Free Trade Agreements: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Patrick Grady

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman —it is good to be criticised, because that forces people to look inwards and see exactly what is happening and what needs to be done. The role of the Committee is first to scrutinise and sometimes to help the Government, and indeed, as the Minister will know, perhaps to chide them. It is also to set the agenda at times—that alludes to other countries, as the right hon. Gentleman says. We can trade with countries without trade deals, but the terms of trade vary. We pay tariffs, and usually when we get rid of those in a trade agreement we have bureaucracy instead.

The right hon. Gentleman gives me the opportunity to raise an important point on the Floor of the House, which is about resources. He is asking the Committee to do more. Yes, the Committee can do more. We are aware we can do more, but we are very aware that our workload leaves a heavy burden on Committee staff. If he can add his voice to other voices to ensure that the Committee is well resourced, we will be eternally grateful to our critical friend on the Labour Back Benches.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

I regularly hear from constituents in Glasgow North who are concerned about the inability of many of us to effectively scrutinise trade deals. We are lucky if we get even a straight up or down vote on the whole proposition, rather than having any influence over the detail of those deals. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that this is another aspect of Brexit? We were told that Brexit was about taking back control for this House, and the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty, but what he describes in his report sounds an awful lot like an Executive power grab, where instead of Brussels bureaucrats it is Whitehall mandarins and unaccountable Tory Ministers deciding policy. Surely if the Government really believe in parliamentary sovereignty and the sovereignty of this House, they should adopt the recommendations in the Committee’s report in full.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his fair comments about empowering the House on trade deals. That should be welcomed, particularly by Government Members given that they are in the majority. It might also help better trade deals come into existence and be signed—trade deals that people can unite behind, rather than giveaway trade deals or, in the words of the Prime Minister, “one-sided” trade deals. I am not sure whether having revolving doors, with Secretaries of State or other Ministers going from position to position, really helps. It is good to see a retread, if I may be so gentle, because I think this is the Minister’s second or third time back—[Interruption.] The third time, with, I trust, a body of institutional knowledge coming back to the Department. There is a concern, however, that these things gain a momentum of their own. A previous Prime Minister—but which one? The one from Uxbridge—was desperate to see bits of paper being signed. There was that going on.

I understand why the hon. Member’s constituents are frustrated. The House should have a say and have input. There are people out there who will be affected by trade deals, and they should have those concerns reflected in the House of Commons so that the negotiators can know, before they start to negotiate, what the difficulties are for certain parts of the UK and, when trade-offs are made, if the damage is to Welsh hill farmers for the benefit of City types in London, that is recognised in future fiscal transfers.

Refugee Family Reunion

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Patrick Grady

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that 20 June is World Refugee Day; further notes that, with record levels of global displacement across the world, many refugee families have been separated by war and persecution; welcomes that in 2018 the UK granted 5,806 family reunion visas to partners and children of refugees in the UK; and calls on the Government to introduce reforms to family reunion rules to ensure that the close relatives of all refugees in the UK have safe and legal pathways to reunite with their families in the UK.

Much has been happening in and around the House of Commons, and in many other places, to mark World Refugee Day and Loneliness Awareness Week. There has been a lack of progress on the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill, which should have been passed by the House of Commons under this Government.

The idea of a “pull factor” was one of the hares set running on Second Reading on 16 March 2018, and the Bill has not progressed much further. Lord Kerr addressed that in the House of Lords:

“Is it really plausible that, say in Idlib—

or, indeed, any city in the world—

“if it is under siege in six weeks’ time, the family sits around the dining table, pick a child and tell it that it must set off across the battle lines and the Mediterranean, to try to get into England so that it can then pull the family into England? That is implausible. We are talking about refugee reunion and about children. We really must stop talking about this wildly implausible pull factor. They come here to escape being killed; they do not come here in order to become a magnet for the rest of the family.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 May 2018; Vol. 791, c. 372.]

If we bear that in mind in this debate, and in each and every other debate on refugees, we will do ourselves and, indeed, refugees a great service by showing them the respect they deserve for what they have been through.

