Oral Answers to Questions
Rory Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
1. What assessment he has made of the potential effects of Scottish independence on border parliamentary constituencies.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
As a United Kingdom, we all have better job opportunities, employment and mobility. Every day, 30,000 people travel between Scotland and England for work. If Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom, our border constituencies would be the first to feel the effects of the creation of an international border.
Rory Stewart
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the challenges of separation would be that our focus would be lost and our energy dissipated by looking at the details of administration and borders, rather than all the opportunities in the world, from Brazil to Indonesia?
Mr Carmichael
That is one of the many downsides a vote for independence would bring. It would be an unnecessary distraction that would indeed remove our focus from the opportunities that being part of the United Kingdom give us to develop Scottish business by looking overseas.
Scotland’s Place in the UK
Rory Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.
One thousand nine hundred years ago, Rome divided Britain with a wall. Britain is an island whose natural boundaries are the sea, and this wall split families and split tribes. Ever since that moment we have been debating this issue. These two fundamental principles for Britain are what we are debating today. They are in competition: are we divided nation against nation, or are we unified by culture and language? There is only one answer to that question, and it cannot be simply economics. If a relationship is going wrong—if a marriage is going wrong—the answer cannot simply be to say, ‘You can’t afford to break up because you are going to lose the house.” The answer has to be only one thing, which is, “I love you.” We in this House are struggling to express the nature of our love for Scotland. We are not very good, as politicians, at talking about emotions. We have become very bad at it, but we need to learn to do it, because otherwise a party that is trying to reduce, to shrink, to vanish will win.
What do we mean when we say, “I, as a Member of Parliament for an English constituency, love Scotland”? It would be personal to every single one of us. It could be that we love intellectual seriousness. I was paddling along in a canoe with the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) a few months ago, and I would really miss him from that canoe. People in the United Kingdom would miss Scotland for different personal reasons—Scotland’s egalitarianism, its intellectual seriousness, its sense of realism and its sense of humour. I would be very ashamed and embarrassed to be part of a country that did not have Scottish Members of Parliament here.
Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is an expert in foreign affairs. Can he tell the House how much stronger Scotland would be as an independent country in relation to the world?
Rory Stewart
There are two answers to that question. First, Scotland must of course embrace the potential of being part of the United Kingdom in foreign affairs. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman himself represents what is good about our political settlement. He sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, so there is a Scottish voice on that Committee raising Scottish issues again and again, forcing us to focus on Scottish issues when we think about foreign policy, and that is something that we would deeply miss.
There is a great appeal to Scottish nationalism. We all feel it in our gut, and it is because the world is bewildering. People are angry. Some 85% of people in this country feel that politics is broken and 87% feel that society is broken. Our voters feel that Westminster is out of touch and that their lives have never been so complicated. Those are real feelings that we have to acknowledge and accept. But the answer to those problems is not to get smaller. When we face complexity and things that are bewildering in our everyday lives—when we feel angry or disappointed—the answer is not to get smaller, shut the door and pretend that we can shut those things out. The answer is to expand.
I have three suggestions on the lessons that we need to learn from Scottish nationalism. The first lesson is that it is not that Westminster is too far away: it is also that Edinburgh is too far away. The answer to the problems of our communities is to represent the issues of Argyll separately from the issues of Perthshire and the issues of the Borders. They are not the same issues. One of the great weaknesses in England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland is the lack of real localism. Whether talking to someone in Muthill struggling with planning or someone in Kelso worried about economic development in their area, we need to learn from Mitterrand in France in 1983—hyper-localism and mayors at a local level—and not try to fool the Scottish people by pretending that transferring power from Westminster to Holyrood will solve those human problems.
The second thing that we need to do—and this is true for the north of England as much as for Scotland—is not to pretend that London and the south of England do not exist. We need to accept that they exist, that they are a challenge, that they have huge potential, and that we need to make them work for us, not pretend that they are not there.
The third thing is cultural links. It is a tragedy that the educational policy of the Scottish National party has made it more difficult for English students to study in Scottish universities and for Scottish students to study in English universities. We must reinforce the cultural links.
