Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Jack
The hon. Gentleman mentions SMEs. The bulk of the spending—literally billions of pounds, worth thousands of jobs—is with British Aerospace and Babcock.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
The Secretary of State mentioned the awarding of the contract to Rosyth dockyard, securing 300 jobs in Rosyth, and the frigates and destroyers being built on the Clyde. Does he not agree with me that it is good that at least one of Scotland’s Governments can actually build ships that float?
Mr Jack
I think my hon. Friend refers to ferries, and he is absolutely right. I think the ferries float. They just cannot seem to finish them or make them work, or find anything that gets close to resembling a ferry.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
This morning, as ever, we have heard a lot from the SNP about respecting the Scottish Parliament and ignoring the Scottish Parliament. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is the height of disrespect for the permanent secretary of the Scottish Government, who remains accountable to the UK Cabinet Secretary and draws a six-figure salary, to refuse to appear in front of a Committee of the Scottish Parliament without giving a reasonable excuse as to why?
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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David Duguid
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, which is pertinent not just for golf tourism but for whisky tourism and tourism in general across Scotland. The UK Government are committed to full alignment with the devolved Administrations, because we recognise the importance of such alignment for public compliance, as well as for business confidence and for tourism. We share the data, and we have created the structures to make that happen. However, we also respect the right of the devolved Administrations to make their own decisions on devolved matters. Thankfully, the differences in the exemptions, particularly for international travel, are not currently that material and can be justified as legitimate differences, but I do take on board the comments she made about golf tourism specifically.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
This morning we heard that as a direct result of the baffling and inconsistent travel ban placed on Scots going to Greater Manchester, easyJet has cancelled its newly announced route from Aberdeen to Manchester, putting at risk many jobs in north-east Scotland. What work is being done, and may I beg the Minister and the Scotland Office to ensure that in the reopening of international travel, the same rules and regulations will apply around the entirety of the UK, instead of leaving the Scottish aviation sector and the thousands of people it employs at the mercy of a Scottish Government who have completely abandoned them?
David Duguid
My hon. Friend and I share a lot in common, not least the regular use of Aberdeen airport, to which he refers, and the fact that we both have wives who were not born in this country and unfortunately have not been able to visit their families for the last year and a half. That aside, on the specific issue about easyJet and the flight to Manchester, it has made a commercial decision, announced today, in response to the Scottish Government’s decision to regulate to prohibit travel to Manchester. The Scottish Government decision has been widely criticised as disproportionate; clearly Scottish Government Ministers will be keeping travel regulations under constant review, and there are calls for this regulation in particular to be reviewed in closer consultation with all interested parties. The Scotland Office would be happy to facilitate that, if helpful.
Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
It is a pleasure to rise to speak in this debate. I for one do not think the SNP gets enough Opposition day debates. I think a party of its size in this place deserves more than three in the course of one parliamentary Session. However, it is surprising, given everything that this country, Scotland, the United Kingdom and the world is facing right now, that it has chosen to use one of its three days—only three days—to debate this issue above all others, banging on about another independence referendum. It is very much like groundhog day in the House of Commons.
The SNP has chosen to debate not education, not the recovery, not economic growth, not jobs, not health, not drug deaths, not infrastructure, not broadband, not local government funding, and not the serious issues surrounding civil service impartiality and the separation of powers within the Scottish Government. No, the Scottish National party—in which I have many friends, but which I regard as a single-issue, mass membership pressure group, masquerading as a serious party of government—wants to talk about its sole obsession: ripping apart our United Kingdom.
We know why. Why would the Scottish National party not want us looking at all the issues I have listed? Because on every single one it is failing Scotland. It is failing Scotland on education, with the attainment gap wider than it was when it got into power. Kids from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to get to university in Scotland than they are in England. It is failing Scotland on jobs and the economy, with growth of only 1.8% expected in Scotland in 2022, compared with a prediction of 5% for the rest of the UK, and with jobs growth at a rate less than that of the UK prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
The SNP is failing Scotland on health. The 12-week treatment time guarantee, which was unveiled with great fanfare by the now First Minister Nicola Sturgeon when she was Health Secretary in 2011, has never once been met. The Royal College of General Practitioners expects a shortfall of 856 doctors in Scotland by 2021. It is failing Scotland on drugs deaths, with the highest drug deaths rate in Europe. That shameful statistic has occurred on the SNP’s watch.
