Devolution in Scotland

Debate between Patricia Ferguson and Stephen Gethins

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Ferguson]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. I am not in favour of voting remotely either, except perhaps in very rare and exceptional circumstances. However, please believe me that electronic voting is the way forward. Members would not have to spend some 20 minutes walking through the Lobby. Votes would be cast, and a result declared, within roughly one minute. That is definitely a better use of Members’ time, and a much more efficient way to do things.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

I think the hon. Lady has made a good point. She may be up against it if she is trying to talk to those on the Opposition Benches about modernisation in any fashion, but when, during the pandemic, Members were forced to go through the Lobby when they were unwell, that affected Members throughout the House. I think—and I shall say more about this later—that there are always places where legislatures can learn from each other.

[Patricia Ferguson]

It is undoubtedly true that we have to learn from one another, and from international examples too. If I can give one example that I would like colleagues to learn from, it is that electronic voting has a place, and a place from which I think this House could benefit greatly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Ferguson]

I think we have to realise that the Parliament in Scotland is very much smaller than this Parliament, which makes a great difference to many of the ways in which it operates. As we heard from the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, it is much easier to speak to a Minister there than it is here. It is a regular occurrence. There is a saying in the Scottish Parliament: you only have to sit in the Garden Lobby for half an hour, and every other parliamentarian will have passed you by at one point or another. That is a huge advantage, and it is one of the aspects of the Scottish Parliament that I personally preferred: we did have that access, not just to Ministers but to other colleagues across parties, and we could develop relationships that enabled us to work in a cross-party way very easily with them. That, I think, was a great thing. I also think that the Scottish Parliament has, perhaps, a better balance of power between Members and the Government, but we have to accept that the scale is an influencing factor at the very least.

I would not suggest for a moment that the years from 2007 onwards—when the SNP first formed a Government through a deal with the Tories, when they then formed a majority Government, and even when they were in coalition with the Greens—have been a complete failure, but there has been a great deal of wasted time and opportunity.

[Stephen Gethins]

Is the hon. Member aware that in that 2007 Parliament, the Labour party voted with the SNP more often than the Conservatives did?

[Patricia Ferguson]

The Labour party did not vote with the SNP on the Budget. The SNP needed the Tories to get Budgets through, and that was the basis on which they did a deal. Sadly, those Budgets very much reflected Tory values, and that is why Labour could not vote for them; nor could friends in other parties that are represented in this Chamber.

I have to say, though, that time has been wasted by people obsessing about the constitution and creating grievances with Westminster. We could have been in a very different place if the Scottish Government had continued to focus on the issues that mattered to people in their everyday lives, and also if they had been more constructive in their engagement with Members of the Scottish Parliament itself. My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross cited the ill-fated deposit return scheme as an example of when there was not that cross-party working to make legislation appropriate and fit for purpose; I would cite as another example the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act, which was passed in 2012 only to be repealed in 2018. Again, I would not suggest for a minute that Scotland does not sometimes have a problem with football matches, and with some of the sectarian and offensive behaviour that goes on in connection with them, but that Act was badly thought out. People tried to say so at the time, but they were not listened to. I think it is always important for us to listen to one another and hear what others have to say.

Sadly, it has to be said that recent Scottish Governments have been found wanting when it comes to the measurements of success that they have set for themselves on NHS waiting time guarantees, climate targets or educational attainment, and the premise of the Parliament —allowing for the delivery of Scottish solutions to Scottish problems—has fallen some way short. For a Parliament that is devolved, it has had the most centralising agenda in recent years, which has not been to Scotland’s advantage. Scotland is made up of peoples, cities, towns and villages, and what works in my constituency of Glasgow West will not necessarily work in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. It is important that those differences are reflected, and that the agencies and public organisations that support and serve our populations reflect local bias, local need and local interest. Sadly, that is no longer the case in some places.

As the Scottish Parliament progresses into its second quarter-century, we have an opportunity to look back, to mark both the successes and the shortcomings, and to recall the words of Donald Dewar at the Parliament’s opening on 1 July 1999, which are as relevant today as they were then. He said that we will

“never lose sight of what brought us here—the striving to do right by the people of Scotland, to respect their priorities, to better their lot and to contribute to the common weal.”

In recalling those words, we should look forward to the future, to how the Scottish Parliament can do right by the people of Scotland, and to how we Members of this Parliament can play a constructive part in making that so.