Business of the House

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Deidre Brock

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Scottish National party spokesman.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I associate myself with the comments about the dreadful news from Wales, and of course those about Frank Field.

I make no apology for starting this week where I finished last week. The Leader of the House may recall that I asked for a debate on the new Brexit border controls due to come into effect next week. Answer came there none, but things became clear later on, as the Financial Times reported within hours of my question:

“The UK Government has told the country’s port authorities that it will not ‘turn on’ critical health and safety checks for EU imports…because of the risk of ‘significant disruption’… the new border systems will not be fully ready.”

It is being called a phased implementation approach—very “Yes Minister” speak from some hapless civil servant trying to excuse the sixth such delay. More delay, more confusion for business, but no statement from the Minister.

Scotland’s importers, exporters, agricultural and hospitality sectors and businesses large and small are all at their wits’ end because the Tories insist on imposing their Brexit folly on us. Brexit is estimated to be costing salmon producers—the largest food exporters in the UK—up to £100 million a year. Tourism in the highlands and islands has been devastated, with staff shortages affecting 45% of businesses to date. Brexit was named as the main difficulty for 44% of businesses in Scotland trading overseas.

Before the latest delays were announced, the chair of the Chilled Food Association, which represents 30 trade and professional organisations, said that every time there is a proposal from the UK Government, people invest in paperwork and computer systems and then the Government change the rules again. Since 2021, £200 million will have been spent on just one export health certificate. A recent report found that the UK economy had shrunk by £140 billion, with the average citizen around £2,000 worse off—thanks to good old Brexit that Scotland did not vote for.

Yet this place shuts its eyes to the devastating impact that Brexit has had on people’s lives and businesses. Scots are accustomed to being ignored, overruled and treated with disdain by this Government, but being dragged out of the EU against our will has been an economic and social disaster for us. No party can claim to be the party of business and back Brexit, so I urge the Leader of the House to overcome the vow of silence—an omertà between the Tory and Labour parties—and tell us when we can have an urgent debate on the effect of Brexit, starting with this disastrous delayed Tory trade tax.

Business of the House

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Deidre Brock

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

May I associate myself with the remarks about Passover and about Mr Speaker’s late father, and send my sincerest condolences to him and his family?

Since we last met for business questions, the Leader of the House has been keeping busy, and I thought that one of her social media posts on X during the recess was particularly eye-catching. Indeed, it was unique because it asked her constituents to contact her directly, so outraged was she by a burning injustice. It started:

“Damn right. I know many people will have strong feelings on this…email me…and I will make sure your concerns”

are heard. Those are such strong feelings that you may wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, what caused that righteous anger, which was not just from the Leader of the House but from Members across the Chamber.

Was it children getting sick swimming through human faeces in the rivers of England, or perhaps the endless strikes in the NHS in England? Was it arms sales to Israel, or an economic crisis that was triggered by a former Prime Minister, now saviour of the west? Was it the cruel, immoral, illegal and ruinously expensive Rwanda scheme? Perhaps the angry post was just a response to the Leader of the House’s constituents in Portsmouth, who are now furious—rightly enough—about the likely demolition of the brand new border control post in Portsmouth, which is among a herd of such white elephants around the UK, and a direct result of the right hon. Lady’s ongoing Brexit confusion that will cost a fortune. No—that was not what prompted the outburst. The Leader of the House and many of her colleagues were furious about England’s new football top—“damn right” they were.

So, no, the farce of the doomed border post on the right hon. Lady’s doorstep has not figured in the busy social media output we see from her. Her Government’s disastrous Brexit import charges are none the less coming in on 30 April, causing even more costly confusion and raising very real concerns about food shortages, as well as her own local difficulties. May I ask the Leader of the House for an urgent debate on these new Brexit charges and the ongoing catastrophe of Brexit, which Scots rejected, yet are forced to suffer the ill effects of? Her constituents will be interested to hear an answer—ideally before she wastes more time launching into another anti-Scotland video script.

Business of the House

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Deidre Brock

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Meal do naidheachd, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We saw a softer side to the Leader of the House last week. “The Prime Minister is a great dad”, she loyally read out from No. 10’s script. “He gives a lot to charity”, she whispered. Then, right on cue, normal service resumed and she was thundering fury at the Scots for not voting Tory. She asked me a question that got quite a response in Scotland: “Why do you think us Tory ‘rotters’”—her word, not mine—“are so desperate to keep Scotland in the Union?” Why, indeed? It is generally though that Conservatives act in their own self-interest. Anyway, Scots have been totting up all the great things about being in the UK: the gift of Brexit making us poorer faster than even the worst forecasts predicted; 14 years of grinding, endless austerity; and a crippling debt burden of more than 100% of GDP, just for starters.

