St Andrew’s Day and Scottish Affairs
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(3 days, 15 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) for securing this debate on St Andrew’s day and for giving us the opportunity to take stock of the issues and challenges facing Scotland. I will not detain the House for long, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you caught me on the hop—I had hoped to be writing my speech while others made theirs.
I will plough on to discuss poor St Andrew. I have been checking in on Scotland’s patron saint, and he does not look very good. As a Scot, his average life expectancy would be just 77 years; his sister, Andrea, could expect to live to 81. Some 26 years into devolution and 18 years into an SNP Government who were meant to make things better, Scotland has the lowest life expectancy not just in the UK, but in the whole of western Europe.
But do not worry, because the SNP is coming to the rescue of Scotland’s ailing saint and ailing population—or it would do, if it could get ambulance waiting times in order. In January last year, one patient in Lothian on category red—that is a heart attack situation—had to wait more than 17 hours for an ambulance, and an individual in the highlands this year had to wait for 18 hours. It now takes a median wait of 22 minutes for NHS 24 to be answered in Scotland. The NHS app, which I have had for many years as a patient at the Royal London hospital, will not be available in Scotland until 2030. Why? Because the SNP Scottish Government refused the English NHS app, because the political optics of putting the St Andrew’s cross on an English app just would not look good, so Scots have to wait.
Scots are being ill-served. They have been waiting a long time through our revolving carousel of Health Ministers. A rotating carousel of 130 health strategies—one for every seven weeks of this SNP Government—has meant that 618,000 Scots are still waiting for specialist care in Scotland’s NHS. One figure is going up in Scotland’s health scene: the number of private health operations, which is up by 55% since 2019. Those are not just for those who can afford them, but those who need them because the waiting lists are so long that they have no alternative.
Scotland has a large number of health boards, with 14 health boards, 31 integration authorities and numerous quangos, all under tight Scottish Government control. Mike McKirdy, an eminent surgeon assigned by the Scottish Labour party to assess the future of Scotland’s health, has said it is a “complex structure”. He said that structure
“means reforms and improvements are difficult to roll out at scale or pace, while accountability and transparency are easier to avoid.”
Scotland is being ill-served in its health, and the ailing St Andrew is being ill-served by this SNP Government when it comes to health.
Torcuil Crichton
I do not think I will.
Of course, St Andrew was bilingual, or trilingual or quadrilingual—as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) pointed out, he is celebrated in Russia and Greece. He appears on the Basque flag, and Basque is the oldest language in Europe. If he and his children were living in Glasgow, they would make up that one third of Scottish schoolchildren in the “Dear Green Place” who speak more than one language—something that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), in his desperate attempt to divide Scotland, found so appalling. To allay your fears, Madam Deputy Speaker, I emailed the hon. Member for Clacton—I assume the email went to his constituency office. I saw that the email received no reply, because he is rarely seen in this place or in Clacton. But he has been informed.
The hon. Member for Clacton is appalled by the celebrated diversity of our great city, but I am not. I am very proud of the dozens of pupils at the Glasgow Gaelic school, and I am proud that dozens of pupils who speak Arabic, Urdu, Polish, Punjabi or Chinese are students as well, but these children—like St Andrew, ailing in his unhealthy bed on those waiting lists—are ill-served by Scotland’s SNP Government.
As was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), a former Secretary of State for Scotland, there is a statistical fiction in education as well as in health. Professor Lindsay Paterson, the esteemed Scottish academic, has said that the attainment statistics for Scotland’s schools
“fail to capture the serious decline of attainment that has been picked up by PISA.”
Of course, the Scottish Government previously used international assessments to measure the gap between teachers’ appraisals and real attainment, but those surveys were abandoned in 2008. Now Professor Paterson says:
“What is euphemistically called pupils’ achievement of the curriculum levels is in fact teachers’ impressions of whether their own pupils have achieved the levels… They are simply hunches.”
In 2016 the then First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, promised that her Government’s priority would be to close the education attainment gap. On this week’s figures and at current rates, it would take 133 years to close the poverty rate attainment gap in Scotland—that is shameful. Scotland and St Andrew’s children are being let down again by this SNP Government.
Torcuil Crichton
I will, if only because the hon. Member displays the best budget cut I have seen this year.
Dave Doogan
The hon. Member is very concerned about St Andrew. We should focus on St Andrew today, but in parallel I am concerned for St David, and what he and his family might be enduring under the catastrophe of Labour-run Wales. I wish things were better in Scotland, and I know that my colleagues in the Scottish Government are working extremely hard to make things better under the egregious constraints of this Union, but the Labour Government in Wales are not so motivated. Can the hon. Member explain why it is only St Andrew’s bairns in Scotland who are getting elevated out of poverty on these islands, while child poverty is rising in Labour England and Labour Wales?
Torcuil Crichton
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, which allows me to highlight that some 95,000 children in Scotland are to be lifted out of poverty by our Chancellor’s Budget, which got rid of the two-child benefit cap.
