Oral Answers to Questions

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

The whole purpose of the exercise is to ensure that we have UK food security. The border target operating model will implement its next three major milestones on 31 January 2024, 30 April 2024 and 31 October 2024, which means that the regime will be introduced by increments. This will be good for British food and good for British animals.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

11. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the list of Ministers’ interests in ensuring that Ministers (a) declare and (b) avoid any conflict of interest.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

There is an established regime under which Ministers’ interests are declared and managed. Ministers seek the advice of their permanent secretaries and the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests, who reports twice yearly. This is but one element of a network of ethics systems, including the ministerial code and the business appointment rules, which uphold the highest standards in Government.

[David Linden]

The Minister says that there is “a network of ethics systems” for the appointment of Ministers, so let me ask a simple question: when was the last time Lord Cameron was not domiciled in the UK?

[Oliver Dowden]

That is a question for Lord Cameron, but I would be amazed if he had not been domiciled in this country for his entire life.

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[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister think it is acceptable that Baroness Michelle Mone has more ability to scrutinise the Foreign Secretary than Members of this House?

[Oliver Dowden]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to my previous answer about the well-established principle that Ministers can serve from the other place, which I believe last happened when Lord Mandelson was in the Labour Cabinet. However, the Government and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary recognise this House’s desire to scrutinise him and he has committed to further measures to ensure that happens.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

This is a hugely important project with all sorts of opportunities, such as jobs and education, and with a projected increase in economic output of over £100 billion by 2050. My hon. Friend is right that the project needs transparency and scrutiny, and the first stage is already under construction on time and under budget. I am told that the subsequent stages will go through full and transparent scrutiny as part of the planning process.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister has previously said on camera that he does not have any working-class friends. When the Prime Minister is not taking luxury helicopter rides and splashing about in his private pool, will the Deputy Prime Minister recommend that he befriends somebody from the working class?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am not sure I got the full extent of the question. The reality, as the hon. Gentleman can see with the energy price guarantee, the free childcare and the national living wage, is that we are supporting everyone in this country, particularly those in the lowest paid jobs.

House of Lords Reform

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered reform of the House of Lords.

Happy new year, Sir Gary. Before I was elected to this place, I was opposed to the House of Lords. Indeed, in 2005 I proposed a motion to the Scottish National party conference that confirmed the party’s position that no SNP member would take a seat in the House of Lords. However, after being here and seeing the role that the House of Lords plays in scrutinising and revising legislation, how it holds the Government to account, and the expertise and experience that its Members bring to the parliamentary process, I am now really opposed to the House of Lords. When I say that, I mean no disrespect to any individual member of the House of Lords—and I know that some peers are paying extremely close attention to this debate.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has noted that there is a peer present: Baron Foulkes, who was elected to the Scottish Parliament. Does my hon. Friend agree that if Baron Foulkes, who is unelected, wants to have anything to do with legislation, he should perhaps seek election, rather than sitting in the Public Gallery and no doubt tweeting throughout the debate?

[Patrick Grady]

I will leave my hon. Friend’s comments on the record. However, it is possible for people to be elected to the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, our former colleague, Winnie Ewing, has the distinction of having been elected to the Scottish Parliament, the House of Commons and the European Parliament; I think that she is the only person ever to sit in all three of those legislatures. I do not know whether a seat in the House of Lords was then offered to her, but if it was she certainly never took it.

However, this debate is not about individual Members of the House of Lords. Many of them have immensely valuable skills and experience that sometimes are not found or replicated in the Commons. Nevertheless, there must be better, more imaginative and more innovative ways of using such experience for the public good than simply appointing people to the legislature for the rest of their lives and just letting them get on with it.

Even the majority of peers themselves think that the current arrangements are unsuitable and unsustainable. The Lord Speaker’s committee on the size of the House published a series of recommendations in 2017 aimed at reducing and stabilising the composition of the House of Lords, but under recent Prime Ministers the House of Lords has become even more bloated. Famously, the National People’s Congress of China is the only legislative Chamber in the world that has more members than the House of Lords.

That is one of those amusing anecdotes that some of us like to tell guests when we show them around this place. Another one is that Lesotho is one of the two countries in the Commonwealth where hereditary chieftains retain the right to make law, the other being the United Kingdom. Another is that Iran is one of only two countries in the world where religious clerics sit as of right in the legislature, the other being—again—the United Kingdom. Those statements are not just anecdotes; they are anachronisms. They are not really amusing; they are absurd. Sometimes, when we show guests, particularly those from developing countries, the opulence of the Lords Chamber, words begin to fail us. How do we adequately describe what the Lords actually is, how it is composed and why it functions in the way it does in what is supposed to be a 21st-century democracy?

Sometimes, visiting delegations—perhaps under the auspices of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Inter-Parliamentary Union or the Westminster Foundation for Democracy—come to Westminster from countries in Africa, Latin America or eastern Europe. They meet parliamentarians such as ourselves around antique tables and oak-panelled walls and they talk about good governance, democratic accountability and anti-corruption practices. Although such learning and sharing among parliamentarians is always valuable, many eyebrows are raised if in discussions it happens to come up that one in 10 Conservative peers have donated more than £100,000 to the Conservative party, and that in the past seven years every former Conservative party treasurer has given at least £3 million to the party, and almost all of them have been offered a peerage. There seems to be an uncanny connection between donating vast sums of money to the Government, or indeed to some of the official Opposition parties, and the chances of being offered a seat for life in the House of Lords.

[Patrick Grady]

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend. As he and I have said, the connection is quite uncanny. Of course, no one is levelling specific accusations, but that connection is out in the open. It is a simple fact; it is simply numbers. In conjunction with Brunel University, openDemocracy calculated that the odds of so many major Tory donors in the UK population all ending up in the House of Lords are the equivalent of entering the national lottery 12 times in a row and winning the jackpot every time. That is quite astonishing.

