Elections Bill (First sitting)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Order. Can we move on? We are very short of time.

Councillor Golds: Okay, but it is an example of the police’s utter failure to look at electoral malpractice in London.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Q Thank you to the witnesses. I have a rather technical question for Gillian Beasley, but I want to ask Councillor Golds a little bit more. A lot of the examples that we are hearing about in Tower Hamlets were described by the previous witnesses as “extreme” and “isolated”. In a lot of the examples, people have been brought to justice. The elections were annulled and the candidates were disqualified. What you are describing is police inaction. If your contention is that the police are not enforcing the laws as they already stand, what gives you confidence that the Bill will be any more enforceable or make any more of a difference? Is the contention that there is even more going on—there is even more fraud and there are lots of Tower Hamletses out there—and we are just lucky that we are picking up what is happening in Tower Hamlets, and we have to stop it happening elsewhere in the country where we cannot see it?

Councillor Golds: Let us be absolutely clear that the disqualification was nothing to do with the police, who completely ignored it. It was done by four brave citizens who lost a fortune on it, because they are liable for everybody’s costs, including Lutfur Rahman’s.

On the issue of potential Tower Hamletses, they are out there in other places. Commissioner Mawrey mentioned Slough and he mentioned the problem of Woking, where the returning officer himself said that he did not believe that he had declared an accurate result in all his time as a returning officer. There are issues in Bradford and in other parts of the country. Indeed, we heard from one of your colleagues, who read that extraordinary email that was circulated in the Batley and Spen by-election. That would be typical here.

Outside a polling station, in one of my elections, there were people placed to tell every single Bangladeshi voter two subjects: one, that Councillor Golds is a Jew, and the second, that Councillor Golds is gay. To prove the second point, they had an extract from the election address to ensure that it was understood that the person I have lived with for the past 23 years is male. That was done in London in 2010. Please, as Mr Shelbrooke has said, do not say it is not happening elsewhere. The Bill is essential to clean our elections.

Indeed, we have the appalling situation in Peterborough where a fraudster can sit at a polling station, can turn up at the count, can be present at the reception of postal votes and can stand there smirking for selfies. This is a man who has gone to prison for election fraud and who has been disqualified from voting, but who is taking part in elections. We can all see it. This man Tariq Mahmood tweets it repeatedly. We need the law clearing up so that we do not have what Alec Shelbrooke has said happened in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, which is repeated in Peterborough and seen in Tower Hamlets. We want clean elections so that people on the Isle of Dogs can vote with the same security as Mr O’Hara’s constituents, the good people of Argyle and Bute.

[Patrick Grady]

Q I want to pick up on some of the questions that Gillian Beasley has been asked about the process of electoral administration. The Bill creates these different categories of EU citizens: EU citizens with retained rights and qualifying EU citizens. How do you anticipate that adding to all the other burdens that we discussed earlier, such as the surge in late voting and the potential surge in late applications for voter ID? How does the creation of yet more categories on the electoral register fit in with the overall package of the Bill?

Gillian Beasley: Thank you for that question. I was talking to my electoral administrators this week about those divisions, and there is undoubtedly going to be more complexity around that. It is already quite complex, if you walk into a polling station with a presiding officer, working out what all the letters mean and who can and cannot vote. I think it means that we need not only highly trained electoral administrators, but highly trained presiding officers. I think it has got a training burden. We are finding it more difficult to get presiding officers because of the complexity, and we will need some really detailed and careful training packages to make sure that the right people get to vote and we administer the register in a proper way. We do expect there to be some burdens and some additional resource needed to ensure we can administer that properly and carefully.

[The Chair]

Gareth Cann, do you have anything to add?

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: Nothing specific. Quite a few issues were raised by Councillor Golds there, but nothing specific for me to come back on, other than that it felt to me that the police had not so much ignored that allegation as assessed and investigated it, and unfortunately it could not be substantiated, which they reported back to the interested parties. I have nothing specific to add on the last question.

Elections Bill (Second sitting)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

[The Chair]

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson]

[Patrick Grady]

[Patrick Grady]

[The Chair]

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading
Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

What I can be clear about today is that when deciding to call an election, the Prime Minister will take account of a range of factors, including elections to the devolved legislatures. I am well aware of the challenges of holding elections simultaneously or in close proximity, so the UK Government would therefore be mindful of any elections due to take place for the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Senedd and encourage the best kind of close working between the administrators of each types of election.