It is not just in terms of education and health that St Andrew’s children are being failed. St Andrew was a fisherman and was used to boats, as are many of my constituents in the islands, but these modern-day St Andrews are being let down. They see thousands of pounds of shellfish exports rotting in the harbour, or having to be deep-frozen at extra cost, because of the failing SNP’s ferry fiasco. For that situation, Madam Deputy Speaker, I need no notes, because the ferry fiasco is writ large in the experience of all my constituents, who have suffered for years because this SNP Government did not manage to procure enough ferries and took their eye off the ball. This crisis, which they thought would affect a few hundred islanders, has become an international symbol of the failure of nationalism in Scotland.
This week I welcomed the extra £820 million that the Chancellor found to give to the Scottish Government this year. In my book—in anyone’s book—£820 million is eight CalMac ferries, but the SNP Scottish Government can only manage 2.5 ferries for £500 million. It is a shame and a scandal. People in the Western Isles know that the S in SNP stands for “stunt”—the portholes had to be painted on to the ship so that Nicola Sturgeon could have a pretendy launch. That £500 million means that the S in SNP stands for “squander”, with millions wasted, affecting the ability and confidence of my constituents to stay in their homes and be connected to the rest of the islands. I hope that S will also stand for “swept away”, because in May that is what Scotland needs.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—today is indeed my birthday. I thank my Scottish colleagues for letting me, as an English Member, crash this debate on St Andrew’s day.
I have the great privilege of representing the great border city of Carlisle, the only city in the United Kingdom to have been governed by both the Scottish and English Crowns during its history. Standing just a few miles south of the Scottish border, Carlisle is a fortress city, its provenance bloodily contested for centuries. From its origins in Roman times—when not one but two Roman forts were built to defend the empire’s northern frontier—to the Jacobite rebellions, Carlisle has been the prize in a centuries-long struggle between England and Scotland.
In the middle ages, Carlisle was a city under siege again and again. In 1135, Scotland’s King David seized it, turning its castle into the beating heart of Scottish power. Two decades later it returned to English control under Henry II, whose treaty of York in 1237 finally fixed the border—or so Carlisle thought. In 1315 Robert the Bruce, of whom we have already heard mention today, marched south and laid siege to Carlisle, fresh from his triumph at Bannockburn. For days the city’s defenders fought, the walls shook under bombardment, but Carlisle held firm.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Jacobite rebellions again threatened Carlisle’s status. Indeed, it is joked locally that the reason why our old town hall’s clock tower, which has four faces, does not have a clock on its north-facing side is because we people of Carlisle would not give the Scots the time of day.
Torcuil Crichton
My hon. Friend may well be right about that clock tower, but she will also know that Carlisle will always be a little bit of Scotland, because it was apparently in Carlisle that the Loch Lomond ballad, with its famous lines
“You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland before you”,
was written by a Jacobite prisoner facing the gallows. That song, which is much more fondly remembered than “Flower of Scotland”, was written in Carlisle, was it not?
Ms Minns
Indeed, and my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I was just about to mention Bonnie Prince Charlie and the 300 Jacobite soldiers he left in Carlisle castle after riding into Carlisle, standing on the steps of our historic market cross and claiming the city again for the Stuart Crown, and then riding south to do battle with the Duke of Cumberland. He then turned tail and rode back north, bypassing Carlisle entirely and leaving those 300 soldiers to their fate. As my hon. Friend says, the lyrics of that song are the lament of one of those ill-fated Jacobite soldiers.
Of course, Carlisle castle also had the honour of playing host, shall we say, to Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1568. Members may be interested to know that, thanks to the diligence of her guard, who recorded her every single movement, the Queen’s observance of a football match on an adjacent field resulted in the first written account of a football match played to rules.
Just as St Andrew’s day celebrates Scotland’s heritage, it is also a moment for all of us in the Border communities to honour our shared history and the deep connections between Scotland and its neighbouring communities—connections that my constituency of Carlisle and north Cumbria understands better than most. Our shared Christian traditions are a strong bond. St Andrew symbolises humility, and the service values that should guide all Members of this House, regardless of our geography. Carlisle cathedral, which owes its existence to the English Crown’s desire to create a diocese to ward off the diocese of Glasgow, still marks St Andrew’s day with prayers for Scotland. The St Ninian’s way pilgrimage links Carlisle to St Andrew’s, and echoes the spiritual roots that unite our nations. Such connections remind us that faith and fellowship have long bridged division. On that point, I pay tribute to the Border Kirk in my Carlisle constituency, which works tirelessly with a number of organisations to offer support and assistance to the refugee community in Carlisle.
Today, the ties are practical as well as historical. Our economy depends on cross-border trade, shared infrastructure and cultural exchange. The A74 and the west coast main line are lifelines for businesses and our communities, and I thank the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for his work on the Borderlands growth deal, a deal that we both wish to see rejuvenated because it offers great potential to the Borders region.
Tourism flows both ways. Visitors come to Carlisle for our castle, our cathedral and for the western gateway of Hadrian’s wall. My residents travel north for Scotland’s shopping at Gretna gateway and the fantastic Devil’s Porridge Museum, while Scots come south of the border to discover Hadrian’s wall and Carlisle’s heritage, and to shop in Carlisle’s big Asda, where minimum unit pricing does not apply.
