Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I will not only undertake to draw my right hon. Friend’s concerns to the attention of the Secretary of State, but I can point him towards Health questions on Tuesday 7 February, when he may have the opportunity to question Ministers directly about this issue. Clearly, the details of the health service in his area are not something on which I would be able to comment, but the principle here is that clinical commissioning groups should engage in proper public consultation in their local area as they draw up sustainability and transformation plans for that locality. Ultimately, the local authority, through its health overview committee, has the right, if it believes that services are being wrongly and adversely restructured, to refer the matter to the Secretary of State.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week.

We like our anniversaries in this place, and I support everything the Leader of the House said about World Cancer day in a couple of days’ time. However, today is groundhog day. I know that most days seem like groundhog day in this place, and I do not know about you, Mr Speaker, but I always seem to wake up to the news that another Labour Front Bencher has resigned—perhaps Punxsutawney Phil can get a place in the Labour shadow Cabinet.

Three cheers for the Leader of the House for finally getting the White Paper for the Brexit Bill; it has only taken half the time the Bill will take to go through this Chamber, but we have got it at last. Let us hope that it is quite close to the 650 pages we had in the independence White Paper, although I doubt that very much.

This is a Bill the Government did not want and that they are forcing through at breakneck speed, but they must be prepared to listen to the hundreds of amendments that will be tabled to it. I have noticed that in the programme motion there is no programming for a Report stage. That must mean that the Government will arrogantly reject every single amendment without proper consideration. Why are we not getting a Report stage on the Bill as it goes through the House?

May we have a statement on the Government’s intention regarding a second Scottish independence referendum? There is a piece in The Herald today from the Defence Secretary, who seems to rule out entirely a second Scottish independence referendum. We have just heard him on Radio Scotland, where he seemed to backtrack furiously on what he had just said. The Scottish Tories’ leader has said that it would be wrong to rule out a second referendum. Believe me, a Government with only one MP in Scotland telling the Scottish people that they will not have a say in their future could not be a bigger gift to the SNP.

I listened carefully to the response by the Leader of the House to several of my hon. Friends who asked about how EVEL would be applied to the great repeal Bill. He must totally rule it out now. We cannot have a Bill as important as this being considered by two classes of Member of Parliament in this House—one class of Member who has a say in everything, and then the Scottish Members, who can take part only in some of it. Believe me, that could not be a bigger gift to us either.

[Mr Lidington]

In response to the hon. Gentleman’s points about the EU withdrawal Bill, I have to remind him that, first of all, this House voted overwhelmingly for the referendum to take place and for the decision to be referred to the British people; and, secondly, only a matter of weeks ago the House again voted overwhelmingly to endorse the Prime Minister’s timetable for triggering article 50 before the end of March this year. The timetable on this two-clause Bill is designed to ensure that those objectives are upheld.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about Report and Committee stages, the purpose of Report is normally to enable the House as a whole to consider the Bill as it comes out of Committee, where it has been considered by a small number of Members upstairs. On this occasion, we have a full two days and time, if needed, on the third day for consideration of amendments by a Committee of the whole House. The hon. Gentleman is really asking for a further extension of the Committee of the whole House.

Finally, on the hon. Gentleman’s points about Scotland, the Prime Minister could not have been more emphatic, on numerous occasions at the Dispatch Box, in making it plain that we are determined to consult the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive about how their interests, and those of the people whom they represent, are affected by the process of withdrawal from the European Union and the negotiations on which we shall shortly embark.

The EVEL arrangements in our Standing Orders can apply only if three conditions are met: first, that the matter in question is devolved to Scotland; secondly, that the same matter relates to England only, or to England and Wales only; and, thirdly, that you, Mr Speaker, have certified the amendment or the Bill as falling within the definitions prescribed under our Standing Orders. Although I cannot possibly comment on a Bill that has not yet been published, it seems to me—given that international agreements are, under the Scotland Act 1998, defined as reserved, not devolved, matters—that the principles embodied in our Standing Orders ought to give the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues considerable reassurance.