Iraq Inquiry

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

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

It was 18 March 2003, and both you and I were in the House that day, Mr Deputy Speaker. It was an ugly, brutal day. It was one of these huge set-piece occasions that we have in the House of Commons when every single thing is reported and every single nuance noted. It was the day that we voted to go to war. I will never, ever forget it.

I was a Whip that day, and I remember observing the Government Whips rounding up the recalcitrant, the doubters and those who were trying to make up their minds. I remember lots of good women and men being dragooned into the Lobby—against their better judgment —to support the Prime Minister and the fabrication of a case on Iraq. It was a horrible day—a day that should be ingrained in the collective consciousness of this House and remembered for its eternal shame. It was the day that we voted to go to war on a total fabrication, and we must find out why this House decided to do that.

[Mr MacNeil]

I was not a Member of the House at that time, but my hon. Friend reminds me of the time when the then Deputy Prime Minister was arguing that the road map for Palestine was somehow connected to the maiming and the murder in Iraq.

[Pete Wishart]

To try to get a flavour of what the House was like that day, I watched a YouTube video of Tony Blair’s speech that morning. I know that sounds a bit masochistic, but I wanted to find out what was said and what the case for war was. What I had to listen to was absolute and utter nonsense—fabrications and flights of fancy that Blair must have known were totally false and ridiculous. He said there were weapons of mass destruction that could, without doubt, reach us within 45 minutes. But there were none—there was nothing there. This House was misled; this House was duped.

I have listened to Conservative Members saying that they believed the Prime Minister. The rest of the country knew. The rest of the country was not fooled by his mendacious nonsense—of course not. We were on a march in central Glasgow, and 100,000 people turned up to march against that war. Some 1 million people turned up in London to march against it. Yet this House voted to go to war on the basis of a lie—a House that was duped and misled. If anybody needs to know the reason why this House was misled, it is because of us, the parliamentarians.

I am disappointed in the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). He should not have changed his motion. We should have demanded today that we got that report. I do not want to hear the reasons why we are not getting it. I do not want to hear about the process of getting it in the future—we should have it now. We should have it before the general election, and this suggestion that it is political and somehow gets in the way of a democratic process in the run-up to an election is just fatuous nonsense.

Deferred Divisions

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful for the early Christmas cheer.

To return to the Bill, what new measures does it contain? I suppose that its unique selling point is the introduction of temporary exclusion orders. They are a relatively new feature, and I do not think that there has been much discussion of them. They are designed to ban British citizens who are suspected of travelling abroad to fight for terror groups from re-entering the UK, and they involve the cancellation of travel documents and the inclusion of such individuals on watch lists and no-fly lists. The Bill allows the cancellation of passports at the border for up to 30 days. The police and border forces will be able to seize the passports and tickets of British citizens if they suspect that those individuals intend to engage in terrorism-related activities at their destination.

That all moves us quite conveniently and neatly towards the idea of statelessness, which we have looked at in relation to other matters that we have debated in the House, and which seems to be the drift and the trend. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell me where we have got with the 30 days issue. I listened carefully to the Home Secretary’s speech, in which she said clearly that the Government are in control of allowing people back in. Well, we have heard about some of the difficulties with that. What happens if there is a breakdown of bilateral relationships with other nations that are not prepared to play along with the UK’s game? Surely, an effective state of statelessness will emerge.

The Bill includes the stronger enforcement of TPIMs, including an ability for the authorities to force suspects to move to another part of the country, which amounts to internal exile. There is no great difference between that and the main feature of Labour’s control orders. The Bill also contains curious stuff about colleges and universities, and the expectation that our higher education institutions will prevent individuals from being drawn into terrorism. The measures include banning extremist speakers from campus grounds. How that is to be achieved without massive impacts on academic freedom and freedom of speech in higher education institutions is beyond me. I am looking forward to guidance about how those freedoms will be maintained and guaranteed. Our universities and colleges have already started to raise concerns. I listened carefully to the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) who said that only yesterday there was concern about how the proposal would be represented in colleges and universities. We have to be careful about how we pursue such a measure.

