Debate on the Address

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Neil Gray

Thursday 19th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

As this is my first opportunity in this new Parliament, I put on record my thanks to the people of Airdrie and Shotts for placing their faith in me for a third time and for doing me the honour of representing them in this place. I will work for them and listen to them, regardless of which way they voted.

Although I welcome my party’s much-swelled numbers, I echo the tribute of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) to Stephen Gethins, who sadly lost his seat. He is the best of us—there is no doubt about that—and I wish him and his young family well for the future.

Today’s programme for government in the Queen’s Speech is thin gruel for those who have been hammered by austerity for almost 10 years, but that is hardly a surprise when we look at the Tory party manifesto, which makes just four mentions of universal credit and none of disability support such as personal independence payments. I can find absolutely nothing new on work and pensions. In fact, all the Tory manifesto does for social security is conflate universal credit as only being for people who are out of work when, in fact, more than a third of recipients are in work.

The Tories have nothing new in their manifesto and, again, nothing new in today’s programme for government for people on low incomes. It seems that the Brexit bonanza predicted by the Prime Minister will not reach those on low incomes—quelle surprise.

In fact, yesterday the Department for Work and Pensions removed the right of disabled people to choose whether to have the results of their work capability assessment sent to their GP. That will make it harder for those who fail these notoriously unfair and inaccurate assessments, but who simply cannot work, to get signed off with a sickness line by their GP. The Tories wasted no time in hurting the rights of disabled people.

Today, we have seen the announcement of the statistic of the year, which has been covered widely. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that 58% of all those living in poverty in the UK are in work, which is shameful. A wee national insurance tax break will do nothing to solve this and, unless there is radical change, it will become an even greater social crisis during this Parliament. Whatever time I have left here, however long it is, I will do what I can to fight for people who deserve so much better from this UK Government.

Also conspicuous in its absence from today’s programme for government is any meaningful mention of Scotland, or indeed any legislative plans for Scotland’s future. The First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has written to the Prime Minister today with a clear democratic and constitutional case for Scotland being given the right to choose our own future. The Referendums (Scotland) Bill has been passed by Holyrood this evening.

Scotland is not a region questioning its place in a larger unitary state. We are a country in a voluntary Union of nations. Our friends in the rest of the UK will always be our closest allies and neighbours but, in line with the principle of self-determination, people in Scotland have the right to determine whether the time has come for a new, better relationship in which we can thrive as a genuine partnership of equals. That is the Scottish Government’s very reasonable assessment. The response of the Prime Minister and the Tory party means that democracy stopped for the people in Scotland in 2014 and that means that, right now, Scotland’s membership of this Union, according to the Prime Minister, is involuntary.

I know many of my constituents disagree with me about whether Scotland should be independent. I speak to them. I listen to them. I hear what they have to say. I would never deny them the right to have their say, and my vote counts equally, in equal weight as theirs. What the Prime Minister is suggesting is that what he has to say is more important and carries more weight than what we have to say in Scotland, and that people who both agree and disagree with him in Scotland matter not to him. He puts himself above the people in Scotland. Taking back control indeed.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Can my hon. Friend imagine the howls of indignation from Conservative Members if a scenario were to arise in which the First Minister of Scotland prevented the rest of the United Kingdom from having a referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union? Heaven and Earth would be moved by a Government in London to make sure it happened.

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely. I am about to make the point that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and my hon. Friend makes that point well.

Our case is made stronger because of the nature of the election campaign we just had in Scotland. Jackson Carlaw, the acting Tory leader in Scotland, said the Union was on the ballot paper. Annie Wells MSP said that if Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP win, “they get their referendum.” I am yet to see a Tory leaflet in Scotland that did not have opposition to a second referendum at the heart of it. The SNP manifesto and all my literature talked about Scotland’s right to choose. I was clear, even with prospective voters who were undecided on voting for me but opposed to independence, that I would campaign for a second referendum if I was re-elected.

The result in Scotland was clear—even clearer than here in the rest of the UK. The Tories lost half their seats in Scotland. Their share of the vote went down and the SNP won more than 80% of the seats we contested. We have a higher share of the vote than the Prime Minister enjoys. In response to my intervention, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), suggested that because we achieved only—only!—45% of the vote in Scotland our mandate can be ignored. She has not really thought that through, has she? Extend that logic to the fact that the Prime Minister achieved only 43% of the vote in the rest of the UK. Nobody is denying the Prime Minister his democratic right to govern, and they should not be denying Scotland’s right to choose any longer.