Living Standards

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That his House has considered living standards.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, to discuss what I think is the defining issue for all our constituents—not that you would know it from the acres of empty green seats surrounding us this afternoon—not just in the upcoming election campaign, but for many years and, arguably, for generations to come. There is no question but that living standards in this country are well below where they should be, and well below those of our western European counterparts on almost every single measure. Regardless of whether we are looking at wages, disposable income or things like business investment and investment in public services, we lag far behind what any Government in London or in the devolved capitals should be happy or comfortable with.

Broadly speaking, three strands of insecurity—economic, social and global—are eating away at living standards in the UK and causing our constituents anxiety. The economic insecurities include inflation, energy prices, food prices, and the disaster of the former Prime Minister’s so-called mini-Budget and what that did to household incomes, mortgage rates and rent. The social insecurities include the inability of many public services to properly recover from the covid pandemic—not just to get back to a pre-pandemic level, but to make the necessary modernisations that public services have to go through.

It is true that much of this is driven by global factors, such as the war in Ukraine and what that has done to food prices and energy prices, the more recent violence in the middle east between Gaza and Israel, and the attacks on international shipping carried out by terrorists in the Red sea, all of which is adding to the problems in this country and, indeed, countries around the world with regard to living standards. Then we have climate change, which is the biggest and most defining issue on which Governments, civil society, other institutions and the private sector must collaborate if we are to not just hit our targets, but deal with the effects of climate change here in the UK and around the world. Of course, as a result of violence and climate change, we also have the mass movement of people and irregular movements of people—a challenge that we need to deal with. I am grateful that the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) is here this afternoon, because I want to touch on the issue of immigration as well.

Those three factors—economic, social and global—eating away at our living standards are only made worse by the impact of the decision taken in this country in 2016 to leave the European Union. True, much of what I have mentioned is a problem that can be found in the capital of any country around the world, and certainly in any western European country, but there can be no question—certainly not over the past few days—but that we have added to those problems with Brexit. This is not a debate on Brexit, and I have no desire to relitigate that here today, but we must take our heads out of the sand and not pretend that it has not made matters worse for our constituents.

The other issue I want to discuss is how Governments intend to tackle the drop in living standards. We have a Government who are, essentially, dying on their feet. Although I am not looking to get overly capital-P political, I will say that the country at large will certainly welcome some fresh ideas—and my goodness, they cannot come fast enough. However, the idea that the answer to those challenges lies in tax cuts and running the public realm further into the ground is not backed up by the public. We can see from public polling, even if we go back to a few months ago and the results of the British social attitudes survey, that for the first time people, even Conservative voters, do not want tax cuts. They understand the need for taxes to be where they are or to go up so that we can invest properly in a battered public realm. Yes, it has been battered by many global factors and the covid pandemic, but it has also been battered by more than a decade of decay.

There is also a stark need to reimagine the public realm and what public services are actually for. Rightly or wrongly, post-pandemic people have new and heightened expectations of the state, and any politician worth their salt would seek to answer that new reality with a sense of ambition, not least because the challenges we are all presented with absolutely demand it. As this pandemic Parliament enters its dying weeks and days, we no longer even talk about the post-pandemic recovery like we did back in 2020-21, when the phrase “build back better” was absolutely everywhere—I would love to see when those three words were last used on the record in this House. The idea of not just getting things back to where they were, but building back better is redolent with opportunity when we consider the existing new technologies that are at our fingertips, which in the coming years will become more readily available to modernise and revolutionise the public realm and public services. They will touch everything: planning, health inequalities, income—all those things. They have a real ability to turn things around from where they are.

Look at some of the very real issues that people face now—for example, financial strain. Four in 10 people are struggling with energy bills and rent. Some 5.5 million UK adults are behind on energy bills, and four in 10 adults are spending more than usual when food shopping. Just think about how corrosive that is to the average family, household and citizen and their sense of ambition for themselves, their community and their country.

Let us look at rent in particular—I have a constituency with a lot of renters. UK annual private rent price growth remained at 6.2% in the 12 months to December 2023. A third of adults find it difficult to afford their rent, and that is before we even start to discuss the issue of mortgage payments. Homeowners face a £19 billion increase in mortgage costs as fixed rate deals expire.

Income inequality in this country is greater than in any other large European country. Some 9 million young workers have never experienced sustained wage rises. Millennials are half as likely to own a home, and almost a third of young people in the UK are not undertaking any education by the age of 18. All those things are an attack on our society. How on earth do we get young people to buy into the idea of a fair marketplace and fair capitalism if they cannot accrue any capital, because at the moment everything is stacked against them?

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend has hit on a crucial issue. All our citizens need us to focus on the cost of living crisis and he is outlining the problems very well. We see them in Stirling as well. Start Up Stirling has had a fall in donations of food for its food drives. A survey recently published by Citizens Advice Stirling found a 900% increase in people getting in touch for problems with energy bill arrears, and 64% of people have reported skipping meals in order to pay their energy costs. I am sure that, like me, my hon. Friend wants to see action in the UK Budget in March. All of us need to put the badges to one side and focus on the cost of living crisis. It is what our citizens want to see happening, and the UK Government are in the best position to really assist households with their energy costs.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problems that he mentions will manifest themselves in the constituency of every hon. Member present, without question. The idea that come the Budget, the answer is more tax cuts or maintaining an uncapped right for bankers to receive exorbitant bonuses is completely for the birds.

It cannot be overstated how deeply young people feel that things are stacked against them. Then they read in the papers that there is a new debate to be had on conscription. Get real! Give young people a stake in the society that they might well be called on to defend one day. There is an entire debate to be had about how we get the armed forces up to the scratch, size and modernised style that we need, but the answer does not lie in telling young people that they have to be conscripted in order to defend King and country. Good luck to any politician who wants to go out and sell that message at a time like this.

