St Andrew’s Day and Scottish Affairs

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Torcuil Crichton

Thursday 11th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

Well, it is obviously for Edwin Morgan to determine where he spends his money. I do think that the hon. Gentleman and his party should reflect on the desire of the Scottish people when they voted for a Scottish Parliament in 1999 to address the real issues facing them. He must acknowledge that far too much of the past 18 years has been spent on issues that divide Scots, rather than building our country into a better place that we all want to see for our children.

Scotland knows who to blame. They know who could not build two ferries and who let Scotland’s drug deaths become the worst in Europe. They know on whose watch it was that our education standards slipped from their once great heights. They know that today, Scotland is worse off because of the decisions taken and promises broken by the Scottish National party, from its broken promise to dual the A9 and A96, as often highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), to its neglect of the A75 in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), long raised in this House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell). Remember the SNP promise to scrap council tax 18 years ago, the promise to close the attainment gap or the promise to deliver a national care service? For 18 years, the SNP has let Scotland down with broken promise after broken promise.

[Torcuil Crichton]

Does the hon. Gentleman regret that the Scottish Conservatives propped up the SNP for four of those 18 years?

[Andrew Bowie]

In 2007, when the decision was taken by the Scottish Conservatives to ensure continuity and certainty for Scottish business at the heart of the Scottish Government, it was indeed the right thing to do. However, hindsight is 20/20, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman and other Members present that no such agreement would be reached if we were to be asked at the next Scottish parliamentary election to support a Scottish National party Government for a further five years.

Scotland was suffering under the SNP, and the very last thing it needed was another Government letting them down. Then, enter stage left—far left—the Labour party. My goodness, it is not going well. After having been sold a story of false hope, folks in Scotland now have no hope in the Labour Government. The harm that this Government are inflicting on key Scottish industries is staggering.

Look at our farmers: already hammered by the daft policies that emanate from Bute House, they now have to contend with the brutal and callous family farm tax. The stories that we hear—and I know that hon. Members on the Government Benches are hearing them, too—are just heartbreaking.

The Government are knowingly destroying an entire way of life for thousands of families across Scotland, placing entire rural communities and our food security in jeopardy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) spoke recently of how this Government have no grasp whatsoever of the constant struggle facing our family farms. He was absolutely right. It is exactly the same for our energy industry. Oil and gas workers are an afterthought—if they are even thought about at all by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whose messianic zeal to destroy the oil and gas industry knows no end.

I have stood at this Dispatch Box many times now over the past 18 months and raised the plight of our oil and gas industry. Almost every week we find that another business operating in the North sea has made the decision to cut jobs in the UK. It was Harbour Energy the other week. Before that it was ExxonMobil at Mossmorran. It was the Port of Aberdeen before that, then Petrofac, then Hunting, then Ineos, then Apache—I could go on. One thousand jobs are going to be lost every single month, and £50 billion-worth of investment is being passed over. The country is being made more vulnerable through increased reliance on imports. A poison is spreading through the energy industry, and this Government are doing nothing to stem it.

All of that begs the question of what the Secretary of State and his Ministers are going to do. Maybe the Secretary of State knows that the Prime Minister’s days are numbered and is just biding his time. Maybe, like every other member of the Cabinet, he is looking around the Cabinet Room and measuring the curtains. But time is something that workers in our oil and gas industry and on our family farms do not have.

Scotland does, of course, have another option—something that neither the SNP nor Labour can offer—and that is common sense. That is something that only the Scottish Conservatives are offering, and Scotland desperately needs it. The Scottish Conservatives would put an end to the stagnant, tepid policies that have come from the SNP Scottish Government and put growth at the heart of every single decision.

We would end the hostility to entrepreneurs and make it clear that Scotland is open for business. We would reverse the decline and go for growth. We would scrap the SNP’s 21% tax band and cut income tax to 19% for all taxable income up to £43,000.We would slash the number of quangos, restore regular police patrols, and allow for the building of new nuclear, bolstering our energy security, securing new jobs and driving investment. We would restore pride to our education system, so that it enables Scots to compete in a globally competitive marketplace for ideas.

