Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman makes my exact point, but unfortunately that is not the way the Bill is drafted. That is one of its faults.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

That is a very interesting point, but what exactly does it have to do with the amendments?

[Helen Goodman]

What I am trying to do is demonstrate that the Bill is not well drafted, and the amendments that we have tabled do just that. I fear that the object of this Bill is really a political object—that what the hon. Member for West Worcestershire is doing is disingenuous and that her concerns are different from those that she has set out.

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[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I do not vote on English-only legislation. It is relatively straightforward: we examine a Bill, assess it for the Scottish interest—no one is more keen than I on the Scottish interest—and if it predominantly and overwhelmingly concerns England, we do not vote on it.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I do not want to go over old intra-Scottish debates, but I recollect the hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues voting on a Thames tunnel Bill. Its connection to Scotland seemed remote. However, let us leave that aside. I do not know whether he participated in the Olympics Bill—

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[Mark Lazarowicz]

I confess that I was tempted to reply. I shall restrain my responses, even if the interventions are off the point.

[Pete Wishart]

We vote on issues that have a Scottish interest, and so should the hon. Gentleman, but there are many Bills in the current Session alone on which there has been no Scottish National party vote: the Academies Bill, the Education Bill, the Health and Social Care Bill, and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. If there is no predominant Scottish interest, we do not vote on it.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

There may have been no SNP vote on the Health and Social Care Bill, but the abortion counselling measures would have applied to Scotland. The hon. Gentleman is not being consistent.

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[Mark Lazarowicz]

If I were to try to answer that question, I would go beyond the amendment. I might be able to address that point on Third Reading, if it is made again.

I am concerned that the Bill might lead to the creation of two Governments in the House. It is liable to lead to genuine disagreement, tension and political division between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I do not want that to happen. I strongly support a Scottish Parliament and devolution elsewhere in the UK, but I want us to remain together as one UK. That is why there is a fundamental flaw in the concept of two classes of Member in the House. That was a preamble to considering amendment 6, which would at least improve the position.

[Pete Wishart]

May we please nail the notion of two classes of MP? There are two classes. All Whitehall Departments relate to Government Members on behalf of their constituents but only some relate to me and the hon. Gentleman on behalf of our constituents. Other matters are devolved to the Scottish Parliament and are the responsibility of Scottish Ministers. We should be relaxed about two classes of MP and just get on with it.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

There are probably more than 600 classes of MP, given that we all have different interests and concerns. However, the hon. Gentleman must accept that if a Government depended on a majority from outside England and could not win votes on English-only matters, they could not operate as a Government for specific issues and we would eventually have two Governments in the House. It is the inevitable consequence of the measure.

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[Pete Wishart]

The Minister will obviously know that there are legislative consent motions in the Scottish Parliament that consider the Scottish aspects of what are notionally English-only Bills and allow this House to legislate on its behalf.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman touches on another point: although this House has, through the devolution settlement, passed the power to legislate in certain areas to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, it is still possible for the House to legislate in those areas. The House has said that it will do that with the consent of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, which is exactly what happens. It is possible for this House to legislate in areas that are devolved if it goes through that consultative process and secures the agreement of the devolved legislatures.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend makes an erudite point, and I shall no doubt refer to Standing Order No. 97 in my remarks.

I completely agree with the Minister that this matter should be framed as an English question. Clearly, it is an unfinished piece of constitutional business that the devolution settlement has allowed a situation in which English matters increasingly come before the Chamber and are voted on by MPs from all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Pete Wishart]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Lady on getting so far with this Bill, but does she have any explanation why the sole Conservative MP from Scotland has voted on English-only legislation? The Academies Bill, the Education Bill and the Health and Social Care Bill have all been voted on by the one Conservative MP from Scotland. Does she think that he is setting a good example?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I think the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), sets an absolutely marvellous example in all respects, as one would expect me to say. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, who represents the Scottish nationalists, will be delighted with the Scotland Bill that my right hon. Friend is helping to bring forward in this Parliament; he is being very uncharitable to my right hon. Friend.