Among all those domestic challenges, which are being compounded by global factors, there are opportunities to tackle things such as health inequalities, and to modernise public services with real investment in the public realm and, of course, reform and new technologies. However, another area we need to think about is population growth. The way we debate immigration leaves me staggered. The bar gets lower with every passing day in this House. The truth is that if we want to keep a competitive advantage, whether in university research or key sectors and industries, we need people to come to this country. With the mass movement of people only growing around the world, we will have to rethink how we manage people coming into or leaving the country, and the reasons for that. I have spoken before in the House about how young researchers at universities up and down the UK—Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales—are staggered at the fact that everything costs a fortune, they cannot get appointments to see a doctor and trains do not run properly on time. So who is surprised when they tell us that they want to move to another European city that has just as good opportunities for their research and a much higher, easier and better standard of living?

I am conscious that I say all these things representing a party that is also in Government, but we are going to have to seek to create a new consensus to drive up living standards, and an element of that has to be a much more realistic discussion about immigration and population growth. It needs to move away from this dark, ugly debate that we see all often, which starts with a desire to drive the numbers down. Those arguing for reduced immigration are arguing to make the country poorer. There is no question about that.

This is what I think a policy platform that could generate some kind of new consensus looks like. We can see the lessons from institutions such as the European Union and in legislation in the US in the style of the Inflation Reduction Act. I can understand entirely why the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), the shadow Chancellor, wanted to move on to that ground, albeit that Labour’s £28 billion green pledge is getting more and more diluted to the point of being hopeless and useless. Nevertheless, such a pledge is exactly where we need to go by using industrial policy. being realistic about immigration policy, and using those policies to tackle the challenges of our time, including climate change and technological development, in order to drive up living standards, while also pursuing our own economic interests and national security interests.

What did we get here in response? Such low ambition. I forget the actual name for it, but the then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), was announcing his “green new deal day”, or whatever he was going to call it. Such was the fear of the hardliners in the Conservative party that the Government had to take the word “green” out of it. That is not serious Government.

We might be able to create a new consensus that seeks to create prosperity and a sense of economic fairness, and that plans for the long-term resilience that—surely to God—the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the middle east tell us we all need. I have not even mentioned China, Taiwan and the South China sea. However, as I was saying, if we can work on creating a consensus built around prosperity, fairness and long-term resilience, it could be transformational, not just for our constituents now but for generations and generations to come. I have little faith that that consensus will come out of this Parliament or that we will will see much of it in an election year, when these contests become all the more bitter because of the election, but if we look at any of the polling, we will see that our constituents and the public at large are far ahead of politics and the politicians on this stuff.

I look forward to hearing what colleagues, particularly the Minister, have to say today. A big reimagining of the state and citizen is what is badly, even starkly, needed. We are so far behind where we should be and we are so far behind many of our western European counterparts. If we do not see that reimagining emerge from this place, and I suspect that we will not, in Scotland the answer lies, yes, in our becoming a member of the European Union, which would put rocket boosters under Scotland’s prosperity in the future.

Hospitality Sector: Fiscal Support

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered fiscal support for the hospitality sector.

We always say that it is a pleasure to see you in your place, Ms Bardell, and it is this morning; thank you for looking after us. I thank colleagues from all points of the compass for their support on a subject that is close to my heart: fiscal and other support for the hospitality sector—by which I mean on-trade pubs, restaurants, cafés, hotels, and bed and breakfasts. I am grateful to the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, the Scottish Beer and Pub Association, the Scottish and UK hospitality organisations, Castle Leisure Group, Greene King, and several dozen businesses in rural and urban Stirlingshire for helping me to prepare for the debate. I also thank Paul Anderson and Matt Gower from my office, as well as the House of Commons Library, which has produced a number of useful briefings that I commend to colleagues.

This issue is not easy, but I will be up front with colleagues. Am I looking for special treatment for the hospitality sector? Yes, I am: these businesses need and deserve it. They need it because of the unprecedented economic times that we are living through, and they deserve it because they are a part of not just our economy, but our society; they are community hubs at a time when we face an epidemic of post-covid loneliness, and they contribute to our sense of place and keep our high streets busy. As well as urban Stirling, I represent a number of rural communities, which turn into dormitories once the pub goes. That is not a sustainable future for those communities. Hospitality businesses promote social mobility. How many of us—myself included—had a first job waiting tables, pulling pints or doing dishes? Hospitality provides flexible employment that keeps a lot of people engaged in the workplace who might otherwise not find jobs that suit them. These are good, sustainable jobs, and great careers.

Hospitality businesses are also significant for the economy. The stats are vital: the beer and pub sector accounts for 936,000 jobs and contributes £26 billion to the UK economy; in Scotland, it accounts for 62,000 jobs and £1.8 billion in tax receipts. According to UKHospitality, the wider hospitality sector employs 3.5 million people in one form or another, and generates £54 billion in tax receipts. These businesses are at the sharp end of an economic crisis that is not of their making. They are at the sharp end of the post-covid slump, an energy cost spike and insurance cost rises. They face labour shortages and costs due to Brexit. Now, I do not blame Brexit for everything, but it has made everything worse, and we need to deal with its consequences, which hospitality businesses are living with right now. They also have lower footfall, because in the cost of living crisis everybody is cutting back on discretionary spend. They are dealing with a perfect storm, and they need more help.

