Scotland: Further Independence Referendum
Debate between Neale Hanvey and Douglas Ross(1 year ago)
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Neale Hanvey
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and that is a key element of my contribution to this debate.
Put plainly, a section 30 order to temporarily transfer those powers to the Scottish Parliament is entirely in the gift of Westminster. That underscores the unavoidable truth that our Parliament is in reality part of the fabric of the British state and is increasingly being squeezed under the heel of Whitehall. Securing mandates to ask for a referendum on independence only to be rebuffed is now the equivalent of Monty Python’s parrot that has ceased to be. It is as stone dead as a mandate can be. The Tories have become increasingly bolder in this regard, and while they persist with their assertion that this is a voluntary Union, they refuse to set out the means of withdrawing consent. This Government have also made it clear that they will plunder Scotland as a cash cow until the wind stops blowing. Westminster plans to rob our resources at its leisure. There is no way, even if the First Minister were to ask, that the Prime Minster would agree to an independence referendum in his final months in office.
In a Westminster Hall debate on this subject, the Minister responding this evening claimed that
“the benefits of being part of the United Kingdom have never been more apparent.”
Where is the benefit for the one in three households in Scotland living in fuel poverty? Where are the benefits for the north-east of Scotland when the Acorn carbon capture and storage project still waits for a go-ahead from the UK Government? The Minister proclaimed that Scotland has
“one of the most powerful devolved Parliaments in the world.”—[Official Report, 30 November 2022; Vol. 723, c. 384WH.]
But Scotland remains powerless to stop the plunder.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
When the hon. Member speaks about opportunities to improve the lives of people in Scotland, we could of course do that through our NHS, through our education system, through our justice system and through local government. All of those issues are devolved fully to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, but they are of course ignored by the SNP and Green Government—the nationalist Government—because they are always focused on independence, rather than on the real priorities of the people of Scotland.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Neale Hanvey and Douglas Ross(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Douglas Ross
As I said in my opening remarks, the UK Government are committed to ensuring that we work as a United Kingdom, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has taken a lead on this issue to ensure that that can happen. I have had regular discussions with Donald Macaskill of Scottish Care about PPE, but also about the outstanding work that our care workers are doing in care homes and around the community across Scotland and the whole of the United Kingdom; they deserve our praise for what they are doing.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Ind)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Douglas Ross)
We are working closely with the devolved nations to ensure that supplies of PPE, both domestic and imported, are distributed equally across the four nations. As I mentioned in my previous response, we are also working to ensure that different parts of the UK do not compete against one other when procuring PPE internationally.
Neale Hanvey [V]
Despite the England-only designation of some PPE imports, the grassroots medical association EveryDoctor has been collating a range of data on PPE availability, and anecdotal evidence suggests that the Scottish Government’s system of procurement and distribution of PPE for Scotland’s NHS has been more efficient and effective from its perspective than that experienced by frontline medical staff in the English NHS. Can the Minister advise the House of what discussions he has had—