Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) (Amendment) Order 2023 Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 General Committees

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Gray —it is Peter Grant, by the way, not Kevin Brennan. I am sure that Kevin will be more insulted than I am if you mistake him for me.

[The Chair]

I do beg your pardon.

[Peter Grant]

I can assure you I have been called worse, Mr Gray.

The Scottish National party, like the official Opposition, will not be opposing the draft order today, but I want to raise one or two points. I am concerned not about the way in which these transactions will be regulated, but about just how effective the arrangements will be. My concern is that the financial promotion regulation that we have for more traditional forms of financial products is not working. It is not protecting consumers. Too many of my constituents have lost a lot of money. I do not remember whether I have had discussions with the Minister about Blackmore Bond, which I have certainly discussed with a lot of his colleagues.

[Andrew Griffith]

indicated assent.

[Peter Grant]

I see from the Minister’s nodding that he knows what I am referring to. The Financial Conduct Authority just never got ahead of the chancers in the way that those bonds were being sold and promoted to innocent members of the public in my constituency and elsewhere. There is still an issue as to whether the Financial Conduct Authority takes seriously enough potential scams that may not break the economy, but will certainly cause untold harm to sometimes quite significant numbers of our constituents.

Will the Minister indicate what the Government are doing to make sure that the Financial Conduct Authority and others who are trying to regulate the crypto market have got the resources and expertise to do the job? If we are giving them more and more responsibilities and they are already saying that they do not have the resources they need to regulate as firmly as we would like, that means that significant additional resources will have to be put in. Will the Minister confirm whether, on the back of this order, there is an intention to increase the resourcing of the Financial Conduct Authority?

What are we going to do to make sure that where there are breaches, those who are in breach are brought to book much more quickly than often happens with more traditional promotions? One of the problems with any kind of e-commerce is that if things start to go wrong, they can go very wrong very quickly indeed. We need to make sure that the regulatory process can be speeded up.

Finally—this may be beyond the remit of the Minister today—what are the Government doing to make sure that when cases come to court, those hearing the cases understand what they are dealing with? A judge and jury trial in relation to these matters might not work, for example: where are we going to find a jury that understands the very fine points of technical detail that may be critical in deciding whether something is permitted or not permitted and therefore in deciding whether somebody is innocent or guilty?

My primary concern is whether those who will be asked to regulate under this new order will have the resources and the expertise necessary to make sure that they can do the job effectively.

[Kit Malthouse]

It is a pleasure to appear before you, Mr Gray. There are many reasons for not just consumers, but Governments, to fear cryptocurrency. The growth in cryptocurrency effectively represents a loss of control in nation states of our money supply, and a loss of control by co-ordinating nations across the world of the global money supply.

At the moment, cryptocurrency capitalisation, if you like, or gross valuation is anywhere between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion, against a global liquid money supply of about $50 trillion, so it is not a huge percentage. Nevertheless, it could have an impact at the margin, and it is only going to grow. The Government should be careful about seeking to legitimise the use of cryptocurrency, not just among individual retail investors and users but among businesses. When I see this kind of legislation coming forward, I am not necessarily convinced that the full implication of the journey on which we are heading with cryptocurrency has been appreciated.

You will recall from your history studies, Mr Gray, the Dutch tulip bulb madness of, I think, the 18th century. Tulip bulbs became a form of currency, many a family were bankrupted to purchase one or two bulbs, and thereafter the market crashed. It was based on an imputed value of something that had no connection to reality. I am afraid that the same is true with bitcoin.

While bitcoin, ethereum and others—there are now hundreds, if not thousands, of these cryptocurrencies out there—are supposedly fungible and exchangeable, they effectively rely on trust between individuals as to the value, and an opinion of the value, unlike normal cash and assets such as the pound sterling or the dollar, which rely on the Government or the central bank standing behind the value of the currency. That makes them very different; it also makes them very volatile. There have been massive plunges in the value of bitcoin, for example, over the past few months: I think it is down something like 36% in just the past three to six months. That makes me wonder whether we want our constituents to be exposed to this currency—if it is one—at all.

