Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to support the development of community energy schemes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)]

The Government have created a new £10 million community energy fund to support community energy projects in England. We are working with the sector on content and a timetable for a consultation on barriers for community energy projects.

[Patrick Grady]

Does the Minister recognise the frustration and disappointment at the length of time and legislative barriers that remain for campaigning community groups who want community energy schemes to move forward? It is the most secure way of generating electricity. The Conservatives are supposed to be the party of free markets and competition, so why are they denying consumers the choice that would come with an exciting community energy scheme?

[Andrew Bowie]

Far from denying consumers opportunity, we are already beginning to work with organisations, such as the Community Energy Contact Group. On the content of the consultation we launched and whether it should include solutions to barriers, I will need to take a view when it responds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

Great British Nuclear will be launched later in July. We will also be launching the draw-down selection process for which technologies we will invest in and support. I would be delighted to speak to the hon. Gentleman in more detail about that progress moving forward.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I think my constituents, not least those who are part of the Glasgow Community Energy co-operative, will be disappointed with the Minister’s answer to the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). The Minister is extremely familiar with the clauses that form part of the proposed community energy Bill. They are not acceptable as amendments to the Energy Bill before this House. Will the Government bring forward their own amendments, so that community energy groups can have the confidence they need to take forward their projects?

[Andrew Bowie]

As I said, we are working with the sector and parliamentarians to find a way forward to further support community energy projects. As part of that, I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss it further.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Patrick Grady

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

I think it is appropriate for the UK Government to be able to spend on projects that will benefit people in every corner of the United Kingdom, and that is why I am voting for the Bill next week and why I am going to oppose the amendments tabled by the hon. Lady. I will tell the Committee why the SNP is so against the Bill—because with the SNP, it is Brussels over Britain, any day of the week. SNP Members do not care that this Bill protects jobs. They do not care that it enshrines in statute the existence of Scotland’s most important market. They do not care that it could mean more money for Scotland’s starved local authorities.

[Patrick Grady]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is obviously passionate about Britain, and good luck to him, because he is not going to have that passion available to him for much longer once we are independent. Is he content with the idea that the Bill will gain Royal Assent without the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or indeed the Northern Ireland Assembly? Is not that the real power grab—the undermining of the Sewel convention? That is shaking devolution to the core. That is the power grab that is happening here. Is he really content with that?

[Andrew Bowie]

To be honest with the hon. Gentleman, I would be trying to convince his colleagues in Edinburgh that this is a very good Bill and they should give it legislative consent and see it sail through the Scottish Parliament. But they have refused to give legislative consent to Bills that have become law in the past, and I am sure they will do so again.

I return to my point about Scotland’s cash-strapped local authorities. In north-east Scotland—I see the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) in his place—Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council are two of the lowest funded local authorities in the country, despite contributing more in revenue to the SNP Scottish Government than almost any other local authority. The idea that the Scottish National party would vote to deny them more funds to spend on specific projects truly is a kick in the gut.

Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Patrick Grady

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Here we go again: another SNP debate, another debate on Brexit. I rise today, surprisingly enough, to oppose the motion in the name of the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), but I do so in a particularly generous and forgiving mood. It was Oscar Wilde who said, “We should always forgive our opponents, because nothing annoys them so much.” So I forgive the Scottish National party for bringing before the House today this motion on, frankly, a false and flawed assumption: that the covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the Government’s negotiations with the European Union to the point that businesses will be left, as the Scottish Government argue in the document described in the motion, with less time to prepare than previously anticipated. That is quite simply not the case. The process has continued throughout the pandemic, with civil servants working from home and the negotiations taking place virtually.

SNP Members are not the only people to be worried about the efficiency or the productivity of people working from home, but if they truly believe that it is impossible to conduct effective negotiations remotely, that does prompt the question why they were so insistent that we could function effectively as MPs under the virtual Parliament arrangements, which the SNP fought so hard to keep. Indeed, on 8 June in this very place, the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) made a strong and eloquent case for retaining remote working and hybrid arrangements, because they were working properly and should be brought back “in full”. I do not believe for a minute that he believes that it should be one rule for us and another for other people, but I do agree with him that remote working does actually work well, and our negotiating teams have been demonstrating that every day with their continued important work on exiting the European Union.

[Patrick Grady]

Of course, it is unfortunate that we do not have remote participation, because far more SNP Members would have wanted to take part in this debate if they had been able to contribute via the remote screens. If Brexit is heading towards being such a success, as the hon. Gentleman claims, can he explain the opinion polls showing that people in Scotland are moving towards independence by a substantial majority? Are the polls wrong? Are the people misguided? Or is it actually that the misguiding principles are coming from the Conservative Benches?

[Andrew Bowie]

I would happily stand and debate opinion polls and their trajectory, but there is only one poll that truly matters, and that is when people get to the ballot box. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree that the SNP only managed to get 45% of the vote in December. That is a fantastic total and a very strong result, but it shows that 55% of the Scottish population voted for parties that want to remain in the United Kingdom—a United Kingdom that is, I am afraid, because we believe in democracy, leaving the European Union this year.

Throughout the Brexit debate, there has been a false assumption that the status quo was one of the options that remained available to us. That was never true and has never been less true that it is today. The European Union has been hit just as hard by the pandemic as the UK has, and it will have to make difficult decisions about how to respond to the economic effects, exactly as we will. Our staying in the transitional arrangements with the EU, when the EU is rightly not factoring British interests into its plans for recovery, does not make sense. We need all the flexibility available to us to respond to the economic damage caused by the pandemic, and staying inside the EU’s one-size-fits-all framework is simply not conducive to that.

We have had this debate over and over again for the past three to four years. What this country, and businesses in this country, needs is certainty, not more dither and delay. It is disappointing and of serious detriment to the interests of the people of Scotland that the SNP has not yet learned how negotiations work. If the past four years have taught us anything, it is that without firm deadlines, negotiations grind to a halt. That is precisely why deadlines exist—to ensure that important tasks are completed in a timely fashion. I am sure that Opposition Members visit schools in their constituencies from time to time, as I do. The next time they visit I invite them to ask teachers how likely it is that their students’ coursework would materialise were endless extensions on offer.

The leader of the Scottish National party in this place, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, spoke today about the importance of economic certainty and putting the economy first. My goodness me! It was a bigger conversion than Paul on the road to Damascus to finally hear the leader of the SNP making our arguments for us. Surely it means that the SNP has finally accepted our argument against breaking up the United Kingdom, given the huge economic cost that would bring. If the economy comes before all other concerns, the case for Scottish independence is as dead as a dodo.