Douglas Ross
Main Page: Douglas Ross (Conservative - Moray)Department Debates - View all Douglas Ross's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Mhairi Black
I do not see what I said that was not true, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I take it.
As I said, there is an element of truth in that covid has had a big impact, and the war in Ukraine has also had a global impact on energy supplies. However, unexpected events and conflicts will always occur, which is precisely why it is so important that we have Governments that plan in advance and think long-term to make decisions that will build our resilience in the face of the unforeseen.
The events in Ukraine only exacerbate the fact that the UK has not had a sensible energy policy for more than 30 years. Scotland has heard this song many times before; we have endured this kind of mismanagement for years. We are one of the only countries to discover oil and somehow get poorer, whereas comparable countries such as Norway sought to treat oil as a national asset to be used in the national interest, and invested it in a sovereign wealth fund that is worth over £1 trillion today. Similarly, in the 1980s, Denmark and the UK both had similar scale renewable wind programmes. Denmark chose to heavily invest in that sector, whereas the UK focused primarily on the cheapest and quickest option. If we fast-forward to 2016, we find that Denmark’s wind exports were worth over €7 billion, but the UK had wind exports of less than half a billion. It is like “Bullseye”: here is what you could have won.
Douglas Ross
The hon. Lady is speaking about energy policy. Does she agree with the SNP-Green Government’s policy on a presumption against new oil and gas fields in Scotland? [Interruption.]
Mhairi Black
As someone has said behind me, for a start, I would say that I am totally against nuclear. [Interruption.] I am about to answer the hon. Member’s question, but that is exactly what he wants. On what the Scottish Government are doing, I am very proud of the coalition Government and the fact that they are investing their money in places that make sense—they are investing towards a just transition. The hon. Member will like this point: the only sector in the UK that has made profits comparable with Denmark’s wind sector is the arms industry, at €7.2 billion. There is a political decision for you: our Government would rather fund weapons that bring death and destruction than fund industries that might just help secure life on this planet in the future.
Political choices matter, not just in facing the problems of the day, but to plan for a future worth living for. Again, this dangerous Government are making bad decisions.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
I will start with some reflections on the remarks made by the deputy Westminster leader of the SNP, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black), in opening the debate. She was critical that there was only one Back-Bench Conservative MP speaking in the debate. I was then reminded how, in a recent Holyrood debate led by the Conservatives in the Scottish Parliament on highly protected marine areas, the nationalist Benches behind the Minister were empty, despite it being a crucial issue for coastal communities up and down Scotland. When we debated the deposit return scheme, which is an absolutely dangerous scheme for businesses in Scotland, where were the nationalist MSPs that day? They did not turn up.
I have counted the number of SNP MPs in their places, and less than a quarter of the parliamentary party is here for its own debate on an issue that it says is crucial. I also noticed how the SNP’s Westminster leader, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), and his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), were here for the opening speech and then left. I am not sure whether they are out on the Terrace getting another picture to show us all how well they get on, but they did not stay in the Chamber for the debate.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
This is the UK Parliament. Will the hon. Member explain why no Tory MPs from Wales are here to speak this afternoon?
Douglas Ross
There are a lot of Conservative MPs from Wales, and I am sure that they are busy in other parts of the House. [Interruption.] Well, there are certainly more Tory MPs from Wales than Plaid MPs. When the SNP—[Interruption.] Yes, you are the only Plaid MP in the Chamber.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Will the hon. Member direct his comments through the Chair, please?
Douglas Ross
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not do it again so that you do not have to interrupt with a sweetie in your mouth.
There are opportunities for SNP MPs to speak throughout the debate, and they have not turned up. Three quarters of them are not here for the debate; they have refused to be here. This is an important debate, and there are lots of issues that we need to discuss, but many other topics could have been chosen by the SNP. When I was waiting for the motions to come in last night, I thought that we might have a debate about what our two Governments can do together to improve the lives of young people in Scotland, because that is a crucial issue. Just this week, we heard that the former Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland, Bruce Adamson, said that the previous SNP leader at Holyrood had “absolutely” failed young people.
I thought that was the most extraordinary thing that we had heard on the subject—and it was until, in response to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans), who quoted those comments, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said, “Woo hoo—the big dog.” Is that the official SNP position on the previous Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland rightly being critical of the abject failure of the hon. Member’s party in government for young people in Scotland?
Alan Brown
I know that a lot of people down here pretend that they cannot understand what I say because of my accent. It is quite embarrassing if the hon. Member does not understand what I said. I did not say words remotely close to that, so he can withdraw the remarks.