Perhaps most controversially, the Bill contains measures to require internet service providers to retain data on internet protocol addresses to enable authorities to identify individual users. That brings us neatly to the ongoing concern about, and the trend towards, the Home Secretary’s much-coveted snoopers charter. We are all in the business of doing all that we can to keep the people of our nation safe and secure, but that does not always mean that we must necessarily agree with everything that the Home Secretary says from the Dispatch Box. Some of us might even have a different way of doing things and different suggestions about how to get the balance right between assuring our safety and security and making sure that there is no compromise on our civil liberties. That is why in Scotland, where we have specific responsibilities on that agenda, we take a different view about how it can be better progressed. In Scotland, we want to ensure that our police and our other public bodies have the tools they need not only to tackle and prevent terrorism but to maintain a community where civil liberties are respected and where measures that are introduced are proportionate and have full community support. We have our own separate and distinct legal system in Scotland, and we have a range of devolved responsibilities. We have responsibilities for delivering large parts of the agenda in the Bill, particularly on the Prevent side. Once again, we have seen an almost total lack of consultation between this Government and the Scottish Government, who have specific responsibilities for delivering large swathes of the Bill because of devolved competences.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does my hon. Friend think—this is emerging in his speech—that in the seven Bills he has mentioned, and in the responses of both the Labour and Conservative Governments over the years, the reaction has been, “Must do something, although we are not sure what”? That seems to be the driving policy. There is not much thought in their policy, but the policy is, “Must do something.” It is probably headlines driving the policy.

[Pete Wishart]

That “must do something” feeling has probably increased as we approach an election year. The Conservative Government have gone a bit more cautiously and trodden a little more gently and carefully into this area than the previous Labour Government. The Labour Government went all guns blazing straight into the Labour anti-civil libertarian state they so carefully constructed and made sure they managed so effectively. The Conservatives have played this game a little differently, but we are now into an election year. So what is a good move to get people overexcited about political issues? What is the approach to take? It is, “Get a terror Bill, to make sure you are seen to be hard on this. That will differentiate us, and challenge the Labour party and all our political opponents to say we are doing this wrong.” That is not a game we have a particular interest in playing.

So we have this idea and this conversation we are having between the Government and Scottish Ministers, but the Scottish Government did not even get sight of some of the measures in this Bill on First Reading. I know that the Minister has been in touch with our new Justice Secretary, so he will know the unhappiness there is in Scotland about some aspects of all this. The Scottish Government have said that because we have responsibility for the public bodies mentioned in so many bits of this Bill, we want proper consultation. We are not interested in this fast-tracking and getting it through as quickly as possible because it is an election year—we want to do this right. Where we have devolved responsibilities for delivering this agenda, we want to make sure that the public bodies accountable to our Parliament will be properly consulted, so that we can shape up and make sure we have a proper agenda. We have therefore asked the Minister to take Scotland out of the Prevent side of these measures. The schedules relating to Scottish public bodies have already been dropped in part of this. I suggest, and I hope the Minister may be open to this approach, that he seeks to ensure that we at least have the opportunity to engage with our public bodies and consult them properly, and to make the right decisions that suit our agenda and our responsibilities. That would be good. Sometimes we tend to look at things such as the Prevent strategy in a proper, holistic way, considering how public bodies could also promote cohesion, well-being and democracy. That is the way we differ on looking at these things, and we hope the Government follow our approach.

Let me say something about my commitment and my reason for taking this on. David Haines, the British man so brutally executed by ISIS forces in Iraq, was a constituent of mine. His family were in Perth, and I was at the memorial service that was held. His killing was an appalling act and it brought this right home to my community. The way the people of Perth responded to what they had observed—the brutal, appalling murder—was nothing short of magnificent. They made sure that David Haines was properly commemorated and that his memory will endure in Perth, and it was fantastic. So I know how these issues are brought home to specific communities and I have seen the wonderful way communities unite to make sure they gather around that family, making sure they are supported, and try to understand. But the most impressive thing for me was that I saw a real attempt to understand what was going on within this—more so than probably the Government have done. People wanted to understand why this happened in our community and what special conditions led to this happening in a small, sleepy little city such as Perth.

