Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
Last weekend Scotland once again showed the world that we can host fantastic sporting events, with the World Athletics Indoor Championships held in Glasgow. I offer my congratulations to everyone involved, and especially to medal winners Jemma Reekie from Ayrshire and Josh Kerr from Edinburgh, who was the first Scottish man to win a gold medal in those championships in over 30 years. I also congratulate the Scottish rugby team who, thanks to their recent victory over England, have now won the Calcutta cup four times in a row. It would have been five in a row, but covid got in the way. [Laughter.]
Contrary to what we hear from the Scottish National party, the Scottish Government are well-funded. This UK Government have provided a record block grant, averaging £41 billion a year, with an additional £2.4 billion across the last three fiscal events. Scotland also continues to benefit from the Barnett formula, under which the Scottish Government receive around 25% more funding per person than equivalent spending across the United Kingdom.
Patricia Gibson
Will the Secretary of State explain how his Government’s £1,600 million cut to Scotland’s capital budget over the next three years will impact the provision of infrastructure, including roads, hospitals, schools, new homes, digital connectivity, and the economic growth we need to escape the recession into which the Tories have dragged us?
Mr Jack
It is nice to see that the hon. Lady and her colleagues have turned up for work today, even if that is in defiance of the deputy Leader of the SNP, who thought they should not bother coming. Let me be clear on resource spending and the capital budget: the Scottish Government are able to divert their resource spending for capital infrastructure investments; and they can also borrow to enhance capital investments if they so choose.
Scottish Referendum Legislation: Supreme Court Decision
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
All the leaflets from the right hon. Gentleman’s party at the last eight elections have said, “Vote Tory to stop an independence referendum”. I am confused, because he says today that the question was settled in 2014. Why, then, did he put out leaflets telling people to vote against a referendum? Clearly, despite being asked a number of times, the Secretary of State is unable to tell this House and the people of Scotland the democratic route out of this Union. He is unable to do it. Is that why he is scurrying off to the House of Lords, because he cannot face his constituents at the next election? Does he not realise that the people of Scotland are sovereign, and they are watching?
Mr Jack
To pick up on the hon. Lady’s middle point, which was the only relevant point she made, the reason why leaflets in general elections say no to a second independence referendum is simply because the Scottish National party is obsessed with an independence referendum and nothing else.
Scottish Independence and the Scottish Economy
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)
Madam Deputy Speaker, you will have heard from many of my SNP colleagues this afternoon. They have spoken eloquently and brought to the attention of the House many reasons, backed by an impressive range of views, statistics, hard facts and reasoned arguments, why Scotland should be an independent country.
I want to introduce a bit of history. It is fair to say that the history of Scotland and England has been marked by frequent periods of insurrection by Scots against English domination and frequent invasion of each other’s countries, resulting in ongoing wars of independence. From the late 13th century, those include Scottish victories at Stirling Bridge, with the Scots being led by William Wallace, who was tried here in Westminster Hall in 1305 and hanged, drawn and quartered for an alleged crime of treason—an offence for which he could not have been guilty, because he had sworn no allegiance to the English Crown. Following the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, in which the Scots were led by Robert the Bruce, King Edward III and the English Government recognised Bruce as King of an independent Scotland in the treaty of Edinburgh 1328.
It is recognised that the basis for the current Union began with the Act of Union 1707, which is used by Unionists to justify the continuation of this form of government. What is less well known is that, at the time of the Act, the majority of people in Scotland opposed the Union. It was negotiated by a very small minority of wealthy and influential people widely regarded as acting for their own benefit rather than that of the people of Scotland.
Rioting in Edinburgh and towns across Scotland was widely reported when the signature of the Act of Union was announced. Scotland—or the wealthy elite, at least—was also pressurised into agreeing with the Union by the introduction of the Alien Act 1705. That stated that, unless Scotland agreed to negotiate terms for union and accepted the Hanoverian succession by December 1705, there would be a ban on the import of all Scottish staple products into England. Scots would also lose the privileges of Englishmen under English law, thus endangering rights to any property they held in England. Many in Scotland considered themselves betrayed by their own elite. Christopher Smout, the eminent academic and historiographer royal in Scotland, argues that the Act of Union was able to pass only thanks to English bribery.
