Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Douglas Ross

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

4. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on maritime security off the coast of Scotland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Douglas Ross)]

The Scottish Secretary and I regularly meet the Secretary of State for Defence to discuss a range of issues of importance to Scotland, including maritime security.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Not least because of the Minister’s own constituency, he will understand that there is an obvious breach point in the high north of Scotland for adversaries to come into, as has happened before. Can he assure the House that the Scotland Office will be engaging fully with the upcoming integrated defence review, and will he agree to meet me to discuss some of the issues that are important to him and to the rest of Scotland?

[Douglas Ross]

I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman, and we can continue that discussion about the great investment by the UK Government into Scotland, and into Moray. Last week we welcomed the first of nine P-8A aircraft, the “Pride of Moray”, which touched down at Kinloss. That is a huge investment by the UK Government and Boeing, and I also put on the record the outstanding work done by local firm Robertson, in building the Poseidon facility.

Strengthening the Union

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Douglas Ross

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to move on, because I think that is an important point that we have discussed.

There were some other, what I would class as highlights. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is no longer in his place. I have come very late to “Games of Thrones”. I have just finished watching season 1. Not even “Game of Thrones” season 1 goes as far back as the hon. Gentleman did in his speech. He spoke for 20 minutes, and about 18 of them were prehistoric, but he chose to totally omit some of the major developments that we have had in Scotland. He gave cursory notice to the 2014 independence referendum. I wonder why. Because the SNP lost. Then he mentioned the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections, where the SNP was elected with a majority. Why then did he not mention the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections, when the SNP lost its majority? It now relies on votes from the Green party to keep itself going.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has also left. He always gives us very entertaining speeches. I had to wonder why we had all this talk about HMS Brexitannia, and then it came to me. Clearly, the editor of The National had been on the phone and said, “We have a great idea. We have a great picture to put on the front page of The National, but we need someone to give us a story”—and, as always, the hon. Gentleman obliged.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

May I take the hon. Gentleman back to his point about elections? What happened to the Conservative party in 2017? Did it lose its majority and does it now have to rely on another party to get things through Parliament?

[Douglas Ross]

Yes, and we have discussed that many times but, as a minority, we are governing in the United Kingdom. We can keep going on about elections. We can speak about the 162 extra Conservative councillors who were elected in 2017—more than any other party in Scotland. We can speak about the 13 Scottish Conservatives elected to this Parliament, or the 21 SNP MPs who lost their seats. I am quite happy to compare election results with the hon. Gentleman.

I want to return to the subject of the referendum that we held in Scotland in 2014. My Moray constituency was very clear: 58% of people in Moray said no to separation. We had another referendum in 2016 and Moray came closer than any other part of Scotland to voting leave: 49.9% of people voted leave, compared with 50.1%—a difference of just 122. So when we hear that Scotland voted by such a big margin against leaving the European Union, we must always remember and respect the fact that there are people in all our constituencies who voted to leave the European Union and we have to try to get a deal that works for everyone.

This, however, is a debate about strengthening the Union. I am delighted to take part in this debate because in Moray we know about the strength of the Union far better than many others—because we have a great defence footprint in the constituency. We have Kinloss barracks and the 39 Engineer Regiment, and, of course, RAF Lossiemouth, which has had huge investment. I am grateful that the new defence procurement Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew)—is on the Front Bench today. I am sure that he will be a regular visitor to Moray to see the huge investment—the £400 million of investment by this UK Government in defence at Lossiemouth—and hundreds of new jobs.

We heard from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), about the incredible decision by the UK Government to mitigate the nat tax. The SNP made Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom. Our poor armed forces—our service personnel who proudly serve the United Kingdom at home and abroad—were suffering because of that. It is only because this UK Government mitigated the SNP Nat tax—

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am always grateful to debate this issue with the hon. Gentleman. I have asked him to do this before, and I hope he will do it this evening. Will he support the UK Government now reimbursing the squaddies in other parts of the UK who are paying more tax than frontline squaddies based in Scotland?

[Douglas Ross]

The Ministry of Defence pays our hard-working and extremely brave servicemen and women the UK rate—the same level of tax. It is only because the SNP decided to make Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom that we were forced to mitigate that. [Interruption.] SNP Members can chunter away from sedentary positions and shout down this policy, but how dare they say the £4 million—

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Douglas Ross]

No, I will not give way. How dare SNP Members say the £4 million annually that this UK Government are paying to mitigate their policy is wrong? That is absolutely scandalous, and armed forces personnel in Scotland will be viewing—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman keeps shouting. I think that is extremely—[Interruption.] He continues to shout, and it is extremely disrespectful to our armed forces personnel who have been supported in mitigating his party’s policies.

