Scotland Bill

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Michael Connarty

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who has both conflated a lot of issues that are of obvious concern to her party and not been quite open about what happened on the Scottish Parliament’s Bill Committee. We have heard what seems to be a strange argument: the SNP is for devolution unless it does not win the vote, because on a devolved committee the SNP moved an amendment and lost. Then the committee concluded that it was

“content to recommend to the Scottish Parliament that it should give its legislative consent to the provisions in the Scotland Bill relating to the re-reservation of insolvency, subject to provisions being drafted which will secure capacity for devolved legislation to affect the winding-up of Registered Social Landlords”.

On the one hand the hon. Lady is conflating lots of issues of obvious concern to her party, but on the other she is denying the democratic process when it goes against her in the devolved Parliament.

The third thing that the hon. Lady has done is make a case as though that case were not recognised by everyone, on all sides, in the evidence given to this Parliament. Hopefully, the Government are listening to that, and those on our Front Bench have stressed the same points. However, there is another fault that people show when trying to enthuse people—I think that the common phrase is “overegging the pudding”. There has not been a bankruptcy or insolvency of a registered social landlord in Scotland in 40 years, because of the way in which their arrangements are structured. I was active in the early days of the housing association movement as a leader of a council in Scotland. Across all the parties we created a structure that mainly secures registered social landlords from the problems experienced by those landlords who are thirsting for profit and therefore taking risks by borrowing and overextending themselves. Registered social landlords are to be commended because they tend not to get themselves into such situations, which is one of the reasons we set them up as we did.

Everyone takes seriously the point made by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, including those on our Front Bench and, I hope, the Government. Therefore, we should have the necessary safeguards to allow the points made by the SFHA to be taken on board. The SFHA is worried about the speed of action should there ever be a problem, and hopefully the final legislation will recognise that. However, we cannot conclude from this that we should therefore go against the recommendation of the Scottish Parliament’s Bill Committee and against common sense in having a system across the UK to address a problem that faces a lot of the corporate bodies and private organisations in the UK at the moment.

[Dr Whiteford]

This is an argument that has come directly from the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, which is concerned about preventing such problems from occurring in the first place. It is the SFHA that is worried about the environment in which it currently operates. I know that we will shortly debate housing benefit in this House, but one of the SFHA’s concerns is that changes to housing benefit could have serious repercussions for cash flow. It is concerned that the financial position is not as secure as it might have been. That is why we have to take this issue seriously. I wish that I could share the hon. Gentleman’s optimism, but hoping that something might come forward is no way to go through the parliamentary process.

[Michael Connarty]

Allow me to recommend that optimism to the hon. Lady, who is new to the House. That optimism, which I have carried with me for 18 years, might stand her in good stead if she survives as long as I have in this place. They do say—I am quoting Gramsci, the socialist—that pessimism of the intellect should breed optimism of the will. She will certainly require that again and again if she sits on the SNP Benches in this place, I can tell her that.

I am deeply involved in fighting a case involving a bad insolvency in my constituency. In a sense, I have had to step over a line that I have drawn for myself since devolution, where I have had to say, “This is not a matter for me: I have a remit as a UK parliamentarian and my colleagues”—Members of the Scottish Parliament—“have a remit devolved to them.” I try to keep the two apart quite strictly. I try to encourage devolved organisations to write not to me but to my MSP colleagues, and to engage them properly in the process. I was involved in the scrutiny of bankruptcy in Scotland legislation here in Westminster between ’92 and ’97, and knew quite a lot about that. I therefore find the current environment frustrating, as many companies are facing serious challenges because of economic conditions and are having to go through the insolvency process.

Although the case I took on involves what is currently a devolved matter, I knew that re-reservation was being reconsidered, so my conscience was somewhat assuaged. The reality is that the insolvency process is not very pleasant. It is never pleasant for people to be bankrupted or to have their goods and chattels sold by a bankruptcy administrator who seems to be their friend until the moment when they sign the form, and who then turns out to be their enemy. In the case I am currently involved in, there is a house for sale. The insolvency administrator has allowed it to be vandalised, so quite a lot of the financial benefit to the creditors has been lost, and seems to be ignoring any offer from anyone to buy the property.

This issue should be a responsibility across all the Chambers, and I think it makes sense for the same rules to apply in Scotland as in the rest of the UK. The Bill’s provisions would bring them into line. We should all realise that it does not matter which side of the border people are living on or trading in, and that they must be dealt with properly by the insolvency laws and its practitioners. I have serious reservations about the way they are currently regulated. I look forward to this being returned to being a reserved matter so that I can fully engage in it.