Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The Government’s position on a House business committee remains unchanged: we will not be bringing forward proposals to establish such a committee. There was an absence of consensus on the issue at the end of the previous Parliament, and we believe that that remains the case today.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the purgatory for next week. As for his recess plans, they sound like some kind of holiday from hell, and I think I will resist the temptation to join him in that particular venture. I also thank him for his kind regards about the Scotland football team. I think we are recovering from the heartbreak of last night, and we all wish the Lionesses the very best in the remaining stages of the contest.

This business statement is unbelievable. Other than half a day for the Scottish National party, it is another week of absolutely nothing. This House should now be done under the Vagrancy Act. Never before in the history of Parliament has so little been done by so many on behalf of so few, as Churchill would never have said. But small mercies—at last this is the final day of the contest to see who will be gubbed by the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). It has become a kind of grotesque “Love Island”, without the love, the entertainment or the island. Maybe it is just Boris island. And I seriously do not get all this fuss about the issue of the racist rantings of the right hon. Gentleman being raised. If people say racist and unacceptable things, they have to expect to be held to account for them. I represent the most marginal SNP/Tory seat in the country. My leaflet is set to go, and it is simply a picture of the right hon. Gentleman and all his choice comments, with added quotes from Ruth Davidson. Scotland just will not take to his appalling “Etonic” buffoonery, and reasonable soft Tory voters in Scotland will be deserting the Tories in droves.

May we have a debate about Brexit? Remember that? They gave us extra time to try to resolve it, but they also told us to use that time wisely. We have not debated it in weeks, and there is no plan to debate it in the coming weeks. It is four weeks until the summer recess, and no progress has been made. Can the Leader of the House confirm that we will not be seeing the withdrawal agreement again? It must be dead and buried now. There is a new word that I want to introduce to the parliamentary lexicon, and that word is “unicornism”. That now seems to be the central policy of this Government in their approach to Brexit. They are doing nothing other than waste time and run down the clock. Halloween will soon be upon us, and the nightmare on Brexit Street will be set to haunt us all.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his weekly contribution. I have to say that it had a familiar ring to it, although I have to disagree with him about the summer recess. How could it possibly be a holiday from hell with him there? It would be nothing other than a great pleasure. He did give us the same old tunes, though. Last week I said he was using the Abba playbook, but this week I am going to elevate him to the Beatles. His meandering litany of woe was “The Long and Winding Road” that we had to endure, but as we know, it will all end up in the same place for the “Nowhere Man”. Anyway. They don’t get any better, do they?

The hon. Gentleman asks for a Brexit debate. The House has certainly debated Brexit at significant length over a very significant period—the best part of three years now. He could have chosen this very week to debate it in the half day allotted to the Scottish National party, although I have no doubt that, in the immigration debate that the SNP has chosen, he will be able to weave the European Union in somewhere.

Cox Report: Implementation

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this important debate. I also thank other parliamentary colleagues for contributing to what has been an excellent debate that has given us the opportunity to kick around some issues that now go back almost two years.

The major theme is that there seems to be some slowness in execution or a paucity of action around some of the conclusions and recommendations of Dame Laura Cox’s report. I do not take great exception to that, because the report was produced in October and its conclusions were accepted in a debate in November, and it is now only June of the following year, which is not particularly unusual. I am pretty used to the glacial pace that this House operates under and to the speed at which things get done, so I do not find it at all unreasonable that we have waited some seven or eight months to get to this stage.

I want to go through conclusions one by one to see what progress we have made. As everybody has said, Dame Laura made only the three recommendations. I think we have established that the first has been dealt with, which was to abandon the Valuing Others and Respect policies. The second recommendation was, of course, that the independent complaints and grievance scheme should be amended to ensure that historical cases can be heard, and we have heard a few contributions, most notably from the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who represents the House of Commons Commission, that progress is being made on that.

I declare an interest in that I have been involved in the ICGS since its inception, and I have just recently been appointed to the House of Commons Commission—an august body on which I look forward to serving. The members of the ICGS group take things seriously when we are presented with them, and it was important that the second recommendation was considered with full intent, which is what we have done. I have seen the shadow Leader of the House shaking her head about all that, and we had a series of meetings just to see how to respond. We said that we would move forward, so we had a consultation, and we are trying to ensure that we move forward and that the recommendations on that specific point are accepted by the House.

The matter will be debated further at a forthcoming meeting of the House of Commons Commission, which will be my first, and I hope that there will be progress. I therefore do not see any big issues with the second recommendation, but if I am missing something, I am more than happy for the right hon. Member for Basingstoke to intervene and tell me where the drawbacks are and where something is being lost.

The third recommendation is that the process for determining complaints should be independent and free from any involvement from Members of Parliament and, again, I have seen progress there. There is a complicated issue relating to how we deal with historical cases, and there were delicate negotiations with the Committee on Standards as to how things would be progressed. I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who chairs the Committee, is not here, because I am pretty certain that she would reiterate that it is important to get things right when making really important decisions about how we operate. I know that there were real issues with how to do that, and that legality and other things had to be considered. I think we are making steady progress, and there is a view that independence will be created—no one in this House would deny that.

I see progress in all these things. It might not be fast enough for the right hon. Member for Basingstoke and other Members, but I am ticking all these recommendations. I am ticking the top recommendation, with two thirds of a tick for the other ones. I understand there is a real desire to get things going, but we are not doing all that bad.

[Mrs Miller]

Would the hon. Gentleman be satisfied if employers in his constituency reacted so glacially, to use his term, to important recommendations about the safety of his constituents? I am not sure he would. I also think he needs to reflect on whether the two-thirds ticks he is giving those two elements actually make any difference to staff in this place. It might make a difference to him and to members of the Commission but, if we were to ask staff, they will not have noticed a blind bit of difference.

[Pete Wishart]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point, but what is more important to me when it comes to these things is that they are done right for the constituents I represent, for the staff I employ in this House and for my obligations and responsibilities as a Member of Parliament.

It is important that we get this right, which is why some of the conversations and negotiations that are required have to be played out so we get to the right solution, and I believe we are getting there. We owe it to the House to get to the right place. We have to make progress, and we have to deal with this.

I remember when all this started. There was a huge flurry of activity, with party leaders getting together under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister. There was an urgency about it. Something had to be done.

The energy seems to have been sucked out of that initiative, and I do not know why. The Chamber is a bit busier now but, at its busiest, I counted only 15 Members here to discuss these important issues. At one point during the debate we were down to seven Back-Bench colleagues listening to these important proceedings.

I suggest that somehow we are not getting the message out to other colleagues, and I am grateful to everyone who has been here. The contributions have been sincere and heartfelt, but we are not exciting the House with these proposals. We have to do more to ensure that Members are engaged with this process, because it is about us. It is about our behaviour and how we respond to staff and to the parliamentary community.

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that perhaps one way of getting the attention of Members would be to act on my earlier suggestion—in fact, it was recommended by Alison Stanley—that all Members should be required to do the Valuing Everyone programme? That would draw people’s attention to it.

[Pete Wishart]

I will address Alison Stanley’s recommendations, which are important. The six-month review of the ICGS is important, and we are all grateful for her contribution and the sterling leadership that she offered. Again, I see the shadow Leader of the House nodding her head in agreement, because Alison Stanley demonstrated real leadership on these issues.