The SNP is failing Scotland on infrastructure and failing Scotland on the roll-out of broadband. In 2018, Fergus Ewing, the Rural Economy Secretary in the Scottish Government, threatened to resign if he failed to deliver on its flagship R100 project, which aspired to make superfast broadband available to every single premises in Scotland by the end of 2021. The latest projections tell us that it is more likely to be 2026. Resignation incoming? I think not.
There are those in the SNP who will say—I can hear the keyboards clattering now, and I can almost hear the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) saying—that I am talking Scotland down. I am not. Let me be clear: I have simply outlined the record of a failing, arrogant, tired Government who have dragged Scotland down, down, down.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentions talking down Scotland. Does he agree that he is one of the most vocal voices in this Parliament for the people of Scotland and their wants and needs?
Andrew Bowie
That is very kind of my hon. Friend. I couldn’t possibly comment; that is for other people to judge.
The SNP has dragged Scotland down, down, down. In fact, the only things to go up in Scotland recently have been the taxes. That is the record of the Scottish National party. It is not a surprise that we are now on to the fourth poll in a row showing support for the Union increasing and support for separation going down. As the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) said a few weeks ago, “Cheerio, cheerio, tick-tock.”
Let us leave this divisive and disruptive debate behind us. Let us move on and tackle the issues that really matter to Scots—rebuilding, growing, creating jobs and making our schools, once again, the best in the world—comfortable in ourselves, happy as a strong, devolved nation within a great and enduring family of nations.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend expand on the success and the effectiveness of the Joint Biosecurity Centre in informing decision makers around the UK on our best way to combat coronavirus?
Iain Stewart
My hon. Friend highlights just another example of where working together strengthens our response. I am delighted that legislation has been passed enabling the Scottish Government and the UK Government to allow the JBC to provide services to Ministers and officials in both Administrations.
Migration and Scotland
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
We have a problem in Scotland, as I think everyone has recognised. [Interruption.] We have many problems in Scotland, most of them emanating from Holyrood, but that is for another day.
As a country, we are simply not attracting enough people to Scotland to live, work or invest. According to the Office for National Statistics, between 2016 and 2018 Scotland attracted, on average, only 8% of immigrants to the UK, fewer than the north-west of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, the west midlands, the east of England, the south-east, London and the south-west.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Would the hon. Gentleman concede that one of the problems is that when migrant workers are attracted to come to live in our communities, there are pen pushers at the Home Office who prevent them from coming? I am thinking particularly of the fishing communities on the west coast that are looking for non-European economic area labour. Year upon year, one person in Westminster says no even though the communities say yes.
Andrew Bowie
It might surprise the House to hear that I agree with the hon. Member, although not to the extent of describing some of the hard-working civil servants in the Home Office as pen pushers. They are doing a valuable job, but I think we have to look more imaginatively at how we attract labour to the sectors that are crying out for them, and particularly to the fisheries on the west coast of Scotland, which he ably represents in this House.
Compared with what we were previously, we are now a country of in-migration. We have a growing population in Scotland, but if Scotland’s economy is to continue to grow, there is a concern that, even with freedom of movement, we are not attracting enough people to make up for what will soon become a declining population through a simple lack of natural growth, with deaths already outnumbering births. Last year, there were already 7,000 more deaths than births in Scotland, and the problem is even more stark in rural communities.
There is not a country in the world where the Scots have not left their mark. By virtue of our being part of a larger United Kingdom, the door was open to Scots to travel the world and to build, engineer and prosper in every corner of the globe. That is a fact that, as Scots, we are incredibly proud of.
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
Would the hon. Member at least accept that there has been a constant drain on Scottish talent over the last 50-odd years, through people moving from Scotland to London? As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) pointed out earlier, talent must move to London because that is where all the opportunity lies, because of the policies of this place.
Andrew Bowie
Yet again, I do not disagree with the hon. Member. It is incumbent on all of us to do what we can to make the economy grow in Scotland, so we can keep talent north of the border and grow the economies in Aberdeenshire, which I represent, and in Edinburgh and Glasgow, near to her constituency. It is for all of us to do that, so that people do not feel the need to move out of Scotland to find success.
Andrew Bowie
If the hon. Member will have patience, I will come to that later in my speech.
