Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We will certainly review the human rights system, but in the meantime there is something we can all do next Tuesday and Wednesday, because our Nationality and Borders Bill is coming back to the House after long gestation. The Bill gives us the power to make the distinction at last between illegal and legal migrants to this country, it gives Border Force the power to turn people back at sea, and it gives us the power to send people overseas for screening, rather than doing it in this country. I am not asking the Opposition but telling them: it would be a great thing if they backed our Nationality and Borders Bill and undermined the criminals.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks on disability, and of course our thoughts are very much with all those who are recovering from Storm Arwen. Like the Leader of the Opposition, of course we commemorate World AIDS Day.

Mr Speaker, I am sure your thoughts and the thoughts of the House are with the family and friends of Siobhan Cattigan, the Scotland rugby player who unfortunately died over the weekend at the age of 26, having won 19 caps.

It is deeply regrettable that, once again, we are forced to spend so much time in this House discussing the Prime Minister’s misconduct, but when the person in charge so blatantly breaks the rules, it needs to be talked about. Last Christmas the Prime Minister hosted a packed party in Downing Street, an event that broke the lockdown rules that everyone else was expected to follow. He might deny it, but I spoke to the Daily Mirror this morning and it confirmed what happened. The newspaper has legal advice on the potential illegality. At a time when public health messaging is so vital, how are people possibly expected to trust the Prime Minister when he thinks it is one rule for him and another rule for everybody else?

[The Prime Minister]

The SNP should concentrate its line of attack more closely. I have said before that the right hon. Gentleman is talking total nonsense. Frankly, he would have been better off saying something about the victims of Storm Arwen in Scotland.

[Ian Blackford]

I did.

[The Prime Minister]

If I did not hear it, he was drowned out by his supporters. We need to work together—the Government of the UK working with the Scottish authorities—to help those people get their power back, and that is what we are doing.

[Ian Blackford]

That is a disgraceful answer. The Prime Minister did not even listen, because I mentioned Storm Arwen.

The real reason why all this matters is that we find ourselves at another very difficult moment in this pandemic. This is a time when leadership matters, when truth matters and when trust matters. Only this morning, leaked SAGE advice confirmed that the UK Government’s current international travel restrictions will identify significantly fewer cases. It is exactly the same advice that the Prime Minister received from the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales on Monday, and he has ignored that advice.

Since then other countries, like Ireland and the US, have moved rapidly on international travel to protect their people. Will the Prime Minister finally convene a four-nation Cobra meeting to tighten travel restrictions, or will he continue to ignore the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and his own SAGE advisers and imperil the health of the public of these islands?