Constitutional Law

Debate between Pete Wishart and Anne McGuire

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs McGuire]

I will not even go there. The hon. Gentleman knows whether I want to say anything nice about him. He is a pleasant enough person outside the Chamber. Sadly, in the Chamber he tends to heckle rather than make positive contributions.

I will move on to the issues that have been raised today. The first is the role of the Electoral Commission. We need to have an independent arbiter on the wording of the question and the financing of the campaigns. All sides need to have confidence in the process. That means that it should not be subject to political interference and that one element must not be able to overrule the others. I hope that when we hear the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire later in the debate, he will give us some comfort and say that the SNP will not second-guess the Electoral Commission, but will work with it in producing a question and a set of criteria that we can all work to and have confidence in.

The Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee said earlier that the question preferred by the Scottish Government was put to a series of independent experts who suggested that it was politically loaded. We cannot go into a referendum debate where the question is politically loaded.

[Pete Wishart]

Will the right hon. Lady remind me of the question that the commission that her party put together with the Conservative and the Liberals came up with?

[Mrs McGuire]

I am not quite sure what the point of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is.

[Pete Wishart]

A Unionist commission was put together to try to determine a question for the referendum that it thought was fair. Will the right hon. Lady remind me what question it decided on?

[Mrs McGuire]

That is a typical red herring being drawn across. We say that we want—[Interruption.] No. The Electoral Commission should be, and is to all intents and purposes, the independent arbiter. The Labour party when it was in government, and even the Conservatives, have accepted that if an independent arbiter is appointed, it is incumbent on the Government to honour that public authority and take into account the views of that independent arbiter.

I said that I would not speak for too long so I will not. However, we cannot go into the next 18 months in a spirit that is about beating each other over the head with arguments and counter-arguments that are sometimes not even relevant. I ask all sides to come together and have a robust, frank and mature debate with the Scottish people. That is what the referendum campaign demands.

I represent the constituency of Stirling which includes the Church of the Holy Rude where the first crowned king of the United Kingdom—King James VI and I—was crowned and became the monarch of the United Kingdom. My area also includes Bannockburn and Stirling bridge, and saw Rob Roy MacGregor and all the rest of the iconic figures in Scottish history. This debate, however, is not about the 13th, 14th or 17th century; it is about the 21st century. I am happy to give over, under a section 30 order, powers to the Scottish Parliament.

I voted for the Scottish Parliament and I want it to succeed. I want us to remain part of the United Kingdom, and if we hand over that power, the Scottish Parliament has the responsibility to exercise it with maturity and discretion, and to recognise that the current Scottish Government do not represent all the views of the entire Scottish people. Yes, we hand over that power—perhaps not with eagerness but with some understanding of the constitutional arrangements within the United Kingdom—but the responsibility is with the Scottish Government to exercise that power with discretion and an understanding of the multiplicity of views.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Anne McGuire

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs McGuire]

I take your advice, Mr Deputy Speaker.

If the amendment is accepted—

[Pete Wishart]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs McGuire]

No, I do not think I will.

[Pete Wishart]

I gave way to them!

[Mrs McGuire]

I think that Mr Deputy Speaker wants us to move the business on, and I do not wish to trespass further on his charity.

I want a reassurance that there will be full discussions between the UK Government and the Scottish Government to ensure that we have a framework that will regulate health professionals across the United Kingdom, albeit that the Scottish Government will have responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

That sort of clarifies things, but I do not understand why the Minister did not accept the amendments when they were debated in the House in March last year. We know the right hon. Member for Stirling does not like the amendments and that the Minister has grudgingly given the re-reservation away, but we do not know the position of Labour Front Benchers.

[Mrs McGuire]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I will give way to the right hon. Lady even though she did not give way to me.

[Mrs McGuire]

I appreciate that I pre-empted this debate by speaking to the earlier group of amendments, but for the sake of clarity, I said that I supported the amendment because of the assurances given by the Scottish Government that there would still be a system of strategic regulation of health professionals. I would not like the hon. Gentleman to misinterpret me even if I pre-empted this discussion.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. I listened very carefully to what she said earlier, and picked up that her acceptance of that re-reservation measure was very grudging, as was her acceptance of the rest of the re-reservation measures addressed in this group of amendments.