Douglas Ross
I am happy to give way again to the hon. Member if he will tell us what he was saying about the former Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland. If I have got it wrong, please tell the House what you said.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Please, do not refer directly to others. I think that the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) was asking whether the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) would like to clarify what he was saying.
Douglas Ross
I will clarify that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun said, “Woo hoo—big dog.” That was his impression of the former Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland. If that is not what he said, there is an opportunity for him in the Chamber to tell us what he thinks about the former commissioner. No? I think that maybe I wrote it down correctly at the time. I also noted how the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) whispered to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun not to intervene again, and I can see why. I do not think that anyone wants to hear any more from him on this.
We could have been discussing that issue, or we could have been discussing ferries. Of course, the UK Government have promised the people of Shetland and Fair Isle a ferry, which has not been made available by the Scottish Government. Of course, when the Scottish Government and the SNP get involved in ferry building, they go massively over budget and behind schedule. The ferries that the people in the Western Isles urgently need are five years overdue.
We could be speaking about drug deaths in Scotland. Again, our two Governments could work together to deal with that crucial issue, yet under the SNP, drug deaths in Scotland are not just the highest in the United Kingdom but the highest anywhere in Europe.
The last issue that I thought we could have been speaking about today was Scotland’s tourism. Many SNP MPs represent rural areas. I wonder if they do not want to speak about camper vans—is that why we cannot look at tourism? Perhaps we could have used the debate to hear whether any SNP Members have ever been in the now infamous camper van. It was apparently bought for the purpose of electioneering for their seats here. Did any of them get in that camper van? Did any of them know about the camper van? We could have discussed that.
Of course, we are looking at the crucial issue of the cost of living crisis in Scotland and across the United Kingdom. We did not hear a word from the SNP about the UK Government’s intervention, with £94 billion provided to help people in every part of the country to meet the challenges of the difficult period they have been experiencing. The autumn and spring statements delivered an additional £1.8 billion to the Scottish Government to help individuals, families, businesses and communities through this difficult time; it was the highest budget that the Scottish Parliament has ever had to deal with these issues. What response do we get from the SNP? It makes up falsehoods about its own interventions.
Less than a year ago, the SNP was claiming that it had put forward and spent £3 billion in response to the cost of living crisis in Scotland. That is the huge figure that the nationalist Government in Holyrood said they had spent to help people through that difficult and challenging time. The only problem for the SNP is that the figure is not true. The Scottish Parliament Information Centre has said that the actual figure is £490 million. The biggest chunk of the £1 billion that the SNP said it used to deal directly with the cost of living crisis was to implement a policy that was part of a platform that the SNP stood on back in 2014. It was Government policy since 2014, but last year it was included in the sums so that the SNP Government could suddenly claim that they were doing far more than they were. We need a bit of realism from the SNP and its Members.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
On realism, Labour Members feel strongly that the best way to address the cost of living crisis is to have a Labour Government, which would involve Scottish voters voting Labour. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that voters in Scotland should vote Labour?
Douglas Ross
Let me be clear. The sole Labour MP from Scotland is in the Chamber. There are six Scottish Conservative MPs and, in huge parts of Scotland, the Scottish Conservatives are the greatest challengers to the SNP. We proved it in 2017, we proved it in 2019 and we will prove it again in 2024.
I was also making the point about the biggest issue—[Interruption.] Well, Labour Members are speaking a lot. I am very interested in how they will vote today. I am not sure whether they will support the Government amendment or the SNP motion. Or will they do what they normally do: sit on the fence and not take a position? We will find out quite soon. [Interruption.] I am happy to give way to the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Secretary. No? We will see how it goes at decision time.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
Could I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that decision time happens in the Scottish Parliament? Maybe you are there more often than you are here.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. We have got to stop addressing people directly. The hon. Lady is very experienced and knows how she should address people. We cannot have these conversations going on down the far end of the Chamber.
Douglas Ross
The point I was moving on to is that there is not a single mention in the SNP motion about the oil and gas industry, heating homes, and making sure people have affordable energy in their homes and businesses. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) says we should wait for his speech, but why not put it in the motion? Of course, the SNP cannot speak about oil and gas because it is in government in Scotland with the extremist Greens, who are against the oil and gas industry. The only reference to it in the opening speech by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South was in response to my intervention. I asked specifically about oil and gas, but I got an answer about nuclear. The SNP has given up on the north-east of Scotland and the 100,000 people employed across the UK in the oil and gas sector, because it would rather have the Greens in government and be anti-oil and gas. It would rather import oil and gas from other countries with a higher carbon footprint and a higher cost than support our oil and gas industry and those who work in it in Scotland.
