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Opposition day on Wednesday, 10 June 2009, in the House of Commons, led by Angus Robertson. The answering member was Lord Hain.

Dissolution of Parliament

Dissolution of Parliament. Un-allotted half-day Opposition day debate. Motion negatived on division (268 votes to 340).

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
493 c852-904 
Session
2008-09
Department
Leader of the House of Commons
Wales Office
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Proceeding contributions
Speaker | 493 c860 (Link to this contribution) Order. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider and withdraw that remark.
Angus Robertson | 493 c853 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend gives an additional reason why there should be a general election. Many people throug...
Show all contributions (178)
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 493 c853 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that Labour Members, who earlier this week wanted their own election in re...
Angus Robertson | 493 c853 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman has made his point and it is on the record, but I want to return to the point tha...
Bob Spink | 493 c853 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman makes the point that the Prime Minister is not here, and he also talks about the ...
Angus Robertson | 493 c853 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman makes his point about a very successful and popular SNP Government in Scotland, b...
Russell Brown | 493 c852 (Link to this contribution) The SNP Administration has been in Holyrood for just over two years. The fact is that in those two y...
Angus Robertson | 493 c852 (Link to this contribution) I beg to move,"That this House requests the Prime Minister to seek a dissolution of the present Parl...
Angus Robertson | 493 c854 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman has clearly missed the point that I have been trying to make. This is a motion fo...
Angus Robertson | 493 c854 (Link to this contribution) There are many reasons why people voted for all kinds of things. What I pointed out just now was tha...
Speaker | 493 c854 (Link to this contribution) Order. Could I just remind the hon. Gentleman about using the correct parliamentary term?
Chris Ruane | 493 c854 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The Scottish National party has form with this type of ac...
Angus Robertson | 493 c854 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's history lesson; I was of course in primary 8 at that time. [I...
Chris Ruane | 493 c854 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman's party brought down a Labour Government, and that resulted in the Conservatives ...
Angus Robertson | 493 c854 (Link to this contribution) Perhaps this is one such hon. Gentleman now.
Pete Wishart | 493 c891 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Russell Brown | 493 c891 (Link to this contribution) There was undoubtedly significant wheeling and dealing—grown-up politics, but fundamentally differen...
Richard Bacon | 493 c891 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Russell Brown | 493 c891 (Link to this contribution) No, as I have only two or three minutes. At general elections, people deserve to have manifestos lai...
Greg Mulholland | 493 c890 (Link to this contribution) One of the problems is that people in the areas where some of the MPs who have abused the allowances...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 493 c891 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the governing party in Scotland has 47 MSPs, yet the Budget in...
Russell Brown | 493 c890-1 (Link to this contribution) I accept, to a certain extent, what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but let me go back to the point ma...
Russell Brown | 493 c891 (Link to this contribution) No, as I am not taking any more interventions. People deserve to have policies and manifestos laid o...
Richard Bacon | 493 c891 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Russell Brown | 493 c892 (Link to this contribution) Given that the hon. Gentleman is bigger than me, I will give way very briefly to him.
Elfyn Llwyd | 493 c893 (Link to this contribution) We have had a wide-ranging debate, which started with a fine speech by my hon. Friend the Member for...
Russell Brown | 493 c892 (Link to this contribution) Let me say slowly, so that the hon. Gentleman can understand, that Labour is a party of the Union; w...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 493 c892 (Link to this contribution) Can I get an answer from the hon. Gentleman that I failed to get from the right hon. Member for Stir...
Russell Brown | 493 c892 (Link to this contribution) No, because, in spite of all this, I wish to finish by paying a compliment to the right hon. Member ...
Russell Brown | 493 c892 (Link to this contribution) Let me say to the hon. Gentleman, above the guffawing that is going on, that I expected a honeymoon ...
Richard Bacon | 493 c892 (Link to this contribution) I detected some dissatisfaction on the hon. Gentleman's part with what the Scottish National party h...
Elfyn Llwyd | 493 c893-4 (Link to this contribution) I have very limited time left; I am sorry. The Secretary of State has conceded defeat at the next el...
