Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship

David Duguid Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

“Not the SNP!” Do I really have to take that? I know the hon. Member represents an English seat and perhaps he does not pay much attention, but if he looks at every one of the results of elections to the Scottish Parliament since 2007 and to Westminster since 2015, as well as the European results, he will see that the people of Scotland have put their trust in the SNP to defend them from the kind of attacks that we have from the Tory Benches. [Interruption.] I hear, “What about a referendum?” so let me say this. We went to the people of Scotland last December and we stood on the principle of Scotland’s right to choose. We got 45% of the vote. There is a bigger gap between us and the Tories than there is between the Tories and Labour in the United Kingdom. We won that election, by any definition. The people of Scotland elected us in 48 of the 59 constituencies. There are six Tories from Scotland. We won that election. I accept that the Conservatives won the election in the UK, but that means that it is incumbent on the Conservatives to recognise that the SNP won in Scotland.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

No, it’s not.

[Ian Blackford]

“No, it’s not”—well, there we are: democracy Tory-style. The Tories think that they can simply ignore the people of Scotland. I say to them: carry on, because people are saying now that support for the SNP and support for independence is rising, and you will not stop the people of Scotland determining our own future. It is ours to choose and we will not be stopped by any Tory Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Duguid Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I do not have the number to hand, but I would be glad to write to the right hon. Gentleman with it.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment yesterday of £5 billion to support gigabit broadband across the whole of the United Kingdom. He will be aware that, historically, the Scottish Government have been responsible for the roll-out of superfast broadband, which is way behind what they promised, and not a penny of the £600 million that they announced in 2017 has been spent. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that future broadband funding will be paid directly to local authorities, bypassing the Scottish Government, who have failed rural constituents such as mine more than most?

[Sajid Javid]

The investment that I announced yesterday is hugely important for the entire country, including Scotland. My hon. Friend is right to point to the abysmal record of the Scottish Government in delivering broadband for their people, so we should certainly look at whether there is a much better way to deliver it.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

David Duguid Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I was accused earlier by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) of being a bit miserable in my Budget speech—of failing to point out the good things in the Budget. Well, it is pretty easy to be miserable with a miserable Budget, but I did welcome the freeze on whisky duty and the support for electric vehicles, among other things. There were slim pickings, but I did my best to be positive wherever I possibly could. But how rich is it to hear that accusation from those on the Government Benches? They would rather turn to stone than welcome the fact that Scotland’s crime level is at a 42-year low; welcome the best accident and emergency performance in the UK; or welcome that 100,000 small and medium-sized businesses pay no business rates at all, thanks to the Scottish Government’s small business bonus. And what about the 70% of people in Scotland who are now paying less tax, or the lowest-paid people who are paying less tax? Or our record social house building programme, with council houses being put in place to fill the Government’s deficit?

It is clear for all to see that austerity lives on for those who can least afford it. In delivering this Bill, the Government continue their attacks on the poorest in our society. In my response to the Budget, I recounted many ways in which the Government are failing to deliver for Scotland—for our workers, industry and people. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said earlier that the Chancellor admitted that the Government would need to look at “a different approach” on the economy; if and when the Prime Minister fails to secure a deal with the European Union, this Bill will not be worth the vellum it is printed on.

After a decade, Tory austerity is far from over. Scotland’s block grant for 2019-20 is down £2 billion in real terms compared with 2010-2011. The paltry £2.7 billion for universal credit does nothing for people currently struggling and goes nowhere near reversing the years and billions of pounds of social security cuts that people have endured. After five and a half years of this failed experiment in the highlands, after seeing the misery that people have endured on universal credit in Inverness and the surrounding area, and after having ignored not just me but all the agencies, including the Government’s own support agencies, this Government should hang their heads in shame that they are not doing something to help people instead of continuing to punish them in this way.

