Commons
Oral Questions
Energy Security and Net Zero
7 July 2026
Topical Questions
Will the Minister acknowledge that the highlands and islands produce a disproportionately large amount of our renewable energy? Will he also acknowledge that last week’s Ofgem go-ahead for three pumped storage schemes will produce almost no jobs, no legacy housing and no community benefits, along wi…
Commons
Westminster Hall
30 June 2026
Nationally Significant Energy Infrastructure Projects
The Minister knows that in the highlands we have had three massive pump storage sites move to the next level of development. Cumulatively, they will store 4 GW in an area that has the highest fuel poverty in Britain, at a cost of £5 billion. At the moment, the pumps will do very little for the highl…
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 June 2026
4 contributions
Clean Power by 2030
It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for affording me the opportunity to make a statement on the publication of the Scottish Affairs Committee’s first report of the Session, on the Government’s clean power 2030 mission. It is …
I thank the hon. Lady for chairing the Committee—she was the driving force behind the report. The curtailment costs demonstrate quite how meagre the community benefits are. I do not have the curtailment cost figures to hand, but hundreds of millions of pounds are often being paid to utilities and in…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
10 June 2026
Promoting Scottish Interests Abroad
Scotland exports 10 to 12 times more electricity than it needs. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is doing a review of community benefits, and we are very concerned that that review will produce a poor outcome for the people of rural Scotland. Could the Secretary of State make represen…
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 June 2026
Energy Costs
We are waiting for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to come up with the results of the community benefit consultation. The highlands only got £9 million of community benefit last year, and Scotland as a whole got less than £30 million. There are tens of thousands of jobs in renewables…
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 June 2026
Energy Costs
We are waiting for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to come up with the results of the community benefit consultation. The highlands only got £9 million of community benefit last year, and Scotland as a whole got less than £30 million. There are tens of thousands of jobs in renewables…
Commons
Westminster Hall
8 June 2026
2 contributions
Progression of Bills through Parliament
In my constituency, I am getting a substantial amount of mail in my inbox from people who are glad that the Bill has been turned away. What they really wanted to see was investment in hospices, and there has been remarkably little to move that forward. I suspect if this Government made a major inves…
May I intervene, please?
Commons
Oral Questions
24 March 2026
2 contributions
Heating Oil: Rural Homes
12. What steps he is taking to support rural homes that use heating oil.
In the remote highlands and islands, where mains gas is not available, where we have the highest level of fuel poverty in Britain, where local households and businesses rely on heating oil and electricity, and where much of Britain’s renewable energy is generated, but to minimal local benefit, does …
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 March 2026
Energy Security and Net Zero: Scotland
Do you agree that £9 million in total community benefit for the highlands, and £30 million for Scotland as a whole, is a paltry amount for a multibillion-pound industry?
Commons
Westminster Hall
3 March 2026
Small Charity Sector
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing the debate.
I want to speak briefly about mental health charities. Fundamentally, we have an enormous problem in the UK: the public sector no longer funds the mental health sector properly, and…
Commons
Westminster Hall
23 February 2026
Firearms Licensing
Will the hon. Member consider the impact of defining what a farmer is? Is it somebody who is part time and has another job? Is it a vermin control guy? I do not think we can take out just farmers when considering this, because we are talking about multi-rural employment.
Commons
Debate
5 February 2026
2 contributions
Road Safety
A year ago in my constituency, Lewis Knox, aged 16, Fergus Ward, aged 17, and Jordan Cameron, aged 17, went off the road and died—no other car was involved. It was an enormous shock for the area. Lewis Knox’s father, Alan, is the head of the ambulance service in the area. He and his wife, Elizabeth,…
All the evidence shows that graduated driving licence schemes work extremely well in reducing the number of serious incidents.
