Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

We do work closely with the French authorities to ensure that all those applying to the UK do actually qualify under the Dublin arrangements, which include the requirement for children to be under 18. We have to carry out the checks in a way that complies with High Court judgments on the matter. As my hon. Friend knows, the British Dental Association has taken the view that to carry out X-rays of claimants’ teeth would not be a reliable indicator of age, as well as being, in its view, unethical.

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

May I also thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week? I join him and the shadow Leader of the House in the tributes to Aberfan. Today is a very special day, with the by-election in Batley and Spen, and we recall all the horrific events around the murder of Jo Cox.

Today, we find that the Prime Minister is off to Brussels for her first trip with EU leaders since she became Prime Minister. She is advocating something I think she describes as a “smooth Brexit”. May I suggest that, in our debates, we get our terms absolutely right for Brexit? We have hard Brexit and soft Brexit. I want to suggest crispy Brexit, soggy Brexit and maybe “I can’t believe it’s not Brexit.”

The serious point is that we still have not had a debate in Government time on their plans to leave the European Union. We have had one in SNP time and one in Labour party time. We heard the Lords EU Committee say yesterday that the issue must be properly debated and scrutinised, and even suggest that we have a debate in advance of article 50 being triggered. So can we now—I am going to ask the Leader of the House this every week—have solid plans and proposals for when this House will get to debate what the Government intend to do?

The redrawn boundaries for Scottish Members of Parliament were produced this morning, and they would reduce the number of MPs from Scotland from 59 to 53. SNP Members would like to reduce that number to zero when we gain our independence and sovereignty, but in the meantime, while we are still here, I would like the opinion of the Leader of the House on one issue—I saw that he was in the debate briefly yesterday. How can it possibly be right that, in these Houses of Parliament, we now have more parliamentarians appointed by a Prime Minister than elected by the people? He is making that worse.

Finally, tomorrow we have the private Member’s Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on a very important issue. The “Turing Bill” seeks to posthumously pardon thousands of gay men who were caught up in all the anti-homosexual legislation. However, we have heard that the Government are withdrawing support for it, in favour of an amendment in the House of Lords. It should be here in the Commons that the issue is properly considered, by elected Members. All that the Government’s action will do is lead to the withdrawal of support and further undermine the credibility of private Members’ Bills. Will the Leader of the House rethink that decision and make sure that the Government support the private Member’s Bill tomorrow?

[Mr Lidington]

There have already been many opportunities to hold Ministers to account for the Government’s approach to the European negotiations. We have just had questions to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, who has also made a number of oral statements to the House about that since the referendum.

I am slightly surprised that the hon. Gentleman should appear to denigrate the importance of Select Committees in this House and the other place. It is simply wrong to believe that only a debate in plenary session qualifies as scrutiny. In my experience, having served as a Minister for more than six years, Select Committees can often be much more demanding on Ministers in terms of preparation and thinking through one’s policy. We should respect the importance of those Committee hearings. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will give an oral statement next week about the European Council, and that will provide yet another opportunity for such questioning.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about his hon. Friend’s Bill, the Government very much share his wish to see pardons given to people who were convicted of consensual homosexual acts when those were criminal offences. The Government are proposing that we should legislate both to provide posthumous pardons for people who are now deceased and to make it clear that those who are still living can apply under a statutory deregistration scheme for their conviction to be deleted from the record, so that they would then qualify for a pardon. The reason we cannot support his hon. Friend’s Bill is that it does not take account of the need, in respect of people who are now living, to check that the offence of which they were convicted was genuinely consensual and did not involve, for example, a sexual offence against a minor, which would still be a breach of the criminal law today.