Strengthening the Union

Douglas Ross Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman can have been listening when I included, for example, car production and food and drink in my list, but the point is that the Chequers agreement seeks to secure the best deal for the whole UK economy, together. That covers both goods and services in different ways—in ways that will complement our strengths—but it also returns us to the key point about the whole UK economy, together.

Let me now say something about the industrial strategy. It is a vital part of the plan set out by the Prime Minister to drive growth across the whole UK, and to create more highly skilled, highly paid jobs and opportunities. It is intended to address the long-term structural challenges that can hold British businesses back, while building on the country’s strengths. New sector deals and investment and research and development will support the industries of the future where the UK has the potential to lead the world, from electric vehicles to biotech and quantum technologies.

It is important that we continue to look to the future. As was announced earlier this month, a £2.5 million grant has been awarded for a spaceport site in Sutherland, on the north coast of Scotland. That the first ever satellite launch from the UK could be from Scottish soil highlights our commitment to investing in all parts of the UK, and there are other launch sites too, such as those planned in Cornwall, Glasgow and Snowdonia, which will also be boosted by a new £2 million development fund. The UK is set to build on its world-leading expertise in aerospace with the development of these spaceports.

On the city and growth deals, we are supporting clusters of cultural and economic strength concentrated in places throughout the UK, and we want to see city and growth deals across the four nations to ensure that prosperity is shared across the UK. We have already seen important investments in a number of deals such as Cardiff, Glasgow and Swansea, as well as investment in other important cultural work such as the V&A in Dundee. Further deals are being developed. We have recently announced the Stirling and Clackmannanshire city region deal, and negotiations have been opened on the north Wales growth deal and with the Belfast city region partners. These deals make a vital contribution to local economies and, as I have said, provide jobs and growth across the UK. There is more, of course. In Cardiff, we have invested in the development of a compound semiconductor industry cluster, and in Aberdeen we opened the oil and gas technology centre with an investment of £180 million, which will unlock the full potential of the North sea and anchor the supply chain in north-east Scotland.

Transport and connectivity are also crucial themes. As we support clusters of growth across the Union we must be connected geographically through our transport and infrastructure links. The expansion of Heathrow will help with this, creating hundreds of additional flights per week from London to the nations and regions across the UK, with new routes emerging to support our economic co-operation. As well as the importance of being connected geographically, the Government recognise that world-class digital connectivity is essential for the modern world; it is essential to people at work and at home and we are committed to improving that across the UK. We are investing over £1 billion to stimulate the market to build the next generation of infrastructure that the UK needs for the future through both the national productivity investment fund and the digital infrastructure investment fund.

Turning to international benefits, the strength in our unity of nations is demonstrated by our common voice on the international stage. We use our seat at the top international organisations to protect the interests of all parts of the UK, to influence issues that matter to people in the UK, and to make the world a better place. When we faced an attack on our citizens, we worked with countries around the world to respond. We use our influence to pursue issues that matter to people across the UK: leading the way on international aid, leading global action to tackle landmines, stopping the trade in ivory, and combating modern slavery. People across the UK can be proud of the role we can play because we are together in our international approach.

That international standing is also vital to the security of our country. Our UK defence expertise and excellence is joined up across the UK and has been built up across decades, from new radar stations in Shetland and Cornwall, to Scottish-built aircraft carriers based in Portsmouth, fast jet response aircraft in Lossiemouth and Lincolnshire, the SAS in Hereford, GCHQ in Cheltenham and the Royal Marines commandos in Arbroath. This is one very large UK defence network protecting us all at home and abroad. And we are spending across the country to be able to keep the whole UK safe. In the last financial year the Ministry of Defence spent £1.6 billion with Scottish industry and commerce, while a recent review found that defence invests £945 million in Welsh industry. The spectacular fly-past we saw only last month as part of the Royal Air Force’s 100th anniversary celebrations reminds us of the work of all our armed forces, who are drawn from, and based across, the whole of the United Kingdom. We saw the same at last month’s Armed Forces Day in Llandudno; it was a proud display of Wales’s military association, while the Edinburgh Tattoo demonstrates Scotland’s strong relationship with the military.