As we know, there are limits on the collective ability of the Lords to veto or overrule the elected House. However, as my hon. Friend alluded to, the rights available to individual peers are very similar to ours in the House of Commons. They can put written and oral questions to Ministers. They can vote on and seek to amend legislation during a three-stage process that parallels that in the Commons. Incidentally, that means they can also bump into Ministers privately when they are in the voting Lobbies, which is supposed to be one of the great advantages of in-person voting.

Peers can introduce their own private Members’ Bills. They can sign up to inter-parliamentary bodies such as the CPA and the IPU, and they can join all-party parliamentary groups. There is, rightly, a lot of scrutiny at the moment of the operation of all-party parliamentary groups, but I wonder how many colleagues present have had to leave early or arrive late at an APPG meeting that they were interested in because they have had to deal with urgent constituency casework, or get to the Chamber for an urgent question or a statement relating to their constituency. Meanwhile, colleagues from the Lords at such meetings are content to run on and opine about the topic under discussion, whatever that happens to be, and build their connections with stakeholders and the secretariats of those meetings, whoever they happen to be.

In return for all that, peers are entitled to claim £332 for every day they attend the House, tax free. Sometimes it is pointed out that over an average of 150 sitting days a year, that works out at slightly less than the salary of a Member of the House of Commons after tax. However, in the Lords it is guaranteed for life. Members of Parliament are, without doubt, very well remunerated compared with most of our constituents. However, our constituents can, quite rightly, choose to stop that remuneration and elect a different representative in our place every time an election comes round.

[David Linden]

Would my hon. Friend put on record the fact that the tax-free allowance that Members of the House of Lords are given is based on a system of them just coming and clocking in? We saw with Lord Hanningfield that they can literally be on the Estate for five minutes, then beaver off and get on with the other jobs that they have.

[Patrick Grady]

It comes back to the point about accountability. Members of Parliament who behave in such a way would be taken to task, first by their Whips, secondly by the local party members, and finally by the electorate.

Since the end of the second world war, 65 countries have gained their independence from the United Kingdom. Although many have based the design and practices of their legislatures on might be called a Westminster model, I am not sure whether any of them have chosen to replicate a wholly unelected, appointed, partially hereditary Chamber where members serve for life. Even in Lesotho, with its hereditary chieftains, appointed members of the Senate serve a five-year term. Its Senate has 33 members, not over 800.

SNP manifestos in 2015, 2017 and 2019 called for the abolition of the House of Lords. When Scotland becomes the 66th country to achieve independence from the United Kingdom, there will be an opportunity to consider how the enactment of legislation, scrutiny of the Executive and representation of the population can be most effectively —and perhaps innovatively—achieved.

There have been proposals for an upper Chamber of some kind, perhaps based on the model of the Irish Seanad. There have been calls for an increase in the number of MSPs, both under current devolution and indeed under independence. There are more radical ideas for pre-legislative scrutiny and a greater use of citizens’ assemblies and other forms of direct democracy that could feed into the main legislature.

However, nobody, as far as I am aware, has suggested that when Scotland becomes independent, or when any other country has a good hard look at its constitution, it would be a good idea to have a wholly appointed second Chamber. The idea is just incomprehensible and incompatible with a modern democracy.

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[Patrick Grady]

I am sure it is a relief to many people paying attention to the debate. Anyway, that information was meant to be just for background and context, but it turns out that simply by describing the absurdity of the current system the case for reform of the Lords starts to speak for itself. My point today is not so much about what kind of reform of the House of Lords is necessary or what should replace it were it to be completely abolished, but about why reform has not happened or is not happening and the ongoing failure—indeed, the impossibility—of any kind of meaningful reform. There seem to be two main reasons for that.

First, it is not in the interests of the governing party at Westminster or the Prime Minister—any Prime Minister—to weaken the immense power of patronage that the ability to make appointments to the Lords represents. Secondly, it is simply not possible to reform the Lords in any meaningful way without reforming the Commons, and that would mean not just procedural reform but electoral reform, followed by a review of the entire structure of the UK’s constitution. That would never be in the interests of any incumbent party of government.

Members may be aware that there have been some significant interventions on the issue of Lords reform in recent months, and these have, intentionally or otherwise, conceded both of those points. The Lord Speaker addressed the issue of Lords reform in the Hansard Society’s 75th anniversary lecture just before Christmas. His proposed framework was thoughtful and pragmatic, and it is easy to agree with several of the key principles he outlined about why reform was needed and what it could start to look like. He made a key point that the more radical the change to the composition of the Lords, the more radical would be the change to the role of the House, even if there were no explicit changes in its powers. However, to me it then follows that there would inevitably also be a change in its relationship with the Commons, and the Commons would want to find new ways, quite rightly, to assert its democratic mandate.

The Lord Speaker diplomatically regretted the decision of recent Prime Ministers not to show restraint in making new appointments, and remarked that the House of Lords has increased from 778 members in June 2019 to 828 today, with more to come. Those figures show just how irresistible the power of patronage is to many Prime Ministers. Other than various absolute monarchs and dictators, who else in the world has the power to confer a job for life on any person of their choosing? That is a power that rests with the UK’s Prime Minister, exercisable over wavering Back-Bench rebels, potential advisers who need to be enticed away from the private sector and, it seems by more than mathematical coincidence, over many wealthy party donors.

The Lord Speaker also pointed out that a change of Government could easily lead to a further surge in membership of the Lords in order to reflect the changed balance of power in the Commons. That shows, once again, that it is impossible to speak of meaningful reforms of the Lords in isolation, and not consider the effect that reform would have on the UK’s wider political system.

These points are raised in the other recent major intervention on the issue, the recommendations published by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, after he modestly accepted a commission from the Leader of the Opposition to produce a report on the future of the United Kingdom.

[David Linden]

Plus ça change.

[Patrick Grady]

Yes, what an achievement!

Incidentally, it is a bit odd that this debate is not being led by a Member of the official Opposition. People would think the report would have inspired a rush of applications from Labour Members eager to share their thoughts on constitutional reform and the role of the House of Lords, but in reality, barely a month after its publication, the status of that report is not clear.