It would be worth while, as I did on Second Reading, to begin by talking about the idea of refugees. I began that debate by talking about Yohannes, a young welder from Eritrea living in Canterbury. Last month, I came across an article in The Independent headlined, “Germany’s refugee intake begins to boost economy as settlers soothe country’s worker shortage”. I re-emphasise that today’s refugee is tomorrow’s worker contributing to the economy.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He has been a powerful champion and advocate, and I hope that, at the end, the Government will allow time for his Bill to proceed. Once families are reunited under his proposals, it is important that they contribute properly to the economy. Does he agree that the Government must move forward on extending the right to work to asylum seekers?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend makes the case well. We should treat asylum seekers as normally as possible. We often talk about spectrums nowadays, and there is perhaps an argument that we are all on a spectrum of refugees, asylum seekers and movers. A person who moves from one town to another for work is a person on the move. We have various words to grade that movement.

I have been cautioned about making the comparison because, in a way, it minimises or downplays the trauma some people have been through, but on the other hand it is a way of partially seeing ourselves in other people’s shoes. We are not quite escaping war and the threat of being killed, but moving for economic circumstances is a normal thing to do. The more we treat the situation as normal, as my hon. Friend clearly said, the better.

Germany is fairly normal. The article in The Independent says:

“In his native Syria, Mohammed Kassim worked as an electrician. But having learned the trade informally, he lacked the credentials to show for it. Now, in his adopted homeland, the 30-year-old is receiving the training he never had and he is getting paid to do it by a company dangling the promise of a job that could vault him from struggling refugee to member of the German middle class.”

That is the sort of story we want to hear, four years after many people came to Germany. Of course, it is not all sweetness and light. A number of those people are still unemployed, but that is changing. The article continues:

“But after spending billions of euros to accommodate the newcomers, Germany is beginning to reap some gains.”

The German economy is benefiting from the presence of more people, who happen to be refugees.

I will set out the global context. There are about 24 million refugees worldwide, and every day some 44,000 people are forced to flee their home as a result of conflict and persecution. To give some idea, 44,000 people would probably fill Ibrox and Parkhead in the Scottish premier league, and would certainly fill the average stadium in the English premiership. That is a lot of people who are forced to move every day, and this movement of people within and across borders is creating significant policy challenges for Governments across the world and is linked to enormous humanitarian needs.

It is worth reminding ourselves of the definition. A person seeking asylum has normally left their own country due to war, persecution or violence and has requested sanctuary in another country, and their application to receive legal protection has yet to be processed. Importantly, refugees are at the next stage—this is where my Bill comes in. A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his country and has been recognised as having a well-founded fear of persecution. They are not only fleeing as an asylum seeker, but this has now been accepted by others. The reason for persecution could be race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, as we recently saw in Myanmar. A refugee has been granted special legal protection on that basis. War and ethnic, tribal or religious violence are leading causes of refugees fleeing their country. It is worth bearing that in mind.

Sittings of the House (29 March)

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Patrick Grady

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Tomorrow, 29 March, had long been trailed as the Brexiteers’ brilliant independence day. It was the day that they had trumpeted for two and half long years, but it turns out that, actually, on 29 March we are going to be here in the House of Commons because the European Union demands it. The humiliation of Brexit will soon be very complete indeed. Rather than all that they promised, we have now seen, at the edge of the cliff, the horrors of Brexit and the disaster that is coming our way.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it seems the Government’s tactics have gone from, “Vote for the deal or it is no deal,” to “Vote for the deal or it is no Brexit,” to “Vote for the deal or there is no recess,” and now it is “Vote for the deal or there is just no going home at all”? The solution for those of us from Scotland who are stuck in the big Brexit house is to become independent and get out of here.

[Hon. Members]

Hooray!

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Patrick Grady

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

No, I will not give way yet; we are just getting started.

I might add that in the time that the Scottish Parliament took that vote, as well as votes on several amendments, barely one Member had spoken in this debate. Voting in the Scottish Parliament is far quicker than here; its Members can vote on far more amendments than we ever can, because they do not have the archaic procedures that we have to put up with down here.

