Scotland Bill

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Donohoe]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend, and I shall return to that point.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I can tell my hon. Friend that I barely slept last night waiting to make this intervention. Will he at least acknowledge that the current system came about as a result of a consultative process—the Scottish Constitutional Convention—which the Committee should respect?

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[Mr Donohoe]

I am extremely grateful to my Member of Parliament for raising that point. Of course it is a serious point and it has to be addressed, because it causes dissent and demonstrates that the list system in Scotland does not—and will not—work, and is not seen as fair.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous in giving way. I know that he would never be partisan, but surely he can see the benefit for the thousands of people in the highlands and islands region who vote for Labour candidates, and who, thanks to the system, have three excellent candidates in Peter Peacock, Rhoda Grant and David Stewart.

[Mr Donohoe]

Well, I got one out of three, so I did not do too badly. I bet that if I asked the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) to name his seven list Members—or even the 24 in my constituency—he would be lucky to name three of them. But I will give way, if he is going to reel them off. [Interruption.] He has it on his website! That is a bit of a cheat, would you not say, Mr Hoyle? Anyway, I am coming to the end of my contribution, you will be glad to know.

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[Mr Reid]

That is a fair point. I am fully in favour of proportional representation, but every electoral system can be improved. One way of improving this system would be to move from closed to open lists, which would give the electorate a choice. Another reform is also possible: if cherry-picking of constituencies by regional list Members is considered to be a problem, we can adopt the system in Wales whereby no one can stand both for a constituency and on the regional list. That would remove the problem of cherry-picking at a stroke, because there would be no advantage for a regional list Member in cherry-picking a particular constituency.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we have already seen improvements, such as the removal from the list of the vanity party that was “Alex Salmond for First Minister”?

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[Mr Reid]

There is no way of predicting what would have happened, because we do not know how people would have used their later preferences. The hon. Gentleman’s analysis is of interest, but I do not think we can make any such assumption.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, once again, the constitutional cuckoo, the SNP, has benefited from a system drawn up by the Scottish Constitutional Convention, with which it did not even engage?

[Mr Reid]

I was certainly disappointed that the SNP did not engage, but it benefited from a system that had widespread support throughout Scotland and was endorsed by the Scottish people in a referendum.

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[Mark Lazarowicz]

rose—

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) first.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful for that intervention, but it still seems an awful lot—almost an eighth, and there are six signatories. It also seems to me that the numbers are growing. I saw the heads nodding in agreement with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire and I suggest and suspect that he has growing support. If he remains tenacious on this issue, his view might prevail in the Labour party. That is the direction in which things are going and that is what we are beginning to see.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I think that we have heard this point; is it on the same issue?

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[Fiona O'Donnell]

It is.

[Pete Wishart]

Oh, go on then.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for the subject. If I might help him with the maths, the equivalent proportion of Scottish National party Members would be seven eighths of one MP.

[Pete Wishart]

We really are having arithmetic and mathematics lectures today.

I think that the momentum is with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire. Opinion is moving in the same direction as him and I think it is starting to go with him. I looked around and saw some of the enthusiasm from some of his hon. Friends this afternoon and I think the Labour party has a genuine problem. I have a solution, however, Mr Hoyle, in which you might be interested. I understand that the Labour party is holding an important conference this weekend, so the hon. Gentleman should get a day return—not the Caledonian sleeper—up to Oban and have this debate with the Labour party. The Scottish people need to know what the Labour party is doing.

I believe that the Labour party is split from top to bottom on this issue and that has to be resolved. I know that up at Oban it will be the usual whinge-fest.

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[Pete Wishart]

People are nodding their heads. I detect that this is becoming a real issue. Frankly, it scares and alarms me if that is the debate within the Labour party. Whether it is a substantial minority or a majority within the Labour party who feel this way, the Scottish people need to know about this. They need to be aware that this is the Labour party’s intention. These two new clauses are totally wrong and it is appalling if a substantial minority in the Labour party believe this is the way forward. They would remove one of the central pillars of the Scottish Parliament—its internal democracy. They would remove all the proportionality that has been agreed and is the settled will of the Scottish Parliament.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I have given way to the hon. Lady already, so I will move on.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire and many of his colleagues want to return to the good old days of the old Glasgow council, when 69 Labour members, out of 79, were elected on 48% of the vote. That is democracy Labour-style—90% of members on 40% of the vote. Thank goodness we will not be going back to that. People are saying that is right and that it is what they want and I believe that that underpins all these measures—the Labour party benefiting massively from first past the post.

In the past few years, this issue has consistently come up. In the 10 years that I have been in the House, we have had these debates about Arbuthnott and other matters. We were told that we could not call the Scottish Government a Government and that we had to call them the Scottish Executive. I remember the days of the timid, unadventurous Labour Executive, always casting their eyes southwards to London, awaiting orders, instructions and directions about what to do, but those days have gone. We now have an SNP Government in Scotland and we will never again have the House of Commons clicking its fingers and the Scottish Parliament doing that dance. I look forward to that.

