Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
15 July 2026
2 contributions
Young People
The Minister will know that the Secretary of State is regularly to be heard talking about his many, many good friends. Does she believe that the Prime Minister-elect is one of those good friends, and, while we are on the subject of young Scots, will it not be awkward when the Secretary of State’s jo…
I note the Minister’s doughty protestations on behalf of the Secretary of State, but noting that is one thing. What message does she have for the 800,000 young Scots who were unable to vote in the 2014 referendum about her party’s continued dogma preventing young people in Scotland from having a say…
Commons
Debate
8 July 2026
Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness
The hon. Gentleman is very kind to give way again, as he is right in the middle of unpicking the DIP thread by thread. Does he agree that we need to look at the manifest, substantial disappointment that we and everyone in uniform see in the DIP now that it has been announced, and try to reconcile th…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
6 July 2026
Royal Navy Surface Fleet
We learned from the defence investment plan that there will be no new Type 83s or Type 32s, but we will get some unspecified, undetermined and uncrewed—and currently unbelievable—replacement. That is precisely the same sort of budget-cutting, finger-crossing nonsense from the MOD that sees the geria…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
1 July 2026
Engagements
I am gravely concerned that time after time this Prime Minister, in response to the abject and honest criticism of his defence investment plan, cites recent trends in defence spending, when he should be calibrating it against the chronic and very real threat the people on these islands face. In his …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
30 June 2026
Defence Investment Plan
This defence investment plan is 300 days late and £13 billion short. It ensures that we fall further behind our allies and face greater exposure to those who would seek to do us harm, and it leaves us falling short of our NATO commitments. That £13 billion is just one year of costs for the Defence N…
Commons
Debate
30 June 2026
Department for Work and Pensions
The hon. Member is talking with great clarity about the number of young people who are no longer accessing the world of work, which we know can define people for the duration of their working career. Does he lament, as I do, the catastrophic changes that the Chancellor has made to the hospitality se…
Commons
Proceedings
23 June 2026
Defence Spending and Readiness
The Minister talks up the effect that our armed forces deliver in various different theatres, but they are doing so on a shoestring. While the DIP is delayed, apprentices will not start this August in Scotland or this September in England. Investment by primes will not happen this financial year bec…
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
10 June 2026
3 contributions
Promoting Scottish Interests Abroad
Thank you, Mr Speaker. When the Secretary of State first took up his job in government, his first priority should have been advancing the economic interests of Scotland across the world, but we now know what he was really up to instead. His first external meeting as Scotland Secretary and as a Minis…
On the case of Peter Mandelson, the Secretary of State expects—[Interruption.]—
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Debate
20 May 2026
2 contributions
Banking Hubs
On that point, will the Minister give way? [ Laughter. ]
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Could she give my constituents some comfort that after the review—I am certain it will find that the current criteria set out for Link by the FCA are deeply flawed and exist in a random, abstract form that bears no resemblance to local people’s circumsta…
Commons
Proceedings
20 May 2026
Processed Russian Oil Products: Sanctions
There is a really unfortunate supply and demand dichotomy here—and I have to remind the Minister that he is bound by collective responsibility, because while it might be a different Department, it is still his Government. On the one hand, the Government are artificially accelerating the decline in p…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
20 May 2026
Engagements
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me for my first Prime Minister’s question since becoming SNP Westminster leader, following the SNP’s stunning victory in Scotland. I am enjoying the sense of challenge and opportunity a new job can provide—a sense of renewal I am certain the Prime Minister will be …
Commons
Debate
28 April 2026
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges
I want to start with a clumsy metaphor. If one is in public office, having anything to do with Peter Mandelson is akin to filling the world’s smallest hot water bottle with the world’s largest kettle, while dressed only in shorts and flip-flops. The question is not whether one will get burned, but h…
Commons
Oral Questions
28 April 2026
2 contributions
Fuel Costs: Support for Motorists
6. What fiscal steps she is taking to support motorists with fuel costs.
If you were a gardener with a Renault Trafic or a builder with a Ford Ranger in Scotland, Mr Speaker, you would be paying over £150 just to fill up at the pump in order to get to work. When Spain and Poland and Germany and France and Italy and Ireland and Australia are all intervening to help their …
Commons
Oral Questions
22 April 2026
2 contributions
Cost of Living
7. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce the cost of living in Wales.
