European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Drew Hendry and Patrick Grady

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

[Patrick Grady]

First, I am not convinced that the words “import” and “export” are the right ones to use when we are talking about human beings—some of the most capable and talented human beings in the world. [Interruption.] Secondly, I hear my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who is on the Education Committee, saying, “So is the rest of the United Kingdom.” Finally, we want to welcome people to Scotland. If the Government want to devolve immigration policy to us as part of the Brexit process, they should feel free to. As has been pointed out many times in these debates, the right hon. Gentleman himself has said that immigration policy should come to Scotland so that we can attract the brightest and the best, and we are not afraid to do so.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Having grown up in Inverness, my hon. Friend will remember the Kessock bridge well. When people come over it now, they can see the shining example of the new University of the Highlands and Islands campus there. Thanks to £200 million-worth of EU structural funds over the past 20 years, we have been growing our own scientists and academics in the area. Does he agree that it is absolutely scandalous that up to 2022 an estimated £19 million will be lost, with no impact assessment?

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is exactly what we are trying to achieve.

Paris Agreement on Climate Change

Debate between Drew Hendry and Patrick Grady

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I am particularly grateful to have caught your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, having missed the start of the debate. I apologise to the Front-Bench speakers for that, but I was detained in the Procedure Committee, where we were taking evidence on the effectiveness or otherwise of our EVEL—English votes for English laws—procedures. I look forward to that issue returning to the Floor of the House in due course.

I was particularly inspired to try to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, by the comments of the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) about the impact of climate change on people in developing countries. As she said, and as I said in my intervention on her, the poorest and most vulnerable people around the whole world, who are often those whose historical carbon emissions have done the least to cause climate change, are feeling the impact of climate change first and hardest. That is why, in this debate and in the negotiations that took place in Paris, the concept of climate justice is so important. As I said in my intervention, the Scottish Government have really embraced that concept, as can be seen in a range of policy interventions. The former First Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), spoke about this concept at the central party school of the Communist party of China in Beijing, no less, which shows the Scottish Government’s ambition in this area.

Along with this Parliament, the Scottish Government have set some of the most ambitious carbon reduction targets anywhere in the world. Earlier this year, we were able to announce that the commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 42% on 1990 levels by 2020 had already been met this year. Of course, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, according to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, but I am sure that it was just a coincidence that that was the target.

The other innovative approach the Scottish Government have taken is through their climate justice fund. I have had the privilege of seeing that in action at first hand in Malawi, a country with which I have become very familiar over the years. I have seen the impact of climate change in that country, as rain patterns change significantly from what people were used to. Periods of drought are followed by periods of intense rain, which makes the cultivation of crops incredibly difficult. Of course, most people in that part of the world rely on their crops as they are subsistence farmers. The changing weather patterns that result from climate change are having a huge impact on the day-to-day lives of the population of that country and the wider region. The region is, of course, facing a drought at the moment.

The climate justice fund has been able to help people to adapt to the impacts of climate change, often by using innovative methods that are energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly in their own right. For example, I visited a community in Dedza where people were able to irrigate their crops thanks to a reservoir built at the top of a hill. Without the need for any kind of electricity or pumping—just through the force of gravity—that irrigation allows people to grow crops and cultivate their food, whereas previously that would not have been possible because of drought or the erratic rain patterns. Likewise, in Chikwawa, in the south of the country, a solar pump is harnessing the extreme power of the sun that is felt in that area and turning that into green energy which, again, has allowed crops to be irrigated and food to be grown.

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. Friend mentioned innovation, particularly in a country such as Malawi. Does he agree that there is an opportunity for hydrogen technology and storage to be deployed to meet some of these ambitious targets? Many of us here hope to be around in 2050 and the Scottish Government have targets for emissions up to then. We have not heard a lot about hydrogen today, but it could also be used in vehicles, as we are doing in Aberdeen, where hydrogen buses and council vehicles are running now.

[Patrick Grady]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. That is an example of the kind of innovation we see in small countries such as Norway, which was mentioned earlier, Malawi and Scotland. What is particularly important about the Scottish Government’s climate justice fund is that it is additional to the international development fund that they make available for mainstream international development programmes. It is encouraging that the Minister for Climate Change and Industry was formerly a Minister in the Department for International Development. I hope that will mean that there will be joined-up conversations across the Government as we take forward these important concepts.

The other matter on which I wish to reflect briefly, which I mentioned in an intervention, is the message from Pope Francis about climate justice and tackling climate change, and our own personal responsibilities to take action in our daily lives to reduce our footprint on the planet. Much of this has already been discussed in terms of where our energy comes from in the first place and clean electricity generation, but we have a responsibility to drive demand reduction through the more efficient use of electricity and by purchasing more efficient electrical appliances. We do not need to live in the stone age, but we should make much more efficient use of the energy that is generated, hopefully in a clean manner. The idea of climate justice is due to the fact that people who have contributed the least to climate change and can least afford to deal with it are experiencing the greatest impact.

UK's Nuclear Deterrent

Debate between Drew Hendry and Patrick Grady

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have lost a wee bit of time, but I will be as quick as I can.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the spiralling cost, which is even more difficult to calculate because of the massive fluctuations in the currency market as a result of the Brexit vote?

[Drew Hendry]

I can only agree with my colleague. I was about to make a point about the vulnerability of the military systems. The Defense Science Board report states:

“The United States cannot be confident that our critical Information Technology (IT) systems will work under attack from a sophisticated and well-resourced opponent utilizing cyber capabilities in combination with all of their military and intelligence capabilities.”

