Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

It would be remiss of me not to start by congratulating the new shadow Chancellor on her role. She will be cognisant of the fact that she has replaced an Aberdeen quine, so she has very big boots to fill indeed.

It is important when we look at the wider discussion of the Queen’s Speech to reflect on what it actually means. Of course, it is the Government’s legislative programme—a programme that they believe they have a mandate to put forward, and a mandate that the Conservatives got in the 2019 general election, when they won 365 seats in this place on 43% of the vote. Of course, in the 2019 general election they won just 25% of the vote in Scotland and hold just six Scottish seats in this House, yet over the last year we have seen the UK Government use that mandate to drag us out of the European Union against our express wishes. They introduced the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 to ride roughshod over devolution, alongside the levelling-up fund and the shared prosperity fund—all a blatant attack on devolution. It is not just us nationalists saying that; it is the Labour party in Wales as well, because it is cognisant of the fact that the Welsh Assembly is also under attack.

What do we see planned for the year to come? We see a Conservative Government with a mandate in Scotland of 25% from 2019 seeking to introduce new legislation in relation to immigration—even more draconian than it already is—that will only make things worse, despite the express wishes of the people of Scotland to have a tailored immigration system fitting Scotland’s needs. Of course, we will also see legislation aimed solely at suppressing the right of people to vote by making them take photo ID to the ballot box. The Government are seeking to fix a problem that nobody knew existed, and they are doing it for their own nefarious means.

Of course, in Scotland we had an election last week. The Chancellor failed to reflect on that in his remarks; I do wonder why. On the constituency ballot—first past the post, which Members of this House are extremely familiar with—the SNP won an unprecedented 47.7% of the vote, and 62 constituency seats. In comparison, the Scottish Conservatives won 21% of the vote and just five constituency seats—six if we include Dumbarton, but I would not wish to do that—yet we are told we have no mandate to implement our policies.

Of course, in Scotland we do not just have a first-past-the-post system; we have a proportional Parliament. That has allowed the Labour party to gain some seats; I do not think the Liberal Democrats gained anything on the list this time; and of course the Conservatives gained some more seats on the list. That list vote was remarkable, because a majority of voters in Scotland voted for parties that had an express wish for the people of Scotland to have their say—to have a second independence referendum to decide our own future. A majority of voters on that list vote voted for such parties.

What we have ended up with is a Parliament in Scotland where 72 of the 129 seats are taken up by people who support Scotland’s right to choose. And has that right to choose ever been more important than it is at this moment in time? Has it ever been more important, as we seek to overcome a decade or more of Tory austerity, as we seek to overcome being dragged out of the European Union against our will, and as we seek to build back from the pandemic? But of course we have no mandate, because a Conservative party that has not won an election in Scotland since 1955 tells us that we will not get to decide our own future.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech, which is typically passionate. The trouble is that it is a speech that he could have given in any debate. May I urge him to bring his mind back to the criticism of the Conservatives for their appalling Queen’s Speech, rather than giving us the usual stuff, which we hear most days—day in, day out?

[Stephen Flynn]

I think that is the first reaction to the Scottish Parliament elections that I have heard from the Member—a Labour Member, I believe.

[Christian Matheson]

indicated assent.

[Stephen Flynn]

He is a Labour Member. That is astonishing, because I have yet to hear what the Labour party’s views are in respect of the Scottish Parliament. The people of Scotland voted in favour of having that right to choose. I think he should reflect on the fact that the Labour party won just two constituency seats in Scotland. It is perhaps because of its arrogance when it comes to these serious issues of Scotland’s votes that that is such a thing.

I will turn to the Queen’s Speech now; if the hon. Member had bided his time, I would have got there. The reality is that the people of Scotland face the starkest of choices—a choice between deciding their own future, or the legislative agenda of a party that we did not vote for. What does that mean in real terms? It means that, as it stands, the people of Scotland will not have the power to borrow—we have been denied that throughout the pandemic by the Chancellor—that we will have to have nuclear weapons on the Clyde, despite our express wishes not to have them there, and that we will not be able to have climate change put front and centre. If we look at the Queen’s Speech, we see that there is just a cursory mention of net zero. That is simply not on. It is simply not right.

I appreciate that Government Members will likely point to the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan. I imagine that they will even point to the delayed energy White Paper. They might even point to the North sea transition deal, but the legislative footing needs to be more ambitious and the money required for change needs to be there. That has never been more important in the north-east of Scotland. Last year, we saw the price of oil and gas plummet—it collapsed—and the Chancellor did not lift a finger to help. What was the consequence of that failure to act? It was that a third of all job losses in Scotland came from the city and the wider region that I am fortunate enough to represent.

