Cost of Living and Brexit

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Ian Murray

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

I have not even got through the first page of my speech, so if hon. Members do not mind I will take no further interventions for now.

The cost of living crisis is loading unbearable stress and anxiety on to millions of people. Just last week, a woman came to my surgery with her family. Her mortgage is up for renewal on 31 August this year. Her current two-part mortgage is on a 1.29% fixed rate, and a 2.15% fixed rate, which are both up on 31 August. Those two parts look as though they will be renewed at around or above 5%, alongside large product fees. Her monthly mortgage becomes unaffordable, and with the cost of everything else increasing, including the weekly shop, she does not know how she will keep her family home. They have a Tory premium on their mortgage running to thousands and thousands of pounds.

I genuinely ask the Minister, who I know personally cares about those issues, what advice he would give to my constituent, and to the millions of other mortgage holders who are coming off fixed rates and being met with interest rates that are eye-watering in comparison with their family budgets. He voted for the former Prime Minister’s Budget, which crashed the economy and left mortgage holders and rent payers with that Tory premium. He voted for all the measures that the Government proposed in that Budget that made the situation worse. What does he now say to people who will be sitting around dinner tables tonight worried about losing their homes? Those are the family and real-life scenarios of this Government’s decisions.

We should never forget that this crisis, which impacts on millions across the country, was created and made worse in Downing Street. This is a Government-made crisis where political choices are having a direct impact on people’s mortgages—and subsequently on rents, as the mortgages of landlords also become unaffordable. The Prime Minister is absolutely culpable.

This crisis is not just the result of one disastrous mini-Budget that the Government backed; it is the result of 13 years of this Government’s decisions—13 years of little to no growth in the economy, 13 years of stagnation, 13 years of party before country, and 13 years of appeasing Tory Back Benchers rather than looking after the country. Thirteen years of failure—unless, of course, you are looking for a seat in the House of Lords. Even now, this Government are more interested in protecting the profits of the oil and gas giants than in helping ordinary families with their energy bills. At the same time, this Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor, imposed the highest tax burden for 80 years on those very same people, taking more money out of their pockets when they need as much as they can get. We have the highest inflation in 40 years.

I agree with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who I thought was fair to suggest that part of the blame is down to Ukraine and other factors, but in the UK we have stubbornly high inflation, higher than most of our peers, and certainly much higher than in the United States and the European Union. Food inflation is more than 15% and shows no sign of falling any time soon. Some food inflation on the most basic of goods bought by the poorest in society is touching 20%, and it is all compounded by the disastrous 13 years of policies on energy that have left us exposed to shock and crisis in the energy sector.

The SNP motion talks about the damage caused by the Tories’ Brexit, and on that we agree. The Government have failed to negotiate a good deal with the European Union, despite their promises at the last election, and instead they have left the country with a deal that is only marginally better than no deal at all. It is a deal to ensure that the Prime Minister’s party was happy, rather than in the national interest, and every month that goes by, the Government continue to undermine the relationship with our European neighbours and friends, which is having dire consequences on jobs, businesses and this country’s place in the world. That has to stop.

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

I know the hon. Gentleman cares passionately about Brexit—so much so that he nearly left the Labour party for Change UK but cancelled the press conference. In the debate on article 50, and the vote against triggering it, he said:

“I will do so in the knowledge that I will be able to walk down the streets of Edinburgh South, look my constituents in the eye and say to them that I have done everything I possibly can to protect their jobs, their livelihoods and the future of their families.”—[Official Report, 1 February 2017; Vol. 620, c. 1052.]

With the chaos unravelling just as he feared back in that debate, and Labour’s current position on Brexit, can he still look those same voters in the eye?

[Ian Murray]

I love it when the SNP quote my own words in debates, because I am very proud of what I and my party did in trying to resolve the savages of Brexit. I am delighted with the way that we pushed the Government all the way in trying to ensure that the country was put first and not their party. Let us not forget that when the Division Bell rang on 19 December 2019, we backed a deal that we knew was thin, but we saw that as the floor not the ceiling. The SNP decided that no deal was the best way forward. Let me put that into context. If it is the case that Brexit under the current deal is having an impact on the cost of living crisis—I have just said we agree with that—surely that would be magnified by many multitudes by having no deal at all. The record shows that the SNP supported and backed no deal.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire spoke, rightly, about the history of this place when we debated the Brexit process, but when the House had the opportunity to back a customs union that would give us frictionless trade with the European Union, SNP Members decided that was not for them and the vote was lost by six. That is on the record as well as my own words, which I stand by 100%. [Interruption.] I will give way to the SNP again. Perhaps they can try to explain why they preferred no deal over any deal.

