Home Affairs

Debate between Pete Wishart and Michael Connarty

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), who may have one of the most unusual-sounding constituencies. She must be commended for her work on modern slavery and on children in particular.

I want to address what we now refer to as “the Scotland bit” in the Queen’s Speech. We are always grateful to Her Majesty for acknowledging Scotland in her Gracious Speech; it usually comes about two thirds of the way through, and again this year we were not disappointed. In the Queen’s Speech Her Majesty confirmed that her Government will

“make the case for Scotland to remain a part of the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4 June 2014; Vol. 754, c. 4.]

No surprise there; that is what we would expect her to say. In fact, it would have been quite remarkable had she said something else. Imagine if, for example, she had said, “I look forward to my subjects in Scotland securing the normal powers of an independent nation. I look forward to them enjoying the resources that will make their country one of the most dynamic and prosperous in the world.” Of course, she did not say that. Her Majesty knows, as we all know in Scotland, that the whole range of facilities available to this Government and this House will be pitted against Scotland in the next few months to try to influence the vote.

All the donors and cronies down the corridor will be engaged in trying to make sure that Scotland remains in the United Kingdom. All the resources available to all the Opposition parties will be engaged in ensuring that Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom. All of Whitehall, all Government Committees and all Select Committees will be engaged in trying to ensure that Scotland remains a part of the United Kingdom. I am one of six Scottish National party Members, so I am very much aware of the range of forces pitted against us. Out of 650 Members of the House there are maybe 10 of us calling for Scottish independence, and thank goodness for the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie), who has now joined the call. If we add the 800 Members from down the corridor, there are 1,400 Westminster parliamentarians who are against Scottish independence versus the six of us. That seems like reasonable odds to me. It is reasonably fair. What we have to do now is recognise, as the Queen did in the Speech, that the entire resources of Westminster—the whole of the House of Commons and the whole House of Lords—will be ranged against Scotland. Last week they even enlisted Lego figures in their fight to stop Scotland becoming independent, to much laughter and ridicule.

In the Scotland bit of her speech, Her Majesty confirmed that the Government

“will continue to implement new financial powers for the Scottish Parliament”.

These are not the new financial powers that the Prime Minister apparently signed up to only last week. These are the remaining consequential issues from the Scotland Act 2012 that need to be tidied up.

More devolution is all the rage in Scotland. We cannot walk around one of our big cities without tripping over some Unionist or UK commission looking into the issue. It is like the proverbial buses all turning up at once. It has got me and all the other people in Scotland wondering why they are doing it now. Is it anything to do with the prospect of a referendum on independence? Surely not. Yet that is almost certainly the case. It is curious because our Unionist friends did everything to keep a “more powers” option off the ballot paper for the referendum in September. They would give us anything else, such as the right to administer the referendum. They even allowed us to frame the question. It is we who were in charge of the franchise. The one thing they did not want was a “more powers” option on the ballot paper. Now we are expected to accept that they are sincere in delivering all these shiny new powers, when they did so much to keep them off the ballot paper. There are two things that we say about that: “Aye. Right. Fool us once and we’ll blame you. Fool us twice and it’s our fault.”

[Michael Connarty]

Might not the logic be to expose the fact that what has been offered by the Scottish National party was the lunacy of independence, as against staying within the Union where we could negotiate changes, and to expose the paucity of the hon. Gentleman’s argument that independence might be better for the people of Scotland, whereas we know that it would be a disaster for them?

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman has his own view, but why not offer the option on the ballot paper? There was accommodation with the Scottish Government about that. We were quite happy and relaxed about a third question being put forward. The Scottish people should always get what they want. That is my view and I am sure it is the hon. Gentleman’s view, so the question could have appeared on the ballot paper, but it was rejected. It was the one thing that the Government did not want included.

We have been here before. The hon. Gentleman will remember this. It was in my own constituency—Alec Douglas-Home trooping up to Perth city hall in 1979. What did he say to the Scottish people? “Vote no and we’ll give you something better. We’ll give you a better Parliament” than was on offer in 1979. What did we get? Eighteen years of Thatcherism, the destruction of our industrial base, and Tory obscenities like the poll tax. We will not be fooled by that again.

