WESTMINSTER has voted to give the SNP permission to introduce a bill that will never become law to give compensation to Waspi women.
Strip away the spin and that is what happened in the Commons on Tuesday afternoon.
Stephen Flynn looked quite pleased with himself as he walked up to the Speaker’s chair, doing that silly halting walk MPs must do, to present his Waspi compensation bill.
The SNP’s Westminster leader may have been surprised he was allowed to introduce his bill – given that the Labour Government is pretty set against compensation.
This does not pile pressure on the UK Government to compensate Waspi women, given the rebellion such as it was on their side amounted to 10 MPs, including the increasingly reliable awkward squad backbencher Brian Leishman (below).
That is a measly 10 MPs compared with the up to £10.5 billion the Government reckons it would need to spend to compensate the Waspi women.
Per Parliament’s rules, the bill can now be read a second time – though as the Commons website sets out, the chances of this “actually taking place are slim”.
They are surely even more slim when the bill in question demands the Government spend billions of pounds it would really rather not.
Flynn’s bill is at the bottom of quite a large pile and despite his demands that the Government “must make time in the parliamentary schedule to ensure the bill can progress” they are under no obligation to do so.
But he was right to outline in his speech that regardless of one’s stance on this specific issue, there is an overarching problem of trust in politics.
If it hurt Keir Starmer or any of his top team who had their broken promises to Waspi women read back to them, as Flynn did, they might want to find a different line of work. For most people, saying one thing then doing another seems to be an essential skill of top politicians.
Flynn (above) was also correct to raise the fact that his bill would merely implement the recommendations of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. If the public felt they couldn’t turn to the ombudsman, he asked, upon whom could they rely to fight their corner?
Certainly not their Scottish Labour MPs, who chose to sit on their hands – except Leishman – rather than back the independent ombudsman or even their own colleagues in Scotland.
MSPs voted unanimously earlier this month to back a call for the UK Government to compensate Waspi women.
This particularly delighted the SNP, always keen to highlight an example of when Anas Sarwar’s (below) authority is undermined by his colleagues in Westminster.
While it gives gleeful spinners plenty to work with, it also underlines the more serious point made earlier about trust in politics.
Why should Scottish Labour MSPs get the chance to pat themselves on the back for supporting the Waspi campaign in Holyrood – where they can do nothing to help them – while Scottish Labour MPs get to duck responsibility in Westminster?
This victory might be little more than political shenanigans used to exploit Labour’s weaknesses which will lead to nowhere. But that won’t deter the Waspi campaigners, who have surely proven themselves indefatigable by now.
