Dave Doogan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 May 2025 · Business and the Economy · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making great play of the way in which his new Government have increased wages across the United Kingdom since the election, but will he concede that 91% of earners and workers in Scotland were already earning more than the living wage level that his Government have recently set?

• 21 May 2025 · Business and the Economy · Hansard source

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  I am on dangerous territory here—it ill behoves me to defend the party to my extreme right—but does the hon. Gentleman not remember the note that was left by the Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2010 about all the money being gone?

• 21 May 2025 · Business and the Economy · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his reassurance, particularly as I actively did not anticipate any reassurance. Total costs for quantitative tightening are predicted to be in the region of £130 billion, all borne by the taxpayer of the United Kingdom. The one relevant thing the Chancellor did say to me when I raised this with her during Treasury questions was that she highly values the operational independence of the Bank of England, and so do I, but that does not mean she cannot chat to them about what is patently unnecessary and extremely expensive to the public purse. Finally, we see a very unsavoury lurch to the right from a Labour Government on immigration. I will not rake over those coals but it is clear that the Prime Minister regrets some of his more florid language on immigration, and the Chancellor has provided no costings and no analysis of this dangerous policy that has been dreamt up on the back of a fag packet. Scotland has a declining birth rate, as do many other parts of the United Kingdom. We actively need immigration. We need it for our care sector, for our hospitality sector, for our agricultural sector and for our energy sector. It is not just low skilled seasonal work that we require, but all manner of people to come and work in our broad and diverse economy. In Scotland we have no idea why we have been dragged down this route—actually we know fine well why we have been dragged down it—but it is hugely damaging, again, for a Government whose stated ambition is growth, and choking off the labour component from the economy is really not consensual. This relates to the whole debacle on the EU. I heard the Chancellor say the other day that there is no going back on Brexit and there will be no regulatory alignment and no free movement of people and they will honour the vote of the people—not the vote of the Scottish people, let me add—and Brexit is water under the bridge. Well, it is not water under the bridge, or rather in so far as it is water under the bridge it is a pool of stagnant, rancid water that refuses to shift its acrid whiff from across society in Scotland and elsewhere. I heard a Lib Dem getting all doe-eyed earlier about seed potatoes; and he was right. Seed potatoes are very important in my economy, but I remember when a Lib Dem would give a full-throated endorsement to membership of the European Union, rather than doffing their cap to a Labour Government for frittering around the edges. This is frittering around the edges, and it has come at a tremendous cost to the Scottish fishing industry. Some 70% of the revenue from aquaculture and fishing in the United Kingdom comes from Scotland, and the Scottish aquaculture and fishing industry is 50 times greater a part of the Scottish economy than it is of the UK economy, yet no discussion was had with the Scottish Government or sector ahead of that, just as no discussion was had in 1970 when the Scottish fishing industry was thrown under a bus at that stage as well. The Minister might say, “Well, you can’t have it both ways, you SNP type: you can’t say you want to be back in the EU and then lament the loss of your fishing rights to EU boats”—the Minister can score that point out now. Although of course we want to be back in the European Union with all our other European nations, and we would have to take some of that pain on fishing, we would get the gain to go with it. What Labour have foisted on Scotland is all the pain of conceding our fishing grounds to European boats and none of the gain of being in the European Union, and nothing they have agreed this week is remotely like being back in the European Union. There is an ill wind blowing through the political landscape on these islands, and the actions of this Labour Government are simply making matters worse.

• 20 May 2025 · Spending Review: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  What changes will the Chancellor introduce in the spring statement to compensate for the growth-threatening sword of Damocles she has just placed over the Scottish fishing industry? She should know, but probably does not, that 70% of revenue from fishing and aquaculture comes from Scotland, and she should know, but probably does not, that the fishing industry in Scotland is 50 times larger for Scotland’s economy than for the UK’s. Can she explain what discussions she had with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation or the Scottish Government before making this damaging decision?

