Online Safety Bill

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Report stage
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. How can the Conservative party have no confidence in and write letters about the Prime Minister one week yet refuse to come to Parliament the following week to declare that in front of the public?

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Can you inform the House of whether Mr Speaker has received any explanation from the Government for this craven and egregious breach of parliamentary convention? If someone were to table a motion under Standing Order No. 24 for tomorrow, has he given any indication of what his attitude would be towards such a motion?

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Angus Brendan MacNeil

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman makes precisely my point, and I am grateful to him for doing so. He may be able to tell me how many member states of the United Nations are not in a regional trade agreement. Anybody? [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) knows: he was at my Committee session today. There are only six member states of the United Nations that are not in a regional trade agreement.

[Kevin Brennan]

Name them.

[Mr MacNeil]

I will. They are Mauritania, Palau, São Tomé and Principe, Somalia, South Sudan and East Timor, and soon to join this illustrious group is the United Kingdom. This is playing fast and loose; it is “Cross your fingers and hope it works out for the best.” The UK will find itself, for the first time since 1960, not in a free trade agreement. It joined the European Free Trade Association, the original free trade agreement, in 1960, and that is how it has been since then. I have been told by the Library that every member of the OECD is in a regional trade agreement, and even North Korea signed up to one in 1988. The UK is boldly going where even North Korea fails to go.

If that does not give Members pause for thought, what will? As they head over the edge of the cliff, they will take their constituents and the poorest people of society with them. Let us remember who paid for the bankers: the poorest in society. Who will pay for this fashion of Brexit? The poorest in society will be paying for it. We are feeling our way and crossing our fingers. It is not the best deal for the UK.

Let us remember that the best deal that the UK will now have with Europe will be after we have smashed up the Rolls-Royce. We will head down to the second-hand car dealer and ask him for the best motor he has got, because we have smashed up our Rolls-Royce and thrown it to one side. Having refused to travel in the best possible transport, we are now going for the best after we have smashed up the Rolls-Royce.

This House has to come to its senses, as it did on Iraq, the poll tax, the bedroom tax and numerous other matters. Unfortunately, the people who will pay for this are not here. Members are hellbent on going to any destination so long as it involves leaving the EU. That is gross irresponsibility. There is only thing—I repeat, one thing—that can save Scotland, and that is independence, and independence very soon.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

My “all-points Celtic” is checking out. It was also Scotland. It was a Celtic issue, and it hit across the nations and a region of the UK—he says, looking around him! However, there are very serious and important points here, and I hope that the Government will listen. At this late stage, it is not too late.

[Kevin Brennan]

It might not have been entirely inappropriate for the hon. Lady to intervene, because, as I recall from my visit to Corby as a young man, most of it was populated by Scots and Welsh people, who were there to set up the steelworks at the time.

On the date and the combination of polls, however, is it not also an own goal on behalf of the Government and, particularly, the Deputy Prime Minister? He is demotivating those electoral reformers among us who would have been prepared to go out alongside colleagues from other political parties to campaign for the alternative vote. We will now campaign with our parties to help our Welsh Assembly colleagues get elected, and not devote the energy that we otherwise would have done to the Deputy Prime Minister’s cause?

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is bang on. The Deputy Prime Minister, not content with having some opposition to his aspirations for a change in the voting system, has moved on to look for even more opponents to changes in the voting system, and he has succeeded in that end, because he has absolutely demotivated those people who will have greater priorities when the day comes in May. Their priority will not be the voting system for elections to the UK Parliament, and that is where the mistake lies.

Again, I ask the Minister to speak to his friends in the other place, because that might make quite a difference. Of course, there are those who might feel that there are elements within the governing coalition who are happy to see a demotivated support force for a change in the voting system. I will leave that question hanging.