During covid, we proved that we can act fast, as we did with the VAT cut and eat out to help out, with all its issues; we demonstrated that we could move fast when a demonstrated emergency was under way. For our hospitality businesses, there is still an emergency under way. I am supportive of the Scottish Government, although I am not part of it; I am clearly in opposition here, though I hope I am a constructive Opposition Member. I am bringing some ideas to the Minister, and look forward to his response. I am also not a part of Stirling Council. I am aware that budgets in all places are under real pressure, but I am calling for support because I am dread afeard that, unless we act, a number of these good, sustainable businesses will not make it through to the better times, when they do come, and that all those revenues and social benefits will be lost. Across my constituency, there are a number of great businesses, but they need help to make it through. It is up to all of us, in all our places, to put the badges to one side and work together to support these crucial organisations.

What am I calling for? I will be brief to allow colleagues to speak. First, if hon. Members remember only two words from me today, they should be “cut VAT.” I would cut VAT on food, soft drinks and alcohol to 5%. Of course, that is a big ask. I know the fiscal situation for the UK, Scotland and local government, but cutting VAT would be a clean and immediately effective way of supporting those businesses’ bottom line. It would be directly linked to turnover, so if a business is not doing much business, it will not get that much benefit, and if it is, it will. It would not require any complex architecture or bureaucracy and would not need much to administer. It would be an effective way to boost growth and help these businesses survive.

In other countries, a VAT cut would not be unusual. VAT on accommodation is 10% in Austria, 6% in Belgium and 9% in Cyprus. VAT on restaurants is 13% in Croatia, 5% in Hungary and 10% in Italy. Of course, it is not quite like for like, but the UK is taxing this sector far more than other European countries do, and I think we need to boost and celebrate it, not tax the bejesus out of it from all parts of Government.

Speaking of which, we need business rates reform. To be clear, I was glad that the UK Government temporarily cut business rates in England. I called for the Scottish Government to pass that on, and I regret that they did not, but let us remember that it was just a one-year suspension and the actual problem is that business rates are not fit for purpose in any of our countries. That outdated system is creating perverse incentives for a lot of good businesses. Of course, local government needs to be supported, but we need to find a better way to do that. Tom Arthur, the Scottish Minister, has been proactive in engaging with business across Stirling and elsewhere. He acknowledges the problem—but business rates are crippling a lot of businesses, and we need urgent reform in all our countries.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point about business rates reform. I have just pulled up the Midweek Herald, in which a pub that closed fairly recently, the Honiton Inn, is advertised at £395,000, but before the advert says anything about the pub, it says, “Business rates may apply”. Does he agree that business rates on pubs are deterring new tenants from taking over?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith]

I do agree, and they are also deterring growth in existing businesses. A number of business owners in Stirling have told me that once they invested in refurbishing their pub or doing it up after covid, they got hit with a higher rates bill—so that was a disincentive to investment. The system is broken, and I commend to colleagues the House of Commons Library research that compares how other countries do this stuff. I am conscious that there is not an easy answer. It is easy for me to call for reform, which is pressing, but I do not necessarily have a preferred way to do that.

Hospitality businesses have been hit by energy costs. They are big energy users, in terms of heating and cooling, and have been hit by eye-watering uncapped price rises from the energy companies, many of which are making substantial profits. I do not begrudge companies making profits—I celebrate that—but if they are doing it in a way that shuts down big chunks of another industry, we need stronger regulation. The UK energy market is deeply broken and is not working for an awful lot of business consumers. In the meantime, I think we could look seriously at business rate rebates for energy users.

It will not surprise colleagues that a number of stakeholders are keen on a cut to duty for cider, beer and spirits. That is a way of supporting brewers and distillers. I am not hostile to that, but I think the best way to support the hospitality sector is a VAT cut. That would be a tide that raises everybody’s boat, although there is some evidence that previous cuts have not been passed on to the wider sector.

We also need to do things to rebalance the playing field between the on and off-trade sales. The Scottish Government have tried to do that with minimum unit pricing. I do not want us to turn into a nation—however “nation” is defined—of people who drink alone in front of the TV. Pubs, restaurants and cafés provide a social environment for the consumption of alcohol; they are socially inclusive, open to all and regulated constructively —whereas the other market is tending in the other direction.

There are a number of things we can do to help this sector, which is vital not just because of the social and economic aspects, but because it helps define who we are as a community. We all need to work together to make that happen. I think a VAT cut for the hospitality sector would be deeply popular. I appreciate that the Chancellor and the Minister do not have an easy task in the Budget ahead of us, but that would be a constructive way to boost growth and help these businesses through the tough times, because the emergency is not over. If the Chancellor introduces any of those measures, I will be the first to applaud, because these businesses are too important to all our communities.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith]

In the time available, I will just thank colleagues for a very constructive debate with a number of good ideas. I think the Minister gets it. He has proven that he understands the sector and that he is passionate about it, but I would stress the cross-party urgency. Whether we are talking about a VAT cut to 5% or 10%, there is unity for a cut. Businesses that go under do not pay any tax at all. They do not employ anybody and will leave gaping holes in our communities. I think the Minister takes that point. He knows he has an opportunity in the Budget coming up. If the Chancellor brings forward measures to support the hospitality sector, nobody will applaud louder than I will, because this is urgent and there is a need for all of us to work together on this point.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered fiscal support for the hospitality sector.

Delivery of Public Services

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I congratulate the Labour party on bringing forward today’s debate, and acknowledge at the outset—I am seeking common ground with those on the Treasury Bench—that government is hard. Government means not being entirely in charge of events, and the Government must be responsible for things beyond their direct control. The SNP has been the Government of Scotland since 2007, and it has seldom been easy to achieve the results we wanted, but we see the verdict of the people of Scotland on the performance of the SNP Government: the 2019 Westminster election, the 2021 Holyrood election and the local election this year have been resounding SNP victories.

[James Daly]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very fair point, but is that the reason why A&E waiting times in Scotland are at a record high? In May over 10,000 people were waiting over two years for medical treatment; is that not a shameful record for the SNP Government?

