Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between David Linden and Andrew Bowie

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

rose—

[David Linden]

I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Bowie]

I thank my hon. Friend—and he is a friend. Does he not agree that what we are trying to achieve is ensuring that each vote in this country is, as far as possible, equal to the next one? The more that we increase the tolerance, the less equal everybody’s vote becomes, and so we move further and further away from what we are trying to achieve by going through this process in the first place.

[David Linden]

What I am trying to make sure is that I and my hon. Friend are made unemployed fairly soon—but that is a separate matter. The point is that it was previously enshrined in legislation that Scotland would have 73 seats and then it would rightly be reduced to 59 in the light of devolution. Government Members cannot have their cake and eat it; in one respect they are enshrining in legislation a certain number of seats, but locking that down in legislation means that there will be a degree of difference. However, I have a huge amount of respect for my hon. Friend, and he has put his point on the record.

I return to the point made by Mr Bellringer in the evidence session that there is a need to move towards a tolerance rate of, say, 7.5%. That is why I urge the Government to increase it to give commissioners the wider discretion that they asked for when they gave us that evidence. I know that the Government are not particularly fond of listening to experts these days, but I am very hopeful that this afternoon they could just make a wee exception for the Boundary Commission for England.

Finally, I want to make reference to Lords amendment 8. Before doing so, I offer my sincere condolences, on behalf of my party, to the family of Lord Shutt, who, as we have heard, passed away only in the past couple of weeks, but was responsible for securing this amendment in the other place. By using the electoral registers as the data source to draw parliamentary constituencies, the Bill also seeks to disadvantage young people, as the data is less likely to include the names of young people than it is older people, since young people are often not registered to vote. Registration rates for eligible 16 and 17-year-olds were estimated to be 25% in 2018—a drop from 45% in 2015. In contrast, 94% of those aged 65-plus were estimated to be registered. The SNP therefore supports this amendment, which requires the Government to bring forward proposals to improve the completeness of the electoral register in relation to attainers. Only then can we ensure that we are not disadvantaging young people in the electoral process.

The Leader of the House has spent the majority of his time in this House on the Back Benches advocating Brexit and talking about Parliament taking back control from an all-powerful Executive—something this Bill makes worse. I therefore want to finish by paraphrasing something a wise man once said in this House many years ago about standing up for democracy:

 “’Stiffen your sinews, summon up the blood and imitate the action of a tiger, for that is how you should behave towards our European partners, not like Bagpuss.’” —[Official Report, 24 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 109.]

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden]

I agree that we need equality. On that basis, and given that all Members should be equal in this House, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the system of English votes for English laws is currently suspended. Will he call on the Government to ensure that that system does not come back, so that his hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) can cast his vote in exact same way as him in a Division?

[Andrew Bowie]

Well said!

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between David Linden and Andrew Bowie

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

I would never suggest that anybody who was in Parliament for all those years was in any way acting ridiculously, and I do not think that it was ridiculous, but it was quite clear that none of the commission’s reports would ever be implemented. The parliamentary arithmetic prevented them from being implemented, whenever it was attempted to do so.

[David Linden]

Part of the point that the hon. Gentleman is missing is that it is not just Members of Parliament who have that oversight; it is also their noble lordships in the other place. Is he aware of that?

Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Debate between David Linden and Andrew Bowie

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

I must be one of the few non-lawyers to contribute to this debate. However, I am a passionate believer that the conventions of how we as a Government conduct the business of government should be respected, and that these conventions we abide by are there for a reason. We must protect the integrity of the Law Officers in advising the Government. The ramifications of not doing so—the ramifications of publishing legal advice given to a Government—could be hugely damaging. I wonder whether when the other side are in government—as they surely will be one day—they will be as keen as they ask us to be to publish confidential legal advice.