• 19 May 2025 · Point of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You may recall that last week Mr Speaker granted an urgent question to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) to discuss the Government’s adherence, or otherwise, to paragraph 9.1 of the ministerial code. During the proceedings following the urgent question, I asserted that “there is no such duty on Scottish Government Ministers”— —[ Official Report , 14 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 378.] I wish to make it clear to the House that my office has since clarified the position for me, and that provisions 10.1 and 6.24 of the Scottish Government’s ministerial code do confer broadly the same duty on Scottish Government Ministers. I have never misled the House before, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful to you for giving me this opportunity to correct the record.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The number of nuclear safety incidents at Faslane and Coulport is on the rise. They include six incidents in the last 12 months in which there was actual or high potential for radioactive release into the Scottish environment. The Ministry of Defence has ceased providing information to either the Scottish Government or the Scottish people about the nature of these incidents. Furthermore, the Ministry of Defence has stopped providing information to the Infrastructure and Projects Authority so that it can grade nuclear projects on value for money and success likelihood. What does the Secretary of State think about this veil of secrecy over the nuclear enterprise?

• 14 May 2025 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  Well, this is a red-letter day: we are in the Chamber to discuss something positive that is happening with GB Energy. I commend the Minister and his colleagues for that, although it is consistent with the function of a significant U-turn in Government policy. I thank Members of both Houses for their work in bringing Lords amendment 2B to fruition. The amendment would ensure that no material or equipment produced as a function of slave labour is used in GB Energy’s enterprises, but I heard the Minister talk about “expectation” and “striving”, which are much less unequivocal than “ensure”, so I would be very grateful if he could reassure the House that “ensure” means ensure. Consistent with comments from other hon. and right hon. Members, there is a very straightforward way to do that. It is maybe not legislatively or bureaucratically light, but this is an extremely important issue. If it does not attract a burden of administration to ensure that our collective consciences are clear, what will? As an engineer, I know that many products that we purchase come with a certificate of conformity. In pursuance of ensuring that there is no slave labour in any enterprise of GB Energy, it would be very straightforward for the Government to mandate that a certificate of conformity must be produced for all equipment, which would explicitly guarantee that the supply chains are free of slave labour. That does not seem to be an especially demanding expectation. I will make a final point. Can the Minister explain something to me? I am genuinely not seeing this with the clarity that I suspect he is—or maybe he is not. In what enterprises will GB Energy be involved as the decider, rather than the provider, in delivering generation, transmission or storage capacity on the ground and in a meaningful way? How will GB Energy scrutinise or mandate bills for materials to say whether they are provided from this provider or that provider? That is not my understanding of the nature of GB Energy. As has been explained in this House and elsewhere, GB Energy is a derisking device that will inject capital into the market and clear the blockages—it will not introduce purchase orders from this company or that company. I would be genuinely grateful if the Minister could clarify that.

• 14 May 2025 · Ministerial Code: Compliance · Hansard source

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  We have seen the contempt in which the Government hold the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—women, pensioners and the disabled, and their contempt for Scotland’s energy sector, job creators and the hospice sector, but that is all a function of policy. Policy is discretional and therefore, for better or worse—usually worse—legitimate. Adhering to the ministerial code is not a matter of discretion. To be honest, it is a little beneath the Leader of the House to say, “We don’t announce things to Parliament first every time, but we do some of the time, and sometimes the House isn’t sitting.” Every example presented to her today relates to a time when the House was sitting. When will she relay to the Government and the Prime Minister that Members are severely annoyed by the Government’s repeated inaction? For her information, contrary to what is being said by the three Scottish craws sitting on a wall behind her, there is no such duty on Scottish Government Ministers as that set out in section 9.1 of the ministerial code. [ Official Report , 19 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 782.] (Correction)

• 13 May 2025 · Mansion House Accord · Hansard source

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  Over the past 10 years, the Dow Jones has grown by 133%, the German DAX by 115% and the Nikkei by 87%, while the FTSE 100 has grown by 23%. It is against that backdrop that there is concern about investment in the United Kingdom. As other Members have said, given the fiduciary duty on asset managers, would they not be investing in the UK anyway if they thought that they were going to get the best return for their policyholders? If they were not already doing so, what has changed to ensure that that fiduciary duty is upheld as asset managers are coerced by the Chancellor to invest in markets that they would not otherwise have invested in?

• 8 May 2025 · Water Bills: Limiting Increases · Hansard source

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  What assessment has the Minister made on the cost of water bills from increases to regulation 31 laboratory testing capacity? I wrote to her in December about that and she replied in January. I am thankful for her answer, although it was slightly on the complacent side because she said that regulation 31 does not cause a problem to water quality just now. That is true, but the industry is burning down its assets to chemicals and equipment that have been regulation 31-tested, so a problem is coming. What assessment has the Minister made of when the solution will be delivered, and what effect will that have on water bills?