One of the funny consequences of all this—it is quite ironic—is that the party that so defiantly opposed the Scottish Parliament in any form of Scottish devolution is now the party of more devolution. It has made a more substantial offer than the party of devolution, the Labour party. We might be in the ridiculous situation whereby in the next Parliament, Labour Members oppose a Conservative Government offering many more powers than they ever intended to offer. Incredible, but that may be the case.

There is only one way for the Scottish Parliament to get more powers. There is only one way to ensure we get the powers that Scotland needs, and that is to vote yes in the independence referendum. If we do not, we leave it up to this House. We leave it up to the largesse of predominantly English Members to give us more powers. I know lots of English Members. Some of them are very good friends of mine. I do not detect a mood around the House that if Scotland votes no, they will rush in to give us more powers to reward us. I get the sense that they are much more interested in issues such as the Barnett formula. They believe their own propaganda and are concerned that Scotland gets more than the rest of their English regions. They are more concerned about that than about giving us power over income tax or more powers over welfare.

The other thing that consumes English Members is the West Lothian question about what Scottish Members could do here. Maybe it is just me, but I do not see a groundswell of English Members of Parliament queuing up to reward Scotland for turning down the prospect of independence. They are more likely to be thinking, “Scotland’s had its chance. It’s time for my region for a change.”

Other than the Scotland stuff, there were no other constitutional issues in the Queen’s Speech. That means that we will leave this Parliament with the House of Lords commanding the same position in our democracy as when the great reforming Liberals took part in government. What a disgrace. That unelected, crony-stuffed, donor-inhabited affront to democracy will remain in the same condition as when we came into Parliament.

The Liberals had lots of red lines when it came to the constitutional debate. I am not blaming the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) personally, although he is looking at me as though I am. They could have made much more of reforming the House of Lords. They went for AV—the inconsequential mouse of a reform measure—when they could have done something about that place, so we are left with it. In his parting shot, the Liberals’ Lord Oakeshott hinted that cash for honours is still very much a feature of securing a place next door. It is an absurd place and I hope that the next Queen’s Speech will enable us to do something about that affront to democracy. This Government this time round have done nothing.

Some have described the Queen’s Speech this year as a speech for a zombie Parliament. If it is a zombie Parliament, it must be a phantom Queen’s Speech, because it does not address the political dynamic that exists throughout the United Kingdom, what is going on and what should be debated. A few Members have said that. I think I am the only Member to raise the subject of UKIP. The party won an election a couple of weeks ago and made significant gains. Nobody wants to talk about UKIP here. Nobody will address the issue of what it has done. UKIP is pulling the strings of this Government and they are responding in the only way they know how—pandering to UKIP’s agenda instead of challenging it.

I am much more interested in what Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition are going to do. I challenged the shadow Home Secretary on that today. They are at a defining point. They are at a critical and crucial moment. The Labour party has two choices in relation to the immigration/UKIP agenda. It can challenge the assumptions that it is based on, do something about it, take it on, risk not being the favourite of the right-wing press and maybe alienating a few voters who have bought into this pernicious agenda; or it can pander to it and accommodate it.

I have seen the letters from Labour Members encouraging the party leadership to accommodate the UKIP agenda and saying that it could be addressed. They must reject it, stand tall and do the right thing. I know it is difficult sometimes for the Labour party to do this but it must offer leadership. If the Opposition offer leadership on immigration and challenge UKIP on its agenda, they will get my support. I will help them out. But they must not give in to it. They are in a critical position on the immigration/UKIP question. Don’t blow it, Labour. The nation is watching. Labour cannot face two ways on this—it either takes UKIP on or accommodates it. I very much hope Labour does the right thing.