I am also proud that the UK Government recently announced that we will reimburse thousands of military personnel who would otherwise be negatively affected by the devolved Government’s income tax increases in Scotland. This protects nearly three quarters of all armed forces personnel liable for Scottish income tax and will help with recruitment and retention for our important armed forces.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on the ninth anniversary of her election to this place? Perhaps that is why the whisky and the cake were getting muddled up in her mouth—maybe she has been celebrating early. On the point about the UK Government mitigating the “nat tax” in Scotland, does she agree that it was important for my constituents at RAF Lossiemouth and at Kinloss barracks that the UK Government did something to address the fact that the Scottish National party has made Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom, which was having a negative impact on recruitment and retention for our armed forces in Scotland?

[Chloe Smith]

Yes, that is exactly why the UK Government took those steps, and we are proud to have done so.

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[Lesley Laird]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are aware that many studies now show that many people using food banks are in employment. Clearly, with low wages and low flexi hours, we see that this is not an economy that is working for the many.

Across these islands we are united in our disgust at the behaviour of politicians who put fear of losing a Commons vote above respect for an opponent who is ill or on maternity leave. Ultimately, politics is about values and choice, and our choices show and tell what we value. Madam Deputy Speaker, you have to say the Tories have some front in bringing forward this debate. The Tories should be in the dock for aiding and abetting the nationalists’ attempts to destroy the common bond that unites working people across the UK. The charge sheet includes the catastrophe that is universal credit, the degrading of the terminally ill with ongoing work assessments, the rising reliance on food banks, the increase in child and pensioner poverty, and the repulsive rape clause. While these policies continue to have a cruel impact on the lives of ordinary people the length and breadth of the UK, it is clear that the Tories are guilty of laying the foundations for the politics of the nationalists, which they will always aim to exploit.

[Douglas Ross]

Does the hon. Lady not think this is slightly hypocritical, given that her colleagues in the Scottish Parliament voted with the SNP on its continuity Bill, and that the Labour party in Scotland and across the UK would be standing up to strengthen the Union if it did not follow the SNP and vote with it?

[Lesley Laird]

The hon. Gentleman has missed the point: the reason we stood up and supported the Scottish Government is because of his party’s failure to respect the devolution settlement.

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[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

First, let me congratulate the Government on being so efficient at managing their legislative programme that they have been able to find a full day for a debate on this issue on the penultimate day of the parliamentary term. I had hoped that, today, we might come and find some new Government statement, some new policy, or something that would demonstrate the Government’s desire to strengthen the Union between our countries, or that, perhaps, we might take a moment to reflect on what has happened over recent months and years with the debate on Brexit and the effect that that may have had on the strength or otherwise of the Union, but alas I am disappointed.

I have to say that if there is anyone on the Government Benches who believes that the Brexit process has done anything to strengthen the Union, they are wildly deluding themselves. The manner in which it is being executed has demonstrated a lack of will to engage with other countries on these islands as equal partners. Moreover, the fact of its execution means that it challenges the central tenet on which the Union is based, which is that the people of Scotland will be better able to make their way in this world by hitching their fortunes to those of their large neighbour to the south. That is now in question like never before.

I want to focus on the debate between those who propose a self-governing, independent Scotland and those who suggest that Scotland should remain part of the Union with Britain. I will look at the role that devolution plays in that argument, because it is not straightforward. There are many Unionists who say that devolution is a means of strengthening the Union and there are others who see it as the thin end of the wedge. There are many people who believe in independence who embrace devolution as a step and a process; there are others who see it as a distraction from arguing for independence. In fact, it has not always been just one party or one part of the political spectrum that has advocated these changes.

In 1853 an organisation called the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights was established, explicitly to argue for administrative devolution within the Union. Despite its name this association was launched by and comprised Conservative Members of the House of Lords and those in academia. It had a small existence of only three years, but the ideas that it raised led directly to the Liberal Government of 1885 introducing the role of the Secretary of State for Scotland and establishing the Scottish Office. That was a process of administrative devolution that was not proposed by anyone in my party or anyone who would have supported those views at the time.

Allow me to cut to the 1920s and to a man called John MacCormick, who is a very interesting character in this story. MacCormick starts life in the Labour party. He then goes on to be what we would probably regard as the architect of bringing together various groups to form what becomes the Scottish National party in 1934, and he serves for eight years as its national secretary. After 1942, he goes on—not once, not twice, but three times—to stand for election to this place as a Liberal candidate at general elections. But MacCormick’s greatest contribution to this whole debate was to raise the Scottish Covenant, which proclaimed for the first time ever that there should be an elected assembly in Scotland within the Union. Now, that covenant—signed in 1949 in the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland on the Mound in Edinburgh—had attracted in excess of 2 million signatures among a population of 5 million people, but MacCormick found that nobody would present this position to Parliament. In fact, it was left to Unionist party Members of the House of Lords to raise the debate about the covenant and to call for a royal commission to look at the question of devolution within the Union. I am not making this up; this is what really happened.