Finally, what we need is the human expression. On 19 July this year, I hope that 100,000 people will gather along that old Roman wall—English, Welsh, Irish and Scots—holding hands and linking arms across the border. Because in the end what matters is not the wall that divides us but the human ties that bind us in the name of love.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rory Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
Christmas in Syria will be defined by unstopping grief and horror in sub-zero temperatures. I encourage the Prime Minister to keep a relentless focus on humanitarian relief in Syria, to encourage the rest of the international community to meet the UN’s demands for £4 billion of assistance, and to ensure that that assistance is much more imaginative and generous.
The Prime Minister
On behalf of the House, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue before Christmas. That is where our thoughts should be. There is a huge humanitarian crisis affecting up to half of the Syrian population. Britain can be proud of the fact that, at £500 million, we are the second-largest bilateral donor of aid going to Syria and neighbouring countries and we are helping people in those refugee camps. We should encourage other countries to step up to the plate in the way we have done, and ensure that we fulfil our moral obligations to those people who will suffer at Christmas time.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rory Stewart Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I fully support what the hon. Gentleman has said, but first let me join him in praising Constable Reynolds, who died going about her job, keeping people safe in the community she loved. As well as wishing the two injured officers a full and quick recovery, I join him in sending my deepest condolences and those of everyone in the House to Constable Reynolds’ colleagues and loved ones.
On the appalling situation of people buying beef products in supermarkets and finding out that they could contain horsemeat, let me remind the House of what has happened and then bring it up to date. On 15 January, the Irish authorities identified problems in a number of beef products. On 16 January, I told the House that I had asked the Food Standards Agency to conduct an urgent investigation. As part of that investigation, there has been more testing and tracing, and this enhanced testing regime actually led to the discovery from Findus and others of not just contamination but, in some instances, of horsemeat being passed off as beef.
That is completely unacceptable, which is why it is right that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has led these meetings with retailers and producers. We have agreed a tougher inspection regime, and have asked hospitals, schools and prisons to check with their suppliers that they are testing their products. As the hon. Gentleman and the House know, yesterday the police and the FSA raided two premises, one in west Yorkshire, the other in west Wales, and as he said, if there has been criminal activity, there should be the full intervention of the law. We have also asked for meaningful tests from retailers and producers, and those will be published in full. He is right to say what he does.
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
In a week when both sides of the House have celebrated the wonders of the United Kingdom, I am delighted to discover that I now represent a midlands constituency. Will the Prime Minister please join me in celebrating a culture that touches both sides of the English-Scottish border by celebrating Cumbria day with us today?
The Prime Minister
I am very much looking forward to joining my hon. Friend at the celebration of Cumbria day here in the House of Commons. He is incredibly fortunate to represent one of the most beautiful and brilliant constituencies in the House of Commons. I particularly remember the time we spent at the Butchers Arms in his constituency—an outstanding pub in a beautiful part of our world.
Constitutional Law
Rory Stewart Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and my colleagues for allowing me to contribute to the debate. I feel that it is very difficult for someone who represents an English constituency to speak about this subject.
I want briefly to discuss three questions. First, should there be a referendum at all? Secondly, what are the criteria on which we should determine whether there should be a referendum? Thirdly—this takes up a point raised in the powerful speech of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling)—why do we need more investment in information, and, in particular, the spending of more money on media debates?
The question of whether there should be a referendum is a very big issue. Traditionally, we have not had proper procedures for constitutional change in Britain. The reason this question is so important is that it matters not just in relation to Scotland, but in relation to every constitutional change introduced in this country. Britain is the only advanced democracy left in the world—in fact, almost the only country left in the world—that does not formally distinguish between constitutional law and normal law, and tries to introduce constitutional change by means of simple majorities in Parliament. That cannot be right. Every other country recognises that the constitution exists to protect the people from the Parliament: to protect them from us. We cannot, with shifting single majorities, set about changing the thing that protects the people, which is why every country from America to Italy to Greece to Spain demands super-majorities, constitutional assemblies or referendums.
