Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech in this most important of debates. It is a pleasure to follow all the excellent maiden speeches we have heard this afternoon, particularly that of my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black). She has just graduated with a first-class degree in politics. I suspect that her first-class speech will be read by generations of her successors as political students. It was brilliant, powerful and moving. In line with the Scottish National party being in trend in this place, my hon. Friend is now trending on Twitter.

I rise sharing some of the trepidation described in the maiden speeches of many of my predecessors, including the former Leader of the Opposition, John Smith. The fact that he was humble enough to share his nervousness fills me with hope for the next few minutes. If I can be half the parliamentarian and constituency representative that he was, my constituents and I will be doing well.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to a number of people for helping me to my place here today: first, my brilliant campaign team, led so ably by Graham Russell and Michael Coyle; my Scottish Parliament counterpart and former boss, Alex Neil, who first encouraged me to stand, and whose example I wish to follow; and my family, particularly my wife Karlie and baby daughter Isla, who are a constant source of love and support. It will not be standing up to this most right-wing of Tory Governments or, indeed, standing up for the good people of Airdrie and Shotts that I will find most challenging over the next five years; it will be missing my family when I am here. I am sure that is a sentiment shared by many others in this House.

Lastly, I am incredibly grateful to the 23,887 people who voted for me on 7 May. Fifty-four per cent. of voters in Airdrie and Shotts voted for an end to austerity, for the Scottish Parliament to receive the full package of powers promised last year, and for an end to the immoral and financially obscene Trident nuclear fleet. While I am incredibly grateful to those who took journeys of varying difficulty to arrive at the decision to mark their cross next to my name and that of the SNP, I want to make it clear to everyone in Airdrie and Shotts that I am here to represent you, no matter which way you voted or if you voted at all. The SNP won a decisive victory in Scotland because we put forward a credible alternative to austerity and we are recognised as the party of and for all of Scotland.

This result was many decades in the making. We must not just be thankful for the work done by the First Minister and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond); we must also thank the giants whose shoulders we stand on. One of them comes to mind more than most for me personally. As I prepared this speech, and as I go about my business pursuing the various issues I plan to in this place, I am truly sorry that I cannot seek the wise counsel of my friend Margo MacDonald. Her experience here, of the Parliament up the road, and of life in general would have given all of us, as new SNP Members, valuable guidance. It would also have been great to tease her about gaining only a 26.7% swing in her 1973 Glasgow Govan by-election, but I would have needed to be prepared for the inevitable stinging but witty rebuke that would have followed.

I must take this opportunity to pay tribute to my most immediate predecessor, Pamela Nash, with whom I shared a positive election campaign. When Pamela took her seat in 2010 she was the baby of the House, at just 25—a veteran compared with my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South. Her election was none the less a fantastic achievement. She went on to represent her constituents to the very best of her ability and championed the cause of those with HIV/AIDS around the world through her position as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS. I wish her well for whatever she chooses to do with the rest of her career.

Pamela Nash regularly spoke of her pride at representing Airdrie and Shotts, and I am equally proud and humbled to be here to represent the good people of this constituency. Airdrie and Shotts sits either side of the M8 motorway between Edinburgh and Glasgow and stretches from the Airdrie town boundary, with Coatbridge in the west through to Harthill in the east. To the north are Greengairs, Wattston, Riggend, Longriggend, Stand, Glenmavis, Plains, and Caldercruix; to the south are Holytown—the birthplace of Keir Hardie—Calderbank, Chapelhall, Salsburgh, Newmains, Bonkle, Allanton, Hartwood, and Shotts, which I hope will receive town status from North Lanarkshire Council very soon.

It is a constituency dominated by heavy industry. Communities have literally been forged by mining, steel and iron. The grit, determination and common weal needed for workers, their families and communities to make ends meet has lived on from those days and I am proud to represent people who are warm, generous and welcoming. You need only look at the incredible work done by Airdrie Supporters Trust, Getting Better Together in Shotts, Shape up Shotts, the Moira Anderson Foundation, HOPE for Autism, Basics food bank, St Andrews Hospice, Airdrie food bank and many more brilliant community groups who are supported by the kind-hearted people of my constituency to know that the people I represent are as honest and generous as they come.