Chris Ruane | 493 c894 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Elfyn Llwyd | 493 c896 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway made his points in a rather theatrical manner. The questio...
Speaker | 493 c895 (Link to this contribution) Order. The hon. Gentleman knows to face the House, if only for the Hansard writers.
David Heath | 493 c898 (Link to this contribution) On the hon. Gentleman's earlier reference to Twickenham, I should say that I seem to remember being ...
Speaker | 493 c899 (Link to this contribution) Order—the House must come to order. This debate is coming to an end, and Members who have been here ...
Chris Bryant | 493 c899 (Link to this contribution) No, I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, because I have very little time. I wa...
Elfyn Llwyd | 493 c894-5 (Link to this contribution) I have no time; I am sorry. If the hon. Gentleman had remained in the Chamber throughout the debate,...
Chris Bryant | 493 c899-900 (Link to this contribution) The truth of the matter is that the nationalists always vote with the Tories. Who was their latest M...
Speaker | 493 c900 (Link to this contribution) I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.
Stewart Hosie | 493 c900 (Link to this contribution) claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36), Question put forthwith, That the Question be n...
Speaker | 493 c879 (Link to this contribution) Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has made his point.
David Heath | 493 c879-81 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman has not only made his point but undermined his own argument. If we think that eve...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 493 c881 (Link to this contribution) The Prime Minister has been here for only 11 per cent. of Divisions since becoming Prime Minister. B...
Richard Bacon | 493 c882 (Link to this contribution) Many women say that to me. It is not a case of selective memory on the part of my right hon. Friend...
Anne McGuire | 493 c882 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right. The hon. Gentleman makes a valiant attempt not at seduction but at producin...
Anne McGuire | 493 c881-2 (Link to this contribution) It was a great pleasure to listen to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). I feel s...
Anne McGuire | 493 c882 (Link to this contribution) All right then. The hon. Gentleman tempts me—I do not know why, but he does.
Richard Bacon | 493 c882 (Link to this contribution) Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Michael Connarty | 493 c883 (Link to this contribution) It might be useful to look at what the Government did to save the Scottish economy at the same time....
Anne McGuire | 493 c883 (Link to this contribution) The reality is that if the nationalists had their way and we were a separate country from the rest o...
Anne McGuire | 493 c882 (Link to this contribution) I suggest that hon. Gentleman should have put down a motion asking us to compare how this Government...
Anne McGuire | 493 c884 (Link to this contribution) This is a plea to the Conservatives and perhaps even to some of the thinking Liberals: they need to ...
Gordon Banks | 493 c884 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend agree that the theatre that we are seeing here today is based on nothing o...
Anne McGuire | 493 c883-4 (Link to this contribution) This is the point my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase highlighted: if we had a general elect...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 493 c883 (Link to this contribution) If the right hon. Lady is confident of the Government's performance, surely she has nothing to fear ...
Anne McGuire | 493 c883 (Link to this contribution) I will come to the hon. Gentleman in just a second, so he might want to keep his powder dry for the ...
Anne McGuire | 493 c884 (Link to this contribution) I can deal with the hon. Member from Tayside—
Speaker | 493 c884 (Link to this contribution) Order. We cannot have these interventions from a sedentary position. This is serious; they simply sp...
Anne McGuire | 493 c884 (Link to this contribution) Hon. Members say that we got beat. I remind them that the price the Scottish National party paid in ...
John Mason | 493 c884 (Link to this contribution) Will the right hon. Lady give way?
John Mason | 493 c885 (Link to this contribution) I appreciate the right hon. Lady giving way. Does she accept that, in 1979, the Scottish people coul...
Anne McGuire | 493 c885 (Link to this contribution) I will take the hon. Gentleman's intervention now, but I promise him that he will have a second chan...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 493 c885 (Link to this contribution) I wonder, given those 18 long years of Tory rule over Scotland without a mandate, whether the right ...
Anne McGuire | 493 c885 (Link to this contribution) In some respects, I wish that I had not let the hon. Gentleman in, because I am going to deal with s...
Anne McGuire | 493 c885 (Link to this contribution) To talk about whether we would have wanted an independent Scotland is such a hoary old chestnut. As ...
