Scotland Bill

David Anderson Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

I very much welcome that contribution, and I hope that that is the spirit in which we can proceed. Many people who saw the Smith commission agreement signed at 8 o’clock on a Tuesday evening were disappointed when, at 8 o’clock the following morning the now Deputy First Minister suggested that there were parts of it that he did not like. I hoped that the agreement could and will be a comprehensive settlement for Scotland.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Why are the Secretary of State and his party denying the people of England the right to have a constitutional convention, given that over the past two decades the Scots have had two referendums and the Welsh, the Northern Irish, the people of London and the north-east have had referendums? Why is he denying the rest of the people of England such a right, and fobbing them off with an idea drawn up by the Chancellor on the back of a fag packet?

[David Mundell]

We have had a general election in which the issues were debated extensively across the United Kingdom. What the Government are committed to do in relation to Scotland is to deliver the Scotland Bill.

You have not selected the amendment, Mr Speaker, but, as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) stated, it mentioned a veto, and I want to clarify the issue of so-called vetoes. The Smith agreement is clear that matters such as the mechanism for paying universal credit across the UK and the Jobcentre Plus network will remain reserved. That was an important argument during the referendum and was endorsed by the majority of Scots. In order to deliver, we need a system that allows the Scottish Government to take responsibility for benefits, including by being able to top them up, but allows the reserved universal credit payments mechanism to carry on working effectively. That is what the Bill does.

It is wrong to call that a veto—as I said earlier, a veto means that someone can prevent something from happening if they do not like it. The Bill does not give the UK Government that power. In fact, it explicitly says that consent for a change cannot be unreasonably withheld.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

I am grateful for the intervention, because the hon. Gentleman is describing devolution—that is how it works. It is up to individual Parliaments to make the choices, within the powers they have, on how they want to serve. Under a democratic system, the people will decide at the ballot box whether or not those decisions are ones they wish to vote for. Unfortunately, when there is devolution there will be disparities across the nations of the United Kingdom, but the important point is that the United Kingdom stays together.

[Mr Anderson]

I do not want to fall out with my hon. Friend, but it feels like the people of England will not get the choice to take any position in a democratic vote, because we are being told, “If you want devolution, you have to sign up to a regional mayor, whether you like it or not.” Without any debate, we are told, “If you don’t do that, you can’t get any money.” That is not devolution. He has talked often about social solidarity, but where is the social solidarity for us in England when this is being done without our chance to have a real debate in this country?

[Ian Murray]

I am grateful for that intervention. The Scottish referendum debate demonstrated that when there is a proper constitutional debate, under a framework for proper constitutional debate, the results are there for all to see. The overall position of the constitutional convention that we were proposing in our manifesto would have been the way to take some of these issues forward. Colleagues across England would be significantly upset to see that the devolution structure across the UK is progressing quickly while they are being hamstrung with what is being offered to them. The Government really do need to get a grip of this whole constitutional settlement across the UK, so that England does not seem as though it is losing out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

It is a huge pleasure to see you in that seat, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I hope that you are there for many years to come, comrade. I will get that one in first.

I praise all new Members for the tremendous speeches they have made tonight, and particularly—even though he is gone—my long-standing hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner). We had many happy years working together in the trade union movement, and it is there that I want to start.

In previous discussions about devolution, there was a marked difference in that there was consultation and the involvement of civic society. We saw that in the 1990s, through the discussions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and through those about London and my part of the world. Not only were people involved, but trade unions put in time, effort, politics and members’ money to make a case for a referendum on devolution. They were responding to what their members wanted. Their members wanted relief from the pain and suffering they had seen through 18 years of Tory rule and they saw devolution as a route to that.

Perhaps even more important was the situation in Northern Ireland, where people saw a chance of devolution as giving them a chance for peace. I was sitting earlier talking to my colleague, our friend, the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). In the mid-1990s I never realised that 20 years later I would be sitting in this House and working with his father to take devolution and the peace process forward. Sometimes people had to be dragged, but ultimately the will of the people was heard. Nobody can argue that that was anything other than positive.