Today, let us remember and celebrate the links, not the rivalry, between our two countries. St Andrew’s day is not just Scotland’s celebration. It is a reminder that when Carlisle and Scotland thrive together, the whole of the United Kingdom is stronger. I call on colleagues to reaffirm that spirit of unity. I call on the Scottish and Westminster Governments to work together to minimise the friction that too often arises because of divergent policy on devolved matters, such as health and agriculture—friction that causes unnecessary and costly problems for residents of our Border community. Let us invest instead in cross-border co-operation, culture and business, bringing our communities closer and ensuring that the decisions made in Westminster and Holyrood reflect the shared interests of the people who live and work along our historic border. St Andrew’s day is a day of pride for Scotland, but it is also a day of friendship for all of us.
Torcuil Crichton
The hon. Member mentions a national sovereign wealth fund, which the SNP called for, to be funded from oil revenues, in the ’70s and ’80s—
Torcuil Crichton
And the ’90s, and maybe until today. The SNP Government had the opportunity to put one in place when they auctioned the ScotWind licenses for offshore wind for £700 million—they would have done it for £70 million, but were given guidance on that. They had the opportunity to either invest that £700 million in a sovereign wealth fund, or to give it back to the coastal communities from which those revenues flow, but they did none of that. They have used half of that £700 million in day-to-day expenditure, have they not?
Stephen Gethins
We focus an awful lot on the Scottish Parliament. I have no problem with that, but Members who sit here choose to be part of a Parliament that has powers that far outweigh those of the Scottish Parliament. I do not like that, but other Members here do.
On the future generations fund, since we are having a biblical debate and there has been biblical reference, I say to the hon. Member—he will not mind—that, to paraphrase Matthew’s gospel, sometimes you talk about the speck in my eye and ignore the plank in yours. Some £1.5 trillion, and 1.5% of every share on earth from the top 5,000 companies, is now in Norwegian hands, and Norway can use that, with transformative effect. If he thinks that Westminster control over oil and gas and other aspects of energy—it still has that responsibility—has been positive, I encourage him to think again. It has not been wholly positive; things have failed. As he has prompted me, it should be reflected that the failings of Holyrood are dwarfed by the gargantuan failings of Westminster. There has been Brexit, austerity—the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale was part of the Cabinet who brought that in—the Truss Budget, which put up all mortgages, and our relationship with the rest of Europe. Those failings have now been brought to bear.
Andrew Bowie
Well, it is obviously for Edwin Morgan to determine where he spends his money. I do think that the hon. Gentleman and his party should reflect on the desire of the Scottish people when they voted for a Scottish Parliament in 1999 to address the real issues facing them. He must acknowledge that far too much of the past 18 years has been spent on issues that divide Scots, rather than building our country into a better place that we all want to see for our children.
Scotland knows who to blame. They know who could not build two ferries and who let Scotland’s drug deaths become the worst in Europe. They know on whose watch it was that our education standards slipped from their once great heights. They know that today, Scotland is worse off because of the decisions taken and promises broken by the Scottish National party, from its broken promise to dual the A9 and A96, as often highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), to its neglect of the A75 in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), long raised in this House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell). Remember the SNP promise to scrap council tax 18 years ago, the promise to close the attainment gap or the promise to deliver a national care service? For 18 years, the SNP has let Scotland down with broken promise after broken promise.
Torcuil Crichton
Does the hon. Gentleman regret that the Scottish Conservatives propped up the SNP for four of those 18 years?
Andrew Bowie
In 2007, when the decision was taken by the Scottish Conservatives to ensure continuity and certainty for Scottish business at the heart of the Scottish Government, it was indeed the right thing to do. However, hindsight is 20/20, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman and other Members present that no such agreement would be reached if we were to be asked at the next Scottish parliamentary election to support a Scottish National party Government for a further five years.
Scotland was suffering under the SNP, and the very last thing it needed was another Government letting them down. Then, enter stage left—far left—the Labour party. My goodness, it is not going well. After having been sold a story of false hope, folks in Scotland now have no hope in the Labour Government. The harm that this Government are inflicting on key Scottish industries is staggering.
Look at our farmers: already hammered by the daft policies that emanate from Bute House, they now have to contend with the brutal and callous family farm tax. The stories that we hear—and I know that hon. Members on the Government Benches are hearing them, too—are just heartbreaking.
The Government are knowingly destroying an entire way of life for thousands of families across Scotland, placing entire rural communities and our food security in jeopardy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) spoke recently of how this Government have no grasp whatsoever of the constant struggle facing our family farms. He was absolutely right. It is exactly the same for our energy industry. Oil and gas workers are an afterthought—if they are even thought about at all by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whose messianic zeal to destroy the oil and gas industry knows no end.
