A Week in Parliament

In his weekly (letters) column in the paper, Kevin McGregor, the Labour parliamentary candidate took umbrage at my observation of the hypocrisy of Jeremy Corbyn making appointments to the House of Lords. His argument that you have to appoint “anti-Lords” in order to have enough Lords to vote for abolition is palpable nonsense. Firstly this would mean not appointing former Speaker, John Bercow, who “loves the place” and will never vote for abolition. Next, there are approximately 800 Lords. Let’s be generous and assume that 200 of those will vote for abolition. You then need another 600 Lords who are willing to vote for the abolition of the place to be made members. How long would this take? It is clear there will never actually be a situation whereby Labour have appointed enough Lords for them to then vote for abolition. What is required is a Government willing to push through such radical measures rather than leaving it for them to be part of the process.  

It must also be remembered that it was also the Labour Party who was caught up in the whole “cash for honours” scandal whereby there was a pattern of large donors to the Labour Party becoming Lords. There is no doubt that those close to political parties still find their way into the Lords. It is this form of patronage with the major UK parties which is too cosy for them to give up. This is just another strand why I think matters can be handled better in Scotland. Debates can be held about the merits of a secondary chamber ever being required, but if it were deemed beneficial, then it needs to consist of elected members rather than appointments. In the meantime, we are stuck with the absurdity of the £300 per day Lords.

Glasgow COP26

It is great that COP 26 is coming to Glasgow in November. However, it is disappointing that at the moment the UK Government’s preparations are a shambles. From sacking the person they appointed as President, to the revelations from her that the sub-committee set up by the Prime Minister has never met. Then finally to her claims of Johnson admitting he “doesn’t get it” when it comes to Climate Change - so much for it supposedly being a priority! As the SNP’s Spokesperson for Energy and Climate Change, I have long advocated that the Government needs to recreate a dedicated department for these responsibilities. We will know how serious they are if they do this during the forthcoming cabinet reshuffle - and also who then heads it up will be the next indicator. There is no point in setting out aims and targets to be carbon neutral by 2050, but if plans don’t start getting place soon it will be too late. And to get world leaders to agree to necessary measures this year at COP26 then plans, discussions and negotiations need to start happening now or there will be no chance of an agreement in November.