Oral Answers to Questions

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

I would extend that and say that the whole of Scotland voted against independence in 2014. It seems to me that the SNP Government’s strategy is to starve all Scotland’s public services of the vital funding that they require.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

The spending review came off the back of last year’s autumn Budget, which hit businesses in my constituency in north-east Scotland very hard, whether it was family businesses and farms with the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief, or the extension of and increase in the energy profits levy hitting investment in our vital oil and gas sector. What conversations is the Secretary of State having actively with the Treasury to ensure that north-east Scotland does not have to pay the price for this Government’s decisions again next year?

[Ian Murray]

I have had a minimum of 14 billion conversations with the Treasury with regard to funding in Scotland. This is the largest settlement ever in the history of the Scottish Parliament. This Government’s decisions in the October Budget and the spending review have given us the highest growth in the G7, the highest business confidence in a decade, record inward investment, three major trade deals and the conditions for four interest rate cuts, all helping businesses right across Scotland—everything that the hon. Lady and her party voted against.

Spending Review 2025: Scotland

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Graeme Downie]

I think the Government are already moving towards a focus on outcomes for budgeting, and I would like to see more of that.

As my constituency contains a large number of former coalfields, I have been working closely with colleagues on the replacement of the shared prosperity fund and how we can ensure that it delivers skills and investment for young people and opportunities in all parts of the United Kingdom. I can assure the Minister that I will be working with local stakeholders in Dunfermline and Dollar to ensure that our area secures a fair share of the funding that has been allocated for the many great projects that stand to deliver real benefits to my constituents.

Over the next three years, this Labour Government will provide the Scottish Government with an additional £9.1 billion for Scottish public services. That is the largest settlement in real terms since devolution began, and a historic opportunity for the Scottish Government to invest in the NHS, police, housing and schools—services that are the bedrock of our society, yet are the root cause of much of the correspondence I receive from constituents who are being failed by the current Scottish Government in Holyrood.

One year on from a housing emergency being declared, house building is down in Scotland, and 10,000 children remain in temporary accommodation, with no home to call their own. Indeed, as a former Fife councillor, I know that Fife council is still in the unenviable position of knowing that it breaks the law every single day when it comes to housing, because of the salami-slicing of local government budgets by the Scottish Government. That the SNP Scottish Government knowingly preside over such a situation is unfathomable, having taken their eye off multiple balls during their disastrous time in power.

I must also express my concern that, no matter how much funding is made available, the Government in Holyrood continue to fall back on a familiar pattern of whingeing and wasting. We have seen this time and again, from the mismanagement of ferry contracts to the establishment of overseas embassies that serve little practical purpose beyond a vanity project and a residence for the Minister to have a very nice time on holidays funded by the public purse.

This morning I looked over the caseload in my office, and a third of cases received are from people with problems relating to devolved policy areas. So fed up are the people of Dunfermline and Dollar by the myriad failures of the SNP that they know the best place to come for help is Scottish Labour MPs and a UK Labour Government. This morning, we learned that more Scottish public money will be spent on defending the former chief executive of the SNP in a court case about a caravan found in my constituency.

In England, the UK Labour Government have recruited more than 1,500 GPs since 1 October thanks to Government action and the digitisation of the health service in England progressing more quickly. Meanwhile, in this place I have had to raise issues including access for little boys to timely medical help for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a lack of local dentists, and care and support for those with Parkinson’s. I am also aware of the case of Vicki Tocher, a constituent of mine who has been battling for almost a year to get her eight-year-old son, Issac, in front of doctors after he suffered a traumatic brain injury while at school.

In Scotland we see delays to national treatment centres. One in six Scots is on an NHS waiting list, there are 50,000 fewer operations than before the pandemic, and a record number have been forced to turn to private healthcare. In February, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said that the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E in Scotland is 99 times higher than it was 14 years ago.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

The Scottish Conservatives have suggested that we should be prioritising Scottish-based students for medical places at university, because they are much more likely to stay in the UK and therefore contribute to our workforce. Would the hon. Gentleman support that to help the backlog and health services in Scotland?

[Graeme Downie]

We have actually seen announcements from the UK Health Secretary about prioritising UK students.

In my constituency, a new GP surgery in Kincardine has been promised for well over a decade, but is still awaiting Government funding. That village in the west of my constituency is growing, and its current GP surgery, which is little more than a cottage that used to be a police station, has been there for more than 120 years.

