Business of the House

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

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

You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have had this role for only a few weeks, but I was under the impression that I would get a few more relevant answers to my questions. Instead, what I get every week is rubbish prepared lines read out by the Leader of the House—performance art, if you like—written by someone who either has no knowledge or care for Scotland and its people or whose aim is to make Scotland sound like a basket case, because cynically they know that mud sticks if something is repeated often enough, even if it is not true.

Perhaps we should have a debate on the quality of ministerial answers to questions. As a political opponent, one cannot help but be grateful for this weekly illustration of the contempt in which the Westminster Government hold our beautiful country and indeed the voters who inconveniently keep rejecting the Leader of the House’s party and supporting mine. It is almost as if our electorate can see through the drivel that they are being fed. If her aim is still to be Prime Minister for the whole of the UK—while it lasts—I am not sure whether annoying great swathes of Scotland’s people is really the way to go about it, but far be it from me to dissuade her.

May we also have a debate about unintended consequences? Just this week, a senior Minister dismissed the views of a holocaust survivor. The Government have also continued to infuriate NHS workers, rail workers, ambulance drivers, union members, trans groups, Scottish independence supporters, the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government, and shunted through a Bill that will snarl up many hundreds of civil servants in red tape—one could not make it up—simply because of their blinkered hatred of the EU. Finally, there was the decision to use a sledgehammer to crack the delicate nut of devolved relations through the use of the “governor-general” clause. If the Government keep that up, they will not have any friends left—apart from their many generous corporate sponsors.

Despite it all, I will attempt another question, because this is important. Yesterday, I was pleased to see the Government shifting their position on trans conversion therapy, but sadly they seemed to backtrack the very same day. Will the Leader of the House assure us that that she will use her good offices with her colleagues and make every effort to prevent the forthcoming Bill from being used to stoke culture wars, as her colleagues attempted recently in the Scottish Parliament? I am sure she agrees that trans people deserve nothing less.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I shall try to make my answers incredibly relevant. The hon. Lady raised questions of relevance and unintended consequences, and she mentioned blinkered hatred. She will know that in our sessions, which I enjoy very much, I am a great campaigner on relevance. I always try to make my answers relevant. I hope that, one day, the SNP will make its questions relevant to the issues facing the people of Scotland, such as healthcare and education, and all those things that they want their Government to grip, and not be so focused on constitutional reform, important though that is to the SNP.

The hon. Lady talks about unintended consequences. In all seriousness, we do not have to believe in the union of the United Kingdom to recognise that we all have a duty of care to every citizen in every part of the UK, no matter which part of the UK we are from and represent. That means having a regard for the social fabric and the social contract of the UK. The power that she refers to has been in existence for nearly 25 years—it is only marginally younger than the deputy leader of her group—and this is the first time that we have used it. It is not like we just discovered it down the back of the sofa. What has happened is a significant and rare thing, and is a serious thing. The powers were created as part of the devolution process in part because of the potential of such a scenario. It is because we have been placed in this position—the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would have serious implications for the working of the Equality Act 2010—that we have done what we have done. It would have been better if the SNP had had regard to those unintended consequences; it is not as if they were not aware of them. The Minister for Women and Equalities raised the issue in correspondence and meetings with their Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, and officials had been raising it for some time. Given where we are and the worry that the issue will cause people, I hope that we can resolve the situation swiftly and in a spirit of co-operation and pragmatism. Our citizens, including those who are trans, deserve that.

The hon. Lady’s final comment was about blinkered hatred; I would say that the SNP ought to check their own behaviour before they start pointing the finger at other people on that front.