Yesterday’s amendment paper had more pages—142—than there are words in the Bill, but today we are down to just 121 pages. The number of amendments that have been tabled highlights the dreadful inadequacies of both the Bill and this scrutiny process. There is nowhere near enough time to consider the massive implications of what Brexit will actually mean and how the Government intend to achieve it, and of course there is still no kind of meaningful information on what they think those implications might be.

[Mr MacNeil]

A theme is emerging of what Brexit might mean: a plea—I noticed this in the speech of the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove)—for the EU not to punish the UK. Yet from the same lips all the time comes the threat of a punishment to Scotland if we become independent. These acts and words will not be missed in the 27 member states of the EU—the hypocrisy, the double-edged sword and the brass neck and bare-faced cheek in the UK.

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend makes a good point—

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

Precisely. The Brexiteers’ whole point was about parliamentary sovereignty and how this House would take back for itself the opportunity to make decisions, so why are they now afraid of our having those opportunities?

[Mr MacNeil]

May I provide an answer to the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main)? The impact assessment would take slightly longer than jumping off a cliff.

[Patrick Grady]

That is a good point, well made. As I said at the start of my speech, we need the facts in front of us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

Yes. It was decided in 1972 that the policy was somehow expendable, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) is saying.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Patrick Grady]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, who has a lot of experience.

[Mr MacNeil]

I represent probably the only constituency to reach 200 miles of the exclusive economic zone. Is there not a case not just for putting Scotland in control of fisheries, but for giving the Hebrides and island groups some power over them? We should certainly not leave them in charge of the guys in Westminster who sold them down the river once and, given this White Paper, are looking to sell them down the river yet again?

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why the fishermen and women of Scotland will be particularly concerned when the Government talk about a UK-wide approach. When the Prime Minister makes passing references to Spanish fishermen, everyone knows what she is signalling. Fishermen should not be on the table as some kind of bargaining chip. The UK Government must not sell out our fishermen as they did in 1972. They must tell us now what access arrangements they will seek to negotiate, and conduct a full impact assessment for our fishing sector.

Leaving the EU will create significant uncertainty within the agricultural sector, and the UK Government have to produce an assessment of that. It is particularly true in the case of the food and drink industry, as I am sure that hon. Members who were at the briefing from people in the food and drink industry earlier today would want to know. Some 69% of Scotland’s overseas food exports go to the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

That is exactly the point. The whole machinery of government is going to be tied up for years and years—this was supposed to be about taking back control. The reality is that, if the Government do not accept these amendments and do not do these things before article 50 is triggered, they will have to do them afterwards. They are simply going to have to figure out how Brexit impacts on every single Government Department. The whole machinery of government will have to be reformed—it stands to reason. So they can do what we propose before triggering article 50 and have some kind of certainty, or they can do it afterwards and the complete chaos can continue.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Patrick Grady]

I think we need to continue looking at the various proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. An impact assessment, by definition, is more than simply something printed on the side of a bus.

[Mr MacNeil]

The argument put forward by the hon. Lady from England somewhere—the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries)—is quite strange. It is akin to the person who says, “Given the cost of buying a map, isn’t it far better that we stumble around in the dark?” That is the argument against impact assessments: do not buy a map, stumble in the dark.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

It will not surprise the House to hear that I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The single market has allowed Scotland’s economy to flourish over all these years, and that is now at stake in a hard Tory Brexit.

Finally, new clause 138 addresses trade agreements. We have heard the FCO and the Department for International Trade boasting in public about new trade agreements that the UK will sign after it leaves the EU. Of course, it cannot sign them until it has left. That is why the Government have to be transparent and report on which trade agreements they are working on and give details on the nature and terms of those deals. It is crucial that the UK Government inform and consult Parliament in their ongoing trade talks and allow scrutiny throughout the process.

[Mr MacNeil]

Of nearly 200 members of the United Nations, only six states are outwith a regional trade agreement. The UK is to become the seventh, joining the likes of Mauritania and East Timor. Does my hon. Friend share my concerns and those of the chemical industry about where that leaves us and everybody else involved? The UK is going headlong towards a cliff in joining countries as small as those.