There is one issue that has escaped attention, and that is the partially suspended acts of the Scottish Parliament, so that they can be challenged in the Supreme Court. One act of the Scottish Parliament that was challenged in the Supreme Court was our legislation on compensation for the victims of asbestos—a very important Bill that was supported by the whole of the Scottish Parliament. I am glad that the Supreme Court upheld the Scottish Parliament’s position on that issue. If that partial suspension had been allowed to continue, such challenges would have become much more common.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Anne McGuire

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

Actually, I have had a look at the calendar, and I see that there is to be an election in about eight short weeks’ time, when these very issues will be debated and voted on. I also foresee a groundswell of support for the position I am advocating and a diminution in support for the hon. Gentleman’s position.

Through our amendment, we intend to fulfil the general drift and thrust of the Gould report recommendations, and to implement what has already been established in the major recommendation of the Calman commission report, which comes close to what the Scottish Parliament’s Scotland Bill Committee is proposing. The amendment also puts the voter at the heart of the process, because that is what is required. The interests of the voters come first, and they were short-changed and badly let down by what happened four years ago. Radical work was required in order to address that, and thank goodness we have the work and recommendations of Ron Gould.

I see no good reason why Westminster should remain in charge of Scottish elections; I see only the predictable knee-jerk response that this place needs to have some sort of say and role in Scottish elections. To devolve not even all the administration of Scottish elections, as was suggested by Calman, is bewildering and contrary to everything proposed. The Scottish Parliament’s Bill Committee is now saying that the devolution of administrative functions is not good enough and the Secretary of State needs to look at this again. The Committee went even further and said that before we even implement clauses 1 and 3 the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government should be consulted and we would review this once again. It also raised many of the Electoral Commission’s concerns in respect of the electoral management board—that is currently going through the Scottish Parliament.

For all those reasons, I ask the Minister to re-examine this clause to see what can be done. Let us have a proper debate about what the will of the Scottish Parliament’s Bill Committee is and what Calman intends in all this. Let us give proper constructive consideration to ensuring that all arrangements to do with elections, be they about electoral administration or legislative competence, can be moved to the Scottish Parliament. I ask hon. Members to support new clause 5.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

I am delighted to support amendment 10. It would be disappointing if we judged whether or not it was valid on the basis of what happened during the previous Scottish Parliament elections. I am sure that many hon. Members in the Chamber can come up with a compendium of reasons why that count was a disaster. All political parties in this House have to accept some responsibility for the ballot paper, which has been identified as one source of the problem, because we all consented to it. We also put our faith, wrongly, in an IT system that did not work. We could perhaps accept that there is an excuse for its not working, given the complications involved in a Scottish Parliament election as a result of different votes being counted, different constituencies and so on, but that same IT system was tried out in a local council by-election in my constituency and it took us nearly five hours to get the result. The only good thing was that this occurred in the full presence and glow of the electoral commissioner with responsibility for Scotland, John McCormick, and his senior members of staff. They realised then, if they had not already done so, that that electronic system of counting was not yet usable for future elections.

It would therefore be unfortunate if we said that one of the reasons why we do not want overnight counts relates to that disastrous night, although the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is right to identify the number of ballots that were lost—people’s votes that were lost. Ron Gould fell into the trap of stating that that was the reason why overnight counts were not wanted. He did not look beyond a particular set of circumstances on a particular evening when a series of issues arose that, in retrospect, could perhaps have been dealt with differently.

I have been astonished by the reaction of returning officers. For most of my political life, they have been able to deliver an overnight count without any great anxiety about whether or not staff had to work overnight, yet they have suddenly decided, in their wisdom, that they do not want to accept the responsibility of an overnight count. It came as a surprise to many of us before the last election that what we thought was a given—an overnight count—was no such thing. We then discovered that returning officers had it in their power to decide when they wanted to count an election for this or any other House. With the greatest respect to returning officers across Scotland, I do not think it should be their responsibility to decide when the count should take place. It is for this Parliament to decide when an election count should take place and I hope that the Government will consider the amendment seriously and will look at how they engage with returning officers, because, as we found out before last year’s general election, custom and practice will not be good enough.

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[Pete Wishart]

I am really pleased that the hon. Gentleman has asked that, because that is one of the things that I am most keen to come on to. If he is not satisfied by what I say, I ask him to come back on me, because I will list some very important professions that receive regulation from Scottish Ministers.

