Business of the House

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this important matter. I know that he thinks deeply about such issues. Whatever the security policies of those Departments, I can see no reason why he, a Privy Counsellor, should not be briefed by the Departments on Privy Council terms. I will write on his behalf to the Cabinet Office to ask that that happens.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House does not seem to like answering any of my constitutional questions directly. Right enough, they are a bit tricky for her Government, but God loves a trier, so let us see if she can answer this. In the Scottish Affairs Committee this week, the Secretary of State for Scotland revealed that the head of the UK civil service is looking into whether officials in Scotland will be allowed to do work related to our next independence referendum, following the Supreme Court’s ruling last week. The notion that it is unlawful for the Scottish Government to pursue independence as a policy goal has been dismissed by legal academics, including former Tory MSP Professor Adam Tomkins. Aileen McHarg, professor of public law and human rights at Durham University, described it as a “ludicrous position”. There seems to be a new measure of Scottish independence support as well: the duck test. I am sure that we all look forward to hearing distinguished constitutional academics’ views on that.

The Supreme Court’s decision has exposed the undemocratic lack of a legal mechanism by which the Scottish Parliament can hold an independence referendum. Surely the UK Government’s attention should be on addressing that, not on inhibiting the work of the civil service. I received a muddled response from Scotland Office Ministers. The first said that money allocated to Scotland by the UK Treasury came with “no strings attached”; then another stepped in to say that this was a matter for the civil service, and that we would need to see “how this plays out”. Can the Leader of the House offer any clarity? Perhaps there could be a statement on duck tests to establish exactly who decides whether support for Scottish independence passes the appropriate avian measurements.

Lastly, why will the Chancellor not follow the lead of the Scottish Government and introduce a UK equivalent of the Scottish child payment? The Joseph Rowntree Foundation described the increase to £25 a week per eligible child as a “watershed moment”. It also found that if the payment were extended to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a further 5.3 million children would be eligible for that crucial support. As we approach a very difficult winter, perhaps Labour will join the SNP in urging Ministers to hold a debate or make a statement on what more the Government will do to tackle this shameful poverty. The UK Government have far more tools at their disposal than the devolved Governments, and it is high time that they showed the same political will as them.

[Penny Mordaunt]

As the hon. Lady suggests, I am a simple girl. I read the evidence from the Committee sitting to which she referred, and I understand that Secretary of State for Scotland will clarify the matter that she mentioned. I can tell her that the Scottish Government’s spending the unrestricted funds that they get on their project of a further referendum is a colossal waste of money. The Scottish Government and Parliament is one of the most powerful devolved Administrations in the world, with huge authority that the SNP has done its best not to take up, with responsibilities that the SNP has done its best to shirk, and with the largest budget it has ever had that the SNP has done its best to squander.

The reason Scotland has low job creation is that it has the lowest PISA—programme for international student assessment—ranking since that measure was created. It has 700 fewer police officers than a year ago and the worst A&E wait times on record. That the hon. Lady’s constituency has the lowest funding settlement per person in Scotland is not because of the UK Government, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Supreme Court, the good people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Brexit or Britain, but because of her party, the SNP, and its obsession with issues that the Scottish people wish it would leave aside to focus on what matters to them.