On digitisation, there has been better news in Scotland in the past couple of weeks. The NHS Scotland digital app will launch later this year; however, it will work only in dermatology and one NHS board. I am sure I could make jokes about rash decisions and the SNP getting under people’s skin, but these critical issues are having a real impact across the country. There is a real risk that as football clubs across Scotland begin pre-season training, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care might stop visiting hospitals and go back to last season’s failed tactics of being driven to the pub and between football grounds.

The spending review, driven by the UK Labour Government, rightly puts faith in our young people and the future. It includes investment in AI and the nuclear and defence sectors, alongside £1.2 billion for training and apprenticeships, designed to equip the next generation with skills and give them the opportunities they deserve. Yet in my constituency, Fife college has warned of cuts to courses and campus closures due to the mismanagement of the Scottish budget by the SNP. That is a betrayal of our young people’s potential, and takes money away from the working class kids of Fife to prop up its own failures in higher and further education elsewhere in the country.

While the UK Labour Government are investing in regional transport across England, in Scotland rail fares have increased three times since March 2024 and we have lost 1,400 bus routes since the SNP came to power—something my constituents feel strongly and keenly because of the rural nature of the constituency, including Dollar, Muckhart and the west Fife villages. That is not progress but regression, and is particularly challenging for the rural parts of my constituency.

Moreover, the ideological objection in Scotland to nuclear power and the refusal to embrace new small modular reactors will cost Scotland dearly. We are losing out on jobs, investment and the opportunity to secure our energy future. That is not just short-sighted but a dereliction of duty.

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[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to be with you this morning, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) on securing the debate and on making the points that he made.

The hon. Member, like other Labour Members, in particular, seems to like talking about the Scottish Government, who are not answerable to this place, rather than the UK Government, who are. To be fair, I am not surprised. We saw after last night’s debacle that they would rather talk about anything but the Labour Government, who have delivered very little over the past year apart from chaos and a continuation of failed Conservative policies—not much change there.

The fact is that this place still has a profound impact on the Scottish Parliament. It is where the majority of its budget comes from and it has a huge impact on the policies that can be pursued in the Scottish Parliament, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) will be well aware as a founding member of that institution, which he rightly highlighted. Scotland is still hampered by migration policies and the hostile environment, as we have witnessed recently at the University of Dundee, whose losses are overwhelmingly attributable to the drop in international students as a direct result of those policies.

[Harriet Cross]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Gethins]

On that point, gladly.

[Harriet Cross]

I thank the hon. Member so much for giving way so gladly. I have visited universities recently, too, and they also point to the real-terms cut in funding from the Scottish Government having a real impact on their budgets. In the interests of fairness, will he reflect on that too?

[Stephen Gethins]

I will gladly reflect on that, but I make the point to the hon. Lady—let us take universities as an example—that at the University of Dundee, the difference between Scottish and English fee income would not even have covered the national insurance increase, and that increase was further dwarfed by the reduction in international student income. Under the Conservative Government, universities had been encouraged to go out and recruit internationally, and they were joined in that venture by Ministers before the Conservatives changed their mind.

I am sure that we will all agree that the internationalisation of our universities has been a positive thing. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: it has been a privilege to work at the University of St Andrews, where internationalisation enhances both the learning process and the research, making us all better off in the process. However, the changes to migration policy had so great an impact—I am sure that the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) will agree with me about this—that I asked the Home Secretary to come to Dundee and visit the institution, just to see and learn. She refused. Perhaps the Minister could encourage another Home Office Minister to visit.

I touched earlier on national insurance increases, which are hobbling businesses and therefore growth. Those have a particular impact on small businesses, which cannot expand or recruit. That has been raised not just by me and my SNP colleagues, but by other colleagues in the House. Even though Labour MPs want to do anything but talk about a Labour Government —that is quite telling in its own right—the increases have an impact, and the Labour Government deserve to be held to account.

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[Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John, and to speak in today’s debate; I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) on securing it. This spending review marks a turning point for Scotland. After years of stagnation under two failing Governments—the Tories in Westminster and the SNP in Holyrood—this UK Labour Government are delivering the change that Scotland so desperately needs. This is the most generous funding settlement for Scotland in the history of devolution. Over the next three years, the Scottish Government will receive an extra £9.1 billion for public services in Scotland. That is not rhetoric—that is real investment. Labour is ending austerity and restoring fairness.