We now have the opportunity to go down the path of net zero, to invest in our future, to put carbon capture and storage into fruition and to make sure that the hydrogen economy is built—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) says, “We are doing it.” How much money are you giving to the north-east of Scotland to make that happen? I asked the Secretary of State that very question and he was unable to answer. The point I am making is that, while we remain within the United Kingdom, that investment must be targeted at the north-east of Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) when he is talking about his work on the all-party parliamentary beer group, of which I am a proud member, but less of that for now.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to ban conversion therapy. I hope that that legislation will sail through the House, as long as the Government get it right. I also give a cautious welcome to the draft Online Safety Bill, for which we have been calling for many years. I just hope that the Government avoid their usual failing of caving in to the demands of foreign big tech companies.

I am extremely worried about the Government’s proposals to introduce a requirement for photographic voter ID. Let us call it what it is: it is voter suppression. It is straight out of the Trump playbook. It is sinister and authoritarian, and it will be opposed in this House.

[Ian Paisley]

I understand some of the hostility about this, but it was a Labour Government who imposed photographic voter ID on Northern Ireland, and it has actually increased voter turnout and reduced fraud. Let us not scare-tactic people out of their democratic franchise.

[Christian Matheson]

It was introduced in Northern Ireland because there was a specific issue, which the hon. Gentleman obviously knows about, concerning another political party, where there was clear, identified fraud. In the 2019 election, 49 million votes were cast and there was one conviction for fraud. This is not a problem and it does not require a solution.

There is too much left out of this Queen’s Speech. There is nothing on cladding for fire safety victims and those who are trapped in housing that is now worthless. There is very little on leasehold. It is good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), my constituency neighbour, in his place. His leading work on this issue, along with others including the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), has been outstanding, and I pay tribute to him. Instead, we get a planning free-for-all, which Government Members have referred to, that will cause chaos locally and, frankly, line the pockets of big Tory donors. There is nothing on energy-neutral building standards and changes to building regs to make housing built to tougher environmental standards. In fact, as we have heard, apart from rolling over the Environment Bill, there is very little on environmentalism and a green recovery.

There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech for local government, which has been at the forefront of the community pandemic response. The Government have chopped £9 billion off social care and local government has had to pick up that tab. I say to Ministers that they must not use local government to pay off the debts from the pandemic that will need to be paid off. In Cheshire West and Chester, we have lost £337 million in the past decade. Just recently, the Government cut 20% from the money to fix potholes, which is one of the Government’s big schemes.

We know the modus operandi of this Government when it comes to cuts. They cut the budget of the local council or the public authority—police or fire, for example—and then, when the local authority is unable to deliver the services, they criticise the local authority for having to reduce the quality of service. If that public authority has to increase council tax, the police precept or whatever it is as a result, they criticise it for putting up council tax to make good on the cuts the Tory Government have imposed. It is dishonest, and there is a dishonesty that runs through this Government.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said from the Dispatch Box:

“We understand this crucial point: we find flair, imagination, enthusiasm and genius distributed evenly throughout this country, while opportunity is not. We mean to change that, because it is not just a moral and social disgrace, but an economic mistake and a criminal waste of talent.”—[Official Report, 11 May 2021; Vol. 695, c. 18.]

He is absolutely right, but the Conservatives have been in power for 11 years and the Prime Minister has been a member of the Government for most of that time. Since I have been here, they change their leaders every couple of years like some kind of tinpot regime and try to pretend that all of a sudden they are a new Government. But just as a snake will change its skin, slither away and is still the same snake, it is still the same Conservatives in charge trying to deny everything they caused in the first place. It is dishonest. They cannot abrogate their own failings. They should stop blaming everyone else for their own failings.

Finally, let me turn to fire and rehire, which has been a scandal of this pandemic. If employers came to trade unions and said, “We’ve got a problem. The bottom has fallen out of our business. Let’s work together and solve this together,” then trade unions would have gone for that. Instead, we see this awful practice. One of my hon. Friends spoke earlier about British Gas. Loyal and skilled employees with 15 to 20 years of service are being fired and rehired on worse conditions. There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech on that. The Minister responsible himself called it “bully boy tactics”, and he is absolutely right, but now is the time in the pandemic when it is becoming so common that legislation must be brought forward to ban this dreadful practice. If I am fortunate enough to win the private Members’ Bill ballot, I will bring forward legislation. I hope the Government will back me.