The most important point is that we have the toehold that I have described. All the UK devolved Administrations work together on these important issues to find innovative practices and new ways of doing things. That is important work. The current arrangements support and create dialogue and the sharing of ideas in reserved and devolved areas.

I come to the examples that the hon. Gentleman is so keen to hear about. The first is practitioner psychologists. The Department of Health originally wanted all such professionals to be educated to doctorate level. That would have posed major problems for the NHS in Scotland, where the majority of them are trained to masters level. That is why we need separate regulation. NHS Scotland has also piloted the position of physician assistant, which is an assistant to medical practitioners. Unlike their equivalents in England, such people can prescribe and work across a variety of roles in the Scottish NHS. Those are not the only two examples. Health care scientists were identified as a priority for regulation in the 2007 White Paper, in which the Department of Health proposed that the new education and training arrangements envisaged for England should also apply in Scotland, where there are different needs and a different educational system. Perhaps it has escaped the hon. Gentleman that as well as having an NHS in Scotland, we also have our own devolved education service. The training of many such professionals requires different regulation and different standards.

[Mrs McGuire]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has explained exactly why Scotland needs different regulation from the rest of the United Kingdom. Will he tell the Committee how many health care scientists are practising in Scotland and who currently regulates them?

[Pete Wishart]

I am disappointed in the right hon. Lady, because she usually does better than that. She has clearly not been listening to what I have said. I have given three examples of new professions that have emerged since 1999 and that have benefited from separate regulation in Scotland, but there are more. Why would anyone want to re-regulate those professions, which have given such key benefits to the NHS in Scotland?

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

Of course there are health care scientists in England, but they are trained differently. Scotland has different educational institutions that require different regulation from those in England. That is why we are saying that it is important that these responsibilities rest with Scottish Ministers and the Scottish Parliament.

[Mrs McGuire]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I have given way once to the right hon. Lady. I hope that she wants to make a new point.

[Mrs McGuire]

The hon. Gentleman has not answered my first intervention yet. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) would just face the front and fold his arms, the world would be a better place. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) argued that people are trained differently in Scotland and should therefore be regulated separately. Health care professionals such as doctors and nurses come from other countries where they have been trained differently, but we still regulate them in the same way when they practise in this country. His argument is therefore specious.

[Pete Wishart]

Doctors who come to the NHS in the rest of the UK are subject to UK regulation. The NHS in Scotland is a different beast from that in the rest of the UK. That is the point. The NHS has been developing for the past 10 years and we have to recognise that.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Anne McGuire

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I will give way to the right hon. Lady later, but I now wish to get through my speech.

Parts of the Bill are unacceptable to us, but, in other ways, it is merely perplexing. We shall, thank goodness, finally get devolution on the regulation of airguns. I have campaigned on that issue, as have colleagues in the Scottish Parliament. Airguns cause such a blight to so many communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I am going to try to make a bit of progress, even though it is the Minister’s good self who wishes to intervene.

Thank goodness we are getting devolution on speed limits, because we have long argued for that. Some of my colleagues in the Scottish Parliament have campaigned hard for it. However, we find that we are not going to get control over freight, heavy goods vehicles or anything that is towing a caravan. The most perplexing thing of all—you will like this one, Madam Deputy Speaker—is that the regulation of activities in Antarctica are to be reserved to this House. Just in case anyone was in any doubt, Antarctica is now listed as being reserved to the Westminster Parliament. Colonies of penguins are already pulling down the saltire and hoisting the Union Jack in joyous celebration of that fact. Thank goodness for the Scotland Bill letting us know that fact about Antarctica!

[Mrs McGuire]

Will the hon. Gentleman please explain what the Scottish Government would do in their relationship with Antarctica if he had his way and the matter remained devolved to Scotland?

[Pete Wishart]

I know that it has been a feature of the Labour party in Scotland, particularly through its leader, to upset and antagonise friendly nations around the world. If you will excuse me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will refrain from making any more comments about Antarctica.

How has the Bill been met in Scotland? There has been a curious sort of disappointment about it, and an “Is that it?” shrug of the shoulders. There has been no bunting hung out in the streets of Edinburgh, and no images of the Secretary of State emblazoned from the flagpoles of the nation. There is a real sense of frustration that civic Scotland has effectively been excluded from any proceedings on the Bill. We have heard many people ask why they were not consulted on it and brought on board. There has been very little consultation on the Bill, and there is a great deal of frustration about that.