• 6 May 2025 · Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan: 80th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  Eighty-five years ago, we saw the forces of fascism rise up to threaten democracy and freedom in Europe—forces of darkness that would seek to control, oppress, subjugate and exploit the people of these islands if they prevailed. But they did not prevail. We owe our current reality to the bravery and heroism of those who gave their lives in order that we may maintain the way in which we continue to live our lives. In Scotland, generations were lost and villages and towns were hollowed out of their breeding-age men who were barely men at all, often in their productive prime, who were sent to die in a foreign, distant place among the deafening and unrelenting roar of mechanised warfare, seeing their friends and neighbours die and drawing their own last breath desperate for a kind word, a mother’s soothing touch or an absent reassurance before a short life slammed shut. It was a far cry from the cheerful “Boy’s Own” adventure “We’ll be home soon.” Nobody got home soon. Many did not return at all, and many of those who did would never be the same again, because that is how it is with wars in the past. There was a legitimate desire to lock it away in a box, out of sight, which was nice if they could manage it, but many could not. Many families saw the slow heartbreak of husbands who were irreparably damaged—either physically or psychologically—and the distant, silent fathers who returned, never quite able to access the men they were before the war. Total war has a long tail, and it is still visible on these islands 80 years later in society and the economy. Indeed, the war debt to the United States was fully repaid only in 2006. If the war stores had not been evacuated from Coventry to the Perthshire hills between Almondbank and Methven, I would not have got a job there in 1989, and I can guarantee that if I had not worked for the Ministry of Defence, I would not be standing here today. Scotland stood tall in those darkest of times militarily, economically, industrially and culturally, just like our neighbours in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and in Norway, Denmark and the low countries. Scotland’s shipbuilding, coalmining, locomotive manufacturing, agricultural output and production of steel were all pivotal to the war effort. While young men fought, an army of older men and women toiled in the factories and the fields, equipping those at home and those in peril defending their homeland. Scotland’s industry and geography made it a target for the Luftwaffe. The first aerial combat above the United Kingdom in the second world war happened in the Firth of Forth, where the Luftwaffe targeted Royal Navy ships anchored off Rosyth. While London’s horrendous blitz raged on for eight long months, towards the end of that period the Clydebank blitz lasted just two nights, but on those two nights in March 1941, the Luftwaffe killed 1,200 civilians, injured a further 1,000 civilians and destroyed 8,500 homes in that town. Eighty-five years ago in Europe, we saw the forces of fascism rise up to threaten our freedom. Then the superior forces of freedom and liberty rose higher still to crush fascism down where it belongs. Eighty years after the end of that war, autocracies are still alive and well in our world today. To honour those who paid for our freedom with their own lives, we must remain forever alert to the fragility of our freedoms. We owe them all so much, and the absolute least that we can do to acknowledge their selfless sacrifice is to never, ever forget that liberty and vigilance go hand in hand.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Energy Grid Resilience · Hansard source

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  The Minister has left himself exposed to the climate deniers in this Chamber because he has come of his own volition to make a statement in the absence of any understanding of what has actually happened in Spain and Portugal, thereby denying Parliament an ability to discuss any kind of strategic comparative assessment between the resilience of the GB grid and that of the Iberian grid. If he had delayed until he had the answer, we might be having a more valuable discussion. The Minister has been forced to say that his Department is ready for all eventualities; well, tell that to the tens of thousands of radio teleswitch service customers who will be left high and dry by his Department. He says that he has every confidence in the National Energy System Operator. I did not have a lot of confidence in it on 7 January when, but for the reinstatement of the Viking interconnector, we would have had a very difficult situation on the GB link. I know that that is distribution and not transmission. There is also the matter of trying to instil confidence in GB among electricity consumers after an episode on 21 March at Heathrow, which saw global consequences for a relatively localised disaster in the UK energy market. How does the Minister have confidence after those two events?

• 30 Apr 2025 · Brexit: Economic Impact · Hansard source

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  Only this Government can deliver cold comfort and warm words all in the same sentence. The fact of the matter is that, after the Labour-Tory hard Brexit, the Welsh economy suffered by £4 billion, trade has gone down by £1 billion and Wales has lost £1 billion in European structural and development funding. On top of that, the Labour Budget has kicked Wales even further down the track. When will the Secretary of State stand up to her Westminster masters and finally do something in the interests of the people of Wales?