That record money is a powerful opportunity to rebuild Scotland’s NHS, our schools, our transport system and our housing stock. The problem is that we cannot trust the SNP Government to use that money wisely. For too long, Scotland has seen taxpayers’ money squandered by a Government with no strategy and no clue what they are doing. After almost two decades in power, the SNP have lost their way and have now failed to deliver on the basic promise of competent government. They declared a housing emergency then slashed the housing budget. They promised 130,000 green jobs by 2020 and delivered almost none. They pledged £80 million for the Acorn carbon capture and storage project in 2022, and that money remains unpaid. Locally, residents, the local NHS and clinicians have all said that the East Calder medical centre needs to be replaced. The SNP Government have given warm words to that community, but they have nowhere near delivered anything. They have the money now to deliver a new medical centre in East Calder. They should get on and do it.

Meanwhile, the UK Labour Government are investing in our clean energy future, with £2.3 billion for nuclear energy and SMRs, but the SNP’s ideological block to new nuclear power means Scotland is missing out on jobs and investment.

[Harriet Cross]

The hon. Gentleman talks about ideological blocks. The oil and gas sector, as he well knows, is crucial to Scotland, especially to the north-east of Scotland. Allowing it to flourish and to be supported into the future will have just as much of an economic benefit. Will he reflect on that and perhaps have a word with his Front Benchers, to try to persuade them that supporting the oil and gas sector has benefits for the whole of Scotland and the UK, particularly at the moment, when we are suffering so much with economic growth?

[Gregor Poynton]

I agree with the hon. Lady on that point; I think the oil and gas sector is vital. I am on the record saying that I support Rosebank and Jackdaw, and I think we should get on and do it. We need to invest in that sector, because ultimately, those are the people with the skills and supply chains that will allow us to transition to the green jobs of the future, at the same time as securing jobs now. I agree with much of what she said.

The SNP Government have presided over an NHS in crisis, with one in six Scots on a waiting list and a generation of young people growing up in temporary accommodation. They have no plan and no urgency, and we have seen absolutely no progress. That is why next year’s Scottish Parliament election is so important. If Scotland is to make the most of this historic Labour investment, we need a Scottish Government we can trust, and that means voting for change. It means voting for a Scottish Labour Government. When Labour governs, we do not just talk about fairness; we fund it and deliver it.

Let me turn to what the spending review means for my Livingston constituency. I am proud to represent a community with ambition and innovation at its core. Now, thanks to Labour’s investment, that potential has been matched by real support. The Falkirk and Grangemouth growth deal, with £100 million in joint funding for both the UK and Scottish Governments, is a huge vote of confidence in our region’s industrial future. Grangemouth, just down the road, is key to Scotland’s energy transition, and the Labour Government are stepping up where others have failed.

The spending review also confirms £750 million for a new national supercomputer in Edinburgh, which places Scotland at the forefront of high-performance computing. That is not abstract. It means new opportunities for medtech, life sciences and clean tech industries in my constituency. These are well-paid, high-skill, high-quality jobs for my constituents. Scotland is also now benefiting from £8.3 billion for Great British Energy, headquartered in Aberdeen, ensuring that we lead the world in clean, affordable and home-grown energy. For our communities, the spending review has delivered £234 million in new local investment funds, empowering towns and local councils to invest in what really matters to people: revitalising high streets, upgrading infrastructure and supporting jobs and investment.

Let us not forget our role in global trade, too. Thanks to the Government’s leadership, new trade deals are opening doors for iconic Scottish products. In India, Scotch whisky, our largest export, is getting a tariff cut, boosting a £180 million market. US steel tariffs have come down, helping manufacturing jobs across the UK, including in Scotland.

That is what serious government looks like: ambition backed by delivery, and investment guided by our values. The spending review represents a huge opportunity for Scotland, but only if we have a Government in Holyrood who can rise to the moment, and that means change. The SNP Government have had their chance, and after nearly two decades, frankly, if they were going to fix our NHS, deliver green jobs or improve education, they would have done it by now. They did not, they cannot and they will not. It is time for a Scottish Labour Government who will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

The leader of the SNP in this House voted against the setting up of Great British Energy in his constituency, which is creating jobs in Scotland. He is against the EU trade deal, he is against the US trade deal, he is against the India trade deal; he is bad for jobs and should go.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

Towns and villages across north-east Scotland, such as Aberdeen, and Inverurie, Kintore and Ellon in my constituency, will all need regenerating in future if the Secretary of State’s Government keep decimating the oil and gas sector. The best thing his Government can do for the north-east of Scotland is allow new licences and cut the increase to the energy profits levy. Will he commit to that? Otherwise, more and more money will need to be put into north-east Scotland to regenerate our towns in future.

