Standing Orders (Public Business)

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Ian Murray

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

I agree with most of what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) says about how EVEL was brought to this House. It is an unnecessary change to Standing Orders, because the Conservatives and the Government have a majority in both England and Wales, and across the UK. They do not have to use this process to get legislation through. All it has done, as the Conservatives have done consistently over the past few years, is create more division, which the SNP—if SNP Members do not mind me saying—thrives on in this House.



That brings me to the motion and the Standing Order. We have now added to English votes for English laws the issue of income tax. I am delighted that income tax has been devolved to the Scottish Parliament. It is a shame that members of the Scottish National party, who have spent their entire lives fighting for more powers to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, failed to use that in their most recent Budget, because they did not want a differential between Scottish and English rates. That is the irony of the position.

Adding the income tax issue to the EVEL provisions, Madam Deputy Speaker, not only undermines the principle of the House, but puts pressure on you, and on Mr Speaker’s office, to determine, when dealing with a Finance Bill, whether a provision should indeed be invoked under the EVEL regulations. That means—this is why I intervened on the Leader of the House earlier—that an individual clause in the Finance Bill could rightly say, “We will set the following rates of income tax as part of the Finance Bill for England and Wales,” but the Chancellor could come to the Dispatch Box tomorrow and, hypothetically, say, “We will reduce income tax by x pence in the pound, and we will pay for it with an increase in national insurance.” The income tax rates in the Finance Bill will be in a separate clause, and that will then have to be determined by Mr Speaker and his office, but the national insurance increases will be in another part of the Bill that will not be subject to EVEL.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I am loth to bring this up, but I am holding a copy of the Standing Orders of February 2016, which specifically mention the Scottish rate of income tax. That was already in the EVEL Standing Orders presented by the Leader of the House previously. This is just a technical change in the language. Has the hon. Gentleman read the Standing Order?

[Ian Murray]

It seems to me that SNP Members agree with English votes for English laws and do not want to defend the principle that we are against them, or they want to vote with the Government this evening, or they want to abstain. I am not quite sure what they are doing. However, if I heard the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire correctly, he is going to vote with the Labour party against the motion. I am not sure where the hon. Lady stands on that argument, but the point I am trying to make is simply about division and unnecessary complication in the House. The Government’s majority will see any Finance Bill that they wish to present before the next general election—whenever that may be—through the House, because that is the way in which Governments and majorities work. If the Government have a problem with their own Back Benchers when they are trying to change income tax rates, that is entirely fine.

The hon. Lady was right to raise the point that she has just made, but let me gently say to her that we wanted to debate this matter today because it is the first opportunity that we have had to return to the EVEL regulations. It does not make sense for it to be possible to invoke this procedure in the context of income tax.

That brings us to the great repeal Bill and what will come back from the European Union. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has raised that issue on a number of occasions. What will happen then? Will more technical changes be made by means of statutory instruments and Standing Orders to determine whether provisions are subject to English votes for English laws? We do not even know where some of the powers will lie when they are repatriated. It is important to note that none of these issues were examined in depth at the time of the McKay commission’s proposals. There was no consideration of the impact and the knock-on effect of the provisions on the way in which the House operates.

On four separate occasions, under the premiership of Gordon Brown, the Scottish National party asked for English votes for English laws. In fact, they used the term “EVEL”. Then, after 2015—I do not know what happened in 2015; they must have won more seats—SNP Members became opposed to English votes for English laws. Now they are reluctantly voting against this measure. I think the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire just said that he profoundly disagreed with it as a matter of principle, but was not sure whether he would vote against it. He seemed to be saying that these were merely technical changes.

On top of all that, the greatest anomaly in all the regulations, including the one that is before us now, is that even when the hon. Gentleman has sprung up in that strange Committee where the Mace goes down, Madam Deputy Speaker moves to the Chair to take the proceedings and no one speaks, and when he has—invariably, and quite rightly—railed against English votes for English laws, SNP Members do not vote when they are allowed to do so, on Third Reading. They are, in practice, demonstrating English votes for English laws in any event.

I remember the circumstances surrounding the housing Bill where the EVEL provisions were put in place for the first time in this House. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire rightly railed against EVEL, and we supported him on that, but then the SNP Members did not vote on the Third Reading of the Bill in any case, when they were entitled to, so I am not quite sure where the principles of that lie, or whether or not the hon. Gentleman should have been voting on the housing Bill.

Public Finances: Scotland

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Ian Murray

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

That is a timely intervention, because when everyone talks about making sure that the Smith agreement is delivered in spirit and in substance, they tend to forget the bits of the substance that it is inconvenient for them to remember, and that is one such bit. The JEC has not been transparent. One key plank of the Smith agreement was intergovernmental relations, and without that transparency we cannot see whether intergovernmental relations are actually working. One key thing about the whole devolution project, be it in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or in the discussions about England, is to make sure that all the components of that devolved body of the United Kingdom can work together in partnership.

Let me compare these negotiations with the fiscal framework negotiations that sat alongside the Scotland Act 2012. I have here the minutes of the first meeting from that process, which took place on 27 September 2011, and they are a dusty tomb of information, giving details of who attended, points that were discussed, things that were agreed and things that were to come back to be agreed. By contrast, let me give a flavour of the communiqués from this year. The one relating to the 1 February meeting states:

“The Joint Exchequer Committee met in London today, chaired by John Swinney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy. HM Treasury was represented by…Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

This was the eighth meeting of the JEC since the publication of the Smith Commission report…The Ministers continued their discussion…

Both Ministers agreed to meet next week”.

The minutes on the 21 January meeting again introduce who was at the meeting, with their very long titles. They then state:

“This was the seventh meeting of the JEC since the publication of the Smith Commission report. The Ministers continued their discussion on the indexation methodologies for the Block Grant Adjustments and also discussed the initial transfer of funding for new welfare powers….

Both Ministers agreed to meet again shortly”.

They go on, running to less than a third of a page—a couple of paragraphs of minutes. I am not sure that having no details and no substance is acceptable.

It is not acceptable because the Scottish Government have threatened to veto the Bill if it is “not fair to Scotland.” The problem is that we do not know what, in their opinion, or in the UK Government’s opinion, is a fair deal for Scotland and what that looks like. We do not know in what way the current detail on offer from the UK Government is deficient on that test of fairness. It would appear that the main stumbling block is on the method used for the future indexation of the block grant. Of the methods being considered, the Scottish Government now favour the per capita index deduction. People can go to the Library to find out what that is—I will not explain it at this juncture. [Hon. Members: “Go on!”] I can go through the formula if Members want, and give a prize if they get the answer at the end. Less than a year ago, however, the Deputy First Minister told the Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee that he favoured the indexed deduction, which takes into account population growth. There is clearly some confusion over which method is best for Scotland, which is why transparency of discussions is incredibly important.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I understand that the Labour party is feeling a bit sad, because, as it has not been successful enough to be in government in either country, it is not involved in these negotiations. Now that the shadow Secretary of State has the opportunity to have his say, can he please tell us what method of block grant adjustment Labour would favour?

[Ian Murray]

Well, we do not know—[Laughter.] Let me answer the question! We have not seen the negotiations, but, as the leader of the Scottish Labour party has said, we prefer the per capita index reduction model, because it is important that we have that particular debate. It is strange that the intervention gave the impression that we are being locked out. It is not the Labour party that has been locked out of these discussions, but the Scottish people, which is why we called this debate. We want to shed some light on these very secret discussions.

I noticed that the hon. Lady did not say whether she supports doing something in Scotland with the powers that her party currently has, or whether she is willing just to manage Conservative austerity.