Debate on the Address

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

I begin by congratulating the Prime Minister on his first King’s Speech. I am sure it is an incredibly important moment for him and his family and I wish him well over the months to come. I am sure it will be an incredibly challenging time, but I repeat my best wishes to him and all his new colleagues beside him on the Government Benches.

I want to reflect first that, at Prime Minister’s questions on the day the election was called, I perhaps goaded the former Prime Minister in respect of calling a general election—indeed, I think I referred to him as being feart should he not do that. I am not sure entirely who out of the two of us fared worse from his decision to do so; maybe that is something we can both reflect upon in due course.

The opportunity now in front of this Labour Government is enormous. They have a parliamentary majority that will go down in history, and that majority affords them something incredibly important: the ability to deliver change. What that change looks like, and perhaps more importantly what it feels like, for people in their homes is so important. My colleagues and I on the SNP Benches will do everything we possibly can to be as constructive as we can—[Interruption.] We will! However, I was a bit disappointed today, not necessarily by some of the things that were in the King's Speech, but by some of those things that were not.

In that regard, I bring the House’s attention to the amendment that my colleagues and I, ably supported by other Members from across the Chamber, have tabled in relation to the two-child benefit cap. That iniquitous, heinous policy was brought in by the former Conservative Government in 2015. Each and every one of us in this Chamber notes that it retains children in poverty—hundreds of thousands of children across these isles. In Scotland alone, it impacts 27,000 households and it is estimated that 14,000 children would immediately be taken out of poverty were it to be scrapped, but it was not mentioned in the Government’s programme for government today.

Instead, all we have heard is that a taskforce will be created, with no timeframe for that taskforce and no indication when it will conclude. All the while, those children will remain in poverty. Surely it should be the bare minimum expectation of a Labour Government that they would seek to do everything they possibly can immediately to lift children out of poverty, and I am particularly interested in the views of Scottish Members of Parliament from the Labour party in this regard.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

Could the hon. Gentleman explain to the House why the SNP Government in Scotland, who have the power to do that, have not?

[Stephen Flynn]

I would be more than happy to enlighten the hon. Gentleman in that regard. As he knows, in the UK, we have reserved policies and we have devolved policies, and some 70% of welfare policies are reserved to this Parliament. The Scottish Government have sought over recent years to mitigate the worst excesses of the Conservatives. With some £8 million-worth of money that we could spend on other things, we choose to mitigate Tory policies—including, of course, the likes of the bedroom tax; I am sure he would be keen to see those on his own Front Bench mitigate and end that particular policy.

However, we do that within the confines of the financial remit set, in large part, by this place.

If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting—and I am sure some of his Scottish colleagues would agree with him—that the Scottish Government should mitigate, he and the Government should outline where that money should come from. Should it come from Scotland’s NHS, our schools, our police or our budget for young people? The reality is that the constraints placed upon Scotland by this place do not afford us the opportunity to mitigate, and frankly, I find it absurd and deeply disingenuous to suggest that the remit of Scotland’s Parliament should be to mitigate Westminster. Our horizons should be so much greater than that.

I return to the point that I was making. Scottish Labour Members supposedly agree with the Scottish National party that the two-child cap should and must be scrapped, so how will they vote? Will they follow the lead of their Prime Minister in London, or will they follow the lead of the leader in Scotland and respect the views of the people they were sent here to represent?

Despite my great disappointment, there is one area in which I hope the Prime Minister can put a smile on my face: GB Energy. I am moderately surprised that we have not yet had an announcement that it is to be headquartered in Aberdeen—perhaps in the Aberdeen South constituency that I represent. Indeed, Aberdeen and Grampian chamber of commerce hired a van that has been patrolling the streets outside Parliament today calling for it to come home—that is the only time I will ever use those words—and it should come home straight to the energy capital of Europe.

Although I would welcome GB Energy’s placement in Aberdeen, I also want to see much more detail about what it will deliver. If I have read correctly, a cumulative £8.3 billion will go towards GB Energy over the next five years—£1.6 billion each and every year—but one hydro pump storage project in Scotland would almost blow that entire budget apart. We know that GB Energy will not sell energy, we know that it will not distribute energy, and it appears that it will not generate energy. It has been suggested that it will be an investment vehicle for projects to go forward, but if it is capped at £1.6 billion a year, I must question the Government’s ambition. How does that deliver the change that is required? The change that they previously agreed to requires some £28 billion each and every year. What a contrast with the ambitions that they once had. Of course, net zero will be absolutely crucial to our economic future—to the growth and prosperity that we all want—but ultimately that growth can come about only through productivity.

I would like to hear more from the Labour Government, who have a significant majority, about what they will do to reverse some of the Conservative party’s policies on migration. Migration dramatically and drastically impacts on higher education institutions in Scotland and in the constituencies of each and every Labour Member. We know that universities are a key driver of productivity. I wish to seek consensus across the House on migration, which might be moderately difficult given some of the people who now sit behind me. We need to stand up and be bold and brave in the face of those who seek to demonise migration and other those who come to work in our public and private sectors, care for us in our hospitals and teach our children. We should seek to increase migration, increase our economic output, grow our economy and enhance our communities. Brave politicians would do that, and I hope that Labour Members share that bravery.

Of course, our economy is not just about net zero, productivity or migration; it is also intrinsically linked to our relationship with the European Union. I look forward to seeing what the Government come forward with in respect of their proposed new relationship with our friends and allies in Europe. We should be seeking to rejoin the European single market; we should be seeking to rejoin the European customs union. It makes sense to all of us. The politicians in this House are afraid of doing so, but they will come to realise that the only way to achieve the aims that they want to achieve is to do just that.

On all those issues and so many more, we will seek to be a voice of reason in this House and to work constructively with Government Members. Over the coming hours and days, I look forward to hearing their contributions and what they intend to bring to our national discourse, as we all try to improve the lives of the people who we are so fortunate to represent.