Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Law Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

To prove what will happen, I encourage the hon. Gentleman to wait for question 8 from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), which is about exactly that. I will answer that point then, and I hope that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) will be encouraged by the response.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

3. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Scottish Government’s publication entitled “Scotland’s Right to Choose”.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

6. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Scottish Government’s publication entitled “Scotland’s Right to Choose”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)]

I will answer these questions together. There is no independence of thought in the questions.

The Prime Minister has received the First Minister’s correspondence, which contains the Scottish Government publication, and he will respond in due course.

[Chris Law]

The Secretary of State repeatedly said to the people of Scotland during the general election campaign that every vote for the Conservatives is a vote to “say no to indyref2”. That went well for them, didn’t it? It saw them lose over half their seats and left them with barely a rump of MPs. Will the Secretary of State now listen to the people of Scotland, as reflected by the 80% of seats won by the SNP, and support their expressed democratic will to choose their own future?

[Mr Jack]

Some 45% of Scots voted for the SNP in the 2019 election, and 45% of Scots voted for independence in 2014. The numbers simply have not changed. Further, in 2014 the independence referendum came on the back of something called the Edinburgh agreement, which was signed by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, the then deputy leader. The Edinburgh agreement stated that both parties would respect the outcome of the referendum, and that has not happened.