Scottish Conservatives in this House would scrap the energy profits levy and the family farm tax. We would proudly, without fear or favour, stand up for Scotland’s continued place within our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. To be British as well as Scottish is, I believe, something that should be cherished. It is, in my view, to win the lottery of life. It is the best of both worlds—our freedoms, our shared culture, our institutions and our history. Being British has never relied on the rejection of being Scottish, English, Welsh or Northern Irish. Those identities are entirely complementary, not contradictory.

To be British is to be part of something larger—a shared civic and cultural inheritance built across these islands together. Whether you find yourself in Dundee or Doncaster, you will realise that those shared values are to be discovered at every turn. The United Kingdom at its best is not a denial of national identity but a partnership that allows each nation to contribute its own unique character to something greater together.

From the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers who shaped British democracy to the engineers and writers who helped forge its industrial and cultural strengths, Scots have never been passengers in the British story but always at the tiller. We will continue to be so, but we need change in Scotland, we need common sense in Scotland, and we need it desperately. The Scottish parliamentary election in May can be that moment. Change can and will be delivered. Of that I am certain.

Budget: Scotland

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Torcuil Crichton

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bowie]

I read that a couple of seconds before I stood up to speak, and of course it is extremely worrying. The trajectory of the UK economy under this Labour Government should give us all cause for concern, which is why it is right that we are having this debate today. I am just surprised that it was secured by a Labour MP.

[Torcuil Crichton]

If the hon. Gentleman does not wish to blame the SNP Government for the economic mismanagement of Scotland, why does he provoke SNP Members with his choice of Union Jack socks?

Great British Energy Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Torcuil Crichton

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Bowie]

When I was moved to the position of Renewables Minister, it was impossible for me to carry on also being the Networks Minister. It is clear what the right hon. Gentleman is driving at: namely, the situation in the country today, where many communities feel under siege because they are hosting this new energy infrastructure—[Interruption.] The Minister laughs at the words “under siege”, but they do feel that.

Communities in this country face the prospect of new pylons, new energy infrastructure, new substations and battery storage facilities being built in the countryside. That industrialisation of the countryside is the reason that we proposed a review to investigate the costs of other technology that would not be so invasive of their communities, their landscape and the land in which they live and work. That is why we did that, and that is what I was about to speak about, but the right hon. Gentleman provoked me into coming to it earlier than I had planned.

We need to get this right. We need to take the country with us and have a discussion with the country about consent and consultation. It is about doing things not to communities but with and for communities.

[Torcuil Crichton]

The hon. Gentleman has almost made my point for me. Through GB Energy, communities will have a share and an investment. We will all share in the wealth of wind and in the grid connections that will come through this company.

[Andrew Bowie]

I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman has such confidence in GB Energy’s ability to be the problem-solving fix-all. I have my concerns that that will not be the case and that the many issues we face—from grid connectivity to the targets that we in government set and the building of new infrastructure—will not be resolved by the creation of this company, given that the capital expended to it is so low in comparison with other state energy companies.

[Torcuil Crichton]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that none of that will happen without the involvement, commitment, backing and consent of communities. Through GB Energy, that is what we will achieve.

[Andrew Bowie]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We must agree to disagree on this point. Of course, we want to see this effort succeed; we just have our doubts that it will.

Future renewable energy projects face huge connectivity challenges that the Government must be prepared for, but as I said, there is another equally significant challenge: the one facing communities. In my constituency, communities are expected to host hundreds of kilometres of new large pylon infrastructure, but the burden for new infrastructure falls particularly heavily on north-east Scotland, the north of England and East Anglia.

My key points are about the need to gain consent from communities, to reduce the burden where possible, and to have community benefits. We need to bring communities with us; there needs to be a conversation. If we are ever going to get to net zero, we need to stop alienating the communities hosting this infrastructure on behalf of the nation by imposing, rather than seeking, consent.

