Nomination of Members to Committees

Part of Business of the House (Today) – in the House of Commons at 8:41 pm on 12 September 2017.

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Photo of Pete Wishart Pete Wishart Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Constitution), Chair, Scottish Affairs Committee, Chair, Scottish Affairs Committee, Shadow SNP Leader of the House of Commons 8:41, 12 September 2017

I want to make some progress. I have given way on countless occasions, and I will try to give way as I progress through the next 45 minutes of my speech.

The history is quite compelling, and I am fascinated by the previous examples:

“he said that in future Committees must reflect the numbers in the House of Commons? Is the Prime Minister repudiating that?”—[Official Report, 29 April 1976; Vol. 910, c. 551.]

Those are not my words but those of Margaret Thatcher when she railed against the injustices of the then minority Labour Government’s attempted power grab. If this parliamentary jiggery-pokery was an injustice for Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s, it should be an injustice for the sons and daughters of Margaret Thatcher in the 2010s.