[Alyn Smith]

I was hoping to find common ground, rather than hear endless whataboutery. We could all swap stats about the performance of our relative Governments, but I am here to critique the performance of this UK Government and try to find solutions. Have there been challenges? Of course there have. Are we all facing common challenges from the international global situation with covid? Of course we are. It is how we respond to those challenges, the decisions we make, and how we resource our public services that we can be judged by. The people of Scotland judged the SNP Government, and resoundingly backed us. Of course there are challenges, but I am proud to stand by the SNP’s record.

To govern is to choose, and it is the choices of this UK Government that we can critique today. I endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) about the underlying causes of policy failure, the UK Government’s wrong decision in leaving the EU, and doing so in the way they did. That compounded a number of our difficulties, just as wrong management choices affected the delivery of public services. I will not belabour or repeat the points my right hon. Friend made, but the SNP remains very clear about our ambition for Scotland: we want an independent Scotland, back in the European family of nations. The people of Scotland will have a choice on that in October 2023. We will come back to that discussion at the proper time, I do not doubt, and I look forward to that.

[Paul Holmes]

May I intervene?

[Alyn Smith]

Please do; this will be good.

[Paul Holmes]

I apologise for intervening on the hon. Gentleman, especially after I have just made a speech. Talking of delivering public services and the economy, the First Minister today outlined her plan for independence, but she failed to mention what currency the SNP proposes for an independent Scotland, and whether independence would have a negative or positive impact on the economic outlook of Scotland.

[Alyn Smith]

As I say, I look forward to the debates that we will have in the coming months, and I look forward to the decision of the people of Scotland on those matters.

I have said that it is difficult to be in government, and I acknowledge the problems the UK Government have faced. I am honestly not here to score political points. I will focus my remarks solely on passports and driving licences, because that has been a considerable difficulty for hundreds of the people I serve in Stirling—and, I suspect, for thousands, if not more, people across all our constituencies. I say hand on heart to the UK Government, constitutional politics aside, that I want this fixed. It needs to be fixed a lot more quickly.

I listened carefully to the Chief Secretary’s comments on passports and driving licences, and I am not sure that many of my constituents in Stirling would agree with his rather Panglossian analysis. There have been clear failures in the delivery of these services. I agree that the backlogs in both the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and Her Majesty’s Passport Office were unprecedented, but they were not remotely unforeseeable, and the scale of the Government response was inadequate. We need a laser-like focus on that in this discussion. We need far greater investment in these services, and far greater support for the hard-working staff who are swamped in trying to deal with the backlogs, which are having significant knock-on effects on the livelihoods and mental health, as we have heard, of many millions of the citizens we serve.

I have three examples from Stirling—this is just a selection from this morning’s postbag. One constituent applied for his child’s passport on 30 March—13 weeks ago this Wednesday. He was to travel on 25 June, but he cancelled, lost the money and rebooked for 6 July. There was no response at all to his requests to expedite the application, and with just seven days to go, there is still no passport.

Another constituent applied on 2 March for passports for herself and her four-year-old daughter, so that they could travel on 1 May—it was to be their first holiday. Their passports were late and they missed their holiday. In another constituent’s own words:

“I went to the Glasgow office today and waited for hours in the queue. They weren’t going to see me as I don’t travel in the next 48 hours. However, I pleaded my case and the lovely lady agreed to at least check everything was ok with my application. It was not. Though they received my supporting documents recorded delivery, HMPO have lost them (3 birth certificates). This resulted in me quite literally running down to the Glasgow registrar office”.

It said it could provide the certificates in 24 hours. My constituent continued:

“I am now on a train back to Stirling to go to the registry office there who have agreed to print them off…then I will head back to Glasgow to have them proceed with the application.”

Missed holidays are not the biggest crisis in the world, but missed livelihoods are, and the failures of the DVLA are even worse. A number of HGV drivers and people dependent on driving for their work have been unable to work and in danger of losing their livelihoods and employment because of the delays.

I always hope to find consensus and to suggest solutions. To solve a problem, one first needs to acknowledge it. I therefore urge a bit more humility and honesty from the Government in dealing with the passport and DVLA issues in particular. There has been investment—I acknowledge that—but it has not been adequate. We need more. The establishment of a Westminster helpdesk for MPs, while welcome—we have used it—reveals something of a Westminster-centric attitude. What we actually need is far more people on the phones, available to our constituents and citizens who need the advice. That advice needs to be properly resourced.

I acknowledge that there has been investment, but it has not been enough, so to talk about tax cuts in general, as an ideological point, is to miss the point entirely. This is a problem that hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of our citizens are facing right now. The Government have to deliver public services, and they have not done remotely as well as they need to. For hundreds of thousands of constituents, backlog Britain is a very real and pressing problem. I therefore congratulate the Labour party on bringing forward the debate and urge the UK Government to do better.

Climate Goals: Wellbeing Economy

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. It is also a great pleasure to support the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). We were great colleagues in the European Parliament and, dare I say, the precursors to the co-operation that we are seeing in Scotland, where Green leadership is taking us to new vistas of co-operation.

The wellbeing economy is an idea whose time has come. We are measuring the wrong stuff. So much of what we see within the public debate about public services and public investment posits economic growth versus wellbeing or versus environmental standards or other measures of public good. It should not be either/or; we need to consider both. We are measuring the wrong stuff. That means that the criteria against which we measure outputs is leading us to perverse incentives.

The pandemic we are all, sadly, very much still living through—we cannot relax yet—is a disruptive event for a lot of people: not just everyone in this room, but all our constituents as well. People are considering how they live their lives, where they get their food, how they travel to work, where they work, what they do and how they spend their time. Questions of work and productivity are being examined in households up and down the length of these islands in ways they never have been before. GDP is a rubbish measure of any human happiness.

