the blood, sweat and toil of Scottish immigrants, alongside those from other parts of the UK, such as my forebears—a wonderful melting pot of culture and values where all understood that anything could be mended simply by using a piece of No. 8 fencing wire.

Let me turn to today’s debate. Too often, we talk about the benefits of the Union to Scotland, including the sharing of fiscal resources, but I would like to focus on the benefits that Scotland brings to the Union. Economically, we have a wonderful trading relationship, where approximately 60% of exports come to the rest of the UK, including whisky, with more than 10,000 jobs in Scotland in that industry. I can certainly speak for my own household in that the day we run out of a decent bottle of single malt is a grim day indeed.

Scotland is essential to UK defence and meeting our obligations to our NATO allies. UK naval shipbuilding is concentrated there. Scotland’s top universities are important to the UK’s wider ambition to be a global leader in science. Culturally, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook), we are enriched by events such as the Edinburgh festival, which is a Scottish, UK and global event. I look forward to my visits to Scotland, where the welcome is always warm and the scenery stunning. Tourism is another fantastic asset for Scotland.

It is important to recognise that there is little that divides us in our human experience, whether people hail from Glasgow or Newcastle, or are immigrants like me—someone who is proud of the privilege of being a British citizen. It is the responsibility I now hold in this place always to be mindful of the UK-wide interest, along with the interests of my constituents in Guildford, who would be poorer for Scottish separation.

I support the amendment standing in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. This last year, tackling coronavirus has impacted every corner of our precious Union. Thankfully, innovation has moved on significantly from mending things with a piece of fencing wire to the miraculous and speedy creation, approval and roll-out of lifesaving vaccines. I am delighted that all four corners of our Union have benefited and that the UK-wide furlough scheme has sought to protect jobs and livelihoods. We have much work to do to build back better.

[Chris Clarkson]

Like my hon. Friend, I have a dash of Commonwealth blood in me, although in my case it is maple syrup. Does she agree that our United Kingdom has informed a great deal of the character of many other nations and that to take that away would be to break those historical links, too?

[Angela Richardson]

Yes, indeed. Canada has benefited greatly from Scottish immigrants, as well as immigrants from other parts of the United Kingdom. We have fought world wars: soldiers from all over the Commonwealth could trace their roots back to all parts of this United Kingdom, and they fought heroically so that we could have the freedom we benefit from today. We should always recognise both the UK’s outward impact on the rest of the world and those relationships, which make us truly a global place to be. We are infinitely better placed to recover from coronavirus if we work together as four nations in our proud Union.