I return to the subject of Scotland building the world, which was fantastic, but of course it came at a price. Historically, Scotland was a country of out-migration and population decline, and while recent immigration has reversed that trend, although by no means enough, the legacy in some communities, particularly rural communities, remains. Rural communities lost not only those who left initially but the generations who would have come after them. I represent a rural constituency in the north-east of Scotland, a part of the world dominated by the energy sector. Thankfully, this means that we have little problem with unemployment, but it brings its own problems, especially for rural industries. I am acutely aware of those issues. That is why it is now more important than ever, as we complete the process of transitioning out of the EU, that we should have a measured and reasonable debate about the future of our immigration system, and particularly how it relates to Scottish agriculture. Put simply, Scottish agriculture needs and relies on seasonal labour. If we are to have this sensible and reasonable debate—as we are doing here in the Chamber today—about immigration post Brexit in Scotland, it is vital to recognise that the issues surrounding seasonal labour are not caused solely by Brexit.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
My hon. Friend is bringing up the issues that we have in agriculture not just in Scotland but around the UK in places such as Lincolnshire and East Anglia. The issue that I know well, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), is also shared by the fishing communities of Northern Ireland. So is there any reason why a UK immigration policy cannot address all these issues, particularly with 59 representatives of Scottish seats in this place who all have a voice to help to achieve that?
Andrew Bowie
No, I do not think there is any reason why a UK-wide system could not address those issues. In fact, on the very issue of attracting talent to the fisheries sector, I have written to the Home Secretary to ask if we could develop similar processes to the one we have for seasonal agricultural labour for those who want to engage in the fisheries sector. There is absolutely no reason why we could not find a solution within the wider UK framework.
Just as Scotland has been failing to attract many immigrants to settle in Scotland while we were a member of the EU, so the number of seasonal workers willing to travel to Scotland to perform seasonal labour has been in decline for some years. Castleton Farm, for example, in my constituency—best jam, bar none, you will ever taste—saw a 15% shortage of seasonal labour last summer, leading to an estimated loss of over 100 tonnes of produce. And that was while we remained in the EU. In the same way as we must look at why Scotland is not attracting enough immigrants to stay in Scotland, we must also ask why Scottish farming is not attracting enough labour.
Part of the reason, of course, is that there is a labour shortage across Europe. Belgian, German and Irish farmers are increasingly sourcing their seasonal labour from outside the EU, chiefly from countries such as Ukraine. Non-EU seasonal labour is evidently part of the solution in Scotland, just as it is in agriculture in the remaining 27 states. Much of the decline in available European labour is down to the rapid and, of course, welcome progress that many eastern European countries have made in developing their own domestic economies.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his earlier kind words, but can I put the political point to him that Ireland can look further and act on its wishes because it has the independence to do so? Unfortunately, Scotland does not have the independence to make the decisions that Ireland can make to get labour from Ukraine when it needs it.
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Gentleman obviously makes a very good point. However, as I said in answer to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), there is no reason why we cannot address those issues as part of a wider UK immigration system.
Those who want to travel to work in agriculture have other options apart from Scotland, and Scottish farmers have been in direct competition for available labour with French and German farmers for some time, as well as with farmers from across the rest of the UK. I was pleased to see that the Government have pledged to extend the pilot of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme to 10,000 workers a year, up from the current limit of 2,500—thanks to the lobbying and hard work of Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament, I might say. That is a step in the right direction, but I hope it is a signal of intent and the beginning of a direction of travel. I also hope it will be delivered in a timely fashion. It is critical that farmers have time to plan for next summer.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
I am very concerned that my constituency neighbour is talking about the opportunity for farmers to prepare for next year. It is this year that farmers are trying to prepare for. He should also sound a note of caution when he celebrates the increase to 10,000, because that figure is still patently insufficient—that is what the industry is telling us. Why are the Government not listening? An independent Scotland would listen.
Andrew Bowie
Although I disagree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman’s point on an independent Scotland, I completely agree with his other point, and that is why I have called for the seasonal agricultural workers scheme to be increased. Somewhere in the realm of 70,000 would be a reasonable number, and that is something else that I have asked the Home Secretary to comment on. That is why I said I hoped the increase from 2,500 to 10,000 was a signal of intent, and a direction of travel. I hope the number will grow further over the next few years.
