Angus MacDonald MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jan 2025 · Finance Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  May I intervene?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Finance Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister consider the fact that the increase in national insurance has harmed many companies that have really struggled? An increase in the top rate of income tax or capital gains tax would at least have hit organisations that are making proper profits and proper money.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Finance Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  My point was really about the cumulative effect of many different taxes and restrictions making it more and more difficult for people in the letting business, which is crucial to the economy of tourist areas.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Finance Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Did the Minister consider the different legislation in Scotland, where we have short-term letting licences, visitor tax and a whole load of extra legislation coming in, which is making it difficult and reducing the amount of holiday letting available? How relevant is the proposal for Scotland?

• 23 Jan 2025 · High Streets: Autumn Budget 2024 · Hansard source

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  I wonder whether the Minister will consider what I am about to say. I have been asked to go to the Isle of Skye on Saturday for a crisis meeting. There is a group of hotels, which are family-run businesses, not big multinationals, and they face an awful combination of increases across the board, including heating price increases. Their No. 1 issue is national insurance contributions and minimum wage costs. They think that, on average, their costs will go up by between £40,000 and £70,000. They are in a very poor state indeed. Can the Minister give me any encouragement that I could pass on to them on her behalf?

• 23 Jan 2025 · High Streets: Autumn Budget 2024 · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister say why taxes were put on poor, struggling organisations, such as high-street shops and hotels, rather than the massive online businesses that are emptying our high streets? Why did she not consider imposing a higher rate of corporation tax or income tax, rather than hitting the poorest businesses in our society?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Public Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister bear in mind the importance of community benefits from renewables? The whole of the highlands is covered in turbines, which are built overseas and often owned overseas. We have the highest level of fuel poverty in Britain, and renewables offer the only chance for rural Britain to level up financially that we will see in our lifetimes. I greatly fear that the opportunity will pass us by.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Coastguard Helicopter Services · Hansard source

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  Thank you for allowing me to speak, Ms Furniss. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. He has long campaigned on this issue and that has won him a lot of gratitude from people in Northern Ireland and across Scotland and, indeed, the UK as a whole. I have considerable personal gratitude to the search and rescue helicopter service. Ten years ago, my wife fell off a hill while wearing crampons and using an ice axe, and broke everything in her body. I was in London and got a call from somebody to say, “Your wife is lying on the rocks, a few hundred feet down.” I was so concerned that I ran a situations vacant ad in The Oban Times , but luckily it was not needed because of the rescue of my wife by the search and rescue helicopter. My father was involved in Glencoe Mountain Rescue. He always says that the advent of search and rescue helicopters was probably the biggest change in the history of saving people in the mountains. I am pleased to speak in this debate as my constituency includes Inverness, home to one of the top 10 search and rescue helicopter operations in the UK. Those centres, and the incredible teams who staff them, are an essential part of our emergency service infrastructure. Their stability and effectiveness are not only important but essential, as I know to my benefit. Some people in the Chamber might not be aware of the scale of it. It is a £1.6 billion, 10-year programme, so it is a big contract. The UK search and rescue service provides 18 helicopters and six fixed-wing planes, based in 10 locations, from Newquay up to Sumburgh. There are two aircraft in each base. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned, when the leaked plans to increase the emergency response time for rescue helicopters based at Sumburgh emerged, back in 2023, he acted swiftly and decisively. His efforts paid off as the then Minister, Guy Opperman, stated that the changes would not happen for many years to come, and that “all four current helicopter bases in Scotland will remain open.” —[ Official Report , 22 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 127.] Hopefully, the new Government will ensure that we continue to hold on firm on that. Quick responses to immediate problems are vital, but what is even more important is addressing the long-term decline in the services before they reach a crisis point. We need to ensure that the service level commitments do not slip. We have been made aware that there is potential for slippage in the contract. Most people will never need a search and rescue service. However, if they do need one, nothing else will do.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Coastguard Helicopter Services · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. In the year ending March 2024, coastguard search and rescue helicopters rescued 1,425 people. That figure highlights the sheer scale of their contribution to public safety. From the Inverness base in my constituency alone, there were 321 operations—almost one a day—making it the third busiest in the UK. As a party, the Liberal Democrats are keeping a firm eye on this issue. One of the things we are concerned about is progress on extending the helipad safe zones at hospitals, which I know has become quite a big issue; I hope the Minister will mention that when he addresses us. Before I conclude, I reiterate the point made my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland. In May 2024, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport stated that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s analysis of search and rescue demand would be published by the end of 2024. Clearly, we are well past that now. I hope the Minister will address that in his closing remarks and keep an eagle eye on the search and rescue contract and its performance. It matters a great deal to people who live in the maritime and rural areas of Great Britain.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Relief · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Relief · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Hospice and Palliative Care · Hansard source