The answer to the second question—why should we have a referendum about this issue?—is also extremely important, and it too relates to what was said by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West. It involves the very difficult issue of how political institutions such as this Parliament—this building—can define an entire identity. A serious problem with some of the arguments advanced by supporters of the Scottish National party is the way in which they have tried to trivialise the issue. They have tried to suggest that it does not really matter, and that it is possible to get rid of a single Parliament without anything really changing. My constituents are often told that nothing will change, although 12,000 of them registered as Scots in the census and more than 50% of telephone calls made from Carlisle are made to people in Scotland.
In fact, everything we know from every country in the world suggests that the fundamental, defining feature of identity is a political institution. Much more than ethnicity, much more than culture, political institutions keep people together, which is why we must have a referendum.
How do we know that? Well, I know it from my own constituency, because Cumbria was itself a nation. It was a kingdom. For 700 years, Cumbria and Northumbria ruled the kingdom that stretched from Edinburgh in the north to Sheffield in the south. Why does Cumbria not have an identity that crosses the border today? Because it is no longer a political entity. It no longer has a Parliament, and it no longer has a king. Why are French people in France different from French people in Switzerland? For one reason only: their Parliaments split. Why has Britain grown apart from the Commonwealth countries to which it was so close 50 or 60 years ago? Because the political institutions split.
Scotland itself is another example. Why is it a nation? That is a difficult question to answer. Scotland has had Norwegians in the north, Welsh Celts around Strathclyde, Irish sea raiders, and Anglians coming into Lothian. The one thing that holds it together is the community of the realm. It is the political institution that creates the nation. We in Cumbria know why that matters in Britain. Cumbria was a centre point of horror because two Parliaments and two kingdoms split apart. That border created the monstrosity.
That leads me to the question of why more money needs to be invested in the campaign, and why we need more media investigation. The answer is that the issue of political institutions and Parliaments is difficult, and perhaps even boring. It is not stuff that gets people excited. People voting in a referendum will find it hard to follow all the issues without an enormous amount of information. The Scottish National party is, of course, right to say that some of the prophets of doom who suggest that independence will lead to the end of the world are wrong. Independence will not lead to the end of the world, and that is why information matters.
Independence will not cause the war between England and Scotland to start again. Those days of savagery, murder, pillage and rape—what we saw in Cumbria for 400 years—will not return, because the world has changed. Nor will Scotland or England become a failed state. Scotland and England are extremely advanced, educated countries, each with its world-class businesses, and although both may undergo a process of difficulty and insecurity, they will subsequently be able to adjust and thrive. That is not the problem; the problem is something much more difficult and much more elusive, which anyone voting in a Scottish referendum needs to understand but will not be able to understand unless we invest money in enabling the subject to be discussed as openly as possible. That is the importance of political institutions. It is a question of understanding, as we understand in this House, why this place matters. Why does it matter that Scottish and English MPs sit together in a single Parliament? It matters because it provides the formal process for mutual consideration.
The SNP is again absolutely correct that, theoretically, there is nothing to stop Scotland being friendly to England or England being friendly to Scotland in the absence of a joint Parliament. There is no reason, theoretically, why an English MP could not take into account Scotland’s interests when thinking about their constituency in relation to common agricultural reform or agricultural subsidies, for instance. There is no reason, theoretically, why a Scottish MP in an independent Scotland could not think about England’s nuclear interests when considering the positioning of submarine bases. In practice, however, it is the formal elements of this Chamber and our Committees and Government that force us to think about each other.
I sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It matters that the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr Roy) attends that Committee day in and day out, forcing the Foreign Office to answer questions that relate to Scotland. Instead of having to rely on good will, we have created institutions. Those institutions bring together much better people, too.
Fiona O'Donnell
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that good will is under threat, as well as the institutions? What would be the effect on his constituents of an independent Scotland having a substantially lower corporation tax rate than England?
Rory Stewart
That is a good question, and there are many other similar questions we might ask. It is easy to come up with hypothetical examples—such as that corporation tax point—of ways in which people could grow apart, but the key point is that, without a United Kingdom, there will be no formal processes and incentives to think through such matters. At present, however, we create the forums.
I am only three months married, so I hesitate to say this as I do not know what on earth I am talking about, but it strikes me that formal institutions such as marriage force people to discuss things, to compromise and to think in ways that we might not if that formal institution were not in place. [Interruption.] Perhaps I am wrong about that, however. It was foolish of me to hold forth on the importance of that institution on the basis of just three months of married life.