I have stood at this Dispatch Box many times now over the past 18 months and raised the plight of our oil and gas industry. Almost every week we find that another business operating in the North sea has made the decision to cut jobs in the UK. It was Harbour Energy the other week. Before that it was ExxonMobil at Mossmorran. It was the Port of Aberdeen before that, then Petrofac, then Hunting, then Ineos, then Apache—I could go on. One thousand jobs are going to be lost every single month, and £50 billion-worth of investment is being passed over. The country is being made more vulnerable through increased reliance on imports. A poison is spreading through the energy industry, and this Government are doing nothing to stem it.
All of that begs the question of what the Secretary of State and his Ministers are going to do. Maybe the Secretary of State knows that the Prime Minister’s days are numbered and is just biding his time. Maybe, like every other member of the Cabinet, he is looking around the Cabinet Room and measuring the curtains. But time is something that workers in our oil and gas industry and on our family farms do not have.
Scotland does, of course, have another option—something that neither the SNP nor Labour can offer—and that is common sense. That is something that only the Scottish Conservatives are offering, and Scotland desperately needs it. The Scottish Conservatives would put an end to the stagnant, tepid policies that have come from the SNP Scottish Government and put growth at the heart of every single decision.
We would end the hostility to entrepreneurs and make it clear that Scotland is open for business. We would reverse the decline and go for growth. We would scrap the SNP’s 21% tax band and cut income tax to 19% for all taxable income up to £43,000.We would slash the number of quangos, restore regular police patrols, and allow for the building of new nuclear, bolstering our energy security, securing new jobs and driving investment. We would restore pride to our education system, so that it enables Scots to compete in a globally competitive marketplace for ideas.
Scottish Conservatives in this House would scrap the energy profits levy and the family farm tax. We would proudly, without fear or favour, stand up for Scotland’s continued place within our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. To be British as well as Scottish is, I believe, something that should be cherished. It is, in my view, to win the lottery of life. It is the best of both worlds—our freedoms, our shared culture, our institutions and our history. Being British has never relied on the rejection of being Scottish, English, Welsh or Northern Irish. Those identities are entirely complementary, not contradictory.
To be British is to be part of something larger—a shared civic and cultural inheritance built across these islands together. Whether you find yourself in Dundee or Doncaster, you will realise that those shared values are to be discovered at every turn. The United Kingdom at its best is not a denial of national identity but a partnership that allows each nation to contribute its own unique character to something greater together.
From the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers who shaped British democracy to the engineers and writers who helped forge its industrial and cultural strengths, Scots have never been passengers in the British story but always at the tiller. We will continue to be so, but we need change in Scotland, we need common sense in Scotland, and we need it desperately. The Scottish parliamentary election in May can be that moment. Change can and will be delivered. Of that I am certain.
Oral Answers to Questions
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Alexander
As I sought to reflect in the first answer, oil and gas will be a central part of our energy mix in the United Kingdom for decades to come, but it is also right to recognise that there is a transition that needs to be managed and there was an abject failure by the previous Government to manage it. That is why we saw tens of thousands of jobs going in the North sea without the level of investment that we are now seeing from GB energy to manage that transition effectively.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree with me that the Conservatives have got a cheek? Some 77,000 jobs drifted out of the North sea under their Government, and they did not lift a finger. This Government, along with the Scottish Government, invested £18 million in a transition fund to help oil and gas workers move into energy jobs. That will be an uneven transition, but it is an inevitable one. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is what comes from having a Government with an industrial strategy that puts workers first?
Mr Alexander
I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend from the Western Isles. The North sea has provided decades of good jobs, not just for people from the Western Isles and across Scotland but from the whole of the United Kingdom. The last Conservative Government did not believe in industrial strategy—it is as basic as that. It is not just a difference of policy; it is a difference of philosophy. We believe in open markets and an active state. That is why we set up GB Energy, that is why there is a transition fund and that is why people can rely on Labour.
Devolution in Scotland
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing this important debate on the 25th anniversary of devolution.
My constituency of Edinburgh East and Musselburgh is home to many of Scotland’s jewels. It is a privilege to represent Edinburgh castle, Holyrood palace and the Edinburgh festivals and fringe, although I think the performers are safe given some of the jokes we have heard from Opposition Members. However, the most important building in my seat—indeed, in the whole of Scotland—is at the foot of the Royal Mile. Not only is it architecturally a huge addition to Edinburgh’s scenery, but it is where the Scottish political heart beats. Calling the Scottish Parliament the centre of Scottish political life may sound like a bland truism, but it is not. It is a huge achievement, and not to think so would be to underestimate the achievement of devolution. Before 1999, critics of devolution said that it would amount to an overgrown town council, cause a brain drain, or be of interest only to the political class, not ordinary Scots.
I am of the devolution generation: for as long as I can remember, devolution has simply existed. That devolution generation is now reluctantly facing middle age, but for us it has become a fact of life that the Scottish Parliament is the primary Parliament in which decisions that affect our lives are taken. The community groups and local businesses that I speak to orient themselves towards Holyrood. When they say “the Parliament,” they mean that place, not this one. That is testament to the Scottish Parliament’s success in establishing itself as the fulcrum of Scottish political life.