Labour has let itself be bullied by the Tories and UKIP. It is appalling. Labour has been bullied into apologising for its years of immigration. That is one of the best things the Labour Government did and I cannot believe that the Opposition have been bullied like this. Stand up to them, for goodness sake! They should not be afraid to say that they got it right on immigration. It has been fantastic for the whole of the United Kingdom. It has made the city we are in one of the greatest cities in the world. Only about 30% of the people who live and work in London came from this place; the rest are from overseas. What has immigration done for us, as Monty Python might have asked? Look at this place and see what it has achieved, then try and argue that immigration is not good. Come on, Labour. Get on with it. Stand up to them and do the right thing.

I shall deal quickly with Home Office issues, few of which affect Scotland. We are practically independent when it comes to policing and judiciary arrangements. Thank goodness for that. When the Home Secretary turns up to the Police Federation for their annual meeting, she is booed, jeered and shouted down. Then I see our Cabinet Secretary turning up to the Scottish Police Federation and being cheered to the rafters for what we are doing for police officers in Scotland, compared with what this lot are doing here.

I welcome the Modern Slavery Bill. Even though it is for England and Wales only, I hope it is successful and I pay tribute to the many Members who have spoken in support of the measure. In Scotland we have our own people-trafficking Bill and we will continue to work with the UK on the matter, particularly in areas such as extra-territorial intervention and maritime policing.

Legislative consent motions will be required for some of the measures in the serious crime Bill, and I know that again, my colleagues in the Scottish Government will work closely with the Home Office to ensure a co-ordinated response to serious crime. But Scottish National party Members want more than that. Grateful as we are to Her Majesty, we want more than the Scotland bit. It is great that in every Session of Parliament it is included, and we look forward to it, but we do not want the insignificant wee bits here and there, the bits of Bills that apply to Scotland. We want a legislative programme for Scotland in the interests of the people according to our agenda and our priorities. We do not want to be dictated to by a Government for whom we did not vote. That is what we will get on 18 September. That is what the Scottish people will vote for.

Television Services (Scotland)

Debate between Pete Wishart and Michael Connarty

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Michael Connarty]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention but this debate is on television services in Scotland. His point is very well made.

When city television is launched in Scotland it will at first be based in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Because city television is independent—although it is a public service broadcaster—the question will be whether it is viable. Will it have enough users in each area so that advertisers fund the channel properly and allow it to develop correctly? In the future, people might have their own digital menus and the channel will be there for them to use, but at the moment that will not be the case. Obviously we see public service broadcasters in the first 10 channels. I understand that Ofcom has a responsibility to provide “appropriate prominence” to public service broadcasters, and I would define Scottish local television as a public service broadcaster. The first 10 channels include Sky and—no offence to ITV—ITV2, but the public service broadcaster for Scotland will not be found until channel 25 or 26, which seems to me to be inappropriate. There is too much of one thing and not enough of the other. If we really are saying that we want Scottish local television to develop as a recognised public service broadcaster for a devolved nation, not a separate nation—I am totally opposed to the idea of independence—we must recognise it as a public service broadcaster. We should be supporting it, the Minister should be supporting it and Ofcom should be doing whatever it can.

The Minister and Ofcom will say that it is not really in their gift to make one broadcaster give up a channel to another and that it is Digital UK, the operator of the digital terrestrial television platform, that needs to be persuaded or perhaps instructed to do that. I am unsure of the Minister’s powers here, but he may outline their limitations later. I would be happy to hear that his focus and control could be extended, although it may require a change to Acts of Parliament. It is incumbent on the Government to recognise the position of the devolved Scottish Parliament, the aspirations of the Scottish people and the significant contribution that can be made by Scottish television.

I am not criticising BBC Scotland. We do that to its face when we have things to say about its biases, prejudices and lack of use of Members of this Parliament for good, fact-based commentary on matters of political debate in Scotland, but then again every party criticises the public sector broadcaster. The point is that STV gives a different view. We have seen that most people now tune into “Scotland Tonight” on STV and do not necessarily watch “Newsnight Scotland”—or “Newsnicht Scotland” as I pronounce it when it changes from the normal BBC programme—so STV has a particular role to play. Local people would also like to see their news interests on city television, which means that it should be in the first 10 channels.