In contrast, the Scottish Government are helping those on low and modest incomes. This Tory Budget gives tax cuts to the richest. The Scottish Government, in the face of austerity, are building an economy of the future, with measures to unlock innovation and productivity. They do that while the Government in Westminster recklessly pursue, at the very best, a bad Brexit for the nations of the UK—actually it is looking more like a disaster that they are pursuing. The Tories should accept that the only way to minimise the damage to jobs, the economy and business is to stay in the customs union and the single market.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North asked earlier, where is the oil and gas sector deal? After £350 billion in tax revenues, the industry deserves better; it needs the sector deal. The news of yet another nuclear failure with the withdrawal of Toshiba underlines the fix that this Government are in over their Paris climate change commitments. Having betrayed Peterhead and having pulled the rug from under the industry three years ago, incidentally wasting £100 million in the process, this Government must now make a proper serious commitment to carbon capture and storage.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will join me in welcoming the commitment of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy not only in at least considering the sector deal for oil and gas, but, on the subject of carbon capture and storage, in looking at a project in St Fergus, just off the coast of Peterhead in my constituency. It looks like being part of a Scotland-wide cluster, because the system is already connected by a pipeline from St Fergus to Grangemouth.

[Drew Hendry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Indeed, I do welcome the work at St Fergus. It perhaps would have been proper to point out that the Scottish Government are also driving that St Fergus development. It perhaps also would have been appropriate to point out that the funding that has been put forward by BEIS is one tenth of what was removed three years ago. Three years after the point at which it could have taken advantage of world-leading cutting-edge technology, it thinks it is good enough to put in a tenth of the funds and hope that that lip service will pay dividends. It just will not wash.

Banks and Communities

David Duguid Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, and I congratulate the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) on securing the debate. I welcome the Minister to his new role and I look forward to working closely with him on this subject. I believe that meetings are being scheduled as I speak.

The issue of banks in our communities is part of the wider issue of excessive centralisation, which has been happening for decades and concerns many of us with rural constituencies across the UK. Centralisation can have a range of unintended consequences for communities in which vital services are removed or reduced. This is a timely debate about an issue of great importance to constituents in Banff and Buchan, who recently learned that they would be losing two Royal Bank of Scotland branches: one in Banff, the county town, and one in Turriff, which is my home town.

Those closures are in addition to others in rural areas in the north-east of Scotland, including Ellon and Huntley. We have already heard that a total of 62 RBS branches across Scotland will close. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) said, we should not forget that those closures come on top of previous closures. The Bank of Scotland branch in Macduff, just across the River Deveron from Banff, closed down just last year. That was the last bank on the high street. Of course, it was said at the time that there were still banks across the river in Banff, but they continue to close. When will that end?

A couple of Clydesdale Bank branches in my constituency that closed down—one in Banff and one in Mintlaw—are still sitting empty more than a year on. In some cases, former banks are grand old buildings that would be valuable for another use. In fact, I must admit that I looked at one of those premises as a potential constituency office, which may or may not have been politically sound, but I could not get the owner of the building to come back to me. They did not seem interested in renting it out. That is perhaps a different subject, but we do not want empty premises on any of our high streets.

These closures affect not only the towns in which the banks are situated, but the surrounding rural communities, particularly in very rural constituencies where towns are far apart. People go to banks not just to withdraw money, but to seek financial advice, apply for mortgages, pay their bills, cash cheques and so on. We should not underestimate the importance of having a friendly face behind a bank counter to explain and guide people through processes that are not everyday occurrences.

As we have heard, a local branch is not just a convenience; it is a necessity. That is particularly true in rural communities. We hear that people increasingly use online banking—these days I do pretty much all my banking online unless someone gives me a cheque, when I have to find a branch to cash that cheque—but when broadband is barely better than dial-up, as in much of our rural communities, that can seem like an extravagant luxury.

One of the RBS closures has been announced for my home town of Turriff, where there is a local savings scheme called the Turriff Friendly Society, which has been around for 143 years. The society has about 400 member accounts. Each member account might have multiple people contributing to it, so perhaps more than 1,000 people are affected. The savings scheme has struggled to cover banking costs in recent years due to low interest rates and it has managed to keep going only by charging small membership fees. The main worry of the society, which currently banks with RBS, is the threat of high costs and service charges for moving to another bank. One of the vital services the society requires is use of a night safe, which is not something we often see in modern banks. It will lose that when the bank closes.

All banks, including RBS, must realise that they are part of the lifeblood of a local community. People provide their loyal custom, and in exchange they expect some very basic services. When it is no longer commercially viable for a branch to remain open, it is imperative that a bank looks at what alternatives can be provided to the people who rely on it. A mobile banking van once a month, for example, is not the answer if there is not the dependable mobile signal that it relies on.