Debate on the Address

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for his intervention. I am very well aware of the tensions in Northern Ireland, and the issues that have to be dealt with in our relations with the EU, but we have to face the fact that promises were made about Brexit that were not true, and which have not borne fruit. It is in our economic interests, our national interests and our defence interests to be closer to Europe. Of course we will navigate carefully, taking on board the issues in Northern Ireland, as he would expect, but it is in our interest to be closer to the EU. That is what we are doing, and we will go further.

This moment demands even greater radicalism on energy security. The British people should not have to pay more in their bills, and their living standards should not be hit, because of a war that they did not vote for and that Britain is not involved in, which is happening thousands of miles away. That is a fundamental argument of this Government, and the Conservatives have no answer to it. For decades they ducked the long-term decisions to make our country, our energy and our economy stronger, so we are going to take control. We are going to declare Britain’s energy independence. That does not mean, and it will not mean, that we turn off the taps in the North sea—oil and gas will be part of the mix for decades—but we have to move so much faster on clean energy, with a whole-society effort and everyone playing their part as we take control of our energy security.

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

I am very grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. He talks about energy security; he should know that Scotland has an energy surplus—we generate more electricity than we use—and that, in conditions of surplus, prices go down. However, in Scotland, because we are stuck in the GB energy market, we pay for the scarcity of energy in England—not just to the point of equality, but to our detriment, so that there are higher prices for energy in Scotland. Can he explain why that dysfunction exists, and what is in this King’s Speech to fix it?

[The Prime Minister]

What is in this King’s Speech to fix that is moving faster to our energy independence. That is the way that we get off the international markets. That is the way that we take control and reduce bills for people across the country.

We will, of course, also strengthen our country’s defence security. That starts with the fundamentals, and a recognition that it is not in the interests of this country to rush into a war without any thought of the consequences. That is my position, and that has always been my position, regardless of the pressure—a test of judgment that some in this House have failed. It continues with our commitment to NATO, the most successful defensive alliance in history, and a proud achievement of this party that others would throw away.

Today, faced with even greater threats, we need to strengthen NATO, we need to invest in our defence capabilities, and we need to strengthen the European element of NATO, because this nation is stronger when it stands with others, not just in word, but in deed. We are prepared to lead from the front; to bring nations together in this moment of danger; to support Ukraine, including through the coalition of the willing; and to act with our allies to reassure shipping in the strait of Hormuz. We are not content merely to manage the fallout from the Iran crisis; instead, we are building an international effort to solve it and end the economic harm.

Of course, standing up for the defence and security of the United Kingdom depends on one thing above all else: ending 14 years of Tory defence austerity with the biggest sustained investment since the cold war. We will go further with the measures outlined in the King’s Speech and our upcoming defence investment plan. We will develop the capabilities that our nation needs. We will also deepen our partnerships to fire up our industries and make sure that British skill, British pride and British resolve are converted into British jobs in a stronger, fairer Britain.

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[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I should say at the outset how much I welcome the opening remarks of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister about antisemitism. Kenton United Synagogue and Golders Green sit very close to my constituency. The attacks were shocking and appalling; I welcome the Government’s determination to crack down on online hatred and antisemitism, and I take this opportunity to commend the courage and skill of the police officers who responded.

One of the many important points that my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) made in her excellent and humorous speech was the need for those of all faiths—and indeed those of no faith—to stand together against hatred. That point will resonate particularly in a constituency such as mine. My hon. Friend gave a brilliant speech. She is an inspiration, and I suspect I am not the only Member to feel that it is an honour to be in the same party as her.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), who is without doubt a rising star in our ranks, made me jealous with his marathon-running skills. If hon. Members will forgive me, I will not dwell on his love letter to Harlow, but I will dwell a little bit on our shared commitment to co-operation. Together with other members of the Co-operative parliamentary party, I hope we will see progress on delivering solutions to the need for capital so that more co-operatives can expand in our country over the time covered by this King’s Speech.

The biggest challenge facing our country remains how to put more money in people's pockets and drive up living standards at a time of ever-increasing global tensions. It is worth remembering what the Leader of the Opposition is clearly trying to forget: after 14 years of austerity, and after the Conservatives and their friends in Reform led us out of the world’s biggest market, doing huge economic damage, our public services are still in need of sustained investment. In that regard, I share my constituents’ impatience for change.

I welcome the determination in the Gracious Speech to continue to reform the leasehold system, for example to make service charges more transparent, fairer and easier to challenge. I welcome the plans to abolish NHS England, to fund more investment in expanding GP services and to bring down waiting lists and waiting times in hospitals such as Northwick Park, which serves my constituents. I welcome, too, the overdue crackdown on late payments by big firms to small businesses.