Media coverage at the time suggested that it would form the basis of Labour’s next manifesto, which would mean the next election would become a de facto referendum on the constitution. A vote for the Labour party would be a vote to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an assembly of nations and regions, for further regional devolution throughout England and for reform of the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru, never mind that they were established by a Labour Government after popular referendums, or that previous extensions to their powers came as a result of cross-party commissions, including representatives from those institutions. Now it seems a Labour Government elected on 40% of the UK-wide vote will claim a mandate for sweeping constitutional reform.

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[Patrick Grady]

There are a number of Members, including the spokesperson for the official Opposition, present, so they will have heard that. They will have also read the repeated reports of the Lord Speaker’s Commission. The irony is that the House of Lords is more keen on reform than the Government are.

[David Linden]

I do not wish to burst my hon. Friend’s bubble on Labour party commitments, but is he aware that since 1910 the Labour party has made manifesto commitments to abolish the House of Lords? Given that it has not happened in 110 years, how seriously can we trust the report by Gordon Brown?

[Patrick Grady]

That is the point; the pattern continues. We keep talking about but never actually implementing any meaningful or wholesale reform. The report does at least recognise that we cannot tackle one part of the system without tackling all of it. For all the fuss and media fanfare, it will just sit on the shelf and gather dust, as my hon. Friend suggests. Reform of the Lords and of the wider constitution becomes a second-order or a second-term issue, and the Executive can get on quietly putting to use the accumulated powers that they enjoy under the status quo.

That probably helps to explain, at least in part, the current Government’s position. They have said in various contexts that reform of the Lords is “not a priority”, despite the Conservative manifesto saying that the role of the House of Lords should be “looked at”. But now, even the modest suggestion of a cap on numbers, endorsed, as I have said, by the House of Lords itself, is too radical. The Minister who is in his place told me on 8 December at Cabinet Office questions:

“The Government do not have a view on the upper limit of the House of Lords.”—[Official Report, 8 December 2022; Vol. 724, c. 510.]

So there we go. It is quite remarkable—to infinity and beyond, the House of Lords filled with Tory donors, cronies and time servers. I have maybe saved the Minister his entire summing-up because the position appears to be that constitutional perfection in the UK has been achieved, and nothing needs to change again. Indeed, his colleague, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, seems to have said that he does not believe there should be any further devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament, either—now or in the future. Fortunately, it is not up to them to decide.

Those of us who support independence for Scotland are often accused of obsessing about the constitution. We are told that we should focus on the priorities of our constituents—the cost of living crisis, improving public services. I agree—

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[Anthony Mangnall]

I worry about that, because one thing we may find common cause and agreement on is that being in public life is becoming increasingly hard for us all—both Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords. It is difficult, and it is unfortunate that we are so often in the glare of the public eye, with all of the trials and tribulations that come with that. I would not want to see the House of Lords elected, because I do not think we would achieve that aim of encouraging specialists to be part of it. I will develop those points later in my remarks.

[David Linden]

I have to say that Baron Mangnall has a ring to it that we could all get behind. The hon. Member spoke about some of the wonderful specialists in the House of Lords. Could he develop his point a little more by talking about the specialisms of, say, Baroness Michelle Mone?

[Anthony Mangnall]

If I may, the hon. Member’s colleague, the hon. Member for Glasgow North, started off by saying that he was not going to be specific about individuals, and I do not think it is right that we are specific about individuals. However, if there is an individual who has done extremely well in business as a woman in the 21st century, I think it is important to note that. But I might also point out that the House of Lords has been a welcoming home to refugees, in the form of Baroness Helic, who fled the war in Bosnia. It also has extraordinary scientists, such as Lord Winston. These extraordinary people make an extraordinary contribution, and they are not the minority—they are the majority.

In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Glasgow North pointed out only a few small issues, rather than the vast majority of positive things that go on throughout the House of Lords. He made the point about cronies in the Lords; the House of Lords is still conditioned to the standards that Parliament sets, and it is still compliant with the rules that we too must follow. It is important to remember that it is not some lawless upper Chamber in which people can do what they want. It is set to the same procedures and scrutiny that we must follow. I do not think we should put that aside.

I have a few points to make. First, the House of Lords serves as an important check and balance. I notice that not a single SNP Member was at yesterday’s debate on the Procurement Bill, apart from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), who was on the Front Bench. Dry, difficult and sometimes dull as procurement might be, it is a perfect example of how a Bill can be introduced in the House of Lords, shaped by fantastic expertise from across the Chamber and then brought to the House of Commons, where it passes its Second Reading, not with great confrontation and difficulty, but with acceptance that it is a good piece of legislation that will make a huge difference.

[Anthony Mangnall]

It is perfectly acceptable to say that there will be scrutiny and change, as there always is, but that is not to say that the job has not been well done by Members of the House of Lords. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Aberdeen North may laugh about that, but that is exactly the point of the process. We want to be able to make use of that expertise in the House of Commons, and we want our legislative agenda to be scrutinised in the House of Lords. That is the way the system works.

Those important checks and balances have meant that pieces of legislation that have been passed on the fly—I have felt that, in some cases, they have perhaps been passed too quickly—have been checked and sent back by the House of Lords. When it comes to international development, which I am deeply concerned about, the House of Lords has been extremely effective in that regard. That is something that those on the Labour Front Bench might agree with me on.

[David Linden]

The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about checks and balances. Can he talk further about how many cheques have been donated to political parties by people who happen to sit in the House of Lords?

[Anthony Mangnall]

The vast majority of Members of the House of Lords are not people who have donated cheques, but people who have done extraordinary things in society. If the hon. Gentleman would like to go back and look at those numbers, I would be happy to do battle with him—the numbers are in my favour here. The vast majority of Members of the House of Lords need to be applauded, not ridiculed and pursued for being cronies and for not serving their country. They serve their country just as much as we do.

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[Justin Madders]

I believe that it was Government policy not so long ago to reduce the membership of the Lords. I am not sure that that has been kept on track—like many Government policies.

Many Members do not speak or attend at all, but they appear to be able to do so without any accountability. That is an affront to democracy and an insult to the public.

