John Lamont
Main Page: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)Department Debates - View all John Lamont's debates with the Cabinet Office
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). I was, however, a little surprised by his extreme and unfounded criticism of Scottish Conservative Members, particularly when he so often love-bombs Conservative voters in Edinburgh South, on whom he relies to ensure the majority that gets him elected to this place.
It will come as no surprise to the House that I am a passionate advocate of this United Kingdom, which is partly because nowhere is the strength of our Union more obvious than in my constituency in the Scottish borders, where going to work or to the nearest supermarket or visiting friends and family can mean travelling across the border perhaps once or twice in a single journey.
The preservation of the United Kingdom is not only one of this House’s biggest challenges, but one of its biggest opportunities. However, we have unfortunately failed to address that properly over many years. The Union has never been in doubt over most of its history, so there has never been the need overtly to defend it. The Union has evolved organically, with no written constitution at its heart, so it lacks the texts and the formalities that define other nations, but I stress that that is a good thing. Witness the way in which our Union accepted and allowed a referendum on independence in 2014, when there was a democratic case for it, and compare that with the reaction in other nations that we consider to be free and fair.
However, this more flexible, uncodified, relaxed Unionism always runs the risk of lapsing into complacency and indifference, especially when faced by an organised and highly political opponent such as the SNP, whose sole raison d’être is to find grievance at every opportunity. The people have seen through that, sending a message to the First Minister in last year’s general election, when the dramatic loss of support lead to more than 20 fewer nationalist MPs.
The current situation should be seen as a starting point, not the end, so I welcome the UK Government’s recent announcements, including over £1 billion investment in five regional growth deals in Scotland and the basing of a spaceport in the north of Scotland, highlighting their commitment to our United Kingdom. But more must be done. There is no reason the next big investment in infrastructure should be in London when it could be just as effective in Lisburn, Livingston or Llandudno. During the 2012 Olympics, the football venues were spread throughout our islands, and there is no reason that could not be done again in a UK-wide World cup. A nation that spreads its power networks across the country will ensure that all of us, no matter where we live, feel that we have a real stake in it. While I may have opposed Brexit, there is no doubt that leaving the European Union and returning substantial powers to the UK can be used as a catalyst for that reform.
Stephen Kerr
Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to remind the House that all Conservative Members of Parliament, whether in Scotland, England or Wales, were elected on a manifesto commitment to leave the European Union, the customs union, the single market and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice?
John Lamont
My hon. Friend makes a fair and reasonable point. While I voted remain, I am also a democrat. Just as the SNP should accept the referendum result of 2014, I accept the referendum result of 2016, and we were all elected to ensure that we deliver Brexit and get the best deal for Scotland and the entire United Kingdom.
Whitehall needs to consider the maintenance and promotion of the Union as one of its central tasks, not as a bolt-on extra. When the Union was in peril during the independence referendum, that worked well. Civil servants wrote a series of analysis papers pointing out the strengths of the UK internal market and the UK’s integrated system, but it should not require the threat of separation to ensure that that becomes a matter of course. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister got there first in a speech last year where she acknowledged that Whitehall often devolves and forgets. Her proposal was to ensure that in reserved areas, the UK Government explicitly look after the interests of the Union in their policy making, while in devolved areas they must look for ways to collaborate and work together to improve outcomes for everyone. Scotland has two Governments, and it is time they were seen to be working in partnership—not against each other—to improve the lives of all the Scots whom we represent as Scottish constituency MPs.
Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is the vice-Chair of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. We have the Chair in the Chamber, too, and I am a member. Does he agree that the Committee is a fantastic example of all parties coming together, working together, discussing the UK Government and the Scottish Government and scrutinising what is going wrong? We need to see more of that working together, and less of the appalling and embarrassing shouting we have seen in the Chamber today.
John Lamont
I agree with the hon. Lady. We work very well across that Committee. It is a good example of parties and parliamentarians coming together to highlight the issues that many of our constituents have to deal with day to day.
The dualling of the A1—the issue affects my constituency —all the way from Northumberland to Edinburgh would be a great example of partnership between the UK Government and the Scottish Government. This should be built in as a strategic aim for Whitehall and one for St Andrew’s House to pursue.