The point was also recognised by Rabbie Burns, our national bard. He was born in my constituency of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, where he decried and condemned those Members of the Parliament of Scotland who signed the Act of Union. His poem “Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation”, which he penned in 1791, concludes with the declaration:
“But pith and power, till my last hour,
I’ll mak’ this declaration;
We’re bought and sold for English gold—
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!”
He was clearly referring to the wealthy elite of Scotland at that time.
I turn to the 2014 referendum, when the people of Scotland were bombarded with anti-independence propaganda with the full weight of the United Kingdom Government and other Unionist-supporting politicians in what has rightly become known as Project Fear. During the incessant campaign by a Unionist-biased media, including the BBC, several Unionist-supporting newspapers and an army of clandestine trolls on social media, the Scottish voting public were essentially scared out of voting for independence.
Pensioners were terrified and influenced by the false assertions and the prospect that their pensions would not be paid in an independent Scotland, that a number of large businesses would relocate to England, and that an independent Scotland would no longer be part of the European Union—we all know how that turned out, Mr Deputy Speaker. The people of Scotland are now wiser to this blatant pro-Unionist propaganda, including the discredited vow. The people of Scotland will not be fooled again.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I am sure my hon. Friend would agree that what the people in Scotland are now seeing, as they have been since 2014, is that the Tories and Better Together are absolutely in lockstep, hand in glove, working together, exerting every effort, and straining every sinew to keep the people of Scotland trapped in this rotten Union. In the next referendum they will continue going round chapping pensioners’ doors and terrifying them into voting against Scottish independence by telling them lies about losing their pensions.
Allan Dorans
I welcome the intervention of my hon. Friend and I totally agree with her.
A significant reason for the need to be independent is the demographic deficit that exists in this United Kingdom. No matter how the people of Scotland vote, they will always be overruled by the Government of the United Kingdom. We are dictated to by a Government for whom the people of Scotland did not vote. This is clearly demonstrated by Brexit where 62% of the people in Scotland in all 32 local council areas voted to remain in the European Union, but, as we all know, Scotland was dragged out of Europe against our will.
Steven Bonnar
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We are being attacked from every possible angle, whether it is food or—in the case of mortgage rates—housing. The Government are sitting on their hands—rearranging the chairs on a sinking ship every now and again—and it is doing no good for the people out there.
The last few months have made it abundantly clear that Scotland cannot rely on this UK Government as we attempt to get Scotland through this cost of living crisis. It is vital that we have a choice, and the choice is thus: we can choose the insular chaos of this place, and to continue to live amid the ruins of this broken Union and among the self-destructive whims of these two parties; or we can choose a different way, and be free from the perennial damage of Brexit, the worst of which is still to bite. We can also have the choice of the Scottish people’s priorities, the choice of how we plan and deliver on our green future, the choice of how we treat the most vulnerable in our communities—as I have said, no person is illegal—and, of course, the choice of the Scottish people to determine their own futures free of Westminster rule.
Patricia Gibson
My hon. Friend is making a powerful and impassioned speech. Does he share my deep disappointment that the Labour party in Scotland would rather work with the Tories to keep Scottish households locked into this destructive Union than help Scotland work towards a better future when it governs its own affairs?
Steven Bonnar
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I agree with every single word she said. I am here from North Lanarkshire, and while Labour talks about having no coalitions, Labour in North Lanarkshire Council is being propped up not only by the Conservatives there, but by a sole British Unionist politician. That is the Labour party, and it plays two sides of the same coin because it has to appeal to Tory voters to squeeze a couple of them in and get them through the doors. Would the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) like to intervene? No, so I will continue.
I was talking about choices, and we can choose to be a member of the European Union. We can choose our independence, and with that Scotland could be part of a huge single market that is seven times the size of this shrinking UK market. If we look north to Norway, we see that its national income per head is around 48% higher than that of the UK, while Ireland’s is 45% higher, Denmark’s 30% higher, the Netherlands’s 25% higher and Austria’s 24% higher. Those are all nations comparable with our wee bit of highland glen.
Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) [V]
I have to say I cannot understand why the proposition that Scotland has the right to choose its own future is so controversial for some. I accept that not everyone in Scotland, or even further afield, wishes Scotland to become a self-governing country. However, I cannot comprehend these voices who are so afraid of what the people of Scotland may decide about their own future that they believe the solution is to prevent the people of Scotland from having the opportunity to make such a choice at all. Surely anyone can see that that is not a sustainable and logical position to take. For anyone in this Chamber to tell the people of Scotland—the people of any nation—that no matter what they vote for they will not have it unless we approve, only adds to the swelling SNP ranks, as increasingly the people of Scotland take exception to being told by those for whom they did not vote that what they might vote for in future will not be permitted. It makes a nonsense of any idea of a partnership of equals.
I say in all honesty that many Unionists are nervous about this strategy of simply denying democracy for that very reason. They know it plays very badly in Scotland. However, as many in the Chamber today will tell you off the record, they understand that, if the SNP, the party that exists to persuade Scots to choose self-government and will stand on that platform, wins the election in May and secures a majority, a mandate for an independence referendum will exist—and it will be delivered, just as it was delivered in 2014. Anyone who doubts that only has to look at the Tory election leaflets today going out across Scotland telling people that, if they want to stop an independence referendum, vote Tory. That is how we know that an SNP majority will absolutely deliver that mandate. It is as simple as that.
Despite the bluster, the attempt to divert the debate down blind alleys and the shrieking at squirrels, these are the undisputable facts. Today is about Scotland’s constitutional choices and I have to say to those who deny that such a choice should even exist: you are sorely out of touch with the people of Scotland.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) [V]
The UK Government’s decision to end the job retention scheme at the end of this month will throw tens of thousands of Scots into unemployment. What effect does the Minister think that will have on poverty levels in my constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran and in Scotland as a whole?
Iain Stewart
The job retention scheme was the right intervention at the right time and has supported tens of thousands of jobs in Scotland, but across the world it is right that we move to more targeted measures of support. The job retention scheme was just one part of a whole suite of policies and support that we are putting in place and that will help to support Scottish businesses and employees in the months and years to come.
Scotch whisky: US tariffs
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I thank the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for securing the debate, and I am pleased to participate in it. I wish it were not necessary for me to do so, but recent US tariffs are a cause of great concern.
The impact of the 25% tariffs imposed by the US on single malt whiskies on 18 October, despite protestations, have gone unanswered by the UK Government. It is damaging to our distilleries and to Scotland as a whole, given that exports of single malt whisky are worth £1.3 billion. They account for 28% of all Scotch whisky imports, with the US accounting for 25% of all single malt exports last year. The increased price that the tariffs cause can and will cause significant damage to those exports. The Scotch Whiskey Association believes that single malt exports to the US will fall by 20% and that vital market share will be lost as a consequence, as the right hon. Gentleman set out.
The finest single malt whisky is distilled on the isle of Arran in my constituency, and the tariffs are a matter of great concern. Ultimately, jobs are threatened, and sustainability of employment is extremely important in island communities such as Arran. Hundreds of Scottish exporters, including our world-renowned Scotch whisky industry, face paying the price of punishing US trade tariffs. The impact of the tariffs is already being felt. In November 2019, the value of single malt Scotch whisky exports to the USA was £25.7 million, compared with £38.6 million in November 2018. That makes a mockery of any pretence of a “global Britain”, and it is important that the matter is sorted out urgently.
The Prime Minister vowed to remove tariffs on US whiskey once the UK leaves the EU. In doing so, he is putting his trust in a President who has consistently used punishing tariffs as his first political lever. Scotch whisky is crucial to Scotland’s thriving food and drink sector, with the EU market in 2018 valued at around £1.4 billion, which is equivalent to about 30% of Scotch exports. The grim reality is that Scotland will face great vulnerability when it loses its collective bargaining strength because it is no longer a member of the EU.
In such a challenging context, has the Minister considered the possibility of reforming the UK excise duty structures to ensure a fairer tax on Scotch whisky? It is taxed more than any other category of alcohol in the United Kingdom—for example, it is taxed 16% more than wine. Estimates suggest the Scotch whisky industry is larger than the UK shipbuilding industry, and considerably larger than the UK fishing industry. It supports around 42,000 jobs across the UK, including 10,500 people directly employed in Scotland. Scotch whisky is estimated to be the UK’s ninth-most valuable export. I hope that the Minister will do all he can to support the industry at this very challenging time, and that he will seriously look at reforming the excise duty structures.
