Proceedings During the Pandemic (No. 4)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The SNP also fully supports the continuation of the provisions for virtual participation. I welcome the proposal that the provisions will run at least until 3 November, which gives us time to plan and prepare properly, allows the Government to progress with their business, and allows Members to participate as safely as they can. Even if some shielding restrictions have been reduced, parts of the country continue to go into local lockdown— we are experiencing some restrictions in my Glasgow constituency—and the more that Members are able to participate virtually, for whatever reason, the less pressure there is on the ancillary services here in the Chamber. The reality is that only 50 people can be in the Chamber at any one time, so enabling Members to continue to contribute to the scrutiny processes through the virtual system is welcome. Attempts to derail the Government’s progress and upset the cross-party consensus on maintaining that would be disappointing, so the Government can be assured of the SNP’s support for the motion.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I am going to disappoint the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) by breaking the consensus. It is a paradox that one of the great champions of Back-Bench rights, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), has been forced, now that he is Leader of the House, to introduce measures that massively undercut Back-Bench rights.

I have been in the House for 33 years; to call this arrangement sub-optimal is to use a very delicate phrase. This is the weakest House of Commons that I have ever seen. It does not do its job. The House of Commons, at its best, is far greater than the sum of its parts. It is an organic entity that reflects our constituents’ interests and pushes the Government to do better, govern better and make the right decisions first time, not after several preliminary attempts. It has been bled dry—I am being as delicate as I can about what others would call U-turns—and it gives Ministers a pathetically easy time. That is actually not a benefit to Ministers. Having to stand at the Dispatch Box to defend their case, and think through before they arrive all the weaknesses that might be in it, is a way for our Government to improve their case. Those who have been special advisers or Ministers in the past know exactly how the process works. It is one of the things that makes our Government, our Parliament and our democracy better than almost any other in the world.

That is particularly true given that, in late March, under the coronavirus emergency legislation, we gave Ministers huge powers, which were exercised almost straightaway to go into lockdown, and almost straightaway ran into problems because the Government had not had to face this House over several hours to talk about what would happen if somebody’s constituent has a disabled child or a mother they could not look after, or about all the other small, detailed things that make legislation work properly, keep it effective, and keep the confidence of the public.

Frankly, I am not bothered by the performance of the House in the next month, because it is September and we are not doing many very, very important things, but the House, the Government and the country face three massive sets of decisions. Decisions on the recovery of the economy will be critical before the end of October. That is when the various funding schemes run out and we face the brick wall in our economic future. We have Brexit still coming, and October will be the key month there—that is when the rubber is going to hit the road. And of course there is covid-19 running into winter; again, October will be the key time.

Unlike the hon. Member for Glasgow North, I do not think 3 November is a good date. We have to think about the decisions that this House and the Government will have to make during October.

[Patrick Grady]

That is the whole point: if we get into a second wave in the winter, and there are more local lockdowns and more people who are ill or have to stay at home and shield, that is all the more for reason for people to be able to participate virtually.