One of Alison Stanley’s main recommendations, and one of the things that was changed in the scheme—this is why these things are so important to get right—is that the training will now be compulsory for all Members. In the early stages of the working group’s report, it was suggested that the training would be voluntary. We tried to do as much as possible to encourage Members to undertake the training, but now it is to be mandatory. I know the right hon. Gentleman did the training yesterday, because he did it with two of my staff. I brought them all the way down from Perth to ensure they would be among the first to be properly trained in the scheme. My staff’s recollection of the event is that he was an assiduous and energetic collaborator in the exercise, on which I congratulate him.

Along with the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House, I was supposed to be the first to undertake the training, but I had responsibilities elsewhere. I say today—I will be held to account for this—that I will undergo the training at the earliest opportunity. Every Member should ensure they do the training, because it is important. We have 15,000 people working on this estate. We have huge obligations and responsibilities to ensure that everybody who enters it, be they those who work here or visitors, is treated with respect and dignity. Regardless of everything else that happens in this place, the one thing we can all agree and unite on is that there should be zero tolerance of any inappropriate behaviour by anybody who works on this estate, be they people who work for Members of Parliament or others working in any capacity across this House.

I served on the ICGS group, and I join in the tributes to the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)—I always find it curious when “south” and “north” are in the same constituency name, but I think I said that about right. She, too, was really dedicated to this and provided inspired leadership for the report. Her determination and sheer willingness to get this through ensured that we got to this stage. If anything is going to be her legacy, it will be the fact that we have been able to progress to this stage on the ICGS.

We have just had Alison Stanley’s six-month review, and I have already said how highly I regard her and the work she has done. All of us on the ICGS group are eternally grateful for all that. She made important recommendations, and it was right that the ICGS was reviewed at six months. There is another commitment, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, to have it reviewed again in 18 months. I will say again today that I am happy to continue to serve. I will just talk about my association with the work that has been done so far, but I look forward to serving that committee and coming back in a year’s time just to see where we are on it.

The most important recommendation was the one mentioned by the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, which was that training will be mandatory. We had a look at some of the processes that have been set up, for example the independent helpline. There is a general conclusion that it is working satisfactorily. The number of people who have sought help and advice via the independent line is really encouraging; so many people have now seen this as a feature they can go to in order to secure the assistance that they feel they require, so we know that it is working. All the way through the ICGS process, we have looked at things to do with confidentiality, with the involvement of Members of Parliament—the so-called “marking your own homework”—and with ensuring that we make progress on historical cases. We have had countless debates and sometimes even arguments about all these features. We have got to a place where we are reasonably okay.

On the historical cases, I believe we are getting there. I think we are going in the right direction. We were probably shaken a little by legal advice we got about how a new scheme would be applied to people who had not signed up to it. We all questioned the quality of that legal advice and opinion—initially we had advice we were prepared to accept, which said that it could not be. Dame Laura Cox could not care less about that, and, as a former High Court judge, she is probably right; opinions probably do not come greater when it comes to this thing. She said that she was having nothing to do with that and historical cases would have to be looked at. That was a clear recommendation to the independent ICGS group to look at this and incorporate it. As I have said, there is a real and absolute commitment to do that.

I will not go through the progress on the other issues on which Dame Laura makes recommendations, because, as I have said, I think we are getting there, although I know we might not be doing so with the speed that some in this House would like or to their satisfaction. I think we will get there, and I believe that within a short period we will get to the point where we will have implemented all the recommendations made by Dame Laura.

There is one feature I do not think we have made enough progress on, and I continually come back to this. I am referring to the culture of this place and how this House operates, how it appears, how it feels and what it expresses about dynamic power relationships and arrangements. We have to do more work on this. Banning alcohol in the Members’ Tea Room and in the cafeteria was to be it—that is utterly ridiculous. We are talking about one small bottle or glassful of wine, but a ban was seen as attacking the culture in this place. I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is almost laughable that that was the only positive and concrete proposal that was implemented. That is just nonsense.

We have to look more at how this place does things, and we have a blueprint for that in Sarah Childs’ guide, “The Good Parliament”. If Members have not read it, I ask them to please have a look at it, because it suggests a number of things we could do, even down to how we light the place and how we arrange and put together meeting spaces. This place practically oozes patriarchy out of its statues, paintings and walls. The new types of arrangements that we need to put in place to become the modern Parliament that we need to be are almost impossible to design because of the way we arrange this place and the way the House is structured.

I have suggested a number of proposals. The way we address each other in this place is ridiculous. I cannot call people by their first name. In how many other places in the world can people not do that? I was born with a name and I am quite happy for people to use it. I have to wear a tie in this place and be dressed in a suit like this. The Speaker of the House is responsible for dressing me. The last person to have been responsible for dressing me to go out was my mum, yet we allow the Speaker to define a dress code for male Members of Parliament. It is utterly ridiculous. I know that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington would tell me to dispense with the tie, because he is an example of doing that, but how long did that change take? We have all these weird things and gentlemen of this House are expected to dress in a particular way that serves no purpose whatsoever, other than to try to suggest a sort of authority.

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman has just noticed that the tie was perhaps not a good example to go for, but I encourage him and his colleagues, who have been assiduous in pushing the idea that the new temporary Chamber that is to be established in Richmond House should be used to test some of the different arrangements in this Chamber that he and I would like to see.

[Pete Wishart]

The tie example was a bad one, even though that change took a long time, as I said. The right hon. Gentleman is a proud exponent of the non-tie arrangements and decorum of this place. I do support the idea that there are things we could do. If we are to move out of this place, why are we moving to a temporary place that does exactly the same things and looks, feels and appears to be the same place? Why not try to do something different? I know the right hon. Gentleman has been paying attention to my clear and detailed agenda to replace the current Speaker. The proposals I have put forward include things such as electronic voting. Let us try to bring this place into the 21st century—

[Tom Brake]

And they are related to the Cox recommendations.

[Pete Wishart]

As the right hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position, my proposals relate to the Cox recommendations. Can we please do more to look at how we do business in the House, how this place feels and how it looks to people who come into the House? For goodness’ sake, we still have a place down the corridor called the Lords. The forelock tugging and cap doffing goes on, and there are still people called Lords and Ladies. What does that say to the people who come to this place from throughout the country? That somehow these are our betters—these are people who are titled, and they run the country.

[Mrs Miller]

Earlier in his remarks, the hon. Gentleman alluded to the fact that he is a member of the House of Commons Commission. It will be noticeable to people listening to the debate that the two individuals who are members of the Commission are far more positive about the progress that has been made on Cox than the rest of us are. Will the hon. Gentleman remind me and other Members who put him in his position on the House of Commons Commission? It would be helpful for the House to be aware of that.

[Pete Wishart]

Ah, that is a very good point, and I will answer it fully and comprehensively. I do not know who said it, but of course people should be elected to the House of Commons Commission, and that is what we should do for everybody in the management of the House.

I would go further than that, because a key feature of the ICGS was the fact that staff members and trade union representatives were involved—representatives of the general staff of the House—and they did two important things. First, they gave a voice to the members of staff who work in all parts of the House. They made probably the most useful and positive contributions throughout that whole experience. Secondly, they had a restraining effect on the Members of Parliament who served on the group. We were somehow better behaved because members of staff were part of the group, and it did not feel like a bunch of MPs getting together and shouting at each other in the most appalling and useless way.

I make this appeal: as well as reforming the Commission to include elections for Members of Parliament, we should also have staff members on it. The Commission is responsible for the management of the House, and therefore it should include people from the whole House community. As I look around the House, I do not see a great deal of agreement on that point, but I hope that Members of Parliament might actually give the idea some thought. Let us run the House in a way that represents the people who work in this place. I think that is a reasonable suggestion.