This is an urgent problem that needs to be resolved in this Parliament. To make my point, I need refer colleagues and Opposition Members back only as far the last general election when, as we know, no party got an overall majority in this Parliament and there were negotiations between not only the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties but between the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats. At that time, there was talk of a rainbow coalition of parties that might come together at Westminster, and I remember the upsurge of resentment in the correspondence that I received as a representative of what I like to think of as the heart of England about how completely undemocratic it would be to have a situation in which English-only legislation came through the House relying for support on a majority of MPs from other parts of the United Kingdom.

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[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady is talking about membership of the commission. Does she believe that it is absolutely imperative that that must include someone with a working knowledge of the Parliaments and Assemblies of the United Kingdom, so that they can advise about possible knock-on consequences? She mentioned financial points, but there could be others, so it is imperative that someone on the commission has full knowledge of the Parliaments, legislatures and Assemblies of the UK.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman raises important questions, and we will want to know who will serve on the commission.

If the commission recommends changes to procedure, will they be binding on us, or will we have the opportunity to debate them? How will its recommendations fit in with the draft Bill on changes to the other place, because that could involve important consequences? When we have raised the West Lothian question over the past few months, I have been concerned that some ministerial replies have linked it to the proposed changes to membership of the other place. Whatever one’s view of those changes, we all agree that they are unlikely to be made quickly. During this Parliament, the resolution of the West Lothian question, to use today’s shorthand—or the English question—is more urgent than reform of the other Chamber, so I would not want progress on this issue to be delayed due to the necessarily slow progress of legislation to reform the other place.

I reiterate that the Minister has been exceptionally helpful and insightful, and while I welcome yesterday’s announcement about the commission’s establishment, the written ministerial statement contained a lot of unanswered questions. I therefore again ask the crucial question whether any legislation that might be required to enact the commission’s recommendations will be in the next Queen’s Speech. We cannot delay dealing with this point for much longer. If the commission recommends legislative changes, they need to be in the next Queen’s Speech, so that they can be tackled in the next parliamentary Session. As we have heard, these complex issues will require time for consideration, but following the process, I would want any necessary changes to tackle the remaining unanswered English constitutional issues to be in place before the next general election. The Bill has already had an impact.

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[Thomas Docherty]

As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am studying for a history degree from the Open university, and the course that I have just finished is about colonial medicine. I have to say to the hon. Member for Aberconwy that some of the policies for the health service that the Secretary of State for Wales wishes to introduce very much remind me of colonial medicine in the 19th century. Perhaps that is what my colleagues in the Welsh Labour party were referring to.

We have an imperfect system, and I do not think that anybody believes that the system that we have created is the finished product. It was never intended, in the 1990s, to be the finished system. The hon. Member for West Worcestershire was frank enough to say that she does not necessarily provide answers to the problem; she has merely sought to pose questions today.

It might be helpful to many Conservative Members if I explain that West Lothian is a part of Scotland just outside Edinburgh. If they had been here for the excellent maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Graeme Morrice), they would have heard a good account of the large section of it that he represents. I am conscious that many Conservative Members have never had the opportunity to come to Scotland; they really should, if they get the chance, come up and see it. We are hosting some of the Olympic games next year.

On the West Lothian commission that is to be established, will the Minister undertake that the commission will also look at arrangements in the other place—an issue that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire touched on? I would be fascinated to learn how the Government intend to designate Scottish, Welsh or English peers. The most obvious example is the Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Strathclyde; I am not particularly aware that he has a Scottish connection of note.

[Pete Wishart]

We have no absolutely no ambition to repatriate the likes of Lord Foulkes and Lord Forsyth.

[Thomas Docherty]

I suspect that we might provide the hon. Gentleman with a list of some of the peers whom we would like to repatriate. I would not suggest for a second that any of my colleagues would be on that list.

Does the House believe that if someone who represented a Scottish constituency went to the other place they would be a Scottish Member of Parliament? Are they Scottish because their title is Scottish? Is it because they once visited Gretna Green, which I think is the qualification of some people who have served in the Scotland Office? Those issues need to be dealt with by the West Lothian commission, in addition to the matters raised by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire.

