Time-wasters didn’t succeed
I wrote in my previous column about the manner in which some Tory MPs are using the technique of ‘filibustering’- speaking for extended periods of time to ensure that debate reaches the end of its allotted time without being concluded - to ‘talk out’bills being brought forward by SNP MPs.
I am delighted to report, therefore, that - despite the efforts of the chamber’s worst offender in the filibustering stakes - my colleague Eilidh Whiteford, the SNP MP for Banff and Buchan saw her Private Member’s Bill, entitled the Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and DomesticViolence (Ratification of Convention) Bill, passed its second reading by 135 votes to two and now moves on to the committee stage.
This sets the UK firmly on the path towards ratifying the Istanbul Convention.
The Istanbul Convention is basically the most comprehensive legal framework ever created to tackle violence against women and girls.
It was signed by 44 countries in 2012, over half which have now ratified it into their own domestic law. The UK, embarrassingly, has not. Eilidh’s bill gives the Government the impetus that was needed to drag the process out of the long grass and off the back burner.
One of those opposing the bill was, of course, Philip Davies - the man who has previously helped to talk out such society-threatening proposals as the Tenancies (Reform) Bill which would have prevented landlords from evicting tenants for requesting vital repairs, a proposed bill that would have given free hospital parking to carers, and a bill backed by St John Ambulance, the British Red Cross, and the British Heart Foundation to provide first-aid training to children.
He does this seemingly for fun, but it isn’t funny. Thankfully, despite Philip Davies wasting 78 minutes in an ill-informed and inaccurate speech, the rest of the debate produced informative, interesting and moving contributions from across the parties and sense prevailed.
Meanwhile, Brexit continues to dominate the political agenda and still it seems that the only government leader in the UK showing any ability or intention to get the best for the people she represents is Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
The Scottish Government has, this week, published a paper“Scotland’s Place in Europe”which is centred on retaining our place in the single market – and why it is so important Scotland avoids the hard Brexit threatened by the right-wing Brexiteers in the Tory party.
Being part of the European Single Market is vital for Scotland’s future economic wellbeing. And losing our place in the single market would be potentially devastating to our long-term prosperity, to jobs, investment and people’s livelihoods.
It would end our current status as part of the world’s biggest free trade area, a market around eight times bigger than the UK’s alone, and would have a profound and long-lasting impact on our national economic standing and our standards of living.