Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. As everyone can see from looking around the Chamber, this is an exceptionally heavily subscribed debate. We will have to move straight to a two-minute time limit. We shall start with Dr Peter Prinsley.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart, and a big thanks to the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for raising this debate. As the Member for Strangford, I am growing increasingly concerned about the effects of bank closures on vulnerable individuals in our rural communities, because face-to-face banking is about much more than simple convenience. Local bank branches have long been an important point of social contact, particularly for older people, those with disabilities and those who struggle with technology. It is a safe place for young people to get sound advice on savings and ISAs, and a place where people learn, get to know the staff and build protection for themselves.

I stress that online banking is simply not a straightforward substitute for an in-person service. Fewer bank services mean reduced footfall, as people have fewer reasons to visit town centres, and the impact of that on the high street is clear. Eleven banks have closed in my largely rural constituency, and as the MP for Strangford, I am deeply concerned about what this means for my constituents and particularly the older people in my constituency, a large proportion of whom rely on cash. The loss of local bank services will mean significantly longer journeys to access basic financial services. More must be done to ensure those in our rural communities are not left behind and continue to have unfettered access to essential banking services. Unfortunately, there is no longer a single permanent bank on the Ards peninsula where I live, and only very spotty internet services. The situation must be reversed.

It is not all doom and gloom: I thank the Nationwide Building Society, which has pledged to maintain all branches until 2030. My own local branch is an example of consumer-led safe banking, and I believe that we must hold main street banks to a higher standard. The banks must do better. Rural constituents deserve the same service as city dwellers, and the rural inequality must be addressed from this house down. For my constituents in Strangford, we need to do more.

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Lib Dem spokesperson, I thank colleagues for their assistance and restraint. We have had 25 Back Benchers in for this debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

That is a really important point. Our Prime Minister is absolutely committed to early intervention to stop the costs of crisis emerging later on. Later this week, on the anniversary of Labour’s creation of the health service, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will publish the 10-year health plan, which will focus on ensuring that young people especially, and particularly those in some of our most deprived communities, are not let down and have a healthy start in life. Across the whole of Government, we are determined to achieve that.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

Today’s disastrous welfare debacle was all down to the Chancellor’s obsessive pursuit to stick to the grotesque Tory fiscal rules. Yet 150,000 people could still be saved from poverty if all the Scottish Labour MPs joined those prepared to vote down the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. Does she agree that if Scottish Labour MPs go through the lobby to support the Bill, they would be as well not bothering standing again?

[Rachel Reeves]

This Government changed the fiscal rules at the Budget last year with a stability rule, so that for the first time we pay for day-to-day spending through tax receipts, and an investment rule, which enables us to invest in the things that will help grow the economy, such as energy infrastructure, defence spending and transport and digital infrastructure. As a result, in the Budget and then in this year’s spring statement, we unlocked £300 billion more to spend during the course of this Parliament, including the record settlement for the Scottish Government. It is now up to the Scottish Government to spend that money wisely and to try to reduce waiting lists in Scotland, as we have done in England and, indeed, in Wales.

Speaker’s Statement

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Roy was political to his core. He loved this place more than anyone could possibly imagine. He regularly got quite frustrated with Governments and Prime Ministers. I will always remember arriving at the office on my first day as Chief Whip, and seeing his look of frustration and irritation, which said, “Who on earth have they sent me now? He’s never been in the Whips Office.”

I remember Roy sitting me down and explaining that he worked for me 51% of the time and for the Opposition the other 49%. I wanted him to shift the dial a little more in my favour, but he was never going to do that. I asked him, rather naively, what I should read, and whether it was worth picking up “Erskine May”. He looked at me and said, “Chief, only strange people and Clerks read ‘Erskine May’.” Yet there was a not a page in “Erskine May” that he did not know.

Roy started as an apprentice in the Ministry of Defence, worked his way through to No. 10 Downing Street and got briefings ready for Prime Ministers, and then went into the Whips Office. All that equipped him to understand raw politics. As anyone who has been Chief Whip will know, it is deputies, not Chief Whips, who whip their party; Chief Whips have to manage the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. They are there to save the Government from doing incredibly stupid things to themselves every single day—or that was the case in my day. I have a feeling that might not have changed that much.