Another issue that leads to problems with the cost of living in Scotland is taxation. Scotland is the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the Scottish Fiscal Commission estimated that the divergence of Scottish taxation from the rest of the United Kingdom between 2017-18 and 2023-24 means that people in Scotland will have paid £1 billion more in taxation than their counterparts in the rest of the United Kingdom—£1 billion more in tax because the SNP has made Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom.
The SNP often likes to claim that the majority of working Scots pay less income tax than those south of the border. That has now been proven to be completely false. [Interruption.] I am sorry if I am keeping up the hon. Member for Glasgow East, but his constituents are paying more tax in Scotland because of decisions his Government have taken. If he thinks that is something to yawn about, I am pretty sure his constituents do not.
By not increasing tax thresholds with rising salaries, the Scottish Government have confirmed that anyone earning more than £27,850 in Scotland will pay more tax than those in the rest of the United Kingdom. We have calculated that the average Scot will earn £29,095 in 2023. Because of SNP policies and the taxation plans of the SNP Government at Holyrood, we are all paying more in taxation—more than £1 billion over that period. The majority of Scots and the majority of constituents represented by SNP MPs will be paying more in taxation because of the decisions taken by the SNP Government at Holyrood.
Ian Murray
The hon. Gentleman is rightly pointing to the high tax burden. I think he said—I apologise if I am paraphrasing—that we have the highest tax burden in Scotland because of decisions made by the Scottish Government. Does he therefore agree that we have the highest tax burden on working people in the last 80 years across the UK as a result of his own Government’s decisions?
Douglas Ross
I know we cannot have that conversation. The hon. Gentleman mentions 80 years. I am not sure what timeframe he is speaking about, but I was looking at the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which looked at the differential from 2017-18 to 2022-23. It said that people in Scotland paid £1 billion more in taxation than they would have done if they lived elsewhere in the United Kingdom. That is a damning indictment of the Scottish Government, who are not interested in growth and not interested in supporting people through the tax system. They are now making sure that a majority of Scots pay more in tax than people elsewhere in the country.
The final point I want to focus on is growth. The Government amendment rightly prioritises growing the economy. Of course, that also could not be included in the SNP motion because it does not support economic growth. It has brought Ministers into the Scottish Government from the Green party to serve alongside its own Ministers, and the Greens—they are quite open about this—are anti-economic growth. They do not believe in it. But we need our economy to grow. We need a growing economy to pay for the services that people across Scotland and across the United Kingdom rightly want and expect.
We also know that GDP grew more slowly in Scotland than in the rest of the United Kingdom during the period when Nicola Sturgeon was in office. From 2014 to 2021, GDP grew at a slower rate in Scotland than in other parts of the United Kingdom. The SNP has always been anti-economic growth. It has shown that with its previous policies and its previous performance. Now, by bringing the extremist Greens into the Government, it is continuing on that trend.
When we speak about the cost of living crisis and the issues affecting all our constituents, I hope that the SNP reflects more on what it could and should be doing with the powers and the finance it has in the Scottish Parliament. It should be looking to the future to grow Scotland’s economy and ensure we can fulfil our potential for all of Scotland, our constituents and our businesses. If we had a Government who were more focused on economic growth and on delivering for the people of Scotland, rather than on division and independence, Scotland would be a lot better off. I hope we will soon see the SNP Government in Scotland suffer for their repeated failures over 16 years, letting down young people, letting down taxpayers, letting down the health service, letting down education and letting down the justice system. This is a Government in Scotland who are tired and out of ideas. The sooner they are replaced, the better.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
Poverty fuelled by the Tory cost of living crisis is a scourge on all communities. I am certain that right hon. and hon. Members across the Chamber have done their best to mitigate the effects of that Tory cost of living crisis and the poverty that it inflicts on constituents—that is, after all, what we are paid to do. That must be pretty awkward for those on the Government Benches, but I am sure that they do it. I see those effects as a constituency MP and I saw them before as a local councillor working to try to help people in the most difficult circumstances.
Most of us in this place will understand that education is the route out of poverty, but that is made all the harder when the macroeconomic position in which people find themselves is set up against them.