I want to make some comments about BBC Alba, but I will not criticise it as it is a public sector broadcaster that has a particular position. Of the 90,000 or so Gaelic speakers, I would imagine that those who use BBC Alba would know where it was were it at channel 26, although I am not suggesting that it should be put there. Some of my Gael colleagues say to me that there is something odd about running rugby with Gaelic commentary, because it is not necessarily a natural selection of sport for people in the Gaeldom, who would perhaps rather watch something else. Borderers watching rugby, and even sometimes football, often have to listen to Gaelic commentary, which can be confusing. It may be of interest to the Gaeldom, but not necessarily to others. I am not suggesting that we should push BBC Alba off the first 10 channels in order to include STV city television, but we should seriously look at moving somebody off that first 10 to recognise the role of STV and what will become city television.

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

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is making a good case, and I am supportive of his appeal to ensure that we get the matter resolved. The most sensible thing to do would be to move STV to where ITV1 sits, and ITV1 could be moved further down the electronic programme guide. That is the sensible approach. Most people who watch STV want to see it and not ITV in that slot. What is the problem with fixing it that way?

[Michael Connarty]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I understand that both ITV1 and ITV2 are in the first 10 channels, so we should certainly look at one of them. There is also a question about Sky and whether people want to see it alongside the public sector broadcasters. Should we not have the public sector broadcaster and the local city TV channel, under STV’s banner, in those first 10 channels, rather than Sky? Options are available to the Government, to Ofcom and to Digital UK.

I have said all that I need to say, and I think the Minister has acknowledged that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan), who sits on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, wants to contribute to the debate.

Scottish Referendum (Trident)

Debate between Pete Wishart and Michael Connarty

Thursday 7th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Michael Connarty]

I advise my hon. Friend not to put the chemicals that are contained in the nuclear fuses in the back of his Vectra. In fact, I would not put them in the back of anything that was not a nuclear bomb store. The fuses might not set off a nuclear weapon, but they might blow his Vectra back to the future.

Eight months for removing the warheads is correct. They are kept separate and can be detached and taken somewhere else. As for it taking up to 25 years to relocate the facilities, all the analyses now available publicly in the “Nowhere to Go” document by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament show that there is nowhere for the weapons to be relocated. There was nowhere all those years ago that was thought to be isolated and secure enough to install the nuclear weapons. Now, given the population changes in the conurbations around those areas, it is unlikely that anywhere would allow those weapons to be installed. The question of relocating them, therefore, could not be resolved unless there was some sort of dictatorship of Government on the people in the UK. Certainly, the idea of putting them in Wales or Northern Ireland would cause a massive uprising.

Should we even be thinking about moving the weapons somewhere else? It is a fantasy to think that in the event of a nuclear conflagration, Scotland would be safer having them somewhere else that was not Faslane or Coulport. Do we really think that an enemy of the UK would not want to bomb the establishments based in my constituency in Grangemouth, where the North sea oil and gas comes in, just because we put the weapons somewhere else? What are we going to do? Are we going to paint CND signs on the tops of all the buildings in Scotland? Let me own up to something. When I was leader of a council, we actually did put CND signs on our vans. Somebody pointed out that we should have put them on the roof because they could not be seen on the side of the vans, but we were young and foolish then. I have learned now that it is a nonsense to say that we are not part of the UK because we do not have the bomb any more and that if there were a conflagration we would be safe. I thought that the SNP Government and Alex Salmond, who is just about my age, had also grown up.

[Pete Wishart]

Of course it is right to say that if there were a nuclear strike, it is unlikely that Scotland would be spared the consequences, but should one not reflect the values of one’s community or one’s nation and say, “We refuse to hold these weapons. We refuse to threaten other peoples with these weapons.” Should we not be doing what we can to reflect the views of the Scottish people in this matter?