I would sometimes come into the office and Roy’s eyes would roll; he had heard the news about the latest decision emanating from No. 10. Yet he would always sit down, talk through the problem and give solutions—a potential way out of the awful mess that you found yourself in. I particularly recall the day after the 2017 general election. For those who were not here, it had not gone quite as well as we had hoped. I arrived at the beautiful Chief Whips Office in Downing Street and Roy, who was as good with his Anglo-Saxon words as any man—I will not say the word he used, but it rhymed with “clucking”—said, “Well, you clucking screwed that one up, didn’t you? What are you going to do?” At the time, the Prime Minister was in shock and not really doing an awful lot, and it fell to the Whips Office to work out how we took things forward. Sitting down with Roy to work things out was essential to our putting together a deal with the Democratic Unionist party—a deal that made sure that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) did not have the opportunity to form a Government in 2017, or since.

Roy lived and breathed politics, but also cared about nothing more than his family. I would hear him talk with such pride about his daughter at university, and about his son, whom he took to countless events related to swimming, and then to the RAF. Altogether, Roy was a good friend. Just a few weeks ago, I was sitting down with him, having a cup of coffee and talking about his family. We talked about the difficult times, but also the amazing times. He will be so missed.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to pass on the sincere condolences of the Scottish National party to the family and friends of Roy Stone, and I really hope that they take comfort from today’s proceedings. We speak of Roy in such terms not just because we respected him, but because we liked him. He was a likeable guy who was great company and such fun to be with.

I will never forget the kindness that Roy showed me as a new Member of this House, and as a recently installed Chief Whip who did not have a clue about House business or procedure. He patiently ran through how the House worked; getting a lesson from Roy Stone on parliamentary procedure is something that I will never forget. I was representing a group of five, and Roy had time for us all. The SNP finally got access to the usual channels when we became the third party in the House, and I was able to observe how effectively he did his work. I will never be in government, unlike others who are paying tribute today, but I saw how seamlessly Roy was able to serve Governments of different hues, and how the ship of state sailed on under his stewardship and command. Roy was the absolute epitome of public service and commitment to this House, which he loved, and we will all miss him dearly.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for allowing this quite exceptional but fitting tribute, which I am sure will give some comfort to Sir Roy’s wife Dawn and his children, Hannah and Elliott. It was my privilege to work with Sir Roy during the first three and a half years of the coalition Government. Coalition government had never been done in this country in modern peacetime. The coalition required service to not one party but two in government, and for Sir Roy, it was a time of change and challenges, but they were all challenges that he took impeccably in his stride. There are many anecdotes that I could tell you, Mr Speaker, but unfortunately, too many of those who were involved are still alive, and there are limits to how far one can push parliamentary privilege.

The genius of Sir Roy Stone was that he never betrayed any personal political view. That was how he was able to serve Governments of all stripes. The dignity of Parliament and of the business of government really mattered to him. There was only one occasion when I saw Sir Roy’s mask slip. It was the early days of the coalition Government. The Liberal Democrat Whips Office was in the business of babysitting, and on this occasion it involved an actual baby; it was not the normal babysitting that the Whips Office is called on to do. Inevitably, as happens with babies, there was a need for a nappy to be changed. I took the baby—I think it was Jenny Willott’s son, Toby—into my office, and I had laid him on the sofa and was changing his nappy when Sir Roy Stone appeared in the doorway. One glimpse at his face told me that this scene realised his worst fears about having Liberal Democrats in government.

Sir Roy cared about both Government and Parliament, and being able to serve both requires very distinctive and particular talents. It was a privilege to work with him and to have the benefit of those talents. For those who mourn him, especially his family, the recognition of those talents should be an enduring comfort.

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am so sorry—in fairness, the hon. Gentleman was obviously speaking to farmers in his constituency on Sunday. Did I hear that there is a protest going on in his constituency at the moment? In any event, I actually made the announcement on national television on Sunday; perhaps he was not watching. Farmers at home will be wondering what on earth we are arguing over.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

One word that the right hon. Lady has not mentioned is Brexit—the great Tory disaster of the last Parliament. How much does she estimate that Brexit cost farmers and the rural community?

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman and I, unusually, can join forces on this matter. While I am going to resist the temptation to revisit Brexit, what I will do is point him to paragraph 4.11 of the CAAV report—

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[Tim Farron]

That is nonsense. Wherever Liberal Democrats are in control, we back and support our farmers and are proud to do so.

Talk is cheap, and most people in this House will at some time quite rightly have uttered the sentiment that British farmers are the best in the world, without actually understanding why. It is true that they really are the best in the world, and that is because the way in which our farming economy is structured is based on the family farm. Family farming makes a difference because it has close husbandry, higher environmental standards, higher welfare standards and better quality produce. It is not an accident that British farming is the best in the world.