[Ian Murray]

This Government are putting money into Scottish towns to regenerate them. As we keep saying from this Dispatch Box, oil and gas will be with us for decades to come. The industry itself is making the transition, and we have to make sure that it happens, and happens for the benefit of workers in the north-east and all over Scotland. I am not even sure, however, that it is a transition that the hon. Lady and the Conservative party now back.

Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Harriet Cross Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

We will also have enjoyed berries from Perthshire—and even Aberdeenshire. All of that depends on migration. I know that, in order to improve their work here, Members will try, whenever possible, to engage with and listen to constituents. I am not asking us all to come to the same conclusion, but it is in that engagement that we all seek to do our work better.

The hospitality and tourism industry is vital for rural and remote communities, for every sector in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. Leon Thompson, the executive director of UKHospitality Scotland, says:

“The hospitality and tourism industry across Scotland has been calling for a Scotland visa for some time. We believe it really is one of the ways in which we can help address the skills and workforce shortage that we have in the industry.”

The Scottish Tourism Alliance says:

“Failure to find a tailored solution risks having a further detrimental impact on the economy and opportunities for economic growth”

as staff shortages are leading to tourism and hospitality businesses closing for longer outside the summer visit season, reducing opening hours and shutting down certain services, such as food offers in hotels.

Regardless of our own thoughts, we can see straightaway the impact that has on growth and the sustainability of our services. The Scottish Tourism Alliance also says:

“Introducing a Scottish specific visa scheme not only would match immigration to the demand for certain skills”—

as it has done for centuries—

“but also encourage more people coming to live and work in Scotland, particularly in rural and island communities that are experiencing a drain in people of working age and families.”

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way and for bringing forward this debate, which is interesting if nothing else. How does the SNP suggest we encourage people to live in Scotland, and particularly rural Scotland, given that anyone in Scotland earning over £28,500 pays more income tax; local government has a £760 billion-odd shortfall, which affects rural communities more, given how money is spent over a larger area; and Scotland has a housing crisis? How do those things attract people?

[Stephen Gethins]

I will maybe leave aside some of the hon. Lady’s sums—I am not sure whether she has been reading Labour briefings—but she does make a valuable point about rural areas, and I acknowledge her commitment to her constituency and her rural background. I commend her for the way she conducts herself in this place. There are a number of points here.

We know that bringing workers to rural areas, and the very high threshold to bring people into the country, is a challenge—that is not new—which is why so many rural industries have been calling out for a Scottish visa system to plug that gap. What is Scottish Government policy? Well, we have talked with our Labour colleagues —although not, I would expect, the Conservative party, for ideological reasons—about having a more progressive taxation system in which those who earn less pay less, and those who earn more pay more. I will not criticise the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), who stood for election on a Conservative manifesto and won, but I am always surprised that the Labour party does not take the opportunity to endorse such a system more strongly.

Some 70% of the Scottish Government’s budget still comes in the form of a block grant from Westminster—that is a huge amount. For all the talk we have heard of decentralisation, empowerment and so on, why do we not have a more sensible approach to that?

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[Ian Murray]

We should not rerun the Brexit debate in this House, but it is worth acknowledging that the Bill is written in a different way from what the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry wants to deliver. He wants to pretend that it will go to Committee, and we will all sit around the campfire with marshmallows and decide on a wonderful way forward, but that is not what the Bill says.

My hon. Friend gets to the heart of the problem, because ultimately this is all to do with the advancement of the Scottish National party’s independence agenda. Nothing else gets them out of bed in the morning. I get out of bed in the morning to try to make sure that everybody in this country, including in my constituency, has better lives and better opportunities. SNP Members get out of bed to push for independence. That is the difference. When the Division bells rang on that occasion—I remember it very well—everybody thought that the vote would be carried. Those SNP Members sat on their hands and the vote was lost by six. All their credibility in trying to push something else through was completely shot at that moment—and do not forget that they also pushed for the 2019 general election at the same time.