The institution of the United Kingdom and its Parliament has four key benefits. The first of them is that it brings people together. Over more than 400 years it has brought together incredibly talented people, including people we barely recognise as being Scots or English, who would not have come together if we had not had a United Kingdom. It has brought together leaders of all our parties. We often forget that Scotland produced not just the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), but also William Gladstone and, indeed, the crofter’s grandson, Harold Macmillan. Scotland produced the ideas, the culture and the nation that challenges England and makes the United Kingdom better. Scotland played an important part in creating not just our modern economic theory, but the ideas behind the national health service, and also all the richness of the culture of Britain. Because we have this United Kingdom and this shared institution of Parliament, as our different strengths alter over time, we contain that within a single unity. There was a time when Scottish novels were better than English novels. There was a time when—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I absolutely understand that the hon. Gentleman is setting his major argument in context, and I was following what he was saying, but he is going on a little too long about the context. Please will he return to the subject of the order itself?
Rory Stewart
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will accelerate towards my conclusion, which involves returning to a very good point made by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West.
All the issues I have raised are extremely complicated. They are issues of history, of culture and of identity. They are issues of the ways in which borders work and parliamentary institutions function. In order for people to be able to vote properly in a referendum and make that simple yes or no choice for which the SNP is pushing, the debate needs to be widened much further. More money needs to be spent, and the media need to get involved. At present the media are far too worried about not being political on one side or the other and are therefore not setting out the arguments and creating the debate powerfully enough. We need to have a proper debate because if an Englishman, a Scotsman and a Welshman together is a joke, an Englishman or a Scotsman on their own is a tragedy.
Angus Robertson
I am grateful for your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I have said twice, I look forward to the Scottish Government having the process taken forward with the advice of the Electoral Commission. I am sure that it will be listened to very closely, because we want to ensure that the process continues.
Rory Stewart
I just wish to clarify the hon. Gentleman’s statement. He is saying that his party intends to listen to the advice of the Electoral Commission but will not necessarily commit, at this moment, to taking and following its advice. Is that correct—yes or no?
Scotland Bill
Rory Stewart Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
It seems a little dry to focus on Lords amendment 18 with reference to clause 37, but it is a central issue. It is not a dry issue at all. As my hon. Friends the Members for Carlisle (John Stevenson) and for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) pointed out, this is central to two issues that define the Union. The first is the issue of borrowing and finance, and the second is that of what my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle called the issue of transparency. These two principles of borrowing and transparency—borrowing defined in clause 37 and transparency in Lords amendment 18—show why the Union matters. Transparency matters because an enormous amount of the pressure for separation from Scots, and from some English people, comes from suspicion—suspicion about money. Borrowing matters because borrowing shows why the Union can operate well.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), pointed out three things which the clause delivers. It delivers, first, decentralisation. An important part of decentralisation is fiscal responsibility. It delivers, secondly, a lever for growth, but the third and most important thing that it delivers is macroeconomic stability within the context of the United Kingdom. This is central because the biggest argument for the Union, the thing that underlies the dry language of the Bill, is why being part of a bigger country matters—why, to put it in the most brutal terms, we do not want to be Denmark.
Why is it that our ancestors got on their Viking boats, left Denmark and came here? The answer is, of course, that there are benefits in size. There are benefits to having an economy 12 times the size of Denmark’s. There are benefits to having a population 12 times the size of Denmark’s, with the corresponding borrowing and fiscal responsibility. That perfect balance enshrined in clause 37 and revealed in amendment 18 is the balance that comes from the benefits of autonomy combined with the benefits of size.
Stewart Hosie
I am desperately looking forward to the hon. Gentleman explaining when a Viking decided to leave Denmark to come and be part of the British state. I like the hon. Gentleman, but I think his history is rather askew.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Actually, I would not like the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) to explain that in the context of these amendments, and I am sure he is coming back to what is relevant to them.
Rory Stewart
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am happy for us to discuss Scottish history later.
