Cost of Living

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Mhairi Black

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black]

If the hon. Member had shown a bit of patience, he would have heard what I am about to say. [Interruption.] Give me two seconds; bear with me.

First, let us look at covid—this is for the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans). The Government awarded £10.5 billion-worth of pandemic-related contracts to companies in a VIP lane as part of no competitive process. That lane was dedicated to prioritising politically connected suppliers at the start of the pandemic. The New York Times has found that billions went to companies that had no prior medical experience. In fact, just down the corridor—I say “down the corridor”, but no one has seen her in a long time—we have Baroness Mone, who I think was last spotted on a yacht somewhere, so I think she is doing fine. She appears to have made a profit of nearly £30 million from personal protective equipment after she helped a company secure a place in that VIP lane—a company that the UK Government are now spending more than £10 million to sue after they discovered that the equipment was unusable.

This Government lost track of £4.5 billion of public money wasted through error and fraud during covid, and have no intention of finding those billions of pounds, but when a constituent finds that he was overpaid tax credits in 1999, they are unstoppable. They will hound people down; they will hunt them for £450 before they go after £4.5 billion, especially when a lot of it appears to have gone to their pals. This is a dangerous Government making bad decisions on top of a global pandemic. Mind you, we should not be surprised, given the fact that they seem to have been pished half the time at parties in No. 10.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I should just say to the hon. Lady that she really must not use language like that. Please do not. I hope she will apologise for doing so.

[Mhairi Black]

Let me rephrase, Madam Deputy Speaker. They were inebriated; they were intoxicated; they were paralytic at parties in No. 10. Is that all right?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Lady should be quite careful.

[Mhairi Black]

I do not see what I said that was not true, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I take it.

As I said, there is an element of truth in that covid has had a big impact, and the war in Ukraine has also had a global impact on energy supplies. However, unexpected events and conflicts will always occur, which is precisely why it is so important that we have Governments that plan in advance and think long-term to make decisions that will build our resilience in the face of the unforeseen.

The events in Ukraine only exacerbate the fact that the UK has not had a sensible energy policy for more than 30 years. Scotland has heard this song many times before; we have endured this kind of mismanagement for years. We are one of the only countries to discover oil and somehow get poorer, whereas comparable countries such as Norway sought to treat oil as a national asset to be used in the national interest, and invested it in a sovereign wealth fund that is worth over £1 trillion today. Similarly, in the 1980s, Denmark and the UK both had similar scale renewable wind programmes. Denmark chose to heavily invest in that sector, whereas the UK focused primarily on the cheapest and quickest option. If we fast-forward to 2016, we find that Denmark’s wind exports were worth over €7 billion, but the UK had wind exports of less than half a billion. It is like “Bullseye”: here is what you could have won.

Manchester Arena Inquiry: Volume 3 Report

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Mhairi Black

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

The awful events on 22 May 2017 led to the deaths of 22 innocent people and to hundreds more being injured and affected for the rest of their lives. Of course, the ultimate responsibility lies with the bomber who detonated his homemade device in the foyer of Manchester Arena as the crowds left an Ariana Grande concert. I welcome the fact that MI5 has reflected and apologised for its role in failing to prevent this heinous attack. For example, the report finds that intelligence could have led to the bomber being followed to a car where he stored his explosives. The inquiry also found that two pieces of information about the bomber were assessed by the Security Service as not being terrorism-related. An officer also admitted that they considered a possible national security concern on one of those pieces of information, but did not immediately discuss it with colleagues and did not write up a report on the same day.

May I first ask the Home Secretary what steps she is taking to ensure that the security services improve in their communications and information sharing, guaranteeing that professional standards do not fall short, as they have done in this case? Secondly, the inquiry has found that the bomber was probably assisted by someone in Libya, but because of gaps in available evidence, that line of inquiry has not been addressed sufficiently. Can the Home Secretary provide further information on whether the investigation will continue to search for those who assisted the bomber? Given how much frustration the victims’ families are experiencing, understandably, as a result of information being withheld due to national security implications, will the Home Secretary at least provide reassurance to those families that the UK Government will leave no stone unturned in finding justice for their relatives?

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Mhairi Black

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

Devolution has allowed us in Scotland to carve out a path that is different to that of the rest of the UK wherever necessary for the past 20 years. To understand exactly how this Bill attacks devolution, we need to read only clause 46, which states:

“A Minister of the Crown may…provide financial assistance to any person for…infrastructure”.

Subsection (2) goes on to say that infrastructure includes: health, education, transport, court and prison facilities, housing, water, electricity and the provision of heat. The Bill will allow UK Ministers to dictate and spend money wherever they like and in whatever devolved area they want, as long as it can be justified as they deem it to “directly or indirectly” benefit any area of the UK. We already know that the reality of that is Tory Governments funnelling millions into marginal Tory seats, as opposed to the areas that need it. I wondered why they had specifically included things such as heat and electricity and water, and then I remembered that the only reason why we are able to have publicly owned fresh water in Scotland is that the Scottish Parliament has made it so.

The Bill will explicitly give any Minister of the Crown permission to run riot with the very assets of Scotland that our Scottish Parliament has protected, and nowhere in the Bill—nowhere—does it state that permission must be obtained from the devolved Governments to do so. I have watched this Parliament hand over £40 million for ferries to a company that did not own any ferries. Are we really supposed to expect and rely on this Government to spend money on our behalf? Let us be clear: this would not be some benevolent donation to Scotland from Westminster, because clause 47 says that financial assistance may be subject to conditions, including repayment. We will be expected to pay back money that we never even spent. That is like being asked to take out a car loan even though you cannae drive.

To those who say that we are represented here and that we can change things, I say this: we have tried and we are outvoted at every turn. This gets to the crux of why independence is the only option left for Scotland. Let me give some context: Scotland has 59 MPs and the city of London 73 MPs. This is a Union that England dominates. The only reason why there is not an English Parliament is that the people in Westminster view this place as the English Parliament. We cannot afford to be naive. The only way to protect our Parliament is to become independent.

We regularly hear the Tories brag about how we have the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world, but I have a new thing for them to brag about: the UK is in the Guinness book of records as the country from which most countries have gained independence. Since 1939, 62 countries have gained independence from Westminster and not a single one has asked to come back. Only one country decided to stay and look where we are. In 2014, the idea of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister was a warning. Now, it is a reality.

The Bill provides a framework to allow Westminster to bypass the Scottish Parliament in the hope that we do not notice it, but we are noticing it. It took us 300 years to get our Scottish Parliament and 20 years for this place to put a bulldozer right through it—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I thank the hon. Lady.