House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Debate between Michael Gove and Eilidh Whiteford

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate after three outstanding Front-Bench speeches from three individuals—the hon. Members for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis)—who had distinguished careers outside this place before they came here.

Many of us, I suspect, will be familiar with the political gambit that is the dead cat. Popularised by my friend and colleague Sir Lynton Crosby, the idea is that when one is in a position of deep political embarrassment one throws the equivalent of a dead cat on to the table. The purpose of so doing is to divert attention from what was just being discussed because, whatever the controversy that has been raging beforehand, people suddenly say, “Oh my God, there’s a dead cat on the table.” The conversation having changed as a result, embarrassment—such as my own at my execrable Australian accent just then—is avoided.

In this debate, the House of Lords, perhaps appropriately for an ermine-clad Chamber, is the dead cat. The SNP has chosen a discussion of the future of the House of Lords for this Opposition day debate because of a wish to divert attention from a number of other issues. The question I have to ask SNP Members is this: when they think about the issues that their voters bring to them in their surgeries or by email or correspondence, what are they? Overwhelmingly, they will be education, health, law and order and the economy. Why is the SNP not talking about those issues today? I will tell the House—[Interruption.] Order! The SNP is not talking about law and order because its centralisation of power in the hands of Police Scotland has been widely viewed as illiberal and is thought by local authorities in Scotland to have been a disaster.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?