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about preparing for this year, I would remind him that we still remain, and we still have freedom of movement. It is for next year, when we will be outside the EU and not have free movement, that farmers will need to have certainty.
Carol Monaghan
Believe it or not, I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech, but he must appreciate that some of the issues that he raises will mean labour shortages this year. They are issues because of Brexit and because people currently living in Europe do not feel welcome, or do not know whether they will be able to come here. That message is not getting out to those who would still be able to come here this summer.
Andrew Bowie
If people do not feel welcome here, or if they feel they will not have certainty when they come here, it is a gross misrepresentation of the position of this Government and of the situation in this country. Everybody in this Chamber and across the country needs to show that our doors are open to anybody who wants to come here to contribute, work hard and play by the rules. That has been the position of this Government and the Conservative party for many years, and it will continue to be so.
There are wider issues in attracting people to work and invest in Scotland. I do not think anyone on either side of the House has all the answers. This Government are committed to introducing a points-based system that will attract the people we need to these shores, while maintaining our commitment always to be the open and welcoming place this country has always been. That is the right thing to do. It is what we promised in our manifesto and, of course, we must deliver it.
We must think imaginatively about how we address the specific issues in Scotland, and we must do so in a non-partisan and constructive fashion. That is why I read the Scottish Government’s paper, “Migration: Helping Scotland Prosper”, from cover to cover, and I found very little with which I can disagree. It is a useful contribution to the wider debate about how we deal with immigration in this country.
This is an important debate, and it is one we must get right. However, I do not think a separate Scottish visa is the right way to go, because of all the complexities and challenges it would bring. I urge everyone in both of Scotland’s Governments to think imaginatively and to work together, as we should on quite a few issues, so that we can find a solution and prosper together, as the United Kingdom.
Scotch whisky: US tariffs
Andrew Bowie Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) on securing this important debate. It is timely not only because of the importance of the issue, but because it is Burns season. I am sure that everybody present is doing their part to support Scotland’s biggest export, and that they have been doing so over the past few weeks.
The contribution that the whisky industry makes to Scotland’s economy is huge, and exports are a crucial part. The industry exports the equivalent of 41 bottles of Scotch whisky every second, and it was worth £4.7 billion in 2018 alone. The contribution to our national productivity runs at £210,000 gross value added per employee, and the industry supports more than 42,000 jobs across the UK—these are figures we have already heard. The industry directly employs 10,500 people in Scotland, 7,000 of whom are in rural constituencies such as my own in west Aberdeenshire, where we have the well-known and loved brands Royal Lochnagar and Fettercairn. It is important not to forget that the tariffs also adversely affect small or micro-distilleries, such as Lost Loch or Deeside Distillery in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine.
There is strong support for the whisky industry from every party represented in the Chamber. We all want an end to the unfair tariff regime imposed by the United States. I want the interests of Scotland’s whisky industry to be central to future trade negotiations with the United States, and I have faith that the UK Government will champion the industry in those talks. However, we can unilaterally take immediate action, both domestically and internationally, to help the industry through this difficult time. The response needs to come from both the UK and Scottish Governments, because it is not a party political issue. Targeted funding is needed to help the industry weather the tariffs, perhaps by investing in Scotch whisky tourism. We could do something similar to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which provides the US whiskey industry with funding of over $1 million to promote American whiskies in Europe; we could respond to that in kind with our own ring-fenced fund, which could be a cross-government initiative. The UK Government in Westminster have a significant role to play, especially with the Budget coming up.
The industry has welcomed the freeze on duty in every Budget since 2017, and we need that to continue in the next one. When the freeze was introduced, the Treasury forecast that the revenue would increase by 3% in 2018-19. It did not: it increased by more than 10%. We have the fourth-highest spirits duty rate in the European Union, with only Sweden, Finland and Ireland having higher rates. Our producers are competing in suboptimal conditions, which, sadly, look likely to worsen before they improve. I want the Government to engage in radical thinking and to give serious consideration to cutting the duty, perhaps on a trial basis to see how the revenues respond. Ministers might be pleasantly surprised by the results.
As I said, all right hon. and hon. Members here today are champions of Scotland’s largest and most successful export. It is time that the parties worked together party to resolve the problems and to make the case for Scotch whisky, wherever we are.