Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

I can certainly confirm that. That has been hard-wired into the remit that the Government gave to Lord Smith to undertake his work. It is a very important part of how, over the years, we have built consensus in Scotland about constitutional change. This is too important to be left to the political parties. We must have—I am confident that we will—the voice of business, trade unions, churches and wider civic Scotland.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The UK Government’s devolution policy was outlined in this week’s published Command Paper, which sought to devolve, in a number of ways, about a third of Scotland’s revenue base or less than half of the funding requirements of the Scottish Parliament. Given that this is not the unprecedented devolution of major powers promised by the Prime Minister, will the Secretary of State confirm that the Smith commission will not be restricted in any way by the contents of the Command Paper?

[Mr Carmichael]

If I may correct the hon. Gentleman, the purpose of the Command Paper was to bring together and to outline the proposals of the three parties. It is not a statement of Government policy. As I said when I launched the paper in a statement on Monday—I cannot remember whether the hon. Gentleman was here or not; I suspect not—it is clear that the publication and the content of the Command Paper are without prejudice and do not seek to limit or prescribe in any way the work that we have given to Lord Smith to undertake.

EU Council, Security and Middle East

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. The first response should be to gather evidence, prosecute and convict. However, we have learned in this age of the appalling threat of Islamist extremist violence, which is different from some of the threats that we have faced in the past, not least because the people who carry it out not only do not care whether they survive, but seek what they see as martyrdom, that we have to up our response. We have lots of very effective laws and rules. We do not need to overhaul them, but we do, in some circumstances, need to enhance them.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I welcome what the Prime Minister said, particularly about blocking foreign fighters entering the UK. However, as he pointed out, there have been 700 from France, 400 from Germany and hundreds more from other European and western countries, many of them travelling on EU passports. Is he confident that the data and intelligence sharing arrangements that are in place are comprehensive and robust, so that such people can be identified as they travel to the UK or to anywhere else?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely sensible point. The data sharing is good, but it could be a lot better. At the European Council, we looked specifically at the issue of passenger name records. The directive on that issue has so far been held up by a number of countries, including Germany. We need to make progress on that because the sharing of passenger names and records is vital in keeping us safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that that is the best way forward not just for Scottish business but for business in the whole of the UK. Businesses in his constituency benefit from the single domestic market, which includes Scotland.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I expect that Scotland will vote yes to independence next year and in those circumstances, the best hope for businesses in the north-west of England—and, indeed, businesses throughout England, which sell £50 billion of goods and services to Scotland every year—is the maintenance of sterling in a formal currency union, which was described by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) as logical and desirable. Does the Minister agree with the right hon. Gentleman or with yesterday’s scaremongering “project fear” nonsense from the Chief Secretary?

[David Mundell]

I most certainly do not share the hon. Gentleman’s expectation of the outcome of the referendum. He now chooses who to listen to. He used to listen to Mr Jim Cuthbert, who said:

“It’s very difficult to have independence within a currency union. Greece says it all. In any currency union, there are restrictions on individual members and that doesn’t equate to independence.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Moore]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The best arrangement for Scotland is to stay part of the United Kingdom, where we get all the benefits of the currency but also the hugely integrated single market, which is enormously to our benefit, and a platform in the world that is great for all our businesses and those they employ.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The Scottish Secretary prayed in aid one of the Treasury’s analysis documents on Scotland in relation to currency. However, given that his own Chancellor is unable to get his economic growth forecasts correct six months to a year out, how can he possibly expect us to believe an analysis that is supposed to forecast the Scottish growth rate for the next 30 years? It is not serious, is it? It is just more “Project Fear” scaremongering designed to talk Scotland down.

[Michael Moore]

I have to admire the front that the hon. Gentleman puts up. He simply does not answer any of the big issues on this. To take an example of forecasting, in our documents we take very sensible, reasonable proposals and look at how they would apply over many years to come—unlike when the Scottish National party forecasts oil revenues, when it takes all the best-case scenarios and then makes up numbers indicating that about £1.5 trillion of resources are available to Scotland. It is more like a tenth of that, but we never hear that from him.