Members are unlucky today, because I was considering withdrawing from this debate, but I did not feel that I could let the comments of the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) pass without remarking on the near-parody of the position SNP Members find themselves in in attaching their names to this motion. Let me take the House back to October 2012 when the then First Minister Alex Salmond was asked by Members of the Scottish Parliament to confirm whether he had sought legal advice over whether Scotland would continue to be a member of the European Union if it was to gain independence in 2014. Notwithstanding the fact that it transpired that thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money was spent to cover up the fact that no legal advice was actually sought, in answer to a question on this very topic to the BBC’s Andrew Neil, the former First Minister said:

“You know I can't give you the legal advice, or reveal the legal advice of law officers.”

[David Linden]

I hold the hon. Gentleman in very high regard, but he is missing the point here. There is a difference between being questioned by the BBC about legal advice and Parliament having a binding vote, which is why a contempt motion has been brought before the House today.

[Andrew Bowie]

I fully respect the hon. Gentleman as well, as he knows, but I put it back to him that the Scottish Government have through their actions shown themselves to be disrespectful of the Scottish Parliament on binding motions, for example on primary 1 testing or the named persons legislation or fracking, when the Scottish Government abstained, or possibly the offensive behaviour at football Act, all of which they decided were advisory motions that the Government did not have to abide by.

International Day of Democracy

Debate between David Linden and Andrew Bowie

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Thank you for your chairmanship today, Mr Betts. I also thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for introducing the debate.

Clement Attlee said:

“Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.”

It is a sentiment that we in this House might do well to heed from time to time.

Over the summer I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Honduras through the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, at a conference of young political leaders drawn from around Latin America. It was, I have to say, inspirational and incredibly humbling. In a part of the world where the threats of communism and military dictatorship are all too real, these young leaders, who were all aged between 18 and 30, shamed me and would shame many of us here today with their confidence, passion and enthusiasm for democracy and the rule of law. I was taken aback by how, out there, so many still look to this place as a source of hope and inspiration. More than once people out there described this place as still the mother of Parliaments. To them, freedom and liberty are not abstract notions or taglines for the next Marvel Avengers film; they are genuine, live and emotive topics, and so too is democracy.

If we look around the world today, we see far too many countries where the right of individuals to choose freely, without let or hindrance, those who govern them—the ability to hold their Government effectively to account—simply does not exist. In the west, and in Europe and North America in particular, where the idea of getting a say, having a voice and choosing to vote has been the norm in some form or another for centuries, we take democratic freedom too much for granted.

One of the most common refrains in the past two or three years in Scotland in particular is that we have had too many elections and too many referendums—in fact, too much democracy—and that people are getting fed up of voting. I think that that is highly depressing. In modern parlance, what a first-world problem to have. Although I am no fan of referendums, I have recently become a huge convert to unexpected general elections; but imagine telling the oppressed peoples of the world that one of the problems in our country is that we have to vote far too often.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions being a convert to snap general elections. May I push him a bit further and ask whether he would join us in being a convert to the concept of votes at 16—the idea that if someone is old enough to pay tax, get married and join the Army, they are old enough to vote? Is that something he is willing to welcome?

[Andrew Bowie]

I absolutely will. I have gone on the record in the past saying that I would welcome votes at 16, and I am willing to stand by that again today. I also think that it is very important in a democracy that we learn to respect the results of referendums and elections—something that the hon. Gentleman’s party might do well to remember.

I am for more democracy, and would argue that we could start with directly elected provosts or police and crime commissioners in Scotland following the UK Government’s excellent example. I am not sure that I expect cross-party support for those, however. I am very proud of this country’s role in helping to strengthen and spread democracy around the world. The UN and Inter-Parliamentary Union International Day of Democracy, which we debate today, does great work in attempting to drive positive democratic change through political dialogue and action. I believe that it is our duty as democratically elected representatives to champion, defend and encourage the spread of participation in government, through initiatives such as this one and others, to ensure that, in Abraham Lincoln’s words,

“government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”