In seeking to regulate the promotion of cryptocurrencies, the Government are, I am afraid, unwittingly giving them an element of legitimacy and bringing them into the same fold of investment as stocks and shares, bonds or anything that someone might put in their individual savings account. They will be promoted with a big banner headline, but at the bottom, tiny type that nobody reads will say, “The value of investments can go down as well as up. You could lose the farm, your house—everything—on this investment.”

[Peter Grant]

I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that the self-same weaknesses in the current system apply already to investment bonds and property development bonds. The issue is not the kind of scam asset that is being sold, but the fact that they are not being properly regulated, regardless of whether they are traditional investments or crypto investments.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. Of course, traditional investments very often have some foundation in reality. A stock or share very often has a company behind it that is producing revenue or otherwise. A bond will have the same thing. With bitcoin, all that is being sold is the assumption that somebody else will pay for that asset, even though there is no asset whatever that sits behind it. That is where it is subtly and importantly different.

The other thing to bear in mind is that cryptoassets are being overwhelmingly used in international organised crime. They have become the equivalent of the £50 note, in that they are being used by large international crime syndicates to move money around the world, largely undetected and unmolested by Governments. That is another major problem and a reason to be wary. As the Government regulates—and therefore brings into the fold and adds a veneer of legitimacy to—this form of exchange, they are effectively facilitating transfers between the illegitimate and criminal market and the legitimate market.

An individual will never know from whom or where their bitcoin is coming when they buy it from their investment adviser. It may well have been through the hands of several organised criminals before it gets to them, and unlike many £50 notes it will not bear traces of cocaine or heroin. We have seen the scale of the problem with cash in this country. The Bank of England has about £70 billion-worth of cash in notes and coins in circulation. Only about £20 billion is seen through the tills, so £50 billion is somewhere else. The Bank reckons that about £1.5 billion is in suitcases under the bed, held in cash savings or otherwise. The rest, I am pretty certain, is involved in crime. The same will be true, I am afraid, of so many of these cryptoassets.

I will not necessarily vote against the draft order, but the Government have to ask themselves whether they are legitimising a form of exchange that in the long term is likely to be damaging to the country’s economy and the global economy, and to those individuals who invest in it. For all the warnings that we put on things, once this sits alongside all the other investments that an independent financial adviser will offer, it becomes a legitimate option. At the moment, it is an esoteric investment available only to the most sophisticated of those looking to invest. I realise that that is growing every day, but when it gets a stamp of respectability I worry that it will become like the economic equivalent of cigarettes, which were out there for years causing millions of people to die of lung cancer before we stamped a health warning on them all. By then, they were just too legitimised for us to do anything about them. I worry about that in particular.

My second major point is about fraud and money laundering. I understand that one reason the Government want to bring cryptoassets into the fold is to give fraud and money laundering legislation greater purchase. However, we have to reflect on the fact that over the past 30 years we have had ever greater attempts by Governments of all stripes to introduce legislation to deal with fraud and money laundering yet it is worse than it ever was. Strangely, criminals worked out that they too had a passport and a utility bill and therefore found it fairly easy to open a bank account. We are certainly seeing much higher levels of money laundering, particularly around drugs, than there used to be, and that is now very much enabled by cryptocurrencies. Given how much more susceptible such currencies are to being used in money laundering, fraud and crime in general, because they are much less trackable and traceable, I would be interested to know from the Minister why the existing rules will make any difference at all.