There are two long-term changes that I believe are key to delivering sustained higher living standards, particularly for my constituents. The first will be to secure far better access to Europe’s single market; the second will be to secure far better access to finance for small businesses and the financially vulnerable. On Europe, I particularly welcome the European partnership Bill in this Gracious Speech as the next step towards a closer relationship with Europe. With the US increasingly unreliable as an ally and with the economic damage from Brexit ever clearer, Britain needs to prioritise negotiating a dramatically better trade, defence and security deal with the EU. The imminent deal lowering barriers to trade in food will reduce red tape and lower business costs. The decision to rejoin Erasmus and the coming deal on youth mobility are positive, too.

A referendum in my lifetime on whether to rejoin the EU feels inevitable, and if it happens, I will be very tempted to campaign to rejoin. We are, though, a long way from such a moment. The priority, with the next UK-EU summit coming up, should be to reach agreement for a full renegotiation of the trade and co-operation agreement and to secure greater access to the single market, which would be far more beneficial than mere customs union membership. The recently concluded EU-Swiss trade deal offers a helpful pointer, with much more integration into the single market for more sectors of Switzerland’s similarly service-based economy. Further security and defence co-operation, increased business mobility, mutual recognition agreements to remove duplicate product testing and certification to make it easier for businesses to sell British goods in European markets would make a significant difference for businesses here, for our economy and ultimately for living standards.

[Dave Doogan]

I am listening intently to the hon. Gentleman’s anticipation of a brighter future, with a closer relationship with the EU. He even goes so far as to say that he looks forward to another referendum on whether to rejoin the European Union. Does he agree that when we are sold an outcome in a false prospectus on a referendum, it is probably no big deal to have a rerun of that referendum so that we can make an informed decision about our constitutional future?

[Gareth Thomas]

The one thing I would agree with the hon. Gentleman on is that we need a closer relationship. It is this Government who have sought to rebuild relations with Europe, and they are doing so increasingly effectively. On the need to open up opportunities for more co-operation with Europe, I recognise that we will have to pay to access the single market more easily, but given the damage to our economy, the higher costs and the extra bureaucracy that the poorly negotiated Brexit deal brought in its wake, we should be willing to negotiate that hard bargain.

The second long-term issue that we should focus on as necessary to deliver sustained higher living standards is banking. Millions of people and thousands of small businesses are locked out of affordable credit and forced into high-cost or illegal lending. Money is being taken from the pockets of the poorest, and economic growth is being stifled. This is an entrenched but fixable market failure, which I hope the coming enhancing financial services Bill may begin to address.

Research published in January by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, funded by the Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade, made the striking conclusion that if Britain had a network of mutual banks that had stronger direct relationships with their small business owners, growth would be higher by between 1% and more than 2% over its first five years, rising to between 1.7% and 3.5% over the long term. It noted, too, that investment would be almost 2% to 3.5% higher in the first five years, rising to between 2% and almost 4.5% higher in the long run. The research—it is academic research—looks at the impact of mutual banks in France, state-run German regional banks and community development finance institutions in the US, and considers how much more lending would happen if the UK had a somewhat less centralised banking model than we have now.

Many suggestions for how to deliver growth are currently doing the rounds, but the scale of the impact of more investment in mutual or community banks, as this serious research suggests, raises the obvious question of what more we could achieve in this area during this Parliament by expanding the reach and scale of mutual banks, building more direct and personal relationships with more small and medium-sized businesses, offering more affordable credit options for personal customers, and creating a greater willingness to back hard-headed community ownership initiatives that help to restore pride in the places where we live.

Fair banking legislation—similar to that in the US—would help. Proactive efforts to help credit unions expand through employers, particularly those in the public sector, offering payroll deduction options would help too. The biggest banks should actively help support the expansion of community banks; one or two do, but they need sustained private capital investment. Barclays, Santander and HSBC invest in community development finance institutions or community banks in the US, but they do not here in the UK. That should change.

Let me turn to the international situation. I welcome the Government’s continuing support for Ukraine, the decision to stay out of the illegal conflict with Iran and the strong support for NATO. The situation in Gaza remains profoundly disturbing. Every child under five in Gaza is considered undernourished by UNICEF and other aid agencies. Almost every school has been destroyed or severely damaged, and 96% of households lack adequate access to water. Over 1 million children are facing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, which I suggest demands fresh and sustained UK engagement. I strongly supported the Government’s decision last year to recognise the state of Palestine to protect the viability of a two-state solution and create a path towards a lasting peace for the Israeli and Palestinian people. Distant as that prospect may seem, in my view it remains the only path to a sustainable peace for the Palestinians and Israelis alike. The UN documented more than 1,800 settler attacks last year in the west bank—the highest on record and clearly part of a sustained campaign to reduce the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Action to clamp down on goods coming into the UK from illegal settlements and to further sanction violent settlers is needed.

