Devolution and the Union

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

I congratulate colleagues on securing the debate. Something that has gone unmentioned so far in these proceedings is the fact that this is an historic day for Scotland, the Scottish National party and Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s new First Minister. She is our first female First Minister. For colleagues who had the opportunity to see First Minister’s questions today, they would have seen a remarkably talented politician, and I, along with many others from across the Chamber, wish her well. Perhaps ours is the only Parliament in the world that has the three largest parties being represented by women from the Front Bench.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I fully agree that that is a step forward. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will want to endorse the 50:50 campaign to improve the representation of women in political and public life.

[Angus Robertson]

I am a great supporter of the representation of both men and women, and feel that there should be no glass ceiling. I am more than happy to look at any way that helps to secure that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I particularly welcome the opportunity to speak today because in the previous devolution debate I sat through the entire debate yet I did not have an opportunity to contribute—so it is not necessarily the case that only certain MPs do not get to speak in these debates.

The situation with devolution is quite exciting at present, because for the first time it appears to be moving into the mainstream in a way that it has not done before. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and I served with him on that Committee for some considerable time. When discussing these issues and producing reports, it felt as if we were the anoraks of politics, talking about the bits that most people are not really interested in. If anything has changed to make people realise that devolution is important for all of us, that can only be a good thing. It is important that people in England start to talk about these issues in a very real way, and realise that there is a lot for them in seeing real devolution of power to local communities. If we get a better overall deal out of all this, that can only be good for everyone. But it has to come, as much as possible, from the bottom up, and it has to involve people who are outwith professional politics. That is why we suggest that having a proper constitutional convention is a big step forward. It happened in Scotland during the 1980s and 1990s, and people did engage on what they wanted out of devolution, which meant that we were then able to proceed very fast after 1997. The Labour Government delivered on their promises as one of their first priorities. We had a referendum, not after three years of grinding debate, but within three months of a general election. It happened in that time scale because of what had gone before. I urge many of my English colleagues to think about how they want to make this happen in a way that makes people feel committed to it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) talked about the need to devolve even further. There are many things that we can talk about while the Smith commission is going on. It must be said that the commission is happening exactly as promised and according to the timetable. Despite that, I received the first e-mail from a constituent alleging betrayal within 12 hours of the result being announced. I do not know how fast some people think that we can proceed.

The timetable is being adhered to, but that does not stop us talking about other things as well. One fascinating thing about Scottish politics is that we have further devolution powers coming to Scotland as part of the Scotland Act 2012, and I have heard very little debate, particularly from the SNP, about what to do with those powers and what we can actually do to make people’s lives better.

One thing I feel passionate about is housing. We need more affordable housing in Scotland. We will have more borrowing powers, so how are we planning to implement them, as they are coming very soon? That is what we should be debating in parallel with the constitutional matters. We should use those powers to do something about social care in Scotland. The position in Scotland is virtually no better than it is in England. I am talking about the type of care that people get, the short time scales and the poor working conditions of many of the carers. If we can use the additional tax-raising powers that we will be getting as a result of the 2012 Act, we should be planning for that now. That can be going on while further debate about the constitution goes on. That is what I want to see happening both north and south of the border. Let us get on with that, as that, I believe, is what the Scottish people want.