I will now canter through page 2 of my speech. It is important for us to work together to ensure positive integration outcomes and improved processes overall. Let me turn to the valuable contribution that workers from overseas make to our economy, our public services and national life throughout the United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has highlighted, the remote parts of Scotland face depopulation issues, and they have for a long time—I talk to my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) about this on a regular basis. Skills shortages also remain across Scotland, as they do in different places across the UK. Indeed, according to the latest population projections from the National Records of Scotland, the factors driving population change are exactly the same across the whole United Kingdom.

[Harriet Cross]

The Secretary of State mentions depopulation in rural areas of Scotland and deskilling. North-east Scotland—as I am sure he is aware, because we have mentioned it more than once in this Chamber—is facing exactly that because of Labour’s policies on the North sea. Skills are being driven abroad at an unimaginable rate compared with the rest of the UK. We are depopulating and deskilling the north-east of Scotland because of Labour’s North sea oil and gas policies. Will he reflect on that or at least accept that that is the impact Labour is having on north-east Scotland?

[Ian Murray]

I was in the north-east of Scotland yesterday, in Buckie, turning on one of the largest offshore wind farms. Ocean Winds employs 45 to 70 local people from a 40-mile radius from Buckie. That is the kind of opportunity there is. Most of the people in Ocean Winds were from the oil and gas sector. There is no disagreement about the challenge, which is about how we transition a world-class, highly skilled workforce from an industry that is declining because of the age and maturity of the basin to the new opportunities and industry. There is no doubt that the green revolution is one of the biggest economic opportunities this country has had in generations, and we need grab hold of it. I also met Offshore Energies UK yesterday and had very productive discussions its representatives about Government policy and the consultation on the North sea transition. Those discussions will obviously continue.

These issues—as I have laid out, based on the National Records of Scotland—are not unique to Scotland, nor have they been solved by the increase in net migration in recent years. The Bill would not address the issues that the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has raised, because the reasons that the resident population moves away from an area will also encourage any migrant population to follow suit as soon as they are allowed. The former Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire, mentioned Quebec. I have tried to have this checked—if it is slightly incorrect, I will write to the hon. Gentleman—but when I was in Quebec back in 2013, it had introduced a particular social care visa because it had a particular social care problem. It had to scrap that visa, because after the end of the two-year restrictions, everyone moved to other parts of Canada to work. Most went to Alberta to work in the oil and gas sector. That is a key point about having a different system from the one that is part of those net migration figures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of not issuing new North sea oil and gas licences on levels of economic growth in Scotland.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

15. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of not issuing new North sea oil and gas licences on levels of economic growth in Scotland.

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[Ian Murray]

The national mission of this Labour Government is to get to clean power by 2030, but that means three things: renewable power, nuclear power, and oil and gas. As I have said already, oil and gas will be with us in the Scottish and UK context for decades to come.

[Harriet Cross]

A recent report by Offshore Energies UK showed that if the UK oil and gas basin continued to be used until 2050, it could produce half our oil and gas needs. That would do wonders for jobs in the north-east of Scotland, the north-east economy, our energy security and the energy transition, and it would also bring in £12 billion to the Treasury. On top of that, it would bring in £150 billion of economic growth to the UK, which I am sure everyone in this House and the Government would welcome. Will the Secretary of State please have a word with the Energy Secretary and ask him to stop his policies, which are continuing to ruin our oil and gas sector, and for once back north-east Scotland?

[Ian Murray]

On the oil and gas sector in 2050, I have already mentioned at the Dispatch Box, as has the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, that oil and gas will be with us for decades to come, including to 2050.

Budget: Scotland

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gregor Poynton]

We have delivered the largest budget settlement in the history of devolution—that is the end of austerity. [Interruption.] Well, you have it to spend.

SNP decisions have left a black hole in Scotland’s finances. The billions in extra cash delivered in this Budget must not be used simply to cover up the SNP’s “buy now and pay later” policies. That money must reach the frontline, to bring down waiting lists and drive up educational standards. The SNP has nowhere to hide now.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

The changes to national insurance contributions mean that Aberdeenshire council has to find an extra £13 million in its budget this year. How will that help with education standards and health in Aberdeenshire?

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[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) on securing this debate, although I find it odd that Scottish MPs have been celebrating the Budget, as if it was the best thing ever to come to Scotland, given that it is nothing short of disastrous for so many of the key sectors that underpin Scotland’s economy, communities and livelihoods.