We will have a debate about the future of the Commission, and I look forward to being part of it. I say to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke that, unfortunately, I cannot be held responsible for any earlier decisions—I have not been to a meeting yet. I am looking forward to going to my first one on 24 June. She is looking at me as if I were responsible for some of the decisions that have been made, but I cannot claim that responsibility yet. If she wants to come back in a few months’ time, she can blame me for all the terrible things that are going on in the Commission if we have not managed to get some of the reforms through.

I am all for reforming the House of Commons Commission. It would be good to have a positive debate about the type of management structure that we want in this House. Perhaps it would be an idea to include the Backbench Business Committee in this, as it seems to be getting all the business just now. The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) might as well be the Leader of the House rather than the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), given that he practically determines and dictates everything that is going on, including this debate. Perhaps it would be useful to encourage him to hold a debate on the House of Commons Commission. We would be able to hear the range of opinions about how we can make this House a more effective, democratic and useful type of organisation. One thing that we have to conclude is that this organisation has issues and difficulties. Is the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire the man to fix them? Probably not. We need everybody in the House to be involved and engaged in that debate, and I hope that we have it.

Finally, there is the ownership issue. This is a very important issue, and it might get to the heart of some of the frustrations and difficulties that Members have expressed throughout the course of this debate. It is about who owns what when it comes to the plethora of initiatives—I say plethora because, in my view, we have too many things going on. I have been a member of the ICGS group, so I am familiar with that work and I know what we are doing in that regard. I also have a good sense about the direction that we should take and the type of service that we should deliver. Obviously I know Dame Laura’s report, because I have read it and attended these debates on it, but then there is also Gemma White’s review. Another review is also going on in the House of Lords. We have four initiatives, which seem to be happening simultaneously with different terms of reference. Although most of them seem to be working quite collegially with each other, we are creating confusion and difficulties. We need to look at how we can bring these initiatives together under one work stream, which will make it sensible not just for Members of Parliament but for people across the House.

If there is something that we can take away from today, it is how we can start to combine these initiatives. Then we must decide who owns this. It looks as though it will be the Commission—I accept my responsibilities and obligations when it comes to that—but perhaps the Commission is not the best place to look at the ownership of all this. This is just a thought—it is not a thought-out suggestion or proposal—but perhaps we should be looking at some sort of Select Committee, some sort of new elected authority, that would have ownership over these initiatives and be charged by the House to look specifically at these issues. I think this is important enough for us to do that. I know that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, but perhaps we need something beyond that, which could possibly include our friends from that high and mighty place to which we always have to pay due deference—that is if they deign to be part of something with us humble directly elected Members. I put that forward as a suggestion. I will think more about it and see whether I can come back with a firmed-up proposal.

I say to colleagues throughout the House that they should not despair. We have come a long way. We need to do more to reactivate interest from colleagues across the House, and the mandatory training will help to do that once people are asked to do something that is perhaps part of a more general package. Steady progress is being made. I do not share the great sense of disappointment that the right hon. Lady and others have expressed about whether we are getting there, because I am confident that we are.

It has been an absolute pleasure, privilege and humbling experience to have been involved in the conversations and debates on this issue. [Interruption.] I see that the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) has returned to the Chamber; I did pay tribute to her for her leadership in all this. I think we all bear the scars of the past year and a half when it comes to these matters, but it has been an excellent experience to work with others across the House, including the shadow Leader of the House. We are getting there. I would appeal for just a little bit more patience, because the most important thing is that we get it right.

Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for raising this issue. Matthew Flinders was a very great nautical man—a great explorer of Australia, in particular. Of course, my right hon. Friend and I share something in common in that we were both distinguished members of the Government Whips Office at various stages in our careers, which is probably why he has alighted on the fact that he is so good at finding out where the bodies are buried—but in this case we have established that it is somewhere near Euston station. I will do whatever I can to assist him in his quest to make sure that the remains of Matthew Flinders find their home where they should be, in Donington in his constituency.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing this thrilling instalment of non-business for next week. I also wish the Labour Chief Whip a happy birthday. All he wants is for his Back Benchers to observe a three-line Whip for once.

May we have a debate about sustainable populations? Today, the cull begins in this grotesque Tory horror show as the candidates are cut down to more manageable numbers—cruel, but necessary to maintain a healthy population. This is where “Britain’s Not Got Talent” meets “I’m a Tory, Get Me Out of Here”, as they are whittled away until the coronation of “the one”.

It is almost unbelievable that the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) is the runaway favourite, with all his baggage of Islamophobia and misogyny. He even now wants tax cuts for the rich in England to be partly paid for by national insurance contributions from Scotland. The only good thing about his soon-to-be ascendancy is that it speeds up the whole process of Scottish independence.

After all the difficulties, may we have a debate on drugs legislation and perhaps even “draw a line” under the problems? I do not think we should be locking up these senior Tories for all their drugs indiscretions, just as I do not think we should be locking up problem drug users who have addiction disorders, mental health issues or have suffered adverse childhood experiences. They should not be locked up either, but as with so many other issues, for this Government it is, “Do as I say, not as I do.” We have a criminal justice approach to drugs that locks up the poor and allows others to stand for the post of Prime Minister.

I listened carefully to the Leader of the House, but I still hear the candidates being prepared to suspend our democracy and prorogue Parliament to get this disastrous no deal through. That is the agenda of so many Members who are standing for the post of Prime Minister. Some of them refuse to rule it out. We need to hear clearly and definitively from the Leader of the House that he is not prepared to have our democracy suspended. Who would have believed that taking back control meant suspending our democracy and this House, when they ranted and raved about mythical, undemocratic Brussels bureaucrats denying us our democracy? We know who the true democracy deniers are now.

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman, as we all know, is one of the most talented musicians in the House, having been in a very fine band or two and even appeared on “Top of the Pops”. None the less, it is simply not good enough to come to this Chamber week after week and play the same old tunes—and as far as I can tell, they are all out of the ABBA playbook. Whenever he is pressing a Minister, it is “Money, Money, Money”. When he is pressing his electorate, it is always, “Take a Chance On Me”. Once again, he took the opportunity to raise his push for a second referendum, but if he continues to do that, it will not be long before we hear his version of “Waterloo”. That is about as good as it gets, I am afraid; I will be back by popular demand next week.

The hon. Gentleman asks for a debate on drug legalisation, which is a very serious subject. The House has much debated the matter in the past, but the largesse of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) might extend to that if he feels it appropriate. The hon. Gentleman will have heard my answer in response to the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) about prorogation.

Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s question—I know he is a welcome and regular fixture on these occasions, and I look forward to future questions from him. The Government welcome the growing bilateral relations with the Maldives and President Solih’s commencement of steps to rejoin the Commonwealth. My hon. Friend may wish to raise that issue with Foreign Office Ministers during the next Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions on 25 June.

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

I thank the new Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business, and I warmly welcome him to his post. He is only the fourth Leader of the House that I have encountered over the past four years, but I have a feeling that he will be about the best yet. In that spirit, given all the unallotted days that are kicking about, and the lack of business, how about giving the SNP a debate one of these days? Perhaps that could be a starting gift for him to offer the Scottish National party.

The post of Leader of the House is usually offered to those in government who are firmly on their way up, or decidedly on their way down. I will leave it up to the right hon. Gentleman to decide which category he falls into. However, looking at this poor excuse for business, it is not a new Leader of the House that is required—it’s the sandman. We do not need a business statement; we need a cup of Horlicks laced with Mogadon. This business purgatory is where zombies go to die. We have only another six or so weeks of this nonsense to go before we can all go away and do something much more interesting.

