Data Transparency and Accountability: Covid-19

Debate between William Wragg and Peter Grant

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wragg]

I certainly thank my hon. Friend, and I take his question as an early invitation to visit those excellent establishments with him when restrictions and time allow. From the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), he will know that I have expressed the view that that data and the justification should be published if those excellent hostelries cannot reopen on 12 April.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

I am not a member of the Committee, but I commend the Chair and all the members and staff of the Committee for this very thorough report.

The Chair of the Committee has called for a strengthening of the ministerial code. In paragraph 98 of the report, there is a very serious charge that a senior member of the Cabinet has been contemptuous of Parliament through their unwillingness to co-operate with this inquiry. Has the Committee considered whether the arrangements for enforcing the ministerial code are fit for purpose? For example, has the hon. Gentleman considered the practice in the Scottish Parliament by which the Parliament can consider a motion of no confidence in individual Ministers as well as in the Government as a whole? Does he believe that it would be beneficial to introduce that in the United Kingdom Parliament?

[Mr Wragg]

The hon. Gentleman invites me to speculate about whom I would bring before this House on such a charge. Our report sought merely to remind Ministers that a friendly invitation from a Select Committee should be readily accepted, rather than avoided.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between William Wragg and Peter Grant

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wragg]

Will the hon. Gentleman remind us whether the legislation for the Scottish independence referendum contained a date in the event of there being a yes vote?

[Peter Grant]

Yes, it did. A 600-page White Paper was also produced a year or so before the referendum, which allowed everyone taking part to be a lot better informed than even the same Scots voters were about the EU referendum.

It is also worth reminding ourselves that after what has been described as a disastrous and divisive referendum, the first thing that happened in Scotland was that campaigners from all sides got together in local churches, held services of reconciliation and committed ourselves to working together to make the result work, even if it was not the result that we wanted. In the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum, there was a massive increase in crimes of racial hatred against citizens in this country and elsewhere. That was not the fault of those who voted to leave, but a consequence of how the referendum had been set out and how, for too many people, the campaign was conducted.

Exiting the EU: Scotland

Debate between William Wragg and Peter Grant

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Scotland and the process of the UK leaving the EU.

It is a pleasure to speak here under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.

Exactly 174 days ago, 62% of people in Scotland voted to remain in the European Union. We are now about three fifths of the way between the referendum and invoking article 50, so 107 days from now, at most, the Prime Minister intends to trigger—probably irrevocably, although that is subject to some discussion—the process of taking us out of the European Union, despite the fact that 62% of us want to stay in.

Two years after that, we face a spectacle in which the citizens who hold sovereignty over one of the most ancient—indeed, most European—of all nations will face the threat of having our European Union citizenship stripped from us: neither because we wanted to rescind it nor because we broke the rules and it was rescinded by the European Union, but because it was taken from us by the actions of a Government who have never held a majority in Scotland during my lifetime.

There will be some on the Government Benches—there are not many here today, admittedly—and possibly even on the Opposition Benches, whose public response would just be, “Tough! That’s the way things go. If you don’t like it, you just have to lump it,” dismissing Scotland’s concerns out of hand. My advice to them is to think very carefully indeed about how such an attitude is likely to be received north of the border.

With this debate, I am not trying to reopen the argument that was won and lost in ballot boxes the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. I find it strange that, although I have now accepted that certainly England and Wales are leaving the European Union, some hon. Members who represent constituencies in those countries may be trying to prevent that from happening. I respect the will of the people of England and Wales. They have given a mandate and I understand that the Government seek to implement that mandate. However, I ask the Government to accept—even simply to recognise—the fact that no such mandate exists from the people of Scotland or, indeed, the people of Northern Ireland.

[William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

I just wondered whether the hon. Gentleman would remind me of the result of the Scottish independence referendum.

[Peter Grant]

I am delighted to remind the hon. Gentleman that during the Scottish independence referendum, Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservative party, promised the people of Scotland that a vote for independence would take us out of the European Union and a vote against independence would guarantee a place in the European Union. I am also delighted to remind him that, in percentage terms, the majority of the people of Scotland who want to stay in the European Union was almost two and a half times bigger than the majority who wanted to stay in the United Kingdom in the Scottish independence referendum.

Just now we are talking about the threat to our membership of the European Union. Other aspects of our constitutional status may well be up for discussion at some other time but, in the limited time available to me now, I will concentrate on the immediate issue, which is respecting the democratic will of the people of Scotland to remain in the European Union.