[Michael Connarty]

The hon. Gentleman is actually a little bit late. Having campaigned with the Labour movement over many years, my understanding is that more than 70% of the people of Scotland are already against these weapons. Therefore, changing the mood of the people in Scotland by removing the weapons is not the point. I want to see the mood changed throughout the United Kingdom so that we can persuade a Government in the future—a Labour Government, I hope—that we should be moving in the direction of taking the weapons out of the whole land mass of the UK; that is my aim. If my SNP colleagues, who support the idea of ridding the world of these nuclear weapons, want to go off and hide in a corner then they can do so, but they should not pretend that it is sensible Government policy. I am working up to my next point, “Don’t dump the people.”

[Michael Connarty]

I would not necessarily drift into unparliamentary language, such as “hypocrisy”; I think that is ill-judged and unfortunately a negative force in politics. I worry about the principles of the SNP. The issue is not independence, but the tenets on which the SNP bases its independence argument, of being separate and somehow thinking that it can be detached from other people’s concerns.

I am a socialist; I still want to see a world socialist organisation that tears down capitalism. If we have not learned the lesson from what the gamblers in the banks did—it was not gamblers in the Government, but gamblers in the banks—to our nations, not just here but throughout the world, then we have learned nothing. Of course, this Government have learned nothing from all that, as we can see from the policies that they are involved in at the moment.

The figure given by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee, was that 6,700 jobs—possibly up to 8,200 jobs—rely on Trident at the moment. There is also the question about all the other jobs that are attached to it, such as shipbuilding and the industries and supply sources that feed into it. I do not want to see those people made redundant; I want to see these people being reskilled, redeployed and creating useful things for our nation.

That is the one thing missing from the SNP’s arguments—the SNP has not done that work. It has not worked out how to deal with this question. The idea is that we just empty the warheads out of Trident and put all the soldiers in who are going to come back and volunteer, before they are quickly made redundant because £2.5 billion of budget will not keep many soldiers in a job and Scotland certainly will not have a navy, or many helicopters or planes to fly. It is a joke, it is unfair and it is an insult to the Scottish people to say, by assertion, “We can do this and it will all work.”

Instead we can look at the people who have been arguing closely alongside me—or me alongside them, I should say, because I respect them and their contribution is much greater than mine. For example, there are the people from the Bradford Disarmament Research Centre, including Dr Nick Ritchie, who has been doing tremendous work. The centre produced a report on Trident in 2008, “Trident: What is it For?”, which argues and shows that Trident is not for anything in the modern world, quite frankly; Trident is a nonsense. The centre talks sensibly, as the SNP should be doing to challenge the assertions that are made and the questions that are asked by the Scottish Affairs Committee. The centre produced another report in 2009, “Stepping down the Nuclear Ladder: Options for Trident on a Path to Zero”, which worked out how we can go—step by step—away from these weapons and what we can do with them. In 2010, the centre produced the report, “Continuity/Change: Rethinking Options for Trident Replacement”. These reports are fundamental sources of information about how we can move away from a world, and a UK, that has nuclear weapons in its armoury, and use the money for something much more useful.

However, what do we have from the Government? What we have from the Government is the fact that they are going to step up the main-gate costs in 2016. Those costs are going to be enormous and we will be landed with another generation of weapons, like for like, that is not justifiable, that was never justifiable according to the 2008 report I referred to, that is not sustainable and that should not be moved along with.

As we know, a commission is sitting and considering the question of the future of Trident. I had the pleasure of going along to one of the discussions around the review, “Trident Alternatives Review and the Future of Barrow”. Why do I mention Barrow? It is because that review is the kind of work that the SNP Government should have been doing if they really meant to remove Trident and if they were not just about government by assertion or politics by gesture. That is the kind of work that should have been done, but I see none of that work being done by the SNP. That review argued very strongly that if we want to have a situation where Barrow, which builds these submarines, will be without that work, we must invest £100 million per year in that community to reskill people and look to the future. If that process continued, there would then be a new set of people with a new set of skills, who would build an economy in that area.

The SNP has done none of that work. What are we going to have? Heathers and bagpipes up the Kyle of Lochalsh? Is that what the future is going to be about? Is it going to be about emptying out the area and letting the people drift away, and hoping that the people who remain there will somehow attract tourists who will give them handouts? The work has not been done.

