Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Debate between Pete Wishart and Deidre Brock

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech, as always.

They knew exactly the character of that man. They cheered on his buffoonery. It was them that foisted him upon our nation, and it is going to be them who will have to be held responsible and accountable for all the Johnson mess that he has left behind. We have four by-elections coming up in the next few weeks—three of them because of Johnson’s legacy. What does she think their chances are in those by-elections?

[Deidre Brock]

I never like to guess anything, but I would suggest that given the behaviour we have seen in recent weeks, those chances look pretty slim.

At the very least, Government Members should show some remorse for that cynicism, accept the recommendations of the report and vote to approve them. If they do not, I hope their cowardly refusal will dog them for the rest of their political lives. If ever there was a moment for them to stand up and be counted, it is now.

However, it is too much to expect apologies from all those who defended Johnson and kept him in his place. Unbelievably, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack), continues to support him, claiming he was not as unpopular in Scotland as was thought. The month before Johnson resigned as Prime Minister last year, an Ipsos MORI poll found that 83% of respondents had a negative view of him. If the Secretary of State for Scotland thinks opinions of the man have got better in Scotland since then, he has another think coming.

The Secretary of State for Scotland also claims, astoundingly, that the decisions Johnson took for Scotland will

“serve Scotland very well for decades to come”.

What a statement, when we consider the disastrous impact of the Brexit that Johnson was instrumental in persuading people to support on individuals and organisations up and down Scotland. Then there is the inadequacy of a replacement for EU funding, Treasury funds being ransacked like a sweetie jar to reward MPs, the Internal Market Act 2020, and the constant interference in devolved responsibilities. We are seeing the consequences of that with the UK Government effectively having a veto over legislation passed by our democratically elected Parliament in Scotland. The Secretary of State for Scotland is right in one way: Johnson’s toxic legacy of the decisions made by his Government and imposed on the Scottish people will certainly be affecting them for years to come, given Labour’s refusal to ditch Brexit in any Government that comes after this one.

As we know, some Members will not even be attending today’s debate. I hear that the Prime Minister is swithering —perhaps it is all a little too close to home given his own fixed penalty fine. What a spineless dereliction of the responsibilities of his office if he does not show active support for the Committee’s recommendations. The Committee’s conclusions are that Johnson deliberately misled the House and the Committee, breached confidence, impugned the Committee thereby undermining the democratic process of the House, and was complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee.

What of the Prime Minister’s mantra of integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level? This House must not only endorse the report in full, but recover the legal fees wasted on Boris Johnson’s lies, rescind the honours he bestowed in disgrace, and prevent a single penny more of public money entering his pocket. We have suffered enough at his hands and at the hands of his Government. Boris Johnson lied to Parliament, deliberately misled the country and has shown no remorse for his behaviour. While time, money and energy have been spent on examining what was a self-evident truth a long time ago, the cost of living crisis continues to balloon and our constituents are suffering.

Is it not shameful and depressing, Mr Speaker, that it has taken this prolonged, detailed scrutiny by the Privileges Committee to force some Conservative Members finally to admit to Johnson’s faults? It is shocking that, even now, some of them are refusing to accept its conclusions. Scotland deserves better than this corrupt, outdated Westminster system that allows the likes of Johnson to rise to the top. I fear that even these recommendations from the Committee, decisive as they are, will not prevent the same from happening in the future. I worry that some Conservative MPs think that, by accepting the recommendations and taking some medicine, this will all go away again, and that cannot be allowed to happen.

In conclusion, yes, it is clearly beyond time that Westminster abandons the damaging traditions that protect those who lie in Parliament, reforms protocol, and enables MPs to accurately hold Ministers to account. All Members of the House should of course vote for the Committee’s recommendations. The question is this: is anything going to change—really change—on the back of the report. If Parliament fails to reform after this most egregious and obvious case, it will just prove that Westminster is incapable of even the most basic scrutiny of power, reform, or improvement. Are we confident that standards here will keep other Ministers to account when they stand up at the Dispatch Box? I am afraid that I am not.

Public Broadcasting in Scotland

Debate between Pete Wishart and Deidre Brock

Thursday 15th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We have discovered that public sector broadcasting in Scotland is in a reasonably good place, but it remains fragile. Recovery and being able to provide the content that Scottish viewers want is important, so we have to be careful with all this. I know that the Minister is listening carefully, and I am sure that we will hear from him about this issue being taken forward.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this issue is particularly disappointing given that witnesses from Amazon and Netflix came to the Committee, and what they said sounded very positive? They said that they were working closely with public service broadcasters to deliver production. That makes it particularly odd that this has come up as an issue.