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  May I intervene?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Hospice and Palliative Care · Hansard source

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  What does the hon. Member think about the many hospices that do not need the capital but are desperate for the income? I would be interested in his answer.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  If only we had a road with the quality of the A75—I dream of such a road. The A82 going up Loch Lomond has to be one of the worst roads in Britain. Lorries and buses cannot pass each other, and that is the main trunk road up to the west. CalMac ferries are a complete disaster story, as we all know. I bet nobody can guess how long it takes to travel the 145 miles from Mallaig to Glasgow. Five hours and 20 minutes, with an average speed of less than 30 miles an hour. High Speed 2? We dream of some of that money. The main road from Inverness to Skye is single-track with lay-bys. It is an absolute scandal in every possible way. I would like to put forward a motion that Transport Scotland is closed down and that the Scottish Government are not fit to run Transport Scotland.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  May I come back to the community benefits, which the hon. Member brought up in her intervention on me? The community benefits will be hundreds of millions for 25 years or the life of the project. It will be absolutely transformational to the most rural parts of Britain; it is not just something that will come and go.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Funnily enough, as a Highland councillor, it is a subject that I have spent many years working on. Highland council—I know this does not relate to the Crown Estate in England and Wales—had £9.1 million of community benefits and Scotland as a whole had £23 million. This is an industry worth hundreds of billions of pounds across the whole of Britain, so we should have, say, 5% of that as community benefits, which would be transformational for Cornwall, Devon, Pembrokeshire and indeed Scotland. I encourage the House to consider how the Bill could establish a robust framework for community benefits that could serve as a model for renewable energy projects across the whole of the UK, working closely with the Scottish Crown Estate. The Bill represents a vital step forward in enabling the UK to meet its net zero targets and enhance energy security. However, it is equally vital that we legislate to include statutory powers for the Crown Estate in England and Wales, and indeed in Scotland, to ensure that these transformative projects see their fair share of community benefits for communities.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I will speak about the Crown Estate’s borrowing powers and the broadening of its investment scope. These changes are intended to enhance the Crown Estate’s capacity to support our ambitious goals for renewable energy, nature recovery and economic growth. The Bill is undoubtedly a significant step forward in enabling the Crown Estate to play a greater role in the transition towards net zero. I fully support its efforts and ambitions. The partnership between the Crown Estate and Great British Energy to develop offshore wind projects is exciting. Many of us have been trying to get Great British Energy to include community benefits and community ownership within its reach, but we have failed to do so. [ Interruption. ] It does? Okay—we have tried hard. A measure is to be considered in the other House on 13 January to try to get it to do that, so perhaps Labour Members know something that I do not. Anyway, that is good news. I want to focus on a critical element that is close to my heart, and perhaps even more familiar to my colleagues, as I bang on about it. That subject is, of course, community benefits. Those of us in remote and rural Britain pay far more for energy than those who can access mains gas, and we also have a much higher level of poverty; especially fuel poverty. Communities hosting renewable energy projects, and particularly those overlooking offshore wind farms, deserve to see tangible benefits from those developments. The Bill presents an opportunity to ensure that offshore wind farm projects—indeed, all renewable energy projects—not only meet our national and global ambitions but provide meaningful real-world advantages to the people most impacted by them. There are numerous examples from overseas of where community benefits have become significant. One such example is from Germany, where in the North sea archipelago of Heligoland three offshore wind farms generated €22 million in 2016. These are massive amounts of money. While the Bill’s focus is on increasing borrowing powers and investment flexibility, there is no mention of how communities will benefit from these developments, although perhaps Labour Members know something that I do not.