• 30 Apr 2025 · Brexit: Economic Impact · Hansard source

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  4. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on the economy in Wales.

• 30 Apr 2025 · UK Airstrike: Houthi Military Facility · Hansard source

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  The brutal oppression of the Palestinians in Gaza will not be helped one iota by the bombing of merchant shipping and drone strikes against the merchant marine, so we are supportive of the action that has been taken. It seems to be an operation that has the appearance of something which may endure into a more strategic affair. Does the Secretary of State agree that, notwithstanding the general consensus in the Chamber on the action that was taken, a broader debate in Parliament would be desirable—not to discuss operational imperatives, plans or anything of that nature, but to further reinforce the will of the House? While he celebrates the actions of aircrew, will he further acknowledge that the aircrew would not be able to do their tremendous work if it was not for all the other trades that keep them mobilised?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Clean Energy Transition · Hansard source

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  There was more good news last week for carbon capture, usage and storage workers in England, with £200 million in supply chain contracts for the Liverpool Bay HyNet project, which will even benefit north Wales now. That is on top of the £22 billion that benefits Teesside and Merseyside. I have checked, and those places were not the centre of the UK’s energy industry for the last five years. Why have the Government not allocated a single penny to the Acorn project in Scotland, where the clock is ticking and where investors are very concerned that this Government are not serious about it?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State always enjoys the better side of my face. He characteristically paints Scotland as some sort of economic basket case, which I find a little offensive. If he wants to be robust in that accusation against our industry and our enterprise, how does he explain why Scotland is persistently in the top half of economic performing regions of the United Kingdom, and oftentimes on certain measures in the top quartile?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member, who until about two minutes ago was one of the few people on the Government Benches I had any time for, talks about what a catastrophe it would be if Scotland could unilaterally control who comes to work on our shores and who comes to invest in our economy. Ironically, he forgets that that is exactly the encumbrance under which Scotland exists now: we get what England says we can get. It is a disgrace, and he is trying to defend it. Defend it now!

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is too kind. Will he identify which SNP elected Member has prescribed unfettered immigration to Scotland, because I would like to know?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises an interesting point about the epiphany the Secretary of State for Scotland has had in the intervening decade about the merits and de-merits of Brexit. Is it not the case that no matter what this Minister thinks—or what any other Minister thinks in any British Government, Scottish or otherwise—they are not in thrall to the realities of the economy; they are in thrall to voters in middle England?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Secretary of State give way?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Before the hon. Member gets to the end of her prepared litany of apparent failures in Scotland, she might want to touch on the far greater spending on education and health in Scotland. But just to get clarity on this issue, in this grotesque thing that is the United Kingdom, can she give me one measure—because I know she is super-smart—on which the devolved Welsh Government perform better than the SNP Government in Scotland?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q15. His Chancellor’s economic policies started off badly and have headed rapidly downhill from there, his Energy Secretary’s policies ensure that energy-rich Scotland lives under the highest domestic and commercial energy prices in the world, and his Foreign Secretary provides diplomatic cover for the atrocities committed in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces, to the horror of the people of Scotland, but the Prime Minister is the incompetent-in-chief who refuses to bring his Ministers into line. That is just one of the reasons why independence enjoys an 11-point lead over remaining in this dysfunctional, broken, Brexit Britain. Does he understand why the people of Scotland are so dissatisfied with his latest iteration of dysfunctional British rule in Scotland?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Ukraine Update · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. There is much in it by way of a helpful update, but the key element of it for all of us should be on the final page, where he says that we must not allow “borders to be redrawn by force”. That enjoys unanimous support. I have a question on the £4.5 billion. How much of that is rolled over from previous commitments, and will the Secretary of State update the House on how much of it is consumed in this financial year? How much of it is in cash support and how much of it is in matériel? When it comes to potential air policing in Ukraine, that will be on top of air policing in the south Atlantic, quick reaction alert from Coningsby and Lossiemouth, and air policing in the Baltic and the eastern Mediterranean. Would it not be unconscionable to try to do that without a substantial new order of Tranche 4 Typhoons?