– in the Scottish Parliament at on 14 June 2018.
Patrick Harvie
Green
3. I am not hugely surprised that neither the Conservatives nor the Labour Party chose to raise the current constitutional crisis and the decision by the United Kingdom Government to unilaterally abolish the principle of devolved consent. The situation has understandably led to anger at Westminster, and I think that none of Scotland’s representatives should show any patience with the contempt that is being shown.
The situation greatly increases the urgency around giving the people of Scotland the ability to control their own future instead of dragging them into the chaos of Brexit Britain. In that context, does the First Minister understand the concerns expressed by many that the Scottish National Party’s growth commission has taken too many lessons from a right-of-centre economic agenda—such as that of the previous New Zealand Government—which cannot offer the transformative alternative that is needed if we are going to inspire the people of Scotland to choose a better future?
I am sure that the First Minister did not mean to ignore the questions on the growth commission that I raised. She says that we should offer new ideas in the future, once we are independent. We will do that, but we are doing so already.
In fact, New Zealand, which is one of the countries on which the growth commission relies for its argument, is already putting new ideas into practice. I refer to the comments about the growth commission from Gareth Hughes, a Green MP from New Zealand, who says that, after being
“one of the most egalitarian countries”,
New Zealand witnessed
“the fastest growth of inequality in the developed world.”
It experienced
“a dramatic rise in homelessness, precarious working conditions and child poverty” as a result of
“light-handed regulation, a smaller role for the state” and
“punitive welfare reforms”.
Now New Zealand has a new Government and a new direction that is focused on the fair distribution of wealth, the Government returning to the task of supporting housing instead of leaving it to a failed market,
“an ambitious zero carbon goal” and looking beyond simplistic measures such as gross domestic product growth. Gareth Hughes said:
“After decades of a trickle-down, austerity-ideology we’re changing direction.”
Is it not clear that the New Zealand of today offers a more forward-looking, progressive model than the failed, dead-end agenda that the growth commission has drawn from?
The First Minister:
Forgive me, but I am more interested in the Scotland of today and the Scotland of tomorrow, which can be so much better with the powers of independence.
Let us look at the growth commission. If its recommendations had been applied in the years since the Tories came to power at Westminster, the reduction that we have seen in public spending in Scotland would have been wiped out. Actually, it would have been more than wiped out; that reduction would have been turned into an increase in public spending and the eradication of austerity.
This is about how we get an alternative to austerity. It is about having a debate about how we maximise the vast potential of this great country of ours. Is that not a much better alternative to constantly talking about the despair of Brexit? Let us have that debate. It is a debate about hope and optimism. It is one that more and more people across Scotland are desperate to have. I really look forward to that.
Nicola Sturgeon
Scottish National Party
No, I do not, actually. I think that the growth commission offers the alternative to austerity that this country so badly needs and a future that is based on hope, not the despair of Brexit.
I will say this to Patrick Harvie: when Scotland is independent, he will be perfectly entitled to propose different ideas and the people of Scotland can choose. That is what independence is about: it is about allowing the people of Scotland to decide their own future, not have it decided for us by a Tory Government at Westminster.
On developments this week, what we saw this week was the most clear and powerful evidence so far that the Westminster system simply does not work for Scotland. The Tories plan to remove powers from this Parliament without the consent of this Parliament. [
Interruption
.] They ripped up the convention that has underpinned devolution for nigh on 20 years. They did so in the most contemptuous way possible, with a 15-minute debate and no opportunity for a single Scottish Member of Parliament to get to speak. They hoped that nobody would notice. Thanks to SNP MPs doing their job and standing up for Scotland, people have noticed. [
Interruption
.]
People are angry. They are talking about it and are expressing their anger in different ways. Since lunch time yesterday, 5,085 of them have expressed their anger by joining the SNP.
Adam Tomkins, who was shouting from a sedentary position, recently said:
“The political price of enacting legislation without consent might be quite significant.”
I think that the Tories are about to find out just how right on that issue he is.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The Conservatives are a centre-right political party in the UK, founded in the 1830s. They are also known as the Tory party.
With a lower-case ‘c’, ‘conservative’ is an adjective which implies a dislike of change, and a preference for traditional values.
A Member of Parliament (MP) is elected by a particular area or constituency in Britain to represent them in the House of Commons. MPs divide their time between their constituency and the Houses of Parliament in London. Once elected it is an MP's job to represent all the people in his or her constituency. An MP can ask Government Ministers questions, speak about issues in the House of Commons and consider and propose new laws.
In the process of debate, members of parliament need to stand up in order to be recognised and given a turn to speak, and then they formally make a speech in the debate. "From a sedentary position" is Commons code for "heckling".
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