The most obvious issue that we need to deal with concerns Ministers. Going back to the point made by the hon. Member for Aberconwy—and I am not too familiar with the thinking of my Welsh Labour colleagues on this—as the result, I believe, of an oversight at the election, the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) did not stand for a Welsh constituency; she represents an English constituency. The Prime Minister has eight very able Welsh Conservative MPs from whom to choose a Welsh Secretary—[Interruption]—and some Liberal Democrat MPs as well. However, we have an England-based Secretary of State.

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[Pete Wishart]

Let me start by again congratulating the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) on progressing so far with her private Member’s Bill. She has almost single-handedly—or at least more than anyone else—ensured that we will have a long-promised investigation into the West Lothian question by a commission.

Unfortunately I missed the Bill’s Second Reading, but I have spoken in most debates in this House on what is referred to as the West Lothian question. In fact, I have debated it at length with the former Member for West Lothian himself. Indeed, I heard what can only be described as the curmudgeonly tones of Tam Dalyell on the radio yesterday, with his usual doom and gloom about how one could never answer the West Lothian question. I do not think that he sees much hope for the Minister’s commission when we eventually see its work, and that has been his view pretty consistently over the past few years. I have a relatively neat and elegant solution to the West Lothian question: let this Parliament do its business and let our Parliament do its business. Let us come together in a new sense of equality and mutual self-respect. Let us redefine our partnership among the nations of the United Kingdom. In one fell swoop we will have elegantly dealt with all the issues to do with the West Lothian question.

[Mr Harper]

Part of the reason I suggested that we should think of different terms is that the hon. Gentleman has been led down a cul-de-sac. The scenario that he paints is of an independent Scotland. The Government, Government Members and many Members on the Opposition Benches passionately oppose that, as we want to keep the United Kingdom together, but let us say for the sake of argument that it came about. It might solve the West Lothian question, but it would not solve the issue, because it is not a Scottish issue; it is about how we govern England and the relationship between all the devolved nations. This is just as much about Welsh Members of Parliament and Members from Northern Ireland as it is about those from Scotland or England. The nomenclature has led the hon. Gentleman down a cul-de-sac.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the Minister for that. All I can say is: thank goodness that will not be my problem at that point. We will most definitely have dealt with the West Lothian question, because there will no longer be a Member for West Lothian in this House who has a say on English health and education. My solution resolves that one, but I shall leave the Minister in the future—when we manage to secure Scottish independence—to try to resolve those other issues on his own.

As things stand, no Scottish National party Member votes on English-only legislation. We have not done so since 1999, when the Scottish Parliament was established. We are now the only party that does not vote on English-only legislation, because for some bizarre reason the Scottish Conservatives have abandoned that policy. When he was in opposition, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) did not vote on English-only legislation, but the minute the Conservatives got into government he started voting on everything; in fact, I think he has voted on every piece of legislation in this Session that might be certified as English-only. So before the Conservatives go on and on about voting on English-only issues, they should have a quiet word with their one and only Scottish Member, because I do not think that he is setting a particularly good example.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will correct me, but I recall that, during the coalition negotiations, there was a suggestion that there might be an alternative coalition including some Members from the Scottish National party, and that his leader in the Westminster group said that they would start to vote on English-only legislation.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman has a better memory than I have, because I cannot recall any such thing being said. I would find it absolutely staggering if we were to take a view on those kinds of issues. The point is that we are the only party in this House that does not vote on English-only legislation. Why do we not do so? I take what I thought was an uncontroversial view on this: if it does not affect my constituents, it is not a matter for me as a Member of Parliament. Surely we are here to represent our constituents. If a piece of legislation has nothing whatever to do with the good people of Perth and North Perthshire, why should I take an interest in it? That is the way in which we should approach these issues when deciding this matter.

[Thomas Docherty]

I think that the hon. Gentleman must have misspoken, because he just said that he would vote only on issues that affect Perth and North Perthshire. Does that mean that he would not vote on an issue that affected the Western Isles?

[Pete Wishart]

This is the kind of nonsense that we get from opponents of the West Lothian question. The logic of the argument seems to be that the Scottish Parliament should not vote on issues affecting only the Western Isles or the highlands of Scotland. In case he does not know, this is about legislatures, about responsibility and about democratic accountability. We have a Scottish Parliament, thank goodness, and we have a Westminster Parliament down here. He takes the view that he should vote on English-only issues. I take the view that it is wrong for me to do so as they do not affect my constituents, which is why I do not do so.