As with most things, there is no silver bullet for strengthening our Union for everyone. I know from being out on the doorsteps in my constituency that people in Scotland want their two Governments working in synergy. We should strengthen our Union because it is the will of the people of our land. Recent polling by Policy Exchange clearly demonstrates that the majority of people across the United Kingdom are in favour of the Union in its current form. Some 68% of people in England, 52% of people in Scotland, 66% of people in Wales and 59% of people in Northern Ireland want a continuation of the Union.
However, that polling also confirms that there are concerns across all parts of the United Kingdom about the impact of Brexit on our Union. Majorities in all nations of the UK said that they believed Brexit would make the break-up of the UK more likely. That is the challenge, and it is why this debate is so important. With the nationalists constantly looking for grievance and new opportunities to stoke the separatist fire, we must do more to invest in our Union to ensure that it lasts for many more hundreds of years to come.
The recently published Policy Exchange paper, which was released on the back of the polling, sets out a number of suggestions as to how we might address the challenges. Bearing in mind the consequences of the new powers landing in different parts of the UK as we leave the European Union, we need better to understand the idea of shared rule across the UK as a whole. At the same time, we need to respect the value of devolution with the rights of the devolved institutions.
Intergovernmental relations within the UK have not been as good as they should have been, and that could be exaggerated as Brexit happens because many of the powers repatriated from Brussels will fall within the competency of the devolved Administrations. We therefore need to revisit how the Joint Ministerial Committee works to build better trust between the Westminster Government and the devolved Administrations.
The Scottish Conservatives will bow to no one in promoting and defending Scotland’s interests and making its voice heard across the United Kingdom. Where we differ from the SNP is that we will not do so with the express purpose of trying to split the country in two. Far too often, the SNP picks fights purely for their own sake. This is the SNP’s reason for existence. The difference, though, between us and the SNP is that we will pick fights not because we want to rip up the Union, but because we insist it works better. We have already seen that is a more effective way of standing up for Scotland as the approach of the Scottish Conservative MPs has secured wins such as the VAT refund for Police Scotland and fair pay for our brave men and women in our armed forces.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
The hon. Gentleman talks about fair pay for those in the armed forces. What about the 220 not getting paid the living wage in Scotland?
John Lamont
It is very clear that those in the armed forces who were going to be paying extra because of the nat tax imposed by the Scottish Government will not have to pay it. It is fair that everyone across the United Kingdom who works for the armed forces gets paid the same, regardless of where they are based.
I will ensure that I spend my time here, however long or short that may be, as effectively as I can. That means standing up for Scotland in a constructive and beneficial way, not storming out and throwing tantrums, as we have seen from SNP Members. Voters are tired of the politics of division. Let us give them what they want: a strengthened Scotland and a strengthened United Kingdom.
Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour to wind up the debate on behalf of the Opposition. It has been an interesting debate, but, as a Lancashire lass, I have felt a bit left out. At times, the debate seemed to be about Scottish tit for tat rather than focusing on uniting the Union as a whole. However, I thank all Members for their contributions.
My hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) and for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) rightly highlighted the Government’s political choice of austerity and the impact that it has had on our Union. They were right to do so, because, instead of bringing communities together, the Government have overseen some of the most divisive and unequal times that anyone in the UK can remember. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) for his thoughtful insight on devolution, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) for his detailed and forensic analysis. I also thank all the Members who used the debate as a history lesson to settle old scores from the past 20 years of devolution. However, I want to focus my remarks on the motion of today and the Union of tomorrow.
What has become clear from all those speeches is a developing narrative—a narrative about passing responsibility away without passing the money or the powers. Quite simply, the Government have been passing the buck without passing the bucks. Devolution that is devoid of real power is meaningless, and is an insult to the communities that it was supposed to serve.
How did we arrive at this state of affairs? It can be traced back to the brutality of the austerity cuts that were introduced eight years ago. The Government knew that they could not weather the storm of the spending cuts that they wanted to implement across the UK, so in England they chose to heap responsibility and obligations on our local authorities, city regions and regional Mayors, while at the same time cutting their budgets and limiting their powers. They let everyone else take the blame for their cuts, and took no responsibility for their own brutal actions.
The Government have failed to entrust our devolved Assemblies and Parliaments with responsibility. Under cover of their self-made Brexit chaos, they are snatching powers back to Whitehall rather than strengthening our devolved nations. They are preferring to kick the political football and yet again to put self-interest before the strength of the Union, thus wasting a historic opportunity to secure further devolution. The promise of meaningful devolution for our communities has been exposed as merely a masquerade for their regime of austerity and Westminster-centric power.