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope that by examining in detail these vital new clauses and amendments tabled by Scottish National party Members, the Government will begin to understand how seriously we are taking this issue.

Energy Spending Priorities: Investors and Consumers

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Patrick Grady

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I would first like to thank a number of people for this debate, and particularly for its timing. The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill)—I see that he is still in the Chamber—was very kind indeed to arrange the schedule so that this was the later of the two debates, which enabled me to get down from Barra in time. Had it been the earlier debate, I am afraid I would not have been on time. I would also like to thank the staff of Loganair, who got me an earlier plane that got me down in time; many thanks before I go too far, taking two planes to get down today. [Interruption.] One of my colleagues says that this is like the Oscars. Well, this is the high point. The tears will be starting shortly.

It is a pleasure to introduce this evening’s debate on energy spending priorities. I will discuss this in relation to three reports from my Energy and Climate Change Committee produced in the past few months on investor confidence, carbon capture and storage and home energy efficiency.

We heard a lot in the run-up to the EU referendum about the impact that a vote to leave would have on investor confidence in the UK, and how businesses craved stability, transparency and certainty to plan for their spending on production, research and jobs. That presupposed that prior to the vote to leave the EU, the policy landscape was somehow calm, tranquil and settled. It is certainly not calm, tranquil or settled now, and we know that the Brexiteers deliberately had no plan in order to avoid scrutiny. That is another debate, which is taking place on television in Scotland tonight, and I will leave that where it is.

In relation to energy policy, the landscape was anything but tranquil, calm and settled. There has been considerable upheaval since the Government assumed office last year. Last June, the Department of Energy and Climate Change announced the early closure of the renewables obligation subsidy for onshore wind, citing manifesto commitments. Although it was only one line, a fact check of three pages was required to work out what it meant, so woolly was the wording. Last July, DECC announced cuts to the renewables obligation for solar PV and biomass, and changes to the feed-in tariff accreditation.

That is just a few of the policy changes that took place last summer, but it is what happened between those announcements that exercised many in the sector and contributed to the decision of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, after extensive consultation with a range of stakeholders, whom I thank for their contribution to our work, to launch our inquiry into investor confidence in the UK energy sector. I thank Jenny Bird, the senior Committee specialist, for the hard work and diligence she put into this report, and I wish her well in her new post at the centre on innovation and energy demand at the University of Sussex.

Early last July, the Office for Budget Responsibility published figures relating to the levy control framework: a notional cap on the renewable energy subsidies that consumers pay through their energy bills which covers the renewables obligation, its successor, the contracts for difference, and feed-in tariffs. Part of the Government’s objective, quite rightly, is to put affordability at the heart of energy policy. The OBR projected in its July assessment that there would be a significant increase in levy control spending compared with its March 2015 assessment. Its March 2015 assessment, the figure was £7.6 billion. By July—in the space of four months—it had increased by £1.5 billion to £9.1 billion. It adds much fuel to the fire of claims and counter-claims about the OBR and the accuracy of its work when it produces such wildly different figures over a four-month period. That clearly influenced the energy policies that were announced over the summer.

Some felt that the increase had not been adequately explained by DECC or the OBR. E.ON told my Committee that

“the evidence around cost overruns…is questionable and not transparent; publication of detailed analysis of the status of the LCF should be a priority.”

ScottishPower said that

“it will be important for the industry to have better visibility of the underlying assumptions and calculations under the LCF so as to enable efficient long-term planning.”

The key word there is “efficient”.

Freedom of information requests have been unsuccessful owing to commercial confidentiality, and questions to Ministers have hit the same buffers. I have therefore raised the matter with the National Audit Office. I am pleased that the NAO has announced a new review of the LCF, which will examine, among other things, the reason for the changes in forecast expenditure. The NAO can jump over the iron curtain that is the commercial confidentiality statement.