[Pete Wishart]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that the difficulty with the Labour party is that it just does not understand farmers, because they do not fit neatly into its clumsy definition of what a working person is? These are people who work 12 hours a day, outside in the toughest environment, and who work into their old age, but they do not get into the Labour club.

[Tim Farron]

There is something in that, and I will come to that in a moment when I talk about poverty in our countryside, when it just does not look the way people in urban communities think it ought to look.

There is no doubt that family farms are under attack, but this did not start on 4 July, and I want to go through why we have ended up where we are now. The botched transition from the old farm payment scheme to the new one is the principal source of hardship among our farmers. Let us start with the fact that the environmental land management scheme—ELMS—budget saw a £350 million underspend under the last Government, and that was not an accident. It was blindingly obvious that that was going to happen. One hill farmer I spoke to just last month told me that, as a consequence of the transition, he will lose £40,000 a year in basic payment. To replace it, he will gain £14,000 under the sustainable farming incentive. By the way, it cost him £6,000 to go through a land agent in order to get in in the first place.

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[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

That was over a much longer period, but these changes will take effect much quicker. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that once the tax starts to bite, those jobs will be lost quite quickly. To put that into perspective, the OBR has predicted that only £590 million a year is due to be raised from this destructive policy. This Budget gave the Department for Work and Pensions a whopping £275.8 billion a year. The revenue raised from this tax would be a mere 0.2% of that total amount.

Over the past few weeks, I have had countless emails from worried farmers about their future, and I was lucky enough to meet some of them when they came up to London to protest recently. They varied in age from their late 20s to their early 90s, and it was a valuable meeting. Many had never protested in their lives, but they have chosen to use their voices now when their livelihoods are under threat. Again, to avoid press intrusion, I want to cite the case of David and his younger son, whose farm in the North Cotswolds has 265 acres, a suckler herd of 200 and a small flock of pedigree poll Dorset sheep. They have a range of modern and traditional buildings and have already diversified those. When they include their house, they estimate that their business is worth £5.5 million. David would be entitled to about £1.5 million in relief, and after the 50% relief from inheritance tax, with an effective rate that the Exchequer Secretary went through, that would leave him with a taxable amount of £800,000 on his death. The Minister might like to listen to this: that farmer only earns in total, on average, about £40,000 a year. How on earth is he expected to pay the tax and live on that £40,000? He will not. The farmer will have to sell up and the farm will not be available to future generations.

[Pete Wishart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

It is the last time.

[Pete Wishart]

Would the Tories not have a lot more credibility on this issue if they owned up to the disaster that was Brexit? It opened us up to cheap imports, increased costs for farmers and put up barriers and obstacles to trading. Would they not have much more credibility in attacking the Government on this if they admitted that that was an absolute disaster for farming communities?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to call an Adjournment debate on Brexit, he is entitled to do so.

I was talking about the serious issue of how this farmer and many others up and down the country will be able to afford the tax—they will not. I understand that the Government have suggested that farmers should be forward-planning and gifting their farms to their children now, which would mean that they could avoid the tax in future. However, for many farmers, that is not an option.

I will take another constituent of mine, who farms near Fosse Way. He is still working on his farm at 93. He did not retire at 65 like many of us, but has kept working the long, hard days, as he did during the second world war, to ensure that we have enough food on our table. He has spent years planning to ensure that his grandchildren could inherit and take over the farming business. Instead, under this Government, his plan has gone completely out of the window, because he will have to live until he is 101 if he is to avoid the tax altogether.

The only option facing many farmers across the country is to sell off their land and stop farming. Those farmers have worked the land for generations. Their children will have seen their parents take over and will have expected to take over when they can, but now face a future of uncertainty. The Government fail to answer the question of what kind of person will buy the land when it goes on the market. It will not be the ones who have farmed the land all their lives. It will likely be foreign investors and hedge fund managers. They will not have generations of knowledge of how to work the land and will likely take prime arable land out of production, as they could possibly make more money from alternatives.

When I worked on the previous Public Accounts Committee—I urge the Minister to listen and to pledge that he will do this—I managed to obtain a commitment from the last Government that the food security index would be published in Parliament every year. Will the Minister give that pledge so we can continue doing that? That way we can see what effect the tax, the selling off of farms and taking land out of production is having and whether our food production is dropping.