The amazing thing about the 1950s is the disconnect between those sentiments among the population—2 million people signing the covenant—and the opinions of the Scottish representatives in this place. In fact, in the 1955 election only one Scottish MP out of 71—Jo Grimond, who represented Orkney and Shetland—in any way supported devolution or home rule. Every other Member of Parliament was implacably opposed to it. There was a massive disconnect between what the people wanted and what their representatives were actually saying.

[Douglas Ross]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way during his comments about a massive disconnect between what the people want and what their representatives are speaking about. As he knows, Scotland had a democratic referendum in 2014, when the vast majority of people rejected the SNP’s separatist agenda, yet SNP Members—in Holyrood and here—continue to speak about what we were told would be a “once in a generation” event.

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[Tommy Sheppard]

It does indeed.

Democracy must allow people to exercise their right to revisit a decision if the options that were presented to them beforehand substantially change.

[Douglas Ross]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tommy Sheppard]

No, because that really could not have been a controversial point.

[Douglas Ross]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Tommy Sheppard]

Okay, on that point.

[Douglas Ross]

Would the hon. Gentleman then say that his leader in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, was wrong, ahead of the referendum, to stand in front of a poster that said, “One opportunity”?

[Tommy Sheppard]

No. I wish I had not given way now, because the hon. Gentleman was not wanting to comment on the point that I was making at all.

When Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon talked about “once in a generation”—it was actually said very rarely—they were doing so not as a promise or a qualification, but to remind those who were campaigning for this opportunity that they might only get one chance to do so. The truth of the matter—[Interruption.] I will allow Scottish Conservative Members to intervene if they wish, if they will please let me at least—

[Douglas Ross]

rose—

[Tommy Sheppard]

No, the hon. Gentleman has had his say.

The truth of the matter is that if one changes the proposition, people have the right to revisit the decision, do they not? I would have thought that that was reasonable. If somebody buys something in a shop that promises one thing, and they get it home and open the box and it is not what was promised, they can take their goods back. Well, we should also be able to take our goods back.

I would like to go on for a lot longer, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I know you do not wish me to do so. I will come back to where I started and talk about the relationship of Brexit to this debate on the strength or otherwise of the Union and to Scottish self-government. What has been happening over the last period has substantially weakened the Union because it weakens the devolution settlement that arguably could have given it some strength 20 years ago. This is happening in three ways. First, for the first time in our history, the UK Government are determined to ignore the Sewel convention and to legislate for matters that relate to the devolved Scottish Parliament without obtaining its consent. [Interruption.] That is a regrettable fact, but there is no point in Scottish Conservative Members trying to deny it.

Secondly, if powers are brought back from Brussels, one would expect that they would go to Holyrood, but Holyrood is being given a list of responsibilities, not powers. At the same time, it is being told that it will be able to exercise Executive authority in those areas only if it does so as part of a United Kingdom framework through a series of joint arrangements. UK Ministers have made it quite clear that these joint arrangements will bring together representatives of the four countries within the United Kingdom—but the question arises, who will speak for England in that discussion? Because of the asymmetrical devolution that we have had, and because of the refusal of successive Governments in this place to properly address democratic regional government in England, the only body that speaks for England is this place.

Therefore, Westminster Departments will advocate the cause of English farmers or English fishermen, or whatever, in these joint arrangements. The problem that arises is that in the event of a dispute, they will also sit as judge and jury on what happens. That makes the farmers and the fishermen of Scotland, of Wales and of Northern Ireland subservient to those who operate in the majority area of the country. That drives a coach and horses through the spirit and the actuality of the Union settlement.

There are dark days ahead. We do not know where the Chequers agreement now stands. We do not know what relationship we will have with the European Union, or what the status of a common European Union rulebook will be and what bearing that will have. We do know, though, that time is running out to sort these things. We also know that in the midst of the chaos that this Government have created, the people of Scotland have an alternative and have a choice. They can decide to become a self-governing country—to take back control of their own affairs and get rid of the mess that is being created while they remain part of the United Kingdom.

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[Douglas Ross]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way on this point, because it is important. He is criticising the UK Government for having a debate about strengthening the Union. The Scottish National party has had two debates in this term. Its last one was on the claim of right. Why did his party not choose European topics to discuss when it had the opportunity?

