Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Pete Wishart(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
4. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Government's welfare benefit reforms in Scotland.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
5. When he last met the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to discuss the effects of welfare reform in Scotland.
Constitutional Law
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Pete Wishart(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Livingston (Graeme Morrice); we all, in this House, enjoy hearing him reading out his speech to such great effect. I turned up to this Chamber—[Interruption.] I managed to get through two sentences before, as you have noticed, Mr Deputy Speaker, the hecklers started to kick in. Many people in Scotland have been watching today’s debate, and I wish the cameras could pan across on to the hon. Gentlemen on the Labour Benches to show the ugly face of Westminster Unionism. I was on my feet for two sentences before the heckling started and the attempts to shout me down began. Unfortunately, we commonly see that in this House.
Pete Wishart
No, I am not giving way to the hon. Lady. When I came here today, I thought that we were going to have a good, positive debate. I thought that we all agreed that devolving this power to the Scottish Parliament under section 30 was a good idea, but what have we seen? We have had such a sour debate today. We have heard personal attacks, once again, on the First Minister—we do expect those. We have heard a surly acceptance of the fact that the Scottish Parliament has a right to deliver this referendum—a thing both Governments have agreed. I thought that today would be almost a joyous affair, which is why it has been so depressing to listen to one dreary speech after the next, and all the incessant and consistent negativity. [Interruption.] Here we go again, Mr Deputy Speaker. I really hope that the people of Scotland are watching this, because they have to see how Labour Members respond to these debates. They are not interested in listening to the other part of the debate, and it is very unfortunate that, again and again, we have to listen to these voices attempting to shut things down. I believe it is a pleasure and privilege to speak in today’s debate.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Pete Wishart(13 years, 8 months ago)
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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.
Pete Wishart
I think that we have heard this point; is it on the same issue?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Pete Wishart(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Fiona O'Donnell
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North has answered that question. If the hon. Gentleman was not listening, or if he was not able to follow it, I am afraid I cannot take responsibility for that.
I will press on and talk about the SNP’s corporation tax proposals.
Fiona O'Donnell
No, I would like to make some progress and actually talk about the amendments. [Hon. Members: “Come on!”] Oh, alright then. Don’t say I’m not kind.
Pete Wishart
I am trying to understand Labour’s position on our amendments. They are what the Scottish Bill Committee and Calman agreed on, and we are providing an opportunity to put them to the vote today. Is she honestly saying that she will not take the opportunity to support her own case?
Fiona O'Donnell
This may not be something that the hon. Gentleman is used to hearing, but I am going to tell him, “Not yet”. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North said, until we have a ruling and clarification, there is a risk to the Scottish Government. That does not mean withholding those powers for ever, but it is about protecting Scotland and looking out for its interests.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Pete Wishart(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Pete Wishart
I have a real choice here. I will give way to the shadow Minister.
Pete Wishart
Perhaps I will stick to the amendment and put the case for continuing to leave the matter in the hands of the Scottish Parliament.
Fiona O'Donnell
I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman has got me animated about the issue because it seems so clear-cut. What would the position be for someone who trains as a health scientist in Scotland? Could they work in England or would they be regulated to work only in Scotland?
Pete Wishart
Reciprocal arrangements work across a variety of jurisdictions. Of course a health scientist trained in Scotland could work in England. We have a separate NHS, which has developed differently from the NHS in the rest of the UK in the past 10 years—that seems to have escaped hon. Members in the debate. It has new professions that require different regulation.
Pete Wishart
I have no doubt that that is exactly what was said, but the only evidence taken by the Calman commission was from two royal colleges, which talked only about doctors.
Pete Wishart
I have already given way to the hon. Lady. The UK Department of Health evidence to the commission concluded:
“The Department of Health is not seeking any change to the reservation of the health professions in the Scotland Act 1998. In practice, both the Government and the devolved administration have always sought to apply a UK-wide framework to the regulation of health”.
It is not interested in re-reserving the issue, and I do not know why we are.
We have a different NHS in Scotland, and it is recognised that the implementation of some policies would have to be different in Scotland. Given that the provision is clearly anti-devolutionary and not in the interests of the NHS in Scotland, we will not support it, not because of any knee-jerk response but because of the examples that I have mentioned and that I hope have been accepted by the Committee. We have a toehold in regulation across the UK, we will not give it up lightly and we will oppose the clause.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Pete Wishart(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Pete Wishart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who knows about these issues and understands the difficulties that the Bill would create.
Why are we giving the Scottish Parliament new fiscal responsibilities that would damage it? That is one of the proposals that we will seek to correct during the Bill’s passage. We will be making suggestions about how it could be dealt with. We are prepared to work with the Government, because we want to improve and strengthen the Bill. We want to make it a powerhouse Bill that will serve our nation and be a credit to the communities that we serve.
As we have heard, the Bill has already been debated in the Scottish Parliament, and has been subject to what has been described as an independent Bill scrutiny Committee. I certainly hope that the proceedings in the House of Commons will be a bit more useful and relevant than what we have seen in the Scottish Bill Committee thus far. We have seen a Labour convener haranguing and harassing independent witnesses, as a result of which several have decided not to take part in the proceedings because of what they feel is an in-built bias. The Scottish Bill Committee seems to be more interested in considering options that are not even in the Bill than in examining the dangerous tax plans that it contains. I hope that we can do a bit better than that down here, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you know, and as we are already observing, Scottish debates in the House of Commons are always characterised by their good nature and conviviality.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He cannot say that he wants rigorous scrutiny, and then say that we were too hard on people who provided false information in support of his case.
