Drew Hendry
Main Page: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Patrick Grady
What is surprising is that things have not been like that. We have reached arrangements and worked well together. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire has been the acting Chief Whip on a number of occasions for the Scottish National party since 2015, and we were able to come to these arrangements, so it is disappointing that this has ended up coming to the Floor of the House.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) says, it has been a very effective Committee—so effective that my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire has already been on the front page of The National about this precise issue. If Government Front Benchers had read that publication at the weekend, they would have seen this coming and could have avoided this debate on the Floor of the House and the issue of whether we will get to the moment of interruption without a Division.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
The SNP won more than 80% of seats in Scotland in the recent general election. The make-up proposed for the Committee does not go even halfway to realising that representation and giving the people of Scotland the voice they should have as a result of that outstanding win.
Patrick Grady
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Scottish National party increased our number of seats in the House—our representation here—by more than a third, yet our representation on the Committee is going to remain static. Meanwhile, the Conservative party’s number of seats in Scotland has gone down by more than 50% and its representation is going to increase. That simply denies and defies democracy and absolutely gives the lie to the notion that Scotland has a valuable role and that its voice is going to be heard.