However, we should consider a counterfactual. Imagine if devolution had been thwarted. Our health service, education and justice systems and housing policy would all receive only scraps of parliamentary time, with little scrutiny and even less reform. That would be a democratic affront even now, when the Government have 37 Scottish MPs, but it would have been an outrage over the 14 years under the last Conservative Administration, with little Scottish representation. The Scottish Parliament has its flaws, but it has undeniably remedied that democratic deficit, and in so doing, has removed one of the greatest threats to constitutional stability in Scotland.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for organising this debate—he is as much an institution as the Scottish Parliament itself. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) speaks about the Scottish Parliament being the heartbeat of Scottish politics. Is it not time, in the next 25 years, to devolve power from Edinburgh to regions like mine and the highlands, to super-charge the Highlands and Islands Enterprise into a highland development agency, cutting out—shut your ears—those dynamos of economic activity, Inverness and the Moray firth, and to focus devolved power on transport, housing, depopulation and economic and cultural growth in rural areas of Scotland? Powers have been pulled back from them into a centralised Edinburgh.
Chris Murray
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The concentration of power in the Scottish Parliament does not work for cities, rural areas, the central belt or the highlands and islands, because it treats Scotland as one monolithic whole and does not address the differences in its communities.
That brings me to my next point. Although devolution has been successful in establishing the Scottish Parliament, we have to be honest about where it has fallen short. Many hon. Members have laid out a litany of failures: poorer health outcomes, falling schools standards that were once the envy of Europe, a housing emergency and stubbornly high poverty, and the drugs crisis, which shames us all. We once led the world in setting climate targets, but we now lead the world in ditching them. We must understand why that happened.
If we think of devolution only as the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, we get it wrong. In 1999, another institution was created—the Scottish Government, then the Scottish Executive.
Oral Answers to Questions
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Kirsty McNeill)
The Secretary of State and I are committed to supporting a flourishing broadcasting sector in Scotland and regularly meet its representatives. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar was part of a recent engagement that the Scotland Office was delighted to co-host with MG Alba, where he spoke passionately about the importance of Gaelic broadcasting, and we share his commitment to it.
Torcuil Crichton
We islanders have always been international ambassadors, and I am delighted that some of the Lewis chess pieces are going to France—a little bit of Gaelic Scotland in President Macron’s pocket. Gaelic broadcasting also has a global reach: 1.8 million viewers watched “An t-Eilean”, MG Alba’s detective series. Gaelic is a big part of Brand Scotland. Requesting more money for broadcasting is a straightforward ask, but may I ask Ministers to think more imaginatively about growth deals? Can we see a Scotland-wide growth deal for Gaelic, for cultural heritage items such as the Lewis chess pieces and for childcare, so that we can grow the social infrastructure of Scotland as well as its physical infrastructure?
Kirsty McNeill
That is an interesting point. My hon. Friend has been advancing this case, and he is right: the whole objective of the growth deals is to enable people to live well in the places that they love. As he knows, the UK Government have delivered a historic spending review for Scotland, which includes ambitious plans for local growth to become the foundation of national renewal. The Scotland Office will continue to engage with him and with other Members on both sides of the House, and with Scottish local government, to ensure that local growth investment supports the change that Labour promised and the change that our communities want to see.
Oral Answers to Questions
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kirsty McNeill
We are in ongoing discussions with the Scottish Government and Scottish universities, but I want to be absolutely definitive about this, because there has been some confusion in the press. Education policy is devolved, and the international student levy will not apply in Scotland unless the Scottish Government decide to introduce it. I met Universities Scotland just this week and made that very clear, and I am pleased to do so again today.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
The university sector is important for growing the Scottish economy, but so is tourism. Can the Minister enlighten me about the jet safari trips from Clacton to Scotland that have taken place, allowing former bankers to patronise the locals, miss the big picture and be back in England for a pint of warm beer by lunchtime?
Kirsty McNeill
I think I did hear something about the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) getting lost in Hamilton this weekend, and sculking behind the bins before he was sent packing by the good people of South Lanarkshire. Of course, the only local candidate in that by-election is Labour’s Davy Russell, who will stand up for his community against the division peddled by both the SNP and Reform.
Budget: Scotland
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz—we always have to say that, but in this instance, I genuinely mean it. I am grateful to speak on this issue. When I saw this coming up on the agenda for Westminster Hall, I thought, “Goodness me, who has brought this?” It turns out that it is the Government. I thought, “That is all right. Well, let’s see what the facts are because this Budget had precious little in it to be welcomed in Scotland.”
I will start with that which could be welcomed for Scotland. Thankfully, the Chancellor heeded the SNP’s manifesto call to change the fiscal rules to allow more investment in capital infrastructure. That was good and welcome, and it will be helpful. They also heeded the SNP’s pre-Budget call for greater investment in the NHS, which will be very welcome as we try to recover from covid and staffing challenges. But aside from those two things, on which the SNP gave the Government a menu, the Budget has been an unmitigated disaster for Scotland and Scotland’s economy. It has imposed billions of pounds of service cuts and tax rises that will hit working Scots in the pocket and do very little, if anything, to deliver on the promise that the people of the United Kingdom were offered as a prospectus in the run-up to the election.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
Would the hon. Gentleman describe £50 million for Argyll and the Isles and £20 million for the Western Isles as a “disaster”?