Even the Minister must understand and appreciate that, because we will lose our collective bargaining strength when we are no longer a member of the EU, we are in a very exposed and vulnerable position. We are facing extremely difficult trade conditions as negotiations proceed. We need to have been working with our EU partners. I am very sorry to say that that opportunity has now been lost.
Claim of Right for Scotland
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Tonight, I rise to remind the House that the claim of right for Scotland is a principle that recognises that the people of Scotland have the sovereign right to determine the form of government best suited to their needs. This right is well established; it was first set out in the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 and was most recently endorsed by Parliament in the Commons in a debate in July 2018—a debate in which I was privileged and proud to speak.
In Scotland, this House is not recognised as sovereign. The people of Scotland are sovereign, and they are angry that this House, this Government, are over-reaching themselves by trampling all over Scotland’s devolution settlement, with repeated and concerted attempts by Tory Members to shout down Scottish National party Members when we dare to speak up on behalf of Scotland.
The debate tonight comes at a critical time for Scotland, with the UK on the cusp of withdrawing from the European Union—something which the people of Scotland rejected by a significant majority, but which is to be imposed upon them against their expressed democratic wish. However, if one accepts the European Union referendum result in England despite all the cheating and law breaking that we all know went on, because the democratic will of the people of Scotland is different from the democratic will of the people of England, then—too bad—Scotland is to be ignored, dismissed and dragged out of the European Union anyway.
With the Westminster power grab and the lack of consent given to this disastrous Brexit by the Scottish Parliament, the devolution settlement has been trampled underfoot by this Government—so much for a so-called union of equals; so much for Scotland leading the UK, not leaving the UK. How can this be a union of equals when the democratically devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all refused to consent to this Tory Government’s withdrawal agreement, which will damage our jobs, our prosperity and our relationships with our European partners? This Brexit, which may yet deliver a no-deal scenario, is to be forced on Scotland against her will, exposing for all to see the myth of the so-called union of equals.
In the general election a few weeks ago, the Tories in Scotland unequivocally urged voters in Scotland to vote Tory to stop indyref2. We in the SNP stood firmly and proudly on a platform of saying no to Brexit and saying yes to the people of Scotland’s right to choose their own future. Scotland, by and large, did not vote Tory, but voted SNP in huge numbers. The SNP won 80% of the seats in Scotland, yet this Government still refuse to accept that the people of Scotland have made their choice—that they want Scotland to have the right to choose its own future because no one is better placed to make decisions for Scotland than the people who live in Scotland.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
I hear what the hon. Lady is saying, but in my constituency and other constituencies in the week of the general election, SNP candidates told voters that the election was nothing to do with independence, but that they were to vote SNP if they were against Brexit or if they were against Boris. However, at 10 o’clock on 12 December, it was all to do with independence.
Patricia Gibson
This is the kind of wilful, fingers-in-ears attitude that we have come to expect. Not everybody in Scotland who voted SNP is yet persuaded of the argument for independence, but what they do want is the right to choose.
We know that the Minister will trot out well-worn phrases and lily-livered lines about the SNP not winning more than 50% of the popular vote in the election in 2019. However, he must consider that the first-past-the-post voting system that he supports is the one in which we are working. Further, the SNP in Scotland has won the council elections in 2016, the Holyrood election in 2016, the general election in 2017, the European elections in 2019 and the general election in 2019. Each of those five elections was contested on one proposition by the Tories: “Vote Tory to stop indyref2”. The Tories in Scotland never mentioned any policies or discussed any other issues. They simply said, “Vote Tory to stop indyref2”. And yet, still they could not get close to beating the SNP in these elections.
