Today, my constituent Isla presented her petition, which has over 200,000 signatures, to No. 10 Downing Street. It calls for more investment in, and political will for, the early detection of pancreatic cancer. She and her brother Tam started the petition the night before he died, just weeks after h…
CommonsOral QuestionsScotland4 June 20252 contributions
4. What discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on support for the higher education sector in Scotland.
International students are hugely valuable, not just when it comes to sharing cultures and knowledge, but to our universities and local economies. In North East Fife in 2021-22, that value was estimated at £159 million. What discussions has the Minister had with the Scottish Government about the eco…
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) for securing the debate.
I was a competitive swimmer in my teens, and my sister swam for Scotland. The hair care means that I do not swim as much as I would like no…
It was right that the Secretary of State recognised the military communities who serve across the UK, and that we recognise those communities that support them. The strategic defence review recommendations that the Government have accepted will have a direct impact on communities across the UK, but …
CommonsOral QuestionsHome Department2 June 20252 contributions
1. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of UK Visas and Immigration processing times.
This is not about call centre answering and application processing times; it is about the backlog in digital status becoming fully operational. A North East Fife constituent has settled status and has done all the steps in setting up her UKVI account, yet on both her recent trips abroad she was told…
Half the areas in my constituency are considered to be among the worst 10% in the UK for broadband coverage. My community council raised the same issue as my hon. Friend in relation to updates, which are a problem for those who are home working and want to make payments online. I hope the Minister w…
In correspondence to the Business and Trade Committee earlier this year, the Government said that some of the reasoning for not stopping licences for F-35-related components was the need to maintain arms for Ukraine. What practical steps have been taken in the three months since that letter was sent…
I want to re-emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). A constituent of mine runs an agricultural consultancy. This requires travel to the EU, which is especially frequent during seasonal peaks, and he has been hampered by the rolling 90-day …
Access to banking services is a particular issue in North East Fife, where the limitations of the access to cash legislation are becoming clear. Will the financial inclusion committee agree to look at the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to ensure that we get the access to banking services th…
It is a particular pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship for the first time, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) on securing this important debate.
It is just six months shy of five years since I had my own Backbench Business debate on glob…
I beg to move,
That this House has considered carer’s leave.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Stringer. I declare my interest as both an honorary vice-president of Carers UK and a board member of the Fife Carers Centre, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last week.
It i…
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point that out. I occasionally use my husband as an example in this debate. He cares for his elderly mother who is in her 90s, but he would not call himself a carer; it is just part of what he does as a son.
I should declare an interest, as chair of the Scotch whisky all-party parliamentary group.
My hon. Friend mentions independent brewers. Independent distilleries in North East Fife and elsewhere in Scotland face a real challenge, because they often do not produce separate bottles for hospitality and…
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I have to admit to shedding a tear last night when I heard the news of Sir Roy’s passing. Within nine months of joining the House in 2019, I became the Chief Whip of a small group of 11, and he treated me and my party with the utmost respect. He was the fi…
The hon. Member gives an eloquent account of how churches active in communities can have an impact. Another point concerns those buildings no longer being used for religious purposes. The Church of Scotland is divesting itself of a number of churches, including in East Neuk in my constituency. Does …
Struggling to make ends meet, paying bills, buying work appropriate clothing and paying for public transport all affect someone’s ability to get and keep a job. That is just as true for under-25s as it is for anybody else, but the Government continue to maintain a lower rate of universal credit for …
Last week the Permanent Court of Arbitration allowed the UK to uphold the ban on sand eel fishing around the UK, including around the Isle of May in my constituency. The ban is doing so much to support the native puffins there. It also affirmed that policies banning sand eel fishing are based on sci…
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I want to take a short period of time—much shorter than the time that many of our constituents wait to get through to HMRC—to echo the remarks of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Grantham and Bourne. HMRC plays a crucial role in …
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I want to take a short period of time—much shorter than the time that many of our constituents wait to get through to HMRC—to echo the remarks of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Grantham and Bourne. HMRC plays a crucial role in …