[David Linden]

When we talk about the House of Lords, one thing I find amusing is the concept of working peers. We do not talk about “working refuse collectors” or “working brain surgeons”. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there should be some sort of threshold, at least in the beginning, such that if a peer has not spoken or voted, they automatically lose their place in the House of Lords, by virtue of not being a working peer?

[Justin Madders]

That is an interesting suggestion. I would suggest that lords in that position should do the honourable thing and resign. We have spoken about the Government wanting to have minimum service levels; indeed, they want to sack nurses and teachers who do not keep to those. Perhaps they should apply the same standards to Members of the Lords.

I am certainly not claiming that there are no valuable elements of the current House of Lords. As we have heard, there are many extremely talented Members who demonstrate high levels of integrity, expertise and independence. However, we make a huge mistake in assuming that the second Chamber is naturally imbued with those characteristics because of the way that Members are appointed. As we have heard, there is a growing tendency for those with the biggest cheque books to be offered a seat at the table. That is not democracy; that is not the way a modern country should operate. I see no reason why those who have a place because of their skills, experience or abilities would not have a good chance of continuing to serve if they put themselves forward for election by the public. Ultimately, for all the positive qualities that those particular Members show, their contribution is fatally undermined by the lack of democratic legitimacy.

We essentially say to the public, “We trust you to decide on our future relationship with Europe. We trust you to elect Members of Parliament, councillors, police and crime commissioners, and Mayors. But we do not think we can trust you to elect the upper Chamber of Parliament.” I have no truck—we have already picked up on this—with those who are recent converts to the merits of the House of Lords just because, on a particular occasion, it voted in a particular way that suited their political views. That does not negate the overall democratic deficit that, in its current form, it represents. Let us not allow the day-to-day decisions, and the painfully slow incremental process that we have seen, to cloud the bigger picture: the House of Lords belongs to a bygone era of privilege, establishment and a closed political world, when we are, I hope, becoming a more open society.

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[Justin Madders]

I refer my hon. Friend to the recommendations set out in the Brown report, which outline the limitations on a second Chamber’s ability to reject legislation. The suggestion is for it to have a defined constitutional role and this will cover when it is able to reject issues. Those are matters for further discussion, but nations around the world manage to have democratically elected second Chambers without creating chaos. I believe that is something we should aim for.

Coming back to the figures, we should take very seriously the fact that so many people have so little faith and trust in us representing them. Democracy is fragile and should not be taken for granted. We ignore those findings at our peril. We have to make our politics more open and accountable to the people we serve. An appointed body cannot have a future in that respect.

I will finish on this point. There are always pressing priorities, but we need to look at the bigger picture and at how the world is radically different from just a decade ago. We cannot allow our institutions to remain static forever. We must listen to what the public are telling us.

[David Linden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Justin Madders]

I am just finishing. The public want change and a political process that they feel a part of and that is not geographically weighted towards London and the south-east, as the second Chamber is at the moment. They want people with a mandate from the whole nation, and a body that is not just invitation only. They want accountability and representation. In short, they want democracy. Reform of the House of Lords is unfinished business, and it is about time we had a Government who intend to see that through to its conclusion.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I would like to begin by posing a scenario. We go to the public and we say to them, “We have a good idea for constitutional reform. Let us double the number of Members of Parliament.” How do colleagues feel that would go down? Not very well, I think. Suppose we then said, “Let us double the number of Members of Parliament, but elect half of them at one time, and half of them at another time.” How would that work in practice?

Alternatively, we could say, “Let us elect them all at the same time, but sit them in two Houses.” In which case, they rubber-stamp each other. Finally, we would say, “Let us elect one group under one electoral system and the other group under a different electoral system, but one will clearly be subordinate to the other, even though they are both democratically elected.” I wish anybody luck in trying to resolve the arguments and the deadlock resulting from that.

[David Linden]

May I add one further option? There would be 59 fewer Members of Parliament if Scotland becomes independent, and then the remaining guys could do what they want with their own constitution.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

If we were having a debate about Scottish independence, I would be happy to engage with that. Our Scottish colleagues have quite rightly chosen to participate in the UK national constitutional debate, and that is what we are considering this afternoon. I have a firm view that if the House of Lords had to go, it would be far better to have a single elected Chamber, rather than two elected Chambers that would perpetually be either deadlocking or rubber-stamping each other.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

1. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the gender pension gap.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chloe Smith)]

The Government are committed to addressing the gender pension gap. Automatic enrolment and the new state pension are already enabling more women to build up retirement provision. Recognising that this issue derives primarily from differences in work and pay, we continue to work across Government with employers and partners to address inequalities relating to the labour market.

[David Linden]

My constituents in Swinton regularly tell me that the gender pensions gap is exacerbated as a result of a lack of ambition on the part of the Government regarding auto-enrolment. Will the Minister meet me to hear those concerns from constituents in Swinton, and see how we can change that to ensure we close the gender pensions gap?

[Chloe Smith]

I am sure that the Pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), would be happy to have a further conversation on that. Automatic enrolment is important. It has made progress, but there will be more to do.

Ministers’ Severance Pay

David Linden Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

The hon. Gentleman asks a perfectly reasonable question. It is laid out in statute how the amounts and payments are made, and it is in the annual accounts of the Departments.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

A supermarket worker from Shettleston would not get thousands of pounds in a severance payment. Why should Rishi Sunak, the richest man in Parliament, get a severance payment?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Do not name Members by their names, please. You could say former Chancellor of the Exchequer—

[David Linden]

Prime Ministerial hopeful, surely.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. You stand corrected.

Adviser on Ministerial Interests

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member. The thrust of what I am trying to do today, and hon. Members need to understand this, is just to have some probity, standards and ethics we can all agree on. One of the things I think is very damaging, and this has been very damaging for all hon. Members of this House, is conduct that the public out there see as inappropriate not being scrutinised and dealt with. This does not just affect the Prime Minister; it affects each and every one of us in this place, so I am happy to continue further dialogue to ensure we get to such a point. However, this is about making sure that something happens now, because we have seen conduct and standards from this Prime Minister that, quite frankly, I have never seen before from any Prime Minister of any political persuasion.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), I accept that the Procedure Committee does have a role—and I was a member of the Procedure Committee—but given that Brexit was supposed to be about Parliament taking back control, there is absolutely nothing at all disorderly about the motion on the Order Paper for Parliament to take control and set up its own Standing Order. The right hon. Lady is right: the problem is that the Prime Minister’s behaviour will almost certainly start to be interpreted as a plague on all our houses, and that is why Parliament must support this and must vote for this motion tonight.