As an MP representing a northern town, I found that betrayal particularly stinging, because I know exactly how desperately devolution is needed. For too long our town economies, our northern regions and our nations of the UK have been neglected. Power, resources and funding are tightly held by Whitehall, and communities across the country have little say in, influence over or even knowledge of the decisions affecting their daily lives. Some say that those towns and other areas have been “left behind”, too slow to respond to a rapidly changing country. I say that they have been held back—held back by a system that gives them no voice and no choice.
In my constituency, we have seen the gradual decline of our manufacturing base. The Beeching cuts of the 1960s disconnected our town from the rail network, and our economy experienced a total drying up of the infrastructure investment that is needed to attract business growth and create well-paid, secure jobs.
The answer from this Government to my own area, Greater Manchester, is to point to our two regional transport bodies, our combined authority and our new city Mayor. On the face of it, this is exactly what was needed, and we can imagine the hope communities such as Leigh were given: would this be the moment when power, resources and funding were handed back down to the local level? Unfortunately, however, the reality is far from the promise. Responsibility was gladly handed down, but the powers did not follow. The regional transport bodies that were created know exactly what is needed to meet transport demands and to attract investment and stimulate growth, but are without the powers to enact transformative plans. Our Mayor, Andy Burnham, is trying his hardest to tackle the local skills shortage, keep our communities safe and meet our housing needs, but is left without the ability to take a whole-system approach to these burning issues. Right across the country we have seen councils, mayors, local authorities and transport bodies left as the punching bag for local anger, but restrained by Westminster from taking any meaningful action.
On the Government’s pet project of the northern powerhouse, I have to tell them that the reality for those of us trying to make a difference on the ground is that it has felt more like the “northern powerless”, unable to take these important decisions on infrastructure, which are the foundations of inclusive growth. Subservient to Whitehall, the Government’s flagship policy is nothing but devolution in name only. As a result, communities across the UK have been left feeling completely disconnected from Whitehall and the people who make decisions on their behalf. The many no longer feel that their country is working for them.
Last year, the Government’s policies were exposed by a damning report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which stated that as a result of the 2010-17 austerity measures
“households with one or more disabled member will be significantly more adversely impacted than those with no disabled members.”
It also stated that
“ethnic minority households will be more adversely impacted than White households”,
and:
“Lone parents lose around 15% of their net income on average—almost £1 in every £6. By contrast, the losses for all other family groups are much smaller, from nothing to 8%...Women lose more than men from reforms at every income level.”
Does that sound like we are all in this together? Whether it is town versus city, rich versus poor or remain versus leave, the divide-and-rule tactics the Government have used have left our country in a far less cohesive place than they found it.
So what should a strong Union look like? A strong United Kingdom is where opportunity is open to all and success is dependent not on background or wealth but on talent and resolve. A strong United Kingdom is where our different cultures and traditions are respected but come together as one, and where we appreciate and celebrate the differences and the unique qualities of our nations and our regions instead of using them as a source of division. A strong United Kingdom is where power lies with the many, and where communities are resourced and empowered to make meaningful decisions on their day-to-day lives, and where everyone—young and old, north and south, rich and poor—feels they have a stake in society.
We on this side of the House have that plan for meaningful devolution—a plan that builds on the successes of the previous Labour Government, and looks to meet the needs and aspirations of the nations and our regions; a plan that unites our communities and our country at a time when unity is needed more than ever.
That is why Labour has committed to a constitutional convention if elected. If we are truly to transform and strengthen our Union, we need to have that wider conversation about our Union settlement for the decades to come, and that cannot be done from Westminster. These decisions need to rise above the day-to-day politics of this place and be made by the people political reform will most affect.
Our aim in government will be to transform our politics so that we can finally transform our economy and society. The next Labour Government will extend democracy, bringing it closer to the many; break up the political influence of corporate power when it serves its own interests over those of society; acknowledge that local needs can be met only by local people with meaningful decision-making powers; and recognise that meaningful devolution needs the proper funding to follow, which is why we have also proposed a national investment bank that sits in the community, making local decisions on local infrastructure by local people.