For anyone to deny the democratic right of Scotland to have a say over her own future path, or to try to shift the goalposts on what winning an election actually means or looks like, is deluded. Doing an impersonation of King Canute trying to hold back the tide simply shows the desperation and arrogance of this Government, who think that if they can just ignore the pesky Scots for long enough, they will just give up. We will not give up. We in Scotland have a right. We have a right which we claim in no uncertain terms, to choose our own future, and we will not be denied.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for her hard work on behalf of her constituents and recognise how much it means for her to come back to this House. Does she accept that while many people have voted for her because of who she is and her hard work, and for her party colleagues here as well, many of those who voted Scot Nats—or a certain proportion, anyway—do not accept the case for independence?
Patricia Gibson
What I accept is that the people who voted for the Scottish National party want to have the debate and want to have the choice, and that matters. It is our job to persuade them over the line.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who comes into this debate with a degree of interest in it, may not be aware that there are now three Scottish Tory Members sitting in this House: the Minister, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), and the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). Can my hon. Friend say whether their majority has gone up or down on the basis of their message saying no to indyref2?
Patricia Gibson
I do not wish to intrude on private grief, but I cannot help noticing that each of the three Tory MPs from Scotland rushed as though their behinds were on fire to leave Holyrood—Scotland’s Parliament—to come to this House, and I have to question why that might be.
If not winning over 50% of the popular vote is the only tool in the Government’s arsenal to deny the people of Scotland the right to choose their own future, then where is the democratic mandate for this Government to press ahead with their version of a damaging Brexit—a Brexit born out of a very narrow referendum result, with the Electoral Commission itself saying that the referendum was characterised by law-breaking, cheating and dishonesty? In last year’s general election, the Tories won 43.6% of the vote. If we follow the UK Government’s logic on indyref2, this Tory Government most certainly do not have a mandate for their version of Brexit either. Therein is crystallised the unsustainability of the Tory Government’s position. This might be a surprise to some Conservative Members, but the Government’s position is so unsustainable that even some Front-Bench Tory MPs are admitting it secretly, off the record. If the Government continue to hold on to the unsustainable position that Scotland should be denied its claim of right to exercise its democratic will to determine its own future, this will, and can only, deepen the current constitutional crisis. There is no doubt that England’s and Scotland’s elected representatives have quite different and diverging constitutional mandates, but be in no doubt—each mandate is as valid as the other.
Let me turn to the tired and frankly insulting mantra trotted out too often by Conservative Members: that the people of Scotland voted no to independence in 2014. They did; there is no denying that. It appears that, according to the beleaguered and very absent Secretary of State for Scotland, it matters not how the people of Scotland voted in the past five elections or how they may vote in future elections, because he has decided that independence for Scotland can be put to the people of Scotland only once in a generation, regardless of any democratic choice they may choose to make—summarised as, “You’ll have had your democracy, then.” This is quite frankly absurd and silly talk, and insulting to the people of Scotland.
The Secretary of State for Scotland has revealed that he either knows nothing of, or does not subscribe to, the claim of right for Scotland, or has clearly not read the report from the Smith commission—which is odd for a Secretary of State for Scotland. I wish I could say I am surprised about that. I hope that the Minister standing in for the beleaguered Secretary of State for Scotland tonight does not, when he gets to his feet, insult the House or the intelligence of the people of Scotland by repeating this once-in-a-generation nonsense. I draw his attention—he really ought to listen to this because it is important—to the final report from the Smith commission, and more specifically to paragraph 18 of chapter 2, which clearly states:
“It is agreed that nothing in this report prevents Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.”
That seems pretty clear to me. No wonder the former Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, is blushing.
The unanimous verdict of the Smith commission was an implicit agreement that a second referendum vote was and is constitutionally valid. It is inconceivable that that would have been included in the final published report if the members of the Smith commission, a bare two months after the first vote, thought that the matter had been kicked into the long grass for a generation. Democracy is not an event. It is a growing, living, evolving, organic thing, and an expiration date cannot be put on it by this or any other Government.
Let us not forget that the appetite for a second independence referendum is easy to understand. The people of Scotland voted no to independence in 2014 because they were fed lies, mistruths and fear. They were told that, in order to remain in the EU, they would need to vote no. They were told that if they voted yes, they would lose their pensions. I do not have time to go through all the broken promises and lies. But this time, when the independence referendum comes—and come it will—Scotland will make a different choice. The people of Scotland will see through the snake oil salesmen and the spivs who perpetrated those lies the last time round. The people of Scotland will say to Conservative Members, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?”
