Oral Answers to Questions

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am hearing a lot of good stuff from the Government Benches about the clean, green future—the green industrial revolution that this country is embarked on. I am delighted that Tees valley will be the UK’s first hydrogen transport hub, and I look forward to joining my hon. Friend there before too long.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

  The Prime Minister will know that next May there are elections to the Scottish Parliament, and I am sure he will agree that the question of how Scotland is governed will be central to that campaign. I know that he is a keen student of the democratic principle, so may I ask him this: if the Conservative party and other Unionist parties are successful in that election in securing a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament, would he regard that as a mandate for the Union? A simple yes or no would suffice.

[The Prime Minister]

I am a keen student of democratic principles, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, and I recall that there was a referendum in 2014 in which the people of Scotland—the people of our country—voted overwhelmingly, or by a substantial majority, to keep the Union. It was a once-in-a-generation event, as the then leaders of the Scottish National party acknowledged. I think they were right then, and we should stick with that.