[Angela Rayner]

This is about us trying to make sure that we do take back control, and also that we gain the respect of the public. Quite rightly, when they elect us and bring us into this place, they expect us to have the highest standards. Especially when we create the laws that they have to follow, they expect us to have the highest possible standards.

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[Angela Rayner]

I do not see the wording of the motion creating a conflict or causing problems in that way. It will allow us to have the scrutiny and probity that we need, because the Government at the moment are not forthcoming in giving us the assurances that I have tried outside this place to get on whether we are going to get a new adviser. That is the thrust of what I am trying to do today. I can see that Members are passionate about this issue, and I am happy for them to work with us to try to get there. I am sure that my friend the Paymaster General would be willing to do that as well. We all want to see standards in public life, and Ministers of the Crown in particular need to have that authority when dealing with matters of office so that the public can have confidence in them. That is what this motion is about today.

[David Linden]

Does the right hon. Lady understand the irony of Conservative Members complaining about a conflict of interest when the Prime Minister’s own chief of staff, whom he appointed, is simultaneously an MP, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the chief of staff—a role that is traditionally undertaken by a civil servant?

[Angela Rayner]

This is part of the problem. We all need to have confidence that processes are being followed and that there is accountability. Nobody is above the law in this country, but the Prime Minister seems to think that he can be. It is astonishing that we are in those circumstances.

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[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) for choosing today’s motion. It is a great pleasure, as always, to appear on the other side of the House from her, and I will endorse the opportunity she gave to call her a friend likewise.

The Government remain steadfast in their absolute commitment to upholding standards in public life and the critical role of the ministerial code in supporting those standards. It is on account of that commitment that the Government cannot support today’s motion, for the simple reason that it attempts, by proxy, to change the British constitution by the back door; what it does, without consultation or consideration, would be unreasonable. What would be unreasonable is for any Opposition party to say all this on what is, as they know, a national strike day, when many Members are hindered from attending this House, because Labour Members are on the picket lines for a strike caused by Labour’s union backers.

I have set out repeatedly and exhaustively in recent weeks that the Government fully recognise the importance of the ministerial code and its role in maintaining standards in public life. What we wish to do, therefore, is to protect the code. It sets out the Prime Minister’s expectations of his or her Ministers, detailing the standards of conduct in public life expected of those who serve government and the principles that underpin them. The code has performed this role for successive Prime Ministers since it was first published by the Conservative Prime Minister John Major as “Questions of Procedure for Ministers” in 1992, 30 years ago. Throughout that time, it has been an evolving document. It is customarily issued—it is customarily released or re-released—when warranted, by the Prime Minister of the day to reflect changes and to update the guidance. So this business about what is said in the foreword of the document is, frankly, a red herring. What is said in the foreword is very often a reflection of the current affairs at the time the document was released. What it is not is a reflection of the contents of the document, which are as they were before.

Since 2006, recognising the need for independent support on the application of the code, the Prime Minister of the day has appointed an Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests to provide independent advice on how Ministers manage their interests and to assist with the investigation of alleged breaches of the code. But if Labour’s motion were to succeed, it could mean in the future a Labour-chaired Committee choosing one of the Prime Minister’s advisers or a Conservative-chaired Committee choosing a future Labour Prime Minister’s advisers. That would lead to dysfunction and, frankly, gridlock, and it would be entirely impractical and unconstitutional. It simply would not work.

[David Linden]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about the fact that the code was designed under John Major in the 1990s, although John Major’s Government were not exactly without scandal and sleaze, so perhaps it is time to revisit that. Given his knowledge of history, can he think of any Prime Minister who has lost not one but two advisers on the ministerial code since the days of John Major?

[Michael Ellis]

There are exceptions in every case and, of course, we know that in the past 30 years Prime Ministers of all political parties have decided for themselves when Ministers have their confidence and when they do not. The Government are very grateful to all those who have served in the role of independent adviser since 2006. It is a challenging role, and increasingly so today. Let me repeat my particular thanks to Lord Geidt for his contribution to the office, but the Prime Minister has also made it clear that the resignation of Lord Geidt and the issues that he and PACAC raised last week demand a moment of reflection. They demand some consideration. Frankly, we think it is right to step back and take some time to consider what we have heard from the former independent adviser and from this House. This is a complex matter and one that touches on Executive functions and the royal prerogative in relation to the appointment of Ministers. As I have said before to this honourable House, we cannot have a situation where we expect any Prime Minister of any political party not to have confidence in a Minister that he or she has serving in their Cabinet. It is crucial that each Minister has the confidence of the serving Prime Minister.

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[Michael Ellis]

The Prime Minister intends to appoint a new ethics adviser. We will announce how that is to be done, who it is and how it works in due course, but it has to be done properly to ensure that Parliament and the public have confidence. This motion pre-empts that review process and unnecessarily seeks to hold the Government to an entirely arbitrary timetable. We firmly believe that it is better to undertake this work with proper diligence and attention than to conclude it in haste, without proper consideration of the issues raised by Lord Geidt and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. It is for those reasons that the Government would oppose the motion.

[David Linden]

The Minister’s repeated reference to “in due course” has piqued the interest of those of us familiar with the work of Sir Humphrey Appleby. Will he go a little further and define what “in due course” means? For example, would it be before the conference recess, or the summer recess? [Interruption.] Maybe his Parliamentary Private Secretary is telling him right now.

[Michael Ellis]

I think that the hon. Member knows what “in due course” means, and, if he does not, he will have to work it out.

