Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the failure of the Government in Scotland. They do not want to talk about that failure. They have got the powers, and they have got the resources; they just have not got any excuses left.

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

Q9. When he next plans to visit Scotland.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member asks about visiting Scotland. As he knows, my first visit, within days of becoming Prime Minister, was to Scotland, where I met the First Minister. I have also visited Scotland for the meeting of the Councils of the Nations and Regions in October, for the Interpol General Assembly in November and for the British Irish Council in Edinburgh in December. I look forward to going again very soon.

[Dave Doogan]

Interestingly, the Prime Minister could not tell me when he will next be visiting Scotland, but does he agree with the withering assessment of the eminent politics professor Sir John Curtice, who says that the current UK Prime Minister is

“the worst thing that ever happened to Anas Sarwar”?

If he does not—and he should—does he think that it is stripping Scottish pensioners of their winter fuel payment, abandoning workers in Grangemouth or attacking the national insurance payments of farmers that has catastrophically torpedoed Labour in the polls in Scotland? When he does get a date, he can even bring his Chancellor with him to back him up on the numbers—assuming that she is still Chancellor by then.

[The Prime Minister]

I remember when that rhetoric used to come from SNP Members sitting down there—

[Dave Doogan]

That’s the same answer you gave the last time.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Doogan, I want no more.