If we want to increase GDP, I will give two examples. A car crash is a fantastic way to increase GDP, because it involves garages, lawyers, insurance companies. It involves all sorts of things that are not economically productive, but do count from an GDP perspective as positive to the balance sheet. Divorce is also great for GDP: one house becomes two; lawyers make lots of money; and assets are split up. There are various economic things that count in the GDP ledger, but are surely not positive for us as a society.

It strikes me as self-evident that adding a wider set of criteria to the public sector consideration of expenditure can lead only to better outcomes. Likewise, I am very drawn to the Carnegie UK Trust’s idea of a gross domestic wellbeing index as a way to benchmark actual progress. About 300 years ago I proposed to the SNP conference that Scotland should adopt a Nordic-style wellbeing index to benchmark the progress of society against other comparable countries—and here we are 15 or so years later.

I close with one very concrete example, which shows that this is not an esoteric, niche subject but aimed at bringing about real change in the real world. Bus services in Stirling and the Forth valley are not fit for purpose. They are not up to scratch. They are not as reliable as they need to be. Bus services are not in my remit, as a Member of this Westminster Parliament, but I see that systemic change is necessary, because we are looking at the wrong outputs and outcomes. There is too little public funding available to support the bus network that we need. However, how many people have to have a car but would not have one if they could rely on buses? How much unproductive capital is tied up in those vehicles? Think about how many carbon emissions we could get rid of if the bus services were reliable. Think about the lost economic productivity of the people who cannot afford cars but cannot get to work either. If we change the metrics, we change the outcome.

As we have heard, the Scottish Government have started that work. The Scottish national performance framework brings in a wider set of criteria. There is the Wellbeing Economy Alliance with Iceland and other small countries. We are already doing this work, and we can do much more. That is not to say that the UK cannot do more too. I look forward to hearing from the Minister; she could have positive engagement and support if she actually took serious steps in this direction. Fair work must also be properly considered in this equation, and we must ensure that the new jobs are good jobs, fair jobs and well-paid jobs. If we grab this at the flow, there is a big prize that we can all share.

Covid-19: Government Support

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) [V]]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I warmly congratulate my good and hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) on securing the debate, on his consistent leadership on this topic and on looking after small businesses and folks in Midlothian and elsewhere. That has been really important. I also pay tribute to ForgottenLtd and ExcludedUK, two great organisations that have worked cross-party to represent people who really have needed a voice throughout this process.

There is strong representation from the SNP in the debate because a lot of people are being let down by the UK Government at present. I pay tribute to the UK Government for what they have done, but we have to engage with them because under the current constitutional arrangements—and contrary to our worldview—the UK Treasury holds most of the purse strings. The Scottish Government have some flexibility, as does local government in Scotland, but they do not have most of the levers that we have needed, as we have seen throughout this crisis. It is important that we make sure that decisions taken on Scottish taxes mean that they are spent well—or, in this case, that the debt taken on our behalf is.

The UK Government have not been idle—I acknowledge that. A lot of these decisions had to be made at speed, and the situation has moved very fast. However, as we heard from my hon. Friend, the excuses for excluding people in the early days do not wash any more. Deliberate policy choices have excluded millions of people from Government support. We have seen corporate welfare for big organisations and organisations that were already in the system, but a lack of flexibility has meant that a lot of people have been missed out. That is curious and I find it difficult to conceive the logic, because one would have thought that the real lifeblood of the economy—the entrepreneurs, the pram shops, the company directors, the music shops and the gym owners—would have been prioritised a while ago by the Conservative party, but that is not what we have seen in reality.

I am conscious of time, but I want to make a plea of the Minister. We are very far from out of this crisis. There has been a lot of cross-party work and I am doing my best not to score party political points here. We need to find solutions for a lot of people who will need long-term support in the future. I am thinking in particular of hospitality businesses and event businesses—businesses that will struggle with the transition from furlough to non-furlough. The idea that we will be out of this crisis in a matter of weeks is for the birds. We must keep these doors open and we must be flexible about better targeted means of support for organisations. If that is the way the Minister will go forward, he will find a ready ally in the SNP, because we must find solutions. It is too important for party politics.

LGBT Conversion Therapy

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I can be brief.

I called for this debate back in September and am glad to see it tonight. I am also glad to see so many passionate and thoughtful contributions from all points of the compass across the House. This is an issue that we need to act on, and I praise the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for his excellent speech. I have to say that the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) made a very strong contribution—it is good the see her back, and she has demonstrated why it is good to see her back. She has done a power of work on this issue, and it is great that there is such a cross-party consensus on it.

I will confess that I am a gay man, but I am happy to say that I have no direct experience of this issue. Frankly, the scale of the problem was news to me. According to the UK Government’s 2018 LGBT survey, 5% of respondents had been offered conversion therapy and 2% had undergone it in one shape or another. In the trans community, the figures were even higher: 9% had been offered it and 4% had undergone it. There is much to agree with in the discussion tonight, but it boils down to one phrase: let’s get on with it. I say that as a challenge to the Minister while offering my support for her efforts.

There is a cross-party need for legislation. There is work to be done, of course, but work is well advanced on the proposals for a legislative framework. The NGOs are behind it, the equalities community is behind it and the faith groups are behind it. There is cross-party support. The Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd and many people in Northern Ireland are supportive of this legislation, and we need to get it done. The only people who are speaking in defence of conversion therapy are quacks, bigots and bullies. They need to be called out for what they are, and their dreadful activities and consequences criminalised. If the UK Government are serious about bringing forward legislation, they will have my support, and I look forward to hearing some good news from the Minister tonight.