I urge the Minister to remember the words of former Tory Prime Minister John Major:
“no nation could be held irrevocably in a Union against its will.”
The myth of a union of equals has been hopelessly exposed, and the people of Scotland realise that Scotland’s future must be as an independent nation. I urge this Government to do the right thing and respect democracy. Every day of denial only feeds the fire of independence and the case for a referendum on this issue, the momentum for which cannot be stayed.
I understand that this Government—whose Benches are empty—fear an independent Scotland building a more fair, more equal, more compassionate, more outward-looking country on their doorstep, but that is really a matter for them. No Westminster Government has the right to choose Scotland’s path, and how dare it even try! This Government must prepare themselves for what is coming, because their arrogance, intransigence and contempt for democracy show that the UK is fatally disunited and is about to lose Scotland. A sovereign people will not be silenced. We will not go quietly. The clock is ticking. This Union’s time is up, and well this Government know it.
Patricia Gibson
May I just say to the Minister that, if Scotland’s right to choose is not something that people were exercised about when he was out campaigning, why were all the Tory party leaflets in Scotland about “Vote Tory to stop #indyref2”? May I also ask him this? He has spent a lot of time tonight—for reasons I am not quite clear about, because the debate is on the claim of right for Scotland—talking about devolved issues. May I say to the three Scottish Members of the Tory party that if they wanted to discuss devolved issues, perhaps they should have stayed in the Scottish Parliament?
Douglas Ross
I am sorry that the hon. Lady thinks that healthcare in Scotland is not important enough for her and I am sorry that she thinks that the education system in Scotland is not important enough for her. However, we are elected as representatives of our constituencies, and Scotland is blessed to have two Governments, so when one Government are failing and letting it down, I think it is incumbent on all politicians to raise issues that affect our constituents day in, day out.
Claim of Right for Scotland
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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David Mundell
Indeed. It is perfectly legitimate and even honourable for the SNP to argue the case for independence, but not on the pretext that it is standing up for devolution, in which it clearly does not believe.
The SNP has neither accepted nor supported devolution other than as a stepping stone to independence. It does not want devolution to succeed and seeks any excuse to undermine it. Within minutes of the result of the EU referendum being declared, Nicola Sturgeon put her civil servants to work drawing up plans for a second independence referendum and, in the same breath, airbrushed from history the 1 million people in Scotland who voted to leave the EU—500,000 of them probably SNP supporters, whose views have been completely disregarded.
The SNP has sought not to deliver Brexit—that would be respecting voters across the UK, which it finds impossible—but to weaponise it in its campaign for independence. I am pleased to say the Prime Minister has been clear about the SNP’s obsession with independence. The PM said last year: “Now is not the time”. Our position is exactly the same today. It will not be the time in the autumn; nor will it be when we leave the EU in the spring of next year. We will respect the wishes of the Scottish people which, as opinion polls have consistently shown, have not changed since 2014. The nationalists should do the same.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The right hon. Gentleman makes much of the result of the EU referendum, but he refuses to accept that the result in Scotland was different. Okay, assuming for a moment that he is correct, would he care to comment on John Major’s analysis of the EU referendum? He said:
“Many electors now know they were misled”
and that the leave campaign was verging on “squalid”.
David Mundell
People have strong views about the EU referendum, but a vote was held throughout the United Kingdom, and it was clear from the outset that it would be. The majority of people across the UK voted to leave the EU, and I respect that decision.
Douglas Ross
I will give way in a moment.
I wonder whether many of the SNP Members wish that we were discussing other things. Today of all days, when the UK Government have launched their White Paper on fisheries, we could have been discussing fisheries. This would have been a great opportunity for the SNP to talk about fisheries, because the subject is very topical today. But SNP Members did not want to do that because of their policy on fisheries. The SNP lost Moray and 20 other seats around Scotland because of its policy on fisheries, which says, “We don’t want these powers going to Westminster. We want to give them straight back to Europe.”
We could have been speaking about education, because SNP Members quite often say in this place, “This is what we will do in Scotland, so UK Government Ministers should replicate it in the UK.” [Interruption.] I am happy to give way to any of the ladies who are trying to have a conversation at the moment, but otherwise I will continue my speech.
