Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

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

Here we go again: another return to Parliament and another attempt by the Government to play fast and loose with the democratic arrangements of the House. This is clearly becoming a pattern, and the nation is starting to get really concerned and anxious about their casual disregard of many parliamentary conventions and scrutiny.

First, we had the horror of the grotesque Henry VIII powers in the repeal Bill. Then we had the Government fixing the Standing Committees of the House so that they could have a majority in each and every single one of them. Now we have all this nonsense about Opposition day debates and what the Government will or will not do in response to them. I think that I have identified the problem with this particular Government: they cannot accept their status as a minority Government. That is the basis of what we have here. They seem to be doing everything possible to try to deny that new reality, but the harder that they do that, the worse it gets for our democratic proceedings and parliamentary structures.

The Government have 317 Members out of a total of 650 Members—48.7% of the membership of the House. They are clearly a minority Government. Instead of fighting that reality, why do they not simply embrace it and accept it, then we can all get on with our business normally, with a minority Government trying to govern in this country?

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, particularly as he is speaking about minority Governments which his party now is in Scotland. When the Scottish National party had a majority Government in Scotland, it passed the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012. More than a year ago, when it was in a minority Government, it was defeated by all the opposition parties in a vote and called on to repeal the Act. Can he tell me the status of that? Has his party repealed the Act, or is it failing to respect the Scottish Parliament vote?

[Pete Wishart]

I am really grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning that point. I was going to come on to that, because it is really important to understand how minority Governments respond to defeats in Parliament. The right thing to do is what the Scottish Government do, which is to review, reflect and consult. Let me cite one issue as an example. We were defeated on fracking. What did we do? We did not attempt to ignore that vote. We consulted, reviewed and came back to Parliament with a ban on fracking. That is the responsible behaviour of a minority Government. I will take no lecture from the hon. Gentleman whose party’s commitment to democratic decisions extends to the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) not even voting in the European Union referendum.

There are certain things that a party has to learn when it is in a minority situation in Parliament. The first lesson is that, sometimes, Governments get beat. They get beat here and they get beat in the Scottish Parliament. That is a feature of minority Government and it is alright—it happens. It happens normally in Parliaments right across Europe. This Government should not overly fret about it. They paid £1.25 billion to the Democratic Unionist party to ensure that they had a majority in the event of a threat to their existence. This House must also recognise how we can represent and reflect the democratic will of the people of this country. Sometimes I enjoy being lectured by Conservative Back Benchers about parliamentary sovereignty.

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman has twice mentioned sovereignty and respecting the will of the people. Does he respect the will of the people in the two referendums that have recently taken place—one in Scotland, and one on the European Union?

[Pete Wishart]

I will tell the hon. and learned Lady what I think about the will of the people. I was elected just a couple of months ago—I won an election. The gentleman I beat in that election is now in the House of Lords as an unelected Scottish Office peer. That is how to reject democracy; that is how to play fast and loose with the will of people—rejected one minute and ennobled the next. So I will take no lectures from the hon. and learned Lady.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I am one of the people as well, and I will conduct my voting in this Chamber entirely on the basis of my own opinion and my own conscience. I decide when and how I vote, not the Government, and on the occasion in question, I chose to deploy my vote accordingly. I was in agreement with the first motion, because the lead I tend to take from my Front Bench was in agreement with it. Why would I therefore choose to oppose it? On the second motion, although I was against the sentiments being expressed, it was clear to me that, in accordance with the statute, however I expressed my opinion, it would make no difference. That is the matter in a nutshell.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I exercised some latitude for the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), not least in light of his starring performance this morning, when he asked the most succinct question, but that was a mini-speech rather than an intervention. I simply take this opportunity to remind the House that the debate can last until three minutes past 6. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has not taken up a great deal of time so far, so this is not directed specifically at him, but I simply make the point that if Members want to speak, they should try to help each other, and that means refraining from, dare I say it, lengthy or self-indulgent interventions.

[Pete Wishart]

What would we have done without the contribution from the right hon. Gentleman? He does what he wants, as he always has done, and he should make sure he always does that in the future.