Equitable Life

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) [V]]

I think I can be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker, because there is no question: there is a huge and remarkable degree of cross-party agreement across the House. The question really is: what is the UK Government Minister going to do about it? I warmly praise the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for bringing the debate forward, and I praise the Backbench Business Committee too. I commend him for a balanced and passionate speech, with which I would very much associate myself. I also congratulate the Equitable Members Action Group and pledge my continuing support for its efforts. It has been very tough in keeping this going and making sure that this injustice is not allowed to be put into the long grass forever.

This is a historic injustice, but there are daily consequences for hundreds of people across Stirling, thousands across Scotland and 890,000 people UK-wide. Sadly, a number of policyholders have died still suffering the losses that were not their fault. As we have heard, there were three interlocking failures in Equitable Life: the initial failure of management, in that they were selling products they should not have been; the failure of shareholder oversight of that corporate entity; and then sustained regulatory failure—arguably collusion—in terms of allowing these products to be sold when they should not have been. There was no failure on the part of the investors. I agree with those who have said that Equitable Life in those days was effectively running a Ponzi scheme, but it was not marketed as such; it was marketed as a sensible, prudent investment, and it was taken up by people who were doing the right thing to provide for their own futures and the futures of their families. They did not make a mistake; they did not invest in a get-rich-quick scheme. They invested in something that they thought was a very sensible thing to do.

The facts of this matter are really not in doubt; this issue has been investigated to death. The parliamentary ombudsman has produced a report on it, we have had the Penrose inquiry, and the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions has also conducted a major inquiry—and all made the same recommendation that there was an injustice that should be rectified.

The findings have been well ventilated and the fact remains today that a settlement of 22.4% for the policyholders is unjust and unfair. It has daily consequences for hundreds of thousands of people across these islands, and it undermines trust and faith in the pensions sector going forward, so there are real-world policy implications right now. It is high time that the UK Government put this historical wrong to right, and I look forward to hearing some better news from the UK Minister today than we have heard from his predecessors.

Support for Self-employed and Freelance Workers

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

You are very kind, Madam Deputy Speaker. I assure you that I have had more shocking things to deal with this week than that.

I warmly pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for securing this debate and praise to the rafters the ExcludedUK and #ForgottenLtd campaigns, which have done so much to bring this issue to the forefront. I also praise colleagues for the constructive, bipartisan way in which we have held this debate, and in that spirit I reach out to those on the Treasury Bench and to Treasury Ministers. I do feel for them, as this has been an unprecedented crisis, needing unprecedented solutions, on an unprecedented timescale. So we are not here just to criticise; we do have solutions to the problems.

The Scottish Parliament cannot borrow at the moment. I would like it to, but at the moment the UK Government does this on our behalf, so it is our job to make sure that the money is well spent and that the support is extended and better targeted. Business is still in crisis. We need to acknowledge the seasonality of many businesses, particularly in Stirling and in Scotland, and we need to look after the self-employed better. But what hurts—I would like some response on this—is that the Chancellor said that no one will be left behind. I promise and assure those on the Treasury Bench and colleagues that in Stirling, Scotland and the UK lots of people have been. They feel aggrieved and hurt, and that needs to be acknowledged. I have supported the schemes as far as they have gone, but we are talking about people who are not Wetherspoons, British Airways or Costa Coffee. We are talking about pram shops, electricians, taxi drivers, mortgage brokers music shops, gym equipment makers—the real entrepreneurs, who are the lifeblood of the Scottish economy.

We have a number of concrete requests to make—I have tried to boil this down. First, the Government should acknowledge that there are gaps in support and that some people have been left out and left behind. I ask the Government to meet us—to meet colleagues from across the House, and meet ExcludedUK and #ForgottenLtd. I ask them to continue the self-employed scheme beyond October and retrospectively expand it to cover seasonal workers, freelancers and the recently self-employed, and to look into the specific gender pay aspects of the support schemes, which have let down so many women in particular.

We are not out of the woods yet—far from it.. I have just heard of one case of covid being confirmed at the University of Stirling, and we must ensure that we keep people safe throughout the times to come. If the Treasury will not act on the reasonable suggestions made by Members from across the House today, we will. Let me give a final statistic: 71% of Scots want the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament to have full financial powers to protect our businesses and to deal with the crisis. If the UK Government prove that they will not act, they build the case for the transfer of powers to Scotland, because we have a fully functioning, law-abiding Parliament and Government who will.

Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to speak in SNP Opposition-day debates, because we get the opportunity to play Blackford bingo. We heard the regular things from the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) who must, at some point—today twice—show full outrage at Conservative Members for daring to make any sort of noise when he is speaking during the debate, totally ignoring, of course, the chirling nature of his colleagues behind him, when Government Members choose to make points on behalf of the people of Scotland.

We also had, as we always do during Blackford bingo, the words “power grab”, yet I have never heard a single SNP Member be able to articulate what powers are being grabbed. If it is a power grab, there must be powers that are currently held by the Scottish Parliament, and enacted by the Scottish Government on behalf of the people of Scotland, that we, the UK Government, are taking away.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

rose—

[Douglas Ross]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he will be the first SNP Member ever who is able to explain a power held by Holyrood that the UK Government are going to grab away. I look forward to it.

[Alyn Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The shared prosperity fund has been mentioned by every SNP Member who has spoken thus far. For those present who do not know, that is the successor to the EU funding mechanism that the Scottish Government, and local government, have used productively for 20-odd years to encourage economic growth. The current proposal is for the UK to take over that funding and control it from London, via the Scotland Office. That is a power grab, surely, in any objective sense of the word.

[Douglas Ross]

The search goes on, so I will keep asking. What the hon. Gentleman has just described is a power currently held by the EU that the UK is going to get back, because we chose in a referendum to leave the EU, which the SNP would want to give back to the EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I am struck, as ever, following the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), that PG Wodehouse really did get it right when he said that a Scotsman is rarely confused with a ray of sunshine. I have to say, though, that we do not need to make a performance art out of it. I will endeavour to strike a sunnier, more consensual note in this discussion, because I am very proudly centrist in my politics. On the centre ground is where I will be found. That is where most people of Scotland are and where most people of Stirling are, That is where we all need to tend towards in order to find solutions to this debate today.

