Devolution in Scotland

Debate between John Cooper and Seamus Logan

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

Devolution is not working. Instead of two Governments working in harness, Scotland has one in Westminster with its back turned to the one in Holyrood, which daily plots to break up Britain. Labour took power convinced that they were the grown-ups who would reset relations with the SNP at Holyrood. The harsh reality is that the SNP Government have no interest in joint working, for if devolution is a success, they lose the argument that independence is a necessity. They are aided in their mission by Labour’s “devolve and forget”. 

This Government trolly billions of pounds north to Edinburgh via the block grant, but what happens after it disappears into the SNP black hole, where we can see what goes in but not what comes out? Well, no one on the Government Benches seems to care overmuch. The sleekit SNP is running rings around them. The Chancellor appeared in a smart video saying that she was delivering investment in Scotland. The backdrop was Lossiemouth, a key RAF base for protecting the High North, yet the SNP actively undermines British defence. There has been ludicrous talk of deploying “Scottish forces” as peacekeepers in Ukraine. There are many Scots men and women in Britain’s forces, but there are no Scottish forces. Ironically, the SNP denies defence firms vital investment because of childish opposition to ordnance—the shells, bombs, bullets and missiles that keep us all safe in a dangerous world. That is pulling apart, not pulling together.

Under the previous Administration, the Scotland Office was the guardian of devolution. The then Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack, adroitly deployed section 35 of the Scotland Act to prevent the unlamented Nicola Sturgeon’s gender recognition reform from trampling on the rights of women and girls across the entire UK. That was not some assault on Holyrood’s powers, but a judicious application of the law as it stood to prevent devolution from being abused, to prevent Scotland from becoming a different country bit by bit, and to stop devolution being used as a battering ram to smash the Union. Would that happen now? 

Today’s Scotland Office is, we are told, “Scotland’s window on the world”. Rather than nurturing the Scotland Act, it looks increasingly like Dover House has been annexed by the Department for Business and Trade as a pop-up shop for salmon and whisky. Perhaps a bit less looking out the window and a bit more attention to what is going on at John Swinney’s Bute House is in order, for Scottish Ministers seem to have more foreign breaks than Galloway Travel Service in Stranraer, in my constituency of Dumfries and Galloway. They have gone to Malawi, Zambia, Canada and Washington DC. Despite having no role in international affairs, Scottish Ministers have racked up more air miles than Biggles, at taxpayers’ expense. What are they discussing, given that trade policy is reserved? Let us take China, for example: Scottish Business Minister Richard Lochhead sloped off on a low-key visit to Beijing, and I asked what occurred, but the Foreign Office did not have eyes on it, in another display of “devolve and forget”.

There are many siren voices calling for Holyrood’s abolition as Supreme Court judgments on gender are ignored; its Committee system, as we have heard, is neutered so that genuine scrutiny is near impossible; and the First Minister spends more time pronouncing on Gaza and boycotting Israel—foreign affairs are outwith his bailiwick—while Scots’ taxes rise with no improvement in public services.

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is drawing attention to many issues that he says are the fault of the Scottish Government’s creating difference between Scotland and England. What would he say about the Brexit vote in 2016 creating such difference?

[John Cooper]

I just gently point out that I think more Scots voted for Brexit than for anything else in the history of Scotland.

Fishing Industry

Debate between John Cooper and Seamus Logan

Thursday 28th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this important debate.

Fish and chips were deemed so critical to morale during the dark days of the second world war that they were not rationed, and extra resources were allocated to keep the home fryers burning. Today, the harvest of fish and seafood from our pristine waters is hard-won. It is estimated that fishing crews face the threat of death at 100 times the rate of the average UK worker. In my constituency of Dumfries and Galloway, the Isle of Whithorn will never forget the loss of seven of our sons when the scallop dredger Solway Harvester foundered off the Isle of Man in a force-9 gale 25 years ago in January. The two youngest victims were aged just 17. The sea is magnificent and unforgiving.

Today’s fishermen face the terrors of the deep and onshore threats too. Fishing in south-west Scotland centres on scallops, lobster and crab. The economic contribution of catchers and producers is vital to vulnerable coastal communities, yet fishermen are criticised as voracious plunderers when really they are cautious custodians of the sea. It took sterling work by my colleague, Finlay Carson MSP, to stave off the threat of the loss of livelihood for static-gear fishermen along the Solway coast. The clunking fist of the Scottish Government was set to ban them inside a six-mile limit to save berried or egg-bearing lobster, but it was the fishermen who spoke up about returning berried lobster to protect not just their livelihoods, but those of the next and future generations of fishermen.

Brexit could yet deliver a sea of opportunities for our fishermen. If we spend time at the quaysides and pierheads of Kirkcudbright, Garlieston, Port William, Stranraer and Portpatrick, we will not hear any clamour to return to the hated common fisheries policy of distant and faceless Brussels. In 2022, landings in those places were estimated at £4.5 million—an enormous shot in the arm for a rural area such as Dumfries and Galloway.

As we have heard, while the sea is vast, it is not limitless. Floating offshore wind is just one of the sectors exerting spatial squeeze, for we cannot fish between the turbines and their seabed infrastructure is another impediment. Shipping lanes and undersea cables, as important to Britain today as the convoys during the battle of the Atlantic, further hem in our fishing fleet. Plans have also been suggested for more marine protected areas in English waters to offset the environmental damage in existing MPAs. Fishing already pays the price of being excluded from prime fishing areas through the privatisation of the seabed, but being locked out of the MPAs adds insult to injury.

The waters are choppy, but fishing is a touchstone in Scotland: St Andrew, our patron saint, was a fisherman. Fishing is also about food security, so it is terrifying to hear this pivotal industry being touted in some quarters as a mere bargaining chip as the Government prepare for TCA renegotiation.

[Seamus Logan]

The hon. Member mentions the forthcoming TCA, which others Members have referred to. We have not yet heard who the chief negotiator of that review will be, but does he agree that it would be advantageous, once they have been identified, for them to come to Scotland to listen to the industry, to fishermen and fisherwomen, and to the fish processing sector to hear their concerns in advance of the negotiations?

[John Cooper]

I agree that it is important that the voices of people directly involved in the industry, both onshore and offshore, are heard. On the TCA negotiations, nothing—not quota or anything else—should be exchanged for automatic access for EU boats. War could not choke off our fish suppers; can we ensure that legislation does not either?