Labour chose this debate on a day when the Labour rail strike is in progress. It is utilising its valuable time in the Commons not to discuss policy—Labour Members do not discuss policy because when they do, they lose—as it would rather talk about personality, and I am surprised that it chose this debate at this time when half of its Members are apparently on the picket lines.

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[David Linden]

I would contend that the motion is more an issue of House business than necessarily of the constitution, but we may disagree on that. I want to go back to what the hon. Gentleman said about this place not interfering with the judicial system. Is it not the case that many Conservative Back Benchers, although perhaps not him, would be quite happy to see, for example, the Supreme Court taken out of the equation because it has become unnecessary, unyielding and not helpful to the Government? Are the Government not guilty of trying to interfere with the judicial system?

[Alberto Costa]

I understand why the hon. Gentleman makes that point, but the counter-argument to that is that this is the locus and the forum for having thorough debates. When the Government of the day make proposals in respect of our legal system—of course the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are wholly in control of the Scottish legal system, which is another great legal system of the United Kingdom—our respective Parliaments are the arenas to discuss, debate, vote on, challenge and scrutinise them. This motion and this short debate do not begin to scratch the surface of the scrutiny required in those sorts of debates, so hon. Members who are thinking about voting for this motion ought to ask themselves whether this short debate is justifiable in terms of length and scrutiny before making such a change.

I re-emphasise the Minister’s point about the accountability of the individual appointed. At present, as I said, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is an officer of this House and is not accountable to the other place or to the Government; she is accountable to us—this House of Commons. It is wholly unclear in the motion whether, in appointing an adviser, that adviser would hold the same authority as an officer of this House. Would that individual also acquire the right to conduct investigations under parliamentary privilege? Would they have the power to command any witness to appear before them and demand the disclosure of evidence? Exactly what is meant by an “adviser to the Committee”?

PACAC is a distinguished Committee, and it has a distinguished Chair in my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), but exactly what sort of powers does the motion suggest should be given to that putative standards commissioner? That is what I think the motion entails: it creates another standards commissioner.

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[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

When the lawyers are out in force on the Government Benches—with all the references to learned and right hon. and learned Members—you can tell that the Government find themselves in a bit of a sticky situation. I have a degree of sympathy with the Paymaster General, who, if he is not the Minister for “Newsnight”, is definitely the Minister for crisis who has to make statements and answer urgent questions in the House.

We all know that the Prime Minister likes to compare himself to Churchill. On one of his recent holidays, he posed while painting in the exact same way as Winston Churchill. People can compare this Prime Minister to a number of things, but in style of government he is probably more like Lloyd George, who was arguably one of the most centralising Prime Ministers. Many people will be familiar with the garden suburb—these days, they call it the flat suburb, but at least the flat has much nicer wallpaper!

The garden suburb aroused particular hostility, even more so than the activity of Sir William Sutherland and undercover deals with the press and trafficking of titles and honours in return for contributions to Government or party funds. It is funny how history reinvents itself. Critics have also quoted Dunning’s famous resolution against Lord North’s Government in 1780 that the power of the Prime Minister was “increasing and ought to be diminished”. That gets to the heart of the debate, which is symptomatic of a wider presidentialisation of government. To be fair to the current British Government, this is not new—Tony Blair, for example, was keen on sofa government, and there is the idea that Cabinet government started to break down.

One reason why the House feels the need to step in and take control of the situation is that the current Prime Minister is like no one we have dealt with before. Most of us would accept that he has been described by his own colleagues as a bit of a slippery pig that can get out of situations. I do not doubt that, and I would not be surprised if the Prime Minister survives and leads the Conservatives into the next election. There is a great irony, which I will come back to at the end of my remarks, about our reliance on Tory MPs to remove him. This is a Prime Minister who has not played by the rules; perhaps learning from the effects of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, he has tried to clip the wings even of the Treasury. The desire to centralise more and more power to No. 10 was the reason the right hon. Friend Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) stood down as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it is something that the House should be mindful of.

The Tories would do well to support the motion. I see this as an issue not of tinkering with the constitution but fundamentally as one of House business. The motion delegates powers and tasks to a Select Committee of the House. I know very well the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) and had the privilege of serving on a Committee with him in my first Parliament. I will have no difficulty trusting the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to fulfil these functions. In many respects, the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) is dancing on the head of a pin somewhat, because he knows fine well that the Minister has not given the undertaking that the Government will move—

[John Penrose]

I thought I heard it. The hon. Gentleman might not have heard it, but with any luck we will both hear clarification later.

[David Linden]

I respect the Paymaster General enormously but it will take a lot for him to reassure me about the Government’s role on ethics.

When I asked the Paymaster General earlier to define “in due course”, he was not able to say that the appointment would take place by the summer recess or the conference recess. We might—who knows—have a general election in October. I would not be surprised if the Government ended up not appointing an adviser. As they have said before, they are tired of experts. I think they see the role of an adviser as a hindrance, particularly at a time when they will almost certainly have to break international law, albeit in a “very specific and limited way” as the Government like to do in their legislation.

I find some of the contributions I have listened to in this debate a little jarring, with people talking about accountability and respecting the importance of democracy. Let us not forget that this Government have increasingly taken recently to appointing people who are essentially failed election candidates to the House of Lords.

Look at someone such as Malcolm Offord, now Lord Offord, who is now a junior Minister in the anti-Scotland Office. He has given money to the Conservative party, he has not had to have the inconvenience of going through an election and was appointed as a junior Minister to the Scotland Office. Or there is Ian Duncan, a former Tory candidate against my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). He could not beat my hon. Friend in an election, but he got into the House of Lords anyway. Zac Goldsmith, a friend of the Prime Minister and his wife, who failed in the last election to be elected to this House is in the House of Lords as a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister. When the Tories start to talk about accountability, we should be slightly aware of the context, because it is not a particularly good one.

I have one suggestion I want to pursue. The Government seem to think that the way out of this is talking about an office of the Prime Minister. That is a half-baked suggestion. I do not disagree with having an office of the Prime Minister, but if we are going to have one, they should have something akin to what they have in New Zealand. At the moment, the office of the Prime Minister is merely a rebuttal in a press release; it will create a new office with a new permanent secretary, but who will it be accountable to?