This debate is not about stopping Brexit. We accept and we regret the fact that it has happened. It is about extending the transition period to avert a self-imposed economic disaster. There are solutions to be found. At its heart, we all need to take a step back and reboot this conversation. There are several conflicting world views at play in this discussion—all of them legitimate. Scotland voted to remain. Northern Ireland voted by a nuanced vote to remain also. Two of the four home nations voted to remain. Two out of the four home nations voted to leave. The UK-wide leave vote was 52% to 48%. All of these are facts—simultaneously correct and simultaneously legitimate. We have a conundrum that we need to try to find solutions to. Surely those numbers, those facts, suggest that we should have a more nuanced, respectful approach than we have seen from successive Governments since 2016.

There are solutions to be found. I respect England’s vote. I particularly respect what the hon. Member for Leigh (James Grundy) said about his constituency and how every ward voted to leave. I respect that. I do not believe that Scotland had a right at any point in the process to stop England leaving the European Union, much as we disagreed with it, so why the hell does not that go the other way round? Respect must be reciprocal if it is to exist at all. The Scottish Government have endeavoured at every stage of this process to engage with the discussion and the conundrum. I was involved intricately with that at the Brussels end of operations. We tried to find nuanced solutions that would have recognised the conundrum that we all faced: we published “Scotland’s Place in Europe”; we put forward the idea of a Scotland-Northern Ireland backstop; and we put forward the idea that the UK could leave the European Union but remain within the single market, which would have been a compromise that most people could have lived with. All of those proposals were shot down, ignored and belittled by a Government who were so busy trying to negotiate with themselves that they could not spend any time thinking about Edinburgh, Cardiff or Northern Ireland. It is a poor show, and it is a poor show that we are here now, facing into a very negative situation for all the citizens that we serve, however they voted. We need to save the situation and it is not too late to change course. It is not too late to dig up the tram tracks that the UK Government have set for themselves.

All of our suggestions were dismissed, but our party is left with fewer and fewer options. We will work within the law. We will work within the constitution. We will work within Scotland and the UK’s democracy. We will work within the settlements that we have, but we will not meekly comply because of a vote that happened in another country. We will not meekly go along with it, because we are told to by a party that has only recently found a common purpose—for the moment. It will not last long.

Leaving aside the democratic deficit of the United Kingdom, which is clear for everyone in Scotland to see, let us look at the project that is actually being imposed on us against our will and against our democratic vote. Brexit is proceeding on a flawed premise. There were a series of interlocking promises that have not been respected, that have been forgotten about and dismissed. There were the promises on the side of a bus and an oven-ready deal that is neither ready nor anywhere near an oven. We have a deal that is falling apart. In my first speech in this place, I described the withdrawal agreement as a grubby, shabby document and we were proven right, because within seconds of that vote being passed, the governing party walked away from the commitments, which were being viewed in Brussels as solemn commitments —to a level playing field, to a non-competitive aspect, and to various mechanisms. Those were all being treated as solemn commitments from a UK Government who now do not look very solemn, or serious, or at all credible in the eyes of our wider European colleagues.

Brexit has already made the people of these islands poorer on any objective analysis of the economics. All of that pain is perhaps necessary, I am willing to accept, if the benefits are there to see and to be explained, but —I believe in intellectual honesty in my politics—all of those benefits, surely we must accept, are at best hypothetical, and absolutely none of them has been delivered in the real world in any sense. Conservative Members wonder why we are sceptical on these Benches about this project. It is because we have not seen any advantages spelled out after four years of looking for one.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

rose—

[Alyn Smith]

Do tell, Sir, please.

[Tom Hunt]

Thank you very much for giving way. You said at the start of your speech that this was not about stopping Brexit; it was just about extending the transition period. So why now are you making the case for why we should not leave, and don’t you think it is uncanny how everybody who is arguing—

[Tom Hunt]

Following on from what I said, does the hon. Gentleman find it uncanny that everybody who seems to be arguing for an extension are those people who were previously on the barricades trying to block Brexit completely, full stop?

[Alyn Smith]

I am grateful for the opportunity to perhaps correct if I was unclear. I accept that Brexit has happened. I gave up my seat in the European Parliament because of it; I wanted to come here to fight for Scotland’s place in Europe. There was a point in the December election where we could have had that argument. In the halcyon days, we were thinking about a hung Parliament—with a Labour Administration, with SNP support, and a second EU referendum—but I won Stirling with 51% of the vote and my party won Scotland with a massive vote, to a Parliament we do not want to be in, on a pro-EU platform. Because of events elsewhere, it was clear that Brexit was going to happen anyway. I accepted Brexit has happened in my first speech, so I have made that point. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. What I am trying to do is extend the transition period to avoid a disaster that Conservative Members are going to inflict on this House out of bone-headed ideology, and when the chickens come home to roost, I do hope they will be as accountable as we have been to the people of Scotland on those points.

I again urge the Minister, whom I have much respect for, on the shared prosperity fund. There has been much talk about the power grab. I see the eyes rolling on the Conservative Benches now, but it is a very concrete example. This was not a power that rested in Brussels. The European frameworks exist in order to empower national and local governments. This was a power that was entirely with the Scottish authorities. The proposal on the table now from the UK Government is to put those powers in the hands of the Scotland Office—a part of the UK Government—removing that budget and removing that competence from the Scottish authorities. If that is not a power grab, I will need to have a look at the dictionary the Conservative Members are working with because, in any objective sense, it is. The Minister can assure us now that I am wrong. I will happily be proven wrong. I will happily engage with what we can do with the shared prosperity fund in Scotland, but it must be as a matter of respect for devolution under the competence of the Scottish authorities. If it is not, it is a breach of trust, it is a breach of faith and it is a power grab.

