Sewel Convention

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I have news for the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross): the SNP supports independence.

When the story of independence is told, as it surely will be, some key events will be highlighted as critically important: the election of Winnie Ewing to this place in 1967; Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister and her imposition of the poll tax; the fall of new Labour and the illegal invasion of Iraq; the creation of the Scottish Parliament and subsequent election of Alex Salmond as First Minister; and the election of an SNP Government in 2007 and every election since.

However, I suspect that last Tuesday’s disgraceful events, when the devolution settlement was ripped up in 15 minutes with no Scottish speaker, will, in due course, go down as perhaps the key moment when Scotland’s fate as an independent country was sealed. Since the 2015 election, the SNP group has worked hard to represent our constituents and hold the Government to account. As this Parliament’s third party, we have, in large part, played the Westminster system. While the Labour Party has been in disarray, we have acted as the main Opposition. We have remained consistent and principled on so many issues, such as Brexit.

The Westminster system does not come naturally to the SNP; I am sure that viewers watching in Scotland, where a modern efficient Scottish Parliament has such witchcraft and wizardry as electronic voting, will also find the archaic system here strange and unusual. We have tried our best to highlight these strange procedures, but also worked with them as best we can, so that we can stand up for our constituents and for Scotland. But last week’s events said it all: no matter how hard Scottish MPs of any party work in this place, no matter how much patience we show, the Sewel convention and Westminster itself do not work for Scotland.

As we have heard already, the Tories are no friends of the Scottish Parliament; they campaigned against its very creation. Their Brexit power grab shows that they want powers that should rightly be transferred directly to Edinburgh, as per the Scotland Act 2016, kept in this place—the Palace of Westminster.

The issue now extends beyond Brexit. It is not about whether someone voted for Brexit or to remain, but about whether Westminster can serve Scotland. The Tories’ behaviour over the past week has brought people of all political persuasions and none together in believing that Scotland’s time at Westminster may be coming to an end. Murray Foote, former editor of the Daily Record and the architect of “the vow”, is one of those who now support independence, calling Westminster’s behaviour last week a “democratic abomination”. [Interruption.] I am not entirely sure what the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) finds so funny: the former editor of the Daily Record, who campaigned against independence, now supports it. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should listen.

We have heard about the surge of people who have joined the SNP following last week’s events. This past weekend, I was at street stalls in Renfrew and Erskine and spoke to some of the new local members who had joined the SNP over the past few days. Many of our new members have long been sympathetic to Scottish independence. Some have historically been uncertain, and some even voted no in 2014. However, Westminster’s behaviour last week pushed them to join the SNP. The Government should listen to the message that they are sending in doing so. The people of Scotland are starting to come to the conclusion that Westminster does not represent the interests of Scotland.

The Tories hoped that no one in Scotland would notice or care about Westminster’s power grab and the lack of time afforded to the debate itself. How wrong they were. I actually disagreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) when he said that it was Scotland versus the Tories; it is the Tories versus Scotland. Let me assure the people of Scotland, including my constituents in Paisley and Renfrewshire North, that the SNP will continue to stand up for them and their Parliament. We will campaign to bring forward emergency legislation to end the power grab, protect the powers of the Scottish Parliament and ensure that Brexit does not harm jobs and living standards in Scotland. I lay that same challenge down to the Scottish Tories: will they stand up for Scotland, or will they continue to treat voters in Scotland with utter contempt?