Easter Adjournment

Graeme Downie Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)]

I wish briefly to cover three things in this debate. First, the world as we know it has changed drastically in the nine months since the general election. To our constituents, those threats can sometimes feel abstract and distant, but we know that it is our constituents who will feel the pain in their pockets, and it is probably those who have the least who will be rocked most by the destruction and chaos we see all around us.

Some of those threats have meant that difficult decisions have had to be taken, including the reduction in overseas aid to fund necessary increases in defence spending over this Parliament and the next. I remain of the opinion that even those increases might not be enough to counter the new security threats that we face. If this period is to be remembered by history as one of instability and global shifts, let it also be remembered as a time when we endeavoured to build a new foundation that helped future generations to succeed and build a better world.

Our response to those threats must be to invest in our young people and their aspirations, opportunities and skills. Not only will necessary increases in defence spending support thousands of jobs, but as necessity is the mother of invention, the new conditions create an unmissable opportunity for investment in innovative engineering and high-tech skills that can be applied in other sectors. In my constituency, those opportunities are widespread, whether at the port of Rosyth, which is increasingly becoming a hub for renewables, or at the hoped for redevelopment of the Longannet generating station.

My second point follows from a consideration of that future: the imperative to invest in skills. We must invest in skills for the long term by working better with further education establishments, such as Fife college in my constituency, and building better links with businesses. Sadly, in Scotland that link with businesses is lacking, and a stalled skills agenda is failing our talented and ambitious young people. Businesses of all sizes in my constituency have told me that they are increasingly using, or considering using, City & Guilds or similar training modules in England, and not even bothering to have discussions with the Scottish Qualifications Authority, such is the long, laborious and bureaucratic process. The Scottish National party’s abject failure on skills will have long-term implications for young people across the country.

If we are to make the future truly one for the next generation, we must support those young people to build that future. That firstly means stopping demonising young people, who have struggled with more once-in-a-lifetime crises by this stage of their lives than any other generation, from credit crunches and pandemics to political instability and uncertainty at home and around the world. They have seen services and support for them eradicated, chances to get on the housing ladder vanish, and secure long-term employment become a pipe dream, and all while wealth sits with the generations of their parents and grandparents.

This Parliament must not continue the trend of giving only to the older generations. Without engaging and energising younger people, there will be no money left by the time people of my age hope to retire. Young people are not asking for mango sorbet and Malbec, but for respect and understanding, and that is what we should be giving them. Antisocial behaviour and crime are not the preserve of the young; alcohol and drug misuse is rising in people of older generations, not among younger people; and tolerance of others is much higher among younger people than among people my age and older, as everyone in this House will attest from our encounters on social media and our dealings with some constituents.

As we enter the recess, we should remember that we are still very much in the early stages of this Parliament, and yet we have already seen unprecedented turmoil and change that is shaping our future. While much of that might be outside the control of the Government, it is vital that our response is to enshrine in place the right foundations, built with confidence and commitment, for the future of young people and our country, because the two are indivisible. If we do not leave this place in a better condition for those who follow us, then all that we strive for is, after all, for naught.