Scottish Affairs Committee
The Scottish Affairs Select Committee is a Committee of the House of Commons. Its remit is to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Office of the Secretary of Scotland and relations with the Scottish Parliament. It also looks at the administration and expenditure of the Advocate General for Scotland.
Unlike the Scottish Grand Committee, MPs from constituencies outside Scotland can, and do, sit on the Scottish Affairs Committee.
Composition
Chairperson: Pete Wishart MP: Shadow Cabinet member, SNP Leader of the House of Commons. (Position attracts an annual salary around £20k.)
Members
Mhari Black: Shadow Cabinet Member SNP Spokesperson (Scotland)
Deirdre Brock: Shadow Cabinet Member SNP Spokesperson (Food and Rural Affairs)
Andrew Bowie: Tory MP, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine
Alberto Costa: Tory MP, South Leicestershire
Sally Anne Hart: Tory MP, Hastings and Rye
Douglas Ross: Tory MP, Moray
John Lamont: Tory MP, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
John Cruddas: Labour MP, Dagenham and Rainham
Liz Twist: Labour MP, Blaydon
Wendy Chamberlain: Liberal Democrat MP, North East Fife
Note: Shadow Cabinet SNP, MP’s, are allocated a performance allowance, around £10k, using “short money” funding provided by Westminster.
11 members (3 SNP 8 Unionist)
Tensions on the Scottish Affairs Committee bubbled over, after MPs again pressed the idea of replacing Pete Wishart as chairman.
A number of MPs on the committee are unhappy that long-serving chairperson Wishart took up an SNP frontbench role that is “distracting” him from his duties.
MPs called for Joanna Cherry to take on the role after Wishart asked committee members to change the time of meetings to fit in with his new responsibilities as shadow Commons leader.
In a stormy clash before a meeting, MPs demanded Wishart put any proposals on changing committee three times to a vote, which he refused to do. Committee sources branded the row “pathetic”, adding:
“Pete is getting more and more desperate as he tries to cling on to his taxpayer-funded additional salaries as chair of the committee, and SNP, Shadow Cabinet Member, refusing to even consider other SNP members taking over. It’s been suggested that this is getting party political but, of course, we are only in this situation because he is putting his party role ahead of the committee continuing with its scheduled dates and times. The fact that Pete refused to allow a vote on the matter is pathetic. and disrespectful to the committee and its members. The time has come for Pete to choose between his party or the committee.”
Sturgeon snubs Scottish Affairs Committee chairperson, Pete Wishart’s invitation to discuss her record in government.
The Scottish Affairs Committee invited the First Minister discuss its recent inquiries, including into welfare, education and renewable energy. But she declined the invitation to appear with her office citing “responsibilities and range of commitments”.
In a letter to Pete she wrote: “Thank you for your invitation to appear before the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, due to my responsibilities and range of commitments, I will have to decline the invitation. In any event the committee is aware, I am accountable to the Scottish Parliament for the decisions and actions of the Scottish Government in relation to the issues you refer to.”
Committee chairman, SNP, MP, Wishart expressed disappointment at his Party leaders decision. He said: I am “surprised” at the length of time it took for her to respond. Our committee is focussed on reports and inquiries that are relevant to the people of Scotland, and it would have been helpful to have explored the issues with the her. In this Parliament we have had inquiries and reports on universities, renewable energy and public sector broadcasting issues that cut across responsibilities of both Parliaments. The invitation remains open to her and we hope that some time in the future she may be in a position to reconsider her decision.”
caltonjock 
Sold oot? Doesnae cover it. we are a nation of halfwits controlled by absolute wankers on 500k a year.
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We are a colonised rump of a people whose opinions should be tightly controlled by our betters# The Roddy wamk Dunlops of society.
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They can ate use breach o the peace, or send the polis roond to our work
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The truth o the matter is from where I sit is that the common folk of this land born and bred are the only ones whose morals re worth a fuck on balance. The rest are compromised poseurs who do not give a fuck for the people’s rights, on balance.
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Salvo and the Road to Scotland’s National Liberation
Committee chairman, SNP, MP, Wishart expressed disappointment in communication with Nicola Sturgeon FM regarding: “issues that cut across the responsibilities of both Parliaments”… Wishart fails to recognise that today’s Scottish Parliament’s a modern entity that cannot compare with Scotland’s original parliament, which is vitally important to today’s Scottish electorate; that IS what’s disappointing many of us!
To quote Professor Baird: “Salvo (and SSRG) are already leading on and could become the vehicle for our National Liberation, having found the main mechanism to end the union, and hence the means to deliver it also. What is necessary now is to build an organisation capable of delivering and securing a just conclusion to what is an unjust situation.”
Our electorate is becoming increasingly aware of this and it is increasingly gaining interest and respectful support from members of Scotland’s electorate – it is also dawning on many of the ludicrously well-paid MPs north and south of the border that runs between two different countries. At last, we can do what our forebears had prepared for us and have Scotland independent again!
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Absolutely right Ewen about SALVO and the SSRG having found the main mechanism for ending the Union.
The route to independence is open to us and lies ahead. For too long our rights, our perception of our rights, and our perception of the actual power of our colonial masters, have been long hidden from us.
And with the realties of our rights, our rights to choose, our right to select independence ourselves, it is important 5hst each and every one of us contribute in as many ways as we can to let our citizens know their rights, to let them demand their rights, to let them take their rights.
As we approach winter the prospect of millions of our people in fuel poverty beckons in a land blessed with oil, gas, wind and hydro and where that energy is extracted and taken from our land.
It is a Famine an energy famine in a land of plenty. But Famine is the British way. In the 1800s millions died in the Great Irish Famine. Yes the potato crop failed but Ireland was exporting grain to England whilst the people starved. Indeed, at the time measures to relive the famine were rejected. The indigenous Irish needed to be taught moral rectitude and if many died that was their just reward.
In New York schools they teach the Irish Famine as a genocide equating it to the evils of the holocaust. But we know, the Irish were a feral uneducated idle feral race best cleared from the land. Or at least that is the English colonialists view. And Scotland, are we truly any different.
England covets our resources, our gas, ou4 oil, our wind, our hydro, our water, our seas, our space. Power from the glens for the glens. You have to be kidding. Our resources are for others not us. Not for us the alternative of a country like Norway with a national pension fund ( oil fund ) worth $1.399 trillion or around $1,399,000 for every pensioner in the land.
And do the Norwegians go cold in winter unable to afford heating and lighting. Of course they don’t but Jock does.
Or do the Qataris go without air conditioning in their small country that has brand new cities, world class infrastructure, world class airlines, and where median earnings are the highest in the world. Of course not. Like Norway they found energy and prospered. Unlike poor Jock.
But maybe Jock is destined to be poor and downtrodden. Maybe it is his birthright. Poor but not proud as they accept their lot.
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I’ve clicked a ‘like’ for your article and of course, your comments touch on the core of an ineffable situation that isn’t a new issue because our difficulties stem from centuries ago; yet, most normal citizens have some access to media like what we’re using right now. This was never available before this day and age and we cannot ignore today’s realities without some form of peaceful political reaction.
At different times, we are now able to react differently!
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