Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Iain Stewart

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I did not know whether I was a Member of this House or an international observer, but I will take the initial one as your favour—thank you, Mrs Laing.

Let me say to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) that we have a Parliament in Scotland that determines and decides on these matters—he is right; we do that in Scotland. We do those things in this House too, but what he wants, and what has been created today, is a quasi-English Parliament within the confines of the unitary Parliament of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. That is the nub of the issue, and that is why this first meeting today is so significant and remarkable.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

May I remind the hon. Gentleman that what we have before us is a consent mechanism for Members from England, or England and Wales, to agree to measures that apply only to us? On Third Reading, if the hon. Gentleman fundamentally disagrees with something in the Bill, he will have a vote to vote against it.

[Pete Wishart]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman what it feels like to us. What it feels like to me, and to my right hon. and hon. Friends, is that we are on the wrong side of a banishment and a bar that denies us our right as legitimately elected Members of Parliament from participating fully in the House today. That is what is being done; that is the key point, which people still fail to grasp. What has been done with this Legislative Grand Committee is the creation of two types of Member of Parliament of this House. That is the issue that we object to and find so difficult.

English Votes on English Laws

Debate between Pete Wishart and Iain Stewart

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am actually grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. What we did—I will say this ever so gently and carefully to the hon. Gentleman—is this. We went around the difficult business of creating a Parliament. We did the work. We had a constitutional convention, and we consulted with communities and with interests across Scotland. What he wants to do is to create this quasi-English Parliament in two weeks. “Go and do the work.” That is what I say gently to English Members. “You cannot create a Parliament on the basis—on the back—of just changing the Standing Orders of the House. You must debate, you must consult, and you must make sure that you take the nations with you. Do the work, English Members!”

[Iain Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman and I may be able to continue the debate that we had on the radio a few days ago, but will he first remind me whether the Scottish National party took part in the Scottish constitutional convention?

[Pete Wishart]

When it comes to constitutional reform, the engine for change in Scotland is the Scottish National party. Every time we see a leap forward for the Scottish Parliament, an increase in powers or an independence referendum, it is based on the votes of the Scottish people and their representatives, such as my hon. Friends who are with us today. Let us not try to pretend that this is anything other than an attempt to create an English Parliament in the House of Commons, which is unacceptable to the rest of the people in the United Kingdom. I have a great deal of sympathy with English Members. I know of their unhappiness, because we hear about it again and again. English Members are so unhappy about the unfairness of it—about these evil, dreadful Scottish MPs who come down here and vote on their legislation—but if they want an English Parliament, they must go and do the work.