Today, we have another chance to put right a wrong. I am glad that the vote last year in Scotland went the way it did, but we must address the problem of where we ended up. As a knee-jerk reaction to a rogue poll the leaders of the parliamentary parties in this House gave a vow to the people of Scotland that I believe some of them did not want to carry through, but they made that vow and should stick to the terms of it. I hope that between us we can ensure that that happens, but I must say to our colleagues from Scotland that that cannot happen in isolation. What we do with this Bill will impact on England and on my part of the world in particular, and in my part of the world people want to have a say. They want to be involved in the way other people across these islands have been involved. I do not think that that is too much to ask, but clearly the Conservatives do, as the Secretary of State has already said tonight that there will be no constitutional convention for England.

The Chancellor, who runs the Government, despite what the Prime Minister might think, said that we can have semi-devolution if we sign up to elected mayors. We know what that is about: it is about giving mayors from the Tory party a chance to rule parts of the world that do not want Tory rule, and would never, ever vote for them in local elections. That is all it is—it is being used to abuse the constitutional settlement. If it is good enough for the rest of this kingdom, it is good enough for the people of the north-east and the people of England. Why should we be short-changed? Why should we be told that we can have control of our daily life only if we do what we are told, instead of having a proper, adult conversation with people as we have done in this country over the past 20 years?

I am sad that we have lost 40 representatives from Scotland. Those people did a great service to their country, to the United Kingdom, and to the House. Quite clearly, the people in Scotland have spoken, and colleagues who have left the House are where they are because of things that were not true. They are victims of a story that said that they did not want to fight austerity—they were Tory-lite—and they deserted their original role as defenders of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. No one can tell me that that was the case with people like Dave Hamilton, Jim Sheridan, Jim McGovern and Katy Clark. They are men and women who never wavered in their commitment to the poor, the weak and the vulnerable.

The truth is that my party leadership conceded, to an extent, to the austerity agenda of the Tory party. At times, when we were in government, we favoured businesses and power over workers and the poor, and we let people down. We pursued a neo-liberal tract on many issues, which jarred badly with the people of Scotland and parts of the UK such as the place I come from. My leadership has to understand that going forward.

Many people across these islands have a long-held belief in collectivism and the power of the state, and they struggle to get to grips with an agenda that promotes individuals and self-interest. I do not believe that many Scots voted last year to break up the United Kingdom because they hated the UK. What they hated was the austerity agenda—the poverty agenda that has been pursued by the Tory party for as long as it has been in existence, which says that it will let the poor pay for the failures of the rich, and that the wealthy should always be looked after while the poor take the hindmost. The people of Scotland rejected my party this year because it was too close to people who have pushed that agenda for years and years.

The people who have been in the driving seat for the past five years were in the driving seat for 18 years from 1979. We know the history: they argue that unemployment is a price worth paying because their people are not paying it. They argued that there was no such thing as society, because they had enough money not to depend on one another and the communities they came from. They try to tell us that we are all in this together, while nurses get a 1% pay rise and chief executives of trusts get a 17% pay rise. That is the world that Tory Members live in, and that is the situation that the people of Scotland are trying to escape.

It is against that background that we should judge the Bill, which must be seen as a way of people getting some respite from the damage that the Tory party has caused the country, the people of Scotland and the rest of the UK for many years. People can see no respite. Indeed, the Government are saying not only that they are going to keep up the pressure on austerity but that when we are back in balance they will still do so, which means that the people of this country—working people and the people who can least afford it—will be put under more and more pressure.

Under the long-term economic plan, it was all supposed to be roses by now, but we all know what happened to that. It was all supposed to be happy by 2014, but that certainly did not happen. People have had enough of carrying the can for failure. The Bill is a chance to put things right. I say to comrades from Scotland: do not do this in isolation from the people of England, because we deserve the same as your people.