Oral Answers to Questions
Alan Brown Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Jack
I welcome the recent freeports announcement, and I have no doubt that freeports will unleash the potential of our proud historic ports, boosting and regenerating communities across the UK. I and other Ministers on the Front Bench—the Chancellor is here—have heard my hon. Friend’s early representations on behalf of his airport and his area. Not only is he a great champion for the borderlands, but he is a great champion for the Carlisle Lake District airport.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Page 64 of the 2015 statement of funding policy document confirms that HS2 should have 100% Barnett consequentials for Scotland. Will the Secretary of State ask for those Barnett consequentials, roughly £750 million in relation to what is being spent on HS2, to be delivered in the Budget?
Oral Answers to Questions
Alan Brown Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alok Sharma
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. Let me give him a couple of examples. In Uganda and Ghana, my Department is providing support for pilot projects. We are working with businesses to improve waste management and increase recycling. In Uganda, for example, we are working with the Kampala plastics recycling partnership.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The Dutch non-governmental organisation The Ocean Cleanup has discovered that most plastics in the seas come from abandoned fishing gear and nets. Does the Secretary of State agree that assisting fishermen in developing countries is one way to eliminate that waste?
Alok Sharma
The hon. Gentleman is right. I have talked about the Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance, but he will also know that at the 2019 United Nations General Assembly the Prime Minister announced the global ocean alliance of countries which aims to protect at least 30% of the global ocean within marine protected areas by 2030.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alan Brown Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Jeremy Quin
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. This is a great opportunity to ensure that we upskill our workforce. We are very proud of the fabric of this building, and very proud of what it symbolises for our country, and it will be great if we can make certain that we are engaging people across the United Kingdom in the work that needs to be done.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Yesterday it was established that the majority of supply chain contracts for the offshore wind farm Neart Na Gaoithe are going abroad. When are the UK Government going to incentivise the auction process so that bidders who use local supply companies such as BiFab and CS Wind in Scotland are awarded the contracts, creating further green jobs?
Jeremy Quin
Throughout Government we are determined to ensure that we have the simplest possible process for procurement, and the Government Contracts Finder has made certain that we have more transparent procurement, which helps SMEs, among others. The hon. Gentleman raises a good point, but I will have to look into the specifics.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill
Alan Brown ExcerptsFriday 20th December 2019
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Simon Hoare
Let us be frank: the SNP had a very successful result, although it was not as good as the hon. Gentleman and I remember from 2015. As others have commented, it will present challenges for those of us who believe fundamentally in the preservation of the Union, who will now need to find arguments that are more compelling than merely the broad, abstract and romantic, and that focus not so much on the pounds, shillings and pence but on making the positive case for the Union. That is an important point.
Simon Hoare
No, thank you.
As we face the opportunities and the challenges of our country leaving the European Union, I am absolutely convinced that we stand the best and strongest chance of making a success of this new chapter of our national story if we stand shoulder to shoulder and do these things together.
May I just say a brief word in relation to Northern Ireland? It was clear that, because it is the only part of the kingdom with a land border with a country that will remain part of the European Union, we needed a border. The question was what and where. We tried the north-south proposal, and we found it to be impossible and not to be supported by many. The east-west proposal is clearly not perfect and, of itself, presents challenges. However, I do not believe that the people of this country define themselves by the narrow rules that govern their customs arrangements—it is far deeper and more spiritual than that. It is key that we maintain the unity of our United Kingdom. The challenge, which I am fully convinced that those on the Front Bench are seized of, is to ensure that, whatever the regime of customs arrangements, they are the lightest touch and are, in essence, cost-neutral. We can achieve that through all sorts of VAT reclaim and other mechanisms.
Let me conclude by saying that the people have spoken, and we on the Government side of the House are their champions. We listened to what they said in 2016, and we have heard it again. We on this side are fully armed to ensure that we restore the democratic legitimacy of this place and the national respect for it. The challenge now will be for Opposition parties to put aside the arguments that they deployed in full sincerity and in good heart but that, put simply, they have lost. It is time to move on. This Bill gives us the opportunity to do so. It has my full support.
Debate on the Address
Alan Brown Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I know the hon. Gentleman wants to ask about buses, but I must make progress.
My hon. Friend was elected as a blue collar Conservative from a traditionally Labour seat, a path that many have just followed. Since then, as he pointed out quite rightly, he has secured funding for a new A&E department at his local hospital and a new railway station for Willenhall. I know he comes from a Labour family. In fact, I think his brother is a Labour councillor. When he first declared himself a Conservative he felt, he said, like the black sheep of the family. All I can say is I bet that if they are watching today, they will feel nothing but pride in my hon. Friend’s brilliant speech.
Let me also welcome to his place the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, a stickler, as we all know, for watching a Queen’s Speech at the right time. [Laughter.] Although I do not know what he has against coronation chicken, Mr Speaker. As our exchanges across the Dispatch Box come towards a close—alas—let me say that our personal relations have always been excellent. For all our disagreements, I have never doubted that the right hon. Gentleman’s beliefs are deeply held and his sincerity is to be admired. Certain members of his shadow Cabinet, on the other hand, are absolutely clear where the responsibility for the election result lies. The voters of the country have let his side down. They have forfeited the confidence of the Opposition and the time has come for Labour to take the only possible step: dissolve the electorate and replace it with a new one—at least, I think that is what the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said.
For my own part, I feel a colossal sense of obligation to the electorate that I and we are humbled to serve. I say to those people who lent us their votes, however hesitantly, that this Government will now engage flat out on a programme of change for the better. Tomorrow is the day when we finally peel back the plastic wrapping, about which you have heard so much, Mr Speaker, and present our oven-ready deal. It will go into the microwave as the withdrawal agreement Bill—it works in both devices, this deal—taking back control of our money, our borders, our laws and our trade, clearing the way for an overarching programme of national renewal.
Above all, it is time to invest in the institution that gives the country its cohesion and even our national spirit—the simple and beautiful idea that whoever you are, the NHS is there for you when you fall sick. As our NHS cares for us, so we will care for the NHS, delivering the biggest cash boost in a generation, and, for the first time, this Queen’s Speech guarantees a new funding settlement in law. What will that pay for? The biggest hospital-building programme in living memory, with 40 new hospitals, 50,000 more nurses—and their bursaries—6,000 more GPs and 50 million more GP appointments, and we will introduce a new NHS visa to fast-track talented staff from overseas. We will scrap those iniquitous hospital parking charges for all staff and vulnerable people, and we will guarantee dignity and fairness for everyone in their later years with a long-term and sustainable solution to social care. Indeed, I invite cross-party work on that solution, in the spirit of co-operation that I think is supported by many, many Members on both sides of the House.
While many of these measures were indeed foreshadowed in the last Queen’s Speech, fortified by our new mandate we will go even further. We will give millions of tenants greater rights over their rented homes, abolishing no-fault evictions. We will help millions of commuters whose lives are made miserable by strike action by imposing minimum service agreements.
The Prime Minister
I will happily give way—if the hon. Gentleman is opposed to helping struggling commuters, I am delighted to hear from him.
Alan Brown
Earlier on, the Prime Minister used the slogan, the “people’s Parliament”, but the people of Scotland rejected his Government. If he really believes in the people, is it not right that the people of Scotland should have their say in a referendum?
The Prime Minister
I think it was Nicola Sturgeon herself who said that the referendum in 2014 was a “once in a generation” event. I do not know about you, Mr Speaker, but I feel that the Scottish Nationalist party should concentrate more on delivering on the domestic priorities of the people of Scotland and rather less on breaking up our United Kingdom.