Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It says Scotland in the title for these questions. They are not linked to Northern Ireland. I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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

The agricultural sector is woven into the fabric of communities across Scotland. It employs thousands and contributes millions annually to the economy, but farmers across Scotland have been left in fear for their families’ future and their way of life because this Government want to tax them out of existence. Despite the clear messages from the farming community, supported by the NFUS, this Government are ploughing on regardless and completely ignoring the damage they are doing. The truth is that they do not understand—and worse: because those people do not vote Labour, they do not care, do they?

[Kirsty McNeill]

I will reiterate it in case the shadow Secretary of State did not hear me: both myself and the Secretary of State represent semi-rural and farming constituencies. We are in ongoing dialogue with constituents. We absolutely understand the pressures they face, which is why we have said that we will support family farms and that only the very richest will be affected. Our constituents rely on public services and they require investment in those public services, and that is exactly what this tax change was designed to do: introduce fairness but also raise revenue that will benefit all our communities, including rural Scots.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Alexander]

I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend from the Western Isles. The North sea has provided decades of good jobs, not just for people from the Western Isles and across Scotland but from the whole of the United Kingdom. The last Conservative Government did not believe in industrial strategy—it is as basic as that. It is not just a difference of policy; it is a difference of philosophy. We believe in open markets and an active state. That is why we set up GB Energy, that is why there is a transition fund and that is why people can rely on Labour.

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

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman back to the Dispatch Box as Secretary of State for Scotland after his sabbatical over the last 20 or so years. The messianic zeal of his colleague the Energy Secretary to see the destruction of our oil and gas industry is having real-life consequences. Scottish workers are being made unemployed in their thousands, while this Government ban the drilling and exploration of oil and gas in British waters, and import more gas from Norway, which gets it from the very same sea that we are prevented from exploiting. Come on, Secretary of State; it is all a little unhinged, isn’t it?

[Mr Alexander]

Where to begin? We have a Government that have invested in GB Energy and that have a transition fund up against an Opposition that abjectly failed in their responsibilities towards the North sea. We just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) that 77,000 jobs were lost. That is the record that they own, and we will continue to point it out.

[Andrew Bowie]

The Secretary of State for Energy is not the messiah. Week after week, I come to this Chamber to ask Energy Ministers and Scotland Office Ministers why they are content to sacrifice one of this country’s greatest national assets and allow highly skilled workers to go on the scrap heap or go overseas. As Scotland’s man at the Cabinet table, the Secretary of State knows that his job is to speak up for those people who are losing their jobs today, not to defend the Secretary of State for Energy. Will he explain that to the people of Aberdeen when he visits next week?

[Mr Alexander]

I gently remind the shadow Secretary of State that there is a difference between abuse and argument, and in relation to his substantive arguments, of course I am happy to be Scotland’s voice at the Cabinet table. That is why only next week I will be meeting a range of energy companies based in Aberdeen and listening directly to them. That dialogue has already started. I think we can do better than his question.