Commons
Proceedings
11 December 2025
3 contributions
St Andrew’s Day and Scottish Affairs
It is a great privilege to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) on securing it.
Today’s debate is timely and important because Scotland stands on the cusp of an election that will determine the future of our country. Regardless of our p…
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 t…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Proceedings
1 December 2025
3 contributions
Budget Resolutions
That is absurd.
Yes.
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
26 November 2025
2 contributions
Economic Growth
A key driver of growth in Scotland is the agricultural sector, but Scottish farmers feel utterly ignored and totally abandoned by this Labour Government. I have received a copy of a letter that was delivered to all Scottish Labour MPs urging them to call on their own Government to reconsider the fam…
Pleas from farmers to the Minister and the Secretary of State are being ignored, just as other pleas from other sectors that are key to driving growth in Scotland have been ignored. Scotland has the worst of both worlds: two socialist and economically illiterate Governments, and a Scotland Office th…
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
26 November 2025
New Nuclear Sites
I join the Secretary of State in congratulating Steve Clarke and Scotland football team for qualifying for their first world cup since I was 11 years old. I remember getting the afternoon off school, and when we have our first game next year I hope that Mr Speaker takes the same approach to the parl…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
18 November 2025
3 contributions
ExxonMobil: Mossmorran
I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement. Since the Government came to power in July 2024, over 15,000 manufacturing and industry jobs have been lost. Only this Labour Government would recognise that as a success. The Minister says that he is saddened. That is cold comfort to the work…
Patronising tone.
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
18 November 2025
Topical Questions
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given the very serious news coming out of the Mossmorran plant this morning, and given that the news broke after Members were able to submit an urgent question, might you inform me, and indeed the rest of the House, how it might be possible for the Government to brin…
Commons
Oral Questions
18 November 2025
2 contributions
Clean Energy: Private Sector Investment
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
“The skills, infrastructure and experience built by Scotland’s oil and gas sector are vital assets that must be safeguarded and redeployed as we accelerate the transition to clean energy.”
These are not my words, but the words of Scottish Renewables. Why are the Government p…
It is a bit rich for a Minister to come here, on the day that further jobs are being lost as a direct result of the Government’s policies, to talk about their clean jobs plan as if that will somehow mean anything to the workers at Mossmorran, Grangemouth and all the other sites that have lost jobs a…
Commons
Debate
12 November 2025
7 contributions
Energy
Two Labour promises gone in one day—that must be a record, even for this failing Government. We heard today confirmation that there is no way that the Government are going to cut energy bills by £300 by 2030. This is a party that campaigned on the pledge of cutting bills by £300, yet we have seen fa…
Yes, I do want to scrap that Act. We will scrap that Act because the cost to the British people is far too high and it is unsustainable. That is why we want to bolster domestic energy security by backing British oil and gas, supporting workers and reducing reliance on imports, which have soared as a…
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
27 October 2025
2 contributions
North Sea Oil and Gas Industry
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on the future of the North Sea oil and gas industry.
Another week and yet another hammer blow to our North sea oil and gas industry, another gut punch to energy workers and another blow to our energy security. Whatever the Minister says today, the blame lies squarely with this Labour Government. [ Interruption. ] They do not like to hear it, but it is…
Commons
Debate
22 October 2025
2 contributions
Devolution in Scotland
I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing this debate—at the second attempt. I know how important devolution in Scotland is to him, a signatory of the claim of right and a founder Member of the Scottish Parliament, and that he wants…
When the Scottish Parliament was established, and when the Scottish Executive, now Government, were created, I think the Scottish people expected it to do a bit better than continually comparing its record and role to the role of the UK Government. People are frankly fed up of, “England is doing wor…
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
22 October 2025
2 contributions
Energy Security: North Sea Gas and Oil
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman back to the Dispatch Box as Secretary of State for Scotland after his sabbatical over the last 20 or so years. The messianic zeal of his colleague the Energy Secretary to see the destruction of our oil and gas industry is having real-life consequences. Scottish wor…
The Secretary of State for Energy is not the messiah. Week after week, I come to this Chamber to ask Energy Ministers and Scotland Office Ministers why they are content to sacrifice one of this country’s greatest national assets and allow highly skilled workers to go on the scrap heap or go overseas…
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
22 October 2025
Inheritance Tax Relief: Agriculture Sector
The agricultural sector is woven into the fabric of communities across Scotland. It employs thousands and contributes millions annually to the economy, but farmers across Scotland have been left in fear for their families’ future and their way of life because this Government want to tax them out of …
Commons
Debate
14 October 2025
Energy Profits Levy: North-east Scotland
I commend my hon. Friend on her speech and on securing the debate. As she knows, this issue is also felt incredibly keenly in the neighbouring constituency of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, which I represent. While the debate about whether it is renewables or oil and gas is a false one, the fact…
Commons
Oral Questions
14 October 2025
2 contributions
Net Zero: Impact on Manufacturing
How many jobs have to be sacrificed on the altar of this Secretary of State’s vainglorious eco-zealotry before the Government acknowledge the utter destruction of the UK’s industrial base that is being wreaked by policies driven by an out-of-touch green lobby that has captured what is laughably stil…
On their watch, two oil refineries have closed in just one year, with Jim Ratcliffe warning of a million job losses to come. Thousands are being laid off in the North sea, as companies divest themselves of assets and investment dries up. Factories are closing and plants are shutting down. It is no w…
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 September 2025
Hydrogen Supply Chains
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. It is also a pleasure to take part in a debate on energy in which there is such a cross-party consensus. It is very rare in debates on energy these days to get such agreement on the way forward and on what we should invest in. I cong…
Commons
Proceedings
22 July 2025
2 contributions
Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on the closure of the Prax Lindsey oil refinery.