This Bill is what happens when a cross-Unionist consensus gets put through the wringer by a Tory Government in Westminster. It was a Labour Government who initiated the Calman proposals, and it will be a Tory-led Government who will conclude them. In that process, the stuffing has been knocked out of some very good Calman proposals. As I have said, only 35 of the 60 proposals have survived.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Anne McGuire

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful for that intervention. The shadow Justice Secretary made that point earlier. We have learned some fascinating pieces of electoral history today. The point is well made; when it comes to talking about the history of this nation—never mind international examples—four years seems to be just about the right length of time for a Parliament to get its legislative programme through.

If we move to five years, the next general election will be on the same date as the elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What on earth were the people who came up with the Bill thinking about? Surely they looked at the date of May 2015 and thought, “Wait a minute. Something happens that day.” Surely they should have thought that the thing that will happen that day is the elections throughout the rest of the UK. Either they did not know or they did not care. Which was it? Did they not care that having those elections on the same day would result in absolute and total confusion? Does the Minister know that there are different constituencies for the Scottish and Westminster Parliaments? Two different sets of returning officers and polling staff would be required. God knows what the counts would be like, but it would be an absolute recipe for total disaster.

Any Scottish election campaign inevitably would be drowned out by the London metrocentric media. There would be leaders’ debates without any representatives of the Scottish Government involved. The campaign would be skewed towards the big parties. We would have no chance whatever of getting our point across. All domestic issues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be totally and utterly overlooked. It is not right, it is not fair and it is not the way to proceed with our democracy in the UK.

It is not just about elections; it is about democracy and ensuring that people can make an informed choice when they come to put their cross on the ballot paper, whether for this House, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly or local elections.

I listened with real interest and care to what the Deputy Prime Minister said about trying to address the problem. I accept that he is sincere and I look forward to hearing further plans for how that will be done, but we cannot do it now. The returning officers in the other Parliaments and Assemblies have the power to alter the timing and dates of an election by one month. One month would make no difference whatever. Can we imagine how ridiculous it would be? We would just have gone through an election and would be celebrating victories—we hope—and then we would be off to the next one without having time to draw breath. That is nonsense and must be looked at properly.

The Government will have to devolve powers to the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. That would mean reopening the relevant legislation, as that would be the only way to do it. These powers should be transferred to the Scottish Parliament so that it can determine its election date.

I heard the Secretary of State for Scotland talk about a six-month gap between the Scottish and Westminster parliamentary elections. I do not know whether the coalition Government are starting to put that together as a solution, but six months is not good enough either. That would mean almost a whole year of elections. We would just conclude one campaign and then we would start another.

[Mrs McGuire]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I am sorry, I cannot. I have only three minutes left and I have a few more things to say.

We need a clear space, and six months is not sufficient to ensure properly contested election campaigns. Why must the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments move their dates? We have had our election dates set in stone since 1999. The next election will be the fourth we will contest. The Government knew that these elections would take place in May 2015. Surely it is this House that should move its date; it could go six months earlier or later. It just is not fair or right. I look forward to the Government’s proposals but they must be substantial because what has been proposed so far is not good enough.

I am pleased that the Government got rid of the silly notion of a 55% threshold for the Dissolution of Parliament. I heard some utter nonsense about the programme for dissolving the Scottish Parliament in defence of the 55% proposal. I am pleased that the Government did, more or less, adopt the Scottish system for Dissolution almost in full, and that is right.

I want to conclude with a few words from Ron Gould, the man who was drafted in by the Electoral Commission and the Scotland Office to look at the disaster that was the last Scottish parliamentary elections. We remember it not only because of the fantastic SNP victory, but because of the 140,000 spoilt ballot papers that resulted from the previous Government’s combining of local authority elections with Scottish parliamentary elections, using three different electoral systems. We cannot allow that to happen again. The paramount concern of the House must be the electorate; they must have free and fair elections and must not be confused as to how they make their choice.

Aretha sang about respect. I hope that the Minister is listening, that he can start to get the respect agenda back on the rails and that he will listen to the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so that we do not have three elections on the same day.