Debate on the Address

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kennedy]

I have said before that I was wrong about that, although I would have put the issue of the single currency to a referendum. I criticised Tony Blair because he missed an opportunity early in his premiership, but as for decisions later on, I think that history has proved him more correct than those of us who were urging a different course of action—although the ultimate back-stop would have been the public through a referendum.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Kennedy]

I would like to move on from Europe, but not, of course, before the auld alliance has had its opportunity.

[Stewart Hosie]

I am enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s speech greatly, but the problem, of course, is that the Gracious Speech is the coalition Government’s programme for government. While he is absolutely right to warn against the awful dog-whistle politics on immigration and Europe, this is a coalition Government set of policies. Is he telling the House today that it is his intention to oppose these particularly nasty measures?

[Mr Kennedy]

Well, on the immigration matters, let us see the detail first. We have got some initial inklings and there will probably be quite a lot of detailed and, I suspect, sticky debates to be had on some aspects of how this is going to be done. On Europe, the Prime Minister has made it clear in his letter to his parliamentary colleagues in just the last 24 hours that he cannot go in the direction many of them are urging precisely because it is a coalition Government. We can point to our presence having some constructive restraining interest, although I will enter one caveat, which is a challenge for the Liberal Democrat side of the coalition.

The snoopers’ charter is a controversial and high-profile issue, which has been fiercely argued in public, in this House and elsewhere only a matter of months ago—it is not in the Queen’s Speech. That is a significant example of the difference between having an unfettered majority Conservative Government and having a Conservative party in government that is having to take account of another set of views. Although Liberal Democrats are right to argue—my colleagues and I do so regularly—that we can temper this, prevent that, or perhaps improve on how something might otherwise have been done, the bigger challenge for us over the next couple of years, starting with this Queen’s Speech, comes from the fact that simply saying, “Vote for us. If you didn’t, it would be worse” is not the most persuasive of electioneering clarion calls. We have to turn that into a more persuasive pitch—we have two years in which to do so, and I am sure that we can.

G20 Summit

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, but the point that I would make in response is that it is not for us to tell those countries what to do. If countries want to join a currency union, understand that to make that currency union work they have to give up all sorts of sovereignty and freely enter into that bargain, that is a matter for them and not a matter for us. It is for us to decide whether we want to do that, which we do not, and—and, frankly, it is all right to do this—to give advice about what would make a eurozone work better than it is working today.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The communiqué reads:

“We are committed to adopting all necessary policy measures to strengthen demand, support global growth and restore confidence”

and

“enhance job creation”.

I welcome monetary activism as one of the tools to help achieve that, but can the Prime Minister explain to the House how his Government’s austerity programme will do anything other than weaken demand, weaken growth and suppress demand for labour?

[The Prime Minister]

I make this simple point to the hon. Gentleman: if we did not have a credible plan for dealing with our debts and our deficit, our interest rates would not be below 2%. It is worth remembering that when this Government took office, Spanish and British interest rates were at the same level. Our rates are now below 2%, which is helpful for growth, for business and for home owners, and the Spanish have interest rates close to 7%. That is the point. The idea that if a country spent more, borrowed more and added to its debts, it would stimulate its economy is probably wrong.

European Council

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We believe in dealing with tax fraud and tax evasion. That is vital. On the jobs effect of completing the energy and digital services single markets, I have given the GDP figures for how much it would add to the EU, but if the right hon. Gentleman would like, I could perhaps look at how many jobs that could convert into. It is worth noting, however, that the Commission’s forecast for growth this year is that Britain will grow faster than France, the EU and the euro area. Furthermore, according to International Monetary Fund figures, we will grow faster than France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the EU and the euro area this year and next year.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The conclusions from the summit were clear:

“Innovation and research are at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy.”