[Patrick Grady]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chloe Smith]

I am afraid I have not got time to give way; I need to draw my remarks to a close. I look forward to the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr being able to say more about his amendment, which he has not yet had a chance to do. It would be rather good at this point if the Committee heard from others, rather than me. I draw my remarks to a close. I hope I have covered all the points on the new clauses, the schedule and the amendments. I commend the Bill as a whole, unamended, to the Committee.

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[Patrick Grady]

I wanted to make this point to the Minister. Not only will the Prime Minister have full power, but some of the clauses and consequential amendments in the Bill will have a profound effect on other aspects of the constitution. It specifically amends the Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020 as a consequential amendment. That Act states that a referendum in Scotland cannot be held on the same date as a UK general election, but it is not the referendum that takes precedence; it is the UK general election. So if the Scottish Government set a date for a referendum, say in May 2023, under this Bill, it would be entirely within the Prime Minister’s power to set that date for a UK general election and consequently shift the date of the referendum in Scotland. We are handing a gross power to the UK Government as a consequence of the Bill.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Was that the hon. Gentleman’s speech? Shall I cross him off the list?

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[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Diolch yn fawr, Dame Rosie; it is a pleasure to contribute to this debate, to serve under your chairmanship and to speak to my amendments 4 and 5. I welcome the provisions in the Bill that put certain safeguards in place to protect against a clash between ordinary Westminster and Senedd elections. My amendments go one step further and would remove regulations from the Government of Wales Act 2006 that allow the Secretary of State to combine a UK general election with an extraordinary general election to the Senedd. Although these are probing amendments, I would like to set out why the possibility of even an extraordinary election to the Senedd taking place at the same time as a Westminster election is a cause for concern.

The introduction of the Elections Bill has put Wales and Westminster on a rapidly diverging path when it comes to empowering and engaging citizens in the democratic process. In Wales, 16 and 17-year-olds are allowed to vote in Senedd and local elections, rightly having a say over critical issues that affect their future. In Wales, any legal citizen, no matter their nationality, can vote in Senedd and local elections. It is telling that as Wales and, of course, Scotland extend their franchise, this place seeks to do the exact opposite. In Westminster elections, the introduction of mandatory ID cards risks placing an additional barrier between voters and democratic engagement, especially for younger people and minority groups.

This all comes at a time when the Conservative Government here are intent on slashing the number of Welsh MPs from 40 to 32. Not only is this part of a relentless anti-devolution power grab from our Senedd, but it will cause practical confusion, as many will find themselves living in different boundaries for the Senedd and Westminster. In addition, if both elections were held at the same time, headlines would inevitably be dominated by the Westminster election, prejudicing the national debate in Wales. Despite the fact that we will celebrate a quarter of a century of devolved Welsh governance in a few years’ time, there continues to be a lack of understanding about which tier of government is responsible for which policy area. Simultaneous elections would therefore only increase confusion, a phenomenon probably encouraged by some political parties.

I gladly admit that there has yet to be an extraordinary Senedd election to date, but it is not completely out of the realms of possibility. Indeed, further reforms to the Senedd may make this outcome more likely. For example, the expert panel report on Assembly electoral reform, chaired by the formidable Professor Laura McAllister, made a strong case for the introduction of the single transferable vote system—a system that could vastly improve how connected voters feel to the democratic process but which would make coalition Government in Wales inevitable. Although I believe such cross-party governance to be a good thing, it could increase the likelihood of an extraordinary election.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point in his speech and with his amendment. It is not entirely clear from the answer that he got from the Minister why the Government would not simply accept the proposal, for the same reason that I cited in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara)—the potential of a UK general election being used to manipulate the date of a referendum, the date of a Scottish election or the date of a Welsh election. Once again, it is the power grab that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) spoke of.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention and his point about the pre-eminence that Westminster would have over these major democratic events in Wales and Scotland.

Although these scenarios are currently hypothetical, we cannot but be vigilant when living in an age where the British Government had no shame, only a few years ago, in unlawfully proroguing this House to avoid scrutiny and parliamentary debate on the biggest political decision that the UK has faced in generations. I would appreciate it if the Minister, in closing, could shed some light on why the Secretary of State needs to retain the powers to combine extraordinary general elections to the Senedd on the same day as UK parliamentary general elections when provisions in section 5 of the Government of Wales Act allow the Senedd to dissolve itself and the Presiding Officer to propose a day to hold an election.

