Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend raises a matter of great importance to her constituency, to mine, to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) and, indeed, to your own, Mr Speaker. We have all worked together to get the best compensation and mitigation for our constituents, many of whom have very serious concerns about that project. On the very important issue that my right hon. Friend raises, she will appreciate that this is a matter for the Transport Secretary and I urge her to seek to raise it directly with Transport Ministers, possibly in a Westminster Hall or an Adjournment debate.

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

Mr Speaker, I also congratulate you on your endurance over the past couple of days. I hope that you are not having nightmares about big green chairs shouting “Meaningful vote” to you over the course of an evening. I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the most dramatic business for next week. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz)—for she is a friend—on her birthday today.

Here we are, Mr Speaker. It does feel a bit like the end of Tory days. After doing everything possible to avoid and evade a defeat, the Government have only gone and found a taste for it. After barely a glove being laid on them over the past two years, they endured three defeats in two hours on Tuesday. After acquiring this taste, they have offered themselves up for another hiding on Tuesday—or have they? That is the question. To go through with this vote and almost certain defeat seems almost unnecessarily cruel. It would be like political self-flagellation on an almost Marquis de Sade scale. To endure the indignity of a huge majority against them—most of them from their own Benches—on such a major issue of policy would be unsustainable for the Prime Minister. Can the Leader of the House take this opportunity today to confirm that, whatever happens over the course of the next few days, we will still have this vote regardless of the consequences and that they have no intention of taking it off the table? Can she also tell us a bit about what happens next? Let us hope that she will not be the Grinch of the House who stole Christmas in making sure that Christmas becomes Brexmas for the majority of Members in this House.

Almost laughingly, the Leader of the House has timetabled ordinary business on Wednesday. I think we might be telling hon. Members preparing for the Ivory Bill and the fuel poverty debate not to exercise themselves unduly. No one believes for a minute that it will be business as usual on Wednesday. It is going to be chaotic crisis management peppered with mild panic and served up with a dollop of a probable vote of no confidence in this Government. Can she tell us what provisions she has in place for Wednesday? What is she going to do to ensure that this House will be able to deal with the consequences of the devastating defeat? It is inconceivable that she has no back-up plan, plan B or set of extraordinary measures, and it is time to share them.

We in Scotland are watching this crashing of the UK with increasing alarm and concern, but we are also brushing down our constitutional options, and thank goodness we have them, because although this country may be going down with any arrangements for getting out of the European Union, Scotland most definitely will not.