[Mr Harper]

This is to do with language. When colleagues refer to “England-only” measures, they are not really talking about matters that affect only England; they are talking about matters for which the responsibility has been devolved to one of the other legislatures. I think that that answers the question; the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is forswearing to vote on matters that have been devolved.

[Pete Wishart]

I thank the Minister for getting that absolutely right; I should always get him to answer my questions for me.

[Thomas Docherty]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I want to make some progress, if I may, and I think that we have probably dealt with that particular issue.

The Scottish National party did not take an interest in the Health and Social Care Bill that was debated here this week, although there were technical and consequential measures in the Bill that were to do with Scotland. Those measures, however, were dealt with by the Scottish Parliament. A legislative consent motion was passed in that Parliament that agreed to allow this House to legislate in that way, so why any Scottish Member should need to vote on that Bill, I do not know. If English Members want to destroy their health service through this part-privatisation, that is a matter for them. I can only say thank goodness that we have an SNP Government in Scotland who will not embark on that kind of nonsense and who will never adopt such a rubbishy part-privatisation approach to the health service there. The Health and Social Care Bill is a matter for English Members. That illustrates the beauty of Tam’s question, posed all those years ago in all its rhetorical glory. Would I like English Members of Parliament trying to impose their view in Scotland? Of course I would not. Scottish Members should therefore give English Members the same respect when it comes to English decisions, however faulty or ridiculous they might be. If English Members want to do that to their health service, that is up to them.

[Thomas Docherty]

This is a passionate and compelling speech; it is almost bringing tears to my eyes. However, the hon. Gentleman voted on the Bill that introduced tuition fees in England. As the Minister said, the Scottish Parliament now has powers over such matters, so the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), by his own logic, should not have voted on that Bill. Was it not political opportunism, rather than some great principle, that led him to do so?

[Pete Wishart]

That is a very good point, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned it. I shall deal with tuition fees at greater length in a moment, because they relate to my concerns about the Bill and the Minister’s proposed commission. If the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) will bear with me, I will come back to that point, and if he is unhappy with what I have to say, I will allow him to intervene on me again.

Because of our track record on this matter, we very much welcome the establishment of the commission. This issue really needs to be resolved. Tam asked the question 33 years ago, and it is now time to address it. We proposed something very similar to the hon. Lady’s proposal several years ago, when we suggested that Standing Order No. 97 should be extended to cover the certification of certain Bills as English-only. At that time, there was a Labour majority that had a lot to gain from Scottish Members voting on English-only legislation, so our proposal was rejected. Now we have a Conservative Government who have most to gain from Scottish Members not voting and from pushing through the measure to try to resolve the issue. I do not care about the political interests of the Labour and Conservative parties; I want us to approach the matter with a sense of equality and decent fairness—I think that Government Members would treat us in the same way—and to do the right thing for Scotland, for England and for the other nations of the UK. I therefore support setting up the commission. I would like to ask the Minister some questions about it, but, in principle, it is welcome.

During the course of the commission’s work, we will again hear all the nonsense that I have heard for 10 years—all the red herrings and the reasons for not acting. We all accept that there is no elegant answer to the West Lothian question while we are part of the Union. There will always be anomalies and further questions—that is the nature of trying to resolve a difficult conundrum when there are devolved legislatures and a sovereign Parliament at Westminster. I have my answer—hon. Members have heard it—but as long as we are part of the Union, there will be anomalies. We will hear all the stuff about two classes of MPs, the sob story about Scottish Members not getting to be Ministers for devolved matters such as health and education, and the suggestion that English Members should not vote on Scottish-only issues such as the Scotland Bill. Those are all red herrings and nonsense—simply obstacles put in the way of dealing with the issue effectively.