Dave Doogan
I hope that that money will be spent and make a great difference, but it will not compensate the Western Isles and the Northern Isles one bit for the money that they have lost as a consequence of Brexit. The hon. Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) and many of his colleagues herald this as the largest Budget settlement for the Scottish Government, as though Budget settlements go up and down. But they continually go up: every latest Budget settlement is the biggest Budget settlement since the last one.
As various Bills have passed through the Chamber, I have not run out of opportunities to point out to the Government how the basics of fiscal policy and economics work, and here we are again. All power to the communities of the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton). I hope they get great benefit from that money but it does not fully compensate them for what they have lost, and no mistake.
The tax rise of £40 billion represents the biggest since Norman Lamont in 1993. Do not forget that when this Government came in, they inherited the highest tax burden in living memory, or certainly since the end of the second world war at least—
Dave Doogan
Like the hon. Lady, I am very hopeful that we will see Berwick Bank approved and into the construction phase as quickly as possible, to cement Scotland’s enviable position as the renewable powerhouse of Europe. She shares that ambition with me, but what we are talking about is due process. It ill behoves elected Members of any stripe or any Parliament to meddle in the statutory process of a consenting major development; that will unwind in the way it unwinds, but I very much hope it is positive and expedient.
I turn to the Women Against State Pension Inequality—the WASPI women. They will absolutely have been left wondering what they have done to deserve such a catastrophic betrayal by the Labour party of their very modest and reasonable ambitions. During the debate on the autumn statement, I said that it was fantastic news that the Government, to be fair, had made sure that the money was there for the infected blood scandal and that the postmasters were properly compensated. Neither of those two scandals was of the UK Government’s making—well, not deliberately of their making; certainly not the infected blood scandal—but the WASPI women’s situation was. We now know the Government have turned their back on those people in the most reprehensible way possible.
The Chancellor promised a growth Budget and the hon. Member for Livingston says it is a growth Budget, but sadly it will
“leave GDP largely unchanged in five years”.
The inflation forecast will compound that. Inflation is set to rise to 2.6% and interest rates by 0.25% just; mortgage rates, after a brief period of respite, are on course to rise again. For years, people up and down these islands, especially in Scotland, have been hammered by the cost of living crisis. They, alongside small businesses, will be looking at this hatchet job by the Labour party and wondering what on earth will be coming next. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, no less, has pointed out that somebody will pay for these higher taxes; that somebody will be the ordinary working person. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that there is only a 54% chance that the Labour Government will meet their own fiscal rules through this Budget, raising the question of why the Chancellor thinks this amount of economic pain is worth such a low level of fiscal gain.
What about investors in the agricultural sector? Scotland’s agriculture is a very much larger part of its economy than overall UK agriculture is of the UK economy, but I am sure the Chancellor never bothered to speak to anybody in Scotland about her raid on farms through her farmers’ death tax. Labour could have done something progressive to stop outside investment and farmers disrupting that market, but they did not and they threatened the very existence of Scottish agriculture.
What would the SNP have done? We would certainly not have put this colossal fiscal drag on the economy of Scotland. We would have made sure that what we did was progressive and proportionate and that it would increase economic growth. I am sure Labour Members are not very supportive of an income tax in Scotland—
Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens that he has spoken for 10 minutes already. If every other hon. Member takes that amount of time, we will not be able to hear from everybody.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) for securing this important debate. I join him in welcoming this record settlement of more than £4 billion for the Scottish Government, but I would not want Members to go away with the impression that the SNP Government are somehow benignly mismanaging the economy, carelessly not controlling the NHS or accidentally running down educational standards in Scotland. They are involved in nothing less than the wilful destruction of the pillars of public life and public services in Scotland, because they are neglecting to make difficult decisions. They are putting off the reckoning that there must be in education; we must leave educationalists to educate and teachers to teach. They are also wilfully neglecting transport in the Western Isles and the west coast, and the health needs of constituents like mine.
My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston said that one in six Scots are on waiting lists. My constituents in the Western Isles are not on waiting lists; they are waiting for the sound of a helicopter to take them to hospital, because the NHS does not properly function in the Western Isles thanks to the Scottish Government’s neglect and the lack of resources given to it. In the Western Isles, people do not take an ambulance or a taxi to hospital; they take a bus to an airport, to take a small flight to another airport, to take a flight to a mainland airport, to take a taxi to hospital to get chemotherapy. That is the state of the NHS in Scotland under the SNP.
Dave Doogan
The hon. Gentleman mentions the litany of failures, as he sees them, in Scotland’s NHS. How then does he explain that spending per head is greater than it is the rest of the UK, that the number of doctors per 100,000 people is higher than it is the rest of the UK, that the number of nurses per 100,000—
Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)
Order. You have had 10 minutes, Mr Doogan. I am really sorry, but this is unfair to other Members.