[Pete Wishart]

Indeed. Unfortunately, we were not able to press the main streaming services on this issue when they came to give evidence, because it had not emerged as a particular difficulty at that point. As my hon. Friend rightly points out, witnesses did say that there is a good relationship between the streaming services and the public service broadcasters. We heard in the Committee that there is room for everybody. Obviously, people who are in the habit of watching “Eastenders” or “Coronation Street” will prefer to watch public service broadcasters through Freeview, and that will be their evening viewing. Other people like to watch feature films and to binge on mini-series.

We have found a positive broadcasting environment that enables viewers to access a range of content that was unimaginable when the Minister and I were mere slips of boys watching glorious coloured television for the first time, as well as—when Channel 4 arrived—“Brookside” and “The Tube”. These are different days. It is unfortunate that there seems to be a dispute. It has really put a spoke in the works of what was described to us as a healthy working arrangement. We hope the issue can be sorted out.

There is one thing that we are not making progress on. It will not surprise you, Mr Efford, to see football—or “the fitba”, as we say in Scotland—come up in a debate on broadcasting in Scotland and what is available to viewers. We did not really expect, although we should have, that once we started bringing people in to discuss this topic, football would become the main focus of conversation.

What is happening to Scottish football fans is excruciatingly unfair. This conversation is timely because the Euro qualifiers return on Saturday, with the mighty Scotland taking on Norway. As you know, Mr Efford, we are top of group A, looking down at Spain, Norway and the rest of them below. Never before—or not since probably 1998, when we were last in the World cup—has Scotland had such an exciting national football team. People want to watch it. There is huge excitement about international football and the prospects for the Scottish football team. The only problem is that we have to pay to watch it. We are the only part of Great Britain where that happens; Northern Ireland is in the same situation. People in England and Wales can watch their national football team free to air—no problem. But in Scotland, they have to fork out or go to the pub to watch it with friends. That is not a bad prospect, but why is it only Scots on this island who have to pay? And the cost is not cheap.

In a competition to secure the rights to host and broadcast Scottish football, Viaplay was successful, and it has the rights until 2028. A standard Viaplay subscription for a month is £14.99. Viaplay has been reasonably generous and allowed a package that amounts to £59 if someone takes up the opportunity to buy for this year. We have a cost of living crisis. People are struggling to meet household bills. Mortgage rates are going through the roof. We still have very high energy costs. The subscription is a lot of money to ask people to pay when everybody else in the United Kingdom is able to access and watch the football for nothing.

Before Viaplay, the rights were owned by Sky, which had the rights during the 2018 and 2022 World cup competitions, as well as during the UEFA European championship in 2020, which were all shown on Sky. To show how important this is and what a big issue this is for Scottish football fans, in an online report by The Scotsman in November 2020, 92% of respondents agreed that Scotland’s men’s national football team games should be available on free-to-air TV.

We know the situation is complicated. We know there are lots of complex arguments, and that the future of the national game is in question. The Scottish Football Association relies on the money that it secures from selling the rights to a variety of broadcasters. Without that, it would not be able to invest in grassroots sport or support and resource a number of activities, so it is immensely important to it. It cannot gift this away for nothing. It rightly relies on the money to develop and build the game. All that has to be taken into account, and nothing should be done that would threaten that type of investment and resource.

There are ways through this. We identified two ways forward in the report. One is a voluntary arrangement between the Scottish Football Association and Scottish football fans and the rights holder. It is worth highlighting a couple of examples of how this could work. When Sky had the rights, it allowed the play-off final between Scotland and Serbia in the last European cup to be broadcast free to air, so that Scottish viewers could see it. During our inquiry there was a generous offer once again by Sky. Scotland had qualified for the final of the play-offs, and that was going to be free to air, too. Those are the sorts of voluntary arrangements that football fans would love the broadcasters to make. It is a generous offer that would be recognised and celebrated. It might even encourage take-up of the subscription services. That is a way it can be done, and we encourage more discussions and conversations about allowing particularly critical games to be free to air.

As for the listed events schedule, things are a little more complicated and technical there, but it is within the gift of the Government to say that those events should be free for Scottish viewers, recognising that everybody else in the UK has an opportunity to watch their country’s games. Can Scotland’s qualifying games be included? I know that is not the Government’s intention, and that they would have problems with such a thing, but perhaps this could be done, with compensation given for the loss of the revenue that the Scottish Football Association would normally secure from selling off the rights.

