Cost of Living
Debate between Gavin Newlands and Dave Doogan(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Gavin Newlands
Who said it was a strategy? It is a fact. All I am doing is pointing out facts. If the hon. Gentleman wants me to read out all the examples of his leader going back on his word in terms of nationalising various industries, I am more than happy to do that, but I am not sure we have time for it. Everyone here and everyone in Scotland knows that his manifesto will be Tory lite at the next election. It might work in Edinburgh South, but it is not going to work in many places across the central belt of Scotland.
Dave Doogan
Does my hon. Friend see the delicious irony that the electoral fortunes of Scottish Labour are hinged entirely on the electoral ambitions of middle England?
Gavin Newlands
It is as if my hon. Friend has read my speech—I was sitting beside him, so maybe he did—because I am making the very same point; indeed, I just made the same point about the midlands marginal. The Labour leader is betting the entire future of the UK on winning a few votes in English marginals, and Scottish Labour had better wake up to the reality that that is not going to cut it when they are out campaigning at the doors in the next election.
At the same time, the Labour candidate in Paisley and Renfrewshire North will be campaigning against a Scottish Government who have rolled out 1,140 hours a year of free, high-quality childcare, delivered over a quarter of a million baby boxes to new parents, scrapped prescription charges, extended free bus travel to under-22s, maintained free eye tests and provided free school meals for pupils in primary 1 to 5—all measures that are putting money back in the pockets of people where it is needed most—and against an utter rejection of the fallacy that the state should be rolled back, a fantasy that has afflicted the UK for the past 13 years. For the Labour party to turn its back on reversing the lunacy of the previous 13 years is a complete abdication of responsibility—responsibility that should be focused on those who need the state’s help the most.
To give just one example, the First Steps Nutrition Trust’s report this month on the impact of the cost of living crisis on child diets found that the cost of infant formulas had increased by an average of 24%, while the cheapest formula went up by 45%. The average tin of formula now costs just over £14, while the Healthy Start grant in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was frozen this year, and less than two thirds of eligible families are successful in applying for a grant. At the same time, the Scottish Government have uprated our Best Start package by over 10% this year—that package has an 88% uptake rate—as well as rolled out and expanded the Scottish child payment, getting support to households who desperately need it. It is utterly shameful that we have babies in this country with parents who cannot afford to feed them even the basics. Infants are crying with hunger because the pittance that the UK Government have decided is enough to feed them does not cut it in the real world. The chances of those infants getting a healthy diet once they get older have also decreased, with fresh food inflation sitting at 17%—that is where shops have fruit and veg at all.
There will be Members on the Government Benches who have the gall to tell us that empty fridge shelves and rocketing prices of imported produce are nothing to do with Brexit. They are all someone else’s fault—the hauliers, the farmers, the shops, the workers, the parents, the children—anything to avoid responsibility for the catastrophic mess they have created. They wanted to take back control; instead, they have taken us back to the 1970s, with inflation through the roof, industrial action across the economy, living standards falling continually and food shortages in our shops.
Just this week, the zoomers and zealots who pushed the Brexit campaign in the first place are gathered for a festival of delusion up the road from this place. The influence that these cranks and charlatans have had on the body politic and the direction of these isles is surely the most revealing piece of evidence that the UK is a busted flush. They have succeeded in isolating us from our allies and continuing the harmful economic policies that their great leader Thatcher imposed in the past.
Those who promised that Brexit would mean taking back control should explain exactly what control they think they have taken back. Is it control over an energy market that is rigged against consumers and profits the middleman? Is it control over the tens of thousands of skilled workers who have fled this country in recent years to their former homes in EU countries, so disturbed and dispirited were they by the hostile environment and bureaucratic nonsense cooked up by Members on the Government Benches—now with the connivance of Labour Members, too—leaving our health service without skilled and dedicated staff when we need them most, and virtually every bus company in the country cancelling services because so many drivers have moved to Poland?
Is it control over an economy that even the Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility says will end up 4% smaller than it would have been without Brexit—wealth and productivity that will never come back while the UK sits in unsplendid isolation? This is an economic crisis that is not going to go away. It is permanently embedded in the fundamental structure of how the UK operates and the way in which the UK governing class and both parties have turned their backs on the rest of Europe. What is equally shameful is that we have a Labour party that is fully signed up to that Brexit agenda—signed up to policies that will continue to take us down that failed road.