Before I bring my comments to a close, I would like to speak in support of other amendments and particularly new clauses 2 to 4, which would empower the legislature over the Executive and give a semblance of balance to a Bill that is inherently about enabling the Executive to dominate this House. A healthy democracy requires checks and balances between the Government and Parliament. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which the Bill would repeal, was good for democracy as it strengthened the hand of this House in the governance of the UK.

The excuse for this Bill is the events of the 2017 to 2019 Parliament. Although I acknowledge that the current Prime Minister and his team skilfully used the deep deliberations of that time to present a Parliament in paralysis, I firmly believe that future historians will look very kindly on the role of this House during that period. Members of a legislature should never offer unequivocal support for the actions of an Executive. Our job is to scrutinise and challenge. During the period in question, this House was dealing with a hugely complex issue and carefully, through detailed deliberation, working its way through the various options. The tragedy of the events of the last Parliament is that the Opposition fell into the trap set by the Government by agreeing to the early election.

What we saw towards the end of the last Parliament was a Government willing to thrash parliamentary democracy to achieve their political goals. The amendments put forward by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) seek to insure us against such similar acts in future. If he chooses to divide the Committee on his amendments, he will have my support.

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[Chris Green]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), who captured many of the points so clearly and effectively. I welcome the Bill and fully intend to support it and the reversal of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. That Act was designed to deal with the short-term problem of a coalition, which is a relatively frequent occurrence in our democracy but is certainly not something that we would wish to have generally, because it causes a great many problems, with accountability being one of the most significant concerns. Following a coalition Government, there is always a question about blame and who is responsible for what actions. One side claims all the good things and blames all the bad on the other. We do not want legislation that reflects those problematic times and deals with that situation as a permanent feature. People across the country understand our political system and actually quite value the way we do politics, including first-past-the-post and having a majority Government, as we have recognised over many years.

Elections are wonderful occasions for a whole range of reasons. They are a festival of democracy and, in many ways, are uplifting, although I recognise the negativity of long election campaigns. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) made a very good point by referring to election fatigue. I am therefore very sympathetic to new clause 1. Even though I and many others quite enjoy elections and the campaign trail, we have to reflect on the concern that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) highlighted so well about the exclusionary qualities of a long election campaign: it is very difficult for many people to engage in it if they are not already in Parliament or do not have wider financial support to be an active candidate throughout. I hope that the Minister will reflect on the new clause even if it is not pressed to a vote at this stage.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Member says that there is election fatigue and that people are worried about when election campaigns begin, but surely the effect of the Bill will be that the next election campaign will start now because nobody except the Prime Minister will know the date of the next election.

[Chris Green]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, but I fundamentally disagree. In countries with fixed-term Parliaments, such as the United States of America, they legislate for two years and then campaign for two years, whereas if we do not know the time of the next general election, we do not know when we will start campaigning. Often, even Prime Ministers of the day do not know when the elections will be, because they are not fixed in time, so it is difficult for the Government to start campaigning. Actually, I think the Bill will reduce the campaign period.

There is a strong sense that once electors have made their decision, they have given their judgment not only on the political parties but, more importantly, on the candidates themselves. In constituencies, we are elected as individuals and then we form a Government among ourselves. It is not necessarily the largest party that will form a Government, because we might be in a coalition situation and other parties might seek that. With a fixed term, however, a party that is in the majority at the beginning of a Parliament may find, whether because of death, defection or fragmentation, that it is no longer able to function. Arguably, we have seen that recently.

I oppose new clause 2 because for Parliament to make the decision to permit an election would, in a sense, enable the House of Commons to hold the Government of the day to ransom. We saw that recently when the Government ought to have fallen and we ought to have had a general election. The British people ought to have been in a position to make a decision not only about the fundamental issue of Brexit but, more broadly, about how individuals here had represented the interests and concerns of their constituents, and then to return us to enact whatever manifesto we had come up with.

The idea that we could be in a position where the Opposition and perhaps fragments of the governing party could say, “No, we will just carry on as long as we see fit” would bring Parliament more and more into disrepute. We have to have the Prime Minister making these decisions. Fundamentally, who would fear facing the verdict of the people? It would be those who were doing a bad job, whether they were in opposition or in the Government of the day. I believe that the Prime Minister ought to make that decision within the five-year period.