My final point is about the exclusion of NFTs. As the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn said, although NFTs are carved out in this legislation and are deemed to be different because, thus far, they have largely been used as collectibles because they are supposedly digital works of art, there is growing evidence that they are being used as a means of exchange and that, slowly over time, they will become fungible. It will not be long before there will be—in fact, there already are—central exchanges of NFTs that mark a price on them. We will have classes of price for different NFTs that will make them, in effect, the same as bitcoin. If the Government aspire to bring in this regulation, they really ought to include NFTs. Two students in a back room with a bit of sophisticated computer programming knowledge can create a class of NFTs and sell them—and people do buy them, sometimes for thousands of pounds. The idea that they should be excluded from the regulation seems to me to be a bit strange.

To conclude, I am concerned that a Government running helter-skelter towards cryptocurrency are not looking far enough ahead at the consequences. I realise that there is now a global consensus that crypto is a good thing, and we cannot be like King Canute and stick our finger in the dam, but cryptocurrencies present questions about the controllability of economies in the future. No one has yet come up with a solution to the significant and escalating crime problem that cryptocurrencies represent. No one has actually answered the question, before we bring in this regulation, of whether we think retail consumers should have access to this asset class at all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank and pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all his work on this issue and the considerable experience that he brings to bear. I read out the statistics and there is clearly more work to be done, but, actually, the trajectory of the latest figures is going in a better direction. The decision making on CPS charging is independent, but it is critical that we proceed with the national roll-out of Operation Soteria, because it is proving to be a very effective tool in getting the police and the CPS to work together more collaboratively to bring forward cases that can go to court.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

T9. It is exactly four months ago today that the Government published their response to the consultation on reform of the law on strategic lawsuits against public participation. Recently, the Joint Committee on Human Rights heard that a journalist who wants to defend themselves against one of those malicious attacks might need backing of £1 million before they can do so in court. How much longer will it be before the necessary legislation is brought to Parliament?

[Dominic Raab]

I totally share the hon. Gentleman’s commitment and it is good to be able to address the issue on a cross-party basis. Earlier this year, we ran a call for evidence on SLAPPs reform. I brought that together at very short notice and the Department did an incredible job in providing specific proposals. Our proposals include a new statutory definition, an early dismissal process to strike out SLAPPs claims without merit, and cost protection for defendants in cases. I intend to introduce legislative proposals as soon as possible.

Prisons Policy/HMP Long Lartin

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

New psychoactive substances are a game-changer. They are particularly difficult to detect. There have been instances of letters to prisoners being impregnated with them: looking at such a letter makes it possible to inhale the drug and to suffer the adverse consequences.

We have trained 300 sniffer dogs to help us with detection, and the UK is the first jurisdiction to develop a test for such drugs. We are redoubling our efforts to deal with the supply side by increasing investment in intelligence. We are investing £3 million, not just at establishment level but across the prison estate, so that we can deal with what is essentially a product of serious and organised crime. People want to get drugs into our prisons because they sell at a higher mark-up: 10 times the price outside.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I fear the Minister might have misunderstood the situation described earlier by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), because the main difference in Scottish Government policy has not been to suddenly release prisoners early; it has been to give the courts a way of sentencing and punishing low-level offenders without sending them to prison in the first place. Every Member in this House representing a Scottish constituency has seen significant community benefit work carried out in the local area by people who would otherwise have been in prison. I hope the Minister accepts the invitation to meet Scottish Ministers to talk about the investment programme, and I urge him to also speak to others involved in the justice and prison system in Scotland and find out that—although I appreciate this would be a difficult decision for a Conservative Government to take—moving to a presumption against short sentences reduces offending.

[Mr Speaker]

No one could accuse the hon. Gentleman of excluding any consideration that might in any way at any time to any degree be judged material in his question.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Twenty years ago, almost to the day, I was involved in another bitterly fought referendum campaign in which both sides accused the other of exaggerations and even outright lies. The result was extremely finely balanced, our nation was divided and many were of the opinion that the Government of the day had absolutely no right to proceed with such a profound constitutional change on the basis of a tiny majority. I refer not to the EU but to the Welsh devolution referendum.

