Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work — House of Commons, 2021-05-12
Topic: Immigration
Stephen Mark Flynn (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It would be remiss of me not to start by congratulating the new shadow Chancellor on her role. She will be cognisant of the fact that she has replaced an Aberdeen quine, so she has very big boots to fill indeed It is important when we look at the wider discussion of the Queen’s Speech to reflect on what it actually means. Of course, it is the Government’s legislative programme—a programme that they believe they have a mandate to put forward, and a mandate that the Conservatives got in the 2019 general election, when they won 365 seats in this place on 43% of the vote. Of course, in the 2019 general election they won just 25% of the vote in Scotland and hold just six Scottish seats in this House, yet over the last year we have seen the UK Government use that mandate to drag us out of the European Union against our express wishes. They introduced the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 to ride roughshod over devolution, alongside the levelling-up fund and the shared prosperity fund—all a blatant attack on devolution. It is not just us nationalists saying that; it is the Labour party in Wales as well, because it is cognisant of the fact that the Welsh Assembly is also under attack What do we see planned for the year to come? We see a Conservative Government with a mandate in Scotland of 25% from 2019 seeking to introduce new legislation in relation to immigration—even more draconian than it already is—that will only make things worse, despite the express wishes of the people of Scotland to have a tailored immigration system fitting Scotland’s needs. Of course, we will also see legislation aimed solely at suppressing the right of people to vote by making them take photo ID to the ballot box. The Government are seeking to fix a problem that nobody knew existed, and they are doing it for their own nefarious means Of course, in Scotland we had an election last week. The Chancellor failed to reflect on that in his remarks; I do wonder why. On the constituency ballot—first past the post, which Members of this House are extremely familiar with—the SNP won an unprecedented 47.7% of the vote, and 62 constituency seats. In comparison, the Scottish Conservatives won 21% of the vote and just five constituency seats—six if we include Dumbarton, but I would not wish to do that—yet we are told we have no mandate to implement our policies Of course, in Scotland we do not just have a first-past-the-post system; we have a proportional Parliament. That has allowed the Labour party to gain some seats; I do not think the Liberal Democrats gained anything on the list this time; and of course the Conservatives gained some more seats on the list. That list vote was remarkable, because a majority of voters in Scotland voted for parties that had an express wish for the people of Scotland to have their say—to have a second independence referendum to decide our own future. A majority of voters on that list vote voted for such parties What we have ended up with is a Parliament in Scotland where 72 of the 129 seats are taken up by people who support Scotland’s right to choose. And has that right to choose ever been more important than it is at this moment in time? Has it ever been more important, as we seek to overcome a decade or more of Tory austerity, as we seek to overcome being dragged out of the European Union against our will, and as we seek to build back from the pandemic? But of course we have no mandate, because a Conservative party that has not won an election in Scotland since 1955 tells us that we will not get to decide our own future.