I have one more statistic to finish with. In 2024, 1,602 kids aged between 17 and 24 were killed or seriously injured in Great Britain. According to international figures, …
Commons
Westminster Hall
3 February 2026
3 contributions
Taxation: Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
The Scottish Affairs Committee is doing an inquiry into the viability of high streets. We heard from a professor at Glasgow University who specialises in the subject, and he made an extraordinarily convincing case that Amazon is basically being subsidised by the high street—that Amazon is being huge…
I have spent a great deal of my life looking at small businesses. There are 4.1 million sole traders or self-employed people in the UK and that £90,000 VAT restriction is a block on building businesses. Were it increased to, say, £250,000 and 10% of those businesses employed people, that would mean …
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
13 January 2026
2 contributions
Arctic and High North
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could encourage the Prime Minister, or indeed the Minister, to move forward more quickly in committing to increasing expenditure on our defence forces.
Given that one of the UK’s core NATO responsibilities is securing freedom of operation in the GIUK gap, can the Minister reflect on what an SNP-led independent Scotland would mean for that task? At a time when hostile states exploit political fragmentation, does he agree that a party that opposes th…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
7 January 2026
Engagements
Q6. According to the Office for National Statistics, 174,000 people under the age of 35 moved abroad in the year ending June 2025. In the highlands, the problem is especially acute: demographic statistics show that young people are not staying in rural communities and pupil numbers in schools are do…
Commons
Westminster Hall
7 January 2026
Rural Fuel Duty Relief
In my constituency, the price per litre of unleaded is 160p. When I was in Northern Ireland over Christmas, places were selling at 125p. We have a 35% premium on the cost of living where I live, and fuel is major part of it. In my constituency, there is a big question as to whether the 5p is actuall…
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 December 2025
2 contributions
Membership-based Charity Organisations
I thank the hon. Member for allowing me to intervene. I wonder if the Minister would consider the following. I was the vice-president of the National Trust for Scotland for the majority of 10 years and I know the senior management there very well. They have been extremely hurt by the national insura…
Yes—sorry. Does the hon. Member agree that when the Government introduce legislation on, for example, national insurance and people doing part-time work, and now this gift aid issue, they should consider charities as separate organisations?
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 December 2025
Neurodiversity in the Workplace
I left school at 16. I did extremely badly at school and seem to have been fine ever since, largely. It is now very clear to me that people who are neurodiverse in many ways contribute far more than normal people. If they were given a chance, they would succeed. Just 30 seconds on the internet produ…
Commons
Debate
4 December 2025
War in Ukraine
I thank the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for bringing this very important debate to the House.
It is very disappointing that the Chamber is not full and that we do not have the Prime Minister sitting there. I cannot think of a more important subject for us to be deba…
Commons
Debate
18 November 2025
Northern Ireland Troubles Bill
My family has served in the Army for many generations, including myself in the troubles in Northern Ireland, and indeed my son is serving now. We have seen and deeply admired the Army’s core values of courage, discipline, respect, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment. Would my hon. Friend acce…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
12 November 2025
Engagements
Q5. Successive Governments have imposed massive environmental tariffs on customers using UK-produced renewable electricity, but far less on imported carbon fuel mains gas. This is the main reason why those not on the gas grid—those living in rural Britain—pay a great deal more to heat their properti…
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 November 2025
Support for Dyslexic Pupils
It is an incredibly important subject. I left school before I was 17, and that was the end of my education. I have had a fantastic business career, I have written lots of novels and I am now an MP. That is despite no help at all from the educational system, and society as a whole putting across the …
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 November 2025
Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation
I wrote to the Post Office in July, three and a half months ago, and it emailed a response this week—I think three and a half months might be a record. The posties in the west highlands, a very rural area, get paid an amount of money that is not attractive to them. We have areas in Wester Ross and S…
Commons
Proceedings
29 October 2025
2 contributions
Asylum Seekers: MOD Housing
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the planned use of MOD barracks to house asylum seekers.
I thank the Minister for his answer, and the Speaker for allowing me to ask this urgent question.
I got a call yesterday at 7.10 in the morning from the BBC, who asked, “What is your comment on the Cameron barracks being taken over and used to house migrants?” I know that place well, because I was …