May I fully associate myself with what has been said about D-day? This 75th anniversary has caught the whole nation’s imagination, and we pay tribute to all those engaged in providing the freedom that we enjoy in this House today.

I bet Government Members are delighted to be back—that was a good and productive week off! Absolutely and totally gubbed in the euro elections, their Brexit going nowhere, and Farage pulling all the strings once again in their dilapidated party. May we have a debate about beauty contests—specifically, no-deal Brexiteer beauty contests? SNP Members are enjoying watching those Tory beauties strutting their stuff, with their mad plans about the degree of just how disastrous their Brexit will be. One thing that has come out of their hustings thus far, however, is the suggestion that this Parliament could be prorogued to facilitate their no-deal Brexit. The first thing that the new Leader of the House must say this morning is that that subversion of democracy will never be considered or entertained, and that he has no intention of suspending democracy in this country to facilitate that no-deal Brexit.

Lastly, may we have a debate about anything—something with some meaning? We have all this to look forward to when we come back again to hear another business statement that says exactly the same thing next week. Welcome to your new life, Leader of the House.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I have observed him from a distance over many weeks performing as he has done—he normally has a tightly knit script of prose that he rattles through at great speed, and we were not disappointed in that respect this morning. With his comments about zombies and other references there was something more of the Rab C. Nesbitt than the Rabbie Burns about it on this occasion—[Interruption.] I do have a soft spot for the hon. Gentleman, so he will make good headway with me on a general basis.

On SNP Opposition days, the hon. Gentleman will know that the Standing Orders are clear that there should be 20 Opposition day debates in any one Session, with 17 for the largest Opposition party, and three for the second largest, which is the Scottish National party. Those days have already been allocated and occurred, but in the spirit of the hon. Gentleman’s generous opening remarks, I would be happy to sit down with him, at a time of his convenience, to discuss that matter, and perhaps even the vexed issue that he raised about whether I am on my way up or on my way down. Only time will tell.

The hon. Gentleman raised a specific point about Prorogation, which of course is ultimately in the gift of the Queen. I think Her Majesty should be kept out of the politics of our Parliament, and I am sure that matter will be in the forefront for those who toy with such decisions in the future. He also mentioned the Bills being introduced, and I think many fine Bills are coming forward in this House, as well as many important debates. It should be borne in mind that debate does not just take place on the Floor of the House, and important work is also carried out in many important Committees.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Of all the things this House can do to endear itself to the good people of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, spending billions of pounds on renovating the place where we, the Members of Parliament, do our work probably, just about, would not make the top 10. In these days of austerity and with us still going through all the horrors and psychodramas of this crazy Tory Brexit it almost seems like it is designed to intentionally wind up the good people of this country. So I sincerely wish this House all the very best in trying to sell this to a sceptical and, frankly, had-enough nation.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I have barely started, but I will give way given that the hon. Lady is Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman is critical of spending money on the UK Parliament so it amuses me that there are colleagues of all of ours up the road, as he would say, in a wonderful, splendid modern Parliament building that cost the taxpayer quite a lot of money.

[Pete Wishart]

I will say two things to the hon. Lady. [Interruption.] She is already hearing a chorus on one of them: it cost less than Portcullis House. And if she wants to know about the difficulties in designing a Parliament and creating a Parliament she only needs to look at the experience of the Scottish Parliament. That was one of the first pieces of work that the Scottish Parliament went into, and I can tell the hon. Lady that it was not particularly easy; there was real discontent about it. That is what this House and Members will experience; that is what they have got to look forward to, because they will have to try to sell this to a sceptical nation, and I wish them all the very best.

On that, let me declare an interest—or maybe a disinterest. Me and my colleagues do not intend to be here at the end of the process.

[Meg Hillier]

Labour gains.

[Pete Wishart]

I was going to tell a few jokes in my speech, but I think we have heard the funniest one already: the idea of the Labour party gaining any seats from the Scottish National party is the best joke we will hear.

Let me declare my disinterest: me and my SNP colleagues are not going to be here. We are probably not even going to be here at the commencement of the project given its tortuous progress. So we will let other Members get on with their vital restoration and renewal work while we get down to the business of restoring and renewing our beautiful country in the shape of the priorities of the Scottish people.

I like the fact that those in charge of this call it restoration and renewal—R and R. Who doesn’t like a bit of R and R? Everybody likes that. If they called it the restoring of a Parliament for the Members of Parliament of this country I am sure they would have a few more difficulties in trying to explain that to the people of this country. And good luck to them in defending the £4 billion to £6 billion that they will have to spend on restoring and renewing this place.

[Jonathan Edwards]

My hon. Friend may recall that when the National Assembly for Wales had a new building the cost was £60 million, and the Conservative party in particular ran a full-scale campaign against that expenditure, yet it seems very relaxed about spending well over £5 billion on this Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I have to say very candidly to my hon. Friend that I have given up trying to second-guess what this Conservative party says about anything when it comes to spending in this country.

I think the people of the United Kingdom will now be trying to figure out how many schools and hospitals £4 billion to £6 billion could build, and I am pretty certain that all other Members will be reminded of that right up until their posteriors return to these restored and renewed green Benches.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

Of course I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Just so the hon. Gentleman knows, I agree with him: every £100 million we spend on this permanent replica Chamber is £100 million less for teachers and doctors and nurses and all the rest. I just want the hon. Gentleman to know that I am fully on his side.

[Pete Wishart]

It is always curious what we pick up in the way of allies when we are going through particular issues and projects. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that additional comment.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It just so happens, as I will touch on in my own contribution, that I was on the Holyrood progress group, which was in charge of building the Scottish Parliament building, and I can remember the sound and the fury and the brickbats that came my way, John Home Robertson’s way and Linda Fabiani’s way as we proceeded with the project, yet I am bound to say this: I think my SNP friends will agree that now that the building is finished Scotland is extremely proud of it and nobody mentions the price any more—and I for one am proud to have been involved in building such a landmark in Scotland’s history.

[Pete Wishart]

I am tempted to say, “So it’s all his fault then,” but I will not do that—and I stress that I only said that in jest before the hon. Gentleman gets all shirty. He is absolutely right: the Scottish Parliament had a tortuous progress, and I commend the hon. Gentleman because I know he served on that group with distinction and hard work, and that project was down to those people who designed all of that. We should not forget, however, the fuss that was created for a very modest building that cost less than Portcullis House.

We are talking about something that it is said will cost £4 billion to £6 billion, but nobody actually believes it will cost that; it is never going to cost £4 billion. Most people suspect that that figure will come in at closer to £10 billion or £12 billion, and that is before we even find out all the different things that will be underneath as we start to dig under. We have already heard about Edward the Confessor; that was just in the car park of this building. Goodness knows what else will be discovered and the archaeological programmes that will be undertaken. So I salute the other Members of this House in their bold and courageous move and look forward to them selling this to the people of this nation; and from afar we will be watching and wishing them all the best as they get down to restoring and renewing this building.

But I agree that this building is falling down and becoming a hazard to all those who work here. Decades of neglect and indecision have seen to that. Anybody who stands still for a moment in this place now stands a very good chance of being hit by falling masonry. It is so overrun with vermin that even the mice in this place now wear overalls. Because of decades of prevarication this building is practically falling down. The failure of successive Governments to face up to their responsibilities means we now have a building that could face a catastrophic failure or massive fire at any time.

Everyone has drawn the comparisons with Notre Dame and that is right. The Leader of the House has given that example in her many comments on this; she has said the example of Notre Dame shows why this is now imperative. But there are key differences between this House and that cathedral on the Seine: one is a building where people think they speak to God and the other is Notre Dame cathedral.