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[Pete Wishart]

I will name one MSP with lofty ambitions. He has the ambition to be the First Minister of Scotland. When he went out there, we found that 50% of the Scottish people did not recognise him, and another 33% just did not like him.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I wonder which party in Scotland the hon. Gentleman would say has the best record on constitutional reform—the parties in the Scottish Constitutional Convention, Labour and Lib Dems who delivered STV for local government, or an SNP Government who could not even deliver a referendum.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. That is not relevant to the new clause either.

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[Mr MacNeil]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me on the substantial thrust of my argument and I hope to see him with me in the Lobby as a result. Would I have done this if such a proposal had not been made at the moment? Perhaps not, but given the safety concerns, this matter is pressing. Given that the process started without any risk assessment from the MCA, despite the relevant Minister telling me at the Dispatch Box that there had been such an assessment, I think that politics has to meet the pressing concerns among Royal National Lifeboat Institution crews, people who used to be involved in shipping, working coastguards and a variety of people across the community—certainly in the highlands and islands and, I imagine, further down to the Clyde and over to the Forth and, indeed, Shetland.

New clause 4 would redress a bizarre part of the Scotland Act that prevents the Scottish Government from creating incentives for the maritime industry in Scotland. Currently, the Government of Scotland have the ability to incentivise travel for maritime journeys that both start and end in Scotland, which has meant that a successful pilot project on the west coast for the road equivalent tariff has been brought to the Outer Hebrides and to Coll and Tiree. We hope that policy will continue, as it has done quite a lot to help the economies of those areas in a time of severe economic downturn.

Maritime policy is vital to Scotland as we are responsible for 70% of all the fish landed in the UK. Aberdeen is home to the North sea oil industry and lands nearly 4.5 million tonnes of cargo annually from approximately 8,000 ships. Clyde port lands 7.5 million tonnes of cargo and Stornoway port in my constituency has 200,000 people travelling through it each year. The ability to control the maritime economy is surely vital to what is a maritime nation. It is vital to secure future growth in the Scottish economy.

The figures that I have presented for the Aberdeen and Clyde ports are small in comparison with Southampton, which lands 75 million tonnes of cargo annually. Currently, the shipping industry coalesces around the south of England leaving little else for the rest of the UK. It is peculiar that most of Scotland’s goods are transported to the south of England and then driven into Scotland. With ever-increasing fuel costs and more congested motorways, surely that is not a good idea. The cost of moving goods to Scotland will invariably increase as the costs of transportation increase, and we propose that costs could be saved if there were an incentive for ships to land their goods in Scotland. The professor of maritime research at Edinburgh Napier university, Alf Baird, put it succinctly when he said that

“the present reality is that firms located in Scotland are considerably worse off in international transport cost terms compared with firms located close to hub ports in the south east of England…firms in the central belt of Scotland are between 15-23% worse off, while firms in the highlands are 22-33% worse off, and firms located on remote islands between 37-63% worse off…From a purely Scottish perspective this therefore raises the question—is the current method of serving Scottish industry’s global import and export needs through remote UK ports sustainable in the long run? Or, in other words, will rising domestic UK transport costs (rail as well as road) make Scottish industry even less competitive in global markets than it is today, leading to further job losses”—

that is the important point, as we want to keep people in employment—

“in manufacturing and reduced competitiveness?”

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is glad to pause for breath. He has said that he is proposing these new clauses because Calman missed them out, but did he put forward any submissions to the Holyrood Bill Committee or the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs about these matters?

[Mr MacNeil]

The most appropriate place for the measures is in the Bill, which is why I have chosen to bring them forward now.

Professor Baird has asked rather straightforward questions that should be addressed by a specific maritime policy with regard to seaport provision in Scotland and the impacts of such a policy for trade and economic development. Surely, Scotland should be able to entice shippers to send goods to our ports. As the home of the large northern ports of the UK, we are well placed to provide efficient ports for shipping goods throughout Scotland and, perhaps, the rest of the UK. We should at least be given the opportunity to try. However, there are restrictions in place and all we can do is hope that companies land their goods there. This issue is at the crux of our main argument. Scotland needs to have the economic levers to promote growth, which would also help with the aggregate growth of the British Isles. Without the ability to entice business to Scotland, we will lose a real chance to grow sectors of our economy that could provide a counterweight to other portions of the Scottish economy. Our new clauses would ensure that the Scottish Government have the ability to promote the Scottish shipping industry and Scottish ports.

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[Mr MacNeil]

I should have known that someone from the economic powerhouse that is Northern Ireland was sitting behind me—I say that with irony.

Unfortunately, the Minister indulges in the usual slurs and dogma, and he is wrong in some of his assertions. He said nothing about helping communities; he tried to pin all this on some sort of political agenda in the Scottish National party. The new clause is not about that; it is about the powers people need to affect the day-to-day occurrences in their communities and around their islands. Tonight, people will see past the words of certain politicians.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr MacNeil]

No. I do not know when we last had a vote on this, but tonight’s vote will enable people to make many judgments for years to come. We will judge this for years to come.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Mr Brown]

I must tell the hon. Gentleman that we have moved on: we now have trains, buses and taxis, so people would not necessarily walk.

