Commons
Ministerial Statement
18 November 2025
ExxonMobil: Mossmorran
Sadly, this is an all-too-familiar story: private capital closing industry, leaving workers as disposable commodities to be tossed aside, and a community devastated. It is a carbon copy of what happened with Ineos and PetroChina and the Grangemouth oil refinery.
The Government stepped in at Scuntho…
Commons
Oral Questions
18 November 2025
Clean Energy: Private Sector Investment
The breaking news that the Mossmorran chemical plant is to close is yet more industrial vandalism put upon Scotland. Like what happened with Grangemouth, hundreds of on-site workers and their communities will be plunged into chaos. Why will the Government not take a future stake in what comes next a…
Commons
Debate
17 November 2025
Asylum Policy
Quite a few things in this statement need to be challenged. First, there is the suggestion that Britain has always been a welcoming, generous and warm place for immigrants and people seeking asylum. There will be many people from an Irish background whose ancestors faced prejudice, as will there be …
Commons
Debate
4 November 2025
Welfare Spending
Although I currently sit as an independent MP, I am still a proud member of the Labour party. Instead of preoccupying myself with the stances, opinions and views of other parties, which I have absolutely no control over whatsoever, all I care about is where Labour is and what Labour does.
I wholehe…
Commons
Oral Questions
4 November 2025
Topical Questions
When will the Government lift the two-child cap?
Commons
Debate
3 November 2025
Public Office (Accountability) Bill
First, I would like to record the respect I have for my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for all he has done on the Hillsborough law. His relentless campaigning on it is equalled by his dedication in fighting another political injustice—that of food insecurity. It is fair …
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
3 November 2025
Topical Questions
Two giants of the Labour and anti-nuclear arms movement would have been 100 this year: Tony Benn and Mick McGahey. I never had the pleasure of meeting either, but I think they would have recognised that an industrial strategy based on militarism is flawed. The defence sector is less than 1% of the U…
Commons
Debate
28 October 2025
Support for Disabled Veterans
I thank the hon. Lady very much for securing the debate, and for her generosity in taking so many interventions. In Clackmannanshire, we have the Wee County Veterans and Supporters Group, which provides incredible support and camaraderie to ex-servicemen and ex-servicewomen. However, it is incredibl…
Commons
Westminster Hall
28 October 2025
World Stroke Day
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing this important debate and sharing her mum’s story.
One of the best bits of being an MP is meeting individuals and organisations that do so much good across Alloa and Grangemou…
Commons
Debate
27 October 2025
North Sea Oil and Gas Industry
Incredibly, it is now eight months since the Prime Minister announced £200 million from the National Wealth Fund for the industrial future of Grangemouth. I have had meetings with numerous companies that have proposals and are, frankly, impatient to get started. When will this money be spent, and wh…
Commons
Proceedings
23 October 2025
Business of the House
From his first stage performance in the Alloa town hall with the brilliant Forefront stage school to starring as Orpheus in “Hadestown” at the Lyric theatre in London, what a journey Tillicoultry actor Dylan Wood has been on from the wee county to the west end. Will the Leader of the House join me i…
Commons
Debate
22 October 2025
Devolution in Scotland
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I appreciate it. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for securing this debate.
The intense animosity that the Thatcher and Major Governments created made the prospect of more political power being based in Scotland highly …
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
22 October 2025
Cost of Living
This weekend, thousands of people will march in Edinburgh to say that Scotland demands better. We are right to do so, because the Poverty Alliance says that one in six adults in Scotland—around 1.2 million people—are living in food insecurity. What are the Scotland Office and the wider Labour Govern…
Commons
Westminster Hall
21 October 2025
Mandatory Digital ID
The No. 1 issue facing this country is inequality. Civil liberties will potentially be infringed by the collection of private data. Millions of older people, people living in poverty and many disabled people will face digital exclusion. Of course, big tech corporations and their shareholders will be…
Commons
Debate
20 October 2025
Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban
Let me just say from the outset that all forms of bigotry are abhorrent. A Dutch police report into the disorder in Amsterdam at the Ajax versus Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture determined that Maccabi fans tore down a Palestinian flag, set fire to it and chanted, “Fuck you, Palestine.” That is vile, disgus…
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
20 October 2025
Topical Questions
Colleges are the backbone of working-class communities such as mine in Clackmannanshire, but the funding model for colleges in Scotland is fundamentally broken because of SNP cuts. Will the Secretary of State write to her counterpart in the Scottish Government and highlight the importance of Alloa c…
Commons
Proceedings
16 October 2025
Business of the House
As an enthusiastic but error-prone goalkeeper, and having been a golf professional for 23 years, many will say that I have still to find a sport that I am any good at and they will be absolutely correct. Someone from my constituency who is excellent at sport is Ruby Henderson from Sauchie. Will the …
Commons
Debate
15 October 2025
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill
This year, Petroineos—that is, Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos and PetroChina from the Chinese state—closed the Grangemouth oil refinery. Closure was not about some passionate quest for net zero. Closure happened because private capital and a foreign Government owned vital energy infrastructure, and because c…
Commons
Oral Questions
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
2 September 2025
Topical Questions
T2. For Palestinians, if suffering decades of oppression and apartheid, thousands being killed, and millions confined in an ever-reducing area as their homes are stolen and communities are destroyed was not bad enough, now the American President is devising a plan to carve up what is left of Palesti…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
16 July 2025
Engagements
Q12. On 11 June, Alexander Dennis announced that it was planning to stop bus manufacturing in Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) and I have met the workers, the trade unions, the company and both UK and Scottish Government Ministers to see how closure can be averted. Al…
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
Taxes
We live in a country where wealth is hoarded by the few while poverty is the fate of the many. Yes, the Government have taken some welcome steps, addressing non-dom status and imposing VAT on private school fees, and I make no apology for being ideological about that. Those are steps in the right di…
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
2 contributions
Welfare Spending
Pessimism is understandable when brutality is overpowering. Just over a year ago, the British public tried to shake off that pessimism and emerge from the brutal reality of life in Britain after 14 years of relentless cuts that have torn apart the social safety net of our country. It is little wonde…
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, which I will come on to. He has clearly had advance sight of my speech.
The Government should of course lift the two-child cap immediately, and it was wrong of them not to make that a part of the King’s Speech.
The wording in the motion referring to a “be…
Commons
Oral Questions
15 July 2025
Topical Questions
More than 100 INEOS chemical employees are to lose their jobs at Grangemouth because the refinery has closed. The £200 million commitment to Project Willow does not help them in the here and now, and it is frankly an insult to the workers who are about to lose their livelihoods to talk about trainin…
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 July 2025
2 contributions
Glaucoma Awareness
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I extend my thanks to the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) for securing this important debate. When the time comes, I will welcome an intervention from him to help me pronounce the name of the eye operation that I had, becau…
That is not the first time I have heard that. I have another optician friend, who said that that has been a regular occurrence in his career. Someone may not know that they have glaucoma until it is too late.
I was prescribed eye drops. I went through a few options, with not much success, until I e…
Commons
Oral Questions
8 July 2025
Topical Questions
T3. PeoplePlus has just won the contract for prison education in Scotland and England. PeoplePlus was sold to Talent International, a subsidiary of swipejobs, in which US and Australian-based venture capital firm Clearsign Capital has a 40% stake, according to the University and College Union. Can t…