Points of Order

Debate between Drew Hendry and Kirsten Oswald

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I noticed that the Secretary of State said during his statement that he had not brought the statement of reasons and that he did not want to bore us with it. That was an extraordinary thing to say, given the gravity of the situation and the subject matter. I wonder whether he has now changed his mind and does not think it is something that is tedious and boring for us to deal with but realises that this is a serious and important piece of dialogue that we should have had from him in advance of this sitting. Are you able to give us any guidance, Mr Speaker, on how everyone who wanted to respond to the statement but did not have the information might be able to contribute to the debate in full possession of the information?

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

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you advise the House on whether there is any precedent for a situation where a Secretary of State turns up at the Dispatch Box without the accompanying information necessary to advise and guide the discussion and debate in a question session? In my experience here since I was elected, that seems to be the way that things are supposed to be done. Is this shambolic behaviour from the Secretary of State for Scotland precedented or unprecedented?

DVLA and Private Car Parking Companies

Debate between Drew Hendry and Kirsten Oswald

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on bringing the debate to the Chamber. It has been one of those pleasant debates where everyone agrees that something needs to be done and it is in the gift of the Minister to do something about it. I look forward to hearing his remarks.

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks in a moment, but I will preface that by saying a few words about how this issue affects all the nations of the UK, despite some small variances in approach to regulation. We only have to look at the amount of times it has been raised in the UK Parliament to see that it is as much of an issue in Ipswich as it is in Inverness and across the rest of the isles. Having already discussed the practices of some private operators with Scottish Government Ministers, I am encouraged by their response in terms of what they can do. I welcome the work of the Business Services Association and others to improve the regulation of parking, and that of those seeking changes at Westminster.

However, the debate is about the relationship between private parking companies and the DVLA. While parking legislation is in the main devolved to the Scottish Government, the ownership and control of DVLA data is not. The current system has been built on the flawed premise of industry self-regulation, enabled by the provision of data from the DVLA. We are sharing DVLA data with companies whose practices, as we have heard from hon. Members today, are simply outrageous. I agree that it is right to call out companies such as Smart Parking, which has been mentioned several times and operates in my constituency too.

People are being charged excessive fines, and the tactics used to collect the debts are intimidation and threat, albeit through the written word. That is still intimidation and it is still unacceptable. I and my hon. Friends believe that access to our data is a privilege. I have asked the UK Government to put regulation on a better statutory footing. I know that operators must pay for access to the data, but I was displeased to hear that the cost of providing data to private parking operators is in fact subsidised. I will be interested to hear what the Minister says about that. The research from the Library says that the cost to the taxpayer of making up the shortfall was £612,000 in 2015—if the Minister is going to take on the might of the House of Commons Library, I will be delighted to hear what the data are. If that information is right, it means enabling what is tantamount to threatening behaviour.

The hon. Member for Torbay spoke in a measured tone; many of us feel more passion on the subject. I could tell that the passion was there, but he was holding back his anger. Certainly people hit by fines and chased for them would be unlikely to use such a measured tone. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the small terms and conditions. There are also machines that are difficult to use for reasons of height, and so forth. Perhaps when it is dark, or because it is necessary to bend down or conditions are not good, people press a zero instead of an “O” or vice versa. The hon. Gentleman talked about what reasonable behaviour would be, and it is certainly not reasonable behaviour to impose unreasonable fines without a real appeal process. I have had a similar experience to other hon. Members of writing to parking companies; Smart Parking was one that refused to acknowledge an MP wanting to act on behalf of a constituent. The hon. Gentleman also made a point about taxpayers subsidising the information, and I reiterate that I look forward to the Minister’s response to that.

[Kirsten Oswald]

The UK Government have undertaken a consultation on the matter. Last year I received written answers that made it clear that they were aware of public concern, but they had not discussed it with the companies or the DVLA. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be useful to hear from the Minister whether those discussions have happened yet, and if not, why not?

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. Friend is right. The Minister is a reasonable man, and I look forward to his response. It is clearly something that he can deal with.

The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) made an important distinction, in a phrase that is worth repeating: he said that people got an invoice masquerading as a fine. That is exactly what people get. He talked about people waiting, to look for a space, which is a common occurrence, and getting fined. He, too, had had the experience of failing to get a response from Smart Parking and the other company that he mentioned.

The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) mentioned someone making an honest mistake. Surely there is room in our society for people to be able to say, “Look, I just got it wrong; I didn’t know I was in there,” if it is a reasonable and honest position. The hon. Gentleman also underlined the fact that responsibility lies with the Minister. I was struck by his comment that when the DVLA allows the data to be used by the companies in question, it enables them to bully people. That is something that clearly must be addressed.

The hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) was right when he spoke about people paying the fine even though they feel it is wrong. Many people just pay because they feel they have to. It is a point of honour for them, even though it is their honour that has been unfairly besmirched by the company that fines them—or, I should say, gives them the invoice. Dismissed appeals are common. Little attention is paid to what is said, and there is no agreed set of standards, or licensing or appeals process. That, too, needs to be addressed.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) rightly mentioned that often it is the most vulnerable people—the ones who cannot afford to pay—who end up paying high fines, which puts them in difficulty. Those people are used to trying to make ends meet, and if they get a bill, they feel a sense of honour about paying it. Also, they rarely have the opportunity to go elsewhere to seek advice.

A Better Defence Estate Strategy

Debate between Drew Hendry and Kirsten Oswald

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Rosindell, and I thank the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) for securing this important debate. All hon. Members who have spoken have made interesting and valuable contributions.

The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald quoted the words of the Ministry of Defence, that the aim is “improving military capability” and “rationalisation of the estate”. She spoke about the extensive “engagement”, but expressed serious concerns about whether that had taken place. She was right to have those concerns.

The hon. Lady also spoke about a real lack of information and huge uncertainty for serving personnel, their families and the wider communities. Her points and those of the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) about the potential impact on the already poor figures for retention and post-service employment were particularly well made.

It is important, as the hon. Lady said, for the whole process to be viewed through the lens of the armed forces covenant. I am, however, no more convinced than she is that that has been the case, particularly in relation to the impact on families. The points that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) made on spousal employment were especially important.

Interestingly, the debate is titled “A Better Defence Estate Strategy”, although in reality that is simply not true: it is not better, and it stretches credulity to describe what has been announced as a strategy, which would suggest some forethought and a plan. The Government do not have a great history with plans, and this is a case in point. We heard, for example, from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the staggering lack of ongoing investment and maintenance over recent years. The strategy, if we may call it that, is in essence a farce. It aims for the loss of a fifth of the entire Scottish defence estate, which is extremely important and very concerning. Furthermore, the plans will have a real impact on the ability to provide conventional defence.

We heard about the lack of consultation, either with the public or with the Scottish Government, yet the aim is to close so many bases, many of which are of historical and cultural significance to our communities, as has been described so eloquently today, and all of which provide stability and important economic value to serving personnel, their families and their host communities. The lack of proper consultation leaves it somewhat unclear whether any of those factors have properly been taken into account. We anticipated that there would be cuts, but the volume proposed for Scotland is crushing and the justification for it is simply missing in action.

I asked the Minister some written questions about the plans, because I was keen to understand what was proposed and what financial projections could have led to such devastating decisions. The answers I got back left me, sadly, no clearer. I queried what savings would be achieved in running costs in each of the 10 years of the infrastructure reform programme. The Minister, for whom I have great respect, told me what savings it was hoped to achieve across the piece: £140 million over 10 years, rising to nearly £3 billion by 2040, all apparently to be reinvested “back into Defence”. Interesting, but not an answer to my question, which was a valid one, so I tried again.

This time I asked what capital investments were planned and what receipts were planned to be realised in each of the 10 years. I thought that was quite straightforward—clearly, the MOD would not have a plan that it had not based on proper financial metrics, would it? This time the answer was—well, the same as the first answer, although it helpfully clarified that the profile across the 10-year programme was “being refined”. In plain English that means that the MOD does not know—the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) said the same a little more politely.

The MOD has therefore announced this hugely important and hugely destructive programme for the Scottish defence estate without doing the maths. That is outrageously irresponsible. Scottish armed forces personnel, their families and the local communities will feel gravely let down by that back-of-a-cigarette-packet approach to their lives. The hon. Member for City of Chester, for example, spoke powerfully about the impact on personnel and children, which is hugely important. The rest of us might reflect on how comfortable we are with our conventional defence footprint being planned with that kind of so-called strategy.

What exactly are we looking at? What is the scale of the cuts? My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) pointed out that the Black Watch will leave its historical home at Fort George with a loss of more than 700 jobs and £16 million a year to the highlands economy. The Army barracks at Redford and Craigiehall in Edinburgh, and historic Glencorse in Midlothian, which is home to 2 Scots, are to be axed.

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument about the financial cost, but promises to people have been broken as well, including the solemn promise that the Black Watch would have a permanent home at Fort George. How will the Minister respond to that betrayal of the people who have served in the Black Watch?