Douglas Ross
The hon. Gentleman mentioned education. How does he view the defining mission that Nicola Sturgeon set to completely eradicate the attainment gap in Scotland? Was it a success or not?
Dave Doogan
As much as it pains me, I credit the hon. Member with a little more wit than that. If he thinks that 300 years of this Union and its effect on the people of Scotland—particularly the poorest—can be eradicated in a decade, he is more naive than I thought. He likes rhetoric, but he is not so keen on facts. My colleagues in the Scottish Government are sighted on the challenges of closing the attainment gap and are doing the right thing by our young people, but real life is much harder than that.
What Governments can do—particularly constrained Governments such as that of my colleagues, who exist under the profoundly suboptimal circumstances of devolution—is pull on the levers of investment in education. The hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) might like to know that the Scottish Government invests £1,758 per child in Scotland, compared with England’s £1,439. In Scotland, his constituents in Moray will enjoy a far higher teacher-pupil ratio than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. In Scotland, there are 7,573 teachers per 100,000, versus England’s 5,734 per 100,000. That is a substantial difference. He might be keen to know that, when a teacher qualifies in Scotland, they will attract a remuneration of £33,729, whereas their colleagues in England will be on £28,000.
Douglas Ross
The hon. Gentleman is speaking about access. What do his Angus fishermen think about the SNP-Green plans for highly protected marine areas taking 10% of Scottish waters away? Does he support them or does he agree with his Government’s policy?
Dave Doogan
The nub of the hon. Gentleman’s question was whether I support the fishermen of Angus; I would have thought it was patently obviously that I do. In direct answer to his question about highly protected marine areas, the Scottish Government have been very clear—maybe he was down here, juggling jobs, when he should have been up in Scotland listening in his other job—that any community that does not wish to have a highly protected marine area will not have to be subject to it.
Drew Hendry
My hon. Friend is exactly right that it starves communities, and, worse than that, it starves families—it starves children. It starves people of the opportunity we could give them, because we do not have the advantages that we should and would have if we had the powers to make the decisions we need to make.
Drew Hendry
No, I am about to conclude.
The supports that I have laid out are the kinds of policies that we put in place in Scotland to try to help and to mitigate measures such as the bedroom tax.
David Linden
I would caution my hon. Friend not to take absolutely seriously any commitments made by the Liberal Democrats in the run-up to a general election. The Labour party has been taking a leaf out of Nick Clegg’s book when it comes to tuition fees in the run-up to a general election. Perhaps the hon. Member for Edinburgh West will have that on her next leaflet.
My hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) spoke about energy, and my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) spoke passionately about businesses in his constituency and the impact that Brexit is having on them.
My little heart was cheered when the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) got to her feet to take part in the debate. It was only about five minutes into her speech that I realised that she is not a member of the Labour party any more, so we could not tick off her speech as a Labour contribution. The debate was finished off by my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), who spoke about a number of issues including fuel poverty in the highlands, which has been a massive issue.
David Linden
Probably not.
There is a common theme this afternoon, especially from colleagues on the SNP Benches, which is borne out by what we are all hearing on the doorsteps. In short, that theme, which comes up time and again, is that Scotland can no longer afford to be tied to an intransigent British Government who are ploughing on with Brexit at any cost. It is clearer than ever that we need independence, so that people in Scotland can stop paying the price for disastrous decisions made here in London by a Government Scotland did not vote for. Indeed, we have not voted for the Tories since 1955.
We should be clear that the cost of living crisis is not necessarily a new thing. Yes, it has got worse, but for many of those I represent in Glasgow’s east end, it has been a permanent fixture in their lives due to Westminster’s inability to truly tackle structural inequality. In short, the cost of living crisis is the culmination of 13 long, brutal, cold years of austerity policies, compounded by Brexit and last year’s kamikaze Budget, which crashed our economy and trashed the Tories’ record on economic credibility.
Let us look at the backdrop against which today’s debate takes place. In this, the sixth richest economy in the world, baby formula is now security tagged. It is now put behind tills to avert mothers stealing milk to feed their children. Now, if that is the image Ministers wish to project when it comes to global Britain, then it is certainly a look—I will give them that—but it would be remiss of me, when we focus on supermarkets and retailers and discuss the cost of living crisis, not to look at the issue mentioned in the motion before the House today. I ask Members to think very carefully about what is in the motion. It deals with price gouging, which was not referred to by either Front Bencher, and the need for tougher action on what has been dubbed “greedflation”.
