House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Debate between Tommy Sheppard and Michael Gove

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard]

I cannot give way because of the time. To say that the House of Lords is justified because it compensates for the inadequacy of the House of Commons is completely wrong. In fact, it exacerbates many of those inadequacies.

Turning to the imperfections of the House of Lords, that it is unelected is taken as given, but it is also profoundly unrepresentative for an appointed chamber. It is old, male and almost half of its Members are domiciled in the south-east of England. In no way does that even attempt to recognise our country. It is also very big—my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) noted that it is second only to the legislature of the People’s Republic of China—and very costly, with each peer costing an average of £120,000 a year and its operation costing almost £100 million. If the Government are serious about reducing the cost of government, I suggest that they look first at what is happening along the corridor.

It is time to begin the process of change. We should be looking at having an elected second Chamber. Indeed, that pledge was in the Conservative manifesto, so it has ceased to be an argument of principle; it is one of priorities and the timing being right. The time is absolutely right to begin the process of considering change and I recommend that this House do so.

[Michael Gove]

rose—

[Tommy Sheppard]

I think I will get into trouble if I give way.

I want to consider the boundary changes, because the two things must be looked at together—they are two sides of the same coin. No case can be made for reducing the number of elected Members of Parliament at a time when this Parliament’s responsibility will increase as a result of leaving the European Union and the repatriation, in whatever form, of a vast amount of powers. At the very least, the pause button should be pressed until the Brexit plan is established and we see how this country manages to survive outside the European Union.

I commend the motion to the House. I am actually pleased with some of the comments from the Government Benches about being prepared to consider it. I point out that the motion does not call for the abolition of the House of Lords or any of the structures of the House of Commons or for electoral reform. It is a motion that says, “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” It is one that says, “Press the pause button.” Let us look at the plans for the future. Let us pause the reduction in the number of seats in the Commons. Let us pause the escalation in the size of the House of Lords. Let us see whether we can come back with proposals for reform that will command support from across the House and endear us much more to the people who put us here.

Claim of Right for Scotland

Debate between Tommy Sheppard and Michael Gove

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Bone.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) on the lucid, passionate and effective way in which he laid out the case for independence, and on using the constitutional history behind the Claim of Right as a legitimising factor for independence. However, as he was gracious enough to acknowledge, when the Claim of Right was re-established in 1989 by cross-party consensus, the Scottish National party stood aside from that consensus. That was because the SNP position towards our constitution has always been what Henry Ford’s was towards the Model T. Henry Ford said, “You can have your car in any colour you like, as long as it’s black,” and the SNP says, “The Scottish people can decide on any constitutional future they like, provided they choose independence.” So when at that time there was a consensus—I will admit that the Conservatives were outside it—in favour of devolution, the SNP said, “This assertion of popular sovereignty is wrong because it doesn’t agree with me.” In that sense, the SNP was a bit like the proud mother who notices her son marching out of step with everyone else in the regiment and says, “Everybody is out of step, apart from my Willie.”

What the SNP has in consistency, which is admirable, it lacks in honesty about where the true centre of Scottish public opinion lies, and that is in favour of devolution. From 1989 to the present day, there has been support for a Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom, and when the arithmetic in the constitutional convention did not suit the SNP in 1989, it stood aside, proud in its solitary conventicle. And now, even though it has a majority of representation for Scotland in this House, it regards the fact that a majority of people in Scotland voted against independence in the referendum as a mere temporary interruption and inconvenience.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify exactly what is being suggested? Is it being said that, because a political party—in this case, the SNP—has a desired and preferential constitutional outcome, somehow its adherence to that negates any genuine commitment to allowing people to choose between a number of options? If that is the case, would it not also apply to the Conservative party or any other political party that has a preferential outcome? Surely the whole point of having a choice is that different parties can put different perspectives before the people and allow them to choose.

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely agree. It is to the credit of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that, as I said earlier, they put the case for independence with fluency, with authority, with passion, with commitment. I take nothing away from the power of the case that they make. But the Scottish people have rejected that case: in a referendum, the Scottish people clearly—by 55% to 45%—said no to independence.

But now the SNP is claiming in this debate that the long-held constitutional principle that the Scottish people are sovereign means that the Scottish people should be independent. But either the Scottish people decide their own constitutional fate, in which case we should respect the decision taken in that referendum, or they are perpetually wrong because they do not agree with the SNP. I also point out that since that referendum we have seen the SNP move from being a majority Government in Holyrood to a minority Government, and we have seen that support for Scotland’s position within the Union has remained resolutely at the same level as in the referendum. We have also seen Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, become the single most impressive and popular politician in Scotland. The latest statistics and opinion polling reinforce what everyone knows, which is that she is the single most formidable politician in Scotland. Those are the facts and, as Robert Burns once pointed out, we all know that,

“facts are chiels that winna ding”.