[Kirsten Oswald]

My hon. Friend’s point is particularly well made. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Interestingly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) pointed out, although it is only 13 years since a £60 million investment in Glencorse, which was described by the then Secretary of State for Defence as a “super-barracks”, even Glencorse has not been saved from this Government’s financial mismanagement of and disdain for the defence of Scotland. No wonder Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, expresses such concern about the plans, saying that they throw the future into doubt for thousands of staff.

Even if numbers of service personnel remain steady, significant numbers of civilian jobs will be lost, estimated at 700 at Fort George and 200 in Stirling. Unite described the closures as “brutal” and emphasised the impact on our local communities. As the MOD should know, in many instances the bases earmarked for closure are at the heart of their local communities, providing a source of decent and secure employment. Not only is the MOD weakening the defence of Scotland, but it is creating real problems for thousands of people.

All we can say with certainty is that, in the MOD’s own words, there is “reprovision intended for Scotland”. Meanwhile, a massive upheaval and a great deal of uncertainty for service personnel and their families will certainly result. All of that is accompanied by the staggering lack of detail and clarity that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) described so well, which is causing huge concern and uncertainty and throwing huge doubt on the programme and on defence planning and provision for Scotland.

The National Audit Office has identified a black hole of at least £8.5 billion of unfunded costs caused by the steady decline in the condition of the estate. It states that there is significant risk that the poor condition of the estate will affect the Department’s ability to provide the defence capability needed. In addition, the UK Government’s military priorities are all wrong for Scotland: we are a maritime nation with no maritime patrol aircraft and not one conventional ocean-going vessel in our ports. We have grave concerns that as our conventional capability shrinks further and further to pay for nuclear weapons, the United Kingdom’s last line of defence is increasingly becoming its first and only line of defence.

The announced closures are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey put it so well, the latest in a series of betrayals and the breaking of promises made to the Scottish people before the independence referendum when we were told time and again that defence jobs could only be protected in the Union. We were threatened with dire repercussions in the event of a yes vote. The then Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), claimed that in the event of independence “the Scottish people” would not benefit

“from anything like the level of security the UK armed forces currently provide, or the level of prosperity that Scotland’s defence industry currently delivers.”

Just as with the non-existent national shipbuilding strategy, the Trident safety issues that we can hear about on CNN but not in this House and the national equipment plan that the auditors say simply does not add up, we have vital questions about our future defence estate going unanswered. The Government are full of warm words for our forces—perhaps the Minister will also take the opportunity to update us on what he is doing to secure the return of Billy Irving and the Chennai six—but in reality such words are sometimes seen as just that, words. The UK Government seem quite unable to ensure the defence of the realm. The UK Government have failed in their first duty to their citizens and betrayed the people of Scotland yet again. An independent Scotland would have a proper conventional defence force built in our national interests.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Debate between Drew Hendry and Kirsten Oswald

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

If a single phrase could define Whitehall’s ambition for the UK’s place in the world, it might be that the UK should “punch above its weight”. In 2010, the Prime Minister adopted that phrase when introducing that year’s strategic defence review, in which his Government inflicted swingeing manpower and equipment cuts on the armed forces, making sure that Britain’s biggest ever aircraft carriers would be without aircraft for years after entering service and scrapping the Nimrod replacement, ending any pretence that the UK could effectively monitor and respond to activity in its territorial waters. Despite creating such gaps in the UK’s defence capability, the Prime Minister made it clear that the armed forces were still expected to deliver Britain’s punch wherever the Government directed. It is no wonder that five years later, as demonstrated by the Ministry of Defence’s own survey, this Government have presided over a troubling decline in the morale of the armed forces.

The question of whether Britain can, or indeed should, punch above its weight militarily is addressed in just two phrases in Her Majesty’s speech. The first is:

“Ministers will invest in Britain’s armed forces, honouring the military covenant and meeting the NATO commitment to spend 2% of national income on defence.”

The second states:

“They will also act to secure the long-term future of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.”

Yet time and again we learn of decisions that demonstrate how difficult this Government find balancing such competing demands. From its introduction in 1988, the Army’s main armoured personnel carrier, the Warrior, has been known for faulty electrics and problems with its electrically controlled chain gun. However, it was not until 2009 that Warrior gunners were authorised to use the mechanical safety catch, and in the interim there were an unknown number of undemanded firings and an unknown number of unintended casualties. Surely a Government aspiring to remain a member of the nuclear club, whatever the cost, must provide their front-line troops with a vehicle that is secure and safe to use if they are serious about investing in our armed forces.