The Chancellor spoke, and still does, about protecting working people—and, indeed, about growing the economy in order to help working people—yet her decision to increase employers’ national insurance contributions does exactly the opposite. This £25 billion tax grab from businesses impacts on their resilience, growth, investments, hiring decisions and longevity. The scale of this tax rise and the betrayal by Labour, who promised not to raise taxes on working people, including national insurance, is completely unprecedented.

For the avoidance of any doubt, and because I know that Labour seems to struggle with this, business owners are working people, and they employ working people—they are working people who contract working people and supply working people, who then can work elsewhere. This NICs rise is a tax on working people across Scotland and the UK, and there is no credible way that that can be denied. It is also an up-front tax and a tax for having employees. Businesses pay it just for having employees on the books, before they even open their doors. Take weeks like this in Scotland, including in my Gordon and Buchan constituency, where many businesses have not opened because of snow and ice; the bill for this tax is still racking up, despite them not being able to trade.

Of course, the effects of NICs are felt more widely, not just by businesses. Charities, GPs, pharmacies and local authorities are all also impacted. I have met with my local medical practice in Inverurie, and its NICs bill is going up by £75,000. It cannot pass on that cost, and if it reduced services, its funding would be reduced. What do the Labour MPs who are celebrating the Budget suggest that that practice should do? As I have mentioned, Aberdeenshire council now needs to find £13 million to cover the NICs rises, and that is on top of the £40 million black hole it already faced due to north-east councils being so poorly funded by the Scottish Government.

Moving on to other matters, the changes to business property relief and agricultural property relief are cynical, cruel, misguided and absolutely damaging to the key sectors of our economy. Family businesses up and down the country, including in Scotland, are the backbone of our economy. These changes will decimate family businesses, who have been nurturing for generations, who are the centre of their communities and who employ over 14 million people nationwide. The changes to APR, which I have spoken about a lot, demonstrate the Government’s complete disconnect from rural farming and ways of life. We know that the Treasury figures are incomplete. They do not consider farms where only BPR had been claimed. Labour seems to think that all farmers are married, that both spouses will be able to pass on the farm at the same time and that, effectively, it is okay to force farmers into early retirement—for them to have to leave their family home or pay full market rent to stay at the property where they have lived their entire lives.

The Treasury is hiding behind the claim that only 2,000 estates will be affected, but the Country Land and Business Association, the National Farmers Union and the National Farmers Union of Scotland say that the number of farms affected will be more like 70,000. These figures need to be considered. The Chancellor, as we know, is literally making farmers decide between selling their farm, their land, their buildings or their machinery to raise the funds. This will leave farms commercially unavailable or severely damaged, and we are talking about farms in our constituencies across Scotland, including many of those of the Labour Members here.

We have heard others talking about whisky, so I will touch on that just briefly. The Prime Minister stood in a whisky distillery in Scotland and promised to back the Scotch whisky industry to the hilt, but he failed to mention that he was going to increase tax by 3.6%, bringing the tax on a bottle of whisky to over £12 for the first time.

[Dr Arthur]

The hon. Lady is making heartfelt points, but we are yet again hearing a long list of our money-raising initiatives that the Conservatives opposed while being cheered on by their SNP colleagues. I would be interested to know how the Conservatives would have raised the money needed to get public services in Scotland back on track. An extra £5 billion is going to the Scottish Government to fund services such as the NHS in my constituency and in the hon. Lady’s constituency. Where would her party have found that money?

[Harriet Cross]

As I said, the Government can give with one hand and take with the other, which is what is happening with NICs; they are taking that money out of councils, so the increase is completely irrelevant. The removal of the ringfence from some budgets has meant that there has been no real-terms increase in the rural affairs budget in Scotland, and that has impacted our farmers—it goes round in circles.

On oil and gas, the changes to the energy profits levy and the removal of the investment allowances in the Budget had an instant impact. Apache announced very soon afterwards that it would pull out of the North sea, citing the onerous impact of the EPL. The Aberdeen and Grampian chamber of commerce warned that 100,000 jobs are at risk, and Offshore Energies UK said that 35,000 jobs tied to specific projects are at risk. Those changes in the Budget have real-life consequences across Scotland, but particularly in Gordon and Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen and north-east Scotland.

The Budget shows the Labour Government’s fundamental misunderstanding and undermining of Scotland’s economy and communities. From family farms and businesses to distilleries, our energy sector and the high street, the Government have chosen to burden, rather than support, businesses across Scotland.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

We are going to have to go down to an informal three-minute limit to get everyone in.