It will probably not come as a great surprise to learn that me and my SNP colleagues do not share the same dewy-eyed affection and nostalgia that some Members feel towards this place. I have to say that I personally love this building. It is a truly iconic building, and it is a real pleasure and privilege to work in it; walking down Victoria Street to work I feel a sense of pride that I am coming to work in what is a fantastic building. But I have to say that I could probably just about discharge my responsibilities as a Member of Parliament from somewhere else.

This is a beautiful building, but it comes with particular historical baggage. It was very much associated with a height of empire when it was built, and with some of the worst excesses of global imperialism, which we have to concede was a feature of the 19th century United Kingdom. It is a building that is ingrained with 19th-century power relationships, and with a historical cap-doffing, forelock-tugging culture. We even have one part of the building where we refer to people as lords and ladies, and we actually think that is okay! What type of building is this that creates this kind of culture? If we are serious about being a new, modern 21st-century Parliament, we should have a building that reflects these new ambitions and aspirations. We should not be trying to shoehorn Parliament into a mock-Gothic Victorian tourist attraction. Why are we not thinking properly about this?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I always love the hon. Gentleman’s banter, but I must gently point out to him that the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) is a member of the House of Commons Commission, and I remember feisty discussions in which I was worrying about the value for money for taxpayers and the hon. Member for Dundee East was insisting that the money must be spent and that we had to get on with the project. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is telling a slightly different story now, but it is his Scottish National party colleague on the House of Commons Commission who wants this work to go ahead.

[Pete Wishart]

The Leader of the House is right in one respect. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East was the Scottish National party member of the House of Commons Commission, but I am now the new member of that commission. Let me make it clear that we are all for moving out of this place—of course we are. We have to move out. It would be ridiculous to try to stay in a place that is practically falling down and that is infested with vermin. It is no place for our visitors to come to and it is imperative that we should move.

I am coming on to talk about what I think we should be moving out to, and what we should do to ensure that we get value for money, because that is the key feature in our discussions today. We know that this very technical and mechanical Bill provides for the governance of the project, but it is very much caught up in the whole idea of how we present a modern Parliament in the future.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is right to say that no one is arguing against spending any money whatsoever. This is about achieving value for money and doing the right thing. Let us look at the new Scottish Parliament, with its new, modern Chamber that is accessible to everyone; it has electronic voting and even has normal daylight coming in. That is what that money was spent on. What is being proposed here is simply to do everything up but keep it exactly the same, even though it is not fit for purpose.

[Pete Wishart]

That is the key point. Why are we taking this place apart, only to reassemble it in the same way and do the same old bad things in the same old venue? It is so unimaginative. Whoever presented this idea really must have been up all night thinking about it, mustn’t they? “Let’s just come back to the same place that we are going to be leaving! And when we leave this place temporarily, let’s just create a carbon copy for us to use before we come back to this place!” That makes absolutely no sense.

When I look around this building, I get a sense that it is a sad metaphor for Brexit Britain. It is dilapidated, falling to bits around our ears and unloved, and it could go up in flames at any minute. Is that not a truly fantastic representation of the Brexit Britain that we are heading towards? Perhaps this Parliament and this building are exactly what this country deserves. The Leader of the House is right to say that we have to move out, for the sake of the thousands of people who work here and the many visitors who come here. It is for them that we must move out, but to move out simply to come back to the same building, with all its cultural and historical trappings, is a serious mistake.

It is a real pity that we were not listened to when we were going through all these Committees, when we proposed selling this building off to the private sector. People would be queuing up and biting our arm off to get hold of a place like this. It is a UNESCO site and one of the most iconic buildings in the world. They would be fighting each other to get their hands on it. Selling it off to the private sector would obviously save us billions of pounds on the redevelopment costs. We could then move out to a new building that would meet our requirements as a modern 21st-century democracy. It would meet all the security arrangements that we obviously need, and it would actually accommodate all 650 Members, which is more than can be said for this place. Why was this not thought about seriously? I think it is a huge deficiency that that was not done. My hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) tried to ensure that that proposal was properly considered in the Committee, but it was not even given the time of day. The House has definitely let the country down by not considering it.

Let us imagine what would happen if we did sell this place off. I would like to see it become a museum to British democracy, where people could come and be amused by how Members of Parliament behaved and did their business in the early 21st century, braying like perfidious donkeys on speed to show their approval because they are not allowed to clap, and wandering around in circles for hour after hour just to register their decisions on what happens in this place. People would laugh out loud at the fact that Members referred to themselves as “honourable” and “right honourable”. I can just imagine the joy and amusement that would be brought to visitors from around the world who came to a museum of British democracy here in the House of Commons on this UNESCO site. It was a failure of diligence of the House not to consider that option.

We now have this Bill, based on decisions that were taken last year. The Leader of the House was right to say that it is all about the governance involved. It creates the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body, and we will also have the Delivery Authority, which will operate as a company limited by guarantee. This is reminiscent of the London Olympics, but I was here when the London Olympics were first being considered, and I can tell the Leader of the House that the way in which the Olympics Delivery Body was shaped was not exactly a positive experience for us in Scotland, or for Wales and the regions of the United Kingdom.

What I remember about the way in which the London Olympics were designed was that we got next to nothing in the way of contracts. Large sums of our lottery money were diverted to pay for activity down here, and there were years of wrangling over the Barnett consequentials. The Government attempted to define the spending in London to build all that activity as UK-wide spending. If I remember correctly, it was only following the intervention of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this was eventually resolved in a Joint Committee. That experience was not good for us, and that is why my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts has to be supported. This has to be a project for the whole of the United Kingdom. We were all shocked by what happened at the Olympics, and this new project has to be seen to be of real benefit for the nations and regions of the UK. I hope that when the Bill goes into Committee, my hon. Friend will be listened to carefully and patiently—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) says he wants to be listened to as well. I think we have an alliance here, and knowing him and my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts, it would be a formidable one that would obviously deliver what we want. I look forward to them getting substantial and solid results. I see that the Leader of the House is perhaps wondering how she will be able to take them on to ensure that we all get the right results.

We have no issue with the northern estate programme. Looking at the plans for Richmond House, it is hard to see how any alternative could be designed. I know it was a hard job to figure out where we would go, and I do not think there is any issue about how this should be done. Richmond House was the right choice. Looking at the figures, I see that the works there have been vaguely costed at about £500 million, and that it will then become some sort of education centre. That has not yet been specified, so we are not too sure about what will happen there.

However, the plan seems to be to create a carbon copy of this place in Richmond House. Have we all seen the photographs of this? I am looking round, and I see that most Members have done so. It will be almost exactly the same as this place. What is the point of that? What is the point of moving all this somewhere else for six years, only for that place to become something else again? Why are we not using this opportunity to do something more imaginative? Why are we not thinking about all the difficulties that we have in this place, including our laborious processes and the ridiculous and silly conventions? Apparently it is even the job of the Speaker to dress the male Members of this House! How about looking at some of the ridiculous, absurd things that waste our time and get in the way of how we approach our business in this House? Why can we not go away for a few years and do things like a 21st-century Parliament? What is wrong with that? What is wrong with the idea of going to the northern estate, doing something different and then coming back here? Members can then come back to this 19th-century palace and get on with their usual business, but it shows such a lack of imagination.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is having fun, but there is a kernel of truth in that. One reason why they are having to demolish Richmond House is that the House authorities insisted that they wanted a Chamber of exactly the same size and these very wide division Lobbies, which means that we have to demolish a whole listed building. If we had modern voting during the temporary decant, as they do in every other Parliament in Europe, and just had a card to put next to a machine, we would not need the Division Lobbies, and we would not need to demolish Richmond House.