Torcuil Crichton
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s passionate defence of his own position, but the truth is that, despite higher spending per head in Scotland, that money is inefficiently used on a massive management structure—boards upon boards and quangos upon quangos—that does not put patients first, as evidenced in the Western Isles.
There is no better evidence of these issues than the transport decisions made over my constituents. We have three companies—a Bermuda triangle—running ferry services: CalMac, Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd and Transport Scotland, with hardly an island representative.
Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)
Order. I must ask you to address the Chair, Mr Crichton.
Torcuil Crichton
I am sorry, Ms Vaz.
On ferries, we welcome the very late arrival of the Glen Sannox and soon the Glen Rosa. A minor earthquake welcomed the Glen Sannox through the Sound of Mull as she made her test run. We are glad they are there, but that is only one ferry crisis; there is also the inter-island ferry crisis. The two ferries that connect and hold our Western Isles chain together are limping on, but under the SNP’s replacement scheme they will not be replaced for another decade. Those ferries are meant to have four engines but are running on three. Our road between the isles has also been neglected and run down by the SNP.
I know that time is short, so I will not detain the House much longer. I have mentioned the neglect of rural areas. We see that in rural housing, where we are facing a depopulation crisis and where, from a budget of £25 million for rural housing, only 17 homes have been built in rural Scotland. All this happens because the Scottish Government have a bigger budget. We have no transparency on where that budget is going or how the money is spent. The SNP Government have one year to turn that around. They had better shape up or ship out.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz—and I mean that most genuinely. One of the things Members should never do in this place is bore the House, but I am afraid that I am about to do so, because I am going to sound like a cracked record.
How many times have I mentioned the ongoing scandal of pregnant mothers having to travel a 200-mile round trip from Caithness to Inverness to give birth? In weather like the stuff we are having right now in the north of Scotland, you have to be joking. The A9 was blocked at Helmsdale a view days ago, and thank God no pregnant mum tried to make the journey down to Inverness. I have gone on again and again to the Scottish Government about having a safety audit done on this perilous policy. We had a consultant-led maternity service based in Wick in Caithness.
Torcuil Crichton
I take what the hon. Member says about pregnant mothers having to travel long distances. In my own constituency, pregnant mothers have to travel two weeks before their baby is due to another island where they are given an overnight allowance of some £50 or £60 in a tourism economy where beds cost £120—so they are having to pay out of their own pocket for their pregnancy.
Jamie Stone
It is a nonsense. Constituents like the hon. Gentleman’s and mine are losing out and have lost out for years. We had a consultant-led maternity service in Caithness until, hey presto, this SNP Government took over; very shortly after, it was downgraded and got rid of—as simple as that. I and others have written to John Swinney inviting him to come north to Wick to get in the back of an ambulance in winter and make the journey for himself to see what it is like. I do not believe we have had an answer, and I expect a dusty one when it comes. It is a scandal and a disgrace, and it is on the watch of the SNP Government.
Right now, we have one psychiatrist in the north of Scotland—just one—and we have a huge problem with the mental health of young people. This morning I rang a mother from Caithness, Kirsteen Campbell, who thinks it will be two or three years before her child can be seen by a professional to sort out their problem. During the election, I spoke to a mother in Evanton in Easter Ross, who told me how her child—who I will not name for obvious reasons—had not been to school for a number of years because the school could not deal with the issues that this poor, wretched child had. It is a scandal.
In the short time available, I have given just two examples of failures. Turning to the subject of debate, I sincerely hope and pray that the Scottish Government will use this extra money to address these issues finally, before it is too late and something terrible happens on the youth mental health front or a mother or child loses their life. We had an issue where a mother was pregnant with twins, but one twin was born in Golspie and the other had to be born in Inverness. Imagine how awful that is for a family—it is a shocker.
I close with this: the two issues I have outlined are issues that really, really matter to ordinary people. We can talk about this or that in politics, but these are the big, chunky issues on the doorsteps. People are not stupid out there. I hear my good friends in the SNP sitting to my left, and they are good personal friends, but something happened in July, when the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) was returned with the bump that he was and when my majority went up from 204 to just 11 votes shy of 10,500. That, I think, is the Scottish people telling us something, and anyone who does not listen to that is simply whistling in the hurricane.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
I was not going to speak, but seeing as you have asked me to, Ms Vaz, I will speak briefly. I am grateful to serve under your chairmanship.
I thank the hon. Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) for securing this important debate. I have only one point to make, because we are short of time. Labour Members continually mention to us the ferries—I have heard the ferries mentioned more times than I heard Slade played over Christmas, and that was quite a lot—but they never mention High Speed 2. The people of Scotland are paying for that. They are also paying for Trident and for Hinkley Point.
Seamus Logan
No, I am not giving away—in retaliation.
Hinkley Point reactor 1 has now been delayed until 2029 or maybe 2031, we have no date for reactor 2, and as for reactor 3—
Torcuil Crichton
I hope the hon. Member will forgive me for not giving way to him when I was mid-flow during my own speech. We are waiting until 2031 or 2032 for our ferries. We need ferries this winter, not next decade.