Anne McGuire | 493 c886 (Link to this contribution) No, I am dealing with an area that I know particularly well. I was saying that the unemployment rate...
John Mason | 493 c886 (Link to this contribution) I appreciate the right hon. Lady's generosity in giving way a second time, having mentioned my const...
Anne McGuire | 493 c886 (Link to this contribution) I do not want to go into history lessons about the hon. Gentleman's area, as I am not nearly as good...
Adam Price | 493 c886 (Link to this contribution) But is it not the case that if the Labour Government had not gerrymandered the result of the referen...
Anne McGuire | 493 c886 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman should go back and read the debate on the motion of no confidence in 1979—and the...
Russell Brown | 493 c890 (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). He speaks with gr...
Richard Shepherd | 493 c887-9 (Link to this contribution) I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) for tabling the motion. Very rarel...
Anne McGuire | 493 c886-7 (Link to this contribution) I did not attend the count in Glasgow, but I understand that the count in one particular district ga...
Gordon Banks | 493 c886 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend wish to comment on the history created in the constituency of the hon. Mem...
Lord Hain | 493 c862 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend puts the case very eloquently, and I have to agree with him. Here are the tartan Tori...
Speaker | 493 c862 (Link to this contribution) Order. Members have a right to be heard.
Lord Hain | 493 c862 (Link to this contribution) What about the minimum wage—[Interruption.]
Richard Shepherd | 493 c862 (Link to this contribution) Does the Secretary of State not believe that a Labour victory in a general election would clearly re...
Lord Hain | 493 c862 (Link to this contribution) What about the statutory minimum wage? I do not remember massive support for that from the nationali...
Stewart Hosie | 493 c863 (Link to this contribution) The Secretary of State says that these things need to be done quickly, and I entirely agree with him...
Lord Hain | 493 c862-3 (Link to this contribution) When the time comes to call an election, we will indeed get a renewed mandate to take the country fo...
Lord Hain | 493 c863 (Link to this contribution) The reason that we have not been able to get our reform through the House of Lords is that the House...
Brian H Donohoe | 493 c863 (Link to this contribution) I thank the Secretary of State for giving way on a point on which the hon. Member for Moray (Angus R...
Lord Hain | 493 c863 (Link to this contribution) I could not agree more, which is why we need to lance the boil now, and why we need this Parliament,...
Lord Hain | 493 c864-5 (Link to this contribution) I will give way in a few moments. It is good to see that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks ...
Lord Hain | 493 c864 (Link to this contribution) I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman that the media are far too obsessed, almost to the ex...
Lembit Opik | 493 c863-4 (Link to this contribution) Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what has effectively happened, in summary, is that the gene...
Lord Hain | 493 c866 (Link to this contribution) Is this not curious? The Scottish Government have never had more money than they have now. Their bud...
Stewart Hosie | 493 c865-6 (Link to this contribution) The Secretary of State is absolutely right: making savage cuts in the teeth of a recession is the wr...
Lord Hain | 493 c865 (Link to this contribution) If we are talking politics and government in Cardiff Bay as opposed to politics and government in th...
Lord Hain | 493 c866 (Link to this contribution) That is the sense that the people of Scotland will reject: cutting Scotland's links with the United ...
Lord Hain | 493 c860 (Link to this contribution) I happily do so—it was said in jest. The leader of the Conservative party is allowing the nationali...
Lord Hain | 493 c860 (Link to this contribution) Where is the leader of the Liberal Democrats? Where is the leader of the Conservative party? I see t...
Robert Smith | 493 c860 (Link to this contribution) Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition has followed the example of the Prime Minister. We have a debat...
Angus Robertson | 493 c859 (Link to this contribution) Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In truth, the Government's case against an election has nothing to ...
Elfyn Llwyd | 493 c860 (Link to this contribution) Not that it matters a great deal—although the right hon. Gentleman has apologised once to the House,...
Lord Hain | 493 c860 (Link to this contribution) Actually, I did not say that at all. I said that the SNP voted with the Tories to bring down the Gov...