Two years ago, the NAO looked at how DECC modelled LCF spend and identified weaknesses that prevented it from having the highest degree of confidence in the model forecasts. Further elements of the LCF forecast need unravelling too, because if spend is set to increase by the amount the OBR has forecast, increased spend under the LCF may not automatically result in increased costs to consumers. A recent FOI request revealed that the Government had forecast that consumers would pay more towards subsidies under the LCF in 2020, but that the average total bill would come down because of lower wholesale prices. In part, that is down to the introduction of wind and solar power, which increase generation capacity at a negligible marginal cost and, therefore, lower the overall cost of wholesale electricity—the well-touted merit order effect.

It was noted by the Committee that increased uncertainty may increase premiums, and we raised that with Ministers recently. The cuts to renewable energy might therefore be counterproductive, as they are reckoned to be by many, because of the added costs of investment due to the Government’s sudden lurches in policy.

During the inquiry, we heard many voices in the industry that were disturbed by the rapid and unforeseen changes to feed-in tariffs and the renewables obligation. Concerns about the lack of detail as to when the second round of auctions for the renewables obligation’s successor, the contracts for difference, would take place have added to the uncertainty. The latest we have heard is that it will be in the last quarter of this year.

Returning to increased bills, Roger Harrabin of the BBC asked DECC to deny that the cuts to energy subsidies would put bills up, but it did not. That shows the merit order effect at work. There was an understanding in the past that money spent was an investment, not a cost. Money spent in the present should also be seen as an investment, not a cost.

We now have more clarity on the timing of the auctions—they will be in the fourth quarter of this year —but we need to know when in the fourth quarter they will be, because companies need to plan and to project. The fourth quarter of the year might be any time between 1 October and 31 December. That is simply not good enough when we are in the seventh month of the year.

We heard that subsidy reductions had created challenges for renewable investors, with new projects in early development suffering the most. Mitsubishi bank told us that it was having 95% fewer conversations with onshore wind developers. Perhaps as damaging could be the risk premium that is now attached to the UK’s green economy as a result not of the changes themselves, but of the way they were made, with little notice of consultation. Indeed, the consultation happened after the announcements. It is no surprise that our witnesses hankered for a clear, longer-term steer from the Government on, for example, what form the LCF would take post-2020.

That is encapsulated in the Ernst & Young renewable energy country attractiveness index, which ranks 40 countries according to the attractiveness of renewable energy investments. The UK slipped from eighth place in June 2015 to 11th in September 2015. That was the first time since the index was established in 2003 that the UK had been placed outside the top 10. Since our report was published, the UK has fallen to 13th—unlucky for some and particularly for the investors. Ernst & Young attributed our fall to the Government’s

“non-committal, if not antagonistic, approach to energy policy”.

I am afraid that the idea of an antagonistic approach to energy policy chimes with the frustrations that I hear from many stakeholders in the energy space when they talk to me. Our report noted the root causes of this crisis of confidence. The first was:

“Sudden and numerous policy announcements”.

The second was:

“A lack of transparency in the decision-making process”.

Thirdly, there was

“insufficient consideration of investor impacts”.

The fourth was policy inconsistency, such as

“claiming to want to decarbonise at lowest cost while simultaneously halting onshore wind”

and choosing more expensive forms of renewable generation. Fifthly, there was:

“The lack of a long-term vision”.

The last was what we called the policy “cliff-edge” in 2020.

My Committee recommended that Ministers clarify the assumptions and methodologies behind their levy control framework calculations. It would be advisable to do that before those assumptions and methodologies come out kicking and screaming from the work of our friends at the NAO. We said that Ministers should set out the post-2020 LCF budget in the context of the fourth and fifth carbon budgets to ensure that the available funding was consistent with meeting our longer-term carbon commitments. We recommended that they develop their carbon plan to achieve the fifth carbon budget in full consultation with investors, using transparent methodology and with clarity about how transitions would be managed as new technologies become established, including the intended “glide path” out of subsidies, rather than their being pushed over a cliff edge.