[Pete Wishart]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we will do: we will try to help him out with the issue about strengthening the Union. You know me, Madam Deputy Speaker; I try as much as possible to be helpful in these debates.

Let us see how helpful it might be to the hon. Gentleman to look at a whole range of issues just now and see whether he would put them into the “Strengthening the Union” column or the “Diminishing and weakening the Union” column. Let us start with Brexit. How will we get on with that one? [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is chuntering away. It is what they do. I say to him that the Scottish people are watching this debate, and they see him chuntering, heckling and shouting away. They are not impressed with him behaving in such a way.

[Douglas Ross]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is criticising me for apparently chuntering, but the point is I asked him a question two minutes ago that he has not answered. It would be respectful to this Parliament to answer the point, rather than chuntering away through his speech.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I want to emphasise again that using points of order just to get interventions in the debate on the record—the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) was guilty earlier—needs to stop. It is not fair on others. Lots of Members want to speak, and this is not the way we should be having these debates.

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[Pete Wishart]

I have never said anything about no powers coming back to the UK. The point is that the powers that should rightly reside in the right hon. Gentleman’s Parliament and in my Parliament have been grabbed by the UK Government, and they will now be resting in Westminster, not in our devolved Assemblies. This is really important because our Parliaments—the right hon. Gentleman’s and the one in my nation—depend on the reserved powers model, and if that is broken, devolution is broken.

The Conservatives have started to muck about with the founding principles of our Parliament, and the Scottish people are watching: they are looking at what the Conservatives are doing, and they are not impressed. It is in line with what they are doing with the Sewel convention in relation to taking legitimate decisions of the Scottish Parliament to the Supreme Court to be challenged and possibly overturned. People may say that this all helps to strengthen the Union and that it is a very clever and cunning ruse by the Conservatives to get us back on board with the Union. However, I suggest that, once again, it is undermining their Union, and the power grab was very much to the weakening of the Union cause.

[Douglas Ross]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

I think it is important, before I get into the main context of my speech, to pick up some of the highlights we have had so far. I use the word “highlights” with some caution, but we have heard one major admission in the Chamber today. Following a point I made—I wrote it down: “So Welsh Labour believes in the Union, Scottish Labour does not”—at the Dispatch Box, Scottish Labour’s most senior politician in this Parliament, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird), said, “Yes. Where have you been all these years?” The shadow Scottish Secretary confirmed, from the Dispatch Box, that Welsh Labour believes in the Union and Scottish Labour does not. I think that that will be a very important message for people in Scotland to hear because Labour was once a proud Unionist party in Scotland. At the last election and since the referendum, we have seen that it is no longer a strong supporter of the Union, and I am very concerned to hear those words from the hon. Lady.

[Lesley Laird]

Can I clarify the record, so that there is no misunderstanding? I think that I clarified the issue when I was asked earlier whether I was a Unionist and whether I also supported Scotland. I can confirm both again, not just for me but for my party. We are absolutely a party of the Union. We are a party of democracy. We are the party of devolution and we will not waver from that. If I inadvertently said what the hon. Gentleman says that I said, it was inadvertent, and I absolutely take that statement back.

[Douglas Ross]

That is a very important clarification because I have checked the official record and I said, in this Chamber, “Does Welsh Labour support the Union and does Scottish Labour not support it?”, and the hon. Lady is on record as saying, “Yes. Where have you been all these years?”

[Lesley Laird]

rose—

[Douglas Ross]

The hon. Lady has clarified that, and I have only 10 minutes in which to speak. I am grateful for her clarification.

[Lesley Laird]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Is the hon. Gentleman going to take an intervention?

[Douglas Ross]

I think that the hon. Lady has clarified the position, and I have only a few minutes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to take the intervention.

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[Lesley Laird]

Having clarified the point, I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman stopped repeating a statement that I have already corrected. That would be extremely helpful, not only to the House but, obviously, to the public outside.

[Douglas Ross]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to move on, because I think that is an important point that we have discussed.