Lastly, 80 years since the founding meeting took place just across from where this House meets, a renewed commitment to the United Nations has never been more necessary. For all its failings—and there have been many—it remains our best route for addressing conflicts, for tackling global health threats, for promoting the rights of all, for delivering humanitarian aid and for championing the interests of the world’s most vulnerable. With our coming G20 and G7 presidencies, we are in a unique position to support the current UN Secretary-General as he seeks to rethink and reaffirm the UN’s role for the world we are in now. I hope that we will support him in those efforts.

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[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

If I was not cheered by the landslide victory of the SNP in Scotland last week, I certainly am after this King’s Speech. It is just as well that the people of Scotland have John Swinney as First Minister and the SNP as the Scottish Government to stand as the buttress of fairness and justice between them and the remote and unaccountable UK Government in Westminster. They are not just remote and unaccountable but dysfunctional to an alarming degree, and that dysfunction is what has precipitated this most vapid of King’s Speeches.

If somebody who was unaware of the UK malaise, and the multiple economic crises affecting it, saw the Government’s solution in the form of this King’s Speech, they would be unable to identify the problem. That speaks to an obscurity of purpose. Government should have a clarity of purpose—see also the SNP Scottish Government in Edinburgh—but this Government have not got a clue. They are so busy bickering with one another, arguing with each faction about who gets the next shot at being the Prime Minister, that they cannot focus on the problems ailing the people up and down these islands—and the problems are profound. People are unable to pay their energy bills, and they do not know whether they will have a job this month, next month or the month after that. There is a crushing concern about everything, not just this or that. People are now terrified about their washing machine breaking down or their car getting a puncture, because they are so hard up.

Under this Labour Government, the margin of economic resilience in people’s homes has been eroded to a translucent wafer. There is nothing between the wolf and the bank account, after less than two years of a Labour Government. I do not understand why that could be. I am a political bore and I understand these things—or I thought I did. They have a majority that would choke a horse. They have been preparing for government for 14 years, yet they come in and it is like they just landed. They even said as much: “Well, we didn’t know the state of the books.” If they never knew the state of the books, they were the only people who did not, yet they had the temerity to come in, take power and make it even worse.

Labour Members kid themselves about the reason Labour was elected, but really they know it. They tell themselves, “It was our manifesto. We have a mandate.” There was no mandate for this guddle. Nothing that has happened over the last 22 months was backed up by a mandate. Labour was elected, and ushered in with a colossal majority, for one reason alone: Labour was not the Tories, and it is a two-party system in this place—or rather, it was. That is why Labour Members are here.

[Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain to the House what the Government in Scotland have done over the last 20 years to generate the economic growth that he talks about?

[Dave Doogan]

What the hon. Lady, as a Scottish Unionist—I am sure a proud Scottish Unionist, for reasons best known to herself—needs to understand is that the UK is not contingent on Scotland, but Scotland is contingent on the UK. The decisions made here affect Scotland, but the decisions made in Scotland do not affect down here. Against that backdrop, Scotland is regularly in the upper quartile for GDP per capita in the United Kingdom. This myth that we are subsidised by the rest of the UK is risible. We economically outperform more than three quarters of the UK in any given quarter, roughly. We are the top destination for foreign direct investment. Foreign companies are not confused: they know where they get a return on their investment in the United Kingdom, and it is in Scotland. Our unemployment is lower and our employment is higher. I could go on, but I do not want to get in trouble, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Seamus Logan]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech—his first as our party’s new group leader. He mentioned the vapid King’s Speech—this is no criticism of the King, of course—which contained the renewed promise of a Hillsborough law that the Government have had two years to introduce. Why on earth is it taking the Government so long to deliver on their manifesto promises?

[Dave Doogan]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that issue, which is so important to many people across the UK but especially in the north of England, and in Liverpool in particular. But it is not just that. It is the way Labour rushed during the campaign to stand shoulder to shoulder with WASPI women before abandoning them when they got into office. It is about the family farm tax, which the Labour party expressly said before the election that it would not introduce but then got in and did exactly that. That was a gross betrayal of our agricultural industry and our rural communities.

The change to employer national insurance was self-evidently anti-industry, self-evidently inflationary and self-evidently a tax on jobs. It was going to have one potential outcome. The £25 billion that the Government said that it would bring in was complete fantasy; by the time they had compensated for the public sector, it was down to single figures of billions, and even that did not take into account the drag on the economy and the lower fiscal receipts as a result of that disastrous, self-defeating policy.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

What would be the hon. Gentleman’s answer to filling that massive fiscal black hole that we were left with?