Great British Energy Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Torcuil Crichton

Thursday 10th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Bowie]

The amendments would create a specific strategic priority for Great British Energy to create 650,000 new jobs in the United Kingdom by 2030, and require the production of an annual report on the progress of meeting that strategic priority.

It is worth our while this afternoon to take some time to consider the achievements of the previous Conservative Government in driving towards a cleaner energy future. It was a Conservative Government, under Prime Minister Theresa May, who legislated for net zero in 2019. It was a Conservative Government who began and created the contract for difference process, which was looked at with awe by the world at that stage—

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Bowie]

I am mid-flow, but yes.

[Torcuil Crichton]

Was it not also a Conservative Government who refused to take the decision to give Harland & Wolff the funding that would have kept it open and avoided administration and now sale, and who left that hard decision to the incoming Labour Government?

[Andrew Bowie]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are many hard decisions to be taken in government, and every decision that the Government have to take has to provide value for money for the British taxpayer. I know that this Government recognise that, given the decision they have taken to remove £300 from every pensioner in the country—something I think they will come to regret.

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, the Conservative Government built the first to fifth largest offshore wind farms in the world, ended coal for power generation and halved emissions at the fastest rate of any G7 power. In that regard, I know that everybody in the room is proud of the record of the Conservative Government just gone and will champion it in our work as we move forward.

Nevertheless, the issue of skills, and the lack of the skilled workforce required to deliver the next phase of the transition, was always at the forefront of Ministers’ minds. Indeed, because of that we established the nuclear skills fund when I was the Minister responsible for nuclear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie]

I am very proud of everything that we did in government to support our steelworkers and those communities around the country that depend on those jobs. It is desperately sad to see what has happened in Port Talbot recently. That is an example of what we must avoid moving forward, and something that we must avoid happening in the North sea, for example, where workers engaged in traditional industries are fearful about where their jobs sit in the forthcoming transition. Although I do not agree that we did not do everything we could to support steelmaking at Port Talbot, I do think that it is an example to learn from and one that we must avoid in the future.

[Torcuil Crichton]

What the shadow Minister is describing sounds like an industrial strategy—something that we have been missing for 14 years.

[Andrew Bowie]

Well, not quite. We did have an industrial strategy. We had a Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It is not an industrial strategy. The amendment aims to establish within the strategic priorities of this company a commitment to deliver a UK-based supply chain, which is something that we sought to do while in Government, with the sustainable industry reward scheme that will launch next year with the auction round for the contracts for difference, and through other programmes and investment opportunities that we were seeking to see come to fruition. I am very glad that this Government seem to be taking the challenge in this regard just as seriously as we did.

The transition we are in just now spans our entire energy industry and incorporates the North sea and our homegrown petroleum outputs. As noted by the Climate Change Committee, we will need oil and gas for decades to come, not just as an energy baseload but as a key component in the transition and in the technologies for the transition.

In our electric vehicles and our batteries, we will need lithium. In 2023, Cornish Lithium opened Britain’s first lithium mine in Cornwall, with £53.6 million investment led by the UK Infrastructure Bank, which we established in 2021, to invest in our domestic supply chain, our clean technology supply chain and our energy future.

In our solar panels, we need silver, indium and copper. In our grid systems, we need kilometres and kilometres of copper. In fact, renewable energy will drive 45% of copper demand by 2030. Our reliance on China for low-cost, clean technology and minerals should worry us all. In 2022, we imported 64% of rare earth metals and 49% of lithium batteries from China.

Great British Energy Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Torcuil Crichton

Committee stage
Thursday 10th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Bowie]

I will not detain the Committee long, but I want to express the Conservatives’ support for the Liberal Democrat amendment, primarily because of our concern about the impact of the removal of the winter fuel allowance from so many pensioners this winter, and the fact that the warm homes plan, as welcome as it is, will not be up and running until next spring, which leaves considerable concern over what might happen in and around this winter.