There the similarities end. The day after the Welsh Assembly referendum, I did not see BBC reporters trawling the streets of Cardiff or Swansea for anecdotes about people who had allegedly voted one way and then changed their minds—I can well remember in fact that BBC reporters from Wales could hardly contain their delight—and we did not see business representative groups and trade unions whipping up fears about the future of the economy; instead, they embraced the opportunities. Those of us who had been actively involved in the campaign against the Welsh Assembly realised that, whatever we thought of the result, the people had spoken. Even though it was a narrow margin—much narrower than in the EU referendum—and on a much smaller turnout, we did not try to stop the process. We did not try to take the Government to court. In fact, we got involved in the shaping of Welsh Assembly standing orders through a body called the National Assembly Advisory Group.

The First Minister of Wales and some of his colleagues in Parliament would do well to remember that. He and others have been complaining about a power grab and making accusations about undermining the Assembly—

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David T. C. Davies]

I will give way in a moment. I am coming to something the SNP said earlier.

The only powers being grabbed are those being grabbed from Brussels and taken back to London. There is absolutely no grabbing of powers from Cardiff. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) asked the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) whether he could name a single power being taken from Edinburgh, and he could not name any.

[Peter Grant]

rose—

[David T. C. Davies]

I am happy to give way to his colleague to see if he can come up with a few.

[Peter Grant]

The hon. Gentleman is keen to draw parallels between the EU referendum and that which established the Welsh Assembly. The result of the EU referendum casts great doubt over the continuing human rights of 3 million people living in these islands. Can he name a single person whose human rights were threatened as a result of the Welsh referendum 20 years ago today?

[David T. C. Davies]

It was about the same number of EU nationals whose human rights are being threatened by the latest referendum. One of those 3 million is my wife. Not a single Government Member has ever suggested stripping EU nationals of their rights. We are totally opposed to that idea. I am happy once again to say on behalf of all my colleagues that none of us wants to do anything to take away the human rights of the hard-working, law-abiding EU citizens in this country. We welcome them as much today as we always have.

We are not taking powers away from Cardiff, Edinburgh or anywhere else. In fact, over the last few years, Conservative MPs have voted several times to give significant extra powers to the Welsh Assembly—and, I believe, to the Scottish Parliament. To be honest, if I am going to criticise my own colleagues, I would criticise the number of extra powers we have given to the Welsh Assembly and will do again. I probably will not be quite as enthusiastic about that, but there we are. The Bill will actually strengthen devolution. It will mean more powers for the Welsh Assembly in the not-too-distant future, and it will be much easier to transfer powers from the Westminster Parliament back down the M4 than it would be if those powers stayed in Brussels. Let us be frank about that. If those powers were to stay in Brussels, they would not come to the Welsh Assembly at all.

It is time for Opposition Members to do what those of us who opposed the Welsh Assembly did 20 years and recognise that it is the will of the people, including in Wales, which voted for devolution and to leave the EU. It voted mainly for Conservative and Labour MPs in the last election who stood on a manifesto commitment to respect the referendum decision and bring Britain out of the EU. The people having made their voices heard over and over again, it would be an outrage if we did what Commissioners in Brussels have done many times in the past few years and went against the stated will of the people. The Bill represents a great day for democracy in Britain, including in Wales, and I look forward to joining my colleagues in the Lobby to support it tonight.

Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

We heard some fashion advice earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), and, without realising it, I, too, am wearing a purple tie and a yellow lanyard. Today is the day when, after years of soul searching, I have to come out as being straight—I should point out that my wife, who has been good enough to put up with me for the past 32 years, has had her suspicions. But there is a serious point here, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell): I have never had to come out as being straight, so why should anyone have to come out as being gay, lesbian or anything else? I have never had to justify to anybody the codes of behaviour that guide me in my private life, partly through the faith I believe in and partly just because I am who I am. Why should somebody who follows a different path in life have to justify their right to do so? What gives me or anyone else the right to criminalise somebody simply because they are a wee bit different from how I am?

