Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Charles Kennedy

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman seeks that information from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, it will be forthcoming.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State, as a highlands and islands MP, will share the sense of anger and injustice at SSE’s 2p surcharge on electricity costs, given that it made a profit of £1.5 billion last year. Will he do everything possible at the UK level to ameliorate this state of affairs, not least by endorsing the excellent campaign by The Press and Journal?

[Mr Carmichael]

I rarely have any difficulty in endorsing a campaign run by The Press and Journal. The question of the price being paid by electricity consumers across the highlands and islands is complex, but I know that we all benefit from being part of the wider UK energy market.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Charles Kennedy

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

May I first join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the hydro engineers and telecoms engineers, who are working throughout the highlands and islands even as we speak? They provide an excellent service to our local communities and we should place on record our gratitude towards them. They work in very difficult circumstances.

On 4G coverage, the hon. Gentleman will no doubt be aware of the deal my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport made recently with mobile network operators. That offers the opportunity for greater coverage of 3G and 4G. We will need to see, when they come forward with the actual proposals, what that will mean for our communities, but I can assure him that I am keeping an eye on it.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

In echoing and endorsing entirely the points made by my immediate highland constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), may I encourage the Secretary of State to stress to the Scottish Government the need in particular to draw BT’s attention to Openreach? It is ironically entitled, as constituents and consumers cannot reach it openly and cannot contact it directly, which is why they cannot get an answer to the legitimate question: when is last year’s £10 million investment of UK Government money actually going to meet their needs and be delivered?

[Mr Carmichael]

It is clear, beyond any doubt, that a substantial amount of money is going in from this Government, the Scottish Government, local authorities and European funds to this most important area of economic development. Responsibility for delivery, at the end of that money, rests with the Scottish Government. I take it, from the comments of my right hon. Friend and others in the House, that the Scottish Government need to be telling our communities more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Charles Kennedy

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

No subject, apparently, is so complex or involved that it cannot be trivialised by the Scottish nationalists. The reasons people have to resort to using food banks are complex, and many of them have more to do with the difficulties they face in work than with being on benefits. I am quite prepared to listen to representations from every part of the House about what the Government can do, but frankly I do not expect to hear anything constructive from the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is more than a sense of irony about the fact that the devolution cause—to maintain but reform the United Kingdom—was based largely on the correct analysis that too many economic decisions were being concentrated here in London. Yet, now in Scotland, if we look at Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Crofting Commission, to take just two examples, we see that too many economic decisions are being centred politically in Edinburgh? Does he agree that Scotland’s long-term financial benefit is in the UK, but that we also need a more devolved Scotland?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Charles Kennedy

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

There remains a great deal to do. I suspect I share many of the hon. Lady’s concerns about the continuing high level of youth unemployment and the number of people who have been unemployed for a longer period. I see encouraging signs of progress in these areas, but they are by no means to be taken for granted. There are tremendous opportunities for the two Governments in Scotland, along with councils in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and elsewhere, to work together to get the best possible arrangements for the unemployed.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

When the Secretary of State visits the highlands and addresses a Burns supper in Inverness on Friday night, I am sure he will hear a lot from those present about one of the most exciting job prospects for the highlands and for Scotland as a whole, which is the potential of the Kishorn site in my constituency for offshore wind development. May I encourage him and his colleagues to continue to work with Edinburgh to promote the interests of this exciting project? I wanted to get my plug in now because, due to a previous long-standing engagement, I will not be there on Friday night myself.

[Mr Carmichael]

I shall, in fact, be carrying out other engagements, although I understand that tickets for that Burns supper are still available and are very reasonably priced. In relation to Kishorn, my right hon. Friend raises an important local concern for his constituents, as he has a long and proud record of doing. I certainly look forward to hearing the detail about that. We are seeing such developments growing across the United Kingdom, particularly in Scotland, and it is because our plan has worked.

Helicopter Crash (Glasgow)

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Charles Kennedy

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

I commend the hon. Lady for her response and for the approach that she has taken. We have been in close contact throughout the course of this weekend and I very much expect that to continue. If I may say so, the ability of the Government, the Opposition and the Scottish National party to work together is the very least we can do in these circumstances. To take any other approach would be wholly inappropriate, given the magnificent response we have seen from the people of Glasgow.

On the question of the early report of the air accidents investigation branch, it would be impossible to give any undertakings at the moment. I can say that the earliest possible publication of the interim report will be made. I very much hope that in the course of the investigation any information that can be supplied to the families will be supplied. Should there be any difficulties in that regard, my office, and I am sure the office of the Secretary of State for Transport will stand ready to address any issues.

On the support to be given by Glasgow city council, the council is best placed to deliver that support. It has all the facilities in the communities and knows best where to find the people who need assistance and comfort. I am in regular contact with the leader of Glasgow city council and I value the strength of the working relationship between his office and mine. I am confident that should there be need for assistance from Her Majesty’s Government in Westminster, he will not be slow in asking. We will do everything within our power to give him the assistance he needs.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I thank the Secretary of State for Scotland for his well-judged comments and for the content of his statement, which we all endorse completely. He and I share a strong empathy and ongoing attachment to the city, through the university of Glasgow. I am sure he and others will agree that the sentiment and sense of the song popular down the generations, “I Belong to Glasgow”, had a particularly poignant ring to it in the heart of every Scot around the world during this sad St Andrew’s weekend.

In rightly paying tribute to the emergency services and to ordinary citizens for what they have achieved, and are continuing to achieve, at considerable risk to themselves as a result of these appalling events, I ask my right hon. Friend to thank one other branch of public life that we, across the political spectrum, do not always praise in this House: the media. The broadcast media—BBC Scotland, in particular, but the commercial sector in Glasgow and the west of Scotland in general—and the print media have shown great responsibility and sensitivity to those involved, particularly to those who have lost loved ones. We hope that that will be maintained, and that the privacy of those who are having their loved ones returned to them will be respected in the future, too.

[Mr Carmichael]

My right hon. Friend reminds me that he and I share the experience of having gone from the west highlands in our latter teenage years to be students at the university of Glasgow. I revisited my own time there recently and carry with me to this day fond memories of the warmth of welcome that was given to me and the strength of community I found as a west highlander arriving in Glasgow in the early 1980s. I am sure my right hon. Friend’s experience was the same, and I am certain that it is the strength of the community that has produced the remarkable response we have seen in the course of the last three or four days.

With regard to the self-denying ordinance of the media outlets, I think my right hon. Friend is correct to draw attention to the restraint exhibited thus far, and I am sure that he shares my hope that that approach will continue.