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[Harriet Cross]

That means, therefore, that 60% went to everyone else—that 60% of farms in this country rely on APR to pass their farms down to the next generation. They rely on BPR as well. This is the next generation of farmers who provide our food security and who employ people in local and rural areas. Does the Minister not think that that is a really important thing to maintain?

[Kirsty McNeill]

As the hon. Member will be aware, each year almost three quarters of estates eligible for APR in the UK are expected to be entirely unaffected by these fair and proportionate changes. Ours was a Budget, just as this is a Government, squarely for working people. The hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) complained of the tax burden. Unlike the SNP Scottish Government, which simply want to clobber teachers and nurses with ever higher taxes, we have delivered on our pledge not to increase national insurance or VAT on working people in Scotland. That means that they will not, thanks to this Budget, see higher taxes in their payslips.

Hundreds of thousands of workers in Scotland will benefit from an increase in the national living wage and a record increase to the national minimum wage. The Chancellor made the decision to protect working people in Scotland from being dragged into higher tax brackets by confirming that the freeze on national insurance contribution thresholds will be lifted from 2028-29 onwards, rising in line with inflation, so that people can keep more of their hard-earned wages.

We have begun the difficult work of restitching our fraying safety net. Thousands of Scottish households will be £420 a year better off on average, as a result of our change to the universal credit fair repayment rate. Around 1.7 million families in Scotland will see their working-age benefits uprated in line with inflation, a £150 gain on average, in 2025-26. Maintaining the triple lock means an increase in the state pension of £470 next year, on top of £900 this year, for 1 million Scottish pensioners.

Let me pay special tribute to the campaigners and fellow trade unionists who fought for changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme. Thanks to their efforts and the decisions of this Labour Government, nearly 7,000 retired mineworkers in Scotland will get an extra £1,500 on average in their pension. Finally, that is justice for those who powered our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty McNeill]

I will make some progress. I have been listening very intently to the speeches and chuntering from some hon. Members; I have not been taking any notes on economic credibility. The Fraser of Allander Institute, Audit Scotland and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have all confirmed that the challenges in Scotland’s public finances are a mess of the SNP’s making. As for the party that brought us Liz Truss, the verdict of the people of South West Norfolk tells us all we need to know.

I urge everyone instead to listen to my hon. Friends the Members for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), for Airdrie and Shotts (Kenneth Stevenson), for Glasgow East (John Grady), for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) and for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) about how to get Scotland growing. Our objective is not simply to rescue our economy from the havoc wrought by the Conservatives, but to grow it. That is why we support Great British Energy, providing £125 million next year to set up the institution at its new home in Aberdeen. That is a huge boost to the granite city, inexplicably voted against by the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) and his fellow SNP MPs, all sent here to deliver for their constituents but who instead sought to sabotage investment that would benefit them.

I am also pleased that we have been able to confirm our commitment to invest nearly £1.4 billion into important local projects across Scotland over the next 10 years.

[Harriet Cross]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kirsty McNeill]

I will make some progress. We have also confirmed that all 12 regions of Scotland will be covered by a growth deal. Our investments include nearly £890 million of direct investment into freeports and investment zones, the Argyll and Bute growth deal and other important local projects across Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I do. First, it is great that Oasis are back together—from what I have determined, about half the country was probably queuing for tickets over the weekend—but it is depressing to hear of price hikes. I am committed to putting fans at the heart of music and ending extortionate resales, and we are starting a consultation to work out how best we can do that.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

Q5. Offshore Energies UK reports that the Government’s proposed windfall tax increases will cost our economy £13 billion, risk 35,000 jobs and see investment in the North sea slashed from £14.1 billion to just £2.3 billion by 2029. It also suggests that there will be a £12 billion cost in tax revenues. How does this proposal chime with the Prime Minister’s goal of economic growth, and will he reverse this tax increase, which industry leaders are calling economic suicide for the oil and gas sector?

[The Prime Minister]

We are committed to the necessary transition to renewable energy, which will lead to cheaper energy, energy independence and the jobs of the future. But let me be clear: oil and gas will play their part for many years to come, and that is why I have been clear about the support that we have for them. I am sure the hon. Member and others will want to celebrate the fact that, just this week, contracts for difference secured a record 131 new clean energy projects—enough to power 11 million homes—and they are the jobs of the future.