I got a bit sidetracked there with the very interesting intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, but I want to come back to this notion of parliamentary sovereignty, which is something my friends on the Conservative Back Benches hold dear. It is about expressing the will of the people in this House. Parliamentary sovereignty is the be-all and end-all—Conservative Members are even committing this great indulgence of economic, cultural and political self-harm by leaving the European Union so they can have more parliamentary sovereignty. They should start to demonstrate their commitment to it by recognising that this is a minority Parliament. We are here to serve all the people of the country, and we have to have arrangements to make sure we properly reflect that.

The Government seem to see not being defeated as some sort of virility symbol, as if being defeated shatters their delusion that they somehow have a majority. When it comes to these issues, the Government will have to stop behaving so arrogantly; they will have to accept their minority status and act with a bit of humility. They went to the people a few short months ago to ask for a mandate and for an increase in their majority; that is what it was all about—they wanted to take advantage of what they saw as the situation in the Labour party. What happened? They came back as a minority—they lost their majority—so maybe responding with a little less arrogance and a little more humility would do them some good.

The second principle of minority Government is that you sometimes have to work harder to get your way. That, again, is what happens in other Parliaments, but we have seen no example of it from the Leader of the House today. There is no point the Government trying to bludgeon their will through in Parliament, as they are currently doing; it is much better to negotiate and make deals to ensure they get solutions. I thought that that was what we were going to get. I will not break the confidence of the Leader of the House by talking about my meetings with her, except to say that when I had my first conversation with her, I was encouraged by what she had to say about her approach to Parliament. She talked about a basis of consensus—trying to get agreement and progress legislation and motions through Parliament on the basis of agreement—but all that seems to have gone. I wish we had the earlier Leader of the House instead of the one who is standing here now.

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Gentleman talks about consensus and agreement, but that is exactly what we reached during that Opposition day debate, and Opposition Members are still not happy.

[Pete Wishart]

I will move on to Opposition day debates, because I know that is the intended topic of the debate. I do not really understand the Government’s position. Opposition days are a real feature of Parliament. I have been in the House for 16 years and I have always enjoyed Opposition day debates. There is always a bit of tension and there are always good speeches, and they tackle subjects that Governments would not normally bring to the House because they might just get embarrassed —subjects with which they might be uncomfortable. They play an important function in the House, and it is really important that we do not lose sight of their role. The most important thing about Opposition day debates is that they have a conclusion: some sort of decision on the motion is taken by the House. The day that the Government play fast and loose with that arrangement is the day that we really devalue Opposition day debates. We have Backbench Business debates and Adjournment debates. We do not need glorified Adjournment debates; we need real debates that hold the Government to account, and on which we can make a decision and then move on, respecting that decision.

We accept that the votes in question are not binding on the Government. The Scottish National party are a minority Government in Scotland and we know exactly how these things happen: we will get beat, and this Government will get beat. The key thing is that nobody expects them to change their policy or direction on certain issues just because they get beat on a Labour party Opposition day motion—that is the last thing people expect. Nevertheless, the votes on such motions reflect the will of the House, so people expect the Government to respond in a particularly positive way. They should not try to avoid votes or dismiss debates; they should respond and say something. They should go back and consult, review their position and come back to the House with a new set of recommendations. That is what I think the people we represent want from Parliament and from the Government.

[Mr Harper]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I think we have heard enough from the right hon. Gentleman. He took up about 25 minutes of the available time so I shall move on, if he does not mind.

We on the SNP Benches have a little experience of minority government: we are in our second parliamentary session as a minority Government. We had a minority Government with just two Members more than the second party, and now we are just two short of a majority. In each case we have tended to try to function as a minority Government, respecting the view that we do not have a majority and trying to work in consensus and partnership with other parties. The exercise we are doing around the budget is an example of how things can be done in a minority Parliament.

