Cost of Living and Brexit

Debate between Ian Murray and Jamie Stone

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

We should absolutely be eradicating food banks across the whole country. The very fact that people in this country cannot afford to eat is an indictment on both Governments. I hope the hon. Gentleman will encourage his colleagues in the Scottish Parliament to support Rhoda Grant’s Right to Food (Scotland) Bill, which the SNP Government have so far refused to do. I hope he gets an opportunity to speak in this debate, and a chance to put those points forward. He makes an important point about food banks, but he misses the point about poverty, particularly child poverty. The previous Labour Government lifted millions and millions out of poverty, and that has been all but reversed, and more. That should be of eternal shame to this UK Government and to the Scottish Government.

[Jamie Stone]

Does the shadow Secretary of State share my astonishment that in this ramshackle proposal for a Committee there is no mention of the Education Committee? Do children not get caught in the poverty trap and the cost of living crisis? Of course they do. This is an example of a badly drafted proposal, and I suggest that the Scottish National party ought to have done its homework a bit better than this.

[Ian Murray]

Indeed, the Education Committee is not represented. Given that it deals with skills, access to employment and the biggest contributor to our economy, which is children’s education, I would have thought that it would be represented on the Committee. However, given that 375 Members or so are already projected to be nominated to this Committee, I am not sure we should have any more. If we do have more, perhaps we should sit as the whole House, as that might be the best way to deal with such issues. SNP Members have not thought this through properly. Perhaps they are frightened of education, because the defining mission of the former First Minister was to close the attainment gap in Scotland. Given that it has got wider, perhaps they do not want to talk about that.

Death of John Smith: 25th Anniversary

Debate between Ian Murray and Jamie Stone

Thursday 9th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

I hope that when my hon. Friend went into the memorial service, he stopped his meter—I know that John, as a traditional Scot, might not have done so.

Some of the stories about John can be repeated in public, but—with his wonderful wit and Scottish humour—there are some that are perhaps best not written into Hansard. I do not think that anybody would contradict the assertion that he was the best Prime Minister that this country never had. As a young Andrew Marr wrote:

“The greatest political tribute to John Smith is the simplest one: had he lived, he would have become Prime Minister.”

It is no exaggeration to suggest that his passing changed the course of British history. He was referred to as “Labour’s lost leader”, the man who made the Labour party electable again.

As well as being a formidable and committed politician of extreme intellect, transparency, decency and straightforwardness, with a sense of fairness and a willingness to fight for those who were not able to speak up for themselves, John Smith was a committed family man, with his wife Elizabeth, whom he met at Glasgow University, and his three daughters, Sarah, Jane and Catherine. The country may have lost a Prime Minister in waiting, but they suffered the heaviest and most heartbreaking loss of all—the loss of a husband, a father and a part of their lives that could never be replaced.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

When I heard of the death of John Smith, I was at the Scottish Tory conference—as a journalist, I should point out, not as a member of the Tory party. I remember that the whole conference came to a grinding halt. Everyone there was stunned and greatly saddened. I thought that that reflected very well on John Smith, and, in fairness, extremely well on the Tory party.

[Ian Murray]

I shall come to that later in my speech. Journalists get all the best gigs, I am sure—such as the Tory party conference.

I was saying that John Smith’s family had suffered the most heartbreaking loss of all—the loss of a husband, a father and a part of their lives that could never be replaced. I feel that acutely, because I lost my own father at a young age. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in wishing my own mum, Lena, a happy 70th birthday for yesterday. The Labour Party would have a new leader to replace John and the country would have that Labour Prime Minister whom it so desired, but it is not possible to replace a father and husband.

I never met John personally, but I feel, as others will surely feel today, that he was always part of my political life. His family still live in my constituency, and constituents often stop me in the street and get on to the topic of John. He was one of theirs, and they are not going to let people forget that any time soon. They all recall his funeral service at Cluny parish church in Morningside. The building sits on a small embankment close to where John lived. The film footage shows the red brick punctuated by the black of mourners moving slowly and sombrely past into the church. The deep national shock was there for all to see.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) cannot be here today owing to a long-standing engagement in her constituency. She was John’s deputy, the politician who took over the reins of the Labour party and the person who had the most difficult job in the House, that of leading the tributes to John when he died. She did it brilliantly and with her usual grace, clarity and kindness. She was devastated that she could not be here today, so she asked if I would read out something on her behalf, and I am very proud to do so:

“25 years ago, the profound shock of John Smith’s untimely death was felt across the country and this House, which only convened for tributes to be paid, led by the then Prime Minister, John Major, before adjourning.

It was also the Scottish Conservative party’s annual conference”

—as we have heard—and

“Ian Lang, the Secretary of State, announced the news and adjourned the conference immediately.