I mention education particularly because SNP spokespeople and Back Benchers quite often stand up in the Chamber to ask the Government to do exactly what is being done in Scotland. Well, I hope that they never do that again with education, because in Scotland the SNP has had to withdraw its flagship Bill on education—its No. 1 priority, about which the First Minister and leader of the SNP said, “This will get all our attention.” That is how big a priority education is for the SNP. What about higher education? The First Minister of Scotland nominated someone who had deplorable views on transgender people, on black people and on Jews. That is also why SNP Members cannot discuss education in their Opposition day debate.
Patricia Gibson
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It appears that the gentleman who is speaking is not paying any attention to the motion before the House. Could I have your guidance on whether his rambling remarks are actually in order?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making; several of her colleagues have been gesticulating to similar effect. I have been paying careful attention to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I have every confidence that having introduced various other topics about which this debate is not, he is now going to come to the motion before us and the substance of the debate, which is the claim of right.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I am delighted to speak in this debate on the claim of right for Scotland, which asserts the sovereignty of the Scottish people, declaring their right to determine the form of government that best suits their needs. This is a timely debate, although I know some people in the Chamber have questioned why we are debating this issue. This debate could not be more timely, because we need to do all we can to ensure that the wishes of the people of Scotland are respected. Twenty years into devolution, the Scottish Parliament’s powers are under threat from a power grab by the party that fought tooth and nail against the very establishment of that Parliament and has never fully got behind it or truly believed in it.
I am not going to talk about independence, because the Tories and the Labour party have talked about nothing else—and they accuse us of being obsessed. They can talk about independence, as they do incessantly, but I remind them that in 2016 the SNP Government got a mandate to hold a referendum, given the material change in circumstances. If they are so concerned about the will of the people, perhaps they should reflect on that.
We had a referendum in Scotland on EU membership, but there was no evidence that the people of Scotland wanted one. We in Scotland voted to remain in the EU by a very convincing majority, and we are now being removed against our will from a family of nations of which we wish to remain a part. We have been told by Government Members that we should wait to see how Brexit unfolds. Let us look at how Brexit is unfolding. The Chancellor disagrees with the Foreign Secretary; the Foreign Secretary disagrees with the Prime Minister; the Prime Minister disagrees with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; the Secretary of State for International Trade has his head stuck firmly in the sand and says it is all going well and there is nothing to see here, so just move along; and the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union does not seem to know how final the final deal on Brexit will be. All that is before we even get to this week’s antics, in which the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) was involved. Members think that we should wait to see to see how Brexit is unfolding; I think we should buy some popcorn, if it were not so serious.
We have heard the Secretary of State unable, or perhaps unwilling, to explain why the Tories are now to support the claim of right but could not support it in 2012. With the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in the teeth of opposition from the democratically elected Scottish Parliament and the withholding of consent for that Bill from every political party, save the out-of-touch Tories, the contempt for Scotland, her people and her democratic institutions is as clear as it can be.
Let us talk about the claim of right. Consent for clause 15 of the withdrawal Bill was withheld by a huge majority in Holyrood of 93 votes to 30. As a consequence, as we know, it should not have passed through this House with that clause intact. In the event, it did remain intact, with a mere 19 minutes allocated for debate, and with not one Scottish MP able or permitted to speak. And Members ask why we are debating the claim of right. They should be ashamed of themselves. When they ignore the entire concept of consent, when they ride roughshod over democratic institutions elected by the people of Scotland—remember, the Tories have not won an election in Scotland for 55 years—and when they ride roughshod over the Scottish people and their will, they do so at their peril.
We have heard about the affect for the Scottish Parliament and the esteem in which it is held; Westminster enjoys no such reputation in Scotland. We have repeatedly heard the powers that are being clawed back by this Government being diminished, but Government Members know exactly how important those powers are. They include agriculture, fisheries, food labelling and public procurement. I remind Government Members that the public are watching. The clawing back of powers over public procurement could constitute an attack on our public services. I have listened to MPs in the Tory ranks rubbishing such concerns; their constituents will have something to say about that.