We have to start addressing this issue. I had a look round the whole of Europe to find out what other major footballing nations had done. It could be argued whether Scotland is a major footballing nation, but we are huge supporters, and we love our football. Looking at the teams that normally qualify, Scotland is one of the few countries in Europe that cannot access their national football team’s games, free to air.

Fisheries Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Deidre Brock

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock]

On our terms, of course. That is the point the hon. Gentleman is leaving out.

If we are looking for a history lesson, let us remind ourselves about the Tories, who have been selling out Scottish fishing for nearly half a century. Under Ted Heath in the 1970s, fisheries were considered expendable. In the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher, the UK Government signed us up to the original doomed common fisheries policy, which consigned our fishermen to decades of mismanagement. John Major’s Tories signed up to a revised common fisheries policy in the 1990s, which scrapped vessels and destroyed livelihoods. In the 21st century, the Tories were attempting to enshrine the common fisheries policy in European treaties, while the SNP was trying to return controls to the fishing nations. Let us not forget that, very recently, Ruth Davidson was reported in The Times as calling fisheries a red line issue, and a Scottish Tory source was quoted as saying:

“We won a lot of votes in the northeast on the back of our stance on fishing and wouldn’t be able to show our faces in Banff and Buchan if we renege on this one.”

[Pete Wishart]

Does my hon. Friend not agree with me that the Scottish Tory MPs have made 20-gallon galoots of themselves with their resigning/non-resigning nonsense? I do not know if she knows exactly where they are just now, but are they going to be in or oot when all this has concluded?

[Deidre Brock]

I am as baffled as my hon. Friend on that particular issue; that is for sure.

Returning to my speech, I think the context of this Bill has changed somewhat as a result of the withdrawal agreement. Some of the content of that agreement makes some of the apparent intent of the Bill a little more difficult to deliver and more dependent on negotiation and agreement with the 27 remaining members of the EU.

Having said that, let me pay tribute to the EFRA Secretary for staying the course and being determined to see things through to their conclusion. That seems to be a principle or a staying power that is somewhat lacking in his colleagues—erstwhile colleagues, I should say. They may have fallen by the wayside, weary of the march, but he carries on indefatigably. I understand that his father, as he mentioned, was involved in the onshore side of the industry, so he certainly comes to the Bill with some knowledge, but with a rather poor recall of facts if the newspapers are to be believed.

I acknowledge that the Secretary of State comes to the table with a backstory—if not a backstop—but that does not mean that he necessarily comes with the solutions the industry needs. The withdrawal agreement that was greeted with such delight by Government Members keeps our fishing industry in the common fisheries policy for a further two years after Brexit day, although of course our lack of membership means that the EU will decide the rules, while we have no say in them, no say in how they should be implemented and no voice in the discussions about whether the CFP is meeting its policy objectives.

Scottish Affairs Committee

Debate between Pete Wishart and Deidre Brock

Thursday 7th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I note the amount of questions that have been asked about the reprieved branches and the real interest in that as an example of what can be done. RBS owes it to the House to demonstrate that it is looking at the matter responsibly and not just setting up those branches to fail. They should be given every opportunity to demonstrate their effectiveness and their ability to pick up footfall and customers. If RBS is listening to this statement—I am sure that it is—I hope that it will have heard the real concerns of Members right across the House about the 10 reprieved branches and that it will do everything possible to assist them to meet whatever criteria will be set for keeping them open. The important thing is that we get an independent reviewer in place and that we can assess those criteria.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

A key finding of our Select Committee’s very good report, and one which reflects the comments of other hon. Members today, is that RBS’s impact assessments did not provide sufficient information on individual branches, such as whether customers have sufficiently reliable access to broadband, how practical it was for them to travel to the next branch or what alternative services were available in the area. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Lending Standards Board’s limited interpretation of impact is woefully inadequate, allowing RBS to avoid its responsibilities to our communities, and that the board must now listen to the communities affected by bank closures and widen the criteria that it uses?

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a diligent member of the Select Committee. As we said in the report, we have to be careful about the Lending Standards Board’s role, because it is a self-regulatory body with a voluntary code of practice. We ask the Government to consider that if the situation is not working, which seems to be case because we have dissatisfied communities who feel that they have not had their voices heard in the consultation about branch closures, the Government should start to consider a statutory code of practice and allow a consultation to be held prior to a branch closure, not afterwards, as is currently the case.