[Patrick Grady]

I apologise, Dame Rosie, that I have been bobbing up and down this afternoon wanting to speak and not wanting to speak, but I think that some of our discussion on the new clauses needs to be teased out a little more. First, I would like to hear from the Minister in response to the point on which I tried to intervene on her, which was about the consequential effects, particularly with regard to referendums. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) made a similar point about the ability of the UK Parliament essentially to take primacy over decisions already made by the devolved assemblies about the dates of elections and particularly of referendums.

Why could not the Bill have been structured in such a way that it simply stopped the Prime Minister from choosing a date on which a poll or plebiscite of some kind was already scheduled? Forcing polls or plebiscites in the devolved areas to be rescheduled instead entirely diminishes or takes away the idea that we are in some kind of union of equals and fundamentally reasserts the primacy of this place above all else. If that does not make the argument for the outcome of the referendum that I will be campaigning for, I do not know what does.

The point about setting the date of the election, which also relates to new clause 2, is particularly important. The effect will be not only that the Prime Minister alone will know the date of the next election, but that he will know all the consequent dates that fit alongside it, particularly the regulated periods, the short campaign and the long campaign. It will therefore affect the ability of parties and individual candidates—as the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) said, we are all individual candidates for election—to spend money and to decide when and how to do so.

That point relates to the Elections Bill, which is about to be considered in Committee, and speaks to the piecemeal approach that this Government are very slyly taking to what is actually a very serious package of constitutional reforms that undermine democratic protections and positions that people have enjoyed across these islands for some considerable time.

That was a bit too long for an intervention, Dame Rosie, so I have taken advantage of the fact that the Committee still had a bit of time to run. As the Minister was not willing to take my intervention, I hope that in her summing up she will be able to reply to some of my points.

[Chloe Smith]

As I was advised by the Chairman of Ways and Means at the time, I endeavoured to respond to all amendments at the beginning of the debate, so I have given what I hope was the bulk of my remarks. It remains for me to thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions, which have been comprehensive and thoughtful.

I assure my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) that I will look at commissioning research. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) that, as set out in the response to the Joint Committee’s report, there is ongoing dialogue to be had on conventions. I suggest to the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) that we might meet if he would like to go further over the detail that he requested; I will even extend that invitation to the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady). I assure them both that I am already discussing these matters with colleagues in the devolved Administrations.

I urge the Committee to agree that the clauses should stand part of the Bill and that the amendments are not necessary. I commend the Bill to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Revival of prerogative powers to dissolve Parliament and to call a new Parliament

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill (Instruction)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. and learned Lady—who was, of course, the Cherry on the top of the icing in this case; it must have been one of her bigger successes in terms of parliamentary democracy—has read my mind better than I know it myself.

All that we have to bear in mind is what the Supreme Court said in its judgment on what the limit on the power to prorogue would be:

“A decision to prorogue Parliament (or to advise the monarch to prorogue Parliament) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive. In such a situation the court will intervene if the effect is sufficiently serious to justify such an exceptional course.”

So everyone who votes against my motion, or against my new clause later if we are able to reach it, will be saying, basically, “Yes, courts, carry on. That is exactly what you should do. You should consider these matters. You should decide at every Prorogation whether the Government are acting lawfully or not.”

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. Does he share my concern at the fact that the Government Benches are filling up so rapidly, which suggests that many Members may be intending to vote against the motion? Perhaps if he takes a few more interventions it will give Members who want to vote in favour of his motion, so that we can actually have this debate, a bit more time in which to do so. It would be very ironic if the Government started quashing debate at this stage, not even allowing a debate to happen.

[Chris Bryant]

I have to say that in my 20 years in this House, I have quite often known Governments to quash debate. [Interruption.] The Government Deputy Chief Whip is pointing at me in a rather vulgar and insinuating way—and I can see through that mask! However, there is a serious point here. I am not going to go on for much longer, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be glad to know—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] You see, Madam Deputy Speaker: I know how to unite the Chamber.

Why does Prorogation matter? Although people—not hon. Members, but many others—often confuse it with a recess or an Adjournment, they are completely and utterly different. Prorogation suspends all business. It means that the Government are allowed to put again a question on a motion that has already been decided during that Session, and secure a different outcome if that is what they are trying to do. We know that that was one of the reasons why the 2019 Prorogation happened.

Prorogation suspends all questions. Any written questions that have not yet been answered have to be tabled again. Normally, for four weeks beforehand Ministers do not bother to reply, because they know that Members will have to submit the questions all over again.

