Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Debate between Peter Grant and Drew Hendry

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I hear the comment that it is all on the internet, but I hope that when the Government respond, or when someone responds on their behalf, they will be able to explain the following to us: if it has been on the internet and has been so widely available for so long, why is it that MEPs have been given the opportunity to scrutinise it for only the past week? That is being done not in an open debate, but in a closed room where they are allowed to take handwritten notes but are not allowed to take photocopies of that document out of that room to show to their constituents or to anybody else. Why is the EU insisting on that degree of secrecy if the whole thing is already widely available on the internet?

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

rose—

[Peter Grant]

I am sorry, but I would like to make a bit of progress.

I entirely agree with the calls from across the House asking for an open and honest debate. I agree that it is deprecable if any politician or their family is subjected to intimidation because people disagree with their point of view, no matter how sincerely or passionately that disagreement might be held. However, the same people who are calling for an open and honest debate have also dismissed everybody who has concerns about TTIP, including the hon. Members for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Clacton (Mr Carswell), as being part of some left-wing campaign. These people seem to think it is a bad thing that an organisation has made it as easy for ordinary citizens to lobby their MP as it has always been for multinationals, which get managing consultants and lobby consultants to do it for them. It seems that we have gone from being a “left-wing campaign” a few minutes ago—I have been a part of pretty few left-wing campaigns and I sometimes think we could do with some more of them—to being completely “anti-American” and then completely “anti-western”. The last time I checked I was a westerner. The only anti-western person in my household is my wife, and she is anti-western only to the extent that I am not allowed to watch cowboy and Indian films.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Grant and Drew Hendry

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

15. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of her Department becoming an accredited living wage employer.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

16. What assessment her Department has made of the potential effect on its staff of it becoming an accredited living wage employer.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

My Department has no directly employed staff paid below the living wage, and from the end of August 2015 all agency staff should receive at least the living wage. I have commissioned the Department’s head of property to review how the living wage can be paid to subcontracted support staff by the end of this calendar year.