We in this place trust that the Prime Minister is accountable every now and again to the Liaison Committee, but we all know that the Liaison Committee, with the greatest of respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire on the Front Bench and the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), is largely an opportunity for Select Committee Chairs to grandstand. If we are going to have an office of the Prime Minister, there must be a mechanism through which we can hold it to account. That is why I think the idea is half baked.

[Mr Carmichael]

In terms of accountability, does the hon. Gentleman agree that where an allegation of impropriety is made against a Minister and is investigated, as a matter of principle the outcome of that investigation, whatever it is, should be published?

[David Linden]

In short, yes I do.

The final point I want to make is that, while in many respects this is a very noble motion before the House and I will happily vote for it tonight, there must be a realisation in this place that with the current holder of the office of Prime Minister, politics has changed enormously, and we as Members of the House of Commons are going to have to get used to that. This is a Prime Minister who has defied all the norms of politics, who has now outlived Trump and may go even further.

I ask Members of this House to remember who the current Prime Minister is. I know I cannot refer to him by name, but on issues of racism he wrote:

“It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies”.

In 2018, he compared Muslim women to “bank robbers” and “letter boxes” and said he would ask a person with a niqab to remove it before speaking to him. He wrote that single mothers were to blame for producing a generation of,

“ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children”.

In 2002 he said in a book:

“If gay marriage was OK…I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog.”

The point is that this Government can have all the advisers on ethics they like, but I am fairly sure that if another one is appointed, they will have to resign again. The issue here is not necessarily the role of an adviser for ethics; the issue is that we have a Prime Minister who has no ethics.

We find ourselves in a remarkable situation where, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) just mentioned, a majority of people in this House do not have confidence in the Prime Minister. Remarkably, members of my party are told we cannot have a second referendum on independence, but for hon. Members on the Conservative Benches, the only opportunity they have to remove the Prime Minister is a second vote in a year’s time. That irony is lost on nobody.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

In order to give all the remaining speakers equal time, I need colleagues to stick to about seven minutes.

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[Michael Ellis]

With the leave of the House, I would like to close this debate.

As set out by the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) in her opening remarks, and for the reasons I explained to the House in my opening remarks, the Government will not be supporting the motion. The Labour party has called the debate to throw mud, but I would caution that those who throw mud often find that some of it sticks to themselves. I would also caution and place on record that the Government remain absolutely steadfast in their commitment to upholding the standards in public life that we all respect, to the critical role that the ministerial code plays in standards in public life and to supporting those standards. On account of that commitment, the Government cannot support today’s motion, which would, counterintuitively perhaps, by proxy, weaken the ministerial code. As I said earlier, it would at the same time change the British constitution by the back door, without consultation and without consideration.

On the appointment of a new adviser, can I answer with this word: yes. The Prime Minister intends to appoint a new ethics adviser and we will announce how that is to be done and who is to do it in due course. But it does have to be done properly and in a way that will ensure that Parliament and the public have confidence in it. I think that I may be asked what “in due course” or “in good time” means. It means doing it right, and getting the right people to come forward, to be interviewed and to go through the process. It means actually getting it right, not just responding to the latest headline. It means making a process that might actually work in the longer term.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Ellis]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but he knows exactly what is meant by this.

[David Linden]

I am very grateful to the Paymaster General for putting on record that the Government do intend to appoint an adviser, but can I just push him a little further and ask him to say whether that appointment will take place before, say, the conference recess?

[Michael Ellis]

The answer is a very simple one: the process will be done properly. It will be done in a way that will give confidence to the system; it will be done in a way that the House, Ministers and everyone concerned will be confident in. So it is not possible to give a particular date for it. After all, it is only a matter of days since this situation came about. What is meant is clear: we are still considering this carefully, and we remain fully committed to making sure that all Ministers, including the Prime Minister, whose code it is, are held to account for maintaining high standards of behaviour and behaving in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety, as the public rightly expect.

Gurkha Pensions

David Linden Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I am conscious that the Minister in the House appears to have been talking for over half an hour, so I fully expect the Division bell to ring some way through my speech. Perhaps Members will be glad of a break from me.

I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for opening this important debate and setting the scene so eloquently, and I pay tribute to the 87 signatories in Glasgow East who signed the petition. In responding to the debate on behalf of the Scottish National party, I acknowledge the 12 speeches from Back Benchers, all of whom made a passionate case, which I am sure the Minister will reflect on. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), who made an excellent speech and is a frequent campaigner on this topic. She said that it was important to pay tribute to the 33,000 Gurkhas who lost their lives over the course of the world wars. For far too long, the contributions of service personnel from across the Commonwealth have been undervalued and overlooked.

Many Members have been engaged in the all-party parliamentary group on frozen British pensions for some time now. It remains a massive stain on global Britain’s brand that so many pensioners, particularly those who served this country, languish in pension poverty oversees. For 50 years, Gurkhas have served the British Army, fighting in two world wars and conflicts across the globe. We should commemorate the contribution of all Commonwealth service personnel, including the Gurkhas who have served in the armed forces.

I firmly believe that we all owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the people who have chosen to serve and sacrifice so much. However, instead of recognising the importance of service personnel from across the Commonwealth, the British Government are set on undermining and dismissing the sacrifice that many have made. This Government have continually been unable—perhaps even unwilling—to recognise the complications that stemmed from the deeply unfair terms of employment for Gurkhas, which last changed in 1997. As such, there has been a long history of the UK military refusing to pay Gurkhas the same wages and pensions as UK personnel, despite the fact that Gurkhas and UK personnel served alongside one another, made the same sacrifices and certainly took the same risks.

Despite their service, the Gurkhas were shamefully treated as “other” by the British Government and the Ministry of Defence. Instead of being given UK service personnel pensions, the Gurkhas were given conditions that roughly matched those of the Indian army. That pension is significantly lower than the UK pension, which I would argue is not particularly generous. As such, it gave many Gurkhas a lower standard of living and led to their falling into extreme poverty. It also meant that the Gurkhas were intentionally not integrated into the main British Army, thus putting them at a disadvantage in comparison to UK-born peers.