Creative Industries

Debate between Pete Wishart and Deidre Brock

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I congratulate the Members involved on bringing this very important debate to the House. I want to highlight the creative industries for which the city of Edinburgh, the world’s first UNESCO City of Literature, is renowned: writing and publishing.

Books might be changing as the electronic world takes over, but one thing will remain constant: the creation of new works will always need writers. However, writing is a less viable occupation now, with average incomes down to about £11,000 in 2014. We can romanticise the image of the artist in the garret reheating gruel—or porridge—for sustenance, but that is no way for someone to live in the 21st century, and we should be concerned.

The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society highlights the economic contribution of writers. In 2014, it was £84 billion of gross value added, which is a year-on-year increase of 8.9%. The Publishers Association tells me that published material earned £4.4 billion last year, three quarters of that in books, and boosted the balance of payments, with 43% of publishers’ sales being exports. Those are serious economic benefits. Last year, 254 million books were exported; a stack 13,000 miles high. If laid down with their spines up, those books would go more than halfway round the world. There are also online journals, e-books and other digital content. Where would the games industry be without talented storytellers? We must support our writers and publishers; together they make a massive economic contribution.

There is another, even more important reason to support them: we need writers. We need artists of all trades, because art is what makes life, but writers are special. Without them there would be no new books, plays, short stories or poetry. There would be no great speeches for party leaders, no new films at the cinema and no new dramas on television. “Coronation Street”, “Eastenders” and “River City” would judder to a halt, and time would be up for “Dr Who” and “Outlander”—

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

Shame!

[Deidre Brock]

Indeed. Both those shows make welcome contributions to the local economy and tourism, which would be lost.

Writers fill the space around us with art. They create our environment and enhance our lives. They should at least get the chance of earning a living. Some make it big, such as Irvine Welsh, who hails from my constituency and who has had substantial success. He did it the hard way, learning his trade while working other jobs. He was helped by Kevin Williamson, who still lives in Leith and who was a one-man dynamo in the early 1990s. Williamson’s publishing efforts changed the face of Scottish literature. Without him, we might not have had Welsh, Laura Hird, Alan Warner or Toni Davidson. Rebel Inc. altered the direction of Scottish writing, and Kevin Williamson’s contribution should be marked.

Irvine Welsh is an exception, however. Most writers make only a very modest income from their trade. Writers are vital, but we do not support them enough. As the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) has helpfully mentioned, we have created a less helpful environment for the creative industries by voting to leave the EU. This was not discussed during the campaigns, but as is the case for other industries, cutting the creative industries off from a potential workforce and potential clients must be damaging, and, as has been mentioned, those are not the only things that will be lost. For example, Creative Edinburgh, in my constituency, is engaged in a two-year project funded by the European Commission partnering creative hubs around Europe with the European Business Network to promote and support the creative economy. That two-year project may be safe from the storms of Brexit, but what will replace such projects in the little Britain of the future?

My constituency is full of extraordinarily talented people, such as novelist Val McDermid, artists Ruth Nicol and Joyce Gunn Cairns, the creatives behind LeithLate and Citizen Curator, people in successful software, digital and advertising companies and more than 11,000 people employed in design. The computer gaming industry, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) and which is already a major part of the Dundee economy, is becoming a serious and growing part of Edinburgh’s economy. These creative hubs attract people from all over these islands and from abroad.

Creative businesses flourish in my constituency: independent art galleries, shops such as Flux that sell handmade and unique products, and Kalypso Collective working in the fields of conceptual art, scenography and visual art. Will their viability survive Brexit? When the melting pot, which so many Members have referred to, cools and the exchange of ideas slows, creativity is stunted and output shrinks. Artistic viability becomes strained and economic benefits are reduced and perhaps extinguished. We need to stimulate the creative industries, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments about how exactly the Government propose to do that in the current situation.

The Chancellor could start, for example, with greater and better-targeted tax breaks for the creative industry. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West mentioned, devolving control of those to Scotland would be extremely helpful. Then the Chancellor could loosen the austerity noose that is strangling public services, to see whether the support that central and local government offered the arts could be restored.

Since we are heading down the EU exit ramp, we must secure the flow of people who make our creative industries viable. We need immigration policies that will bring people here and let them study, work and make their homes here. We need easier immigration, and more of it. The creative industries need more Government support for exports and help to open markets and guarantee payments. If the arms exporters can get it, why not creatives? We need creatives to be high up the agenda on overseas missions, with Government selling the ideas and products. These creatives are making a damn fine fist of it, and it is about time they got much more recognition and assistance.