I end with a plea to the Government to go back to the drawing board. I understand that a technical tax consultation on the changes is due to be published early in 2025. I urge the Government to use this time to talk to farmers and professionals across the country and find a way that will ensure that farmers such as Nigel do not lose their life’s work to the taxman. Some obvious alleviations and changes to APR and BPR would be to raise the threshold, so that more smaller farm owners and rental farmers would be exempt, and to have a longer transitioning period. That will help farmers like 93-year-old Nigel. However, the best outcome would be to reverse the policy altogether. Farming is under threat. I do not want to see the fabric of our countryside destroyed for future generations.

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[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

I rise to support the many farmers in my constituency and the rural communities that farmers are the very heart of. I want to do something a little different in this debate and try to figure out what is behind some of the moves that the Labour party has put in place when it comes to farming. [Hon. Members: “What about Brexit?”] Believe me, I am coming to that, but I want to try to understand a little bit about the Government’s motives.

What I think it comes down to is a clumsy attempt to try to define what working people are. It is clear that farmers do not fit that bill. Even though they work 12-hour days in backbreaking conditions, mainly outdoors, right into older age, they just do not seem to fit into that particular clique.

Labour has always had an urban-centric view of our country. Everything it does in politics is viewed mainly through a metropolitan lens. Farmers have never really had a chance with this Labour Government. It should come as no surprise—I know why Labour Members shouted down the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman)—that someone as thoroughly unpleasant and John McTernan, Tony Blair’s former aide, would say something like farmers should receive the same as what Margaret Thatcher dished out to the miners. I think his view that we could do without our farming industry has just a little currency in the Labour party.

Labour Members would do well to be honest about these things. For our comrades on the Government Benches, farmers are simply not “one of us”. The last time we had a whole cohort of Labour Members on the Government Benches, we would mercilessly tease them that there were “nae ferms in Scottish Labour.” Two things about that quite unjust slight: first, they did not respond—they did not seem to care, it was a matter of “Whatevs”; and secondly, it was patently untrue. There were lots of farms in Scottish Labour, and there are with the cohort down here. A great number of Scottish Labour MPs represent rural and farming constituencies. But the point remains the same: they just do not care about what happens to farmers.

I think the general view is that Labour MPs do not rely on a rural farming vote—they could just about muddle through their elections without the support of the rural community. They see farming as just another business that they might find in one of their town or city centres. They understand nothing about how it is possible to be asset rich and resource poor, land values and the intimate nature of family farms, which are dependent on fixed assets to generate business and activity.

The simple fact is that this Government do not understand the rural community, or how the generational continuity of farms works. And now, loads of new Labour MPs represent rural constituencies in England. Rural Labour Members of Parliament do not tend to last all that long—they may be in for one term, or possible two terms at most. That is generally because they are forced to accept and subsume the agenda put forward by their Government. My bit of advice to them is to start thinking about the farmers and their communities, start to think about their own electoral arithmetic and try to be on the side of farmers for a change.

[Dan Norris (North East Somerset and Hanham) (Lab)]

I cannot believe what I am hearing. I am a four-time Member of Parliament for a semi-rural seat, having first been elected in 1997. The hon. Member is just talking nonsense. I have never heard anything like it.

[Pete Wishart]

I am a bit familiar with the hon. Gentleman’s electoral history—he was out of Parliament for quite a long time. It is good to see him back in his place, obviously, but he was booted out, which was basically down to his lack of interest, concern or care about what was happening in the rural community. If I were NFU England, I would be sure to put that in front of the Members of Parliament who represent rural constituencies in England.

I have a couple of bits of advice for some of the UK farmers and their representatives. First of all, Jeremy Clarkson is not their friend. He represents the part of the rural community that is so far away from the real struggle that farmers face that he may as well be in an urban Labour constituency. Secondly, farmers must be very careful of what the Conservative party is offering. Let us remember that the Conservative party oversaw the cost of living crisis, the ending of thousands of farms, and who—to come to the point made by hon. Members—brought in the absurd and economically illiterate Brexit. The Tory hard Brexit increased farming costs, introduced unnecessary barriers to markets, allowed lower-quality competitors in the marketplace and has taken billions of pounds out of the rural economy. How the Tories were able to sell this chaotic Brexit pup to so many rural communities will go down as one of the worse pieces of mis-selling in British farming.

There is a different way to do it. In Scotland, we do things differently. We are making sure that there will be a constant farm payment to farmers in Scotland. We have also put food production at the very heart of our farming policy. Today, in the Scottish Budget, as well as introducing a winter fuel payment, we will abolish the two-child benefit cap. On top of that, £660 million will be going to farmers. All the money that was kept for Government emergencies in the past few Budgets will be returned in full.