As I say, the pain of Brexit or the pain that Brexit is causing could be worth it if the benefits were there to be seen, but beyond warm words and sentiment, and beyond slogans that do not stand analysis, we have not seen that. Let us be generous—I do try to be generous—and say that the one-year negotiating period was heroically ambitious. That was before covid. Covid has intervened and has taken the focus of all of our Governments and all of our public officials away, rightly, to a health emergency. Extending the transition period is not about fighting old battles. I am not in the business of fighting old battles. Extending the transition period can be done and will give us breathing space and certainty to allow our economy to recover from a health emergency that is turning into an economic emergency. To add a covid-inflicted disaster upon that because of Brexit would be flat lunacy.

I was struck by the Paymaster General’s previous comments. She is now not in her place, but I was struck when she used the phrase that we are now past the point whereby a request can be made. She said that some might argue it is impossible to apply for an extension. She is not here now, but I would happily give way to anyone on the Conservative Benches who can name anybody in Brussels who is of that view. Anyone—Berlin, Paris, Ljubljana? It is a matter of straightforward principle and pragmatism in Brussels that, if the UK applies for an extension, it will be granted. The EU has, at every stage of the process, accepted with regret the democratic choices of the United Kingdom. It will not engage in our internal discussion, so it is with regret that it accepts that an extension will probably not be applied for.

We have not heard any indication today that the UK Government will change course, but they should, and this is a plea from us to do so, because we can still change course. We must change course. This is not about old battles. I asked whether anybody in Brussels, Berlin or anywhere else shared the Minister’s view. How about Dublin? Speaking of Dublin, Ireland is an independent state in north-west Europe that has done quite well lately. With Norway, it was voted on to the UN Security Council. It has the EU Commissioner for Trade in the inestimable Phil Hogan, who is a very strong negotiator in trade deals—Government Members will want to watch that one. It also has the president of the Eurogroup in Paschal Donohoe. The international accolades just keep coming for Ireland, and that is all based on the solidarity, support and encouragement of 26 other EU member states that have its back against the former colonial power.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the fact that Ireland managed to get itself on to the UN Security Council, but Scotland is a permanent member of the UN Security Council through being part of one of the most successful unions. Does his attitude not show that he actually wants to downgrade Scotland’s place in the world by making it a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council?

[Alyn Smith]

I am happy to engage with that point. I have spent a number of years on the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and I am now foreign affairs spokesman for my party. The UK is, of course, a P5 member, and Scotland is represented by virtue of that mechanism. I think that it could serve us better if we were an independent member of the UN and an independent member of the EU, working in concert with 27 of our closest neighbours, because I do not have any faith or trust in where the UK is going under the Conservative party. The Brexit process has proven us to be right.

I heard the point made earlier about the 2014 referendum. We do accept that that vote happened—we do accept that arithmetic reality. But a number of people voted no to independence on the basis of specific promises—promises that they cannot risk their European status, that we are a family of equals and a partnership of nations, that the UK is the only way to guarantee economic stability. All those promises and all that airy sentiment now look an awful lot more threadbare than they did, and no amount of bluster from Government Members will disprove that point.

Look at the recent results of votes in Scotland. Under a system where we do not make the rules, we won massively the majority of seats from Scotland in this House. Scotland is represented in this discussion by nobody from the Labour party and by a Minister who represents Milton Keynes. We have no territorial ambitions on Milton Keynes—the Minister can rest easy—but to say that it is part of Scotland is something of a stretch.

The legitimacy of this Government in the eyes of the people of Scotland is really something that Government Members need to have higher up their consciousness, because the people of Scotland are watching. The people of Scotland will have a choice at some point on whether independence in Europe is a better option than being stuck on an island run by the Conservative party. Ireland has shown us what independence in Europe actually looks like, and the Government are showing us what the UK will continue to offer Scotland. I think we have a better choice, and I believe that independence in Europe is coming.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

This debate has nothing to do with covid or the negotiations with the EU. It has more to do with the Opposition once again refusing to accept democracy. Of course, Opposition parties have form in refusing to accept the democratic will of the people. Let us remind ourselves that we voted to leave as the United Kingdom—not as Northern Ireland, not as Scotland, not as Wales, not as England. Look at the Conservatives—we are the 109s, and we are here because of the Opposition’s reluctance to accept democracy. Most of us are from leave constituencies, and we were voted in because of the Opposition. That is a fact.

On 23 June 2016, my phone did not stop ringing. People all over Ashfield were ringing to ask where they could go to vote. They were people who had never voted before; people of all ages who wanted their voice to be heard. When the results came in the next day, the same people called me again to say that their vote really did count. The referendum result went a long way towards restoring confidence in democracy in left-behind areas like mine—the same areas that the Opposition told us would suffer if we left the EU. In Ashfield, our pits, factories and swathes of manufacturing industry have vanished over the past 40-odd years, and during the same period we have been part of the wonderful EU. People in Ashfield cannot see the benefits of being in the EU, and no one has ever explained it to them—I wonder why? Perhaps the Opposition do not realise that in places like Ashfield they cannot threaten us any longer.

[Alyn Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Lee Anderson]

No, I will not. The Opposition cannot tell us that we will suffer, lose our jobs and homes if we do not listen to them. We have suffered in the past, we have lost jobs, seen our area decline and be ignored, but we are fighters in Ashfield and we are coming back stronger. For the first time in decades we have hope, we know we can make a success of things, and we know that Ashfield can once again become a force to be reckoned with in a UK that is not controlled by the EU. But four years later, the Brexit blockers—