Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Debate between Pete Wishart and Tony Baldry(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Sir Tony Baldry
The hon. Lady is a lawyer so, with the greatest respect, she has no excuse for not listening to the advice of the Attorney-General. He made it clear to the House—any hon. Member would follow the logic very straightforwardly—that it would not be possible in the Bill to give privileges to one non-faith organisation, the humanists, without its being challenged by other similar non-faith groups, such as the pagans or the secularists, who have had weddings celebrated in Scotland. Pagans would say, “We are allowed to have marriages north of Hadrian’s wall. Why cannot we have marriages south of Hadrian’s wall?”
Pete Wishart
I strongly object to what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting—that we in Scotland could not care less about marriage. We have had 2,500 humanist weddings per year. Marriage is important to people in Scotland. The only thing we want to do is extend it to people who love each other.
Sir Tony Baldry
Nothing that I have said could possibly be construed as implying that Scotland is not concerned about marriage. The fact is that under a celebrant-based system, pagan marriages take place in Scotland. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) asks what is wrong with that. There has been no consultation in England as to whether or not the people of England would wish to have pagan marriages celebrated in England. I am afraid that, if he cannot understand that, there is a great deficit in democracy so far as he is concerned.
Scottish-recruited Units
Debate between Pete Wishart and Tony Baldry(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It feels a bit strange to be standing here once again to address the prospects for the Scottish regiments, which we now have to refer to as the Scottish-recruited units. I remember standing in this self-same spot in the first of two debates that I managed to secure to put the case for Scotland’s historic regiments, when the previous Labour Government introduced their amalgamation plans. I remember some of the fantastic speeches and really passionate contributions from Members on both sides of the House, who recognised the incredible community links and associations that our local then regiments had with all our communities and constituencies.
The regiments brought heritage, culture and traditions to our constituencies and communities. More than anything, people recognised the admiration and respect that we all felt towards our regiments for the almost unimaginable task that they did on our behalf and the pride and respect that we had for them for fulfilling their function and making this the best Army set-up anywhere in the world.
In 2004, the Labour Government were the villains. They pushed through their amalgamations in the face of total and overwhelming opposition. I remember the rallies, the demos—the Edinburgh demonstration in December 2004 and the rally in Dundee. People came together to oppose Labour’s amalgamation plans. There were petitions. Usually, if an MP has a petition and is out on the high street, people are reluctant to sign it, but people were queuing to sign the petition to save their local regiment.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the issue goes back to the 1960s? One of my great-grandfathers was a pipe major in the Gordon Highlanders and one of my grandfathers went through the whole of the first world war in the Highland Light Infantry. Both those cap badges have long since disappeared. They were great regiments with great traditions, but their disappearance was not the end of civilisation as we knew it. We have seen amalgamation and changes to cap badges in the Scottish regiments for nearly 50 years.
Pete Wishart
It is with great regret that we have lost some of those fantastic regiments. There are ways to do it. Our regimental system is admired across the world, and we mess with it at our peril. We were not successful in retaining the historic Scottish regiments. They were amalgamated and the Royal Regiment of Scotland appeared. We acknowledge that with much regret.
One thing that we secured, an important concession that everyone recognises as valuable, was the idea of a golden thread that would allow the past to knit to the future and allow the former regiments some sort of identity and home within the Royal Regiment of Scotland.