We are discussing transparency, which is exactly what Lords amendment 18 relates to—explaining to this Parliament, to the Scottish Parliament, to the British people and to the Scottish people what we are doing with their money. Transparency is crucial because money is at the heart of this. On the one hand, the Scottish National party uses money to fight for separation through fantasies about oil. On the other hand, English nationalists, who are equally to blame for what is happening to the United Kingdom, focus on money to attack Scotland. This is the wrong thing to do.
Lords amendment 18 matters because it should, we hope, put those arguments aside. There are those who imagine that we are going to wreck the United Kingdom because we are worried about free eye tests, prescription charges or tuition fees. For goodness’ sake, let us, in line with Lords amendment 18, see the money. What we will see is that we are spending every year in transfer payments to Scotland half of what we are spending on the war in Afghanistan, if we include the debt and veterans costs. The reason why we need to move beyond this is that the kind of borrowing enshrined in the clause and amended in Lords amendment 18 is the borrowing that made us great together.
The very economics that underlie that notion of borrowing came south from Edinburgh with Adam Smith and the enlightenment. The very same borrowing on the basis of the United Kingdom meant that Scots and English were able to fight together at Waterloo and win. The very borrowing enshrined in clause 37 is what allowed us to create the national health service together. The very borrowing enshrined in clause 37 and amended and made transparent in Lords amendment 18 is what allows us to flourish today. I urge the House to vote for Lords amendment 18 because it enshrines the principle of togetherness.
Mr Frank Roy
The hon. Gentleman spoke of a possible history debate with the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie). We invite the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) to come to the Floor of the House, because I am sure that the debate is one that the whole House would like to hear, and no doubt we know who the winner would be.
Rory Stewart
I thank the hon. Gentleman very much indeed.
Having been a little rhetorical, I will return to the measures set out in the new clause proposed in Lords amendment 18. I congratulate the example set by my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South in the moderation of his tone. The conduct of the Ministers in this regard, which has been praised by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie)—he is now leaving the Chamber to research in his history books—shows exemplary co-operation and is an example of why the United Kingdom Parliament works so well. The moderate voices of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South and the shadow Minister show that separation is unnecessary. The correct praise for the Scottish National party for its successes shows the successes of autonomy, not of separation and independence. If we can get the principles of transparency correct and the exact details of Lords amendment 18, the sinews of the Union, the point-by-point, sometimes dry legislative amendments that allow us to work together and avoid what the Scottish National party wishes to push us into—a black-and-white solution of either fatal inertness or still more terrible activity—we will instead, through a voice of passionate moderation and amendments of this sort, keep together the Union that made us great and will make us greater still.
Ian Murray
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who has a great knowledge of everything historical and has driven the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) out of the Chamber to hunt out not only his history books, but no doubt his horned helmet. If he can drive SNP Members out of the Chamber with such ease, he should speak here more often to ensure they disappear.
I, too, wish to concentrate on Lords amendment 18 and its proposed new clause, and that is for one simple reason: transparency. Transparency is the word that hits the new clause on the head, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. We need transparency because over the past few months, and indeed since the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2011, we have had anything but from the Scottish Government. We have had smoke and mirrors on tax, the constitutional settlement, the currency, visa arrangements and NATO—the list is endless. One of the most prevalent calls in Scotland in the debate on separation is for transparency on taxation, because that feeds into public services and the ordinary lives of everyone who lives in Scotland and, indeed, the other component parts of the United Kingdom.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rory Stewart Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Of course, we do not agree about the future of our electoral system. We are having a referendum and a debate about it, but the reason for having a coalition Government coming together and sorting out this country’s problems in the national interest is as good an argument today as it was a year ago, when we came into government to clear up the mess made by the Opposition.
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
In the light of the success of the royal wedding for public diplomacy, does the Prime Minister believe that it reinforces the importance of a different narrative for the diamond jubilee from the Olympics, in terms of what it can do for Britain’s international reputation?
The Prime Minister
We have a fantastic opportunity next year to show all faces of Britain, both modern and traditional. We are going to celebrate the jubilee, and I think that people will want to celebrate the incredible public service that Her Majesty the Queen has given over many years as an absolutely amazing model public servant. People will also want to celebrate the Olympics as a celebration of sport and all that is best about Britain. The royal wedding, as the Major of London said, was in many ways a dry run for how we handle some of those events, and everyone in the country has a lot to look forward to next year.