That is how the Government can support farmers. It would be good to see this Labour Government doing a bit of that in the future.

Public Spending: Inheritance

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The previous Government and the previous Chancellor should hang their heads in shame for the inheritance they have left for this Government to fix, but I will fix this mess: I will put our public finances and our public spending on a firmer footing. That is the responsible thing to do, and that is what I will do.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Everybody and their granny knew that there would be a multi-billion-pound black hole; only the Chancellor seemed to be deaf and blind to the situation. We knew that she would be here explaining the sheer scale of it, yet when we raised this issue during the election campaign, we were told that we were being misleading and that it was all mince. Well, we know now. Does cutting winter fuel payments to all pensioners not seem and feel like Tory austerity? What discussions has the Chancellor had with the Scottish Government, because as she will know, this is a devolved responsibility.

[Rachel Reeves]

My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury briefed the Scottish Government today on these decisions. These decisions are necessary: it is not in the interests of the Scottish people to have unfunded commitments, and to put our public finances and reputation for economic stability at risk. These are not easy decisions—they are difficult decisions—but the fault for them lies with the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman claims that what I have announced today is austerity, when we have just given a pay rise to more than 2 million public sector workers—he does not know what he is talking about.

Cost of Living

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Supermarket shelves empty of food and basic goods, unaffordable energy prices and inflation and interest rates going through the roof—these were the nightmare, apocalyptic scenarios facing Scotland if it voted for independence, or so we were told in 2014. Voting to stay in the Union, on the other hand, would guarantee freedom of movement, access to the European single market and the protection and enhancement of the Scottish Parliament’s powers. And we were told there was no chance that the then Mayor of London, now the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), would ever become Prime Minister. Those arguments, promises and vows were enough to persuade a majority of people across Scotland to say no, or at least not yet, to independence.

People now go shopping every day in Glasgow North to find supermarkets short of goods. They worry about the cost of heating their home and they despair as their rent or mortgage payments climb ever upwards. Access to Europe is more difficult, Tory Lords openly call for devolution to be wound back and we are all living with the consequences of a Johnson premiership. People in Scotland did not get what they voted for nine years ago. The United Kingdom, as it was on 18 September 2014, effectively no longer exists.

Every country in the world is having to deal with the consequences of the pandemic and of Russia invading Ukraine. Only one country in the world is having to deal with the impact of Brexit. Just as people who voted to stay in the Union were promised one thing only to be delivered something completely different, people who voted for Brexit are finding the reality very different from what was promised. There is no £350 million a week for the NHS, there has been no mega trade deal with the United States and this Parliament has not taken back control. The Tory Government have simply replaced Brussels bureaucrats with Whitehall mandarins as they award themselves ever-increasing powers through their Brexit legislation.

When Scotland voted not to become independent, the SNP and the Scottish Government accepted it and wanted to find a post-referendum settlement that could work for everyone, which is why we joined the Smith Commission and why SNP MPs came down to Westminster to lead, not leave, the UK. Compare that with the Conservative response to the European referendum. They delivered the hardest possible Brexit on the narrowest of mandates, and still it is a Brexit that satisfies no one. It is not isolationist enough for the European Research Group and the Maastricht rebels who occasionally prowl the Tory Back Benches, and it is still causing economic chaos up and down the country. The Government wave around the Windsor framework as if it is some kind of triumph, and they proclaim that Northern Ireland has the best of both worlds. By their own definition, the rest of the United Kingdom must have something worse.

The motion before the House points to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast of a 4% drop in the UK’s GDP entirely attributable to Brexit. Every day, the evidence of this is already visible in Glasgow North and around the country: the delays in getting essential supplies to shops and services; the staff shortages in social care, the health service, hospitality and entertainment; and the academic research and collaborations that are simply no longer happening because it is now too complex.

I have lost count of the number of small business people and entrepreneurs who have told me that they had to set up subsidiary companies or fresh outlets in European cities, at extra cost and expense, because of the hurdles that Brexit put in the way of them developing their business, and I have lost count of the number of constituents who are facing unexpected and sometimes unexplained bills, particularly from energy companies. Many of us will not have seen such cases before 2020. In fact, I think it has been a shock to many energy companies, too, because they are struggling to deal with the volume of inquiries and disputes, which is why I strongly support the campaign of my hon. Friends the Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) and for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) to better hold those companies to account in returning credit balances to customers and making prepayment meters much fairer. I also welcome the efforts to amend the Energy Bill to empower local communities to generate more of their own clean, green energy for use in their neighbourhoods.