They are also vital for growth at home. The conclusions also referred to intellectual property, research and development, and patent protection. Can the Prime Minister give us an assurance that concrete progress was made towards a unitary patent protection scheme, as agreed by the Competitiveness Ministers last June, and also update us on the parallel process for the unified patent court?

[The Prime Minister]

There has been quite a breakthrough on the unified patent process, because the EU has been discussing this for, I think, around three decades. There is now an agreement among those countries that want to go ahead and have a unified patent process, so that is a success. There is not yet agreement about where the court should be. We strongly believe it ought to be in London, because London is the centre of international litigation and finance, but the French believe it should be in Paris and the Germans believe it should be in Munich, and there is what is known as a negotiation under way.

Informal European Council

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What last night’s meeting proved is that there is a very strong and growing consensus for action around the European Council table on issues of competitiveness. British Ministers—and, to be fair to Labour, British Ministers for the last 20 years—have been going to Europe arguing for completing the single market, deregulation, lifting the burdens on business and all those issues, and we have always had strong supporters in the northern liberal countries, as it were, but we have come unstuck when it comes to other countries. I think we now see—partly because the centre right is in power in so much of Europe—really strong support for that sort of agenda, and we can certainly drive it forward.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The Joint Ministerial Committee memorandum of understanding on EU policy says that Ministers and officials from all the devolved Administrations should be involved in discussion with the UK Government on the formulation of UK policy. What discussions did the Prime Minister or his officials have with Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast before the European Council meeting?

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are arrangements for these things. Actually, the Government have been very generous in ensuring that the Scottish Administration have been fully involved in, for instance, fishing quota negotiations. However, I thought that the hon. Gentleman wanted to leave the UK altogether. If that is the case, he will have to seek access to the European Union, and seek access to joining the euro as well. I think that he ought to read the treaty and work out whether he wants to sign it. Perhaps when he has made up his mind he will be able to tell the Labour leader what to do.

EU Council

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question, but I am not as pessimistic as he is that there is no prospect of rebalancing powers within the European Union. There are possibilities and opportunities. We did that in terms of the bail-out fund and I think there will be opportunities in future.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The concordat on the co-ordination of European Union policy is very clear—it requires the UK Government to engage with the devolved Governments in the formulation of UK policy, but that clearly did not happen on this occasion. How will the Prime Minister now explain to Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh that adopting an isolationist policy and abdicating all leadership is anything other than damaging and dangerous?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not accept that. In the final analysis, our relations with the European Union are a reserved issue for the UK Parliament and the UK Government. To be fair to this Government, we have gone further than any previous Government on the issues that really matter to people in Scotland—about the single market, fisheries and decisions taken within the European Union—to work very constructively with the other Administrations.

G20

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I am not entirely sure what would have happened if we had turned up at the G20 having voted down the deal from the London G20 on increasing the IMF resources. First of all, we would have declined to implement one of the key findings of the last G20, and then we would have turned up and said that we were not prepared to see any increase in IMF funding for anything else. Britain would have been completely isolated and left out. The reason why the Opposition are talking about this is that it is all about the politics and nothing to do with the economics, and they know it.

[Stewart Hosie]

(Dundee East) (SNP): The Prime Minister said that the UK would not fund the EFSF, but it remains one of the eurozone’s most powerful tools, and there are two new powers proposed for it—to insure newly issued sovereign debt, and to spin out investment trusts to buy that debt. Do the Prime Minister and his Government believe that those powers will be enough to leverage the EFSF up to the €1 trillion or so required to give it the firepower that it needs?

[The Prime Minister]

There are still real difficulties with that. The EFSF and the idea of a special purpose vehicle were set out at the eurozone meeting 10 days ago, but the problem is that since then we have not seen enough detail on how exactly those funds would work and how they would be levered up. You need—I have used “bazooka” before—a bazooka big enough to convince people that you will not have to use it, and that is what the eurozone needs to do, but it has not yet completed that work.