Simon Burns | 493 c860 (Link to this contribution) Talking about grubby deals, does the right hon. Gentleman remember that in 1979 the Labour Governmen...
Lord Hain | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) Actually, it was an honourable deal, concerning quarrymen in north Wales as I recall. We were happy ...
Lord Hain | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) I give way to a daffodil Tory in Westminster.
Lord Hain | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) Let me make some progress. We now have the hon. Gentleman on the record as being indifferent to a To...
Lord Hain | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) Is the hon. Gentleman saying, then, that he prefers a Labour Government? [Interruption.] That is ver...
Pete Wishart | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) I agree with the Secretary of State: the last thing that Scotland needs is a Conservative Government...
Lord Hain | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) In a moment. The SNP—the hon. Gentleman's party—has a history of seeking to inflict a Tory Governmen...
Pete Wishart | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) Will the Secretary of State give way?
Jim McGovern | 493 c861-2 (Link to this contribution) I agree with the Secretary of State's comments about what happened in 1979. The people of Scotland h...
Hywel Williams | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) I thank the Secretary of State for giving way, but we need to respect history. We had Tory Governmen...
Lord Hain | 493 c861 (Link to this contribution) I have a lot of respect for the hon. Gentleman, but it was his nationalist colleagues in Scotland wh...
Lembit Opik | 493 c855 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point about the difference between how MPs are viewed loc...
Angus Robertson | 493 c855 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I shall come back to that point shortly; there is a job ...
Anne McGuire | 493 c855-6 (Link to this contribution) I am listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman. One would think that he and his colleagues...
Angus Robertson | 493 c856 (Link to this contribution) I think it is up to the public to decide. The hon. Gentleman should be confident that all good MPs h...
Jim Sheridan | 493 c856 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman says "regardless of which party is in office". Could he give us his valued opinio...
Angus Robertson | 493 c856 (Link to this contribution) I want to make some progress, as I have been generous to Members on both sides of the House. The ca...
Angus Robertson | 493 c856-7 (Link to this contribution) I said that I am going to make progress, so I will. After all, the Kelly commission reports in the ...
Stephen Pound | 493 c858 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is well liked in the House, and he is showing his customary charm, but may I say ...
Angus Robertson | 493 c858 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for the history lesson, and we will be glad to return this Chamber to the good people ...
John Robertson | 493 c857 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is most gracious. Can I assume from what he has said t...
Angus Robertson | 493 c857-8 (Link to this contribution) This is a good stage at which to put on record the fact that halfway through the debate I will have ...
Angus Robertson | 493 c858-9 (Link to this contribution) I have already signalled that I want to make progress to allow other Members to get in. If the hon. ...
Angus Robertson | 493 c858 (Link to this contribution) I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, and I want to allow other Members to take part in th...
Speaker | 493 c859 (Link to this contribution) Order. Can we conduct this debate in an orderly manner, please?
Lembit Opik | 493 c875 (Link to this contribution) I agree in large part with the hon. Gentleman's analysis, but surely he would recognise that the gam...
Tony Wright | 493 c875-6 (Link to this contribution) I have said a good deal of that over the years, if I may say so, and I do not want to go there again...
Tony Wright | 493 c875 (Link to this contribution) I want to finish this point, if I may, because it is the point that I really want to make. If we wer...
Speaker | 493 c876 (Link to this contribution) Order. It is only fair to listen to the hon. Gentleman who is addressing the House. If Members want ...
Tony Wright | 493 c876 (Link to this contribution) Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I simply say that we ought to put the fire out. Hon. Members who do n...
Tony Wright | 493 c875 (Link to this contribution) I am very happy to discuss 1945 in considerable detail, but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman p...
Julian Lewis | 493 c874 (Link to this contribution) I seem to remember that in both 1983 and 1987 Governments with healthy Conservative majorities calle...
Tony Wright | 493 c875 (Link to this contribution) The argument is not that Governments do not go to the electorate early; of course they do. Governmen...
Tony Wright | 493 c877 (Link to this contribution) The time has come to look at various voting systems, and we have a chance to look afresh at the most...
David Heath | 493 c877-8 (Link to this contribution) As always, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), but I must tel...