In the Labour party and wider Labour movement the sorrow was profound. I recall a senior trade unionist telling me that he was listening to the tributes in his car, and found himself crying so much that he had to pull over and stop the car.

Party leaders, presidents and prime ministers from across Europe demanded to be allowed to come to the funeral and pay their respects. None were officially invited but they all came anyway at what ended up as almost a state funeral. Yet, in the end, it was not a sombre occasion—appropriately, because John was not a sombre man. It was his lifelong friend Donald Dewar who said in his address, ‘John could start a party in an empty room—and frequently did.’

Yet his outstanding characteristic was his determination to, as he put it, ‘speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves.’”

I do not really want to do a biography of John, but his character was undoubtedly shaped by his upbringing and early life. John was of radical Presbyterian stock, born on the west coast of Scotland on 13 September 1938. “John Smith”, he once said “is the commonest name in Scotland. A robust character is needed to overcome that.” His grandfather was a herring fisherman, and his father was the schoolmaster at the local village school.

At 14, John attended the grammar school at Dunoon. He was academically very successful and began to organise on behalf of his beloved Labour party. From school, he went to Glasgow University, where he cut his teeth, sharpened his elbows and honed the skills that would take him to the Bar and then to the Dispatch Box. He remained at university for seven years, reading for degrees first in history and then in law. He became a first-class debater, as many of the Glasgow university alumni at that time did, helping his university side win the Observer mace competition, but his greatest passion lay in politics.

At just 21, he was adopted as Labour candidate for East Fife, which he fought unsuccessfully, and, despite another couple of failed attempts, became the MP for North Lanarkshire in 1970. Legend has it that he won enough money on predicting the results of the 1966 general election in Scotland to be able to quit being a solicitor and train for the Bar; I am not sure whether that is true.

As a new MP in this House in 1970, it was said that he ruined his chances of early promotion by defying his Whip and voting for entry into the EEC in 1971; I certainly know what defying my party Whip on Europe feels like so can concur with that. He remained a staunch pro-European and internationalist his entire career. Breaking the Whip must have been difficult for John, because he was a party man and believed in discipline, which would prove to be useful in his later political career, but he also believed in the common market and working together, and history repeats itself all too often in this place.

John had a glittering parliamentary governmental career as a Minister in employment, trade and energy until the long 18 years of Labour in opposition. He was shadow Chancellor from 1987 until he became Leader of the Opposition, following the 1992 general election and the resignation of Lord Kinnock. Despite his glittering parliamentary career, John always put his constituents first. Mike Elrick, who worked for John, said that John always emphasised that he had constituents who needed him to fight their corner and he had no intention of letting them down.

The people who knew him best were the wonderful people who worked for him, such as David Ward who is here today. I asked David what it was like to work for him and he had story after story of what a pleasure and how much fun it was. As almost every tribute has mentioned and will mention, he was a witty man, with a warmth and kindness. David tells a story, published in Mark Stuart’s book “John Smith: A Life”, that emphasises John’s devastating humour, which was used to deadly effect in parliamentary debates. John was a brilliant debater capable of superb one-line put-downs to Conservative MPs brave enough to intervene on him. When John was on full song, he relished the chance to cut his opponents to size. Such was his fearsome reputation that it became obvious that Tory Whips were discouraging their MPs from interrupting him in debates. In response, Labour Back Benchers used to taunt the Tories to stand up.

John was spontaneously quick-witted but he also worked very hard at jokes prepared in advance. A great example is the “Neighbours” skewering of Nigel Lawson in this Chamber in June 1989, when Lawson was Chancellor, over the role of Margaret Thatcher’s economic adviser Sir Alan Walters. Lawson and Walters were at loggerheads over Tory policy on Europe—that sounds familiar—and that was causing huge friction between No. 10 and No. 11, which is also hugely familiar. In opening an Opposition debate, John sang a brief section from the theme tune from the television programme “Neighbours”, playing on these tensions; I am not going to sing it this afternoon. This hilarious mocking of the Chancellor culminated in John calling on him to go “before he was pushed”, and 24 hours later the Chancellor resigned.

David Ward said that they were working on the speech the day before the debate and, while John and David were drafting the text, another member of the team, Ann Barrett, was watching the BBC to make sure John got the lyrics to the theme tune right. After that, they seemingly rehearsed the theme song with everyone singing along late into the evening. David said he was worried that anyone wandering past the leader’s office would have been forgiven for thinking everyone had gone stark raving mad.