We believe Ministers should follow the lead of other European countries to bring down the price of food and other necessities, a view supported by many of my constituents who are absolutely baffled as Westminster stands idly by while food prices continue to skyrocket. For example, France introduced a price block on staple products, with supermarkets pledging to keep the prices of certain food and hygiene products as low as possible. It is precisely for that reason that the British Government must intervene and put pressure on major retailers to pass on falling wholesale prices to consumers. More than that, it is vital that the Competition and Markets Authority utilises its full powers and imposes maximum fines where evidence of price gouging is found. Profiteering from selling basic necessities is unjust at any time, but at a time when numbers—record numbers—of people are turning to food banks and skipping meals, it is simply abhorrent.
The Bank of England recently found that falling costs at some companies were
“not automatically being passed through to consumer prices in an attempt to rebuild profit margins”.
Indeed, it was revealed just on Friday that the chief executive of Tesco received a £4.4 million pay packet last year. Ken Murphy was given a base salary of £1.37 million and received £2.73 million in an annual bonus, making around 197 times the amount of the average Tesco worker. That is the level of inequality we have baked into a system that is broken, and broken beyond repair. When I go to Tesco in Shettleston, the very many people I bump into there are shocked at the idea of a boss coining in £4.4 million, when many of them are trying to work out what they can remove from their basket so they have enough to get by.
Of course, stubbornly high inflation extends to so much more than food. Each week on the doorsteps, constituents tell me how they have resorted to rationing baths and showers simply to save on energy costs. That my constituents live in an energy-rich nation but experience eye-watering levels of fuel poverty is a damning indictment of just how ridiculous the situation has become and why change is desperately needed. But we know all that is exacerbated by Brexit, a Brexit Scotland rejected yet has had foisted upon us against our will. Indeed, it is the only nation of these islands to have been so royally screwed over as a result of the 2016 referendum.
We all know from bitter experience that the slogans on the sides of buses were nothing more than empty rhetoric. In 2016, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) slammed the Resolution Foundation’s findings that food prices would increase as a result of Brexit as “ridiculous”, and claimed that the price of food would go down. What is more, last year he suggested that the rules that the British Government followed while part of the EU made life harder for small businesses and increased the costs of operating. That is an entirely false claim. The hard Brexit that Ministers pursued has made life harder for food exporting and importing businesses. Do not take my word for it. Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told The Independent that the extra burden of new paperwork and fees will see some small specialist importers struggle to survive. We know the price of Brexit, and it is one that Scotland cannot afford to pay.
The OBR predicted in March that the UK’s GDP would fall 4% as a result of Brexit, with trade and exports reducing by 15%. Figures recently released by the ONS show that the UK economy contracted 0.3% in March, making it the worst performing economy of the G7, and the only G7 economy to experience negative economic growth. Last Thursday, the Bank of England raised interest rates to 4.5%, in the 12th consecutive rise. Many of our constituents coming off a fixed rate are watching hundreds of pounds being added to their mortgage bill as a Tory premium, simply for the pleasure of having an incompetent Westminster Government that Scotland did not vote for.
The Conservative party inflicting economic pain is hardly a surprise to my constituents—it is probably why we have not had a Conservative MP in the east end for over 110 years. But what of the Labour party, off to my right? I mean that in more respects than one. In the Labour party, we have nothing more than a pound-shop Tony Blair tribute act, devoid of ideas and lurching ever further to the right in a desperate scramble for the votes of Tory English market towns.
On the biggest issues of the day that have caused economic harm to these islands, the Labour party has nothing to say: on immigration policy, more of the same; on Brexit, more of the same; on social security, more of the same. I therefore say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) that simply hoping that the Tories run out of steam and that the keys to No. 10 Downing Street land in the laps of Starmer and Streeting is no vision to enthuse electors.
In my constituency, voters are clear that they want Brexit binned. They want their MP showing solidarity with public sector workers striking for fair pay. They want a social security system that provides a safety net. And yes, unashamedly, they want an immigration system not driven by focus groups and dog-whistle politics but responsive to our small island nation and its economic needs. Those are the challenges that Scotland faces today.
By failing to support today’s motion on the biggest issue of the day, Labour and the Tories are simply showing Scotland that it stands at a fork in the road. The choice could not be clearer: Scotland can veer off to right with the full-fat Tories or the diet Tories and pursue yet more economic self-harm with Brexit and austerity, or it can veer left by voting yes to independence, to rejoining the European Union and to unhooking itself from the economic bin fire that is the United Kingdom. On that basis, I commend the motion to the House.