Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and William Cash

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Well, what a man to follow! [Interruption.] I am not sure that Fran and Anna here quite agree with me on that.

Let me say that we are here debating a confidence motion in the Government, but as has been said by other speakers before me, we do not have a Government. They are a Government in name only. It is essentially now a form of organised Tory hooliganism that squats in these offices of state, squats in these Departments and squats most of all in Downing Street.

One of the canards that is often advanced—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) wants to get to his feet and intervene, he is more than welcome. I am happy to have the extra 60 seconds from him. The canard often advanced by Government Members—people would not know it, but we are only having this debate because they wielded the knife on their leader just a couple of weeks ago—is that the Prime Minister “gets the big calls right”. Let us examine that proposition.

As a few Conservative Members have been asked, did he really get a big call right when, post-Salisbury and straight after a NATO summit, he went to the palazzo in Italy of a former KGB agent? Was that him getting a big call right, and he did not even have the decency to do it properly with security and logging it with his Department. That was when he was Foreign Secretary, and before he even got to Downing Street.

Did he get all the big calls right when he was partying all over the place and our constituents had to adhere to the rules as strictly as they did? Indeed, it resulted in him being the only Prime Minister—the only Prime Minister—to have received a fixed penalty notice while in office.

[Sir William Cash]

Oh, come on!

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I have witnessed the Scottish Conservative party at close quarters over the years, as you have, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I always thought, going back to the days of the hon. Gentleman’s old pal the late Sir Teddy Taylor—that tenement Tory of my constituency—that he believed in law and order, but he sits there decrying anyone who draws attention to the fact that we have a criminal in Downing Street who has the keys for another five weeks in office.

[Sir William Cash]

Is the hon. Member aware that the Lord Chief Justice himself said, in a case on fixed penalty notices when the payment was made within 28 days, that it was not a crime, that the individual could not be prosecuted and that he had left the court without a stain on his character?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman has educated me, because I did not know that, but it does not change the facts. Facts are chiels that winna ding, and those are indeed the facts.

The Prime Minister has presided over a shambles. Two weeks ago, in this very building and not so far from here, we witnessed a Government in meltdown, and yet we are asked to believe that somehow all the MPs, Ministers, Parliamentary Private Secretaries and trade envoys who resigned got it wrong, and this Prime Minister is still fit for office.

Nothing says that quite like the acres of empty green Benches on the Government side of the House tonight, so while they—[Interruption.] Well, it is a Government motion. It is a Government motion brought forward by the Prime Minister himself, and is it not telling that none of the leadership candidates have turned up to defend him here tonight? One could only imagine that several of those who have come here—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) wishes to get to his feet, I am happy to be educated once again.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and William Cash

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir William Cash]

I will not give way for a very simple reason, which is that both hon. Gentlemen have consistently tried to obstruct Brexit for the most specious and completely unacceptable reasons.

Exiting the EU and Transport

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and William Cash

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

One hopes that it will be this Christmas, I say to my colleague on the Transport Committee.

I wish to focus my remarks on emissions and the vehicle industry. Although there are challenges, there are indeed opportunities in this field, and I do not necessarily mean just in terms of trade, but in terms of the governance of the industry. For too long—I say this as someone who passionately voted to remain in the EU—the industry has been operating in an almost wild west-like culture, where money talks; and it talks quite a lot, particularly for German car manufacturers. For all that we are proud of the British car industry—of course we are—the German car industry has something that we will never have, or the French or Japanese car industry will never have: the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. If we look through the lobbying register, we see that the big German manufacturers spend more on lobbying in Brussels than all the other manufacturers put together—and, my goodness, they get what they are after.

[Sir William Cash]

Is there not a really serious problem with the manner in which the Volkswagen emissions disaster was handled? This is about not just efficiency but manipulation.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct, and that is what I am coming to. The Government now have the opportunity to get a new regime on emissions and safety standards that does not allow the kind of manipulation that he mentions to take place. We can have a situation where car manufacturers do not manipulate test vehicles—for example, by taping up air conditioning units, by changing the wheels and by using all sorts of creative means—so that they get around emissions standards. If they can do that in one EU country, they get away with it in all EU countries. Even though we in the United Kingdom have now chosen to leave the EU, the EU must get a grip on that. So here is the opportunity: the Minister and the Department for Transport can now set up a regime that the EU can aspire to. But for over a year now, the Department’s response to this issue does not exactly fill me with confidence. They could do the same with a new safety standards regime. They could create a new gold standard that even countries such as the United States could aspire to. I guess that the proof of the pudding will ultimately be in the eating.

Members will be familiar with the Vauxhall car fire scandal, with more than 300 Vauxhall Zafira cars catching fire here in the UK. Many of them have done so within about 30 seconds of their engines failing. Let us think about that model of car. The Zafira is a family car. It tends to be used by parents on the school run, during the summer holidays and so on. The people affected tend to have children, and many of them have been in touch with me and other members of the Transport Committee, which has discussed the issue. The Government’s response, in public at least, has almost been to wash their hands of it. I am amazed that the Government are not required to take the issue more seriously. Perhaps we could have new consumer protections relating to vehicle standards, and better compensation standards for consumers. Perhaps we could aspire to standards that even the European Union could aspire to one day.

We do not want to continue with the same system—perhaps EU regulation-lite—whereby we become just another island that is manipulated by an industry in which money talks far too often, and public health interests and consumer interests take a back seat. In addition to all the challenges that the Government face in maritime, freight and air policy, this is one area where the British public are fed up with big business riding roughshod over consumer interests. They will judge the Government on how they respond to the opportunity that Brexit has delivered to put consumers first, rather than to those big vehicle manufacturers.