SCOTTISH Labour MPs have been branded “drones” after research revealed they spend most of their time at PMQs throwing Keir Starmer softball questions.
Analysis of all 28 questions put to the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister by their MPs north of the Border in the Commons since Labour’s election victory showed most were related to devolved matters – giving Starmer the chance to bash the SNP.
Just 12 questions related to policy issues controlled by the UK Government while 13 related to areas under Holyrood’s remit; three did not relate to political issues per se, Sunday National research has found.
The most common devolved issue for Scottish Labour MPs to ask about was health, which is wholly controlled by the Edinburgh Parliament.
Elsewhere, MPs asked about local government funding north of the Border, ferries and housing – all policy areas over which the Westminster Parliament has no say.
Softball questions involve MPs asking about hyperlocal causes, which while often worthy, have little to no bearing on the political issues of the day.
In this category, Scottish Labour MPs asked about the Coatbridge semi-professional football team Albion Rovers, Glasgow’s 850th anniversary and a motor neurone disease charity.
In October, Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch MP Katrina Murray invited the Prime Minister to dictate how the Scottish Parliament spent its block grant from Westminster, asking whether he agreed that extra cash from that month’s Budget should be spent “to benefit my constituents”.
The same session saw Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy MP Melanie Ward (above) raise NHS waiting times in Fife, while November saw Na h-Eileanan an Iar’s Torcuil Crichton raise the health service, ferries and education in one question – over which the Prime Minister has no control.
In a particularly niche outing later that month, Coatbridge and Bellshill MP Frank McNally asked the Prime Minister whether he agreed that the SNP had “consistently failed to get a grip of clinical waste disposal”.
Some Scottish Labour MPs have focused their questions exclusively on reserved matters. West Dunbartonshire MP Douglas McAllister has asked just one question to the Prime Minister so far and used his intervention to raise the long-running saga of his constituent Jagtar Singh Johal, who is arbitrarily detained in an Indian jail.
East Renfrewshire’s Blair McDougall has highlighted efforts to recover children who have been abducted from Ukraine by Russian soldiers, while Euan Stainbank and Brian Leishman have used two questions each to ask about the Grangemouth oil refinery.
The SNP said that our findings showed that Scottish Labour MPs were Starmer’s “nodding dogs” hellbent on winning government jobs and the Greens argued that it showed why “Scotland should be free to govern itself”.
Pete Wishart (above), the SNP’s depute Westminster leader, said: “This just sums up Scottish Labour – Scotland as an afterthought to these backbench drones, reduced to competing to see who can ask the most supine question in the desperate hope one of their London whips might just notice them in time for that next cabinet reshuffle.
“Anas Sarwar and his band of Scottish Labour lackeys have absolutely zero influence on Sir Keir Starmer and their cringeworthy approach to PMQs makes that embarrassingly clear.
“SNP MPs stand up for Scotland at every turn while Labour MPs from Scotland skip through the voting lobbies to back Sir Keir Starmer’s damaging agenda on everything from cuts to disability payments, ending the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners and maintaining the two-child benefit cap.
"These questions do nothing but antagonise the people they represent – it’s time they did their job properly and held the UK Labour Government to account as Scottish industry and families continue to pay the price for broken, Brexit Britain.”
Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie MSP says: “Scottish MPs sitting in Westminster were elected to represent Scotland’s voice in areas of reserved power.
“That such a large percentage of Scottish Labour MP’s questions to Keir Starmer are on devolved subject matters shows that their time is being taken up with issues better suited to Holyrood decision-making.
“This is just another example of why Scotland should be free to govern itself just as other countries across the world do, rather than our neighbours calling the shots.
“In the meantime, all of the elected representatives in Westminster must use their time to amplify Scottish voices and hold the UK Government to account for the damage it is doing to Scotland.”
Complaints about the quality of questions from the Government benches during PMQs are longstanding.
During his time as Commons speaker John Bercow (above) said that “attacks, soundbites and planted questions” at the half-hour weekly grilling session had damaged the reputation of Parliament.
In 2014, The Telegraph revealed that then-prime minister David Cameron had lists circulated which suggested talking points for backbenchers looking to help him out on Wednesday afternoons.
And a piece from 2015 in The Independent by one of the paper’s political reporters bemoaned PMQs being “orchestrated by Downing Street”. The correspondent wrote: “Number 10 hands out a set of pre-prepared questions to the party’s backbench MPs that the Prime Minister can then use to reel off a whole list of pre-prepared statistics boasting about the Government’s record.”
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: “This hysterical reaction from the SNP just proves they can’t handle the truth when it comes to their failure to deliver for Scotland.
“If Mr Wishart is disturbed by Scottish Labour MPs asking about the state of Scotland’s NHS, his time would be better spent pleading with the Scottish Government to pull their finger out and sort the problem than writing unhinged quotes for newspapers.”
