Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
9 July 2025
Spending Review 2025: Scottish Public Services
The spending review came off the back of last year’s autumn Budget, which hit businesses in my constituency in north-east Scotland very hard, whether it was family businesses and farms with the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief, or the extension of and increase in …
Commons
Debate
4 July 2025
3 contributions
Licensing Hours Extensions Bill
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Watford (Matt Turmaine) for bringing forward this private Member’s Bill, alongside the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger), and I am pleased to confirm that the Conservative party supports the measure. It is legislation that the previous Conservative Governme…
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course, we should all strive for deregulation, and would like more of it all the time. That is probably a bit too much to take on within the very small confines of this private Member’s Bill, but it is certainly something we should strive for, in order…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Debate
2 July 2025
3 contributions
Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism
I am grateful to the Minister for his speech and for bringing this important and very necessary measure to the House. I also thank him for the briefing I was provided with earlier today.
Let us be clear what these measures are and are not about. Do we support free speech? Yes. Do we support the rig…
The right to protest is a hugely important part of our democracy. We support the right to protest and the right to free speech. We do not support a right to commit criminal damage or to intimidate or threaten the public, but that is exactly what these groups are doing and why they are quite rightly …
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
2 July 2025
Engagements
Q9. This time a year ago, farmers and many others across the country were about to go to the polls, perhaps to vote Labour for the first time because they took the Prime Minister at his word that he and his party would never leave farmers in the background again. Within weeks, however, that trust ha…
Commons
Westminster Hall
2 July 2025
4 contributions
Spending Review 2025: Scotland
The Scottish Conservatives have suggested that we should be prioritising Scottish-based students for medical places at university, because they are much more likely to stay in the UK and therefore contribute to our workforce. Would the hon. Gentleman support that to help the backlog and health servi…
Will the hon. Member give way?
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
30 June 2025
Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill
Keeping our country safe is, and must be, the first duty of any Government. That comes with decisions and choices that Governments must take to keep their citizens, our country and our way of life safe. That is why we Conservative Members support the Bill. It is much needed to close a recently creat…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
30 June 2025
Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery
The Government stood in to secure British Steel, citing national security and protecting jobs; now they are standing in to support Prax Lindsey, citing the need to protect energy security and workers. As the Minister knows, tens of thousands of jobs and many, many companies in north-east Scotland ar…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
24 June 2025
China Audit
The UK Government are still considering Mingyang as a credible supplier for turbines for the Green Volt offshore wind project, and the SNP Scottish Government have given Mingyang priority status for a factory to build turbines based in Scotland under their strategic investment plan. Both say to me t…
Commons
Westminster Hall
19 June 2025
Social Mobility: Careers Education
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) for securing this debate, and all Members for their contributions. I am, of course, very pleased to respond to today’s important debate on behalf of the Opposition.
It is an undeniable …
Commons
Debate
17 June 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
In recent weeks and months in this House, we have become familiar with votes of conscience. The amendments that I shall speak to—new clauses 1, 20 and 106—are also matters of conscience. Although I am responding for his Majesty’s official Opposition, Conservative Members will have free votes, so the…
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention.
On the one hand, abortion would be decriminalised for women; on the other, restrictions on her ability to access that same procedure in a safe, controlled and supportive setting would remain. We must be careful not to create a law that has unintend…
Commons
Proceedings
16 June 2025
3 contributions
Windrush Day 2025
I thank all the Members who have made contributions to today’s debate. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for bringing the debate before the House, giving Members a chance to speak about their and their constituents’ experiences of, and with, the…
I think that Windrush and other scandals that have plagued our society are a stain on the UK. Whether the cause was, as the hon. Member said, a few bad apples or any other reason, the fact remains that we have to take action to address the issue that was created. We must ensure that those who were a…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