I will tell you an interesting fact, Mr Rosindell, as you have taken the Chair. When I looked into my wife’s ancestors, I discovered that her third great-grandfather was the ferry manager from Ardentinny to Faslane. In his day, there was an agricultural community on both sides of the water, and that route became a route for people to go down into the central belt of Scotland; sadly, that emptied out most of that area. The idea that we could not have people living there with high skills, in a very attractive area, who could work in the conurbations of Scotland and commute, or in fact who could create whole new industries in that area, is a nonsense.

Let us consider a parallel. When I first came into the House, I went down to visit Baglan Bay. Baglan Bay was a BP refinery and chemical site, because we thought that the oil would come from the other side of the world and to the west coast of the nation. BP realised that would not make sense, because of North sea oil, so it shut down Baglan Bay, slowly but surely. However, there are more jobs in that area today than there were when BP had its refinery and when there was a chemical industry there, because the Wales Office, which was then responsible, planned for the change, trained people for it and put the infrastructure in for it. None of that type of work has been done by the SNP Government, because they live by assertion; they do not live by standard logic and proof.

[Pete Wishart]

I have listened very carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Like me, he is passionately against nuclear weapons; he believes that we need to rid the world of this scourge—this immoral curse that we have on our land. We say that we will get rid of them after we secure independence. He wants rid of them too, so what is his plan for jobs once he secures his ambition to ensure that Trident is cleared from Faslane? What would he do for jobs?

[Michael Connarty]

I am very happy to answer that question, because I have just given the example of the work that has been done on Barrow. People who are looking at the future of the UK without nuclear weapons are looking at what it takes. It is not a matter of location; it is a matter of industrial, manufacturing and education policy. Whether or not we had stopped making gas lanterns in Faslane and we were going to make some new things for the nation, we would have to plan and train, put people in the skill set, and give them the infrastructure. Whether something is made redundant by technology or by the movement of history, such as the movement of agricultural workers to the conurbations, it is a cycle. A nation must plan ahead for the people and for its needs in the future.

That is what is missing. A very legitimate question was asked by the Scottish Affairs Committee, “What do you do in this situation?” The Committee is asking the SNP Government to answer that question, and it is getting nothing; it is getting silence. I do not think that this argument about Trident adds to the arguments for independence, but it would be nice to think that the Government of Scotland at this moment were planning to do something and would put forward a plan that the people could look at, but they are not doing that. Instead, they are saying, “Jump off the cliff. It’s all right, you’ll find the water’s warm when you land.”

Scotland Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Michael Connarty

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

The arrangement is perfectly legal under the present system. I am saying that the system should be more constrained and more disciplined, and that the resources should be more focused. I believe that the public are questioning why the office is there, what its purpose is, and whether it constitutes a distortion of what is due to them, the electorate. I keep returning to this point. What did we promise the electorate? What we promised them we have not delivered, and we should therefore consider doing something better. The new clauses represent serious challenges to the existing system, and should be treated as such.

[Pete Wishart]

Notwithstanding the fact that AMS was the Labour solution in the Constitutional Convention, there is another elegant solution to deal with a number of the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. Under STV, there would not be two distinct categories of Members of the Scottish Parliament. However, I presume that he wishes to end proportionality and return to Labour fiefdoms such as Glasgow council, 90% of whose members received 40% of the votes. Is that what he wants?

[Michael Connarty]

I should like Glasgow city council—which is a wonderful council—to be properly resourced, rather than having its budget cut by 3.7%. That is what the Scottish Government have just done, at a time when the city needs more resources. Other areas with a large proportion of SNP councillors are experiencing very small cuts. That is another abuse for which the people will take the Government of Scotland to task, and will take the SNP to task in particular.