Prorogation means that no Select Committee or other Committee of the House can meet or take evidence. That, incidentally, must surely be something we should be able to change. It means that the Parliament Act can be engaged. Of course that is what the Labour Government did in the 1945 to 1950 Parliament—to get through legislation under the 1911 Act. Unlike a recess, which is voted on, Prorogation is not voted on, but the Government still have all the power over it, because just as with a recess, only a Government Minister can table a motion or, indeed, table an amendment. No other Member is allowed to table an amendment to a Government motion for a recess.

So many different elements of the way we do our business which guarantee Back Benchers and Opposition Members an opportunity to engage in and initiate legislative processes are entirely reliant on Standing Orders. When the Government decide to suspend a Session, that starts the clock all over again, but it means that they are entirely in control of how many private Members’ days, Backbench days or Opposition days are provided. We know from our experience last week that the Government can suddenly pull an Opposition day because they do not want a vote on, for instance, universal credit and the cut of £20.

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[Chloe Smith]

Because clause 3 is careful, as the explanatory notes set out, to absorb recent case law, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would want us to do. I know that the hon. Member for Rhondda thinks that that is important, because he has given us a tour de force of the history in this area. The point still stands, none the less, that clause 3 is about Dissolution, having had regard to relevant case law. That does not make it about Prorogation, as much as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) might wish it to. It is not about Prorogation.

I ought to take this moment to reflect on what we are actually voting on today. The hon. Member for Rhondda has suggested that there might almost be a trap here. I hesitate to suggest that he is laying a trap for Government Members to vote on. That would hardly be in his character, I am sure. However, a few suggestions have been made in the Chamber this afternoon that, if Government Members were to vote against his motion right here, right now, we would be saying that Prorogation was in fact justiciable. I think I can answer that one fairly clearly in saying that we are voting on an instruction to this Committee here today that we should have leave to make provision relating to the Prorogation of Parliament. I am really doing nothing more there than reading from the Order Paper, so we can be quite clear what today’s vote consists of.

[Patrick Grady]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chloe Smith]

I will give way one last time, and I am sure the intervention will be good.

[Patrick Grady]

I wonder whether the Minister might just indulge the House and express the Government’s opinion on the hon. Member for Rhondda’s amendment, given that the Government seem to oppose our getting a chance to discuss it?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that this is a very narrow debate on the instruction. The Minister can of course speak about the content of the instruction on the matter of Prorogation, but not on the amendment itself.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

3. What recent assessment his Department has made of the strength of the Union.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

4. What recent assessment his Department has made of the strength of the Union.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)]

My assessment continues to be that the United Kingdom is the most successful political and economic union that the world has ever seen. It is the foundation on which all our citizens and businesses are able to thrive. The United Kingdom Government are committed to protecting and promoting the strengths of our United Kingdom.

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[Mr Jack]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is under review. We want Acorn to be one of the tier 1 projects, and we are pressing for that. I think he should press for his colleagues and his Government in Scotland to support the oil and gas industry.

[Patrick Grady]

How is the Union strengthened by the increasingly divergent franchises on these islands? Scotland’s Parliament was elected in May with an electorate including 16 and 17-year-olds, refugees and EU nationals, while his Government’s Trumpian Elections Bill wants to suppress and restrict voter turnout. Surely that only increases the legitimacy and mandate of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, and makes this place even more detached from voters in Scotland.

[Mr Jack]

I think the coalition with the Greens shows very clearly to everyone that one thing that the SNP failed to achieve in May was an outright majority.

Elections Bill

Patrick Grady Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) appeared to accuse some Members on the Opposition Benches of having tin foil hats, but I have to say that that was a particularly shiny and reflective contribution.

The reality is that the Bill will create more problems than it seeks to solve. The short-term effect of voter identification will be to suppress turnout, particularly among people for whom it is already low. As others have said, the Government are effectively trying to stop what they consider to be the wrong kind of voters getting to the polls in the first place. What is someone supposed to do if they turn up on a wet Thursday night, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) said, and at quarter to 10, just before the polls close, they discover that they do not have their ID on them? They will effectively be disfranchised because they cannot go back and pick it up. The Electoral Reform Society estimates that at least 2.1 million people without photo ID will miss their chance to vote.

Let us consider what this Bill could have done. It could have introduced automatic voter registration. It could have expanded the franchise to match what is happening in the devolved nations, and it could, as others have said, have created room for experiments to make it easier to vote in different places and at different times from those that we are traditionally used to in this country. I also echo the concerns of the RNIB. I think that Ministers rightly want to ensure that there is support for everyone who has particular requirements when it comes to votes, but that can be a both/and; it does not have to be an either/or.

