Nomination of Members to Committees

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

Parliamentary democracy, and I say this candidly, is sometimes messy. There are sometimes issues and difficulties, but the way to do our business is enshrined in centuries of tradition and convention. We have a Second Reading, we send a Bill to Committee and then it comes back on Report. We then have a Third Reading before sending it to the unelected cronies down the corridor. That is how we do business in the House. Sometime it does not work out quite perfectly, and we have to accept that.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I caution my hon. Friend not to take lectures from the Government on democracy. I remind him that he won his election and that his opponent has been stuffed into the House of Lords, so he should take no lectures from the Conservative party.

[Pete Wishart]

Some of my Scottish colleagues were not deemed sufficiently proficient to fill the post of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, so the Government had to ennoble someone to fill it––someone I defeated in the election.