Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. Friend. It does speak to the priorities of the current Mayor of London that he would devote so much time to statues and street names, rather than to the things that really matter to people in London, which are tackling crime, ensuring they do not have to pay his 10% mayoral precept on their council tax and ensuring that good-quality affordable homes are built in the places people want to see them.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

We all know that, despite the Prime Minister’s experience as a Mayor, he has called the devolution settlement a “disaster” and a “mistake”. Is that loathing of Scotland’s Parliament perhaps the real reason why the Government are ripping up the devolution settlement, grabbing back our powers and imposing a shared prosperity fund that bypasses the democratically elected Members of the Scottish Parliament and bears very little resemblance to the needs or wants of the Scottish electorate?

[Robert Jenrick]

This Government were elected on a clear manifesto pledge to ensure that we level up all parts of this United Kingdom, including the communities that the hon. Member serves in Scotland, and that is exactly what we intend to do. The UK shared prosperity fund will ensure that at least as much, if not more, funding goes to communities in Scotland than would have been received if we had stayed within the European Union. He seems to have a strange aversion to localism and to ensuring that local authorities in Scotland—democratically elected councillors in his constituency and others—have a say over the future of their areas.