Pete Wishart
I do not know what the hon. Lady is referring to. I have never said anything about false information.
In a spirit of consensus and co-operation, let us start with the issues on which we all agree, for obviously there are such issues. We all agree with the Secretary of State and with our Labour colleagues that devolution is, in the words of Donald Dewar, a process and not a one-off event, and that is important. We may disagree on the conclusion of that process—we believe in independence, and my Labour colleagues believe in something else—but we all agree that devolution is a process, and that we will continue to see a transfer of powers from the House of Commons to the Scottish Parliament.
A point was made earlier about the reference to the Scottish Government in the amendment. When I first came to the House 10 years ago, Labour Members were appalled at the prospect of a Scottish Government. The Secretary of State probably remembers the debates in which they expressed their view. They helpfully said, “They can call themselves ‘The White Heather Club’ if they want, but they will never be a Government.” We are a Government now, thank goodness, and the Labour dinosaurs, some of whom I see in their places, will never go back to having an “Executive” running Scotland. That is a good thing too.
An important new development is that we all agree now that some financial powers—fiscal powers—should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. We never had that important source of agreement before. We fundamentally disagree on the measures in the Bill, but we agree that financial responsibility should be a feature of the Scottish Parliament. I look forward to that, and that is another area of agreement. We will oppose measures in the Bill, but it is good that we now all agree that financial powers are required for the Scottish Parliament.
The most important thing that everyone in this House can agree on—this ran through everything to do with Calman—is that the Scottish Parliament has been an overwhelming success. The Secretary of State is of course right to say that there is no question—only people on the fringes of politics in this House would even suggest this—of ever going back to having no Scottish Parliament again. What typifies that more than anything is the fact that a Conservative-led Government are legislating for more powers and responsibilities to be given to the Scottish Parliament, because only 12 short years ago the Tories campaigned so energetically against the Scottish Parliament. That shows the progress that we have made, and there will be areas of agreement as we go through the Committee stage in this House.
Although we agree on many things in the Bill, there are many things with which we fundamentally disagree.
Fiona O'Donnell
I expect that it is a reflection of what has happened to my life since coming to this place.
I begin, rather unusually, by apologising to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) for my rather bad-tempered intervention. It makes me angry when I hear the SNP, given its record, complaining about the process that has brought us here today, and the Calman commission. It also makes me angry when the hon. Gentleman questions whether the Bill will receive due scrutiny. I hope that, now he has heard the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin), he realises that Labour will give the Bill due scrutiny, and that he will also welcome the inquiry by the Scottish Affairs Committee, on which the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) serves. That will give us further opportunities to examine the Bill.
I remind the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire that the Calman commission consulted the public, experts and interested groups at 12 local engagement events all over Scotland. It received 300 written submissions, and held 50 public and 27 private evidence sessions. That compares more than favourably with the national conversation. The hon. Gentleman asked my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North how much it had cost. A conversation among Unionists is a far bigger conversation than one just among nationalists.
I am particularly pleased to be speaking in today’s debate because I follow in the footsteps of John P. Mackintosh. His approach was one of integrity and commitment, and he wanted genuine constitutional reform and the flourishing of the democratic expression of the Scottish people. I should like to remind Members who have visited the Scottish Parliament, and to inform those who have not, that the Donald Dewar room at Holyrood carries this quote from John P. Mackintosh:
“People in Scotland want a degree of government for themselves. It is not beyond the wit of man to devise the institutions to meet these demands.”
Labour finally devised the institution to meet those demands and delivered on Keir Hardie’s original aim of home rule. Another of my predecessors, John Home Robertson, not only believed in home rule, but lived and breathed it as he served East Lothian in both the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament.
Constitutional reform should rise above party politics. The SNP has shown throughout today’s debate not only that its politics are separatist, but that its approach to politics—the way it does politics—is separatist. The Labour way is to work with other parties to achieve consensus, which is what it has done through the Scottish Constitutional Convention and the Calman commission. SNP representatives were absent from both, which must make theirs the longest political huff in history. They are less outside the tent than squatting on a different campsite altogether. Indeed, they have not been happy campers, although there have been an unusual number of references to caravans.
We today take Scotland forward to a new era. It is right and it is time that the Scottish Parliament takes greater responsibility for its expenditure and matches that with accountability. Of course, the Bill goes further than that in giving substantial borrowing powers to Scotland. I hope that we can now move away from a time when the SNP Government used every capital building programme as an opportunity to fight at Westminster, rather than as an opportunity to fight for Scotland.
SNP Members have still to tell us whether they will vote for the Bill or seek to wreck it today. They have an opportunity to see Scotland move forward, but they appear to be unwilling even now to rise to give us clarity on that question—[Interruption.]
Fiona O'Donnell
If the hon. Gentleman is bored, he could make the debate more interesting by intervening to answer that question, but he remains silent.
The SNP has argued for full fiscal autonomy for Scotland, but that is not what Scotland needs. Scotland needs the security that is offered by remaining part of the Union, which is what the Bill gives it.
What would the SNP have done with the banks in an independent Scotland? [Interruption.] Yes. I am afraid that it is all fantasy and Brigadoon on the SNP side. I urge SNP Members to think again—in the words of another Scottish poet—and to consider giving their support to the Bill. I also I urge them not to press to a Division an amendment that seeks to deprive Scotland of an opportunity to move forward.
I thank the House for the short time that it has indulged me, and urge hon. Members to support the Bill.