Those are the kinds of solutions that groups such as Parents for Future and the Warm this Winter campaign, which I recently met in the Hillhead library, want to see. They want to see a fair, just and sustainable transition away from fossil fuels across all sectors, which could be at the heart of tackling the cost of living crisis. Localising our food systems, investing in public transport and active travel, and reducing, reusing, recycling and repurposing our consumer goods could help to create more jobs and make everyday life more affordable at the same time.

Those are the prizes available if we live up to the commitments that we all made, including this Conservative Government, to achieve the sustainable development goals and the targets set at COP26 in Glasgow and at other climate conferences, but all that seems to have been forgotten in the rush for the hardest possible Brexit and the Tory concept of a global Britain that is all about the imagined glories of the past.

The reality is that a Labour Government, by their own admission, would not change any of those fundamentals. A Labour Government would be pro-Brexit, anti-immigration and terrified of any meaningful constitutional reform.

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

My hon. Friend is making an exemplary speech, as always. We have seen how the Labour party has aligned itself with the Tories on Brexit, on immigration and on protest legislation. For how long will Labour be in step with the Tory attacks on our democracy, our devolution and our Parliament?

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is right to raise those concerns. We hear the drumbeat against the hard-won powers of devolution, which used to enjoy consensus, and we see the centralising tendency of all Westminster Governments. Whatever their shape, they want to centralise power here in the House of Commons. Labour has been promising reform of the House of Lords for more than 100 years, and it has been in power once or twice in that time without making a vastly noticeable difference. I disagree with the expectation that anything will change significantly. There will be an interruption, a brief interlude, as there always is, before the UK reverts to a Tory Government for whom Scotland has not voted.

Economic Update

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I ran a small technology business for 14 years, so that is very much where my heart is. There is a massive opportunity for the UK to create something a bit like the City of London, something that will pay an enormous amount of corporate tax for many years to come. Although I cannot give my hon. Friend the answer, I am determined to grip that opportunity.

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

Will the Chancellor take this opportunity to concede that he is now the de facto Prime Minister and that it is he who calls the shots in government, in what must be the most bizarre and surreal coup in political history? In this new role, does he think the current Prime Minister is a help or a hindrance to his economic objectives?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I will just say this: it is the most challenging form of leadership to accept that a decision one has made has to be changed. The Prime Minister has done that, and she has done so willingly, because she understands the importance of economic stability. I respect her for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan]

We are encouraging all higher and local authorities to look at the investment zones and to apply. I think they are a great tool for development, so I would absolutely encourage that application.

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

“Never has so much chaos been inflicted on so many by so few” will be the motto that will reverberate down the eons from this Government. Do they actually still believe in this fairy tale of levelling up? Is it not now just a matter of how far they are going to level us all down?

[Felicity Buchan]

Everything we are doing is being driven by a growth agenda so that we can level up all the way across the United Kingdom.

Downing Street Parties: Police Investigation

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, but, of course, police investigations and how they are conducted are operationally independent. I am sure that they will have heard what he said.

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

Does the Paymaster General not think that it would be a good idea to set up a police special operations unit room in No. 10 Downing Street, because, while the police are looking at this case, they could perhaps look at cash for honours, cash for access, personal protective equipment for pals, paid advocacy, breaking the ministerial code, and all the other general Tory badness?

[Michael Ellis]

I have to say that a quick Google analysis of the SNP would not be particularly edifying. Despite noises off, this Prime Minister is focused on what matters to the British people and it is right that those matters conclude in an orderly way.

Downing Street Garden Event

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I can say only that the Prime Minister has asked that the inquiry be swift and I have no indications other than that.

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

This is not the straw that broke the camel’s back; it is a 10-tonne weight being placed directly on the poor dilapidated beast’s posterior. Surely if the Prime Minister has a smidgen of self-respect or any sense of integrity, he will be listening to this and decide himself that it is time to go—for goodness’ sake, man, go!

[Michael Ellis]

The Prime Minister focuses on the primary purpose of running this country, which is to deliver on the manifesto promises of this Government. The primary purpose of the investigation will be to establish swiftly a general understanding of the nature of the gatherings that we have been hearing about, which will include attendance, the setting and the purpose. I know that the hon. Gentleman is inclined to presuppose the result, but the fair approach would be to wait until the results of the investigation, which has been commissioned for several weeks now.