In just two weeks’ time, the people of Wales will have an opportunity to elect a Government who genuinely care about child poverty in Wales—Plaid Cymru. In Scotland, the Scottish Government’s child payment has helped protect 407,000 children from UK poverty, and Plaid Cymru will do the same if it pr…
Commons
Debate
21 April 2026
Middle East: Economic Update
On 3 March, during the Chancellor’s vacuous spring statement, I raised with her that the war which had just started in the middle east would have an inevitable and immediate consequence for energy prices. I asked her what she was going to do about it, and she said that she had no plans to do anythin…
Commons
Debate
20 April 2026
Security Vetting
This saga is drawing to a close, and it will come to a conclusion with the Prime Minister’s resignation, whether he can accept that or not. What I cannot accept is the “ask me no secrets and I’ll tell you no lies” regime that he expects us to believe prevailed at the very top of Government between o…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
16 April 2026
British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme
We were promised a statement on the British industrial competitiveness scheme; we got the Secretary of State talking about foutering around with the energy bills of less than 1% of UK companies and compensating them to some undetermined extent at some period in the next year. That will come as the c…
Commons
Proceedings
24 March 2026
5 contributions
Defence
Whatever has gone well in defence and whatever has gone wrong in defence in the United Kingdom over the last 50 years, it is the responsibility of the two main parties, one currently in opposition and one currently in government, and the ping-pong back and forth today has been a bit difficult to lis…
I think the hon. Gentleman thinks that he is being smart. I do not need to be reminded where Trident is based, and neither do the people of Scotland. We do not need to be reminded where the bullseye of the target on these islands is based. I do not need to be reminded how many Scots were asked wheth…
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
24 March 2026
Middle East: Economic Update
Just three weeks ago at the spring statement, I cautioned the Chancellor that significant fiscal intervention would be required to protect businesses and households in the face of the war in the middle east. She said at that time that, thanks to her actions, the finances of the UK were in robust con…
Commons
Debate
23 March 2026
Middle East
One thing that unites the Prime Minister of Israel and the supreme leader of Iran is that neither could care less about what the UK Prime Minister says, and it is difficult to imagine that the US President is not in a similar camp. With fiscal headroom evaporating, business confidence vanishing and …
Commons
Debate
18 March 2026
9 contributions
Fuel Duty
rose —
The shadow Secretary of State mentioned his perception of the intransigence of this Labour Government, to which I would add their brittle hubris in their pursuit of not achieving any form of economic growth. Does he agree that the Chancellor would not have to keep dipping into the pockets of hard-wo…
+7 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
16 March 2026
Defence Jobs: Scotland
There was a pork-barrel stench when the first defence growth deal was awarded to the Minister’s constituency. Over six months later, he has finally got around to making an award to Scotland, but for Scotland, the £50 million has turned into £20 million—and he wants the Scottish Government to foot th…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
3 March 2026
Spring Forecast
We have just heard a 40-minute, self-aggrandising monologue on how wonderful everything is in the economy. Does the Chancellor have any clue how her tone-deaf monologue will have landed in the real economy, where growth has been downgraded, unemployment is soaring and the cost of energy has just spi…
Commons
Proceedings
23 February 2026
Point of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 10 February, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry was called to the House to answer an urgent question about a meeting between Palantir, Peter Mandelson and the Prime Minister in February 2025, after which there was an uncompeted award of £245…
Commons
Westminster Hall
23 February 2026
3 contributions
Firearms Licensing
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. First, I would like to correct the record; as you can clearly see, Sir Alec, the SNP are very much in this debate, contrary to the claims of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone).
It is only fair that I accept both of those from the hon. Member. We are here because of the 121,000 signatures on the petition, and many of the constituencies with the highest counts of signatures are in Scotland, where gun ownership per capita is much higher than it is elsewhere in these isles, fo…
+1 more contribution in this session