[Pete Wishart]

I am warming to the right hon. Gentleman. That makes it two interventions in a row that contained practically nothing to disagree with. Alliances are building up all over the place and—who knows?—we might actually be able to make some progress when it comes to modernising this place and making it look and feel like something belonging to this century, not the 19th century. I am pretty certain that he is already thinking, “I’m going to vote for this guy for Speaker,” because that is the sort of agenda that I will be putting forward. We need proper reform of this place, and it cannot come quick enough. I am looking forward to support from right across the House for that agenda.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I can see that I am wearing your patience a little thin, so I will end by saying that the SNP will not oppose the Second Reading this evening. I hope that some of our modest suggestions and proposals will be at least considered—even just for the temporary decant. There is no reason why we cannot do things a little differently and be a bit more imaginative in how we do our business. We could have a look and see whether our absurd conventions actually have any value and work for us. Let us redesign how we work in this place.

We will be watching just how much the project is going to cost, because I must say again that this is not going to go down well. I do not think that the public have actually caught on to this yet—they might have done after my speech—and I do not think that they have really realised what this House is doing with this money. If the price tag is going to be £10 billion to £12 billion, I can only foresee difficulties, problems and issues as the process progresses through the House. Best of luck with it all. The SNP will not oppose the Bill tonight. We will try to get something for the nations of the UK and regions of England, and I hope that the House considers that as the Bill goes through Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I hope what I am about to say will be helpful to the Leader of the House. As I said in an intervention earlier, my history is that I served as a member of the Holyrood Progress Group up until 2004 with two other elected Members of the Scottish Parliament. I therefore know a bit about what it was like to be in a temporary structure, at the top of the Mound, before moving into the new building we created in 2004. The temporary building we were in at the top of the Mound in Edinburgh was the original IKEA Parliament, if ever I saw one. I want to make three points today.

First, when I was a child in my home town of Tain in the Highlands—we all know about the pride of small towns—it was said among the good Tainites that the stone that comes from the quarry behind the town was the second choice for the Palace of Westminster. Sadly, I fear that that turned out to be something of a myth, but it was a lovely myth to believe in at the time. When we came to build the Scottish Parliament, we deliberately went out into the regions of Scotland to use materials. What is used outside and within the building, and in Queensberry House, is Caithness flagstone, a beautiful material. That was a considerable boost to the industry and the economy of that part of Caithness. The building is clad with granite from Kemnay in Aberdeenshire. My point and my plea to the Leader of the House is this: as and when works proceed here, could we make the most strenuous effort not necessarily to use Caithness flagstone —although I very much hope that we would—but to source materials from different parts of the UK? That would be one way of selling the project, if you like, to the people.

Secondly, when I rose to my feet in the temporary Chamber at the top of the Mound, one thing that was very apparent to me—my wife is disabled, and I take on board the very good points made by the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman)—was that the access to the temporary building was frankly appalling. Because I was married to a disabled person, that fired up my passion for making the new building absolutely disabled-friendly. When times got tough, which they most certainly did, that was my guiding light. I was damned if I was going to give way on that. We were going to complete this building and it was going to be the best thing for my wife and all the other disabled people. As I said in my intervention, the flak that we got was unbelievable. I say as a friend to the Leader of the House and to everyone who will be involved in this project in future that there will be flak and there will be trouble. There always is with a project of this nature, but be of good heart.

The flak got particularly bad when I had to announce the winning design for the reception desk in Holyrood. I was chairman of the arts committee—[Interruption.] I see the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) nodding; he will recall this. I chaired a small committee and we had the television cameras and the newspapers there. I said, “Ladies and gentleman, I am very proud to say that this is the winning design.” A certain newspaper—I almost called it a rag—called the Daily Mail asked a tricky question of me, which was, “How much did it cost?” I said, “Well, cost wasn’t really a consideration,” and the civil servants whispered to me, “£88,000”—for a desk. At that point, the world fell on my head.

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will recall, I was on the front page of every single newspaper in Scotland—not a place someone wants to be when the publicity is as bad as that. My daughter took one look at the Daily Record, published that Thursday morning, and said, “Oh Dad, you’re finished.” But we pulled through and today, as I said, the building is seen to be an icon of high-quality modern architecture in Scotland. When I say to people, “What about the desk?”, they say “What desk? What are you talking about?”

[Pete Wishart]

I recall, of course, the hon. Gentleman’s little difficulties with that desk. I am interested in his views on the expectations versus the reality, which was one of the issues with the Scottish Parliament. If my recollection is correct, the cost of the Scottish Parliament was estimated to be £50 million and it came in at something like 10 times that cost. Is it not best just to be honest and up front with people as we go down such routes? We should not suggest that this can be done on the cheap and that it will only cost a few billion pounds when it is not going to be that at all. Be up front and honest and I am sure, if the Government do that, that they can learn from the experience that we all had to go through bitterly in the Scottish Parliament.

[Jamie Stone]

That is very sage advice. To get the record as straight as I can within what we know, much as I was very friendly with and admired hugely the late Donald Dewar, at some point as the Bill that established the Scottish Parliament passed through this place, I think he said on the record that it would cost some £40 million, and therein lay the trouble, because we were never going to build very much for £40 million.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

Of course, as the Bill progresses, the Government will be interested to hear all proposals that come forward. Let us consider the work that is already going on. For example, the cast-iron tiles on the Elizabeth Tower are being produced in the Sheffield area, and the tiles for the encaustic tile conservation project have been manufactured at a factory in Shropshire. There will be plenty of opportunities for businesses throughout these four nations that make up this United Kingdom to be part of a project that all nations will be able to look to over the coming decades.

Let me turn to the detail of the views expressed today. I shall start with the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), who opened the debate for the Opposition. I thank him for his constructive approach. He was an excellent stand-in for the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), whose name appears on the Bill in a sign of the consensus we have been able to achieve. I recognise some of his points about opportunities for skills and education arising from the work. It is about making sure that businesses know how to put themselves forward. There are plenty of models—for example, Heathrow airport is currently working on trying to spread its supply chain throughout the United Kingdom. I hope the Delivery Authority will be able to learn from that, although we need to get the thing set up, via the Bill, before it can.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) was an excellent Chair of the prelegislative scrutiny Committee. I pay tribute to the work that she and her Committee did to enable us to bring forward the Bill. She was right to highlight the fact that disability access in this building is from another era. The facilities reflect different attitudes to those with disabilities—not just in the visible examples, such as staircases that are hard or impossible for anyone with mobility issues to climb, but in those hidden aspects that make this building not the place for accessibility that it should be. Let us be blunt: we stand in the Chamber and argue that businesses and public services should be accessible, but we need to make sure that the building in which we do that arguing sets the bar, rather than just meeting a minimum standard.

As the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside said, it is interesting to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). To anyone who raises the potential for spending on this project, I say that the alternative is not to spend nothing. The alternative is to carry on with a make-do-and-mend process, which is not making do and which is not going to mend the place. Public money will still end up being spent in great amounts on this building, achieving worse outcomes. I would certainly reflect on the contrast between some of those remarks and the role that the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) has played as part of the commission. Again, this is a choice about how we deal with the pressing issues of this building. There is no question of them not being dealt with at all.

[Pete Wishart]

rose—

[Kevin Foster]

I will briefly give way as I referred to the hon. Gentleman.

