Financial Services and Markets Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Peter Grant

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Grant]

I hope that the record of the sitting will clearly indicate that the Minister was given the chance to reply to the hon. Lady’s question—twice, in fact—but chose not to.

It is a fundamental principle of the devolved settlement that the Conservative party insists that it wants to protect that if a decision is made by a devolved Parliament under its devolved powers, nobody should have the right to overturn or amend that decision other than that Parliament. The Minister has said that he is not aware of any circumstances when he would want to use the power, so why not wait until the circumstance arises? Why not speak to the devolved Parliaments then—or, indeed, why have the Government not spoken to them already—to say that devolved legislation is causing problems, and to ask whether they can agree, cross-party and cross-nation, to change it, rather than pushing aside the devolved nations and the devolution settlement, and imposing rules on our people against the devolution settlement? Let us not forget that 75% of our people voted for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament.

I do not agree with everything Senedd Cymru does. It is not my party that is in government in Wales; it will never be my party that is in government in Northern Ireland. I will not agree with everything they do, but I utterly respect the rights of those Parliaments to legislate in the best interests of their people. If the Minister is saying that he does not think that he will be able to trust the devolved Parliaments to make a sensible decision if and when that becomes necessary, we have a big problem.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

My hon. Friend talks about not trusting the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland Government. Any legislation brought forward in those places receives the attention of senior legal advice, whether that be from the Lord Advocate or from others in the devolved Administrations. The amendment defends the legitimacy and independence of the legal advice given by senior legal officers to devolved Administrations.

[Peter Grant]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is sometimes forgotten that the devolved Parliaments have a number of checks in place to prevent them from attempting to legislate on things that are clearly beyond their powers, and there is a clear example of that happening at the moment, but there is no statutory or constitutional check on this place’s ability to push aside the devolution settlement to legislate on matters that are clearly devolved. That is simply not acceptable. Remember, we were talking about what the Government still call the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world. How can it be anywhere near being that if the Parliament that devolved powers to it can grab those powers back at the drop of a hat or the stroke of a pen? I will not withdraw the amendment. Every time I see such a power grab in legislation, I will speak against it, stand against it, and vote against it.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Leaving the EU: Business of the House

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Peter Grant

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

The hon. Lady makes a very valid point. I think the more important point is that the motion would allow, on one particular day in two weeks’ time, the elected Members of this Parliament to decide what we will discuss. The Secretary of State and others have said that that would prevent the Government from putting their business on the Order Paper. The Government cannae tell us what they want to be discussing on Monday, never mind in two weeks’ time! Given the stuff they have been using to pad out the agenda over the past several weeks, they can hardly claim that there is a backlog. Well, there is a backlog of massively important proposed legislation that needs to come through, but there is absolutely no sign of it.

I will tell you, Mr Speaker, what would be a democratic and constitutional outrage. It would be an outrage for any Government, either through deliberate malice or sheer incompetence, to plunge us into a disastrous no-deal Brexit against the interests of our four nations, against the will of Parliament, and now, since 23 May, quite clearly against the will of the people. It would be an outrage for the expressed will of 62% of the sovereign citizens of my nation to be cast aside as if they neither existed nor mattered. It would be an outrage if 3 million citizens on these islands saw their basic rights curtailed and undermined as a result of a flawed and corrupted referendum that they were banned from participating in.

All those outrages would pale into nothing, however, compared with the outrage if the first act of a Prime Minister, appointed in an election in which less than one quarter of 1% of the population was allowed to take part, was to abolish this Parliament and reinstate it only when it was too late for us to carry out the duty for which we were elected: the duty of pulling our four nations back from what everyone in this Chamber knows would be an economic and social catastrophe.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) asked my hon. Friend a question about Prorogation. The last two times it has been used constitutionally—for instance, in the Commonwealth nation of Canada—has been to hide the utter incompetence of the elected Government who were about to lose office. Can my hon. Friend remind the House again that what the motion proposes is a constitutional norm of parliamentary procedure and that the only way to do it is to vote for the Opposition’s motion?

[Peter Grant]

Absolutely. I agree entirely. Of course, we were told by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) that the motion is premature. I wonder if she could tell us on which future allocated Opposition day she would like the official Opposition to bring this motion forward, given that they were told last week that they have had their allocation for this Session and that there will not be another Opposition day.