Every single one of us in this House has a job of work to do to keep our communities safe and to keep brave people such as David Haines safe. David Haines went out there to help the world become a better place and to ensure that communities without help and assistance could be helped and assisted. All of us have a responsibility in this regard, so I will take no lectures from anybody in this House about being soft on terrorism or about our Government taking no interest in this matter. We all have an interest in this matter. We might not all agree on everything. I vehemently disagreed with the approach of the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles when she was in the Labour Government. I was keen on what the Conservative-led Government were doing at first, but I am less keen now. But let us all work together. We need to look at this whole thing holistically. We should take responsibility for the things that we do wrong and challenge the horrible extremism and ideology that exist in our communities, but let us do it together, do it sensibly and do it constructively.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

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

Here we go again, with yet another counter-terror Bill to tackle yet another threat posed by extremism—yet another essential set of measures to keep our nation safe, and to be rushed through at breakneck speed—accompanied, predictably, by yet another escalation of the threat that we are supposed to be experiencing. We are invited to believe that we are surrounded by terror plotters and backers, jihadist bombers, extremists, and just good old-fashioned nutters. No one is safe; threats are everywhere. That is why we need this legislation as quickly as possible, just as we have needed all the other Bills as quickly as possible. There have been seven counter-terrorism and security Bills since 9/11, all of which have been rushed through Parliament, all of which have been absolutely necessary, and all of which have been fast-tracked.

I suspect that this will not be the last counter-terrorism and security Bill. In fact, I do not suspect that it will be the last of the calendar year. I suspect that there will be at least one more, perhaps two, and that they too will have to be rushed through Parliament to meet the escalating threat with which we must deal. As we have heard so many times in so many speeches, we live in an era in which there will always be an existing, growing threat for us to address. So what do we do? We do the same things.

Every counter-terrorism Bill that we have considered in the House could probably be characterised by a few key features that seem to crop up again and again. We must gather, retain and collect vast amounts of personal data from internet service providers. In this instance, internet protocols must be collected just in case we find something that could be used in the future. That cause is very dear to the Home Secretary’s heart, because she still hankers after a snoopers’ charter. She would probably have her way in the event of a majority Conservative Government next year, because I fully expect it to be included in any Conservative manifesto. We must continue to subject suspects to internal exile, for that is exactly what we are doing. I applauded the Conservatives when they reversed new Labour’s control orders—I thought that TPIMs were an improvement—but we are back to what is effectively internal exile. We are working towards depriving people of statehood. We are preventing people from travelling, and we are considering home arrest without trial. It is all the usual stuff.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend may recall that, during the last Parliament, 90 days of detention without trial seemed to be the litmus test of the Blair Government’s machismo. That fell by the wayside, but, in view of what my hon. Friend has been saying about those seven Bills and the groundhog day aspect of this debate, does he envisage a return to the “90 days” proposal?

[Pete Wishart]

I know that my hon. Friend has been paying real attention to some of the conversations that we have been having. That is exactly how Labour behaved. What a Government! They established and effectively monitored an anti-civil libertarian state. My hon. Friend is spot on when he reminds us of the proposal for 90-day detention. The one reason for which I applauded the incoming Conservative Government was that the first thing they did was bring about the bonfire of the ID cards and the national database. Is it not depressing that they have fallen into their old manners and customs? They are almost right back to where the Labour Government were in supporting the creation and maintenance of an anti-civil libertarian state.

We always get this wrong. At the heart of all these counter-terrorism Bills is a critical balancing act. On one hand there is our need for security—the need to make our citizens safe—and on the other hand are the civil liberties that we all enjoy as a result of being part of a democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

What I accept is that there was a failure to recognise some of the international dynamics that influence communities in this country. The solution always seems to be that we have to intervene—that we have got to try to make the world better—and sometimes we are unaware of the unintended consequences that come from that. All I am saying to this House is that at some point we have got to acknowledge what we have done in terms of framing the conditions and setting the environment in which these things happen. By failing to do that, and by failing to acknowledge that type of issue, we will be hampered in our approach to these matters, and the very good things in Prevent and all the anti-radicalisation programmes will fall and fail, because we will have missed out a crucial part of the holistic view we need to take of these things.

