Human Rights (Joint Committee)

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, but here is an obvious solution: why not change the rules? Why are we bound to having parity with the unelected, absurd House down there, which represents absolutely nobody? She represents a constituency, and I represent a constituency. We represent real people and have an interest in a Committee of this place; they represent absolutely nobody. It is an absurd and ridiculous institution that should have no parity with this House.

There are 12 places on this Committee. There are six Conservative Members and four Labour Members. Who is next? There is one Liberal Democrat and one Cross Bencher. Now, we have just had an election, and the Liberal Democrats, roundly thrashed and rejected by the vast majority of the country, were left with a rump of eight MPs. Yet the Liberal Democrats have been given a place on this Committee, ahead of the third party of the United Kingdom—the Scottish National party with a 56-seat victory in the last election. How can that possibly be right?

There is even a Cross Bencher on the Joint Committee. I do not even know what Cross Benchers do. I think they are somehow supposed to be neutral or arbitrary, and are appointed on the basis of the greatness and goodness they bring, but why is a Cross Bencher ahead of directly elected Members from the third party of this House? I ask again, how can this possibly be right?

What really gets me about this affair is that this Committee is vitally important. Mr Speaker, I know that you take a keen interest in the working of the Joint Committee. It exists to scrutinise Government Bills for compatibility with human rights, to scrutinise the Government’s response to judgments on human rights and, importantly, it looks for opportunities to enhance human rights across the United Kingdom. Surely this House wants the third party of the UK to play a part in that process. I simply cannot understand why it would not want that to happen.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend makes a good case regarding the democratic outrage that the people of Scotland will feel at being excluded from discussion of a matter about which they feel extremely strongly. Is it not also the case that the proposal takes no account of a new situation—namely, that for first time in our history, the third party in this House does not, as a matter of political principle, seek representation in the other place? That puts us at a double disadvantage when it comes to Joint Committees of both Houses.

[Pete Wishart]

That is such a good point, and I am coming on to it. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me that we do not take places in the House of Lords. If it is necessary to be an elected Lord to get on an important Committee of this House, where does that leave democracy in this country? How can people who have no democratic mandate—they have been elected by absolutely nobody—take precedence over elected Members of this House? We are being placed in a ridiculous and absurd situation. If the only way to get on the Committee is to take places in an unelected House of Lords, most people would regard that as an absurd situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We heard the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) making a point of order earlier in the day about precisely that matter: that the House of Lords might choose to undermine or vote against the current Government’s policy. I do not know whether it was him or someone else, but it was suggested that the solution to that, rather than abolishing the House of Lords or electing Members of the House of Lords and giving it a mandate, was simply to create yet more peers to outnumber us even more. I am sure the irony was not lost on those of us who were sitting in the Royal Gallery yesterday: the question of where elected mandates come from.

As my colleagues have stated, the human rights framework is at the core of the Scotland Act 1998 and it is fundamental to the new democracy that exists north of the border. Given that the Government seem determined to undermine the Human Rights Act here in this Parliament, it is even more concerning that we are not being given a voice on the Joint Committee—they are refusing to give a voice to the third party. We have a democratic right, as democratically elected Members of this House, and a duty to look out for the human rights of our constituents. Tomorrow, the Government are going to force through Standing Orders that will further undermine our rights, and it raises the question: where is this respect agenda? Where is the respect for the decision that the people of Scotland made last year when they said to stay in the UK, for now.

[Tommy Sheppard]

Does my hon. Friend agree that another context to this debate is the recent discussion in Scotland? Scottish people who voted to remain part of the United Kingdom were given every assurance that Scotland would play a full role within that Union, but they now see not only no SNP representation, but no Scottish representation on this Joint Committee.

[Patrick Grady]

Absolutely. I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The Labour party could nominate its Member from Scotland for the Committee—perhaps even the Liberal Democrats could do so as well. The reality is that this matter is not simply about the third party, but about a complete lack of geographical representation, and the point that my hon. Friend makes is very well made.

