Scottish Independence and the Scottish Economy

Debate between Pete Wishart and Jamie Stone

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

This is progress. I feel that I am on the right track with this, because what we are getting across the House is agreement to the assertion that Scotland would be a successful independent country. I have no doubts whatsoever that England, without Scotland’s contribution through its resources, would be equally successful as an independent nation; I believe that somehow it would just about muddle through without our support—

[Jamie Stone]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I hope I am going to get a clean sweep here and get the Liberals to agree to this. I am counting on the hon. Gentleman to do that.

[Jamie Stone]

I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but if he took a straw poll of the pregnant mothers in Caithness who now have to travel more than 100 miles to give birth in Inverness—this has happened on the SNP’s watch—he would get a pretty dusty answer.

[Pete Wishart]

It was going so well. I had the Conservatives agree to this and I think I had the Labour party agree to it, but the Liberals just could not bring themselves to agree with the proposition that an independent Scotland would be a successful, independent nation.

Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Debate between Pete Wishart and Jamie Stone

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. and learned Friend is coming to the right conclusions about the Government’s indecision and apparently clear intention of not having an ethics adviser put in place at the earliest possible opportunity. A number of things are coming up—I will mention a couple of them—in the in-tray for any adviser to consider, some of which will greatly concern Members of this House.

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

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would agree that further delay and dilly-dallying in the appointment of an ethics adviser does nothing whatever to restore public confidence in our Government?

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely and utterly right. I do not think that, in my 20-odd years in the House, I have seen it in such a dilapidated condition, when public trust in the activities of the House, the way in which we do business and the way in which we conduct ourselves has been so badly misunderstood and misinterpreted by the public. It is incumbent on the House to start to try and put these things right.

Let us get back to our good friend Lord Geidt. I do not know what it was in his comments that he had been left in

“an impossible and odious position”

and that he could not be

“party to advising on any potential law-breaking”

that led to any misunderstanding about his intention to resign from his role, and the real reasons why he eventually got around to it. Perhaps he had to be got rid of because it was he who had previously investigated the controversy over how the Prime Minister had funded the refurbishment of the flat above No. 11 Downing Street.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) referred to several issues that might require the attention of a future independent ethics adviser, but surely the one at the top of his inbox would be our emerging concern that the Prime Minister was seriously considering appointing his now wife to the role of special adviser in the Foreign Office. That is a matter that I think the House will have to return to in due course, and consider properly. Although Lord Geidt concluded that the Prime Minister had not broken ministerial rules in respect of the prime ministerial flat, the Conservative Party was later fined £17,800 for the improper declaration of donations.

So Lord Geidt is gone, and I have the impression that Downing Street is not particularly upset about that, but what is to be done? I have no problem with the Labour party’s motion, and I will support it; the only thing that I would say to Labour Members is that I would not give them the chance to try and find an independent adviser on the Government’s ethics. In any event, I think that it should be a matter for the House. I accept that some of these issues are relevant and pertinent to Government activity and business, but surely the House should have some sort of say, through the function of its Committees, in who does the monitoring and how that person is appointed. The present system has not worked particularly well in the case of the last few independent advisers. I think that we would need to find someone with the attributes of Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Columbo and George Washington combined to perform this role effectively.

In Scotland, of course, we have our much neater and easier way out of this midden, and that is to simply leave all of you to get on with it in your own time and in your own way. I have no idea what Scotland has done in its history to deserve governance such as this, but believe me, Madam Deputy Speaker, my colleagues and I are doing everything possible to ensure that the situation will be rectified. When it is right that we put forward the case for independence—as we will, and we will convince the Scottish people of its merits—all we need to do is to get the Scottish people to turn on the Parliament channel and observe what is happening in the House. That will increase their enthusiasm, and cause them to rush towards the cause of independence. The choice for them will be whether to be governed by these privileged Etonian spivs with their “one rule for them” approach to government, or to become a self-governing nation run by the people who care most about Scotland—the people who live and work there.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Jamie Stone

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

[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?

--- 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.