Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is right: it is a very important Bill that will help ensure the safety of vehicles from laser misuse, and we will schedule it as soon as we can.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

No parliamentarian worth their salt should accept this flannel from those on the Government Front Bench. Will the Leader of the House outline from that Dispatch Box why she will not leave this Chamber after this statement and table an amendable motion for the House to debate tomorrow?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I have made it very clear that the Prime Minister has just made a statement and taken questions for three and a quarter hours. We are awaiting an SO24 emergency debate. The Prime Minister applied for an urgent debate for today. We looked at having a debate tomorrow, but we understand that there will be another SO24 application heard later for a further debate tomorrow, so we have decided to leave the business unchanged. I hope that that is clear.

Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is a great advocate for her constituency of Redditch. All this talk of food is making us all hungry. Small Business Saturday is a grassroots, non-commercial campaign that highlights small business successes, and encourages consumers to shop locally and support small businesses, which is something that everyone across this House seeks to do.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

May I actually congratulate the Government—and the Scottish Government, just to make that clear—on something that they have done this week? There has been a change in blood donation rules for gay and bisexual men, as the ban has come down from 12 months to three months. That now means that thousands more gay men can give blood than could previously. But can we have a statement on this? The excellent news does not seem to have caught the attention of the media this week, and we need to discuss how we can make it much more widely known to encourage people to donate blood.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman has just made sure that this news will receive some media attention, and I congratulate him on doing so. He raises the matter of a valuable and important contribution to the country’s blood stocks. I am sure that many who were previously unaware of the news will be delighted.

Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern that we have to do everything that we can to make claiming universal credit as easy as possible. I rang the universal credit helpline myself just before business questions to see how long it takes. Clearly, there is the facility for call-back, and if the hon. Lady has evidence that it takes too long for that to be provided, the DWP will look at it. It has made clear its commitment to ensuring that the process is fair to claimants. Of course, 99% of all universal credit claims are made online, and jobcentres have facilities for people to access digital services and be helped to make an application online.

I would just like to point out to the House that universal credit is a good policy. It is designed to help people get back into work, to reduce six benefits to one and to make the system less confusing and less capable of causing a problem.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

May I begin by putting on the record the great sadness of many of my constituents at the recent death of Sir Teddy Taylor, who served my constituency for 15 years? It is a privilege to represent his old stomping ground, where his name looms large to this day.

During the recess, Mr Speaker, you visited two schools in my constituency, and I am quite sure that the young people there told you about their experiences of cyber-bullying and having social media platforms used against them. [Interruption.] I say to hon. Members who are screeching from a sedentary position that this deserves a bit more respect. There is deep confusion at what the Government are doing in this regard. The Culture Secretary yesterday said that legislating on this would be ideological and too difficult. May we have a statement from the Culture Secretary on how she intends to clamp down on companies such as Facebook being used to make a misery of young people’s lives?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Sir Teddy Taylor. I do not agree that the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was at all confusing yesterday. I heard her say very clearly that, ideally, to address this issue more quickly, we will seek voluntary co-operation from social media organisations, because it takes longer to legislate. It is really important, as the hon. Gentleman quite rightly says, to explore means of reducing the appalling problem of cyber-bullying, which goes on all too frequently.

Nomination of Members to Committees

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

How on earth do I follow the contribution of my constituency neighbour? I will do it my way.

We just need to remind ourselves of one or two things. In the 2016 referendum, the majority of the British public voted to exit the EU. In June this year, we had a general election, and we have a Conservative Prime Minister; the Conservative party won the general election with 318 seats, 56 more than on the Labour Benches. The Queen’s Speech has already been passed, setting out the legitimacy and programme of this Government. My constituents are probably equally bewildered by what is going on this evening, but I am fairly certain of one thing: they want us to get on with the job of being in government and delivering Brexit, but also delivering for our country.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

rose—

[Wendy Morton]

I am going to continue because the hour is late, and I hope another Member or so will have a chance to make a small contribution.

We have a working majority in this House, and for me and those on our side of the House, a working majority on a Committee is a logical extension of that, so I will be backing the Leader of the House this evening. I will be backing the Government because I want to deliver for my constituency.

Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, because he reminds me of something that happened during the establishment of the Select Committees in 2001. He is right; it was a stitch-up by the Blair Whips, and he will remember when they tried to remove Gwyneth Dunwoody and Donald Anderson from the chairmanship of two Select Committees. That held up the creation of the Select Committees, but we still managed to get them in place. There is absolutely no reason why the same cannot happen now. The example of the year of 2001 is a good one.

I very much agree with the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) when it comes to Opposition days and the setting aside of time for Back-Bench business. It looks as though Back-Bench business and private Members’ Bills will be about the most interesting features of this parliamentary Session.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Hear, hear!

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend has a particularly good private Member’s Bill, and I encourage as many Members as possible to come along and listen to him speak about it. Back-Bench business and private Members’ Bills will probably be our most interesting business, given the laxity that we are going to see from Government Members, and we must have the proper time and arrangements for such business.

Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

It sounds like my hon. Friend has had a pretty tough time with a local issue, which would of course be an ideal subject for an Adjournment debate.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

On 2 December 2015, the House passed a motion concerning air strikes on Syria that specifically targeted Daesh assets. It did not involve targeting any other actor in that region, so it was with some surprise that I heard this week the Defence Secretary claim his unwavering support for US air strikes to target the Syrian regime. The Foreign Secretary went one further in April, stating that the assumption of parliamentary approval needed to be tested. Can the Leader of the House do two things: provide us with an urgent statement on Government thinking about changing the nature of the conflict; and ensure that there is a debate and a vote in this House before mission creep sets in?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman raises very important questions for the Ministry of Defence, and I can draw his attention to the fact that we have Defence questions on Monday 10 July.

Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Gentleman knows that the 0.7% target is calculated by reference to the OECD’s definition of overseas development expenditure. That definition is confined not purely to expenditure programmes controlled by the Department for International Development, but to Government spending that meets the OECD criteria. I can assure him that, if the Government are re-elected, there will continue to be a strong United Kingdom commitment to an active and generous policy of international development. It is right that we continue to help the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. It is also right that we contribute towards the better governance and long-term stability of countries at risk, because that helps us to tackle some of the broader international problems that we in the United Kingdom and our European neighbours face.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

It is good to follow our answer to Arthur Scargill, Mr Speaker—with a bit of Glasgow finesse no less.

It has been some two years since I was elected to this Parliament. I have to say that at the start of it I did not think that, two years in, we would have left the European Union and I would be on my second Prime Minister. Hopefully, in a few weeks’ time, I will be on my third Government. They say a week is a long time in politics. Over the time that the right hon. Gentleman has been Leader of the House I have asked him about many issues, but for the past six months I have consistently raised the issue of jobcentre closures in Glasgow. Given what he has said to other colleagues with regard to other Government announcements, would I be right in thinking that he expects Glaswegians to go to the polls not knowing which jobcentres his Government intend to close?

[Mr Lidington]

Since the hon. Gentleman is wishing for a change in Government, he is confirming that his party wishes to prop up the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) as the leader of a putative coalition or minority Government. It is good to have that confirmation on the record.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the provision of jobcentres in Glasgow, as he has heard me say before, Glasgow has a greater concentration of office space for jobcentres than any other major city in Scotland. We have seen proposals from the Department for Work and Pensions to rationalise the estate in Glasgow so that his constituents and others in Glasgow can have a better-quality service. All necessary expert staff will be concentrated in a smaller number of locations, which will be fully accessible to his constituents.

Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Gentleman and his parliamentary colleagues have been demanding, week after week, that the Prime Minister seek a new electoral mandate from the people of the United Kingdom in order to deliver our exit from the European Union. She is doing just that, and if the hon. Gentleman is to be consistent, he might welcome that, rather than complain.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Following the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), the Leader of the House is right to say the general election will be about clarity. Does he, like me, look forward to the clarity that the TV debates will give us, and does he agree that any attempt by any political leader, especially one from the Government Benches, to shirk from those invitations would be wholly unacceptable?

[Mr Lidington]

Ahead of tomorrow’s debate it is somewhat premature to speculate on what the broadcasters will decide to propose with regard to the allocation of time for general election coverage, but I will take the hon. Gentleman’s comments as a representation.

Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Of course, it was a Conservative-led Government that outlawed exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts. Although we keep a close watch on this—I am sure it is one of things that Matthew Taylor’s review will want to look at—it remains the case that fewer than 3% of the workforce see a zero-hours contract as their main job, and roughly 70% of those people say that they are happy with the number of hours that they work.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House is of course no philistine, so he will know that this year is the bicentenary of the birth of the eminent Scottish architect Alexander “Greek” Thomson. Will he join me in congratulating the Alexander Thomson Society on putting together a whole year of events to remember the architect’s work, and may we have a debate on his contribution to Scottish-built heritage?

[Mr Speaker]

This is the question that the hon. Gentleman would have asked if he had been present for his question at Department for Culture, Media and Sport questions. He was not, so he did not, and he is therefore doing it now. I just thought I would make that by way of a public information statement.

Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue about media ownership. He will know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has to act in a quasi-judicial manner when making decisions about any proposed merger. It would therefore be wrong of her to express any kind of view in advance of a formal notification. If formal notification is made, she will make whatever decisions fall to her by law.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Anyone who has a love of musicals, Judy Garland and Bette Davis, and who can begin a sentence with the words, “As Lana Turner once said to me,” is positively sound in my book. Although I did not know Gerald Kaufman well, there is clearly much admiration for him, particularly among Labour Members. I send his family, friends and colleagues on the Labour Benches my sincere condolences.

On 24 March, it will be exactly one year since the shopkeeper Asad Shah was killed in my constituency by a man called Tanveer Ahmed. Members may know that the newspapers today cover a “celebration”—I hate to call it that—of Asad Shah’s death and the veneration of his murderer in Pakistan. Mr Shah was one of the most gentle and kind people ever to own a shop anywhere in the United Kingdom. He was loved by many people in the south side of Glasgow. Will the Leader of the House join me in condemning the horrifying display that we can see in newspaper and online coverage? Will he also do something to ensure that what we remember is the kindness of this wonderful man and his wonderful family, not the demagoguery of the man who took him from us?

[Mr Lidington]

I willingly join the hon. Gentleman, and I am sure the entire House, in expressing unreserved revulsion at and condemnation of the event he describes. It is, frankly, sickening to hear that human beings could be prepared to behave in such a fashion. I remember, from reading and seeing news reports just under a year ago, the sense of shock and genuine grief on the part of people in the south side of Glasgow. People from very different ethnic and religious heritages felt that they had lost a friend and a devoted champion of community life. That is how we should remember.

In a sense, the best tribute would be for people in Glasgow in particular, and all of us, to redouble our resolve to eradicate from our society this scourge of bigotry, whether it is based on racial, religious or any other grounds. I hope very much that the Pakistani high commission in London, which I think will have been equally appalled by these news reports, will have taken note of the words that the hon. Gentleman has spoken this morning.