[Mr MacNeil]

Syria has been mentioned. Last year the idea was to intervene in Syria on one side, but this year the idea was to intervene on the other side. As we encourage professionals in all walks of life in this country to critically self-assess, my hon. Friend is right to say that we should be moving towards a point where Government, MPs and Parliament critically self-assess what the consequences of our actions have been over decades past.

[Pete Wishart]

Again, my hon. Friend is spot-on. We should be proofing anything we suggest and put through, and assessing the impact and effect it might have and any unintended consequences on communities we represent. If we were to do that, we would start to make progress.

What does the Bill do? It is specifically designed to tackle the threat posed by the so-called Islamic State, which, according to the Home Secretary, has given energy and a renewed sense of purpose to subversive Islamist organisations and radical leaders in Britain. No kidding, Madam Deputy Speaker. What does this rush Bill propose that is different from all the others? It has got all the usual features, of course, because they are the bedrock—

Fairness and Inequality

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

We voted against its abolition. It would not have gone—we would have the 50p tax rate right now—if the hon. Lady and many others had joined us in the Lobby. The question is: why did she and her colleagues not go through the Lobby to vote against the cut? Where were Labour Members that night? There was no sign of them. Would anybody from the Labour party care to tell me why they did not vote against the cut to the 50p tax rate? I would be very pleased to hear why not. Will one of the about 20 Members on the Labour Benches please stand and explain why Labour did not oppose the cut to the 50p tax rate? Going once, going twice, gone: Labour has refused to explain.

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

I remember that evening very well. To call Labour Members headless chickens would be an affront to headless chickenry, given the way they were running around. Does my hon. Friend agree that perhaps it was a principled abstention that the Labour party pursued that evening on the 50p tax rate?

[Mr MacNeil]

Well, a principled abstention by the Labour party is news to me, but I take on board what my hon. Friend says.

I was talking about hunter-gathering. I was not so much hunting Labour Members as asking why they did not go through the Lobby on the 50p tax rate. I was discussing why people have certain outlooks in life. I think that when people view the fruits of their success as being the result of a hunt that involved a great deal of good fortune and support, they might have a tendency to be slightly more left wing, whereas those who think the fruits are the result of their own individual hard graft might have a tendency to be more right wing and view their gains as a gather. I will make no further judgment on that idea—I just want to put it out there and let people chew it over—but I think there is something deep-seated in our own personal biases as to why we arrive at certain points of view.

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[Mr MacNeil]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. We can see that again in the philosophy behind the bedroom tax, which is not one that I subscribe to in any way. Last night, I stumbled across a Channel 4 programme on Walsall and Glasgow housing authorities. It talked about having to demolish houses in Walsall, due to their being left empty: people cannot stay in them because of their cost and what people have lost in welfare. Glasgow housing authority has demand for 1,500 more one-bedroom properties—people want them so that they will not be penalised—but it does not have them. It is, inefficiently, trying to build them so that people can avoid the bedroom tax, but the costs are colossal.

[Pete Wishart]

I am loth to interrupt my hon. Friend’s fantastic speech, but perhaps I can help him a little. We know a bit about what the Labour party proposes to do with the Scottish budget because of the cuts commission. It intends to do away with universal benefits and it does not like free bus passes and free prescriptions. That is what it would do if it gets control of the levers of power in the Scottish Parliament. We know exactly where it is going with its cuts commission.

[Mr MacNeil]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Johann Lamont has a cuts commission. [Interruption.] I hear from the Labour Front Bench that she does not have a cuts commission, which is another example of how Labour Scottish Members say one thing while Labour in Scotland says another. If Labour Front Benchers want to tell us what Johann Lamont is doing—if she has told them—they are more than welcome to intervene.

“Go Home or Face Arrest” Campaign

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

That is a good point. I want to come on to such points, which are important, about how the message was communicated and observed by the target groups. If I miss that point, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman once again.

These vans have been correctly labelled, in common parlance, as hate vans or racist vans, and that is how we have started to refer to them. We could not find a terminology to express our horror and disgust at the sight of these things and we were right to label them as such.