I want to get back to the debate on the hon. Gentleman’s new clause, because I want the House to have time to debate new clause 19 as well. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) said that the hon. Gentleman’s proposal was ludicrous; I would go further and say that it is sheer lunacy. In January 2007, the Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill was introduced by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo). Many Members might have considered supporting it, but for the fact that it contained a nasty clause that gave the devolved Administrations the opportunity to opt out. I ask the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar and others who support his proposal to consider how the drivers in a small haulage business based in two locations—let us say Carlisle and Dumfries—would manage the tachograph when moving from one side of the border to the other.

The new clause makes no sense whatever. I hope that, rather than dividing the Committee on the proposal, the hon. Gentleman will see sense. His proposal would make it more likely that we would end up with two different time zones. I urge him to withdraw the new clause.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I will make my contribution brief as well, although I shall not speak at quite the same speed as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil). He reminded me of a child who needed to go to the toilet as he delivered his speech so terribly quickly. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) said that he had risen to speak with a heavy heart. I am rising with a sore head, and that is not just about the sleep deprivation that I mentioned earlier. It is because I honestly cannot understand what possessed the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar to table this new clause. He cannot bring a proposal before the Committee and then not want us to discuss its possible implications. He cannot tell us what any Scottish Government, even his own, might choose to do with such powers, given that he voted against the sell-off of the forests in England while his Government tried to sell off the forests in Scotland. It is essential that we scrutinise the implications of the new clause. It exposes the fact that the SNP is good at minority reports and at gesture politics, but not good at government.

[Dr Whiteford]

I will take entirely personally the hon. Lady’s positive comment about minority reports. I took part in a debate on the issue of time zones a few months ago, and I was struck by the strength of feeling among many Government Members who represent English constituencies who would really like to see the time zones in this country change. My worry is that that would plunge my constituents into darkness on winter mornings, meaning that they would have to contend not only with icy roads and low temperatures but with limited amounts of sunlight. A Scottish Government would have no room in any negotiations on that matter, should a Government in this place choose to impose a change to the existing arrangements. As I understand it, the whole point of my hon. Friend’s new clause is to strengthen the likelihood of maintaining the existing arrangements, not to undermine them.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I am still struggling to follow this argument. The SNP is asking for a power that it says it has no intention of using because the effects would be undesirable. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar seemed to say that, should the time zone change here, he would recommend that the Scottish Government fell in line with such a decision as he had no intention of having two different time zones. It has already been pointed out that we are far more likely to end up with two time zones if we devolve this power. It would be easier for such a decision to be taken simply on the basis of taking English concerns into account.

[Mr Frank Roy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the only way to have two time zones in the United Kingdom is to vote for the new clause?

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Absolutely; I could not have put it more simply. My headache immediately disappears and we have clarity.

There are some questions that I would like the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar to address. First, has he spoken to Microsoft or other PC manufacturers about their systems and whether they would be able to cope with this change? Has he considered the implications for travel? It is possible that I could leave my constituency and be in this place before I had left. I wonder how the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority would respond to time travel and thinking that I came to this place in a Tardis. We have already heard about television and radio schedules. These are serious concerns, and they are the implications of what he is asking for. We might get the 10 o’clock news at 9 o’clock or 11 o’clock, we might know the results of the national lottery draw in Scotland before it is made in England. I have seen SNP Members holding their heads in their hands as we put forward these various possibilities, but if the hon. Gentleman is going to push the Committee to vote on this matter, he has to consider the ramifications.

Let us be clear about this: the SNP is no good in government in Holyrood, is no good in government in local authority areas, and in this Chamber it is putting forward a most ridiculous proposal that I hope the Committee will oppose.

[Thomas Docherty]

I want to make two observations based on an example taken from either side of the Committee. Under this proposal, the Minister from the Scotland Office could be taken in his Government car from his very nice house in Moffat down to Carlisle and then go back in time an hour to catch a train that had left Carlisle an hour earlier.

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[Tom Greatrex]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I hesitate to introduce an element of gravity to the proceedings, given some of the entertainment that has featured so far. Over the past few hours, however, there has been much debate on issues that did not feature in the Calman report. This issue was dealt with in the report, but it does not feature in the Bill. It featured in the previous Government’s White Paper and is referred to in the Command Paper that accompanies the Bill, but it is one of the issues that appear to have fallen off the edge of the Calman process.

During this Committee stage the Government have produced explanations, some convincing and others less so, for the fact that they are not implementing some of Calman’s recommendations. Part of the purpose of the new clause is to give them an opportunity to explain why they are not implementing one particular recommendation. I note that the Scottish Parliament legislative consent memorandum Committee, in one of its conclusions, suggested that the Government provide a fuller explanation. As I am sure that its members read the Command Paper before reaching that conclusion, I suspect that merely repeating the terms of the Command Paper will not serve to provide the explanation sought by the Committee.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Will my hon. Friend press the Minister to tell us what representations the Government have received from either the retail or the manufacturing sector in support of their action?