When the Prax Lindsey refinery closes its doors in October, there will be only four oil refineries remaining in the United Kingdom, following the news about Grangemouth a few months ago. This is the second oil refinery to close in the United Kingdom in only six months, prompting serious questions ab…
Commons
Oral Questions
15 July 2025
2 contributions
Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs
The British oil and gas industry is a resilient sector—it has had to be, given this Government’s actions over the past year—and it takes a lot to shock it, but shocked it was when, on 2 July, sadly the Energy Minister claimed to the Scottish Affairs Committee that there was no “material difference” …
The Secretary of State will not apologise. That is absolutely fine. The industry already knows that this is a Government who want nothing to do with it, and who take every opportunity to talk it down and make every effort to shut it down. In that same session last week, the Minister who is sitting t…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 July 2025
3 contributions
State of Climate and Nature
It is a rare pleasure to see the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box today, given that he turned down the opportunity to defend his plan for clean power by 2030 or the report from the National Energy System Operator that was published earlier in the year. Perhaps that is why we are being given a …
I completely agree, Mr Speaker, and I apologise if I insinuated the opposite in any way.
The UK accounts for less than 1% of global emissions. That is also the truth. In fact, now that I come to think of it, it is rather shameful that the Secretary of State should be using this report from the Met …
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
9 July 2025
Supporting Scottish Agriculture
This weekend, I was at the Fettercairn show in my constituency, and I note that the Secretary of State was at the royal highland show in Edinburgh two weeks ago. With new research showing that more than 16,000 jobs are expected to be lost as a direct result of Labour’s family farm tax, what message …
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
9 July 2025
2 contributions
Industrial Strategy: Impact on Scotland
Last Sunday, 6 July, marked 37 years since the Piper Alpha disaster, an incident that claimed the lives of 165 men and affected many more, particularly in and around the north-east of Scotland. We remember them, their families and friends, and indeed all those who continue to do the dangerous work o…
We are very proud of our record on supporting the oil and gas industry. Talk about the Government having their heads in the sand: 400 jobs will be lost in the North sea every two weeks on the Secretary of State’s watch. That is a Grangemouth-sized event every two weeks. The only strategy that this G…
Commons
Statutory Instrument
9 July 2025
Draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, and to be in the august company of the double award-winning Minister—the Scottish MP of the year, as of yesterday evening. The competition was very stiff.
The capacity market scheme was introduced in 2014 as part of the electricity mark…
Commons
Westminster Hall
7 July 2025
4 contributions
Fossil Fuel Advertising and Sponsorship
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. Not being one to break consensus often, I am delighted to remind hon. Members of the value and importance of our oil and gas industry to communities in north-east Scotland such as my own, to the Exchequer, and to the United Kingdom’s energ…
If the hon. Lady is patient, I will come to that—I seem to have some two and a half hours to make my remarks. I will get to the point on advertising, but my point stands: without fossil fuels, we would have none of the above.
Let us look at China. It is often condemned for opening a new coal-fired …
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
2 July 2025
2 contributions
Spending Review 2025: Scotland
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir John, and I thank you for your patience and indulgence in chairing this debate.
It is almost a through-the-looking-glass moment this morning, listening to the Labour party criticising the Scottish Government for their decisions …
The hon. Member will recall that when the Conservative Government left office in July 2024, we had the fastest growing economy in the G7. He will also surely acknowledge that as a direct result of decisions taken by his Chancellor and his Government, growth has halved since Labour got into power. Th…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
30 June 2025
Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and for taking the time to speak with me on this issue earlier today.
Today, hundreds of jobs are at risk, and a strategically significant asset is in jeopardy. The Lindsey oil refinery has a capacity roughly equivalent to 35% of British petr…