My first reason for supporting the Bill is therefore not because the various pieces of legislation that outlawed homosexual acts were wrong or mistaken, or because they have passed their sell-by date and it is time to catch up with changes in social values and so on, but because they were laws that no Parliament on earth has ever had any right to pass in the first place. Our predecessors stepped well beyond any legitimate authority they had when passing that legislation. I do not judge them, and I do not judge the police and courts that then had to enforce the legislation, but it is entirely proper that, as the successors of those who passed legislation that they had no right to pass, we should take full responsibility for doing what we can to put it right. That is also why this deserves a full Act of Parliament in its own right, as the injustice is great enough. It is appropriate that that Act should be born in the part of Parliament that is elected by the people and speaks for the people, rather than in a part that is appointed by and for the great and the good.

I was going to speak about the damage that has been done to so many lives, but I shall consider the interests of brevity, as the worst possible result we could have today would be for the Bill to be talked out. I cannot imagine anything worse than for this Parliament to send out a message that says that, almost 50 years after we decriminalised homosexual acts, we did not have time to decide whether finally to pardon and apologise to all those who were affected.

I can appreciate the concerns about creating a precedent. Apart from the example referred to earlier about young men who were executed for cowardice because they had a nervous or mental breakdown in the trenches, I am not aware of any other instance in our recent history when so many people have been subjected to such awful persecution as a result of an unjust Act of Parliament. If anyone can give me such an example and wants to introduce retrospective pardons for those affected by that legislation, I will support it, as I hope everyone else will.

My judgment on when Parliament should criminalise an act will never be based on whether it complies with the personal conduct that I impose on myself as a matter of my religious faith; it will always be based on whether that act is harmful to others. Robert Burns once said, in my favourite quote of his, even though it is not a piece of poetry, that “whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity.”

That should be our measure of any proposed criminal legislation. If something does not hurt anybody else, it is nothing to do with the law of the land. Despite having had a number of sometimes difficult conversations with close friends and family at the times of the debates on section 28, gay marriage, gay adoption and many other things, I have never heard anyone present me with a single piece of evidence to suggest that two men having sex are any more of a danger to society or any less a member of it than a man and a woman having sex or two women having sex. Let us remember that it has never been a criminal offence for two women to have sex, so why on earth did anyone think that it was a good idea to criminalise it for men?

A further huge damage that has been done to our society as a result of this legislation, as we see in the good example here of my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), who confessed that he had actually wanted to join the Government service but decided not to because he would not have been allowed to without telling lies. How many of our finest diplomats never joined the diplomatic service? How many of our best teachers never taught in front of a class of young people? How many of our best politicians never stood for any public office, not because they were not good enough, but because they were scared to do so as a result of the terror of what might then come out about their private lives?

This legislation had an appalling effect on the lives of many thousands of our fellow citizens. It has caused untold damage to the wellbeing of our whole society. As other Members have said, it was a gift to our friends in the KGB, because it is very difficult to blackmail somebody over their guilty secrets after we have said, “Your guilty secret isn’t guilty anymore and you don’t have to keep it secret anymore.” It was a blackmailer’s charter. We will never know how much damage was done in that regard. We do not know how many lives were blighted—I am talking about the lives of the boys and men who managed not to be convicted. We know how many men were convicted, but we will never know how many lived their entire lives under the sheer terror of being discovered. We know that a significant number of men took their own lives, because they simply could not reconcile the conflict between knowing who they were and being told every day of their lives that they were not allowed to live as the person that they believed themselves to be.

