Points of Order

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I will hear other Members if they insist, but the hour is late, so I would ask colleagues to show some sensitivity to the need to move on to the Adjournment debate. If people want to be heard, I will hear them briefly.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Earlier, the Minister for the Cabinet Office gave the House an assurance that the new powers over the devolved nations being taken by the Government would not normally be used against the consent of those devolved Parliaments. He used almost exactly the same words as those that are already enshrined in the Sewel convention, which the Government have today cast aside by whipping their own MPs to vote against it. As Members have heard assurances by the Minister, and in some cases have possibly been persuaded how to vote by those assurances, what means are available to Members to ensure that those assurances are not cast aside with the same impunity as the assurances in the Sewel convention or, indeed, the assurances that we were given by the Secretary of State for Scotland in the early stages of the debate?

[Mr Speaker]

The answer is that, if I may say so, scrutiny is a process, rather than a fact. It is not a matter of an isolated incident or a single statement, gesture or occasion. It is a process of—if you will—remorseless inquisition. It is perfectly open to the hon. Gentleman, who has fast become familiar with the mechanisms of House scrutiny, to scrutinise the Government through written and oral questions, pursuit of Adjournment debates and the like on the matter of the Executive’s adherence to the Sewel convention, or, as he sees it, their non-compliance with it. I do not want to get into a great attempted exegesis of the Sewel convention but, from memory, the convention stipulates that the Government will “not normally” proceed on matters without a legislative consent motion. But, as the hon. Gentleman will know, the presence of the words “not normally” does admit of exceptions. That is the reality of the matter. It is a political matter, rather than one that lends itself to a ruling from the Chair.