I agree with the Minister that illegal immigration must be tackled. I think that all hon. Members here agree with that. It is wrong and the Government must do something to deal with it. However, they have to deal with such issues reasonably, in a measured and mannered way. Probably every hon. Member in this Chamber agrees that there should be voluntary return. If people want to go home, let us assist them.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Can we also send out the message of the importance of immigration and how people benefit, both in host countries and countries of origin? The Philippines, for example, with about 9 million of its citizens migrating abroad for work, has a national migrants day. I encourage hon. Members to read Philippe Legrain’s book, “Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them”, and to see the benefits that immigration generally brings to all societies, where it happens.

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend gets to the heart of so many of our debates on immigration, including the philosophical debate about the value and worth of immigration. We never hear about that from this Government. They do not accept for a minute that immigration is valuable. It is a problem that has to be managed, and this Government in particular say that it has to be managed in a more hostile, aggressive, robust way. As we head towards the new immigration Bill, which contains some thoroughly nasty horrors, we will see much more of this from this Government and it will get ever worse.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

I do not dispute that it has a great effect on everyone in the United Kingdom, but Scotland is currently in the United Kingdom and it therefore affects Scotland. I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I am sure that the points he raises will be very welcome.

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

My hon. Friend referred to numbers, and I am sure that he, like me, will have noted that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) is the only Scottish Labour Member who has bothered to turn up for this debate, such is their concern about the issue we are addressing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is right about that to an extent. For some flights, however, APD is paid on one of the legs going into the islands, so he is not entirely correct, and the flights that are exempt are those capable of carrying under 20 passengers with a take-off load of less than 10 tonnes. He should know the details of what he is talking about.

May I ask the UK Government a simple question? Why are they not devolving APD to Scotland? Is it because the UK Government do not want to see Scotland doing better? Is it because the UK Government care only about collecting revenues from Scotland? Or is it that they think that once one tax goes, all taxes will go—and that the often peddled myth that Scotland receives extra money from the indebted UK will be seen for the lie it is? Is there a fear of APD today, oil revenue tomorrow, so the mantra is that it is better to keep taxes together at Westminster?

The Government refuse to listen to sensible voices in Scotland. Robert Kerr, the chairman of French Duncan and the Scottish accountant of the year, said:

“More helpful would be a reduction in the rate of air passenger duty (instead, the Chancellor announced in his Budget that it would increase at the highest level of inflation for two years)”.

He continued:

“Scotland is preparing to welcome the world in 2014, when it hosts the second Year of Homecoming, the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup. If we are to maximise the economic opportunities such events present, then we need more help from our governments rather than hindrance.”

I would add that when the referendum is won, Scotland will be in the world’s focus and many more people will want to travel to it. We do not want them to be penalised by the outgoing UK Government in Scotland.

APD should clearly be devolved. The UK Government have had enough time to think about the matter. Even the Calman commission, which was set up by the Tory-Labour tag team and their Liberal friends, recommended the devolution of APD. The UK Government’s response was to refuse to devolve it on the grounds that they were exploring whether to replace it with a per-plane tax. That decision has been made and the per-plane tax has been rejected, so what is the excuse now? I say that looking at the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid). We look forward—if that is the right expression—to hearing the latest excuse from the Government.

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend is correct that the Calman commission recommended the devolution of APD, but so does the jam-tomorrow Labour commission. At its conference in Inverness this weekend, Scottish Labour will be discussing the devolution of APD. I would be interested to hear whether the two Scottish Labour Members present will boycott that conference.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am sure that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire will be on his feet presently to confirm his attendance in Inverness.

Scotland and the Union

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady, because I do not have much time.

That Britishness has no place in discussions on independence simply because it cannot be un-invented. We cannot un-invent all our ties, heritage and culture; we will always have a shared history and joint heritage, and there will always be cultural relationships and collaboration.

Independence will bring a new, improved relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, because we will come to it from a position of equality and mutual respect. Most people in Scotland now describe themselves as Scottish—some, of course, describe themselves as and feel profoundly British, but most surveys of social attitude suggest that most Scots now present themselves as Scottish.

As we have gone forward with our own national Parliament and strengthened our institutions, Scottish people are feeling more secure in their identity and more culturally relaxed about who they are. That is why we are able to adopt different identities and why we can easily accept the idea of being Scottish—we could be Pakistani Scottish, Indian Scottish, Polish Scottish, but we are all Scottish and that is how people now describe themselves. With independence, we could express our unique Scottishness in world institutions. We could bring Scottish values to international affairs and institutions, and that would only be good for people in Scotland.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does my hon. Friend agree that sharing a Prime Minister is not what makes hon. Members in the Chamber today British?

