European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Angus Brendan MacNeil

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for taking Scotland into account. I hope that the promise made by the Prime Minister on 15 July will have greater gravity than that made by the previous Prime Minister on 10 September 2014, when David Cameron said on “Channel 4 News” that if Scotland voted to remain in the UK, all forms of devolution were there and all were possible. Yet when it came to the Scotland Bill—by this time, my hon. and learned Friend was a Member of Parliament—none of the amendments were taken, showing that none of the forms of devolution were there and none were possible. We have had one broken promise by the previous Prime Minister; let us hope that this Prime Minister can keep her word.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I give the hon. Gentleman a lot of leeway, but it is this Bill that we are discussing right now. We cannot go on to previous Prime Ministers and previous Bills. I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), whose legal expertise is among the best in the House, will find a way of saying what she wants to say.

Middle East

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It has come to my attention, through BuzzFeed and Twitter, that the Prime Minister will make a statement on Syria after 7 pm. It seems that the statement will be on television, rather than in the House of Commons. Surely we are living in a parliamentary democracy, not a presidential system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether anything that has gone out on social media is correct, so I have no idea whether what he says is true—although, I am quite sure that he would not have raised the point of order had he not seen something to that effect. All that I can say to him, and to the House, is that if the Prime Minister has something of importance to say to the nation about Syria, or indeed about any other vitally important issue, I have every confidence that he will come first to this House to say it. I am quite sure that he will do so in due course.

Finance Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; he is underlining our friendliness. To build on the point from the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), I wish to say that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) is absolutely right about the problem of connectivity with the south-east of England, where the airports are being built. It is not by accident. In the 40 years after world war two, there were bilateral air agreements specifying that planes had to fly into London airports, and we have paid for that. He is right about the Netherlands. The London docks lost out to Rotterdam, and it looks like it will happen again with the air infrastructure. As the chief executive of Schiphol said, it would be a good idea—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I call Sammy Wilson.

[Mr MacNeil]

The chief executive said it would be a good idea to have a long inquiry, and that is what is happening. It is taking too long.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I call Sammy Wilson.

Select Committees

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. There are particular reasons why the SNP did not take its seat on the last Scottish Affairs Committee. They were to do with the behaviour of the then Chairman of that Committee.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Laing)]

I fully appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, but he will appreciate just as well that that is not a point of order for the Chair to deal with at the moment. I am quite certain that there will be many times in debate over the next few months when he will have the opportunity to make the point he seeks to make.