I do not have an awful lot of time left, but I want to mention the cuts commission, because it leads on from what I have just said about defence. The cuts commission —or the growth commission, as the SNP would try to call it—was many months in the making and the report was shoved out one Friday on a bank holiday. We all wondered why it was not published to great fanfare. It is because there is so much bad news for the SNP in its own cuts commission.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies mentions

“the Commission’s proposals for immediate cuts to defence”—

very interesting for my seat in Moray and others around Scotland—

“and other spending currently undertaken by the UK government.”

That is not me saying that; that is the IFS saying that the SNP’s cuts commission will lead to immediate cuts to defence. John McLaren of Scottish Trends made an apposite point when he said:

“Scotland will be moving from a deficit equivalent to nearly 6% of GDP towards a 3% target. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out the implications.”

The implications for our constituents in Moray and across Scotland are that, under the SNP and its cuts commission, we will see more cuts to local authorities and more cuts to the NHS, and I will not accept that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am willing to accept that entirely, but that does not mean I have to stop arguing for it. Indeed, it was the hon. Gentleman’s party leader in Scotland who said it was legitimate, and even honourable, for the Scottish National party to continue advocating Scotland’s independence, and that is what I intend to do. I hope to turn the hon. Gentleman’s constituency around. I note that he did not mention the result of the EU referendum in his own constituency.

The point that Sir George Reid was making then, and it applies now, is that facts change and people are entitled to move. I want to come back to the point he was making about the facts. We should be looking at that, rather than allowing ourselves to be plagued by the positioning in trenches that poisons our politics and breeds cynicism, which is the least healthy thing we can have in our politics. It was Mandela himself who noted that cynicism must be opposed at all times.

There is a real danger that we will go back to a poisonous period in this Chamber in 1945, when the first ever SNP Member of Parliament, Robert McIntyre, was elected. He won his seat in a by-election for Motherwell. It took him several days to take his Oath, because there were no two Members who would stand at the Bar of the House and allow him to approach the Table to do so. I do not want to see us return to that any time soon.

We are constantly being told that we are manufacturing grievances—indeed, the shadow Secretary of State said it earlier. I have much to be aggrieved about; I wish the shadow Secretary of State could be aggrieved about it with me. If that makes me a grievance monger, then frankly that is what my job here is to do. I am aggrieved by many of the things this Government do—some of which were adumbrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who talked about drug consumption rooms and the awful immigration cases that all of us see coming through our constituency surgeries—and by the dreadful and quite regressive welfare measures that we see impacting on our constituents. You’d better believe it, I am aggrieved about many of those things.

[Douglas Ross]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out grievances that he has with this Government. Is it not therefore fair for those of us on the Government Benches and Scottish Conservatives around Scotland to have grievances against his party, which has been in power in Scotland for 11 years? We have seen educational standards dropping, mergers of police and fire services, which many in rural constituencies are against, and a number of problems with our NHS services. We are entitled to raise those grievances, as is he to raise his, in this place.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is in a unique position, as is the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who is sitting on the Bench behind him. They left the Scottish Parliament to come to this Parliament, but even with that in mind—I add it purely for information—the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) is entirely entitled to raise any issue he wishes to, whether it is devolved or reserved. However, I come back to the point that he gave up a seat in a devolved legislature to come to this place to hold this Government accountable. He does a job for his constituents, and he is entirely right to do that.

I come to the tone in which we have these arguments. Some of the points that the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) raised earlier were uncomfortable to listen to. Indeed, it is uncomfortable to see anyone on my side of the constitutional question hold up a “Tory scum out” banner such as he mentioned, far less march behind it with any sense of pride. I do not think Tories are scum. I think a lot of their policies are terrible policies, and I will argue and fight against them at election time. Ultimately, I will argue for the ultimate salvation from them, which I believe to be Scottish independence, but we need to get better at disagreeing with one another.

Jobcentre Closures

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Douglas Ross

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Consistency never was the Conservative party’s strongest suit, but there is a glaring hypocrisy in the fact that the Government are signposting people to jobcentres as they slash services up and down the United Kingdom.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has just spoken about consistency. Does he agree that, when the Government announced these closures, they said that the changes would offer a more efficient service and deliver good value for the taxpayer? If we are being consistent, does he agree that that is the exact same argument that the SNP Scottish Government and the Scottish Police Authority are using for their plans to close 58 police stations across Scotland?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Funnily enough, no, I do not. On consistency—I am not sure whether there are any jobcentres closing in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but I know that none is closing in the Minister’s constituency—where the closures are going to happen, we need evidence of whether they will truly deliver better value for money and a better service, both of which we would all be in favour of. We need to see the evidence that will lead us to that conclusion, including the quality impact assessments and the number of disabled people using each and every service. This service is not comparable with police stations, which are not there to serve the public in the same way. I am happy to have a debate any time on police stations in Scotland, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am sure that you would not want me to deviate too far from the jobcentre closure title that we see on the annunciator.