Proportionality has not worked in our system. I do not approve of the single transferable vote. I do not believe in that kind of proportionality, because I think that it moves so far away from the idea of accountability that the public reject it, and I do not think that we will get very far with any other amendment that appears to distort what we have in the House of Commons at present. When a Member of Parliament is elected, he or she is accountable. People know whom they elected, why they elected them, and how to get rid of them. If we cannot introduce a system that provides some credibility, the Scottish Parliament will go spinning off into the future with no credibility at all. I therefore hope that the Committee will pass new clauses 1 and 2.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Michael Connarty

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am more than happy to acknowledge that Ron Gould was not right about everything, but I think most Members accepted the broad thrust of his report’s recommendations in respect of the structural problems that arose in the 2007 election. One of his recommendations was that all responsibilities for elections should lie in one House, and he gave the strongest possible hint that that should be the Scottish Parliament. Our new clause 5 proposes precisely that. It brings together all aspects of electoral administration and legislative competence and places them with the Scottish Parliament, which is where they should be. We believe that that is the case not only because about 140,000 people lost their votes in 2007, but because it is the normal way of things. Any self-respecting Parliament should be in charge of its electoral arrangements. With election to office comes accountability, and we strongly believe that all arrangements to do with elections should be the responsibility of the Parliament that has been elected on the basis of those arrangements.

I accept that the Bill’s proposals represent an improvement on current arrangements. I welcome the fact that it devolves certain administrative functions to Scottish Ministers—indeed, I welcome any transfer of powers to the Scottish Parliament—but it does not even devolve all aspects of electoral administration, as recommended by the Calman commission. That would still give the Secretary of State powers over voter registration, the rules on the composition of Parliament, the procedure for filling any regional seat vacancy during the life of the Parliament, and rules relating to disqualification.

Scottish Ministers would still need to approach the UK Government if primary legislation were required on the date of elections, for example, or even on the voting system, which is an issue that I know greatly exercises many Labour Back Benchers. The Scottish Parliament’s role would also be limited to approving or disapproving rules made by Scottish Ministers, and it would have no opportunity to shape them through its own primary legislation. Furthermore, the Bill would require that Scottish Ministers must consult the Secretary of State before making any of these rules.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has said something that jarred with the logic of his argument. He is obviously speaking about an independent country that has its own Parliament when he says that the Parliament should decide the electoral system. Does he not accept that as this Westminster Parliament is sovereign, it is right that we decided the system—although I do not agree with it, in particular the additional Members who were added instead of bringing the numbers down to the figure proposed in the first Bill? Does he not accept that it is right that this sovereign Parliament should decide how people are elected to the devolved Parliament, as the reality is that we do not have an independent Parliament in Scotland?

[Pete Wishart]

Of course the hon. Gentleman and I differ as to how we would like this whole process to develop and the sort of Scotland we would like in the future, but my view is still very much that any self-respecting Parliament worthy of that name must be responsible for its own arrangements. That is just how things are done, and I believe the Scottish Parliament should have that responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

Doing things differently in Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom is what we call devolution, and I say to the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that we make no apologies for representing our constituencies and communities. If this is the legislation that our communities want, it is up to us as their elected Members to secure it.

I strongly welcome the clause and I congratulate the Calman parties on introducing it. It is one of the few examples in the Bill of a real and positive transfer of powers from the Scotland Office to Scottish Ministers, in recognition of the very significant and different issues in Scotland. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds mentioned the tragic incident in 2005 when young Andrew Morton lost his life at the hands of someone with an airgun. It was not the tabloid press but his parents who started a remarkable campaign to bring the issue to public attention, and they were supported in that cause by politicians, civic groups and everyone who took an interest in the subject.

[Michael Connarty]

I worry when a Scottish National party Member accepts the kind of smear on Scotland that the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) made. If we look at the press in England, we see there has been a succession of shootings and killings using handguns, not airguns, in and around the cities of England. The seriousness of the issue of deaths being caused by those carrying firearms is much greater in England than in Scotland, so let us not get things out of perspective.

[Pete Wishart]

I will come to the issue of firearms, which is central to our amendment, in order that we can, in Scotland, have responsibility for firearms, as well as for air weapons, which are, as we all acknowledge, a significant problem in our community. It is important that we have legislative responsibility for all such weapons in Scotland so that we can make our own laws, not just in regard to airguns, but in regard to all serious weapons.