If the Government are serious about the respect agenda and about respecting the decisions that have been made by the people in Scotland both in the referendum last year and in the election this year, I strongly encourage them to reconsider the decision that they are making tonight, to listen to the constructive suggestions that have been made and to bring this matter back when there is a decent proposal that represents and respects the views of the people of Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Mr Speaker, you will recall that I devoted my maiden speech to the subject of human rights. In it, I spoke of the importance with which the Scottish Government and the people of Scotland regard human rights.

Human rights are universal and they should concern us all in the United Kingdom. As has been said already, this Committee is supposed to be considering human rights in the United Kingdom, yet there is not one single Scottish MP on it. How can that be right? It is not just an issue of disrespecting the SNP as a third party in the House, but an issue of disrespect to the Scottish electorate. [Interruption.] I see Labour Members shaking their heads, and saying that they will not support us on this. I say to them: do not forget the consequences of their previous disrespect for the Scottish electorate. They heard them loud and clear on 7 May this year. The Labour party wants to make a comeback in Scotland. Not arguing for the Scottish electorate’s representatives in this House to be represented on a Committee that considers UK-wide matters is not the way to go about it.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) mentioned that we are shortly to be looking at the repeal of the Human Rights Act. In Scotland, the Human Rights Act is part of a larger picture, because the rights in the European convention on human rights are written into the devolution settlement by virtue of the Scotland Act 1998.

In Scotland, we have a national action plan for human rights and a UN-accredited human rights commission. There is a commitment to human rights extending beyond civil and political rights to economic, social and cultural human rights. We really do have something that we could bring to this Committee.

The potential withdrawal from the European convention on human rights is still a live issue. The Justice Secretary, when he gave evidence to the Select Committee on Justice earlier in the summer, said that he could not guarantee that we would remain within the convention. The Joint Committee will debate whether or not the United Kingdom will remain within a convention that underpins the devolution system settlement in Scotland, yet Members seem content not to have a single Scottish MP on it. That is frankly unacceptable.

During our independence referendum last year, there was great debate about human rights and a concern at that stage that if the Conservatives were to win an election in this country they intended to repeal the Human Rights Act. Those of us who voted yes wanted to write human rights into the constitution of an independent Scotland, and I know that one day that will happen, but for now we are part of the UK. Last year, during the referendum, the Prime Minister invited Scots not to leave the UK but to stay and lead the UK. How can we possibly even contribute to the UK’s debate about human rights in this House if there is not a single Scottish Member of Parliament on the Committee?

The Prime Minister has also spoken regularly of a respect agenda, but 58 out of the 59 Scottish MPs elected in May are from parties that oppose the repeal of the Human Rights Act and wish to remain in the ECHR; 56 were elected as SNP MPs. We are the third party in this House and it is unthinkable that the Liberal Democrats, when they were the third party, would have been excluded from a Committee such as this. Tomorrow, we will debate changes to Standing Orders to exclude Scottish MPs from votes in this House. Why can we not debate changing Standing Orders to include Scottish MPs on this Committee, which considers UK-wide matters?

Others have spoken of the House of Lords and there might well be Members of that House on the Committee who are Scots or who live in Scotland. They might even own an estate in Scotland that they visit for the hunting and fishing. Either way, I do not care what their background is and where they live. The point is that they are not democratically elected by the people who live in Scotland, and are therefore not accountable to the people of Scotland and they cannot speak for them. I and my SNP colleagues—and, indeed, the Labour MP, the Liberal Democrat MP, and the Tory MP who represent Scottish constituencies—speak for the people of Scotland. There is no doubt who the people of Scotland wanted to win the general election in May, however. It is almost unprecedented for a party to get 50% of the vote in our system. It is frankly an insult to the people of Scotland not to include a single Scottish MP on the Committee.

[Tommy Sheppard]

My hon. and learned Friend makes a very good point. Does she not also agree that the debate about whether this place and this Government respect the views of the people of Scotland is very much a live one? With the vow and everything else, and with good will being tested, is it not the case that the Government would be better placed trying to include the people of Scotland’s representatives in the Committee rather than excluding them if they want to reassure the Scots of their bona fides towards them?

[Joanna Cherry]

I could not agree more. As I said earlier, the Prime Minister has spoken often of a respect agenda and we were told during the referendum campaign that we are an equal partner in this Union. Where is the evidence of that when not a single Scottish MP is on a Committee that considers one of the most important issues before Parliament this Session?