Let me draw my remarks to a close. The Government managed an incredible achievement when they announced the closure plans. They managed to unite—not just in Glasgow, but right across Scotland—the Scottish National party, the Scottish Labour party, the Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church in Scotland, all the trade unions and people of other parties and of no party against this very plan. We could see that it was ill-thought out, that decisions had been taken not because of the evidence that was before the Government but in spite of the evidence, and they went to great pains not to share much of that or include people in the decisions that were being made about them. I do not know how well versed the Minister is in Scottish politics, but to cause that level of unity is some feat.

When the Minister gets to his feet, I want him to tell us a bit more about the thinking behind this plan. I want to hear about the evidence and the equality impact assessments. I want to hear how the Government intend to review each closure over the next 12 months, as they start to happen right now, to make sure that people are well served and, as the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) points out, that value for money is served. There must be value for money not just for the taxpayer, but for the people using the service. In some cases, people are doing round trips of up to 8 miles just to get to their local jobcentre. What about value for money for them and the impact that it has on them? When they go to claim their benefits, more and more of that money is used just to get to the jobcentre, when they used to be able to use a local service.

Will the Minister guarantee that when people are late for appointments, as a result of the closures, they will not be sanctioned? I am sure that he agrees that that would be completely wrong, though, like other Members, I have my doubts about that. I want to hear what the Minister intends to do to measure the impact particularly on disabled people as the closure programme gets into full swing. I want to hear about the options for reviewing the system should it be found that the evidence tells us that, in fact, the decision that has been taken has proven to be the wrong one. I understand that this comes on the back of the whole Telereal Trillium contract and the option to get out after 20 years and all the rest of it, but this has to be about more than spreadsheets and contracts. There are some desperately vulnerable people who rely on these services, some desperately vulnerable people who are let down by these decisions and some desperately vulnerable people who need to be better served by this Government.

Defence

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Douglas Ross

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

I am very grateful to the Minister for that. In fact, I would have loved it if SNP Members had gone through their own local press, rather than mine in Moray.

I hope that we do not get too far away from consensus again, but I do want to mention the nat tax. Approximately 10,000 military personnel and 4,000 civilian employees working for the Ministry of Defence are based in Scotland, and the SNP plans to make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom, with everyone earning more than £24,000 paying more tax. I have been contacted by a number of constituents about that.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I am glad this is the consensual part of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, because he will of course acknowledge that the frontline squaddies—the lowest-paid in the Ministry of Defence—are getting a tax cut in Scotland under the new tax powers, whereas his Government are freezing their pay, which is actually a pay cut because of inflation. He might want to look at his figures a wee bit before he expands on his point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross]

There we go—no denial from the SNP that it is making Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom. A number of my constituents based at both Kinloss and Lossiemouth are contacting me, aghast at the plans by the SNP that will see them paying more tax than their counterparts based in other parts of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] If it is the Conservatives who are so wrong, maybe SNP Members also disagree with the Scottish chamber of commerce, which said that their move is a “disincentive to investment” that will be difficult to reverse. The SNP should reconsider the policy before implementing it later this year. I hope the Minister will urge SNP politicians in this place to encourage the SNP Administration in Edinburgh not to go ahead with the nat tax. If they do, will the Minister look at options for supporting our personnel based in Scotland who will be faced with these higher taxes?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Douglas Ross]

I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.

I also want to look at aspects other than just the two bases in Moray. First, the families connected with our serving personnel are an integral part of our communities, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said, and they are involved in all aspects of our communities. A lot of spouses of military personnel work in local schools and hospitals, and are vital to ensuring that those local services remain open. In Moray, it is estimated that 13% of all school pupils have a military connection, ensuring that some of the smaller schools remain open.

Today is 11 January, which means that it is the new year in the Julian calendar. Along with local people in Burghead, military personnel from Kinloss and Lossiemouth will be taking part in the clavie ceremony today, when clavie king Dan Ralph puts a barrel of burning tar on his back and troops it through Burghead up on to Doorie hill. I always try to get the clavie mentioned on 11 January; I have managed to fit it into this debate somehow. I will find out in a few moments if it is the first time the clavie and Doorie hill have ever been mentioned in this Chamber when Hansard ask me for the correct spelling. The clavie ceremony is another example of how military families get involved with local traditions, and that is to be welcomed.