David Heath | 493 c878-9 (Link to this contribution) I shall sing it to the hon. Gentleman later, if he makes an appointment. I have explained why we ne...
Michael Connarty | 493 c879 (Link to this contribution) I have heard this a few times. People say that things are going to change and be structurally differ...
Tony Wright | 493 c876 (Link to this contribution) I apologise for the mixing of metaphors, but I do not apologise for the argument. I do think that we...
Pete Wishart | 493 c876 (Link to this contribution) I am trying to listen patiently to the hon. Gentleman's contorted logic. Does he think for a minute ...
Tony Wright | 493 c876-7 (Link to this contribution) That argument has been put repeatedly, but curiously the situation is not unique, because often out ...
John Mason | 493 c877 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman's comments are more thoughtful than those of some of his colleagues, but would he...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 493 c868-72 (Link to this contribution) There are many cases in history when Governments have called general elections because they wish to ...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 493 c867-8 (Link to this contribution) I congratulate the Secretary of State for Wales; to hold that office is one of the greatest honours ...
Tony Wright | 493 c868 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman is a considerable historian. Can he tell us of just one historical occasion...
Madeleine Moon | 493 c866 (Link to this contribution) Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. What concerns the people of Wales and the people of this country i...
Lord Hain | 493 c866-7 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes that point extremely persuasively, and it reminds me that when the right hon. M...
Madeleine Moon | 493 c866 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend agree that people listening to this debate will be appalled by the petty d...
Alex Salmond | 493 c866 (Link to this contribution) Given that the Secretary of State's colleagues in the Labour party in Scotland have been deploying t...
Lord Hain | 493 c866 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman speaks of a resounding endorsement, but I believe that the SNP received les...
Tony Wright | 493 c874 (Link to this contribution) In the first part of the debate, I thought that I had intruded on some sort of private feud. It has ...
Tony Wright | 493 c874 (Link to this contribution) I will not give way for the moment, although I shall do so later. There are two problems with what ...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 493 c873 (Link to this contribution) I am not going to give way any more, because I am nearly at the end of my speech. [Hon. Members: "Go...
Betty Williams | 493 c873 (Link to this contribution) I was worried for a moment that the right hon. Gentleman was afraid of the Member for Conwy. I have ...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 493 c873-4 (Link to this contribution) I assure the hon. Lady that I am not afraid of any lady from Wales except my mother-in-law, so she n...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 493 c873 (Link to this contribution) I have almost concluded, but we must have the entertainment of listening to the right hon. Gentleman...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 493 c873 (Link to this contribution) First, I think that the right hon. Gentleman was not just laughing at my joke about Lord Mandelson; ...
David Heath | 493 c881 (Link to this contribution) I am not sure that that is exactly the statistic that I would have used had I been the hon. Gentlema...
Angus Robertson | 493 c856 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Lady is right to suggest that under Presiding Officer George Reid the Scottish Parlia...
Simon Burns | 493 c875 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is possible that the answer to the question that he asked earl...
Chris Bryant | 493 c896-8 (Link to this contribution) I apologise to the House for the fact that it is me replying to the debate, but I had been asked to ...
Chris Bryant | 493 c898-9 (Link to this contribution) As the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, some of the measures have not been around for ever and a...
Adam Price | 493 c862 (Link to this contribution) How can the Secretary of State have the gall to accuse our parties of being Tories when on virtually...
Lord Hain | 493 c859-60 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) for praising the Prime Minister—we can do much m...
Richard Shepherd | 493 c876 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman, my near neighbour in Cannock, uses the mixed metaphors of an approaching tidal w...
Stephen Pound | 493 c854 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and also for clarifying the point that confused u...
Adam Price | 493 c886 (Link to this contribution) Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Adam Price | 493 c865 (Link to this contribution) The Secretary of State's speech is another good argument for an early dissolution. He is obviously o...
Lembit Opik | 493 c875 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Denis MacShane | 493 c873 (Link to this contribution) I am deeply grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, whose family of course come from my constituency. ...
Subjects
Allowances Devolution Elections Expenditure Dissolution Members Parliament Scotland Reform Wales
Link
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