It is usual practice in these debates to refer to the Government’s response to the Committee’s recommendations, but I am afraid that I am unable to do so. Initially, I thought that would be because the Government had failed to produce a response, despite our report being published four months ago. It is actually because we decided, as a cross-party Committee, to send the response that we did receive last Tuesday straight back to the Government. Our report contained 14 detailed recommendations, based on extensive evidence from stakeholders and experts, including the estimate from one of our witnesses that Government policies could raise the cost of financing projects by £3.14 billion a year. None of that was responded to. Instead, we were afforded only loose replies to themes set out in the report’s summary. Indeed, it was unclear from the response whether anyone at the Department of Energy and Climate Change had read beyond page 4 of the 47-page report in the four months since its publication—a rate of one page a month.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I am a member of the Procedure Committee, and the Government slapped down our report on private Members’ Bills and gave it no detailed consideration whatsoever. Does my hon. Friend share my opinion that the Government appear to be asleep at the wheel on this, as on so many issues?

[Mr MacNeil]

The evidence might well lead my hon. Friend to take that view. That is happening in tandem with the other trend that is running amok in the southern part of the UK—that of resignations. While resignations are everywhere, the Government’s lack of consideration for Committees and other stakeholders seems to be the order of the day.

No parliamentary Committee should be treated in that way. However, it reinforces the feeling of Stockholm syndrome—or is it Lima syndrome?—when the poor souls in industry come complaining to the members and Chair of the Committee about their difficulties in getting ideas, thoughts and communication straight to the heart of Government. It makes people who are trying to make things better in the energy space wonder just how seriously the Government take them.

We urge the Government to try harder and send us something respectable for a comprehensive assessment before the recess. Investor confidence can then, we hope, begin to be rebuilt.

Carbon capture and storage is another example of the need to rebuild confidence. CCS is a technology in urgent need of development. We often talk about the energy trilemma, but there is a climate change trilemma as well. On current analysis it is difficult to see how we can have fossil fuels but no CCS and still meet our long-term decarbonisation projections at the same time. As the Secretary of State’s reset speech mentioned a dash for gas we know that fossil fuels feature in the Government’s plan. I checked on the GridCarbon app for smartphones—I am sure you have it, Madam Deputy Speaker—for current energy usage in the UK this evening. It is 51.4% gas and 5.3% wind. The key figure is the 295 grams of carbon dioxide produced for every kilowatt-hour. The 2030 target is meant to be 100 grams. It will be interesting to see quite how we are going to get to that, given the current trajectory.

As the Chair of the Committee on Climate Change, Lord Deben—from the Lords, obviously—said, not having CCS would cause the UK an issue. I love the brilliantly understated manner of that fine English gentleman’s statement of high alarm about the targets that the Government might have difficulty in meeting. He was quite right, and his delightfully understated way of putting it had far more effect than anyone shouting, running and screaming about the issue. It certainly made people pause on the morning he said it, which was the day of the launch of the fifth carbon budget.

I hope the Government will have more positive noises to make about CCS. People out there are still hanging on by their fingernails to see what the Government will say. They decided to ditch their £1 billion carbon capture and storage competition, on the day of the autumn statement. It was not in the statement itself, but was slipped out, alas, in a notice to the London stock exchange, which was deemed more important than Parliament at the time; we have certainly seen in recent days that it reacts more rapidly than Parliament when the news is bad. I note that Government promised £250 million to Aberdeen to help with the oil downturn, as part of the UK’s broad shoulders, but that one decision on CCS potentially took away £500 million, double that figure.

It is not just that the move on CCS on the day of the autumn statement was announced to the City without Parliament being told; the worst part of it is that there were serious bids in earnest preparation. People were working in good faith towards the Government’s competition. My Committee and the Procedure Committee may feel badly let down, but we are nothing by comparison with those working on the competition, devoting their working days, months and perhaps even years to it. In fact, I was invited by the Foreign Office to go to Alberta in Canada to see a carbon capture and storage project. One arm of Government thought that the UK would become a leader on CCS, but alas, within a month, it seemed that my trip had been wasted. I hope not; I hope that tonight the Secretary of State will give us some positive words on carbon capture and storage, with dates, timelines and the sort of thing that the industry is looking for.