I can understand it if there are some concerns about the content of the Bill, although I have to say that it seems as though the Minister has changed his grounds for concern since the debate started. Earlier on, there was a claim that the Bill would grant a pardon to people who did not deserve to be pardoned. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) read out a provision in the Bill that makes it clear that that cannot happen. If somebody wants to read out a provision that allows that to happen, I would like to hear it. Once that argument was debunked, it was argued that the law would not actually allow just anybody to be pardoned, but that it might give someone the opportunity to pretend that they had been pardoned. That is not the kind of argument that we expect from a Minister of the Crown in speaking about any proposed legislation. It gives me an uncomfortable feeling that the Government’s concerns are not with the fine detail of the Bill or with its principles. Clearly, there is no objection to the principle of the Bill. I am left wondering whether the problem is to do with the identity of the person who has brought in the Bill. I hope for goodness’ sake that that is not an issue.

What does it do for the reputation of this place as a democratic legislature if this Government—not this individual Minister—who have encouraged my hon. Friend and others to put a huge amount of work and effort into proposing legislation that they said that they wanted, say at the very last minute, “Actually, you can take your hard-earned Bill, tear it up and throw it in the fire, because we have decided that we know a better way to do it.” If that were to happen today, the number of people on these islands who seriously doubt whether this place is fit as a legislature will grow. If the Bill falls for lack of time because somebody thought that it was clever to show how long they could talk for, knowing that the clear majority will of this House is for this Bill to go ahead, what should be one of the brightest days in the history of this place would soon become one of the darkest.

I appeal to Members to allow the Bill to pass, so that the thousands of men who continue to live with shame and guilt for something that they should never have felt ashamed or guilty of can live out their last days on earth knowing that they have been declared innocent of any wrongdoing and so that those for whom this decision has come too late will finally be allowed to rest eternally in peace.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ben Howlett]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes his point in his own way, but any changes in welfare come with a cost implication, as he well knows.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ben Howlett]

No, I will make some progress. As I said, I must note the concerns I have heard from constituents who have come to my surgeries. The Department for Work and Pensions continues to deny that women who were affected were not contacted, but a number of constituents have contacted me to say that they did not receive adequate notification. It was also concerning to hear that the Department failed to send out a significant number of state pension estimates, citing, in part, reasons of data protection.

Apart from for actuaries and accountants, pensions are confusing; indeed, I am no expert myself. Not only do the Government need to investigate their contact with women about the changes, and the methods used, but there is a wider issue about financial education and I am pleased that the Money Advice Service is working on a new strategy for the financial education of children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I thank the Petitions Committee, of which I am delighted to be a member, for allowing this debate on the back of the petition from the WASPI women. They have been a credit to themselves in the way they have campaigned on this issue, and I hope that they will continue to campaign in the days, weeks and months to come. We must win this debate, and there has to be action.

I thank the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for introducing this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. I am unable to go through everyone’s speeches because of time, but I thank all Members who have spoken passionately about the injustices faced by millions of women in this country because of the speed of the changes.

[Peter Grant]

Some pejorative and patronising comments have been made about the degree of emotion that the debate has aroused. Does my hon. Friend agree that men can get emotional about social injustice as well and that we should see that as a sign not of weakness, but of common humanity?

[Ian Blackford]

There should be emotion in this debate. Why? Because women are losing tens of thousands of pounds that they are entitled to. Of course people should be emotional. There are facts that the Government have to address and they should do so in a measured and controlled manner.

The hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) said that the point about communications had been noted. Nobody is asking the Government to note the failures in communication; we are asking the Government to act on the basis of the failure of communication and to right the wrong that has been done.

I was grateful to hear the words of the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann). He spoke honestly about not being aware of the issue. Is that not exactly the point? A Member of Parliament has not been aware of these issues, so how can we expect the women affected by the changes to be aware of them? That is yet another reason why we must act.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) spoke about the goalposts being moved. She is exactly right. There is a contract between the state and the women. This is not, as my hon. Friend said, about benefits they should be entitled to. It is about an entitlement based on the fact that these women have paid national insurance in some cases for 30, 40 or even more years. It is a breach of trust, as the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said. The Government should reflect on what has been said and on the tone of the debate.

