Christmas Adjournment

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I will be brief. I believe that one of the best uses of time in the future in this Parliament would be a thoughtful consideration of how the devolved Administrations and the UK Parliament can work best together to benefit constituents, particularly constituents in my vast and far-flung part of Scotland.

I shall touch on three subjects this afternoon. I apologise to Members because they have heard me mention them before, but I do feel duty bound to bring them up. The first is broadband. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was quite correct to raise the issues in his own constituency, but, clearly, when someone is dealing with distances as vast as mine, the matter presents particular challenges. In the past, not so very long ago, we saw a bit of backwards and forwards between hon. Members on both sides of this Chamber about whose fault this is. I do not want to get into that, but it does seem to me that, if one could have a get together, a meeting of minds between both levels of government, perhaps we could work together to tackle the issue.

As everyone in this Chamber knows, I am a remainer. Whatever form Brexit Britain takes, we will absolutely need connectivity in the future if we are to compete in a world market. I hope that we can all accept that. Equally, I have mentioned universal credit many times in this Chamber, but the problem that universal credit presents to my constituents is that many of them cannot go online to access it. That is enough said on broadband.

In the north of my constituency is the former nuclear power station, Dounreay, which is being decommissioned. We have a skills base there which is second to none. The challenge for me and for everyone who cares about employment in the far north of Scotland is to see how to utilise those skills in the future in that area. At the Scottish Government level, we have the Highlands and Islands Enterprise trying to encourage development, but we also have the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which is very much a function of Westminster. The more joined up—I know that it is a clichéd phrase—that we can be, the more I can say to the working people of Caithness that we are doing our very best to look to their future to see what we can do.

The temptation for me here in this Chamber is to go down the health route. I am sure that Members of the Scottish National party would yawn if I did that, but I will not do so because I have already covered the subject in some detail. However, what I do want to mention is energy and the production of energy. Today, I have received a letter from a constituent, Mr Murray Threipland, who owns and runs a business in Caithness, Dunbeath Engineering. He has recently got planning permission to build a turbine, which will cost him just short of half a million pounds. That is great; he has got the go-ahead. However, due to problems with the local electricity grid, he cannot export the surplus energy that he is going to make. He is faced with buying a large number of electric heaters and, at night time when he does not need the surplus energy, heating up the night air of Caithness. A nice idea, people may think—it might help get rid of the midges or keep the odd poacher warm, but it does not achieve much else.

We need energy in this country. We need to make as much energy as we can and to do it as efficiently as we can. Again, a joined-up view of government both north and south of the border would be hugely helpful. I take the view—perhaps in slight contradiction to other colleagues here—that the UK is here to stay. Things such as broadband and energy do not respect national boundaries; they are for the good of the UK. The same goes for how we decommission nuclear sites, how we use the skills and how we approach the future.

That is really all I have to say, except, like others, I should like to thank people for all that has been done in this place. I am no longer a new Member—I have been here for six months—and want to say something that is personal to me. I have been touched by the kindness, support and advice that I have received from all parts and all parties of this Chamber. How this place works strikes me as being very, very special, and I am deeply grateful for it.

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I wish the merriest Christmas to Mr Speaker, you and all the other Deputy Speakers, every Member in this House and in the other place as well—not that I frequent it very often—and everyone who works here? Thank you.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Huddleston]

I am happy to have facilitated that discussion.

I wish to thank you, Mr Speaker, and your entire team, and indeed everyone who looks after us—and I do mean looks after us—in this place. From security, the cleaners, and those in hospitality, everybody does a very good job and they do not always receive the praise that they deserve. I also wish to thank my family who go through quite an ordeal living with me, particularly given the lifestyle that we all lead, and I thank my constituents for re-electing me this year, for which I am grateful. I am sure I speak on behalf of all hon. Members when I say that although we are grateful to those who voted for us, we also represent those who did not. All Members across the House take that very seriously, and we do our best to represent the breadth of opinion, although that is sometimes overlooked.