But I wonder what John Smith would have made of today’s greatest issue, Brexit. Today is Europe Day, and he was a great internationalist. For one, he would not have gambled on calling a referendum and he would have challenged the constant downplaying of the importance of the UK as an integral member of the EU. What would John have thought of the Brexit shambles engulfing and paralysing our politics? It is worth examining what he would have done, and David Ward looks at this in an article published in today’s New European. We know that John voted to go into the EU. He fundamentally believed that giving up some national sovereignty to gain some sovereignty back would allow a great degree of control over the international companies and the global issues of the future. Working together was the only way to solve the global problems.

And here is a greater lesson for Europe now: the way John Smith handled the tricky problem of Europe. Instead of a leader trying to force his opinion on the party—history may be repeating itself in the Labour party today—he asked the party to force its view on the leadership. There are important lessons to learn from his handling of the European issue during his all-too-brief tenure as Labour leader. The party could have been equally as divided as the Conservatives. Dissidents led by former Cabinet Minister Peter Shore—including a notably serial rebellious Back Bencher and challenger to his leadership, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the current Leader of the Opposition—were irreconcilably opposed to Britain’s membership of the European Union, but John minimised internal dispute by taking the unprecedented step of allowing the parliamentary Labour Party, rather than the shadow Cabinet, to determine its policy on Maastricht ahead of crucial votes.

Crown Post Offices: Franchising

Debate between Ian Murray and Jamie Stone

Thursday 10th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for securing this debate. I will be brief because she has said everything that all of us in the Chamber would echo about the problems we have with this proposal.

I draw hon. Members’ attention to the Conservative manifesto back in 2010, which said that it would make the post office the front office of Government services. How hollow has that manifesto promise proved? In fact, we could be here all day picking holes in what the Conservative manifesto promised and what the Government have since delivered. To put that into context, we consistently have debates in this Chamber about the dilution of our post office services locally, whether Crown post offices, franchises or the postmasters and postmistresses who run our post offices, because it is not the front office of Government at all.

In 2011, £172 million of Government services went through our post offices. That fell to £168 million in 2012 and was down to £141 million by 2015. In 2017 it was down to £114 million and it dipped below the £100 million mark in the Post Office annual accounts in 2018, at £99 million. That is not the front office of Government; it is the Government withdrawing services from the very thing they are supposed to be protecting on behalf of our constituents.

We can add to that the history of the project. The Royal Mail and post offices were split off under the Postal Services Act 2011. The Royal Mail was subsequently privatised. The Government said they would look after the post office network, but we have seen that post office network withering on the vine since the Royal Mail and post offices were split up under that piece of legislation. Indeed, if we look at the share price of Royal Mail today—it is just over £2.50—we see that the Royal Mail may be in a bit of financial trouble. It is hardly a success for the taxpayers of this country or for the Royal Mail.

Franchising is difficult not just because successful franchising operations end up in WHSmith. We have heard of the problems with that. I draw hon. Members’ attention to the Consumer Futures report done in 2012, away back at the start of this process, which said how disastrous franchising into retailers such as WHSmith would be. That has proved to be correct. The Government at that time, when I was the shadow postal services Minister, said that the Consumer Futures report was built on incorrect data, but it has since proved to be absolutely correct when we look at the practice of franchising Royal Mail services.

The Morningside Crown post office in my constituency was a profitable branch at the top of Morningside Road. I can tell hon. Members how popular it was in terms of footfall, because that is where we do our street stalls in south Edinburgh. On a Saturday morning, there is no better place to be than outside the post office, with a stream of people going in and out, looking to engage with their Member of Parliament on various issues. That Crown post office came up for franchising, and the interesting thing about its franchise potential was that no other shop in the local area wished to take the franchised post office. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan mentioned, when asked about its plan B if a franchisee does not come forward or if no franchisees satisfy the criteria for running a Crown post office, the Post Office does not have one; it has no idea.

I remember when we had a public meeting in Alloa with Gordon Banks, the former MP for Ochil and South Perthshire, when Crown post offices there were threatened with closure. Someone from the audience asked Post Office Ltd what would happen when either the franchisee failed or if no franchisee came forward, and the answer was that the Post Office itself would have to invest in the Crown post office. Perhaps we should invest in post offices before they are up for closure or franchising.

I have to pay tribute to Ibrahim Joulak, the sub-postmaster who runs the Bruntsfield post office in my constituency. He will take on the Crown post office by merging his small sub-postmaster’s post office and the Crown post office. However, franchised Crown post offices do not have all the services that we expect from the major Crown post offices, further diminishing our constituents’ use of the post office, which is a vicious circle for post offices that want to be self-sustaining.

Footfall is key if we want to revive our high streets. The best thing to drive footfall is services that people wish to use, and my constituency postbag certainly shows me that people wish to use local post offices. That drives the local café and the local newsagent, and people moving around our local communities drives the viability of public transport services. We need these linchpins in our local communities.

