Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Jamie Stone Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Main]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me, because the culture and heritage goes back to the Romans in St Albans and I could talk about it for a very long time. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have a wonderful picture of the new St Albans museum, in the centre of my beautiful city; before he was Prime Minister, he came to St Albans and congratulated the Conservative-led council on delivering a fabulous museum, which is to the absolute enhancement of my constituency.

I will move on to the general election—[Interruption.] Is shouting down democracy something we agree with in this House? As far as I can see, this House says it wants more time to debate things, but when an hon. Member stands on her hind legs and starts debating things, they do not want her to have that amount of time—they want to run on to other Opposition groups or to other Members in the House. On something as important as this, the people need to know, even if it is Brenda of Bristol, why on earth we are troubling them yet again with another election.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

On that point—

[Mrs Main]

On Brenda of Bristol, I shall give way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

No, she is taking an intervention from none other than the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone)

[Jamie Stone]

Mr Speaker, I rise as the unrecognised Liberal Democrat in this place and I apologise to the Chamber. Let me get back to the issue of the election itself. I represent the coldest and most northerly constituency in the British mainland. It is going to get dark a hell of a lot earlier where I come from than it does in St Albans, and the streets and roads are going to be an awful lot icier. This is perhaps an appeal for the Leader of the House, who is not with us at this precise moment, but may I ask the Government to co-ordinate as closely as possible with the Scottish Government to make sure that the streets and roads are safe for the people who want to come out to exercise their democratic right?

[Mrs Main]

I am not sure how that related to Brenda of Bristol, but the point I wish to make, before I start concluding my remarks, is that in 2017 the public were sick of the idea of having an election but they turned out and they mostly elected the two biggest parties, on a mandate to deliver. This House, for whatever reasons it wishes to conclude, has been letting the public down. The binary choice of in or out has been turned into a political football. Now the parties need to draft their manifestos. They need to firm up their pledges and be honest about what they wish to do. They need to tell the public that if a party is elected with a strong mandate, the horse-trading will stop, the deals will stop and the taking over of the agenda by the Opposition or other individual groups with their own little axe to grind will stop. The parties need to say that a Government will be able to deliver on all the additional funding pledged in the Queen’s Speech and on Brexit, and that the next Government, unless they are a Government who are asked to oppose Brexit, will be delivering on the pledge to deliver to the people.

I hope that today there will be a vote for a general election, and not for political expediency. All of us should be saying sorry to the public for putting them through it again. We should be saying sorry for the dark streets, the cold nights, and the cancelled Christmas decorations or whatever else was going on in halls that are now going to be having election proceedings. All of us need to apologise to the public and say, “Sorry, when you told us to leave, we weren’t actually sure you meant it.”

I believe the public meant it. I know that other Members wish to speak today, including the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who was not here for the whole debate—