A fantastic campaign led to calls for Scotland to secure legislative competence for airguns, which we are doing today. It led to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, writing to Jacqui Smith several years ago to ask that Scotland be considered as a pilot area for the licensing of airguns, and subsequently to a summit of all stakeholders to consider the problem in Scotland and propose a way of dealing with it. Many interesting issues were explored at that firearms summit. The Scottish Government went as far as publishing the necessary parliamentary order to transfer the power quickly so that they could start to deal with the issue in Scotland.

Why do we want legislative competence? I have explained why we think the situation in Scotland is different and why Scotland needs the power, but what we can do with it? This might satisfy the hon. Member for The Cotswolds about our intentions: it is not about trying to stop sporting events or getting in the way of the Commonwealth games. That is nonsense. They will go ahead. Many constituents of mine enjoy and participate in events with all manner of rifles and I have no problem with that.

The power would allow us to examine the issue seriously. The intention is to put together a Scottish firearms consultative panel involving all the key stakeholders to establish a range of views on the issue. One of its first tasks would be to develop and consider the merits of a pilot licensing scheme for air weapons. This would enable the Scottish Government to test the practicalities of air weapon licensing. It would also test whether air weapon licensing can operate effectively without wider reform of the firearms legislation. A pilot could take place in one or more areas in Scotland.

Our strong view, as I said to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), is that air weapons are only part of the story when it comes to dangerous weapons in Scotland. At the firearms summit in 2008 there was clear agreement that the current firearms legislation is not fit for purpose. Something must be done to improve the situation. It needs to be comprehensively reviewed. I accept that a review is taking place and we will wait to see its conclusions, but we need action. If that cannot happen at UK level, and if the legislation is not satisfactory, we insist that firearms legislation control be handed to the Scottish Government so that we can make our own decisions about this critical issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

Indeed, we do support the clause as it stands. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is an astute follower of what happens in the Scottish Parliament, so he will have heard Kenny MacAskill and other colleagues saying on several occasions that what we require in Scotland is full control over all firearms legislation. That was the outcome of the summit held back in 2008 and that is what we seek to achieve this evening. We can achieve it. All we need to do is get the Committee to support us on amendment 3 this evening.

[Michael Connarty]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain how that would operate? I deal with firearms quite a lot in my constituency. I would like to hear what the difference would be if legislative control were transferred. The regime is very strictly run by the police, and the laws encompass everyone in the UK.

[Pete Wishart]

I am about to come to that. Let me explain first what we are trying to achieve with the amendment, and I will then deal with the hon. Gentleman’s wider point. He may intervene again if he feels that he is not getting a satisfactory response.

Our amendment deletes a small section that states that power over the control of “specially dangerous” weapons remains with the Secretary of State. It ensures that the Scottish Parliament will have the power to legislate for all air weapons, including the “specially dangerous” weapons that require a firearms certificate. The Bill as it stands includes a power for the Secretary of State to designate “specially dangerous” air weapons, which would then fall under the reserved regime that applies to all other firearms. In that case, the power would lie with the UK Government and Ministers and would not be subject to any approval from Scottish Ministers or the Scottish Parliament.

We therefore propose that the relevant power be exercised with the consent of the Scottish Parliament, even if it is not transferred. We believe that this is important because there are different and distinct issues relating to firearms in Scotland. I do not want to mention specifically all the tragedies that have taken place. We have only to recall Dunblane several years ago to recognise the very real issues that we have in Scotland involving firearms. It would be much more sensible for all firearms to be under one control in one central point. Scottish police forces have taken great interest in our plea and they would be interested in developing and exercising it.

We want to avoid complication. Our amendment would devolve legislative competence for all air weapons to the Scottish Parliament. I intend to press the amendment to a Division because it is important. This is one of the few opportunities that we will get to improve the Bill significantly and ensure that all weapons are included in it. It is a small measure designed to improve the Bill, as we said we would, and I urge the entire Committee to support it.