There were some other, what I would class as highlights. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is no longer in his place. I have come very late to “Games of Thrones”. I have just finished watching season 1. Not even “Game of Thrones” season 1 goes as far back as the hon. Gentleman did in his speech. He spoke for 20 minutes, and about 18 of them were prehistoric, but he chose to totally omit some of the major developments that we have had in Scotland. He gave cursory notice to the 2014 independence referendum. I wonder why. Because the SNP lost. Then he mentioned the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections, where the SNP was elected with a majority. Why then did he not mention the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections, when the SNP lost its majority? It now relies on votes from the Green party to keep itself going.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has also left. He always gives us very entertaining speeches. I had to wonder why we had all this talk about HMS Brexitannia, and then it came to me. Clearly, the editor of The National had been on the phone and said, “We have a great idea. We have a great picture to put on the front page of The National, but we need someone to give us a story”—and, as always, the hon. Gentleman obliged.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

May I take the hon. Gentleman back to his point about elections? What happened to the Conservative party in 2017? Did it lose its majority and does it now have to rely on another party to get things through Parliament?

[Douglas Ross]

Yes, and we have discussed that many times but, as a minority, we are governing in the United Kingdom. We can keep going on about elections. We can speak about the 162 extra Conservative councillors who were elected in 2017—more than any other party in Scotland. We can speak about the 13 Scottish Conservatives elected to this Parliament, or the 21 SNP MPs who lost their seats. I am quite happy to compare election results with the hon. Gentleman.

I want to return to the subject of the referendum that we held in Scotland in 2014. My Moray constituency was very clear: 58% of people in Moray said no to separation. We had another referendum in 2016 and Moray came closer than any other part of Scotland to voting leave: 49.9% of people voted leave, compared with 50.1%—a difference of just 122. So when we hear that Scotland voted by such a big margin against leaving the European Union, we must always remember and respect the fact that there are people in all our constituencies who voted to leave the European Union and we have to try to get a deal that works for everyone.

This, however, is a debate about strengthening the Union. I am delighted to take part in this debate because in Moray we know about the strength of the Union far better than many others—because we have a great defence footprint in the constituency. We have Kinloss barracks and the 39 Engineer Regiment, and, of course, RAF Lossiemouth, which has had huge investment. I am grateful that the new defence procurement Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew)—is on the Front Bench today. I am sure that he will be a regular visitor to Moray to see the huge investment—the £400 million of investment by this UK Government in defence at Lossiemouth—and hundreds of new jobs.

We heard from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), about the incredible decision by the UK Government to mitigate the nat tax. The SNP made Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom. Our poor armed forces—our service personnel who proudly serve the United Kingdom at home and abroad—were suffering because of that. It is only because this UK Government mitigated the SNP Nat tax—

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am always grateful to debate this issue with the hon. Gentleman. I have asked him to do this before, and I hope he will do it this evening. Will he support the UK Government now reimbursing the squaddies in other parts of the UK who are paying more tax than frontline squaddies based in Scotland?

[Douglas Ross]

The Ministry of Defence pays our hard-working and extremely brave servicemen and women the UK rate—the same level of tax. It is only because the SNP decided to make Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom that we were forced to mitigate that. [Interruption.] SNP Members can chunter away from sedentary positions and shout down this policy, but how dare they say the £4 million—

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Douglas Ross]

No, I will not give way. How dare SNP Members say the £4 million annually that this UK Government are paying to mitigate their policy is wrong? That is absolutely scandalous, and armed forces personnel in Scotland will be viewing—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman keeps shouting. I think that is extremely—[Interruption.] He continues to shout, and it is extremely disrespectful to our armed forces personnel who have been supported in mitigating his party’s policies.

I do not have an awful lot of time left, but I want to mention the cuts commission, because it leads on from what I have just said about defence. The cuts commission —or the growth commission, as the SNP would try to call it—was many months in the making and the report was shoved out one Friday on a bank holiday. We all wondered why it was not published to great fanfare. It is because there is so much bad news for the SNP in its own cuts commission.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies mentions

“the Commission’s proposals for immediate cuts to defence”—

very interesting for my seat in Moray and others around Scotland—

“and other spending currently undertaken by the UK government.”

That is not me saying that; that is the IFS saying that the SNP’s cuts commission will lead to immediate cuts to defence. John McLaren of Scottish Trends made an apposite point when he said:

“Scotland will be moving from a deficit equivalent to nearly 6% of GDP towards a 3% target. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out the implications.”

The implications for our constituents in Moray and across Scotland are that, under the SNP and its cuts commission, we will see more cuts to local authorities and more cuts to the NHS, and I will not accept that.

[Bill Grant]

Does my hon. Friend sense, as I do, that the SNP’s objective is to get independence for Scotland at any price? The SNP will pay any price and the people of Scotland will be the victims of its desire to break up the United Kingdom.