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  Despite the 3 million people who signed this petition, we know that the Government will continue to stand. That said, the petition is an excellent thing, because it has let the Government know how deeply unpopular many of their policies have been. I feel that many Members on the Government side are rather ashamed of many of the things that have resulted in the petition. People in the Labour party—its voters—feel let down; I will expand on that in a second. Who would have thought that it would be the Labour party that would cut the winter fuel payments for older and more vulnerable people? Who would have thought that charities, GPs, hospices and hundreds of thousands of smaller businesses would suffer a national insurance increase of 8.7%—almost four times the rate of inflation? It really has destroyed the economy and many of the charities. Who would have thought that the Labour party would walk away from the commitment—maybe it was not written down but we have certainly seen the photographs—to the WASPI women? The Prime Minister would have been a much more compassionate person, and had a much more compassionate Budget, if he had increased the top rate of tax—both the income tax for better-off people and the corporation tax for companies making hundreds of millions, if not billions, of pounds of profit. That would have been a much more compassionate decision. It would have been much more compassionate to tax the online companies that are making many billions of pounds in the UK, maybe a percentage of revenue rather than a percentage of profit—say 1.5%. Almost everybody would have understood that. The petition cannot result in a new general election, but the Prime Minister will know he is on notice. He now has a dissatisfaction rating reaching 61%, and the economic optimism in our country is collapsing. Almost universally, the people of Britain have been appalled by this Budget. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have let down the poorest people, charities and struggling businesses. Personally, as a Scottish MP, I am appalled that the Prime Minister has done a big job towards helping the Scottish National party win the next Scottish Parliament election—not a good job, I am afraid.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Hospitality Sector: Eastleigh · Hansard source

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  Apologies for being late. I ask the Minister if the Government have considered the impact on the hospitality industry in Scotland from the national insurance changes? The reason I ask is that we do not have business rates relief in Scotland, and I believe the impact of the changes is going to be massively bad for the hospitality industry.

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  Is the Minister aware of the complete disaster this will cause for Scottish hospitality businesses? We do not have business rates relief, as businesses do in England Wales. We have a very large number of young people in the hospitality sector. For example, for someone working part-time for 25 hours a week on the minimum wage, their salary is £15,912, and the national insurance has just gone up by 74%. This is wiping out the hospitality industry in Scotland.

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the impact of this measure is hitting the most vulnerable businesses and the most vulnerable charities throughout the United Kingdom? Surely a much better way of raising the money—which I can understand is needed—would be to raise corporation tax, or to increase taxes on, for instance, social media or the very largest companies.

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about the largest businesses, but the Government are completely wiping out small and medium-sized businesses across the whole hospitality and retail sector. This is a catastrophic piece of legislation. He talks about a kamikaze Budget; we are considering a kamikaze Budget right here, today.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  The £500 million set aside for the shared rural network was instigated by the previous Government. In the highlands of Scotland, it is organised by land mass, rather than the geographic concentration of people. If the Minister wants to find £300 million or £400 million of that to help with the roll-out of broadband, he can feel free, because it is very unpopular where we are and it is not serving the needs of the people.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Fuel Poverty · Hansard source

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  What is absolutely clear is that the electricity companies are not losing money. Their total profits add up to tens of billions of pounds, but the costs are being borne by the poorest people in our society.