Scottish Independence and the Scottish Economy

Debate between Jamie Stone and Pete Wishart

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

This is progress. I feel that I am on the right track with this, because what we are getting across the House is agreement to the assertion that Scotland would be a successful independent country. I have no doubts whatsoever that England, without Scotland’s contribution through its resources, would be equally successful as an independent nation; I believe that somehow it would just about muddle through without our support—

[Jamie Stone]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I hope I am going to get a clean sweep here and get the Liberals to agree to this. I am counting on the hon. Gentleman to do that.

[Jamie Stone]

I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but if he took a straw poll of the pregnant mothers in Caithness who now have to travel more than 100 miles to give birth in Inverness—this has happened on the SNP’s watch—he would get a pretty dusty answer.

[Pete Wishart]

It was going so well. I had the Conservatives agree to this and I think I had the Labour party agree to it, but the Liberals just could not bring themselves to agree with the proposition that an independent Scotland would be a successful, independent nation.

Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Debate between Jamie Stone and Pete Wishart

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. and learned Friend is coming to the right conclusions about the Government’s indecision and apparently clear intention of not having an ethics adviser put in place at the earliest possible opportunity. A number of things are coming up—I will mention a couple of them—in the in-tray for any adviser to consider, some of which will greatly concern Members of this House.

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

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would agree that further delay and dilly-dallying in the appointment of an ethics adviser does nothing whatever to restore public confidence in our Government?

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely and utterly right. I do not think that, in my 20-odd years in the House, I have seen it in such a dilapidated condition, when public trust in the activities of the House, the way in which we do business and the way in which we conduct ourselves has been so badly misunderstood and misinterpreted by the public. It is incumbent on the House to start to try and put these things right.

Let us get back to our good friend Lord Geidt. I do not know what it was in his comments that he had been left in

“an impossible and odious position”

and that he could not be

“party to advising on any potential law-breaking”

that led to any misunderstanding about his intention to resign from his role, and the real reasons why he eventually got around to it. Perhaps he had to be got rid of because it was he who had previously investigated the controversy over how the Prime Minister had funded the refurbishment of the flat above No. 11 Downing Street.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) referred to several issues that might require the attention of a future independent ethics adviser, but surely the one at the top of his inbox would be our emerging concern that the Prime Minister was seriously considering appointing his now wife to the role of special adviser in the Foreign Office. That is a matter that I think the House will have to return to in due course, and consider properly. Although Lord Geidt concluded that the Prime Minister had not broken ministerial rules in respect of the prime ministerial flat, the Conservative Party was later fined £17,800 for the improper declaration of donations.

So Lord Geidt is gone, and I have the impression that Downing Street is not particularly upset about that, but what is to be done? I have no problem with the Labour party’s motion, and I will support it; the only thing that I would say to Labour Members is that I would not give them the chance to try and find an independent adviser on the Government’s ethics. In any event, I think that it should be a matter for the House. I accept that some of these issues are relevant and pertinent to Government activity and business, but surely the House should have some sort of say, through the function of its Committees, in who does the monitoring and how that person is appointed. The present system has not worked particularly well in the case of the last few independent advisers. I think that we would need to find someone with the attributes of Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Columbo and George Washington combined to perform this role effectively.

In Scotland, of course, we have our much neater and easier way out of this midden, and that is to simply leave all of you to get on with it in your own time and in your own way. I have no idea what Scotland has done in its history to deserve governance such as this, but believe me, Madam Deputy Speaker, my colleagues and I are doing everything possible to ensure that the situation will be rectified. When it is right that we put forward the case for independence—as we will, and we will convince the Scottish people of its merits—all we need to do is to get the Scottish people to turn on the Parliament channel and observe what is happening in the House. That will increase their enthusiasm, and cause them to rush towards the cause of independence. The choice for them will be whether to be governed by these privileged Etonian spivs with their “one rule for them” approach to government, or to become a self-governing nation run by the people who care most about Scotland—the people who live and work there.