As my SNP colleagues have already said, this has to be seen in the wider context. The repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, even the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020—all those are laws that enhance the power of the Executive and reduce the ability of voters and legislatures to hold the Executive to account. The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, which will be considered next week, means that only the Government—indeed, only the Prime Minister—will know the date of an election, and only the Government will know when the different regulated periods will actually kick in and people can campaign accordingly. That will make it very difficult for everyone else, irrespective of whether they are a political party or a third party, to understand how they are supposed to fit into those regulated periods. On top of that, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will give the Government increasing powers to shut down dissent and suppress opposition. As for the United Kingdom Internal Market Act, it is the greatest power grab since devolution. The UK Government are now routinely legislating at will, and with complete disregard for the consent or otherwise of the devolved Parliaments.

Let us compare and contrast that with what is happening in Scotland. The Scottish election in May was held on the widest and most diverse franchise ever enacted in these islands: 16 and 17-year-olds, European nationals and refugees with settled status were all acknowledged and welcomed into democratic participation. What this Bill will bring about is a UK Government elected on an increasingly narrow and difficult franchise, and devolved Governments elected on increasingly wide and more inclusive franchises. That will have consequences for the legitimacy and the mandates of those respective Governments. Today, this Government are breaking one of their key manifesto promises while trying to deny the Scottish National party and the Green party in Scotland the right to implement their manifesto pledge on an independence referendum.

There is a tradition in this House of Representation of the People Acts that have sought to widen the franchise and make it easier and fairer for more people in different parts of society to vote. What we are presented with today is a Misrepresentation of the People Bill—a Bill which, possibly for the first time since 1832, will seek to reduce the number of people eligible or able to vote, will suppress democratic participation, and will put up greater barriers to political engagement. European nationals—the Minister keeps asking about this—who could vote in local elections in England are now no longer able to do so, as a direct result of the Bill. That is a reduction of the franchise, and it is part of a wider Tory agenda to centralise and control, but what it will do is strengthen the mandate and the legitimacy of the devolved institutions—and that includes the mandate for a second independence referendum.

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[Alberto Costa]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. That is exactly the ask that I have for Government Ministers this evening.

For EU citizens who may have arrived and settled after the implementation period’s completion—that is, from 1 January this year—I would like to welcome the additional steps this Government have taken in the form of bilateral arrangements with several EU member states, to which my hon. Friend has just alluded. Agreements are already in place with Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg and Poland. They mean that citizens of those nations who may have arrived after the transition period will also be afforded the right to vote in our local elections, and similarly, reciprocal arrangements will apply to British citizens resident in those countries. That goes beyond the obligations envisioned by the EU in the withdrawal agreement, and the Government are to be commended for their choice to enter into bilateral arrangements with those individual EU member state countries, ensuring that wherever possible we enhance the rights of UK citizens living in those countries as well as the citizens of those countries living here.

[Patrick Grady]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alberto Costa]

Not at the moment.

I understand that the Government are open to further such agreements with other EU member states, and that is a most welcome prospect. It would mean that their residents and British citizens could benefit from future voting arrangements. As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for Greece, I recently met the secretary-general of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Demiris, in Athens, and informed him of the UK Government’s offer to enter into bilateral agreements with EU states on the granting of mutual franchise rights in municipal elections, as envisioned in this Bill. I would welcome the Government writing to me to explain what measures they are taking to proactively encourage uptake of their offer to enter into such bilateral agreements.

Afghanistan

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

Four hundred and fifty-seven UK service personnel, in excess of 3,000 coalition forces, nearly 70,000 Afghan Government troops and police, aid workers, journalists, humanitarians and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed over the past two decades. Many, many thousands more have been injured or brutalised. I hope—it is only hope—that all that pain and suffering was not in vain, but I fear greatly when I see the current scenes at Kabul airport.

Before I start properly, I wish to make an observation. The right hon. Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) both mentioned intelligence. I do not know whether there was a failure of intelligence or of intelligence assessment, whether those who had the facts had the access or the confidence to speak truth to power, or whether the Ministers who were in receipt of those assessments understood them or ignored them, but when the autopsy on this situation is complete, we need to know whether there was in any way an intelligence failure.

