Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gerald Howarth and David Mundell

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

There is no suggestion that funding to Scottish agriculture will be cut, but there is the opportunity to move forward from the constraints of the common agricultural policy, which farmers throughout Scotland have often complained about. We need to seize this opportunity to reshape the support for farming to make it more effective, but to continue to sustain those areas of Scottish farming that need sustaining.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is aware that my family are extensive farmers in the Scottish borders. Does he not agree that Brexit presents the United Kingdom with a magnificent opportunity to fashion an agriculture policy that is required not by French farmers, but by British farmers, and will he assure the House that hill farmers in Scotland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom will be given proper consideration?

[David Mundell]

I can absolutely give that undertaking. I hope that, in conjunction with the Scottish Government, we can move forward to shape a new basis of support for Scottish agriculture, especially for those who farm in less-favoured areas. There have been multiple complaints about the operation of the common agricultural policy and its need to take into account farming practices across the continent. We now have the opportunity to have our own support mechanism and we need to work to shape it.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Gerald Howarth and David Mundell

Monday 8th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

That is a very good point and I think my hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) will be able to spend hours debating it.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is being remarkably generous in giving way—very much like the SNP is with other people’s money. The Secretary of State said it would lie within the power of the Scottish Government to top up—I think that was his expression—welfare benefits. We know how they like being generous with other people’s money, but if they overspent at the end of one year—because of course benefits are demand-led—who will pick up the bill, the British taxpayer or the English taxpayer?

[David Mundell]

In relation to matters for which the Scottish Parliament is responsible, it will be the Scottish taxpayer who has to pay. So if the Scottish Parliament and Government want additional spending, the Scottish taxpayer will have to pay.

I wish to conclude my remarks, but I have sought to take as many interventions as possible because part of the Bill is about accountability. The Bill represents the fulfilment of a promise to the people of Scotland that a no vote in the referendum was not a vote for no change. It delivers on the all-party Smith commission agreement, as the Law Society of Scotland and many others have already made clear. The Government and the Smith Commission engaged extensively on the agreement, and on the draft clauses since January, and the Bill before us today is all the stronger for that extensive engagement. It will benefit further from four days of full line-by-line scrutiny in this Chamber. The challenge will then be for the Scottish Government to finally set out what they will do with the new powers they will receive. Now is the time for the Scottish Government to stop acting and start doing. I commend the Bill to the House.

Referendum (Scotland)

Debate between Gerald Howarth and David Mundell

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s welcome for the agreement and her contribution to the debate that has led to it. It is important that the agreement sets out a clear role for the Electoral Commission in relation to both the question and the funding of the campaigns. It is difficult to envisage circumstances in which the Scottish Government would want to ignore the Electoral Commission’s recommendations. As she said, no Government have ever done so, and there would be not just a procedural problem but a significant political price to pay for any party that sought to do so.

We should never underestimate the Scottish people. It is wrong to suggest that they could somehow be duped into supporting independence by any form of chicanery or trickery that might come from either side of the debate. They are much too sensible for that, and I have every confidence that when the referendum comes, whatever the form of the question and however the campaign has been funded, they will make the right decision.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

As an Anglo-Scot, like my right hon. Friend the Minister and the Prime Minister, I believe passionately in the Union and believe that the campaign to remove Scotland must fail.

The Electoral Commission’s involvement is much to be commended, and I commend my right hon. Friend for what he said about it. However, the proposal to extend the franchise to 16-year-olds, who cannot lawfully buy alcohol, drive a motor car or be called to fight on the front line, but who will now be invited to opine on one of the greatest constitutional issues of our time, is surely a nonsense that will create a dangerous precedent.

[David Mundell]

I can assure my hon. Friend that it will not create a precedent. The franchise for parliamentary and local government elections throughout the United Kingdom will be determined by opinions in this House. At the moment, the Government have no proposals to change the voting age, and I do not believe there is a majority in the House to do so.

I say to my hon. Friend and others who share his views that they must now take their arguments to Scotland and the Scottish Parliament, so that the Scottish Government can be held to account when they bring forward their proposals. This is a moment for the Scottish Parliament to demonstrate its own robust ability to scrutinise legislation. When it identifies complexities with enfranchising 16 and 17-year-olds, of which there are many, it can hold the Scottish Government to account and argue against the proposal.