However, the Leader of the House is not alone in her desperation to keep Scotland lashed tight to Westminster. She will remember seeing a secret document presented to the Cabinet in July 2020 by her colleague the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The existence of that document was revealed at the covid inquiry this week. Finalised at the height of the pandemic, it was entitled “The State of the Union” and was a blatant attempt by her Government to politicise the pandemic and undermine the Scottish Government when trust in Government messaging was crucial. It asked the Cabinet to endorse some sort of strategy, most details of which sadly are missing from the inquiry’s version. It required polling, research and data analysis, all at a time when Scotland’s First Minister and Government were focused on and doing their damnedest to protect the people of Scotland.

No. 10 was slithering from one scandal to another. We know that a Union strategy committee and a Union operations committee were set up to mimic the strategy and operations committees that helped create the monster of Brexit. The right hon. Lady will agree that considerable resources were required, diverting cash and personnel from fighting the pandemic. It must be made clear to the public who funded that. Will she ask her colleagues to give a statement on the project, laying out why it was an appropriate use of governmental resources, what it did and what it is felt to have achieved—its key performance indicators, let us say—particularly given the times in which it was conceived? Finally, the Leader of the House will recall that the state of the Union report found, among many things, that 82% of young voters in Scotland want independence. Is she surprised?

Nuclear Defence Infrastructure: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Deidre Brock

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Will my hon. Friend give way? [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but I must say to other Members present that it is simply rude to talk. If whispering has to be done, then whisper.

[Deidre Brock]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on a crucial issue. He talks about secrecy. Does he know about the MOD’s response to my recent questions on safety at its nuclear bases? The response confirmed an alarming trend, with the number of incidents at Faslane and Coulport jumping by a third in 2022, and the figures for the start of 2023 suggesting further rises. Does he agree that surely we have a right, as Members of Parliament, to know why safety records are not improving, as well as the nature of these incidents and their effect on local residents and the environment?

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Deidre Brock

Report stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock]

I thank the many animal welfare organisations that have been in touch with me, and the many constituents—I am sure this has been the experience of Members on both sides of the House—who have also been in touch because they really care. I thank all the House staff; I thank the Clerks for all their efforts, and for their patience with all of us during the relatively short period for which the Bill has been in the House and in Committee.

I wish the new Animal Sentience Committee well in its deliberations, and I look forward to seeing those deliberations bear fruit in the form of real, positive actions from the Government in the years ahead. We are known throughout these islands for having the greatest regard and love for animals. Let us do our level best by them, and show just how much we care through the regard that the Government show for the committee’s actions.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

Business of the House

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 15),

That, at this day’s sitting, the motion in the name of Mark Spencer relating to Adjournment of the House (Today) may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) will not apply.—(Mark Spencer.)

Question agreed to.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now come to the motion on the Adjournment of the House. This is not the Question that the House do now adjourn—[Interruption.] I must inform the enthusiastic group sitting on my right that this is in fact the motion entitled “Adjournment of the House (Today)”.

Adjournment of the House (Today)

Ordered,

That, at this day’s sitting, the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until

(1) any Messages from the Lords relating to the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill shall have been received and disposed of; and

(2) he shall have notified the Royal Assent to any Act relating to Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) agreed upon by both Houses.— (Mark Spencer.)

UK-French Trading Dispute

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Deidre Brock

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Lady has only to ask the basic urgent question; I will come back to her for a supplementary question after the Secretary of State has answered.

[Deidre Brock]

Excuse me, Madam Deputy Speaker; this is my first urgent question.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make a statement on how the UK will work with French officials to mitigate a trading dispute.

Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Deidre Brock

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock]

There are always conditions attached to interventions when the hon. Gentleman allows them—very male, Madam Deputy Speaker. He clearly has ambitions to one day lead in the Scottish Parliament and become the First Minister of Scotland. He always references his constituency and the fact that a large percentage of his constituents voted for Brexit, but when will he accept that Scotland voted 62% to remain, and rejected Brexit? If he has ambitions to be the First Minister, how will he reflect that when he is making his pitch to voters?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We will be rather careful here. This is a narrow Bill, specifically about—

[Deidre Brock]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have just had to endure a personal attack from the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross). I was making the point that if he wants to make those sorts of attacks, he has to be prepared to take it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

That is not a point of order for the Chair. I assume that every Member can take it when they are having an argument. Let me just take a step back to the hon. Lady’s intervention. It was an interesting political point, but I want to ensure that in answering it the hon. Gentleman does so in terms of the Bill that is before us tonight.