I would like to say a special thank you to three people who have inspired me this year. I am very proud to have got to know them very well. Tracey Hemming runs the Freedom Day Centre and the Freedom Disco in my home village of Badsey. What an inspiration she is. She had an idea about 18 months ago to set up an event for disabled children and those with mental health challenges, and she has done the most fantastic job. I have managed to visit her several times. She is an amazing lady and deserves credit. Diane Bennett runs Caring Hands in the Vale, in Evesham, and runs the local food bank. She is an inspirational lady who I have got to know very well. Up in Droitwich, in the northern part of my constituency, a fantastic gentleman called Patrick Davis is doing a great job of reinvigorating salt production in Droitwich. I am very honoured to live in an area where volunteering and community engagement and involvement is at the heart of people’s day-to-day activities. They are very busy with their jobs and families, but the volunteering is incredible. I have never known anywhere—I have lived and worked abroad for many years—with that degree of dedication. It is an honour to be associated with so many of them.

The issue I would like to raise is something we are not seeing in the Chamber today: intolerance. I am increasingly concerned about the intolerance, abuse and intimidation happening at the extreme ends of both the far right and the far left of British politics. It is not representative or reflective of the day-to-day activity in this place, where we generally get along. We have a lot of banter. We disagree, sometimes vehemently, but I think we all know that having strongly held opinions does not necessarily mean that we are right. We have the self-awareness to realise that we can sometimes be persuaded and that the opposition can be right. We know it is perfectly valid and fair to look at the same data points and have different views and opinions on policies that may come out of them. We have those debates in this place all the time.

Unfortunately, the public do not always see that. At the moment, particularly online, we are seeing an era of really disheartening abuse, vitriol and hatred that does not exist in this place. It is, however, the responsibility of us in this place to say loudly and clearly that that is not acceptable in British politics. If it is associated with any of us in any way shape or form, if somebody uses our name, hashtag or Twitter account to make really vile comments, we must stand up and say, “No, not in my name. I distance myself from those comments. I do not want to be associated with them.” We must be active. Yes the social media companies have a lot to answer for and, yes, we do as Members of Parliament as well, as do those making the vile comments in the first place, but we must stand up and be counted.

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Gentleman should not lose hope. He is right and I absolutely endorse what he says. What we have seen in recent days and weeks has been extremely unpleasant, but three years ago north of the border—I think we can agree on this—it was very bad on both sides of the Scottish independence referendum debate. Since then, however, things have improved and we have worked at it. Progress can be made.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I do indeed have hope, but we have a responsibility to try to lead. It is very unfortunate, but I think we all get people making insinuations about our motivations when we disagree on policy. Very occasionally in this place, it is very disheartening, as well as downright rude, to hear people insinuate that because I am a Tory I must therefore wake up in the morning wanting to hurt poor and disabled people. That is so far from the reality that it is downright offensive and wrong. If anybody believes that, I feel really sorry for them. What kind of mentality must one have to believe the absolute worst of the people one deals with on a day-to-day basis in one’s workplace? That needs to be called out, too. My main concern is not what happens in this place, but what happens online. We really need to work closely to focus on that and I know there is a cross-party consensus.

I said I would end positively. I am very pleased and proud that I am a Member of Parliament for the Conservative party. We do not get everything right, but we listen and we make changes where necessary. I am proud that, for example, we recognised that mistakes had been made with universal credit. We looked at the data, we listened to people—to our constituents, and to other Members of Parliament—and we amended policy. I think that that was right, and I am glad that we did it.

However, we have also got many things right in the first place. I am glad that, as we go into the Christmas period, we are seeing the highest spending ever on the NHS, and more operations than ever are being carried out in the NHS. We are also seeing the highest spending ever on pensions and pensioners, more children in good or outstanding schools than ever before in the nation’s history, and more people than ever before going home with a pay cheque every week and with the decency and honour that comes with earning money. Moreover, unemployment is at a record 45-year low. This has been a difficult and challenging year, but it is not all bad. Let us look at some of the positive developments.

I will play my part in continued cross-party co-operation on all the issues that we care about and our constituents care about, and I look forward to doing that over the next year. In the meantime, I wish a happy Christmas and a happy new year to everyone.