Those pensioners should be at the forefront of our mind as we look towards winter and as we are discussing an increase in the number of well-insulated homes in this country—on which, by the way, we had quite a good record when we were in government; we increased markedly the number of homes at EPC level C or above. For those reasons, we will support the amendment if it is pressed to a vote.

[Torcuil Crichton]

It is difficult to argue against home insulation, but I do not know whether we need legislation or an amendment to the Bill to achieve it, particularly when it is happening already in community-owned power companies such as Point and Sandwick Trust in my constituency. The company raises £1 million a year for its community, and distributed in the last 18 months £250,000 to people living in fuel poverty, to help with home insulation and heating costs. That is the template, the model and the example that GB Energy could help and sustain without need for the amendment.

[Andrew Pakes]

I share huge empathy with the sentiments behind the amendment, but I believe that the answer to home insulation sits not in the Great British Energy Bill, but in the wider clean power and clean energy mission. I find it quite rich for Opposition Members, who used to be in government, to talk about supporting an emergency home insulation programme when they decimated the apprenticeship programme that delivered the workforce that could actually insulate our homes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie]

The fact is that the Labour party has brought forward this legislation and is creating this company—a company that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Labour candidates, now MPs across the country, claimed time and again through the election would cut bills by £300. It was one of the reasons why Labour is creating the company in the first place, so it is surprising that it did not want to put the £300 as a specific object in the Bill, given that it was so proud of the fact that this would deliver the savings it said it would.

[Torcuil Crichton]

I, too, have been checking online—with Full Fact, which discloses that the £300 figure that the shadow Minister raises is not based on Labour’s plans; it comes from a report from an energy think-tank Ember, and it is an estimate of what people would save. There was no Government commitment—there never was a Government commitment—to such a figure.

[Andrew Bowie]

That might be in Full Fact, but if the hon. Member goes to Channel 4’s “FactCheck”, he will see that it says:

“During the election campaign Labour suggested bills would be brought down around £300 a year”

through its “net zero energy plans”, including the creation of GB Energy. The Prime Minister said:

“Yes, I do. I stand by everything in our manifesto and one of the things I made clear in the election campaign is I wouldn’t make a single promise or commitment that I didn’t think we could deliver in government.”

So the question is this: will energy bills be cut by £300 by 2030 and, if so, why is that not in the legislation before us?

Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Torcuil Crichton

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Bowie]

Q I have one last question, if I may beg your patience, Sir Roger. Obviously, Mr Whitehouse, a lot of the members that you represent are in Aberdeen. In our very first piece of evidence this morning, we heard from Mr Juergen Maier, who is the new chair of GB Energy. It has been announced that the headquarters of GB Energy, established by this Bill, will be in Aberdeen. How important do you think that is, given the links that will have to be established to the existing energy sector and the importance of the supply chain to the success of GB Energy? How do you think the geographical location of the headquarters will affect the future success of the company, and indeed the energy sector in the UK?

David Whitehouse: The position we have always taken is that you have energy communities up and down the UK. We have a very proud energy sector, and in principle I think you could have put GB Energy in many places, but we welcome it in Aberdeen. The reason we welcome it in Aberdeen is because that is where you see a real density of high-quality operators, high-quality developers and high-quality supply chain. That is the right place to put it. We take confidence that this journey to net zero must be about inclusivity, and about breaking down barriers and building bridges. Having GB Energy centred in Aberdeen is a good statement of intent that this Government—it was also supported by the Scottish Government—recognise that as well. We need to make the most of our industrial strength. Placing this in Aberdeen is a good statement of intent, so we welcome that.

[Torcuil Crichton]

Q Mr Whitehouse, I hear what you say about the Bill and GB Energy being an opportunity, but I hear from some of your members that they think renewables are a threat. How can we change that language? To protect that world-class supply chain, what can the industry and GB Energy do to ensure that the supply chain and the jobs stay here?

David Whitehouse: Apologies: what was the word they were using?