[Douglas Ross]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a very serious point. The outcome of independence does not matter to the SNP; it simply matters to the SNP that it gets independence and separates from the rest of the UK. And it does not matter that it affects my constituents in Moray, with cuts to NHS Grampian, one of the poorest funded health boards anywhere in Scotland. That is why I have been joining protestors across Moray against the downgrading of our maternity services; that is the outcome we have from an SNP Administration in Holyrood after 11 years of them in government.

I wanted to make many other points. I wanted to briefly highlight power grabs, something that, again, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire mentioned. I think there is a power grab going on, and it is by the SNP, because it wants to grab these powers from Europe, and it does not want them in Holyrood or in Westminster; it wants them back in Europe. That is a power grab—the SNP grabbing these powers to give them back to Europe. The fishermen in my Moray constituency do not want that. Many of the one third, we are told, of SNP supporters who voted to leave the EU must now be wondering what their party is promising them because the policy is for the hated common fisheries policy to go straight back to the EU. So many other policies that are currently ruled by Europe would go straight back to the EU if the SNP ever got its way. [Interruption.] I have seen the wink in your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I know my remarks must now come to a conclusion. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Again, SNP Members cheer because someone had an opposite view from them and they are about to finish their speech. They can give it out but they cannot take it.

This Conservative Government are strengthening—[Interruption.] SNP Members keep shouting. This Conservative Government are strengthening the Union. More powers have been devolved to Holyrood by this UK Conservative Government since 2010 than any others, making it one of the strongest devolved Assemblies anywhere in the world. As a result of Brexit, with so many more powers going to the Scottish Parliament and to Holyrood, it will just get stronger. That is how we are strengthening the Union.

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[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am willing to accept that entirely, but that does not mean I have to stop arguing for it. Indeed, it was the hon. Gentleman’s party leader in Scotland who said it was legitimate, and even honourable, for the Scottish National party to continue advocating Scotland’s independence, and that is what I intend to do. I hope to turn the hon. Gentleman’s constituency around. I note that he did not mention the result of the EU referendum in his own constituency.

The point that Sir George Reid was making then, and it applies now, is that facts change and people are entitled to move. I want to come back to the point he was making about the facts. We should be looking at that, rather than allowing ourselves to be plagued by the positioning in trenches that poisons our politics and breeds cynicism, which is the least healthy thing we can have in our politics. It was Mandela himself who noted that cynicism must be opposed at all times.

There is a real danger that we will go back to a poisonous period in this Chamber in 1945, when the first ever SNP Member of Parliament, Robert McIntyre, was elected. He won his seat in a by-election for Motherwell. It took him several days to take his Oath, because there were no two Members who would stand at the Bar of the House and allow him to approach the Table to do so. I do not want to see us return to that any time soon.

We are constantly being told that we are manufacturing grievances—indeed, the shadow Secretary of State said it earlier. I have much to be aggrieved about; I wish the shadow Secretary of State could be aggrieved about it with me. If that makes me a grievance monger, then frankly that is what my job here is to do. I am aggrieved by many of the things this Government do—some of which were adumbrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who talked about drug consumption rooms and the awful immigration cases that all of us see coming through our constituency surgeries—and by the dreadful and quite regressive welfare measures that we see impacting on our constituents. You’d better believe it, I am aggrieved about many of those things.

[Douglas Ross]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out grievances that he has with this Government. Is it not therefore fair for those of us on the Government Benches and Scottish Conservatives around Scotland to have grievances against his party, which has been in power in Scotland for 11 years? We have seen educational standards dropping, mergers of police and fire services, which many in rural constituencies are against, and a number of problems with our NHS services. We are entitled to raise those grievances, as is he to raise his, in this place.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is in a unique position, as is the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who is sitting on the Bench behind him. They left the Scottish Parliament to come to this Parliament, but even with that in mind—I add it purely for information—the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) is entirely entitled to raise any issue he wishes to, whether it is devolved or reserved. However, I come back to the point that he gave up a seat in a devolved legislature to come to this place to hold this Government accountable. He does a job for his constituents, and he is entirely right to do that.

I come to the tone in which we have these arguments. Some of the points that the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) raised earlier were uncomfortable to listen to. Indeed, it is uncomfortable to see anyone on my side of the constitutional question hold up a “Tory scum out” banner such as he mentioned, far less march behind it with any sense of pride. I do not think Tories are scum. I think a lot of their policies are terrible policies, and I will argue and fight against them at election time. Ultimately, I will argue for the ultimate salvation from them, which I believe to be Scottish independence, but we need to get better at disagreeing with one another.