We face the prospect of investing in a military dodo, but the situation is even worse because it can be hacked and used against us, and the Government plan to spend up to £205 billion on it.

I will not vote for Trident renewal tonight, for all of the good reasons that have been laid out, one after another, by my colleagues, but the main reason is that it is an obscenity.

Cost of Public Transport

Debate between Drew Hendry and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

The Labour party has put me in the position of having to agree with a member of the Cabinet. Imagine that—what an absolute shambles!

The Labour party spent 13 years in government without ever changing the situation, even though it heavily amended the 1993 Act with the Transport Act 2000 and the Railways Act 2005. Even though it had the power, it did absolutely nothing to repeal the 1993 Act.

This is not the first time we have heard such nonsense from the Labour party. Its leader is not so new to his position now, but not long after taking the leadership he told Marr:

“Listen I’ve been in Scotland a lot of times during the leadership campaign…I’m going to be in Scotland a great deal as leader of the party.”

We shall see whether that happens. He went on to say:

“Yes the SNP have a headline of being opposed to austerity—fine. The SNP are also privatising CalMac, also were behind the privatisation of ScotRail”.

What a pile of nonsense! Like successive Scottish Executives before them, the Scottish Government were simply following the tendering process that they are required to follow in EU law.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend recall that, once upon a time, the Labour party was in power in Scotland as well as down here? At no point did it make any effort to allow the Scottish Parliament to take the railways into some kind of public ownership.

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Labour made no effort in government either here or in Scotland to do anything about that and, as I have said, it knows very well that the 1993 Act forbids the Scottish Government to do it.

As I have said, there was a fabrication by the Labour leader. He said that the SNP was behind the privatisation of ScotRail. Did he mean the 1993 Act introduced by John Major? There was not even a Scottish Parliament at that time, but let us not let the truth or the law get in the way of anything.

The Labour leader says that his party supports rail renationalisation, but where was that support when every single amendment that the SNP tabled to the Scotland Bill was voted down in this House? Clause 54 of the Bill will allow for the Scottish Government to consider bids from public operators. That was included in the SNP-Scottish Government submission to the Smith commission, but we tried to go further. We tabled a new clause to devolve rail services in Scotland, giving Scottish Ministers full powers and the flexibility to decide who would run such services. Like every other SNP amendment to the Scotland Bill, it was voted down by English MPs.

That new clause would also have disapplied the provisions of the 1993 Act and allowed for direct awards to be made for the operation of rail passenger services to the fullest extent permissible under the law. It would have allowed us to adjust the current ticketing system, which over-subsidises profits while having—to put it mildly—an arcane and unintuitive fare system.

An anytime single ticket from London to Edinburgh costs £140.50, while one from London to Newcastle— 100 miles south of Edinburgh—costs £138, £2.50 less. A similar ticket from London to Aberdeen, which is 100 miles north of Edinburgh, costs £157.50. That means that one journey of 100 miles costs £2.50, while another costs £9. It just does not make sense. Frequently, it is cheaper to split a ticket than to buy a direct one. A single from King’s Cross to Edinburgh costs £95, while often, but not always, a King’s Cross to York ticket and a York to Edinburgh ticket cost £66 in total. We could have done something to sort that out.

Let me just say that the Scottish Government and the SNP will take no lessons from the Labour leader when it comes to investing in Scotland. With such a lack of understanding, even of the basics, it is no wonder that, according to a recent Survation poll, his approval rating in Scotland is minus 17%, while that of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is plus 27%.

As we have already established, the issue of public ownership is out of the hands of the Scottish Government, so I want to finish by talking for a moment about the rail franchise in Scotland. The Scottish Government welcomed Abellio to the ScotRail franchise because it has moved its UK headquarters to Glasgow—creating 50 new jobs, in addition to securing another 150 jobs from First. As a result of the new deal, passengers and staff will enjoy a range of benefits: advance fares from £5 for journeys between Scottish cities; a commitment to earnings of at least the living wage—the living wage in Scotland, by the way—for all staff and contractors; at least 100 apprenticeships; a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies; protection for rail staff pensions and travel rights; free wi-fi on trains; a new approach to cycling, with more than 3,500 parking spaces, and bike hire at a number of stations, which should be compared with Southern; 80 new trains due to arrive at start of December 2017; and 23% more carriages across the network.

The Scottish Government’s record on rail consists of a commitment to a £5 billion programme of investing in Scotland’s railways over the five years to 2019, including £170 million on the Aberdeen to Inverness rail upgrade and £300 million to open the Airdrie-Bathgate rail link in 2010, which will provide a passenger service between north Lanarkshire and west Lothian for the first time in 54 years. Since privatisation, rail fares have been regulated by the Government to limit the size of increases on key tickets, but they have increased in real terms since the early years of this century. In January 2013, fares across all operators were 23% higher than they were in January 1995, with an average annual increase of 1.2%.

I will finish on this point. [Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] It is nice to be appreciated. This is the story of a Government who invest in public transport for their people. The Scottish Government’s budget has been cut by £12.5% since 2010—£1 in every £8 has gone—for unnecessary ideological austerity. Despite that, the SNP Scottish Government are still investing in infrastructure. Having already invested £15 billion in transport since 2007, they are committed to the largest transport investment programme that Scotland has ever seen, despite these relentless Westminster budget cuts.