Jackdaw Gasfield
Frank McNally Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Michael Shanks
The hon. Lady speaks about 50 years; I am not quite sure what the SNP’s energy policy is right now. It changes from minute to minute, and it changes depending on whether the First Minister is in Aberdeen or somewhere else in the country. I cannot quite fathom it. The Scottish Government put out a statement today, which I read three or four times, and I still was not clear whether they support Jackdaw or not. The hon. Lady is a good supporter of the industry and I recognise that, but as for the rest of her party, I am not quite so sure.
The point about investment in renewables is important. We have been clear that the revenue from this project will be invested in renewables projects across the UK. For the vast majority of those, we are already seeing the investment going into Scotland, in supply chains as well as in the infrastructure itself. It is easy for the hon. Lady to talk down Great British Energy, but its headquarters in Aberdeen is already helping to deliver investment in supply chains in Scotland. That is £1 billion of investment so that we are not towing in renewables infrastructure to the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”, as the former leader of her party called it, that is all built somewhere else, but building it in Britain. That is where the jobs come from.
That is really important, and I hope we can all get behind this idea. I thought the hon. Lady’s party agreed that public ownership of energy is important, that public investment in energy is important and that the transition needs investment at every stage, so I hope that there are clearer areas for us to work together. However, as I say, we are still waiting on the SNP’s energy policy three years on, so I am not quite sure what it is at the moment.
Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
My hon. Friend knows that actions have consequences, but so does inaction. Ultimately, the consistent failure of the Conservatives over many years to address the challenges in the North sea has seen 70,000 jobs lost. I welcome the statement, which was clearly focused on energy security and jobs. As my constituency neighbour, the Minister knows the importance of supply chain jobs in Lanarkshire, not just in oil and gas but in clean energy projects such as RES, which we both visited recently. Does he agree that the new £2 billion energy wealth fund represents a serious step towards supporting our transition effort and delivering high-quality jobs in Lanarkshire?
Oral Answers to Questions
Frank McNally Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Ed Miliband
The truth is that we all face a choice on the future of our energy system. Do we learn the lessons of history—of two fossil-fuel crises in five years, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Iran war—and say that we want energy sovereignty with clean, home-grown power that we control, or do we not? We have made our choice.
Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
I love Bellshill, and it was a pleasure to visit the other day to see this fantastic facility opening just across my constituency boundary. More than 300 wind turbines are being maintained and operated from the facility. That is a good example showing that the clean energy mission is about not just the renewables being deployed, but the jobs that go with it in communities like my hon. Friend’s.
Budget Resolutions
Frank McNally Excerpts(11 months ago)
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Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
The actions of this Government will make life easier for thousands of my constituents and millions across the country, and let us be clear: action is needed. The Conservative party decimated our public services, entrenched austerity to push millions into poverty, and engaged in acts of fiscal vandalism that crashed the economy. Let us also be clear about what this Budget means. I am absolutely pleased that it will save the average family £150 by cutting levies on energy bills for all my constituents, and the extension of the warm home discount to a further 3 million of the poorest households in the country will save thousands of my constituents a further £150.
The Budget has also delivered an additional £820 million for Scotland, on top of the record £5.2 billion delivered to the Scottish Government last year. It is a sad reality that the Scottish National party Government have failed to make use of last year’s investment to fix Scotland’s public services, particularly the NHS, where one in six people—that is 1 million—are stuck on waiting lists; in fact, more people are waiting for two years or longer in my health board area of NHS Lanarkshire than in the whole of NHS England. It is imperative that the Scottish Government get off their hands and act in the short time that they have before, hopefully, being removed from office next May.
In the remaining time that I have, I want to focus on the important steps taken to eliminate the two-child benefit cap. In my constituency, one in four children are living in poverty, and in some areas the figure is as high as 50%. For far too long, parents have been forced to take decisions that no parent should have to take. They have been forced to choose between feeding their kids and turning on the heating, or forced to go without meals themselves. I recall, when I was a councillor, having a conversation with a lone parent who told me that she was often forced to decide which child would have a small lunch and which child would have a small dinner. It is unacceptable that children in my constituency leave school on a Friday having had lunch in the canteen, but do not eat a proper meal again until they return to school on the Monday. That is a shocking reality, which intensifies over holiday periods.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend speaks with passion about child poverty. The fact that we have so many children in poverty is clearly a legacy of Tory economic mismanagement. Does my hon. Friend agree that the removal of the two-child benefit cap is a victory for compassion, justice and evidence-based policymaking?
Frank McNally
I absolutely agree. Let me also say, in response to some of our colleagues across the House, that the SNP Government could have eradicated the two-child cap eight years ago, but refused to do so. They chose to play politics with the cap; this Government have acted after 18 months to remove it. The two-child cap is the savage reality of austerity. It is the embodiment of cruelty, and it pushed children into the depths of poverty.
Seamus Logan
If the hon. Member feels so strongly about the two-child cap, why did he vote to keep it last year?
Frank McNally
I am more than happy to respond to the hon. Gentleman. This Government made it clear that when we had the economic ability to remove the cap, we would do so. It is the prudence of the Chancellor that has allowed it to be removed in full, and that has been done within 18 months. The hon. Gentleman’s Government could have done it eight years ago, and refused to do so. This decision will lift 2,000 children in my community, 95,000 across Scotland and 450,000 across the UK out of poverty. As Gordon Brown observed last week, the Chancellor has done more in this Budget to transform the lives of children in poverty and their families than any of the seven previous Tory Chancellors. This action, combined with significant uplifts in the national minimum wage by 8.5% and the national living wage by more than 4%, will help to tackle the scourge of poverty—and that represents a pay rise for more than 200,000 Scots.
This is a fair Budget, which builds on the Government’s efforts to grow the economy, tackle the cost of living crisis and fight poverty. It puts more money in our constituents’ pockets, and I am proud to support it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Frank McNally Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
I commend the Minister for the announcement of support for those in most need this winter. Given Scotland’s colder climate, does the Minister share my view that, as she has just expressed, the Scottish Government’s decision to cut £200 million from the retrofitting budget is failing people in Coatbridge and Bellshill and across Scotland, and that with record funding from this UK Government in the Budget, they should reverse that cut?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
My hon. Friend is completely right. There is no justification for raiding retrofitting budgets, because we know that is the route by which we upgrade people’s homes to deliver homes that are warmer and cheaper to run. We are doing our bit to drive down energy bills and deliver clean power, which is the route to energy security and financial security. The Scottish Government need to crack on and do their bit.