UK Coach Industry
Debate between Euan Stainbank and Seamus Logan(1 week ago)
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Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Turner; I thank you for keeping the best wine to the end. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) on her excellent speech. Would I be right in saying that Toddington services is in her constituency? If not, it is very close. It is a place I am very familiar with, as I will explain in a moment.
Maynes Coaches in my constituency represents one of the many hundreds of family-owned and run coach companies up and down these islands. I must declare a non-financial interest because my mother and father founded a coach company more than 50 years ago. Along with my brothers Liam, Sean and Enda and my sister Una, I was part of a ready-made, non-unionised labour force that my parents ruthlessly exploited, but that is all part of history now.
Coaches connect our rural communities, transport pupils to school, provide resilience when rail services fail and ensure that major cultural and sporting events run smoothly and can take place successfully. Additionally, coaches play a very important role in the tourism sector. For those who do not drive or for those who take coach tours, for example, coaches can be the only transport option to many world-class tourism facilities. In fact, they are the bees that pollinate all those places. For example, research has highlighted that one coach calling at the same location every day each year can introduce at least £1 million to the local economy.
Although much responsibility for transport is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, I want to focus on issues that are in the remit of the UK Government, as opposed to some colleagues who wasted valuable time in their speeches speaking about matters that are devolved to Holyrood.
Seamus Logan
No, I will not, because we have heard quite enough from those on the hon. Gentleman’s side of the House on these matters.
I want to focus on two points. The European Union entry/exit system poses a significant challenge to international coach operators, with the 90 and 180-day rule already causing havoc for operators trying to comply with EU regulations with a limited supply of drivers who are compliant. The EES will increase the logistical challenges of the channel tunnel and ports, driving up costs and causing delays. That will result in unfair advantages for less green forms of international travel, such as air travel. The UK Government, as part of their ongoing discussions with the EU, should simplify border controls and explore pre-registration for coaches and ways to make international travel easier for the coach sector. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that point.
My second point concerns the cost of fuel, which has already been mentioned. This is a crucial issue. Fuel prices are increasing significantly due to the war in the middle east and the Government should outline what action they are taking to mitigate that increase as much as possible. To many households, coaches offer a lifeline of affordable travel. Support is therefore more vital than ever. We look to the Budget in the next two weeks to tell the coach industry what help it can expect in that area.
If Scotland seeks to grow its visitor economy, improve connectivity, support rural communities and meet ambitious environmental targets, coaches must be part of the solution.
Seamus Logan
No, I will not.
I make this penultimate point: I recognise that the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard said that sometimes it is a coach and sometimes it is a bus, but I can assure her that a coach, and a coach driver, is a very different thing. Finally, I urge Ministers to work closely with operators and industry bodies to address the issues with coach travel. I seek their assurance that further action will be taken on fuel costs in the forthcoming Budget.
Oil Refining Sector
Debate between Euan Stainbank and Seamus Logan(10 months, 1 week ago)
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Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) on securing this important debate, and I agree with his comments regarding the strategic importance of oil refineries for their communities—if only colleagues who were previously in government had grasped that before the decision by Petroineos to close Grangemouth in November 2023 was announced.
As has been remarked by colleagues, 2026 will mark the first year since, I believe, 1850 that Scotland does not have an oil refinery. This year marked 101 years since the start of oil refining in Grangemouth, and the date that refining ceased in April 2025 was a devastating time for the community I represent, the community of my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), the whole of Scotland and the United Kingdom. I remember sitting in the Falkirk council chamber when the announcement was made. The implications were obvious immediately: the loss of many of the highest-paying jobs in the Falkirk area, and the loss of a substantial tax base for Falkirk council and the Scottish and UK Governments. The announcement was completely unexpected for those of us in opposition parties, who were not in the know.
The failure of Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) has articulated on behalf of the Scottish Affairs Committee, to prepare our community or have a plan in place for a no job loss transition at Grangemouth refinery has become symbolic of a similar story happening across industrial communities for decades. It was infuriating to find out from the Scottish Affairs Committee report that, through late 2023 and 2024, when it would have mattered, many of the decision makers failed to act to prevent the unjust transition at Grangemouth.
Petroineos confirmed to the Committee in April 2025 that, in the years prior to the announcement in November 2023, the then UK and Scottish Governments had requested information from the company, and subsequently chosen not to make an investment decision that would have saved the refinery. It was engaged for years with Government and no one lifted a finger to stop the path to the closure of refinery operations. Although I wish we had grasped the reality of the situation far more clearly in the transition from opposition to entering government, I welcome the determination of Ministers to get investment into Grangemouth quickly so that we can deliver that new industry to the community.
Today—two weeks after the Chancellor allocated further Government funding to Grangemouth to speed up investment decisions—marks an exceptionally positive announcement for the area. Up to 310 jobs are coming to Grangemouth to support the construction and operation of MiAlgae, a Scottish biotech success story. That does not, however, diminish the fact that many high-paid, high-skilled jobs have been lost, and the constant worry that they and the industry will never come back is justifiably the primary emotion that still grips my community.
We have an obligation not to repeat the mistakes of the past. We do not want the workers at Grangemouth, many of whom have not found employment since the closure in April, to be lost to the middle east, America or Norway. There is still a future for high-skilled refining workers at Grangemouth. That is why I welcome the Skills Transition Centre, announced back in February, funded out of the Falkirk and Grangemouth growth deal, which this Labour Government enhanced by £10 million when we came to power. However, the college that contains the skills centre is facing an existential financial crisis. One of the three campuses that constitutes Forth Valley college—the Alloa campus, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth —is directly jeopardised by the 20% real-terms cut inflicted on colleges since 2021 by the SNP Government.
The pathways for local kids to grasp the new industrial opportunities coming to our community will be actively barred if Government settlements for our further education sector are insufficient. Any consolidation that followed the closure of the Alloa campus would affect the courses available for thousands of young people in Falkirk, Stirling and especially Clackmannanshire. Kenny MacInnes, the principal of Forth Valley college, rightly reminded a conference recently that the college will be an instrumental part of whatever comes next at Grangemouth. The Scottish Government must bear that and Colleges Scotland’s recently published report in mind when they set their budget next year if they ever want to speak credibly about rebuilding opportunities in my community.
Seamus Logan
I note the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, but is he concerned about his own Government’s commitment to this important debate, given the row upon row of empty seats on the Government Benches?