Standing Orders (Public Business)

Debate between Christopher Pincher and Martin Docherty-Hughes

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I fear you flatter me, Mr Speaker. After three hours of debate I think that everything that can be said has been said, although not everybody who can say something has done so. In that spirit, I will be brief.

We have heard fine and passionate speeches, not least from the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) who said that this proposal will bring about a subtle change in the House. He is right, but that is because of the glaring change brought about by the constitutional settlement that the Labour Government foisted on our country in 1999 by creating a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly.

[Martin John Docherty (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will not because I want to be succinct, as the Speaker asked me to be.

Multiple Parliaments have changed the nature of this Parliament, and four Parliaments after that change, it is high time that we got on and fixed the problem.

Other Members also made fine speeches—my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) urged the House to have a care and think of the Union, and said that we should not give a lever to the SNP. I say that we should have a care because the SNP is quite capable of finding a lever of its own. It is not a Unionist party; it wants to break the Union.

If SNP Members cannot foment a grievance—that is the word used by the shadow Leader of the House—they will invent one. That is in the order of things: dogs bark, cats miaow, and the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) claims that he is a second-class Member. My constituents believe that they have a second-class Member—[Interruption.] Some of them may well be right, but unfortunately for my Labour opponent, not enough. They feel that because I cannot vote on matters of health or education in Scotland, yet Scottish Members can vote on health and education in my constituency, that makes me a second-class Member.

Three tests matter. First, is this proposal modest? It is a modest proposal compared with others that may be put forward. Secondly, is it flexible and testable? It is. The Leader of the House has made it clear that he will test this proposal over five Bills to ensure that it works, and he will tweak it if necessary. Thirdly, is it changeable or reversible? We heard in the eloquent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that this proposal is reversible if we do not like it and it does not work. Because the proposal is modest, testable, and changeable, I think it is reasonable, and we must back it tonight.