Sewel Convention — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): This issue is relatively simple. The EU referendum was a UK-wide vote, and more than 1 million people in Scotland voted to leave the EU. In 2014, a referendum decided that Scotland should remain a part of the UK; the separatist argument lost by 10 percentage points—a significantly greater margin than in the EU referendum whose business currently preoccupies the House Respecting the will of the people of Scotland, which is constantly brought up by SNP Members, is exactly what the Government side of the House is doing. People in Scotland voted to remain Scottish and British—to have a devolved Parliament in Edinburgh, but also have their Parliament here in Westminster. It was a constitutional decision that reinforces our current structure of government and made sure that we still keep this Parliament of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland here in Westminster and sovereign, with directly elected representatives Section 2 of the Scotland Act 2016, which was shaped by the cross-party Smith commission, is unambiguous in asserting the UK Parliament’s power to make laws for Scotland and that devolution does not diminish that power. The Act also recognises the Sewel convention, which states: "it is recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament." But these are not devolved matters and these are clearly not "normal times", as Mike Russell MSP recently acknowledged The convention also does not apply to reserved matters. Schedule 5, part 1 of the 2016 Act defines, among others, the constitution and foreign affairs as explicitly reserved powers for MPs in this House to discuss and decide. The European Union could not legitimately be defined as that "which is normally dealt with by the Scottish Parliament", but very clearly comes under the powers reserved to this place. It is for those very reasons that the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament deemed the SNP Administration’s EU continuity Bill—rushed through, by the way, as emergency legislation, with just 25 hours of debate—to be outwith the competence of the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, far from protecting, or even respecting, the devolution settlement, the SNP is showing complete contempt for it and for our constituents. The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and this whole debate is concerned with where powers that previously sat in Brussels will now sit in the UK. It is ironic that the SNP is fine with having unelected Brussels bureaucrats set laws for Scotland, but finds it an outrage when this Parliament, which is also Scotland’s Parliament and has its own directly elected MPs, makes laws. It cannot be a power grab if Holyrood never had those powers to begin with. Finally, even today, Lord Sewel, who I imagine has some insight into these matters, stated clearly that Westminster needs the power to move ahead and that there is no constitutional crisis To recap, that is the Scotland Act 2016, the Smith commission, the SNP MSP responsible for the constitution, the former SNP deputy leader and Lord Sewel himself all clearly acknowledging the validity of the Sewel convention and reinforcing the sovereignty of this House. We should take a moment to remember what devolution was truly meant to be about—not erecting a wall between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, but bringing power closer to communities throughout the UK Furthermore, the Smith commission went one further by saying that powers should come from Holyrood to individual local authorities. Has that happened in Scotland? No—there has been a clear centralisation of power in Edinburgh. Powers are being taken from Westminster and centralised in Edinburgh with no respect. This is not good devolution or bad devolution—it is deliberately dysfunctional devolution, stoked by an SNP that is so obsessed by separation from the United Kingdom that it cannot countenance even making an agreement with it As I outlined earlier, it is really clear that this is not about the 24 powers in relation to the UK common framework; this is about fertiliser, food labelling and standards. When I was looking, there was no one in my constituency saying, "We want them to be so drastically different from the rest of the UK, it is an assault on devolution." That is what the 24 powers are about. If we want to get into the detail, we should engage with it We have been threatened tonight with disruption, with another referendum, with "paying a price" as the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) said. Well, you carry on with the threats. We will focus on delivering for our constituencies. What we have seen in the last week is very, very simple: the mask has slipped and the façade has fallen. What is revealed is naked nationalism. While SNP Members fight to separate the United Kingdom, we will be fighting to unite it.