Members from across the House participated in a campaign on compensation for service personnel affected by mesothelioma. That campaign was necessary only because of the Government telling victims already diagnosed that their diagnosis had missed an arbitrary cut-off date. Although the Minister involved is to be commended for responding positively, it raises questions about the Government’s approach to our armed forces that such a campaign should be necessary. Lately, I have been approached on behalf of RAF squippers who kept their colleagues safe by repairing vital life-saving equipment. There are strong indications that their working conditions have resulted in many of them dying from work-related cancers and chemically induced illnesses. I ask the Government to examine the evidence closely to see whether there is another injustice they should proactively address.

My point in raising these issues is, first, to recognise the unsatisfactory conditions in which our military personnel are too often asked to carry out the work that underpins Britain’s punching above its weight and, secondly, to demonstrate that decisions to spend large sums on any military programme are not without consequences. The commitment to Trident contained in the Queen’s Speech has profound implications for the rest of the military. In signs of what is to come, there have been yet more budget revisions that will see the true cost of the Trident replacement continuing to spiral out of control, yet the Government continue to talk of a programme that will be carefully managed and subject to value-for-money processes.

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

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about the alternative spend on military applications. The recent price tag of £204 billion is being placed on Trident, but the Queen’s Speech prioritised new transport methods and an opportunity to connect people on a wider basis. Would not another valuable way of spending some of that money be to invest in mass transit rather than in mass destruction?

[Kirsten Oswald]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is undeniably true that there are many and varied uses that that money could much better be put to.

If the decision is to proceed and the Government are committed to this programme, whatever the cost may be, Trident then becomes the one unstoppable expenditure commitment in the defence budget. Homework was set for all Members by the Minister for Defence Procurement before the recess, as we were all provided with a handout on nuclear weapons, a copy of which I have here, and asked to read it carefully. I did, and it demonstrated clearly to me that this Government are running out of credible arguments. It stated that to be effective, Britain’s nuclear weapons system needs to be “invulnerable and undetectable”. In this world of technological change, who can truly believe that that will remain the case for its planned lifetime? Already, we can see the emergence of technologies and detection systems that will make concealment very challenging. I know this House does not like to be reminded of it, but there is one place where it will always be possible to find one or more of these submarines, and that is on the Clyde, just a few miles from Scotland’s most densely populated city region. In extremis, if the one submarine that is on patrol is disabled, there is one other place from which the UK’s Trident missiles can be fired, and that is from these submarines on the Clyde. The homework factsheet also suggests that the UK could use Trident missiles on countries that may transfer nuclear technology to terrorists. Even to consider the use of Trident missiles for such a role highlights how inappropriate it is for the UK to attempt to remain a member of the nuclear club.

In trying to cover all bases, from counter-insurgency to projecting marine and air power across the globe to remaining an independent nuclear power, the danger is that the UK will perform none of those roles well. As we have seen, when the budget is squeezed, lives are put at risk by inadequate equipment for our front-line troops and poor standards of protection for those working in the background. Too much of the track record of recent conflicts speaks of ill-prepared interventions and badly planned and poorly resourced rebuilding programmes. The UK Government’s track record suggests that they should consider how better to punch within their weight, instead of continuing constantly to strive for overreach, which can only damage the UK’s reputation and cause the kind of unintended consequences we face in Libya, Syria and elsewhere.

Neonicotinoids on Crops

Debate between Drew Hendry and Kirsten Oswald

Monday 7th December 2015 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I hope today is everything you wished for.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) on his excellent series of sentences. I also congratulate the petitioners on securing the debate. I am here in place of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr)—indeed, I am something of a plan B—but I do have a personal interest in bees, in that I once had a hive in my bedroom. I did not want it there, but the bees had decided that my chimney was a great place to create a hive. That gave me an interest in bees, which I have kept to this day.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Would my hon. Friend agree with the interested residents of East Renfrewshire, many of whom have been in touch with me to raise their concerns? They believe it is vital that we take account of all available research into the decline of bee populations and into changes in bee behaviour, and that we take a precautionary approach.

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. We should take the most cautious approach we can in looking after not only bees, but other pollinators. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that nearly 10% of bee species are under threat. The intensification of agriculture and seasonal crops have reduced food for bees, creating an ongoing problem.

Neonicotinoids are thought to transfer chemicals through crop growth to various pollinators. Protection for bees, and encouragement for a friendly environment, should be something we are all concerned about. However, the Government caused outrage in July, when they lifted the EU ban for 120 days. They now say they will follow the best advice. The background is that there are concerns about the efficiency of DEFRA-funded trials. That message is too weak to allay citizens’ concerns about bees.