Commons
Westminster Hall
11 December 2025
2 contributions
Oil Refining Sector
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) on securing this timely and important debate. I pay tribute to him for his work in standing up for workers, not just at Prax Lindsey but across h…
I absolutely will, so I will end on that point. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I find the what-aboutery from Government Members extraordinary. They seem to think that because something has happened in the past, it is okay for something else to happen now. The Government are shuttin…
Commons
Oral Questions
Work and Pensions
8 December 2025
2 contributions
Unemployment Levels
2. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of unemployment.
As I am sure the Minister and the rest of the Front-Bench team know, we are seeing huge redundancies and mass unemployment within the oil and gas sector increasing every week. When did any of the Front-Bench DWP team last meet the oil and gas sector to discuss that?
Commons
Proceedings
1 December 2025
7 contributions
Budget Resolutions
Will the Secretary of State give way?
We are talking about £150 off energy bills that are already £200 higher than when the right hon. Gentleman came into government, and £300 was meant to come off those bills. Will bills be higher or lower than when he came into government last year?
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 December 2025
Office for Budget Responsibility Forecasts
The forecasts are meant to help the Government to decide what to do, but there was nothing in this forecast of oil and gas revenues, which explains why the energy profits levy was kept. We have seen a £6.2 billion downgrade in the expected revenue from oil and gas to the end of the Budget period—a 4…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
18 November 2025
ExxonMobil: Mossmorran
Exxon has said that the plant’s closure
“reflects the challenges of operating in a policy environment that is accelerating the exit of vital industries, domestic manufacturing, and the high-value jobs they provide.”
When are the Government going to take responsibility for the decisions that they a…
Commons
Oral Questions
18 November 2025
Clean Power: Energy Sovereignty
Energy sovereignty and energy security are vital, and gas will play an important role in that for years to come, but our domestic production is falling because of this Government’s policies. Imports of liquefied natural gas are up by 40% this year, and domestic production is meant to get to 25% by 2…
Commons
Debate
17 November 2025
Budget: Press Briefings
The Government have clearly lost control of this Budget process. While they have been flying kites, businesses across the UK have been sending up distress flares. The £40 billion of tax from them in the last Budget saw hiring down, confidence down and investments down, and we are now seeing the same…
Commons
Debate
12 November 2025
5 contributions
Energy
I was just wondering whether the Minister remembers what else happened in 2022, around February time, that might have impacted gas prices.
Will the Minister give way on that point?
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
4 November 2025
Supporting High Streets
Family businesses are crucial to our high streets, including mine in Inverurie, Ellon, Turriff and Huntly. Indeed, they are the backbone of our high streets, yet this Government’s national insurance contributions changes and Employment Rights Bill, and their slashing of business property relief, wil…
Commons
Debate
27 October 2025
North Sea Oil and Gas Industry
We urgently need to restore confidence and stability in our oil and gas sector, or we will be here again and again as more and more businesses suffer and more and more jobs are lost, whether in my constituency, across north-east Scotland, in Scotland as a whole or in the UK as a whole—there are oil …
Commons
Proceedings
23 October 2025
Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund
This fund was set up to act as a sweetener to our fishing communities after they were completely sold out in the Government’s EU-Brexit reset. In that negotiation, 12 years of access to our seas were given away. Scotland lands three-quarters of the tonnage of fish in the UK and 60% of the value of U…
Commons
Debate
22 October 2025
3 contributions
Devolution in Scotland
I sometimes find myself watching Holyrood TV, and most of what happens after the electronic voting is endless people checking whether they have voted—wanting to clarify whether the machine has worked. Given that there are 120-odd Members in Holyrood and 650-odd Members in this place, I am not entire…
Devolution sounds like, and should be, a fantastic opportunity. It should bring decisions closer to home with policies that fit the uniqueness of local areas and communities such as mine, where accountability and impact are more closely linked. That is the theory but in practice, certainly in Scotla…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
22 October 2025
Pride in Place Programme: Regeneration
The Government’s pride in place initiative—their equivalent of levelling up—should be great and should be felt across Scotland, but unfortunately we are feeling the opposite in north-east Scotland because of the Government’s energy policies. Our high streets need regeneration after a decade of disas…
Commons
Westminster Hall
21 October 2025
Electricity Infrastructure: Rural Communities
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. Although he is speaking about the Borders, we are seeing something similar in the north-east. We have a huge amount of energy infrastructure across our region, whether that be pylons, batteries or substations, and the communities feel like things are bein…
Commons
Proceedings
20 October 2025
Alleged Spying Case: Home Office Involvement
The Minister has been asked by numerous people, not least by the shadow Home Secretary and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), when the Home Secretary knew that this case was going to collapse. We have not been given an answer. The Minister has also been a…
Commons
Debate
14 October 2025
8 contributions
Energy Profits Levy: North-east Scotland
I secured this debate because what is happening in north-east Scotland simply cannot go on. Hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs are being lost on a regular basis across our region from the world-class energy sector that we are so proud of, not least because of the energy profits levy. These are geol…
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I will come on to talk about the drain of investment and other things from north-east Scotland because of the levy. It feels as if it is a particularly punitive tax on north-east Scotland, given that our region is the energy hub of the UK.
Even though the…
+6 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
14 October 2025
Onshore Wind Turbines
Energy companies of any kind, whether oil and gas or renewables, need certainty to plan to invest, whether it is onshore or offshore. The Government’s consultation on the North sea’s energy future closed on 30 April, almost six months ago, and the industry is still awaiting an outcome. The only guid…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
13 October 2025
Glasgow Safer Drug Consumption Facility
I thank our Select Committee Chair for the statement—I have a brief question. I am sure that she expects me to say this, but I just want to say for the record that although I supported the report as a whole, there are a couple of recommendations that I could not support. The first is the recommendat…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
13 October 2025
Security Update: Official Secrets Act Case
I am going to keep this quite basic, because I think this is where a lot of the public will come from. The Government should always want to do everything they can, and more, to keep the British public and our institutions safe, so I do not understand why they will not do everything they possibly can…
Commons
Proceedings
3 September 2025
3 contributions
Property Taxes
I thank the shadow Chancellor for introducing this debate on such an important issue. Properties and assets are vital to the country and to people. On the lifetime limit for inheritance tax, over the past year everyone will have heard the Government telling farmers and family businesses to get their…
On that point, will the Minister give way?
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Proceedings
22 July 2025
Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery
I have listened closely to the Minister’s answers, and he is rightly highlighting the importance of the jobs and the redundancies, but I think we need to be a bit clearer and more open with people about what the new jobs in the renewables sector that the Minister refers to are about. These jobs are …
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
2 contributions
Taxes
On pretending, it seems to me that Labour likes to pretend that the covid pandemic never happened and that the £400 billion that the previous Government spent to protect the country and protect jobs, which Labour supported and asked us to go further on, never happened. Will the hon. Gentleman reflec…
In his speech, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that working people are people who go out to work. Do farmers go out to work?
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 July 2025
State of Climate and Nature
Those of us who advocate for the North sea oil and gas sector are not climate change deniers. We are realists who understand that we will need oil and gas for years to come; that we would be replacing our domestic supply with imports that have four times the carbon intensity; that China emits in 10 …
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
14 July 2025
2 contributions
Planning System: Community Involvement
12. What plans she has to increase community involvement in the planning process.
I am sure the Minister agrees it is vital that local residents’ concerns are properly listened to, especially on major planning decisions. Having listened to many constituents in places such as New Deer, Kintore and Rothienorman who are facing huge amounts of energy infrastructure, I tabled an amend…