Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill

Debate between John Nicolson and Stewart Malcolm McDonald

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to star in another episode of “Carry on up the Commons”, which is what it has been like in here this morning.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson). I do not call him my honourable friend just to obey the conventions of the House. I say it because he is both honourable and a true friend. What a piece of legislation he has brought to the House. It is the first ever SNP private Member’s Bill—an historic moment no less—although he does not wish to present it as such, and I agree with that.

In his remarks, my hon. Friend referred to his time with Edwina Currie in Amsterdam. I urge all Members when they get the chance—perhaps outside the Chamber—to ask him about the stilettos disappearing up the stairs. I seem to remember him saying “from a room with very few lights.” I will leave it to him to develop that further.

When my hon. Friend was called to introduce a Bill, he was top of the ballot. I confess to feeling just a tiny bit of seething jealousy on that morning as I opened my Twitter account on my iPad to see him No. 1 on the ballot. Had it been me, this is exactly the Bill that I would have wished to introduce. We had several conversations about different ideas that he had, and this was the one that he chose to bring to the House, and he is to be enormously congratulated on that.

What a forensic speech from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). It was an historical speech, and referred to the shields of previous hon. Members in this House, and he is to be thanked because we are better informed as a result of his remarks.

I want to share one or two stories from constituents of mine, whom I shall not name. One of them is quite well known in left-wing circles in Scottish politics. This took place at a time when there were no LGBT centres, no gay bars, and no places where the gay community could go to socialise. It often meant that they had to socialise at home—having parties in friends’ houses and such. He told me about one particular party in Rutherglen. It was held in a flat that had become the place to which they would go. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) claims from a sedentary position, that she was not there. This was in the 1960s. The neighbours at the time had cottoned on to the fact that there were these devious homosexual men and women having a party—I should break it to some people that when we homosexuals have a party, it is just like any other party only much more fun. At the party, there would have been music, laughter, gossip, dancing, singing and perhaps even a wee drink or two. When the neighbours cottoned on to the fact that the flat was full of homosexuals, they would call the police. The police would then visit the flat—no crime having been committed and no antisocial behaviour having taken place—and take the names and addresses of every person there, asking why they were there and intimidating them.

When my constituent saw the police coming up the stairs, he decided that he was not going to stay in the room. As he could not exactly leave by the front door, he decided to hang out of the window—from the second storey of a Glasgow tenement—putting himself in clear danger of not just injuring himself, but perhaps even losing his life. When his arms could take it no further, he crawled in through the window, and had to give a statement to the police.

Such is the ingenuity of good Glaswegians, they thought to themselves, “Should this ever happen again, we need to have a plan.” They decided to borrow—not to steal—the choir books from the Rutherglen parish church, so that if the police were to come back, the music could be switched off, the drinks could be put away and all they would be confronted with is the Rutherglen parish church choir singing “Kumbayah”.

[John Nicolson]

You haven’t been to church recently, have you?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I should say that God is always surprised to see me when I attend prayers in this House.

Although we laugh, that is what people were going through, and much, much worse has been adumbrated to the House by other Members. Things have moved on remarkably, but even through the 1980s, friends of mine talk about going to pride parades in London where the streets would be lined with police looking as though they were expecting some kind of violent protest. In a magnificent act of defiance, a friend of mine tied a pink balloon to the strap of his bag, so that it would bounce off the noses of the police officers as he marched down the street.

Look at us now—out and proud. There is not a Member here—certainly not on the SNP Benches—who is not desperate to be associated with the progress in gay rights. It is now very popular to be in favour of equality, but it did not used to be. What this Bill seeks to do is right the wrong. I should just say that the Government and the House are not doing us a favour by doing this: equal marriage was not a favour and equality of adoption rights was not a favour. It is about correcting our mistakes of the past.

Imagine you are a young person thinking of coming out, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is 6 o’clock and you turn on your computer or iPad and across your Twitter timeline comes the story of how today’s vote goes. Imagine if the House declined the opportunity to pass this Bill; how would that make you feel? What kind of signal does it send to young people across this country and around the world if we decline to pass this Bill today?

UK's Nuclear Deterrent

Debate between John Nicolson and Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

There is an absurd illogicality about this country’s debate over nuclear weapons. We are debating whether to spend upwards of £150 billion on a weapons system we will never fire because it is entirely redundant. Supporters of Trident would have us impoverish our grandchildren for an arsenal last effective in the 20th century.

Once upon a time, the enemy was clear: it was the Soviet Union. The balance of terror argument was equally clear: if Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev or Gorbachev threatened us with invasion, we had the capacity to murder millions of Warsaw pact citizens. However, those days are long gone. We cannot threaten nuclear annihilation against a Daesh death cult embedded in civilian areas, which is why the Defence Secretary struggled so badly this morning when asked to explain how Trident offered a defence against terrorism.

“But look at Mr Putin,” warn the nuclear apologists. “He might threaten us, and only Trident will stand in his way.” That argument is beyond absurd. Thus far, Putin has brutalised Chechnya, invaded Georgia, annexed part of Crimea and bombarded Syria—all against our will. He has a strategy as old as Russian foreign policy itself, and Britain’s nuclear fig leaf does not deter him one jot.

As Lord Bramall, the former Chief of the General Staff, put it, Trident, for

“all practical purposes…has not and…would not deter any of the threats…likely to face this country in the foreseeable or…longer-term future.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2013; Vol. 742, c. 1229.]

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

The Government motion asks us to vote for a minimum credible nuclear deterrent. Would it not have been better if they had brought forward plans for minimum credible conventional forces, which strike me as much more pertinent?

[John Nicolson]

It would indeed, because our conventional forces have been starved of cash. We have no conventional ocean-going surface ships based in Scotland, despite frequent Russian intrusions into our waters. We have built aircraft carriers without aircraft to fly off them or the necessary surface ships and submarines for protection. We have complaints from senior armed forces officials about the lack of appropriate equipment for our soldiers on the ground—directly contributing to deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, as described by Chilcot.

As Michael Clarke, director general of the Royal United Services Institute, puts it:

“The one thing that politicians don’t address when they talk about Britain’s nuclear weapons is how they do, or don’t, actually figure in practical defence policy for the next 10 or 20 years. It is really very depressing.”

We on the SNP Benches choose to defy that stereotype. We want to put logic at the heart of the UK’s defence policy. It is what our voters want; it is also what much of the military wants. Major General Sir Patrick Cordingley spells it out for the armchair generals who sit on the Government Benches, telling us that there is no purpose to it.

I appeal to my colleagues on the Labour Benches: vote with us. Follow your conscience; do not vote for a missile system that is the equivalent of a cavalry charge when the machine gun has already been introduced.