12 June 2025
2 contributions
Employment Costs
4. What steps he is taking to help reduce employment costs for employers.
Yesterday, Scotbeef announced the closure of its abattoir in Inverurie in my Gordon and Buchan constituency, with 90 job losses and another blow to agriculture in north-east Scotland. It blamed rising costs. In April the increase to national insurance contributions came in—a huge tax rise on busines…
Commons
Oral Questions
Energy Security and Net Zero
10 June 2025
Rosebank Oilfield
Cabinet Office guidance states that Government Departments should aim to publish a response to a consultation within 12 weeks of the consultation closing. The consultation on environmental impact assessments closed on 8 January, which is 22 weeks ago tomorrow. When will the Department publish the gu…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
4 June 2025
Regional Growth
The Minister talks about regional growth, but in north-east Scotland we see only cost and decline under this Labour Government. Let us take the oil and gas sector. Labour policies will cost almost 35,000 jobs by the end of this decade, and £150 billion in economic income by 2050. The UK-EU deal will…
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
4 June 2025
Town Centre Regeneration
Towns and villages across north-east Scotland, such as Aberdeen, and Inverurie, Kintore and Ellon in my constituency, will all need regenerating in future if the Secretary of State’s Government keep decimating the oil and gas sector. The best thing his Government can do for the north-east of Scotlan…
Commons
Debate
2 June 2025
Strategic Defence Review
While it is welcome that the SDR refers to the need for more routine protection of subsea cables and pipelines and of maritime traffic, there is no specific mention of the same commitment to the protection of North sea oil and gas platforms, rigs and floating production, storage, and offloading vess…
Commons
Oral Questions
Home Department
2 June 2025
UK Visas and Immigration: Processing Times
New research shows that foreign nationals are claiming almost £1 billion in benefits each month. We now face the highest number of asylum claims ever recorded—up another 9% since Labour took office. Meanwhile, the 42,000 appeal backlog at the end of 2024 is projected to more than double to almost 10…
Commons
Debate
21 May 2025
2 contributions
Business and the Economy
The industries and business groups that are leaving the country quicker than any others are in the oil and gas sector. Investors in oil and gas—in the North sea, Aberdeenshire, and my Gordon and Buchan constituency—are fleeing the country at an astounding rate, taking investment, skills and jobs wit…
I just wanted to clarify whether inflation at 3.5% is higher or lower than inflation at 2%, which is where it was last July.
Commons
Ministerial Statement
20 May 2025
UK-EU Summit
Our fishermen had been promised, and the EU had agreed, that annual access agreements would be reverted to from 2026, but, seemingly at the 11th hour, the Prime Minister abandoned our fishing communities, our fishing fleets and control of our seas by handing not a three, four or even five-year acces…
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
20 May 2025
Spending Review: Economic Growth
I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Earlier this month, Harbour Energy announced that it would be cutting 25% of its onshore workforce, blaming the Government’s punitive fiscal position and challenging regulatory environment. When the news was announced, the…
Commons
Proceedings
14 May 2025
Ministerial Code: Compliance
In early November, Mr Speaker asked the Secretary of State for Education in this Chamber to start a leak inquiry to find out why the announcement that tuition fees would be raised was first made to the press, rather than the House. It is now mid-May. Will the Leader of the House please update us on …
Commons
Proceedings
13 May 2025
3 contributions
UK-EU Summit
Will the Minister give way?
The Minister mentioned that he was in Scotland yesterday, which is wonderful. As a Scottish MP, I am in Scotland every week, and I quite often meet people from distilleries, who have recently said that they are suffering because of the family farm tax that the Government have brought in. Their farme…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
8 May 2025
Trade Negotiations
I hope that the Minister will recognise why UK farmers might raise an eyebrow at the assurances that he has given to the House. They have been let down time and again since July through this Government’s policies on the family farm tax, the sustainable farming incentive, double cab pick-ups and fert…
Commons
Oral Questions
8 May 2025
2 contributions
Fishing Quotas
5. What plans he has for future fishing quotas.
A recent poll by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation showed that 87% of Scots believe the UK should control access to our fishing waters. Two-thirds of seafood landed in the UK comes into Scotland and it is vital to our economy and to many of our coastal communities. Will the Minister show the House…
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
1 May 2025
Topical Questions
Many rural businesses rely on farms for their trade. Since the Government announced the family farm tax in the Budget, CBI Economics has spoken to over 4,000 businesses and farms across the country—49% said that they have either cancelled or deferred investment, and 34% said that they have reduced o…