6.57 pm

Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.

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[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

The debate may now resume until no later than 7.44 pm. I call David Linden, who was so rudely interrupted.

[David Linden]

I will not hold that against you, Dr Huq.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I am sorry to rudely interrupt the hon. Gentleman again. I apologise to you as well, Dr Huq. This is a fleeting visit; I am trying to be here and in the main Chamber at the same time, but I have not quite mastered that yet.

Before I left, the hon. Gentleman raised the key issue for me and my constituents: the poverty Gurkhas have been thrust into as a result of, to be frank, an act of gross discrimination over years. Does he agree that, because of the length of service and the commitment Gurkhas have shown, including through the human sacrifices made, we should never allow this group of people to live in the level of poverty that he described earlier, and that we need redress as rapidly as possible?

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[David Linden]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman was able make it to the debate and put that on the record for his constituents, who are lucky to have him; I know his constituency has a big Gurkha community. I absolutely agree with him on that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West highlighted that many Gurkhas who come to this country are separated from their families, only to be hit with exorbitant visa fees. I highlight and pay tribute to the immense bravery of the three hunger-striking Gurkha veterans who refused food for 13 days until the British Government agreed to further talks. One striker, Mr Dhan Gurung, explained that in 1994 his pension was £20 a month, and that he and his family lived in poverty because of the British Government’s “penny pinching”. That, I am afraid, is the crux of the issue.

Far too many Gurkhas now find themselves and their families in poverty due to their not being eligible for the UK armed forces pension. I am glad to hear that the UK Government have since met Gurkha advocacy groups, representatives from the Nepali embassy and, indeed, the ambassador. Further to those discussions, the announcement of the bilateral committee to discuss all Gurkha veteran welfare issues is certainly a positive step forward. However, the measure of progress on that will not be words, but action. I concur with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that it cannot be a talking shop. I am sure the Minister will reflect on that.

The Ministry of Defence said in a statement that it is

“committed to ensuring that the Gurkha pension scheme is sustainable and fair alongside other UK public sector pensions.”

I pose a question to the House. It is one thing to compare pensions alongside each other, but we are not comparing the fact that Gurkhas served in the exact same way alongside British forces. If we can compare and recognise equality in theatre, surely the same should be true of pensions. I urge the Government to uphold that commitment to the Gurkhas and ensure that they are treated equally.

The Gurkhas have the support of many comrades that they served alongside and several veterans’ groups in the UK. Service personnel born in the UK recognise the sacrifice and contribution of those in the Commonwealth, and it is time that the British Government do the same. The Government should resolve this issue and ensure parity by simply matching the terms of Gurkha veterans, personnel and recruits with those serving in the armed forces from the UK. The Government’s lack of full recognition of Gurkhas in service of the UK, as well as those from the wider Commonwealth, is a fundamental failure to right a transparent and, I would argue, historic wrong. Moreover, it is an enormous stain on the so-called and much-vaunted global Britain strategy that the Government trumpet.

Even if the terms are changed retrospectively, the Government have a moral duty to treat those who risked their lives in the UK armed forces with the same respect as those serving who come from these islands. Myself and my SNP colleagues will certainly continue to work cross party to ensure that there is proper recognition of people from the Commonwealth and beyond who have served in the armed forces. To be quite blunt, it is time that the British Government give the Gurkhas that recognition and respect. Anything less would be shameful.

G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for the point that he makes, and I understand why he should be anxious, but I talked to both President Xi and President Putin and it was clear: they said that the pandemic precluded them from coming. I understand the situation that they are in. They have very senior negotiators in Glasgow as we speak—Xie is a very senior operative in the Chinese system—and we have to hope for results. In the end, the change is going to be driven not just by the feelings of people in the western democracies, but by the political pressure and the pressure from business that is already being felt in China, and in Russia as well.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I was pleased to see reference in the Prime Minister’s statement to action on trees. He will be aware that in Scotland we produce 80% of woodland planting across these islands, not least because of small groups such as the one at Mount Vernon community hall, which has made a real effort on biodiversity. What more can the Prime Minister do elsewhere in the UK to try to get action on tree planting and follow the lead of Scotland, and indeed of Mount Vernon?

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate Scottish tree-planting groups on the initiatives that they have taken. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that huge numbers of trees are planted in Scotland. We want to see the rest of the UK catch up and do better; I am afraid that the rates did decline a bit during the pandemic. We have to accelerate. What my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) said just now about “Plant a tree for the jubilee” is absolutely right.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Marco Longhi. Not here.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

We know that one policy decision that the UK Government have taken, albeit an unsustainable and undemocratic one, is that Scotland should not have a say in its constitutional future. We also know that, for example, the UK Government are spending huge amounts of taxpayers’ money on research into public attitudes towards the Union. If the UK Government have taken the decision not to have a referendum, we know that it is because the polling suggests that support for independence is up. Why will the Minister not publish that polling information and be honest with the public?

[Steve Barclay]

I would have thought that, when talking about data, we would have been talking about the fiscal support that has been offered to Scotland, about the way in which the Scottish Government’s powers have not been used and about how we can get better delivery from the Scottish Government in areas such as education and drugs policy, where the data are absolutely chronic at the moment. I would hope that the Scottish Government will welcome the data strategy, as it will ensure that policy making is informed by good quality data and focused on good outcomes.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

I was very sorry to learn of the injuries sustained by Thomas, and it is right that this matter is raised by my hon. Friend. I can assure him and the House that equality applies to all aspects of justice—it always has and it always will.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

T3. On top of the injustices suffered by 3.8 million WASPI women and the widening gender pensions gap, today’s National Audit Office report finds that the Department for Work and Pensions underpaid 134,000 pensioners, many of whom were women. What steps are the Government taking to tackle the gender pensions gap? Will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss how we can try to tackle that?

[Guy Opperman]

The Government are doing huge amounts to tackle the gender pensions gap. Automatic enrolment is transforming the situation. Women used to be at 38%; they are now at more than 80% of savings on an ongoing basis.