Anas Sarwar warns House of Lords must not be 'handbrake on Labour Government'

The Scottish Labour leader also offered support for the idea of local mayors in Scotland.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar speaking during the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

Anas Sarwar has warned the House of Lords must not become a “handbrake on a Labour Government”.

Labour policy is to abolish the second chamber, and now the Scottish Labour leader has suggested plans are underway to circumvent legislation being blocked by the Tory majority inside the Lords.

Speaking at an Institute for Government event at Labour conference in Liverpool, the Glasgow MSP also appeared to suggest Scotland should have mayors.

He said: “One of the big challenges we face in Scotland, is rightly we have a debate around how we strengthen our Scottish Parliament, but we never really talk about how we stop a centralisation of the Scottish Parliament, and push power out of the Scottish Parliament, and into the cities and regions of Scotland.”

The Scottish Labour leader also praised Andy Burnham’s role in standing up to Manchester, suggesting Glasgow may have had a different experience during the pandemic with a mayor.

He said: “I don’t think on balance they’re going to vote for more politicians, but if you actually show the public what regional mayors can deliver, for example, in London, in Manchester, in Liverpool, there’s now actually beginning to be increasing demand for some kind of mayor’s model in Scotland as well.“I go back to the pandemic and think about that really powerful moment when Andy Burnham with all the local authority leaders across Greater Manchester, stood in front of the public hall demanding a better for deal from the UK Government around some onf restrictions around Covid.

“A very similar situation happened in Glasgow where Glasgow had a more restrictive Covid policy than other parts of Scotland, but there was noone standing outside the public halls or second chambers demanding and speaking for Glasgow.

“I often think about if we had the regional mayor model, whether that dynamic would have been fundamentally different across Scotland as well.

“I think people have shown that mayors work, that regional development works, it can leverage in support, leverage in support and make things happen, and the more people can see the positive of it, the more likely we are to see support for it rise”.