I concede that there are already two classes of Members of Parliament. I am a Scottish Member and a good section of what English Members do in the House is devolved to my colleagues in the Scottish Parliament. That immediately sets me apart from English Members. For goodness’ sake, we should just be relaxed about it. Let us accept that we are two classes. All we are doing is simply trying to recalibrate the different types of classes by not allowing Scottish Members to vote on English-only matters. We should simply accept that there are two classes of Members and get on with it.

However, there are problems and concerns for us in the Bill. They mostly come down to certification of what is Scottish-only business. Tuition fees is a very good example because it shows why we have to be careful. There must be a Scottish input into the commission, perhaps from someone who knows about the workings of the legislatures throughout the United Kingdom—for example, former Presiding Officers. There should be good contacts with the Scottish Government, who could alert the commission, or whoever examines the matter, of genuine difficulties and consequences for Scotland. The Bill fails in that respect because it provides only for Secretaries of State to advise the Speaker about certification of the territorial impact of legislation. Perhaps an amendment could be tabled in the other place that would allow the Secretary of State to consult his or her opposite numbers in the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly to ensure that those legislatures are relaxed and happy about the territorial certification of specific measures.

Tuition fees sum up the difficulty for me, and for us all. Tuition fees are nominally English. Under the certification that the Minister and the hon. Member for West Worcestershire have in mind, the Speaker would almost certainly have said that the measure was English only. Yet it was an absolute disaster for Scotland. It was the worst possible type of legislation for us and we therefore voted on tuition fees—I think that all Scottish Members did. I voted on it because the Barnett consequentials were enormous. Scotland will lose a fantastic amount of money if England goes ahead with tuition fees. The measure also opened up a funding gap between Scottish and English universities. That would have been fine if we were independent—it would be our business and up to us to get on with it. However, as a devolved nation, we do not have any other economic tools to help us deal with those sudden issues. We are left with our fixed budget. It is therefore right that, as long as we are part of the Union, we express our concerns about what might be considered English-only legislation.

If we reach a solution, I hope that there will be consultation with the Scottish Government to find out whether there are huge issues for Scotland, which we have to tackle as long as we are part of the Union. I was grateful to the hon. Lady for saying that financial aspects would be included in any future draft of such a Bill. It is imperative that they are included.

I believe that the job of we Scottish Members is to ensure that the Scottish interest is represented, and that nothing is done that would have a detrimental impact on our constituents. That is why we all voted on the issue of tuition fees, and I think that we were right to do so. However, there are other Bills that do not have the same impact on Scotland. We should leave them well alone, and I believe that we will continue to do so for as long as we consider them at Westminster.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman is advancing a relatively cogent argument. Does he agree that the Secretary of State is the wrong person to make the judgment specified in the Bill?

[Pete Wishart]

I do not care who eventually makes the decision. I am quite happy for it to be the Speaker. The only issue that concerns me is the need for consultation with the Scottish Government. They must be able to say that they are comfortable and relaxed about the fact that legislation applies only to England. The House must recognise instances in which legislation will have knock-on effects on the Scottish Parliament. The tuition fees legislation in particular was disastrous for Scotland: we had to deal with a number of unforeseen consequences because of issues in England.

I welcome what has happened, and I congratulate the Government on eventually doing something about this problem. The hon. Lady has led them by the nose. I do not know whether it is the Liberal Democrats who have been blocking such action, but they are just about the worst offenders in this regard. Their number is massively inflated in relation to their share of the vote in Scotland, but they come down here and consistently vote on England-only issues. As well as having a quiet word with their one Scottish Member about voting on England-only issues, the Conservatives should have a quiet word with their coalition partners, because, as I have said, they are just about the worst offenders.

As we proceed, we should ensure that we consult and involve people who deserve respect because they have done the groundwork that was required for the establishment of our Parliament and Assemblies in Scotland. We are getting closer to Tam’s answer. I have presented my solution, and thankfully the Scottish people see it as a solution as well. For the first time in three years, support for independence in Scotland is now in the majority. We are approaching the point at which the Scottish people will have an opportunity to decide on the future of Scotland, and about whether we should come to this place at all. I believe that we are about to experience one of the most incredible defining moment in Scottish history, when they say yes and the hon. Members for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), for Dunfermline and West Fife, for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr Roy) will no longer come down here to vote on English issues. I cannot wait for that day to come.