UK Parliament / Open data

Scotland Bill

Proceeding contribution from Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party) in the House of Commons on Thursday, 27 January 2011. It occurred during Debate on bills on Scotland Bill.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who knows about these issues and understands the difficulties that the Bill would create. Why are we giving the Scottish Parliament new fiscal responsibilities that would damage it? That is one of the proposals that we will seek to correct during the Bill's passage. We will be making suggestions about how it could be dealt with. We are prepared to work with the Government, because we want to improve and strengthen the Bill. We want to make it a powerhouse Bill that will serve our nation and be a credit to the communities that we serve. As we have heard, the Bill has already been debated in the Scottish Parliament, and has been subject to what has been described as an independent Bill scrutiny Committee. I certainly hope that the proceedings in the House of Commons will be a bit more useful and relevant than what we have seen in the Scottish Bill Committee thus far. We have seen a Labour convener haranguing and harassing independent witnesses, as a result of which several have decided not to take part in the proceedings because of what they feel is an in-built bias. The Scottish Bill Committee seems to be more interested in considering options that are not even in the Bill than in examining the dangerous tax plans that it contains. I hope that we can do a bit better than that down here, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you know, and as we are already observing, Scottish debates in the House of Commons are always characterised by their good nature and conviviality.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
522 c480-1 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Legislation
Scotland Bill 2010-12
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