I know all this is inconvenient for those who oppose the very concept of devolution and who want to deny Scotland’s very nationhood. They wish us pesky Scots would stop using our voices to decry the injustices and acts of contempt being perpetrated on Scotland, but we will not go quietly. Tonight, we reassert the claim of right for Scotland, without apology, despite all the blistering attacks from Government Members. Scotland is watching. I say to Government Members: you are swimming against the tide of history and you will soon find yourselves engulfed in the waves.
Sewel Convention
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Ian Blackford
I am grateful to be reminded of that quote.
I would say to hon. Members on the Government Benches: be careful. This is not about the offence that has been taken by the Scottish National party. Conservative Members need to take on board the fact that they have offended the Scottish Parliament and all the parties in it that I have talked about. All of us on these Benches were back home in Scotland over the weekend, and I can tell the House that Scotland has changed. The strong message that is coming across is that the people who voted for devolution in 1997 can see clearly what is going on. However the Government want to try to define it or spin it, this is an attack on the powers of the Scottish Parliament in the teeth of the opposition of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people. The Conservatives will pay a heavy price, as they have done in the past, if they do not listen to the voices of the Scottish people.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
My right hon. Friend will recall that the Conservative party fought tooth and nail against the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament. What we are seeing on the Conservative Benches are apologists—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The House must calm down. There is too much noise. Mr Bill Grant, you are a most amiable fellow, and it is unusual to see you so animated. It is true that you are beaming, but you and Mr Luke Graham are also in the process of making a considerable cacophony. I think it would be better if you were to calm yourselves for now.
Patricia Gibson
The Conservatives opposed the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament, and we now see the apologists defending the undermining of devolution itself. Does my right hon. Friend agree that they were hostile to the very concept of devolution in the first place?
Ian Blackford
My hon. Friend is quite correct. They have form, and it goes back over a century.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
My remarks have been very truncated, so I will simply say the following. What happened last week was a clear attempt to strangle Scotland’s voice: to put us back in our box; to silence Scotland’s Parliament; to ensure that we eat our cereal. We will not eat our cereal. We will stand up for Scotland. It is time that the Secretary of State for Scotland did the same, to be the voice of Scotland in the Cabinet, not a Tory apologist for Scotland. The Tories have precipitated this crisis, but they will learn one thing and they will learn it the hard way—in Scotland, Westminster does not carry the affection that the Scottish Parliament does. We will stand up for Scotland because the people of Scotland know that in Scotland they are sovereign.
Question put.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill: Sewel Convention
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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David Mundell
I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s catalogue of events. I have been very clear, as I have said already in answer to other questions, that I wanted to introduce amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill to the House, but I wanted those amendments to have been agreed with the Scottish Government. It was not possible then and it has not been possible now to reach that agreement, because the Scottish Government have adopted a position that is not in accordance with the current constitutional settlement. It is their view that the Scottish Parliament should have a veto over matters that affect the whole United Kingdom. That was not part of the original devolution settlement and it is not part of it now.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
During Tuesday’s 19 minutes and even in today’s statement, we heard nothing from the UK Government on how they propose to reflect the views of the Scottish people and the views of all the democratically elected parties in the Scottish Parliament, save for the out-of-touch Tories. Does the Secretary of State think that that is an illustration of Scotland being a valued and equal partner in the Union? Why does he continue, right through the statement today, to try to portray this as the Scottish Government refusing consent, when he knows fine well that it is every single party in the Scottish Parliament, except the Tories?
David Mundell
As the hon. Lady, whose energetic contributions I always enjoy, would make clear, we have been seeking to agree an arrangement with the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government then take forward a recommendation to the Parliament in relation to legislative consent. They took forward a motion to decline not just this part of the Bill, but the whole Bill. I wish that it were otherwise, but I hope now that we can move forward to work with the Scottish Government on the issues which we have already agreed. We have agreed the 24 areas which it is likely will need common frameworks. That is where we should be now. We should be working with the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and, hopefully in time, a Northern Ireland Executive to create those frameworks because it is those frameworks that will have the impact on the day-to-day lives of people in Scotland. That is what people in Scotland want to see. They want to see their Government focusing on the issues that matter to them, not on constitutional pin-head arguments.