Seamus Logan
The point I am trying to make is that Labour Members continually refer to fiscal mismanagement, when in fact I have described examples of fiscal mismanagement that the people of Scotland are paying for. I will leave it there, Ms Vaz; thank you very much for inviting me to speak.
Andrew Bowie
I read that a couple of seconds before I stood up to speak, and of course it is extremely worrying. The trajectory of the UK economy under this Labour Government should give us all cause for concern, which is why it is right that we are having this debate today. I am just surprised that it was secured by a Labour MP.
Torcuil Crichton
If the hon. Gentleman does not wish to blame the SNP Government for the economic mismanagement of Scotland, why does he provoke SNP Members with his choice of Union Jack socks?
Points of Order
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Further to those points of order, Mr Speaker. On behalf of the Democratic Unionist party, I would like to join right hon. and hon. Members in expressing our sincere condolences on the death of Alex Salmond. I would like to begin by assuring Alex’s family, his wife Moira and all those who loved him that our thoughts and prayers are with them all at this time, after the sudden shock of losing Alex. We are all the poorer for his passing.
Over the years, I did a number of interviews with him in the job that he had for a certain station. Interviews with him were always enjoyable. He always had a chat beforehand about the questions he was going to ask, so that I was able to prepare the answers. He always did it with humour and it was always a delight.
I sat behind him on these Benches during the time that he and I were in this place at the same time. I had seen him only on TV and was not quite sure what sort of a person he was, so it was a pleasure to get to know him—he was most disarming. He was a colossus of nationalism, but he always asked me about the colossus of Unionism, Dr Ian Paisley—they were diametrically opposed in their politics, but in many ways they were similar. Alex’s questions were always about those he had served with and those he had the pleasure to be with. That made him much more human, perhaps, and brought the person to life more than the TV did.
As has been said, Alex was a man of great passion and a wonderful speaker. We were diametrically opposed in terms of our Unionist and nationalist views, but Alex’s passion was the stuff of Scottish folklore, and reminiscent of the rich culture of Scots in the past who gave their all for their ideal. This was a quality that I could admire, although I could never agree—but that was OK, because Alex was enough of a politician to give respect to my firmly held views on Unionism.
Alex was a man of sincere beliefs and a consummate politician, and he was also a man of great pride: he was proud of his culture, proud of his roots, and proud of what he believed Scotland had the potential to be. Today in the House, with his passing, we recognise and respect the memory of a proud, passionate politician who opposed, who led, and who inspired us all in turn.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
Further to those points of order, Mr Speaker. May I pass on my condolences to Alex Salmond’s family, friends and former colleagues, and may I also do so on behalf of many of my constituents who would have known him and supported his cause?
As a journalist, I landed very few blows—very few journalists landed any blows—on Alex Salmond. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned, there was one quarrel about fishing in 1992, which was forgiven eventually in, I think, 2006, by which time Alex Salmond had transformed himself and his movement; he had stopped being thrown out of his party and thrown out of this place, and had replaced that complaint with a message of optimism, hope and self-confidence, often based on his own hope, self-confidence and optimism, and nothing more. But that great communication skill, and that ability to forgive, if not forget, and to have political opponents but not political enemies, was one of his great legacies to his party, to all of us in this Chamber and to Scotland.
Oral Answers to Questions
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Murray
I would like to announce to the House that Andy Murray and I are not related, despite the fact that we share the same physique [Laughter.] I assure the House that the Scotland Office and this Government will do all we can to ensure that the wonderful legacy of one of Britain’s best sportspeople of all time is maintained.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Ian Murray)
Scotland is at the forefront of this Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030. We will headquarter Great British Energy, a new publicly owned clean energy company, capitalised with £8.3 billion, in Scotland. That will help create thousands of jobs, and deliver energy security and lower prices permanently for consumers. Just this week, the sixth allocation for the contracts for difference scheme was announced, with over 130 renewable projects awarded contracts and 20% of those projects based in Scotland.
Torcuil Crichton
I welcome the Secretary of State to his position. We watched him for many lonely years as he held the fort on his own. He was always outnumbered, but never outgunned. Will he now use the full firepower of the Scotland Office to convince Cabinet colleagues and industry players of the vital role and potential of the Arnish fabrication yard in Stornoway and its sister yard in Methil, both of which are coming up for sale as part of the going to market of Harland & Wolff? Will he assure workers at the Arnish yard and at Stornoway port that they will play a big role in the renewables future and in GB Energy?
Ian Murray
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and congratulate him on winning the Western Isles. He is Mr Western Isles, and he will be a champion for those islands.
The Government will continue to engage with Harland & Wolff, local MPs and the Scottish Government to monitor the situation and support a resolution that provides long-term certainty for the yards and workforces across the whole UK, with all four yards across the UK being treated as one. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Kirsty McNeill), recently visited the Arnish yard. I have visited the Methil yard twice—once before the election and once during the election—and I have regular meetings with the Deputy First Minister on this issue and hope to meet her again in the coming weeks. We will do all we can to protect these yards.