Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2022-05-10
Topic: Macroeconomics
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Queen’s Speech, setting out the UK’s programme for government, offers little comfort to my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran. It comes in a context where we have seen the Tory vote across Scotland collapse, with the Labour revival amounting nationally to no more than a lacklustre 1.6% increase in first preference votes on the council elections in 2017 and its second-worst local government performance since devolution in 1999. I find myself in the odd and strangely surprising position of agreeing with the leader of the Tories in Scotland, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross)—a rare event, I am sure he would agree—when he said that the Prime Minister must "reflect" on a series of disappointing results for the Conservatives across the UK. The reality is that there is a leadership crisis for the Tories in both London and Edinburgh. I will say no more on that for fear of intruding on private grief The Prime Minister and his Cabinet would also do well to reflect on their deafening silence over the cost of living crisis, which is hammering households across my constituency and across the whole of the UK. The Queen’s Speech, as others have said before me, has indeed been a missed opportunity. The Prime Minister should have used the speech to urgently deliver desperately needed support, but it seems that standing back and consigning more people to poverty and hardship is the plan, which is disgraceful I welcome proposals to bring forward measures in the financial services and markets Bill to protect access to cash, following huge pressure from me and my SNP colleagues, as well as the consumer organisation Which? and a range of other stakeholders. However, the measures must be meaningful and they must be fit for purpose. I look forward to scrutinising the detail of the proposals Households are suffering rising food, energy and goods prices, and record levels of inflation, with Brexit playing a central part in this crisis, but the Government continue to downplay the impact Brexit is playing in those challenges. We in the SNP have consistently called for a meaningful package of measures to help tackle the cost of living crisis and put money back into people’s pockets. However, the Tory Government have ignored those calls, with the Chancellor apparently holding off on addressing the crisis until the Budget in autumn. Struggling households simply cannot wait until autumn as they struggle under the weight of increasing hardship We in the SNP again call for the UK Government to at the very least convert the £200 energy loan into a more generous and substantial grant, scrap the regressive national insurance tax hike, reverse the £1,040 cut to universal credit, match the Scottish child payment UK-wide, introduce a real living wage to boost incomes, reduce or remove VAT on household energy bills, and follow the Scottish Government’s 6% uprating of benefits. This Prime Minister, his Chancellor and the Cabinet hand-wringing or sitting on their hands while households struggle with the soaring cost of living is unforgiveable. There is no end in sight to this crisis so we need action now, yet there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to suggest that such action will be taken As the Bank of England predicts that inflation is likely to rise to an eye-watering 10% later this year, food and energy price rises are placing a particularly high burden on households. Despite the fact that the UK has the highest poverty rates in north-west Europe, with 11.7% living below the poverty line, sadly things look as though they are set to get even worse. People are told that work is the best route out of poverty, but the reality is that in-work poverty is rising. The phenomenon of in-work poverty should be a contradiction in terms. It should not exist, and the fact that it does is utterly disgraceful. Instead of a plan to support households through this crisis, we have a Chancellor telling those who are suffering because of the crisis that it would be "silly" to introduce measures now to help people. No wonder people are angry, and so much for levelling up Alongside that, the Tory strategy to undermine devolution continues. Scots are to be punished for not voting Tory by having their Parliament undermined via the Orwellian tactic of introducing the ironically named Brexit freedoms Bill. Much retained EU law is incorporated in Acts passed democratically in the Scottish Parliament, and those must be respected. Instead, Brexit Bills will deliver nothing but a race to the bottom on so many issues I would remind Government Members, but sadly the Benches opposite are empty, that under rule 9B of the Standing Orders of the Scottish Parliament and in accordance with the Sewel convention, the UK Parliament should not legislate on devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. This means that under our constitutional arrangements, the procurement Bill, the trade Bill, the Bill of Rights, the levelling-up and regeneration Bill, the energy security Bill, the economic crime and corporate transparency Bill, the Brexit freedoms Bill, the Northern Ireland troubles Bill, the social security Bill, the transport Bill, the modern slavery Bill and the data reform Bill will all require the legislative consent of the democratically elected Scottish Parliament. Indeed, there may be more to add to that substantial list. That shows that the Government’s intention is to trample all over devolution. I remind them that riding roughshod over Scotland’s Parliament will simply not be tolerated and it will not serve them well Alongside that, we have an absence in the Queen’s Speech of an employment Bill, which was first promised in 2019, and there is no animal welfare abroad Bill, which would have banned fur imports and foie gras. Those measures have been quietly dropped This Queen’s Speech has been defined not by action, but by complacency and short-sightedness. Scotland needs no more of this. As well as the attacks on Scotland’s democratically elected Parliament, which are set to continue, our resource budget allocation has been cut by Westminster by 5.2% and the capital budget allocation has been cut by 9.7% in real terms The SNP Government are doing what they can to support households during these difficult times. I could talk about the bedroom tax being fully mitigated, the council tax mitigation, the Scottish child payment being doubled, free tuition, free prescriptions and free school meals for all primary schoolchildren, but as Scotland tries to mitigate the worst excesses of this Tory Government, the Scottish Government are hemmed in by Tory cuts to Scotland’s budget and the lack of power over the full fiscal levers needed to tackle the fundamentals of poverty and want in Scotland. A lack of powers for the Scottish Government means that we can really deal only with the symptoms of poverty inflicted by this Tory Government, not the deep-rooted causes of the inequality in our society that delivers child poverty and pensioner poverty and leaves many households struggling to make ends meet. The people of Scotland understand that the Westminster system is broken. It does not serve Scotland’s needs, and it does not serve the people of Scotland and their families’ interests. Today, the First Minister of Scotland confirmed that a Bill for a referendum on Scotland’s future will be brought forward, with White Papers to be published in the near future. For an increasing number of people in Scotland, this cannot come soon enough, because they agree that Scotland deserves better than this. Scotland deserves to have its own future in its own hands. Scotland deserves independence.