Cost of Living

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Ian Murray

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

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

Many of my constituents, like many across the country, are struggling—struggling to pay their energy bills, struggling to put food on the table, struggling to keep their head above the financial flood waters that threaten them and their families. Energy bills are up 300% or so in the last two years, food prices are up 17% in the latest Which? survey—the prices of the cheapest and most essential foods have soared the most—and mortgages are up by 61% in just the past year. That, of course, was caused by the disastrous seven-week reign of the previous Prime Minister and her Chancellor.

The excuse frequently trotted out by those on the Conservative Benches—we have heard it again today—to justify the inflationary attack on us all, which hits the lowest paid the hardest, is Ukraine. The problem with that argument is that it shows just how short-sighted and backward-thinking UK energy and economic policy has been for decades. I am no geopolitical expert, but it seems to me that pegging our electricity prices to the wholesale cost of gas, putting so many of our eggs in a basket controlled by Putin and murderous oligarchs, and relying on a region that has never been renowned for its stability was nonsense on stilts.

Instead of using past decades to invest in our energy sector, build a green industrial base and begin the process of decarbonising our grid—thereby reducing our dependence on the likes of Putin—the Labour Governments of the past put their weight behind the dash for gas, while the Tories paid lip service to the very idea of industrial strategy. It is their economic strategy, exemplified by the previous Prime Minister and those catastrophic seven weeks, that has caused mortgage rates to skyrocket and left our economy in the mire, wrecking any ability to recover from the kind of shocks to the system we have seen over recent years, whether from covid or from Putin’s warmongering. Most of all, it is their kamikaze Brexit unleashed on our society that has destroyed what was left of the UK’s capacity to invest in its own recovery and future.

In 2016, my constituency voted two to one to remain in the EU. My constituents knew and know that our economic prosperity and our wider society are inextricably linked to our European allies. From the airport, which delivers the largest cargo exports by value in Scotland, to the whisky bonds and warehouses that slake the thirst of millions of Europeans, through to the universities and colleges with links to their contemporaries on the continent, and the hauliers based in my constituency who experience at first hand every day the Kafkaesque world created by the current Government—they have all been hit hard by Brexit, and so have their staff. They and we have lost a huge amount since Brexit.

But then, so has the Labour party. Many of us can remember the savage criticism that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) received from those on his own Benches because he, in their view, was a secret Brexiteer. Now everyone in the new model Labour party is a Brexiteer, including the current branch office manager in Scotland, elected after the previous democratically elected leader was booted from office by the big boss here. It is no surprise that they are getting very excited about their small increase in the opinion polls in Scotland, because—let’s face it—what else do they really have to get excited about? Their boss down here has declared that he does not care if he sounds like a Conservative, while the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), tells his radio listeners that the Labour party cannot be

“picking through all the Conservative legislation and repealing it”

if it ever got back into office.

The Leader of the Opposition promised the abolition of tuition fees for higher education—abandoned in England but maintained by a Scottish Government trying to ensure that education and learning is not the preserve of a wealthy elite. The Leader of the Opposition promised common ownership of the mail, energy and water—abandoned in England but maintained in Scotland, where it has jurisdiction, with water bills in Scotland being substantially lower and 35% more per capita invested in infrastructure. He also resigned from the Labour Front Bench after what he said was a “catastrophic” result in the Brexit referendum, but he is now happy for the UK to wallow in that catastrophe, while Scottish Government plan for a future within Europe and alongside our friends and allies.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the sad truth is that you could not put a fag paper between the two Front Benches in this place. They are both set on policies that will exacerbate and extend the cost of living crisis; both hellbent on ignoring reality and ploughing on with exclusion from the single market; and both sticking their head in the sand as to the damage that their ultra-free market economic policies are costing and will continue to cost ordinary households across these isles, regardless of who sits on the Treasury Bench.

[Ian Murray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Newlands]

I wish the recently selected Labour candidate in Paisley and Renfrewshire North all the best in the next election, because she will need it, going round the doors with a Tory manifesto coloured in red and a leader who would sell his granny for a few hundred votes in a midlands marginal—and on that, I will give way.

[Ian Murray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he agree with his colleague, the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), who said:

“‘Labour are just the same as the Tories’ is not a strategy, it’s the absence of a strategy”

and that telling people Labour and the Conservatives are the same “won’t get us far”?