[Dave Doogan]

What the hon. Gentleman needs to understand is that countries grow their way out of these issues. Growth comes from economic investment in equipment and people, raising productivity and lowering economic inactivity and all those things that have risen under Labour, because Labour does not understand economics—never has, never will.

Before I move on, I want to focus on the real impact on real people. Unemployment is now at its highest level in five years. Unemployment across the UK is at 5.2%; thankfully, through the economic efforts of our SNP Scottish Government, it is at 4.1% in Scotland, although that is still far too high for our communities. Youth unemployment in the UK is at 15%. That is a catastrophe. The way young people enter the world of work dictates their relationship with employment for the rest of their lives, and that is catastrophically damaging for young people up and down these islands.

Youth unemployment is particularly acute in hospitality. Hospitality is a gateway industry for employment, but the Government are taxing it out of existence. People with a pub, a hotel or a restaurant now feel like unpaid tax collectors for this Labour Government.

[Christine Jardine]

While I agree with the hon. Member about young people’s routes into work, how does that sit with the way his SNP Government in Scotland have destroyed apprenticeships up there? As for the hospitality industry in Scotland, it pays business rates in Scotland—I hear complaints about them all the time. Is that perhaps why the SNP lost seats in the election that he is so busy congratulating himself on?

[Dave Doogan]

We still got more than four times as many seats as the Lib Dems in Scotland, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will not be taking any lectures there. However, I look forward to working closely with the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Government—

[Christine Jardine]

That’s never going to happen.

[Dave Doogan]

I am not sure the hon. Lady has that in her gift, but to her point about youth unemployment, as I said to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor), the Scottish Government are subject to the same economic malaise as anywhere else in the United Kingdom. It is to the betterment of the fortunes of their constituents and mine that they are under an SNP Government—on that point, I can assure the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) that she is welcome.

Do not just take my word for it, Madam Deputy Speaker: the markets give their verdict on what is happening in the United Kingdom, and the markets are incredibly concerned. That is why 10-year gilt interest rates touched 5.13%, a rate not seen in the UK since the financial crash of 2008—a very dangerous report card.

[Alison Taylor]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dave Doogan]

No. I am going to make progress and close my speech.

Defence is the first duty of government, but under this Labour Government, if we had a significant investment for every blunderbuss piece of hyperbole and rhetoric on defence, we would be in a far better position than we are. The Prime Minister said in his speech earlier that we are negotiating a de-escalation of the war in Iran. He did not tell us which of the three protagonists was listening to the pontifications of the UK Prime Minister—because not one of the three participants in that conflict could care less what the Prime Minister thinks about the war in Iran.

The defence investment plan—the road map for what defence will look like in the United Kingdom for the next decade—is now a year late. I do not know what the Government think they can get away with, but if their signal, apex piece of defence legislation is more than a year late, that tells this Parliament and everyone up and down these islands that they do not have a clue about defence any more than they have a clue about anything else.

[Dr Arthur]

I am genuinely grateful to be here for the hon. Gentleman’s first speech as SNP leader here in Westminster. It is just a shame that only one other of his fellow SNP MPs is here—no doubt they are all on important business. I know that he does champion the defence sector, unlike some of his colleagues in Scotland, but he sits on the Scottish Affairs Committee and he knows the sector’s concerns about skills development and education in Scotland. Does he share those concerns, and what is he doing to influence his colleagues in the Scottish Government to ensure that the sector is more fully supported?

[Dave Doogan]

The defence sector is a significant part of the Scottish economy, and I just wish that the hon. Gentleman and his Unionist colleagues in the Labour party, and in other lesser parties, would acknowledge the fact that this is a mutual endeavour and that the UK benefits greatly from the skills and expertise that exist in Scotland, as well as from the apprenticeships, training and investment. Let us not forget that everybody who works in the defence sector in Scotland went through a Scottish school, a Scottish apprenticeship, a Scottish college or a Scottish university. There is this idea that everything was fantastic previously and is terrible now. The former is not true, and the latter is not true either. It is a work in progress, and we are investing heavily in Scottish education. That is why such a high percentage of people leaving school in Scotland are going on to a positive destination.

The Prime Minister said that he was going to take steps to bring the United Kingdom into the very heart of Europe. Well, he is not going to do that without rejoining the EU, so this is yet more hyperbole and fantasy. My final word on this is that a Government in this level of disarray—with this level of division and infighting, who have caused so much damage in such a short period of time to people’s livelihoods and to the economy—needed to make an emergency response today, but this King’s Speech was anything but. I look forward to them getting their house in order, but I won’t be holding my breath.