[Pete Wishart]

When I was making my speech, the Minister was, I think, at an Adjournment debate elsewhere so I am surprised that he is even able to make a comment on these matters. I am not suggesting that at all. I agree that we have to do something with this building, but let us be imaginative about where we decant to and what we come back to. We do not always have to do the same things again and again and again.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Of course I take an interest in the remarks that have been made. These works have been looked at on many occasions by professional advisers who are coming up with appropriate things. We can all talk about being imaginative, but the reality is that there has been a great deal of analysis that has gone into this project. Come 2021, the House will again be able to scrutinise the detail of business cases, to take votes based on real estimates and to scrutinise the estimates to ensure that everyone has the information that they need to make a decision.

Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important matter and it is particularly right that he should do so during mental health awareness week. I am pleased to be able to tell him that we have championed investment in children’s mental health services. Last year, there was an overall 17% increase in funding in real terms, to around £226 million, and spending by clinical commissioning groups has gone up by 33% since 2015-16 to £687 million, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that more needs to be done, and that is why we have committed to transforming children’s mental health services through the NHS long-term plan.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week. It is a pity that we cannot go back to the good old days where provisional business was also announced for the following sitting week, but I am pleased to see that the withdrawal agreement Bill is to be brought before the House, and I too very much look forward to seeing it.

May I also join in the tributes to Philippa Helme, and warmly congratulate the shadow Leader of the House on her warm and glowing tribute? Philippa Helme will be missed by all of us around the House.

May I also gently remind the Leader of the House that Monday’s business was on an English ratings Bill that was exclusively devolved? If she is in the business of trying to curtail the voting and speaking rights of Scottish Members of Parliament it is a bit rich her complaining we were not speaking on something that has absolutely nothing to do with us.

In advance of the withdrawal agreement Bill could we possibly have a debate about masochism, Mr Speaker, because it seems to me that the very definition of May-ite Conservatism is to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result? It is a bewildering condition that involves delusion, deafness and self-flagellation—which they have obviously found a taste for—eventually leading to schism, paralysis and then political death. The idea that the Prime Minister will somehow get it through this time is almost like abandoning all sense of reason as Members are all rushing to tell her that they are not prepared to support her on this withdrawal agreement Bill. Her only hope is to get her comrades in the Labour party to abstain on all this, but I think I heard the shadow Secretary of State for Brexit saying today that Labour will not abstain and I hope that will be the case.

Another week on, and the men in grey underpants are still camped outside No. 10, trying to get the recalcitrant occupant to leave. Ultimatum after ultimatum is delivered, to no effect, and timetables are discussed, to no impact. I believe that another one is being discussed this morning. May we have a debate on enforced evictions and maybe see what this House can do to support the Brexit One?

Lastly, in advance of next week’s EU elections, could we perhaps have a debate on the productive and valuable relationship that we have with our European Union colleagues? In that debate, we on these Benches would make it abundantly clear that, in Scotland, we intend to stop this Government’s crazy Brexit and let the Scottish people determine their own future—and the only way to achieve that is to vote SNP next Thursday.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am getting a bit worried about the hon. Gentleman: masochism and underpants in the same intervention! Anyway, I gather that he is up incredibly early on Thursday mornings to write his witty interventions. If he had been up early on Monday morning, he could have usefully used his time at the Liaison Committee, where I was appearing. It was very poorly attended, and he could have been there to talk about the effectiveness of what goes on in this place and made a useful contribution to how Select Committees contribute to exiting the EU. He may not have had anything to say about business rates for Scotland, but he could have had something to say in the Adjournment debate of my lovely Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), on self-build housing. I am sure that his constituents in Scotland would be interested in the prospect of many more homes for them. There is a lot that goes on in this place—it is not all about what goes on in this Chamber, as we all know—so that was extremely disappointing.

The hon. Gentleman is pleased that we are getting on with the European Union withdrawal agreement Bill, and so am I. It is something that I have been calling for for a long time. It is vital that we give the Bill a Second Reading and that we actually leave the European Union. He also said that it was important to let the Scottish people decide. Well, the Scottish people did decide, in 2014, that they wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom. He was not listening to them then, and it is absolutely extraordinary that he stands up and argues for the Scottish people now when at every opportunity he is denying them the chance to remain part of the United Kingdom, which is good for us all.

Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend raises a serious issue that I am sure she will wish to raise at Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions on Tuesday 14 May. I commend her for raising the importance of such an issue.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I wish her, most sincerely, all the best in her renewed leadership campaign. I do not know who has better odds—her of becoming Prime Minister or me of succeeding you in the Chair, Mr Speaker. I suspect it might be me, but it now looks like the Gloria Gaynor of 10 Downing Street might not survive much longer as the men in grey underpants set a timetable for her departure. So can we have a debate on cruelty in sport? There are now so many runners and riders that it will be like a dysfunctional grand national, with one Minister saying that few of them know how to ride.

The council elections went well, didn’t they? It is hard to think of an election in which both the Government and the main Opposition party got royally stuffed. We are all now looking forward to the European elections—the SNP certainly is—and we cannot wait to see the Tory manifesto. I bet they will be up all night writing that one. “Chapter one: we want to leave the EU, but the party won’t let us. Chapter two: please don’t vote for Farage! Chapter three: erm, that’s it.” I do not know whether the award for best comedy in a party political manifesto has yet been awarded, but it should definitely be delayed until we see that cracker.

We have not had an answer to the meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement, but I think that the House deserves one. The rumour is that the Government will bring it back next week, with Thursday being suggested. What are the Government’s plans for the meaningful vote? When, and in what form, will they bring it back? This purgatory cannot go on any longer. Nothing is being done. Important Bills need to be brought back to the House, and we need to get back to work. The House rose early on two days this week, and this place is quickly becoming an international laughing stock. All I can say is that, after 20 years of devolution, we are looking forward to completing the powers of our Parliament in Scotland, and it will be goodbye to this place.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his, as ever, rather witty, if a little misguided, contribution. The fundamental problem is that his party does not believe in abiding by the result of referendums, whereas the Conservative party does. We had a referendum in 2016, and we are determined to deliver on the result by leaving the EU; Scotland had a referendum in 2014 and, regardless of whether it has another one, the SNP will abide by it only if it gets the result it wants.

As a huge supporter of the United Kingdom, I also welcome the 20 years of devolution, which has been a huge success—except to the extent that the hon. Gentleman’s Government in Scotland have failed to take up many of the powers they have been offered under devolution. It is extraordinary that a party in Scotland that claims to be able to set up within 18 months a new independent country with its own currency, while staying in the EU, cannot even manage to accept powers to take on VAT, welfare or any of those modest little issues. It seems extraordinary to me that the hon. Gentleman is preaching to my party, which is determined to deliver on the democratic will of the people.

Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to address this issue again. He may be aware that our hon. Friend asked that this debate be had once the views of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments were known, and that will indeed be the case. We will come forward with further details in due course.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week. Who would have thought that there were council by-elections in England today, given that every Member on the Opposition Benches, other than the Whips, is either from Wales or Scotland? [Interruption.] I said Wales.

I thank the Leader of the House for saying that we will be proceeding with the refurbishment of this place. For most of this country, R and R means rock and roll, but in this place it means restoration and renewal. I think we will all get on down with R and R in this place soon.

I was intrigued by the Leader of the House’s response to the inquiry of the shadow Leader of the House about the Queen’s Speech. We are only a few weeks from what should be the end of this parliamentary Session, but apparently there is no intention to bring forward a Queen’s Speech. The parliamentary Session has now lasted two years and is about to enter its third. We can talk about having too much of a good thing, but probably not when it comes to this government. They have said there will be no Queen’s Speech until the withdrawal agreement is agreed, but that timeline ranges from months to weeks to about never, so I would be interested to hear her thoughts about when we can expect a Queen’s Speech.