Let me put the Afghan situation into a slightly broader regional context. On 2 August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. On 16 January 1991, 700,000 troops, including from the UK, launched Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Sabre and destroyed Iraq’s air defences, communications, Government buildings, weapons plants, oil refineries, bridges and roads. Iraqi resistance collapsed on 28 February, but Saddam Hussein was left in power, and uprisings by the Kurds and the Shi’ites in the south were brutally suppressed.

On 20 March 2003, the Iraq war started when allied forces, including UK forces, launched an attack on Iraq. Although the fighting was mainly over by 1 May, it would be six more years until UK combat operations came to an end. The war would cost at least $1 trillion dollars—some say between $3 trillion and $6 trillion—and perhaps a million people would lose their lives. It would see the rise of ISIL—Islamic State—which at one point would control a third of the territory of Iraq. By the time that conflict was ending, Libya had a revolution, or a civil war or, more accurately, a NATO-backed insurrection. A second civil war followed and there were at least 10,000 dead people and two competing Governments. Of course, I could add that the UK and others are supporting rebel forces in the ongoing tragedy that is Syria.

Within a decade of the start of the first Gulf war, we had 9/11. There were four planes: one went into the north tower of the World Trade Centre and one into the south tower; one went into the Pentagon; and one went into a field in southern Pennsylvania. In the World Trade Centre, 2,600 died; 125 died in the Pentagon; and 256 died on the planes. The US death toll was bigger than that at Pearl Harbour.

On 7 October 2001, the bombing of al-Qaeda and Taliban positions by US and UK forces started, with conventional ground forces going in 12 days later. That action was completely justified. By November 2001, the Taliban were in retreat. By 5 December there was an interim Government and by 9 December the Taliban had collapsed. One would have thought we were coming towards the endgame.

It took more than another 10 years for combat missions to stop. We then did not heed the warnings as province after province fell and the Taliban began to control more and more territory. We did not heed the warnings in 2018, when 115 died in suicide attacks in Kabul. We should have heeded the warnings and seen what was going to come next and the rapid way in which the Taliban took over almost the whole of Afghanistan.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Is that not why it is so important that the UK Government maintain and increase their aid commitment? No matter what the Foreign Secretary says about doubling aid, the reality is that less aid money will go into Afghanistan this year than was previously planned—a direct result of the unfortunate decision to cut aid from 0.7% to 0.5%.

[Stewart Hosie]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that the aid budgets must at the very least be maintained at their previous level, and probably increased. I also agree with all the calls today that it is not simply UK citizens and those who work directly for us who are at risk; it is many, many of us whose lives are at risk from the Taliban, and we, the west, must do everything that we can to evacuate all—all—of those who put their faith and trust in us and whose lives are now in jeopardy.

I have a question, which I know many members of the public have. Why is there always the political will and the funding to go to war, but rarely the foresight to work out what the consequences for ordinary people will be, although those consequences are always the same; and why are there never the resources to rebuild and reconstruct, and never a plan to win the peace?

International Aid: Treasury Update

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Programme motion
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister brought a very sombre tone to the Dispatch Box this afternoon, trying to convince us that this decision was all a regrettable consequence of the economic impact of the pandemic, but that rings hollow when we remember the glee with which he stood at the Dispatch Box this time last year and announced the abolition of the Department for International Development, when he described aid and DFID as a

“giant cashpoint in the sky”.—[Official Report, 16 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 670.]

We also remember that, as Foreign Secretary, he quoted Kipling in a Buddhist temple in Myanmar and, when he was a journalist, used the language of “piccaninnies” and “watermelon smiles”.

This is a Prime Minister and a Government who know little and care less about the struggles of poverty, whether at home or abroad, or about the life-saving, life-changing difference that aid can and does make around the world. A bit like the English votes for English laws Standing Orders that we will be debating later today, the aid budget to them is just another part of David Cameron’s legacy that they seem so keen to bury. I think the Prime Minister likes the fact that he is the only living Prime Minister who supports the cut in the aid budget. It is part of this year zero, hard rain approach to the UK consensus that has existed for so long.

That consensus saw every single Member of this House, as has been said, elected on the commitment of 0.7%. It is a consensus that has existed for 20 years, with a target that has been met consistently since 2013. The 0.5% figure is completely arbitrary; 0.7% was calculated by international organisations when it was set in the 1970s. As I have said, the 0.5% figure is completely arbitrary, and we have not heard why it is not 0.4%, 0.6% or 0.3%. It is simply that it sounds good and sounds as though the Government are taking decisive action. That seems to be their attitude to so many aspects of government just now, never mind the impact or the feasibility.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Member is making some very serious points, but does he accept the fact that the UK has set out 0.7% in law? Many countries around the world also commit to 0.7%, but always fall short and do not bother to have a discussion about it.