The Minister spoke about this matter in the Chamber this afternoon, saying:

“A whole lot of other benefits are available to the women who may be affected—for example, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, income support, carer’s allowance and personal independence payment.”

Does that not explain the problem that the Government do not get this? They want women to go to the jobcentre, rather than to do what they should be doing by collecting a pension to which they are entitled.

What is parliamentary democracy in this country? On 7 January we had an excellent, well informed debate in the Chamber. The House divided and voted 158 to zero that the Government should put in place mitigation efforts. Weeks have passed and nothing has happened. When will the Government respect the will of this House? It is a shame that there is no mechanism by which to put the issue to a vote today, as I am sure that hon. Members want to ensure that it is put to a vote so that the House can express its will.

Speaker after speaker has condemned the Government for not doing the right thing. The way of this place is archaic. It is little wonder that folksy Westminster is out of touch. I contrast the behaviour of this Government in this attack on women born in the 1950s, and in so many other ways, with what our Government in Scotland do. Last week the Government in London were defeated in the courts over the bedroom tax. Was there any recognition that what they were doing was wrong? In Scotland, we have mitigated the effects of the bedroom tax and we want powers to remove it. One thing is crystal clear: if we had powers over pensions in Scotland, we would do the right thing for our pensioners. This Government plough on regardless, ignoring the justified claims of the WASPI women. I state once again, as many of my colleagues have, that we are not against equalisation. We support the move to equalisation, but the pace of the move is unfair.

Look at the reality of what is happening. We can take examples of women born across the early years of the 1950s, whose experiences will be sharply different. A woman born on 10 February 1950 would have retired aged 60 in 2010, whereas a woman born later would have to wait almost two years longer to retire on 6 January 2012. A woman born on 10 February 1952 would have reached state pension age a few weeks ago aged 61 years, 10 months and 27 days. Such a woman will have had to wait almost two additional years more than a woman born in 1950.

As if that were not bad enough, the increase for women born in 1953 and 1954 is worse. A woman born on 10 February in 1953 would have retired in January this year, aged nearly 63. A woman born on 10 February in 1954 will not reach pensionable age until 6 July 2019, when she will be aged 65 years, four months and 26 days. That is shameful—a woman born in 1954 will have to wait two and a half years longer for her pension than a woman born in 1953.

Just dwell on that: someone born on 10 February 1953 has now retired; someone born a year later must wait until July 2019. Where is the fairness in that? If the Minister wants to intervene, I will give him the opportunity to say now that the Government are listening and are going to change. Does any Conservative Back Bencher want to rise to their feet to recognise the unfairness of it? Do they want to punish women in the way they are doing, or will they accept that it is wrong? Here is the opportunity. They can rise to their feet.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is ingenious, as always, in the way that he poses his question. He is right that we need a fit-for-purpose prison estate. As for Wellingborough prison, I am afraid I have nothing to add to the answers I have given him repeatedly in the past.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

10. Whether he plans to include in the Government’s proposed Bill of Rights protection of all the rights included in the European convention on human rights.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)]

The hon. Gentleman will not have too long to wait for the consultation, which I have already spoken about. We will release it towards the end of the autumn. He raises a very good question, but I hope he will understand if I do not jump the gun by being drawn before then on the substantive detail of our plans.

[Peter Grant]

I understand the Minister’s reluctance to be drawn into the substantive detail, but could he give an indication of the intended direction of travel? For example, can he assure us that the rights of refugees seeking asylum on this island will not be deteriorated in any way as a result of the repeal of the Human Rights Act?

[Mr Raab]

We are very clear about the absolute prohibition on torture, including in relation to the asylum regime. If the hon. Gentleman wants an overall steer, the major problems have been less with the text of the European convention than with its application. Some of those problems arise because of judicial legislation and others because of the operation of the Human Rights Act. Those problems are acknowledged across the political spectrum, including by senior members of the judiciary.