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend is right. Britishness is about identity and geography. Our gripe is not with cultural Britishness or the social union—

Scottish-recruited Units

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. It is good to see that the cause of Scottish independence is securing support and could have an influence on the recruitment of units in Wales.

I hope the Minister will clarify some matters for us today, because that is the intention of this debate. It is unfortunate that the Secretary of State himself is not here today, but I appreciate and respect the fact that we have the Minister here. In even the darkest days of the amalgamation debates of 2004, Geoff Hoon always turned up. He always took the flak and got incredible respect for that. We really needed to have the Secretary of State here today to address our points unequivocally and end this damaging uncertainty.

There has been a suggestion, which has a degree of credibility, that this debate on our names and badges is a smokescreen and masks the Government’s true intention, which is to get on with the job of brutally decimating the Scottish defence footprint.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend mentions the defence footprint. He will be aware that Scotland contributes about £3.3 billion to the defence pot, but only gets back about £2 billion of the spend.

[Pete Wishart]

Those are the points that I want to make. Securing this regimental identity is important, but so too are the boots on the ground. There is this multi-billion pound spending gap between what the taxpayers in Scotland contribute to the Ministry of Defence and what is actually spent on defence in Scotland. I want the Minister to respond to some of this.

All we have left are four regiments in the British Army from the Scotland units. We have the Royal Regiment of Scotland with its five regular battalions and two territorial battalions. There are the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Scotland’s only remaining cavalry regiment, the Scots Guards and the 19th Regiment Royal Artillery, the Highland Gunners. We lost the 40th Regiment Royal Artillery, the Lowland Gunners, a few weeks ago. We now have only 11,000 service personnel in the Scottish infantry, which is fewer than in Ireland. The Government should be ashamed of that.

Moreover, we have seen a further 600 jobs cut in Scotland. We were grateful to the then Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), for conceding to the Scottish Affairs Committee that between 2000 and 2010, the total reduction in service jobs in the UK was 11.6%, and that the reduction in Scotland was a massive 27.9%. That disproportionate cut is incredible. It is equivalent to 10,500 defence jobs and a £5.6 billion underspend in Scotland.

Only four of the 148 major regular Army units are based in Scotland. There is massive under-representation not only in unit numbers but in Army capabilities. At present, there are no regular artillery units, no regular signals units, no regular logistics units, no regular engineering units, no intelligence or special forces and little or no presence of combat services.

On top of that, we have the ridiculous situation, outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), in which we contribute some £3.3 billion to the defence pot and only secure £2 billion in return. There is a structural multi-billion-pound defence underspend in Scotland, disproportionate base closures and disproportionate cuts to service personnel and to Scottish regiments and battalions.

As all that is happening, we learn that the MOD has given the go-ahead to spend £350 million on designs for the next generation of Trident. Talk about skewed priorities! Spending £350 million on a weapon of mass destruction that will never be used while the regular units are being undermined, diminished and under-resourced shows us everything about the Government’s priorities.

The Scottish people will have a choice to make. They can continue to go down this particular road of underspend and of diminishing the Scottish Army footprint and resource, or they can decide that these decisions can be made in Scotland—by the Scottish people, for the Scottish people. That is the choice they will be presented with in 2014 when we have the independence referendum. I am absolutely certain and confident that when they are presented with information such as this, with the run-down of our regimental units and resources, the Scottish people will make the right choice and we will determine these issues in our own country.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

Of course we will not be voting against new powers for Scotland. We will be raising, throughout the Committee stage of the Bill, the dangerous proposed tax powers and the £8 billion that would have been lost to the Scottish people over the past 10 years had they been in place.

[Mr MacNeil]

Surely the big question for Labour Members is whether they want a strong Scottish Parliament to protect Scotland from any cuts that will come from the Tories and the Liberals. In the 1980s, we saw the Conservatives preferring Margaret Thatcher to independence; this time, we see Labour preferring a Tory Government to an independent Scotland. That is the reality.

[Pete Wishart]

rose—