Looking back on the maiden speeches of some of my predecessors, I was struck by the fact that there was a consistent theme running through them all, and that is how we treat those who are disadvantaged and living in poverty in our society. In that vein, as I look to address this Chancellor’s Budget statement, I must quote what Margaret, or Peggy, Herbison said in her maiden speech on 17 October 1945:

“I realise that I have chosen a subject upon which one cannot be at all non-controversial.”—[Official Report, 17 October 1945; Vol. 414, c. 1281.]

This Government are plotting a path of social engineering with this Budget and by continuing their ideological austerity agenda. For example, saying that families on low wages can receive support for only two children is outrageous. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) pointed out, the fact that there needs to be a form for the victims of rape to “register” their child highlights everything that is wrong with this policy. It is stigmatic, demonising and utterly degrading.

Further cuts to social security will hit not only the poorest and most disadvantaged people in our society, but ordinary working families. The Tories plan to freeze working-age benefits for the next four years, which will fail to protect social security against rises in the cost of living. They also plan further to marginalise young people by scrapping support for those who are under 25 and under 21.

The Government must recognise that they cannot threaten, demonise and sanction people into work. After seven years working on casework in Airdrie and Shotts, I am still to come across anyone who has chosen to live on social security. That is why the Chancellor’s comments about benefits being a lifestyle choice were inappropriate, inflammatory and, frankly, ill judged.

People in my constituency are desperate for work that allows them a decent standard of living and that suits their skills and qualifications. If they cannot work due to temporary illness or permanent disability, or intermittently due to mental illness, they rightly expect the support to meet minimum living standards. There is no doubt that the best way to lift people out of poverty and indignity is through work, but it must be well-paid work.

The wholesale cuts to tax credits that the Chancellor has announced, which include a reduction in the income threshold at which tax credits are paid, remove any benefit from the minimal increase in the minimum wage. For the Chancellor to attempt to present the proposed minimum wage rise as a living wage is a scandal. The living wage is £7.85 an hour outside London, so he is 65p short. It is a con trick. If he gives with one hand and takes back with another, the people will not swallow it.

Freezing public sector pay at 1% for another four years yet again punishes those who are delivering vital front-line services for the profligacy of the banks. It was not the low-paid, it was not the disabled, it was not the under-25s, it was not the public sector workers who got the UK into dire financial straits, so why is the Chancellor choosing repeatedly to kick the legs from underneath those who are struggling to stay on their feet? We on these SNP Benches are opposed four-square to the dismantling of the social security system by this Tory Government.

Earlier, I quoted the maiden speech of Peggy Herbison, who must be birling at the state of her proud party. At the beginning of the sitting in which she delivered her maiden speech, Sir Basil Neven-Spence, the then Member for Orkney and Shetland, raised a point of order and begged the Speaker to allow Scottish Members to be called more frequently in the House. Without wishing to prejudge, Mr Deputy Speaker, I doubt that you will need such a reminder of the presence of Scottish Members. The Chair has certainly been more than fair thus far. It strikes me that then, as now, the status of Scottish Members was under discussion, although with the constitutionally kamikaze English votes for English laws proposal, the status of Scottish MPs and, as a result, the Union hangs far greater in the balance.

I am proud to hail from Orkney and a large chunk of my family and friends still live there. I am reliably informed by the learned listeners of BBC Radio Orkney that I am the first Orcadian parliamentarian for 200 years, since Malcolm Laing served in this House between 1807 and 1812. I hope that after next year’s Scottish elections, Orkney returns its first ever SNP representative. I was proud as a schoolboy to carry the Orkney banner at the parade for the reopening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. It struck me then, as a 13-year-old, that a nation having its own Parliament was perfectly normal. Why on earth would we want decisions about us to be taken elsewhere?

On that note, I will make my closing remarks. As SNP MPs, we are not here just to argue the case for the Scottish people; we are here on behalf of the people of Scotland. We want to build consensus where we find it to deliver progressive policies across these isles. We are here to be a voice for change, and we are determined that the voices of our constituents will be heard, no matter which Standing Order the Government use to try to curb our right to represent them. As we have seen with the Budget, Scotland cannot afford for decisions over its people and resources to be taken here for much longer. That is the ultimate change that we want to see: independence for Scotland. Benjamin Franklin said,

“When you are finished changing, you’re finished.”

That is something we all must reflect on.