Subsequently, in our report on CCS we criticised DECC’s decision as short-sighted, given that the costs of later projects are expected to fall rapidly, once primary infrastructure is in place. The Institute of Engineering and Technology set that out in a brilliant briefing paper for our Committee, as well. We also said that the Government should devise a new strategy for CCS in conjunction with a new gas strategy. We advised the Department to assess the financial and other benefits of using our North sea infrastructure. Work has shown that there would be enhanced recovery of up to 12% from the North sea oilfields if we used them as a place to store carbon. The work of the Committee put that forward, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr Marion Ferrat for her work on the report. We did not send the Government’s response to that report back to them. I have it here with me tonight, as proof. However, the response still failed to address our recommendations in detail. There was no clarity on whether DECC envisages that CCS will be needed at all, on whether any CfDs will be available for CCS or on the proportion of new gas-fired plants will be retrofitted with CCS. Since then, the Committee on Climate Change has reiterated the need for carbon capture and storage, calling for a “strategic approach” to the development of CCS, and stating that the technology is of “critical importance” to the UK’s efforts to decarbonise. Alas, it was not critical enough on the day of the autumn statement last year.

Renegotiation of EU Membership (Devolved Administrations)

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr MacNeil]

The respect agenda.

[Patrick Grady]

Exactly: to show us respect—the respect agenda—and to forge a platform on which we can all campaign for the UK to remain in the European Union.

The Minister said earlier in the main Chamber that he had spoken to the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs this morning, so he will no doubt be aware of the speech that she made on Monday, to which my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife also referred. That speech laid out the value of EU membership to Scotland, and not just the economic benefits, although they include more than €18 billion of exports and more than 300,000 jobs, but, as we have heard, the solidarity, social protection and support that EU membership has brought to these islands over the decades and the peace that it has brought to the continent throughout its history. In the same speech, she laid out areas in which reform is needed: competitiveness, regulation, climate change and energy. Above all, she spoke about the need to tackle the growing disconnect between individual citizens and the institutions of the European Union.

Too often these days, the European Union is used, especially by this Government, as a useful scapegoat—a useful source of blame for, or disassociation from, policies or practices that people do not like. However, that is a very dangerous game for the Government to play. When it is combined with increasing brinkmanship in the renegotiation process, the Prime Minister and the Government risk provoking a backlash among the wider public. If the Government are not careful, as they were warned in the Chamber today, they risk turning the referendum into a vote on the popularity of the Government, or even the Prime Minister himself, in which case there is a danger that a genuine debate about the importance of the EU to people’s lives will become a surrogate Tory party leadership contest, and voters could opt to leave simply to express their dissatisfaction with the current political leadership. If there is a differential between the result of that kind of vote in traditional Tory heartlands and the rest of the UK, we really will be in uncharted constitutional territory.

We usually talk about a large English majority to leave trumping a Scottish majority to stay and, as we have heard, a UK vote to leave while Scotland voted to stay would certainly violate the Scottish claim of a right to popular sovereignty, but as I said to the Minister in the Chamber today, what if a narrow English majority to leave is trumped by the votes of the other constituent nations to stay? That also takes us into uncharted constitutional territory, and I doubt that many Government Back Benchers would be happy with that kind of result. The answer is to put in place the kind of double majority that the SNP has called for consistently since we got here. The principle of a double majority is good enough for the House of Commons on the question of English votes for English laws, so I am completely unclear about why it is not good enough for this referendum.

The European Union Referendum Bill is in the House of Lords, and the Government are determined to give all those Lords a vote in the referendum. That is very important, because those 800 votes could swing the result. The Government are disfranchising European citizens and 16 and 17-year-olds, but the Lords are to have a vote in the referendum. Why not take the opportunity to put in place the double majority and the other things for which the SNP has been calling since the general election?

I hope that the Minister will see today’s debate as an opportunity to signal his intent to work constructively with the devolved Administrations on the EU negotiations and the case for continued EU membership. As my hon. Friend said, if the questions in the House are anything to go by, the Government will need friends and allies, and they are having difficulty finding them on their own Back Benches. I have no doubt that the devolved Administrations want to work for a positive outcome in the referendum. That means getting a positive outcome from the negotiation process, which in turn means ensuring that the devolved Administrations are heard, because they represent the most important stakeholders in this process—the voters of those constituent countries.