At least Scotland has a way out. At least Scotland has a Government who are taking action, despite the fiscal restrictions imposed by the UK, to tackle child poverty through the Scottish child payment and Best Start; to create a social security system that puts dignity and respect at its heart; and to invest in decarbonisation and a just transition to net zero. At least Scotland has a party that takes seriously its responsibility to its citizens to do better, and at least Scotland has a Government who want to rejoin the world and be part of the mainstream of Europe, rather than sit in self-imposed exile. At least Scotland has a Government who want us to fully harness the wealth and resources of our country, natural and human, as an independent sovereign nation. It is time that Members on both Front Benches got out of the way of that democratic mandate and allowed the people of Scotland the chance to escape a Union that is costing them more than ever.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gavin Newlands and Dave Doogan(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Bowie)
The hon. Members will be aware that His Majesty’s Treasury leads on this policy area. However, I am happy to provide them with an update on the support that my Department is providing to Scottish exporters during the cost of living crisis. The DIT Scotland team based in Edinburgh—I am sure that they are pleased to see His Majesty’s Government increasing their presence in Edinburgh—was established in 2021 with trade and investment expertise dedicated to supporting Scotland’s businesses to grow through exporting overseas. Scottish businesses can access many UK Government services, including the export support service, the UK Export Academy, UK Export Finance and DIT’s overseas specialists in over 100 markets across the world.
Afghanistan
Debate between Gavin Newlands and Dave Doogan(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
The humanitarian disaster unfolding in front of our eyes is a political failure rather than a military one, and I think it is important that this House recognises that. The work of our armed forces who were sent into Afghanistan to achieve what many believed at the time was a near-impossible, and certainly dangerously idealistic, ambition prevailed in military terms. I was working in the MOD in 2001 just before military operations in Afghanistan got under way. At a meeting of the MOD and industry in Yeovil, I recall clearly the universal incredulity at the idea that this intervention in a theatre that had previously humbled both the British and the Soviet Union could ever conceivably end well—and so it has come to pass.
The media reported last week the unbelievable pace with which the Taliban advanced across the country, but why was that such a shock? Perhaps the Government can explain why they were so ill prepared. Many observers, myself included, do not think for one minute that there was a failure of military intelligence; rather, we think that there was a failure of Ministers to act on it. This House and the public at large need to know whether civilian officials and intelligence analysts are at liberty to convey difficult and unwelcome messages to senior Ministers in this Government, and that those same Ministers will act in the national interest rather than on any more expedient or transient priority.
Can the Government tell the veterans and their families in Angus and across these islands what this was all for—not the intention or the ambition of the dedicated and successful military operations, but the outcome and the consequences? What is the legacy of those people’s bravery, sacrifice and loss? I want to highlight to the Defence Secretary the correspondence I have received from my constituent, a former company commander in 2011 in Operation Herrick. He shares the chilling email he got from his former translator—with whom he keeps in touch, such are the bonds forged in combat—and his Afghan friend’s plight in trying to exit the country through the UK embassy with his family. I will send on the details to the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary, who I am sure will both give them dedicated support. Then there are the civilians and NGOs, who endured no small measure of risk and hardship to apply their skills and expertise in the service of Afghanistan and her people. What of their work to build order and systems of just administration, and challenge endemic corruption? What remains of those hard fought gains and of civil society—those brave Afghan souls, many of them women, who stepped into the space that we created for them and took up roles supporting the UK and its allies?
Gavin Newlands
I should point out to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) that we are six hours into the debate and this is the second SNP Back-Bench speech on this important issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) mentioned women and girls. The Taliban have said that they are committed to the rights of women. Does he agree with me that these misogynist thugs see women as third-class people and chattels only there to serve men, and that this House cannot believe a word the Taliban say about the rights of women?
Dave Doogan
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. As many hon. and right hon. Members have observed this afternoon, the Taliban need to be judged on their actions, not on their words.
Against this new reality, it is beyond credibility that the Foreign Secretary has publicly claimed that the UK will hold the Taliban to account. What does that mean? By what means and to what end would this be done? It would suit the Foreign Secretary better to fully restore the foreign aid budget, rather than issuing abstract and random threats to a regime that has just shown the UK the door. Five thousand refugees this year is not commensurate with the scenes in Kabul of people literally running for their lives and clinging to aircraft, and a hazy figure of 20,000, over what period we are not certain, is insubstantial to say the least, given the circumstances.
In closing, I urge the Government and the Prime Minister to review and expedite this element of the UK’s response, including through a cogent plan to extricate brave Afghans who are not already in Kabul. The UK was front and centre at the genesis of this political catastrophe. It should be similarly positioned for the clear-up.