I mentioned fracking: it is important that we come back to the Scottish Parliament on that with another view. On other issues on which we are defeated, we will consult further and try to address the concerns. That is how we govern as a minority Government. I am happy to talk things through with the Leader of the House to help her to understand better. If she wants to come to the SNP, we can give her some lessons about running a minority Government. If she is having difficulty with it, which it seems she is, she can come and have a chat with us. I will not break the confidence of our meeting, as she did to me at the most recent business questions. She can come and have a chat and perhaps we can talk through some of the issues.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

As we have heard, it has been 12 months since the Scottish Government were defeated, and they are still at the consultation stage, whereas in the four weeks since the House expressed a view on the two motions in question, the Government have announced a policy change on the level of next year’s tuition fees, and they have announced different terms of reference for the public pay review bodies. The Government have done exactly what the hon. Gentleman is asking of them in terms of considering and reviewing, and I am sure that those matters will come back to the House.

[Pete Wishart]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman has been listening. I am not making any criticism of the Government—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I am not! I am trying to give them some advice about how to do things and I am trying to get their minority status into their head. I am trying to help them to deal with that, so I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman listened to what I have said. It is good that they are reviewing things—that is what minority Governments do, and they should continue—but they also have to allow Opposition day debates to conclude and then vote on them and express an opinion. It is important that our constituents hear us in Parliament deciding on the important issues. It is important that they know our views, and the only way they are going to find out how we think about a particular issue or subject is if we vote on it. That is the only way they can determine it.

I do not know whether the Government intend not to vote on any further Opposition day motions, but I am not particularly interested in what Paul Waugh has to say in the Huffington Post on a particular day. I would like to hear it from the Leader of the House. Perhaps we can tempt her to say definitively, yes or no, whether she intends the Government to vote on Opposition day motions at some point. I will give her the chance to say whether it will be an option for the Government. [Interruption.] She is shaking her head, or—

[Andrea Leadsom]

indicated dissent.

[Pete Wishart]

She is not. That is good, and that is what we expected. All we needed to hear in this whole debate was the Leader of the House say to us, “Well, you know, we did that the first day because we thought we were playing a political game, but we’ll come back and we’ll vote on Opposition day motions.” We will get Opposition days; I would like to think that the Government would come along and vote on them.

We really have to start to get on top of all this. This has been a particularly bad start to the Parliament. I listened to the Leader of the House talking about all the things she did to put in place Select Committees earlier than usual. What utter, utter bunkum. Now that we are back for this long period in Parliament, with sittings right up to Christmas, let us start to show that we respect the political arrangements in the House—the structures and the way we have done things traditionally—and that we can still approach these issues collegiately and consensually, if we can.

The Government also have to get it into their head that they are a minority Government. We have seen no evidence of that yet. As we go through this Session, a little more of a demonstration of where the Government are just now would be useful and good. I hope that we do not have to have any more of these debates. I have been taking part in such debates almost every week for the past few months, and this is something we need to get over. We need to see the Government respecting their position and respecting the traditions of this House.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross]

I am a Scottish Conservative Member representing a Scottish constituency, so if the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will speak about Scottish issues in the House of Commons. I will also speak about Governments being defeated when this Government are defeated. They have not been defeated in this House, but the party of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has been defeated. I want to come on to the point that I tried to make when I intervened on his speech. Hansard will show that I asked clearly about the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, but that the hon. Gentleman never once mentioned that piece of legislation in response.

[Pete Wishart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Douglas Ross]

Yes, if the hon. Gentleman is now going to tell me what has happened to that piece of legislation that needed to be repealed.

[Pete Wishart]

It is interesting that all that Theresa’s Scottish Tories ever do is to get on their feet and talk about the Scottish Parliament. In case it has evaded the hon. Gentleman’s attention, he was elected to serve in this House. As for the 2012 Act, a review is under way to examine hate crime legislation in response to the vote in the Scottish Parliament. That is how a minority Government should respond to a defeat in a Parliament.

[Douglas Ross]

I am sorry, but as the hon. Gentleman has totally misunderstood what is happening in Scotland with this piece of legislation, it is important that I provide a potted history of what happened. It was introduced by a majority SNP Government in 2011 with no support from the Opposition parties. Legal experts told them that it was wrong, a senior judge went on to say that the legislation was “mince”, and then a Labour MSP’s consultation on repealing the legislation attracted 3,000 responses, 70% of which said that the Act should be repealed. What is happening now? I will tell you. In November last year—