The most interesting and ironic thing I have seen on the franchising arrangements in my area is that four major high street banks have also closed their branches, and the letter they send to account holders says, “Don’t worry, you can use your local post office.” Well, they can do so only if their local post office exists. It is the very same problem with the free bus pass in many parts of Scotland. Of course pensioners can travel anywhere they like in Scotland with a concessionary travelcard, but they have to be able to get on a bus.

[Jamie Stone]

I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s commitment. As high street banks continue to close branches, could we not turn the whole argument on its head, keep Crown post offices open and offer the banks a one-stop shop in these wonderful old premises that have been there for hundreds of years, thereby giving an additional service to post office customers?

[Ian Murray]

That is a great intervention. I keep asking the chief executives of the Royal Bank of Scotland and other high street banks why they do not co-host with post offices, bringing together two business models that are struggling because of the way that we use modern communications and modern banking. The technology must be available. If I can do all my banking on my smartphone, surely the high street banks are able to co-locate with post offices and provide that for our constituents.

Finally, the reason why staff tend not to be TUPE-ed across when there is a franchisee partner is that franchisee partners simply do not want them because they do not want the cost. The reason they do not want the cost is that they want fewer staff. The reason they want fewer staff is that they think the service cannot possibly be efficient and effective unless there are fewer experienced staff, so staff tend to take the quite generous redundancy packages from the Post Office. That experience is then lost and there is a brain drain from the service, and again there is a vicious circle of the service becoming less efficient and less able to meet the needs of the local communities.

It is right for the Minister to come here again. I hope we are not having this same debate about franchising and the closure of post offices again next year and the year after and the year after that. The Minister is new in her role, but I hope she eventually grabs the nettle of the post office network, pauses the franchising process, looks at what the Post Office can do on its profitability and then invests those profits back into the current network, so that we can all have post offices in our communities that are sustainable for the future.

Sewel Convention

Debate between Ian Murray and Jamie Stone

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

I will not give way again to the hon. and learned Lady, because others wish to speak. She will get her opportunity to speak in this debate.

We must take the politics and the heat out of this debate. During the statement last Thursday, I asked the Secretary of State whether there was any possibility of people continuing to talk on this matter. He said that he was willing to talk, but that the Scottish Government will not move from their position. In reply to my intervention a few moments ago, the leader of the SNP said that the Scottish Government, in his view, would be willing to talk. When can we possibly get both Governments around the table to try to flesh some of this out? The nub of the problem—one of a number—is that the Joint Ministerial Committee does not meet regularly enough. As was said by Lord McConnell, who set up this particular process, it should have been scrapped a long time ago. During the passage of the Scotland Bill in 2015 in this Chamber—all the SNP Members were here—I put forward amendments from that Dispatch Box to put the JMC on a statutory footing to allow minutes and agendas to be published publicly, so we did not get into this situation of “he said, she said” and the whole matter becomes a political football.

When the Minister gets to the Dispatch Box, I urge him to give a clear commitment that every single piece of communication that has happened in the JMC with regards to the devolution amendments is published. I shall tell him why he should do that. While this whole process is secret and while people are kept in the dark about who said what and who agreed to what, all we get is: this is a power grab, or this is a powers bonanza. The people of Scotland then have to decide which one is the most appropriate. As the compromise was made, I want to know, and the people of Scotland want to know, how far apart the two sides are. Is it the case that it is two minor things on which the Scottish Government are deliberately withholding consent, because it is not in their interest to give consent? I agree with the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack) that the Scottish Government never intended to give consent, even if they got 100% of what they wanted. It is not in their political interest to do so. Let us have a little bit of transparency about this process, so that we can see, in black and white, where the gap is and how we are able to bridge that gap.

[Jamie Stone]

Further to my earlier intervention on the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he agrees with my suggestion that many of us will not be on Joint Ministerial Committees, but that some sort of Back-Bench liaison, cross-party body of MPs and MSPs would be constructive for the future operation of both Parliaments?

[Ian Murray]

I think that it would be constructive. If this process has shown anything, it is that the inter-governmental relationship between two Governments when they are of different colours does not work. The consequences of it not working is not that the Secretary of State cannot get what he wants, or that the First Minister cannot get what she wants, but that it is bad for the people of Scotland. We cannot have an orderly withdrawal from the EU—if that is what happens and let us not get into the issues of whether or not we will leave the EU; I have my own views—unless we have a proper structure in place where both Governments can be confident, and the people of Scotland can be confident, that both Governments can work together. It is in both Governments’ interests to fight over these particular issues, because they cannot resolve some of the major problems with regards to leaving the European Union. Therefore, a fight between flags, between the Conservatives and the Scottish National party, suits both political agendas down to the ground while every other issue ends up being on the agenda.