[Patrick Grady]

But the UK is now resiling from that. The Government are resiling from it, and they will not even give us a legally binding vote on the decision to resile from the commitment agreed by the entire House. What we consistently hear from the Dispatch Box is about being a soft power superpower and about global leadership, and in a year when the UK should be taking the lead, it is taking a step backwards.

Of course, the decision to cut aid has been shown to be doubly problematic because aid was due to fall anyway. GNI has been falling as a result of the pandemic-related economic contraction anyway, and there would have been tough decisions and funding squeezes, but those would have been predictable and manageable. There is this notion that it is all being paid for by debt, but we could say that about all kinds of aspects of Government spending. All Governments around the world run debts and deficits, and they invest for the future. Aid is an investment in all of our collective futures, but what is happening now in real time is that drastic, sweeping cuts have already been made to get down to this completely arbitrary target of 0.5%, and these will be massively difficult to undo.

Despite today’s attempt to bounce the House into a decision and all these other shenanigans, the Government’s own rhetoric does not add up. The Prime Minister repeatedly says that the covid investment they are making is going to be additional. Well, if it is going to be additional, how can the Government spend 0.5%—they must be spending more than 0.5%—and if it is not additional, then what else is going to be cut? It does not make any sense.

I did not get an answer in the last debate about the concerns raised about UK Aid Match. The public have been donating £1 to certain charities in good faith on the basis that the UK Government would match that, but charities such as Mary’s Meals have now been told that this funding will be delayed, and they will be wondering whether it will ever appear at all. Hundreds of constituents in Glasgow North have contacted me about that since the cut was first announced. That speaks to thousands of activists and organisations across the country.

Aid works best when it is stable and predictable in the long term. There will be no undoing some of the damage caused by the UK Government’s cuts. They have been hastily and, in some cases, disastrously implemented. A return to 0.7% as soon as possible will at least mitigate some of that damage. I hope that some of the Tories who have been opposed to the Government’s decision so far will continue to show resilience and vote tonight to restore our aid commitment to our poorest brothers and sisters around the world.

G7 and NATO Summits

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The people of Dudley North and the rest of the country will benefit massively from a new age of co-operation between our democracies; from the security that we are establishing, but also from our global commitment to work together to build back greener, so that we generate hundreds of thousands—millions—of high-wage, high-skilled jobs in Dudley, in the west midlands and around the whole of the UK.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP) [V]]

The Prime Minister said that no countries have raised concerns about the aid cuts. Well, I can give him a list as long as my arm of organisations and projects that are going to be devastated by these cuts. Does he not understand that as the only G7 country cutting aid, the UK is undermining any claim to be a soft power superpower and, more importantly, putting thousands and thousands of lives at risk?

[The Prime Minister]

Absolutely not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I have been doing a large amount of work with Lord Frost to look at what advice and support there is for businesses and what their needs are. They now need at this stage more bespoke support, and we are standing that up and putting it in place. We will be informing Members of this House about that in short order. As well as mitigating the difficulties that we are having, as a nation, to work through, we want people to maximise the opportunities. The trade deals that I referred to represent £217 billion-worth of business. We want all businesses across the UK to maximise that and we will provide the space for them to do that.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

What plans his Department has for transitioning to permanent trading arrangements under the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement.

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

Following the ratification of the trade and co-operation agreement, we are working with the EU to set up the Partnership Council and the specialised committees that form part of the treaty infrastructure to ensure that new trading arrangements are implemented and are working effectively.

[Patrick Grady]

From the testimony we heard at the Joint Committee session yesterday and the answers we have had today, we know that the Government are in complete chaos on all of this. They went into Brexit with their eyes wide shut. Is it not the case that, once we are clear of the covid pandemic, the chaos and true costs of Brexit will become clear?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I would gently say to the hon. Gentleman that Lord Frost and his team are working through these issues. Only next month, we will hopefully be having the first Partnership Council meeting. Those structures will be stood up, so we will have other methods where we can work through these issues. When Lord Frost goes into bat on those issues, it would be helpful if Members of this House stood up for all nations of the United Kingdom in the negotiations and got behind him. I think that would improve our chances.