European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

Let me return to the matter in hand for a minute, because the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) was also there for the underwhelming vote for devolution in 1999, and she will surely recall that the Conservative party did not call for a second referendum. We did not threaten to drag the whole thing through the courts to get the judges to overrule the will of the people of Wales. We were not going around pretending that people had changed their minds and saying that we needed to run the whole thing over again. We did not say that we were going to drag the whole thing out and do everything possible to undermine it. In actual fact, Nick Bourne, who was then the leader of the Welsh Conservatives and is now a Member of the other place, sat down with Members of all parties on the National Assembly advisory group and helped to draw up the Assembly’s Standing Orders, most of which are now in place. That is the difference between the Conservative party’s approach when we were on the losing side of a referendum and the approach of the Labour party, the SNP and many others now that they are on the losing side.

The reality is that the change will be called a power grab. I did not hear the phrase used today, but it will be described as a power grab. Of course it is a power grab, and what a wonderful power grab it is, too. We are grabbing powers from Brussels and bringing them back to London. Not only that, but over the next few years—[Interruption.] SNP Members can shout all they like; I am waiting for one of them to intervene.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David T. C. Davies]

I would be delighted.

[Peter Grant]

Perhaps the reason why the hon. Gentleman’s campaign against the Welsh Assembly in 1999 failed was that the people of Wales voted in 1997. It might have gone better if he had turned up two years earlier. As we are talking about where power ultimately resides, I believe 100% in Scotland’s ancient doctrine that the people are sovereign. Where does he believe ultimate sovereignty over Scotland resides?

[David T. C. Davies]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is for the Scots to decide, and they decided that, for the time being, ultimate sovereignty rests within a United Kingdom Parliament in which the Scots are heavily and well represented, if I may say so. I totally respect that, and I hope he does, too.

A few weeks ago, Scottish National party Members were telling us that we should all support and recognise the referendum result in Catalonia, where a nation decided that it wanted to break out of a union with Spain. I find it ironic that the SNP is saying that we have to recognise referendum results when it happens to agree with the policy but that we should completely ignore referendum results when it does not agree with the policy.