Our military families play a crucial role in Moray, across Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom. There has rightly been much talk today about the Government ensuring that investment continues now and going forward, and I would like to see that. We are seeing investment in Scotland, including in Moray. We are gratefully appreciative of all the money and investment going into Moray, and we will be serving our local area and the country very well from Moray. I look forward to the rest of this debate so we can continue celebrating the contribution of Moray and service personnel across the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

This is one of the few debates in the House that has been not only extremely well mannered, but extremely well informed by Members from all parts of the House. I cannot single out all of them, but I want to mention the typically well-informed duo who make up the chairs of the all-party parliamentary group for the armed forces, the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) and for North Wiltshire (James Gray). Of course, the Chair of the Defence Committee gave an incredibly thoughtful speech.

Despite the brief diminution in consensus, I will single out the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), who spoke incredibly proudly of his constituency and its long, historic connections to the armed forces. He will be glad to know that I will be returning to the issue of tax, which I will be very pleased to do.

In the short time he has been here, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) has shown himself to be a force to be reckoned with in defence debates. I even found myself hear-hearing at the end of the speech by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), which is possibly a first for an SNP Member and is making him visibly nervous as I finish this sentence. Of course, it is a pleasure to follow my good friend, the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney). Of course, there were also excellent speeches from the SNP Benches by my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes).

I really do want to single out the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who secured the debate. His opening speech was a forensic, thoughtful, blistering, sobering and eye-opening contribution on the state of defence and the armed forces and on the challenges we face now and will face in the future. The House is much better informed as a result of his securing the debate today. As he mentioned, it comes in the context of international threats from Russia, North Korea and an extremely unpredictable incumbent in the Oval office in the United States; new threats in relation to cyber-security and cyber-defence; and a boisterous Russia, which seems to have been in our waters on an almost weekly basis over the past few years.

Following the reshuffle, Defence is Whitehall’s only all-male, all-white Department. The one woman who was a Minister there was replaced by a man. I make an appeal to the Prime Minister, which perhaps the Minister on the Treasury Bench, who knows that I respect and like him, can take back: why can we not have the promotion of the hon. Lady sat behind him, the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan)? She would not only make a fine Minister, but bring a new sense of dynamism and youth to that extremely male-dominated Department. I fear that my endorsement may have the opposite effect. [Interruption.] The kiss of death, I hear. In the week when the Army launched its diversity recruitment campaign, the one woman who sat in the Ministry of Defence as a Minister was moved elsewhere. So much—[Interruption.] So why not promote another woman to replace her instead of a man? That is the point I make to the House.

I want to look at the condition and state of the armed forces and illustrate what has been mentioned in the debate. Let us start with the Army, which is smaller than at any time since the Napoleonic wars. I will speak about terms and conditions, starting with the issue of pay. Because inflation is about 3%, the 1% pay cap is, in real terms, a cut to armed forces wages. It is no wonder that some on the Government Benches are looking at their feet, because I would be embarrassed to come to this Chamber and defend the Government’s record on armed forces pay.

Under the new rates of Scottish income tax, an Army private on a salary of £18,500 will pay less than their counterparts based anywhere else in the United Kingdom. These personnel make up the vast majority of those who are based in Scotland. Those at the higher ends of the pay scale—who, yes, will pay a bit more—make up a tiny percentage. This is a legacy of decades of under-investment in defence in Scotland by the Conservatives and by Labour. Let us look at the increases in context. Under the new SNP tax plans, an Army sergeant will pay an extra £1.44 a week, and a naval lieutenant will pay an extra £2.61 a week.

The hon. Member for Moray, who was so outraged by all this, may wish to take one figure—the average salary in his own constituency. I took the liberty of looking it up just after his speech: it comes in at £22,584. The average taxpayer in his constituency will not pay any more. The frontline squaddie in Scotland is getting money in his pocket thanks to the SNP, while the hon. Gentleman’s party cuts his wages, insisting on a continuous pay freeze.

[Douglas Ross]

Let me say once again that the nat tax will make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman will have to accept, despite what he says, that anyone in Scotland earning more than £24,000—hardly a high earner—will pay more tax under the SNP plans than they currently do. That is affecting members of our armed forces, who have been in contact with me about it.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to go over the figures again. An Army sergeant with a salary of about £33,000 pays £1.44 a week more. I think that it is fair to ask them to pay a little more, and entirely fair to ask officers who are earning in excess of £65,000 to pay a little more. Let us bear in mind that the average salary in his seat is under £23,000.