Devolution and Growth across Britain

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

In this House, we generally argue for subsidiarity within Europe. We should not stop at Europe; we should have subsidiarity in our own country, too—in all the different parts of the UK.

During our time in office, we pioneered much of the devolution that we now see across the United Kingdom. It was not perfect, but given the creation of the Greater London Authority, the Mayor of London, the Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies, we did much to devolve power down. We also established regional development agencies in England, which did important work. We are proud of that record.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am sure that this was just a slip of his mind, but the issue of English votes for English laws was not on the list that the hon. Gentleman presented. The Labour party was the stoutest defender of Scottish voting rights in this House. Will he back us in insisting that, rather than simply changing the Standing Orders, the Government bring forward a Bill for something as significant as the voting rights of hon. Members?

[Mr Umunna]

As has been discussed during the series of debates held since Her Majesty delivered the Queen’s Speech, we do not want two tiers of MPs to be created in the House of Commons.

We devolved power then and we support the principle of devolving more power now, in the Bills that I mentioned, for two principal reasons—one economic and one democratic. I turn first to the economic case. Decisions on how to grow our economy are often best made at a sub-regional and local level. Local actors, whether policy makers, business people or trade unions and others, best understand the unique combination of history, geography, demography and institutions that give their area a niche—a competitive edge, a comparative advantage—in the global marketplace.

The fact is crucial because in this era of globalisation, nations and regions need to concentrate their efforts on producing the services and goods that they are best at and then to trade them to generate the good, secure, well paid jobs of which we want more all over the UK. That matters because we have a higher incidence of low paid work than other developed nations. Despite the fact that our people work among the longest hours in Europe, output per worker in the UK lags behind that of our competitors.

To address the issue and raise productivity levels, areas need to harness their specific local skills and strengths and use them to become clusters of expertise and innovation. The simple fact is that one-size-fits-all policies devised in remote departmental silos are simply incapable of nurturing specific local strengths. It is the different players in our local areas and regions that are best placed to do that. We have to give them the tools to be the masters of their own destinies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and I assure him that I will come to just that point in a moment, but I hope he will please allow me to refer to Scotland first.

Of course, Scotland has had its referendum and its people chose to stay in the United Kingdom, which was the right decision. However, the referendum also sent a clear message that Scotland wanted a greater say over its affairs and greater control over its economic destiny. That is why we will deliver the Smith commission agreement in full.

[Pete Wishart]

The right hon. Gentleman may be one of the many in England, but in Scotland the Conservatives are most definitely the few, with their one Scottish MP and their 14% of the vote, their lowest share of the vote since the 19th century. Will he listen carefully to the clear demands from the Scottish Government about strengthening the Scottish Bill to give us the job-creating powers that our Scottish Parliament wants and the Scottish people voted for?

[Sajid Javid]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that although the Scottish National party did remarkably well in the election—and I congratulate it—still almost half the Scottish people did not vote for it, and there are all sorts of voices across Scotland that need to be represented in this Chamber.

Once the Smith commission agreement is in place, the Scottish Parliament will have additional powers on income tax and air passenger duty. All told, more than half the money spent by the Scottish Government will be raised in Holyrood. This package is an historic one for Scotland, which will soon possess arguably the strongest devolved Government anywhere in the world, empowered to build on the progress made over the past five years. Yet Scotland will retain the huge benefits of remaining part of a strong United Kingdom: the economic benefits; the social benefits; the defence benefits: and many more besides.