Contingencies Fund (No. 2) Bill

Jamie Stone Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

May I use this opportunity to personally thank the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who has met the gaps in support all-party parliamentary group several times over the last few weeks? That was good of him, and it has been a constructive relationship with Opposition MPs.

That takes me to the first of two brief points that I want to make. Clearly my constituency is very different from other constituencies. It is vast, it is very far away, and we have particular challenges with distance, sparsity of population and even temperature. During the pandemic, my constituency has had particular problems to be dealt with. I understand, and indeed I support, the mechanism that we are debating, which is about getting the money to where it is needed at the right speed. It might be useful if the Government agreed to meet Opposition MPs such as myself slightly more often, to look at the overall package and how it is hitting or not hitting where it should.

I will give one example. I have said many times in the House that businesses involved in tourism and hospitality are fundamental to the economy of my constituency and, indeed, of all the highlands and islands. The package of support during the pandemic needs to be best tailored to ensuring that those businesses can be got off their knees and got going again once the pandemic starts to recede. It would be tragic if we lost any of those businesses during this time, because that would impoverish our tourism product, which people come from not only most of the UK but all over the world to see.

We need a tailored package for tourism and hospitality businesses, and I am happy to talk to the Government about that. There is a precedent. Last summer, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster came to my constituency, and, as he will agree, we had a constructive meeting with tourism businesses, which was helpful. I am quite open about this: I will work with a Minister of any political colour if it is for the betterment of my constituents and the economy of my constituency.

The second and final point I want to make is one that needs to be stressed. A lot of this money is going to the devolved institutions—the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Government. I support the Secretary of State for Scotland’s plea that, when the pandemic is over, we look at what the Scottish Government have actually spent the money on. As other Members have said, this is not our money—it is public money; it is taxpayers’ money—and I want to be absolutely sure that it has been used in the most prudent fashion by the Scottish Government and has gone where it should have gone. I support the Scottish Secretary’s plea for some sort of audit, balance sheet or, if you like, profit and loss account to be produced at the end of this.

I have listened to the debate with the greatest of interest—there have been some very high-quality speeches—and I shall listen to the rest with great interest.