Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Debate between Paul Holmes and Ian Murray

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

I will be honest with the hon. Gentleman. The leaflet was delivered in Dumbarton and was posted on social media by the person who delivered it, so that is being honest with each other. Let me just say to him that I am very much in the same place as Sir John Curtice —we cannot extrapolate a single issue from a general election. It is disingenuous to suggest that we should turn this major election, the most important I think in Scotland’s devolution history, into whether or not we should have a referendum on another referendum.

[Paul Holmes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Murray]

Let me make a little progress.

Let me go to the biggest issue of all—currency. We have heard the same old arguments from the SNP time and again, so perhaps they can tell us something new. Let us be honest with each other. What on earth would the people be voting for? Let us take this issue of currency. If any SNP Members want to intervene on me and tell me what the answer is, I will give them the Floor for as long as they like.

The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), the Leader of the SNP in this House, promotes sterlingisation. He says that people should not worry—we will keep using the pound until such time as six tests are met, however long that would be. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) tells us that they will only keep the pound for a few months. The SNP’s Deputy Leader, Keith Brown, says that they will keep the pound for less than five years. Andrew Wilson, the head of the SNP’s Growth Commission and a former SNP Finance Minister, says that it could be decade before we give up the pound. Does any SNP Member want to tell us exactly how long we will keep the pound? Is it a few months? Is it five years? Is it 10 years? Is it indefinitely? Will we keep it at all? Let us just be honest with each other if the SNP wants to turn this debate into a referendum on whether or not we have a referendum.

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent case on the lack of clarity from the Scottish National party. But what he needs to be clear on to the Scottish people when he goes to the polls on 6 May is whether his party backs a referendum or not. We have been honest. SNP Members have been honest about what they want. Will he now be honest and say what his position is?

[Ian Murray]

The answer to the question is no.

On interest rates—[Interruption.] The Conservatives do this all the time. They deliberately misinterpret the Scottish Labour party’s policy in order to feather their own electoral nest. That is why they are putting the Union at risk and why they are a bigger threat to the UK than any nationalist.

Let me turn to the interest rate question. For as long as we do not have our own currency, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), who is in the Chamber, thinks that we will still have a monetary and interest rate policy, but his own SNP Minister for Energy, Paul Wheelhouse MSP, said that, without a central bank or lender of last resort, we would have to take whatever interest rates were set. Can any SNP Member intervene and tell us who is right—the hon. Member for Glasgow East or the Scottish Government Minister?

That leads us to exchange rates. Let us try another one. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber said that

“when we do have our own currency it has to be pegged against the pound sterling”,

but the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) suggests that will not be the case because we would need to meet the exchange rate mechanism rules to enter the EU. Again, what is it? Is it that we would have to take our own exchange rate mechanism to qualify for the EU, or would we be pegged to sterling? Maybe the answer is none of the above. Could it be the euro, as the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) said, or maybe Bitcoin, as the former SNP Member for East Lothian, George Kerevan, said—or, worse yet, our flexible friend? Will we all use our credit cards as if we were on holiday, as the SNP MSP Emma Harper suggested in a TV debate, when she said that we did not need a currency at all because we all used plastic anyway?

The position of SNP parliamentarians on these matters would be hilarious, were it not so serious. They want to take us out of the UK, regardless of the economic and social chaos that this would cause. This is about people’s jobs, mortgages and livelihoods. It is about our communities.

If SNP Members insist on focusing on separation instead of on how we get people back to work, how we lift families and children out of poverty, how we restart and properly value our NHS and how we lead a national effort to recover from this pandemic, they should at least be straight with the Scottish people about how separation will affect their jobs, livelihoods, health, education and opportunities for the future. They refuse to put forward the details of the separation proposition because the answers to these big questions are either unpalatable to the public or they actually do not know the answers.