Oral Answers to Questions
Jamie Stone Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Kirsty McNeill
My hon. Friend is entirely correct, and I commend her for standing up for her town. In England this Labour Government have already delivered lower business rates for leisure, hospitality and retail businesses, which can help high streets, and I am sure that every Scottish MP wants to see that policy replicated in Scotland.
As we are discussing brilliant towns, it is timely to mention brilliant retail workers too, especially at this time of year. I am supporting the Christmas campaign organised by the Scottish Retail Consortium and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers to encourage everyone to respect our shop workers at this particularly busy time of year.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
For far too long Ullapool, in my constituency, did not have a post office, which caused great inconvenience to local people. Recently, however, Tesco stepped into the breach, and we now have a highly successful post office in a branch in the middle of Ullapool. May I recommend this approach to regenerating town centres to the Ministers?
Kirsty McNeill
We are delighted to receive representations of all kinds on how to improve our town centres. We know that they have suffered neglect for far too long. I hope that all Scottish MPs will have been lobbying for the kind of support for our leisure, hospitality and retail sector that this Government have already given south of the border.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jamie Stone Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Ian Murray
I hope that, in a later question, the shadow Secretary of State will apologise at the Dispatch Box to the country for crashing the economy, and to pensioners for what has happened to them as a result.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Ian Murray)
I was delighted to speak at the Space-Comm expo last month in Glasgow, where I met a wide range of industry members, both national and international, and recently I was fortunate enough to visit the SaxaVord spaceport in Shetland, where I saw wonderful progress. I have also met representatives of Orbex in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and will continue to champion Scotland’s spaceports, including in Sutherland in his constituency.
Jamie Stone
The Secretary of State mentions Orbex. At present, it employs 125 people; by 2030, it could employ as many as 500. Is the Secretary of State willing to visit Orbex in Elgin and, indeed, the Sutherland space launch site?
Ian Murray
Elgin is certainly not the final frontier, so I would be very happy to visit. The Minister for Science recently visited the UK Space Agency’s new office in Edinburgh, and during that visit, he echoed my sentiments about the importance of Scotland’s space sector. The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms has recently met Orbex as well, and I will remain in close contact with my ministerial colleagues to ensure that we back the sector. I am very happy to visit when ministerial time allows.
Points of Order
Jamie Stone Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Further to those points of order, Mr Speaker. I share on behalf of all those at Reform our deepest condolences to Moira and to Alex’s wider family. I met Alex Salmond just over two years ago in the world of media. I had a radio show every Sunday for about two years. It was all going fine until I took a holiday and Alex Salmond kindly stepped in. In over 100 shows, I survived the challenges of investigations and things, but Alex’s enthusiasm, energy and determination in that three-hour show meant that it was the only show of mine that triggered an Ofcom investigation. Although we differed politically, Alex sort of sought me out in the media, and I think he took pity on me, in a strange way, because he understood the challenges—the mad challenge of trying to set up, run and fund a small political party. He was so generous with his words of advice, wisdom and encouragement, and I will never, ever forget that.
None of us likes losing, but I was with the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (Sir David Davis) last year at the Edinburgh fringe, and we had a hearty, inspired debate—I will not tell the House the topic—hosted by Alex Salmond, and I have to say, it was like the right hon. Gentleman and I were in the lion’s den. It was one of those rare moments when we enjoyed losing, because we lost to a truly great man.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Further to those points of order, Mr Speaker. It may come as a surprise to Members that I have a photograph of Alex Salmond in my back hall. That is because a long time ago, he, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and I were all members of the Students’ Representative Council of St Andrews University. It was a sleepy organisation in which we debated this and that. Then, with a flash and a bang, like Mephistopheles appearing in “Doctor Faustus”, he was there from nowhere—a fully equipped, fully armed, formidable young politician, still in his late teens. That came as a shock to us all.
Having debated with him in student debates, I can tell the House that if he turned that laser eye on you and fired a verbal sally, it went straight through you, and then straight through the wall behind. He was a superb debater—I have never seen his like. What was fascinating about him was that he was a fully developed politician so early in life. He knew exactly what he was about and was determined to achieve his end.
I was also briefly in the Scottish Parliament, as the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) alluded to. In 2007, at a reception at the Signet library in Edinburgh, he said, “Jamie, I want a word with you.” He cornered me in one of those half-moon-shaped alcoves and told me very forcibly how supporting the SNP Government in 2007 would lead to a revival of the Liberal party in the Scottish Parliament.
Mention has rightly been made of his widow, Moira, whom I found to be a very nice person indeed. She once stopped me in the Royal Mile, shortly after Alex had become First Minister, to say that she had got that dreadful upright piano out of the drawing room at Bute House. She just wanted me to know that. My thoughts are not only with Alex’s family but with his circle of friends, to whom he meant a very great deal. Our condolences should go to his family and to his friends as well.
Charles Stewart Parnell made his name in history, and I believe that Alex Salmond will do so in exactly the same way, for many years to come.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
Further to those points of order, Mr Speaker. I associate myself with so many of the comments from Members across the House. I first encountered Alex Salmond as a star-struck teenager, and a member of the 79 group attending a particularly fractious SNP conference in Ayr in 1982. So fractious was the conference that Alex was subsequently expelled from the party, albeit briefly. At the meetings that followed, even though he was less than 10 years older than me, I listened to the spellbinding oratory of this young man. He was destined for greatness then.
Alec and I became close allies in the late 1980s. I was part of the campaign team that saw him elected as SNP leader in 1990. Our paths took wildly different trajectories, clearly, but we kept in touch on and off over the decades. I would not be here today were it not for Alec having arranged for me to go through to Edinburgh so that he could persuade me to put my hat in the ring for the SNP in Argyll and Bute in the 2015 election. I am far from alone in being an SNP politician who owes a huge debt to Alec Salmond. He was a titan of our movement, an irreplaceable force without whom our independence, when it does come—which it surely will—would never have been achieved.
My thoughts are with Moira, as are those of so many in this House. My experience of Moira is that she is a very quiet but absolutely formidable force. I learned very quickly that if we wanted to get Alec to change his mind, we should go not to him but to Moira. She is an incredible force in herself. My deepest condolences and sympathies are with Moira and Alec’s immediate family. I do wonder when we will see his like again.