We are acutely aware that if there is a Queen’s Speech, some loyal Members of her Majesty’s Back Benches may feel obliged to vote it down in a pique of Brexit rage, so we are looking forward to more weeks of business like this: conjured up Bills, Opposition days and—I mean no disrespect to my good friend the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)—more Backbench Business debates. There will be no new substantial legislation and no new programme of Government. To call this a zombie Government would be to show massive disrespect to the brain-eating living dead, and the purgatory that we will now endure in the business of the House is acquiring a semi-permanent nature.

May we have debate about when a Government can no longer call themselves a Government? This Government have now lost almost half their ministerial team. They are running out of people to promote, and even more Back-Benchers are saying, “No thanks,” and want nothing more to with this shambles. I do not know how much longer that can be sustained or endured. There seems no prospect of a general election—even these zombies will not vote for a zombie Christmas to put them out of their misery, and the Prime Minister seems to limp on from week to week. Perhaps it is now time for Prime Minister “Shaun of the Dead”, and the full, unleashed zombie apocalypse to come.

[Andrea Leadsom]

How does one respond to that, Madam Deputy Speaker? I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman might allude to the fact that he is after Mr Speaker’s job. Had he raised that issue in the context of next week’s Bill, which will ban wild animals in travelling circuses, I could have questioned him about whether he in fact hopes to be the new ringmaster, or the new greatest showman. Since we all absolutely love Hugh Jackman—well I do anyway—I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman could completely fill his shoes, but I would be willing to give it a try, particularly because he said that if it came to a tie he would vote against Scottish independence.

[Pete Wishart]

indicated dissent.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Oh I think he did.

Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We are trying not only to build houses—that is a top domestic priority for the Government, to ensure that everybody has a safe and secure home of their own—but to ensure that they are in proper communities with the right level of infrastructure. I encourage him to seek a Westminster Hall or Backbench debate, so that all Members can share their experiences and views.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week, and I echo the tributes to Lyra McKee and the victims of the appalling slaughter in Sri Lanka.

It is good to be back, but it almost feels as though we have not been away at all. We have still not left the EU, surprise, surprise. The Prime Minister is still in office—just—and we are still all looking forward to the European elections, which I know Government Members are looking forward to as much as we in Scotland are looking forward to Prime Minister Boris. Can we have a debate on why the good citizens of the United Kingdom should get out there and exercise their right to vote in those crucial elections? There is such a variety of choice. They could choose, like 40% of Conservative councillors, to vote for the Farage vanity party or the Kippers. They could vote for leave Labour or remain Labour, or some combination of the two. And then there are the Change UK TIGgers. The wonderful thing about them is that, thankfully, they are the only ones. Can we have a debate about that, to get some excitement into the European elections?

The only item of business that the Government want is another shot at their thrice-defeated withdrawal agreement. According to our friends in the press, that might happen as soon as next week. Apparently, the talks with Labour are going both disastrously and really well, according to who we speak to and what time of the day it is. Can the Leader of the House furnish us with her thinking on the withdrawal agreement, when we might expect to see it back and whether it meets the strictures laid down by you, Mr Speaker?

Lastly, we on the SNP Benches might not be sticking around here for much longer. Scotland is looking at this Brexit freak show and increasingly saying, “Naw, no thank you.” Imagine being in Scotland and thinking that the isolating ugliness of this disastrous Brexit is the best that Scotland could ever be or aspire to. That is why there will be another referendum on our independence, and Scotland will be saying, “It’s been good to know you, but we think we’ll manage on our own, thank you very much.”

[Andrea Leadsom]

Well, obviously, we would miss our resident rock star, should the hon. Gentleman choose to leave us, but I can safely say that we will not miss his terrible jokes. As for him saying that the TIGgers are the only ones, I do not think that that is their aspiration. They hope to grow in number, and I am not sure whether he wishes them success or disaster; we will see.

The hon. Gentleman asks about the European elections. He will be aware that the Commons rejection of the withdrawal agreement on 29 March is the reason why we now face European elections. We in the Government have explored every avenue to find ways to avoid fighting the European parliamentary elections. After all, a majority of people in the United Kingdom chose to leave the European Union. It is absolutely unacceptable that, three years on, we face the need to fight European elections because this House has not found it in its heart to allow us to fulfil the will of the people. That is a great shame, and I am personally extremely upset about it. It is vital that we bring in the withdrawal agreement Bill, to give the House the opportunity to make progress on delivering on the will of the people.

Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman, as he so often does, shows his determination to ignore the result of not only the referendum of 2016 but the referendum of 2014. His party is determined to ask people the question again because it did not like the answer, and that is not the way for a proper democracy in the western world to go about its business.

Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I know that all hon. Members always look forward to my hon. Friend’s contributions to pre-recess Adjournment debates. I am sure that Mr Speaker would look very favourably on his desire for a specific Adjournment debate to address the sacrifice that animals have made in the service of our country. I say again that we should all celebrate the Royal Assent that was achieved last week for the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019—Finn’s law—which will help to protect our service animals.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for at least giving us the second part of our Easter break.

We really could not make it up: of all the dates to kick the Brexit can down the road to, Halloween could not be a more appropriate destination. Can we therefore have a debate about something that this House is now supremely experienced in: horror and ghouls? That is the date that this House of horrors will eventually meet its Brexit afterlife, and if that is not frightening enough, there is nothing in store for us other than more torment, purgatory and trick or treat, with a special emphasis on trick.

When watching the scenes from yesterday, it must have seemed to so many of my colleagues on the Government side to be the ultimate humiliation and the real horror. Their Prime Minister was sitting in an anteroom waiting to hear what the EU were prepared to grant the UK. After telling us that we would be out of the EU by the 29th of last month, after saying that there would be no extension, and after trying to secure a short extension, they are now obliged to contest the European parliamentary elections, in which they will undoubtedly be gubbed. If that is taking back control, can we not just go back to the good old days when we were just a bog-standard vassal state?

We have been warned that the House should not waste the time that the EU has so generously granted us. Can the Leader of the House detail how the time will be used much more productively and convince us that there will not be just more of the same repetitive and ultimately doomed agenda; no more of this “My way or the highway”; no more not listening; and no more not compromising? Will there be a real attempt to work right across the House and engage with all parts of the UK to show that the Government are at least prepared to listen to others?

Lastly, I very much welcome the new hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones)— she is more than welcome in this House—and I congratulate Sarah Davies on her new appointment to Clerk Assistant. I also take this opportunity to thank the staff of the House, including the police and all those who look after us. It must be difficult to work in a House dominated by chaos, indecision and confusion, when arrangements are changed at the last possible minute, but they have dealt with it stoically and without any complaints. I wish them the very best for the week that they will have for the Easter break.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman talks about Halloween, ghosts, ghouls and horrors, but the real horror is that we as a Parliament have not yet delivered on what we were expressly told to do in 2016, which is to leave the European Union. That is what we will be spending the next few months seeking to do.

The hon. Gentleman says that that means that we need to consult. He knows full well that the Prime Minister is indeed consulting, and has been for many months, with Opposition Members across the House. However, I would remind him of the words of his colleague the constitutional Minister in the Scottish Parliament who was asked by a Select Committee whether, if there were a second referendum, which I gather is SNP policy, and the United Kingdom were to decide again to leave, he would abide by that. The answer? No. The truth of the matter is that it is the hon. Gentleman and the Scottish nationalists who do not want to listen to the will of the people and who do not respect the will of the people.