[Gavin Newlands]

Who said it was a strategy? It is a fact. All I am doing is pointing out facts. If the hon. Gentleman wants me to read out all the examples of his leader going back on his word in terms of nationalising various industries, I am more than happy to do that, but I am not sure we have time for it. Everyone here and everyone in Scotland knows that his manifesto will be Tory lite at the next election. It might work in Edinburgh South, but it is not going to work in many places across the central belt of Scotland.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Ian Murray

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

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

In the wake of Scotland’s referendum on independence last year, the Prime Minister set up the Smith commission to secure cross-party recommendations for the further devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament. With regard to the constitutional aspects of the report, the Smith commission recommended that the permanence of the Scottish Parliament and Government be established in statute, ensuring that devolution could not be abolished at the whim of a Westminster Government. Therefore, I sincerely welcome the UK Government’s latest U-turn on this issue. The provision should have been included at the inception of the Scotland Bill, but I welcome the Government’s coming round to our way of thinking—better late than never, some might say.

The Smith commission report also stated that the Sewel convention should be put on a statutory footing by the UK Government. Unfortunately, the UK Government’s proposals in this area fall far short of Smith, despite the Prime Minister’s pledge to implement the commission’s proposals in full. Clause 2 of the Bill states that

“the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.”

The Government’s current position on the matter is ridiculous and risks weakening, not strengthening the Sewel convention, and it is at odds with the Smith commission report. The Government’s vow that they will “not normally legislate” in devolved areas will simply not suffice and raises serious concerns that it will set a dangerous precedent.

Indeed, from my work on the Immigration Bill Committee, I can already see one instance where the UK Government’s Bill encroaches on devolved areas in Scotland. For example, immigration is of course a competence reserved for the UK Parliament, but housing is not: it is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Yet, as part of the Immigration Bill, the UK Government will introduce the right to rent. This is legislation that will compel landlords to establish a person’s legal status before they can offer a tenancy, introducing penalties for landlords who fail to comply. The UK Government’s “right to rent” provisions in the Immigration Bill will be extended to Scotland through secondary legislation without a legislative consent, or Sewel, motion being debated and passed by the Scottish Parliament. Furthermore, consultation with the Scottish Government on housing and with housing stakeholders in Scotland ahead of that Bill being introduced is said to have been rushed and extremely limited.

The Scottish Government are very concerned at this development and the Scottish housing Minister wrote to the Immigration Minister asking for a meeting on this very subject, only to be arrogantly rebuffed by him. In his reply, he said:

“The Right to Rent scheme and the new measures in the Immigration Bill relate to immigration control, which is not devolved”—

so far correct—but then said:

“These measures restrict access to housing”.

We have already established that housing is very much a devolved issue. So much for the respect agenda, much lauded by the Prime Minister.

The SNP’s new clause 35, which would place the Sewel convention on a statutory footing, is pragmatic and would ensure that the Bill lived up to the Smith commission’s recommendations. The UK Government’s approach to policy making where there are wider implications for devolved areas can be ignorant and churlish. There is no better example of that than the Conservatives’ much trailed desire to abolish the Human Rights Act.

[Ian Murray]

The hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly compelling argument about legalising and codifying the Sewel convention. If he wishes to push new clause 35 to the vote in a few minutes’ time, we would be more than happy to support him and take this forward. Otherwise, I am afraid it will be down to the other place to deal with.

[Gavin Newlands]

I appreciate the shadow Secretary of State’s support on this matter, which I will take up with my colleagues.

The Human Rights Act is vital to us in many ways. It gives us the right to life, freedom from torture, the right to liberty and security, freedom of thought, belief and religion, the right to private and family life, freedom of expression, assembly and association, and the right to free elections and education, to name a few. The Human Rights Act extends to all public authorities in Scotland—our schools, our local government, our NHS and our police. Amendment 204 would devolve responsibility for human rights to the Scottish Parliament, putting it beyond any doubt whatever, to help to safeguard human rights for those living in Scotland.

The potential abolition of the Human Rights Act will undoubtedly have profound implications for devolution in Scotland and across these islands. It would be an affront to democracy for the Conservative Government to use their slender majority in this House to abolish the Human Rights Acts when they do not command support in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Our new clause 35 would require the UK Government, regardless of political hue, to seek a legislative consent motion in all instances of Westminster legislation affecting areas devolved to Scotland, and would require the UK Government to consult the Scottish Government on legislation that would have such an impact on Scotland.

The Tory Government—formed by a party to which the people of Scotland delivered a vote of no confidence at the last election; a party with only one MP in Scotland—have rejected every amendment put forward by the SNP Westminster group, a group that has 95% of Scotland’s MPs. That prompts the question: why are amendments to the Scotland Bill that are supported by an overwhelming majority of Scotland’s MPs ultimately rejected? The Conservatives—and, indeed, Labour—must stop ducking, diving and obfuscating when it comes to strengthening the Scotland Bill and must stop playing games with Scotland’s powers. The people of Scotland are watching. It is time they were listened to.