Jamie Stone
Main Page: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)Department Debates - View all Jamie Stone's debates with the Scotland Office
(2 days, 20 hours ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz—and I mean that most genuinely. One of the things Members should never do in this place is bore the House, but I am afraid that I am about to do so, because I am going to sound like a cracked record.
How many times have I mentioned the ongoing scandal of pregnant mothers having to travel a 200-mile round trip from Caithness to Inverness to give birth? In weather like the stuff we are having right now in the north of Scotland, you have to be joking. The A9 was blocked at Helmsdale a view days ago, and thank God no pregnant mum tried to make the journey down to Inverness. I have gone on again and again to the Scottish Government about having a safety audit done on this perilous policy. We had a consultant-led maternity service based in Wick in Caithness.
Torcuil Crichton
I take what the hon. Member says about pregnant mothers having to travel long distances. In my own constituency, pregnant mothers have to travel two weeks before their baby is due to another island where they are given an overnight allowance of some £50 or £60 in a tourism economy where beds cost £120—so they are having to pay out of their own pocket for their pregnancy.
Jamie Stone
It is a nonsense. Constituents like the hon. Gentleman’s and mine are losing out and have lost out for years. We had a consultant-led maternity service in Caithness until, hey presto, this SNP Government took over; very shortly after, it was downgraded and got rid of—as simple as that. I and others have written to John Swinney inviting him to come north to Wick to get in the back of an ambulance in winter and make the journey for himself to see what it is like. I do not believe we have had an answer, and I expect a dusty one when it comes. It is a scandal and a disgrace, and it is on the watch of the SNP Government.
Right now, we have one psychiatrist in the north of Scotland—just one—and we have a huge problem with the mental health of young people. This morning I rang a mother from Caithness, Kirsteen Campbell, who thinks it will be two or three years before her child can be seen by a professional to sort out their problem. During the election, I spoke to a mother in Evanton in Easter Ross, who told me how her child—who I will not name for obvious reasons—had not been to school for a number of years because the school could not deal with the issues that this poor, wretched child had. It is a scandal.
In the short time available, I have given just two examples of failures. Turning to the subject of debate, I sincerely hope and pray that the Scottish Government will use this extra money to address these issues finally, before it is too late and something terrible happens on the youth mental health front or a mother or child loses their life. We had an issue where a mother was pregnant with twins, but one twin was born in Golspie and the other had to be born in Inverness. Imagine how awful that is for a family—it is a shocker.
I close with this: the two issues I have outlined are issues that really, really matter to ordinary people. We can talk about this or that in politics, but these are the big, chunky issues on the doorsteps. People are not stupid out there. I hear my good friends in the SNP sitting to my left, and they are good personal friends, but something happened in July, when the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) was returned with the bump that he was and when my majority went up from 204 to just 11 votes shy of 10,500. That, I think, is the Scottish people telling us something, and anyone who does not listen to that is simply whistling in the hurricane.
Kenneth Stevenson (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) for securing this debate.
It is right that we recognise the positive impact the Budget will have on Scotland. For too long residents in my Airdrie and Shotts constituency have been let down by Governments who have treated working people as an afterthought. They have been let down by incompetence from Conservative Governments here in Westminster and SNP Governments in Holyrood. They have felt the impacts in their pockets and can see the impacts in their depleted public services. However, this Budget puts us on a positive journey towards changing that.
The Budget delivers the largest settlement for Scotland since devolution. It will allow potential to be unlocked and public services to be invested in. It is a Budget that has ended the era of Tory austerity, puts working people back to the forefront and prioritises economic growth. It is a transformative Budget that has been a long time coming, and it is little surprise that it is a Labour Government delivering it.
I thought the Scottish Government would be pleased with the settlement they have received from the UK Labour Government. It has given them the opportunity to right the wrongs of their almost 20 years of mismanagement and incompetence and deliver a budget that works for Scotland’s working people.
Jamie Stone
Does the hon. Gentleman, who is making an excellent contribution, agree that the reason why the SNP Government did not welcome the announcement was that the Labour Government successfully shot the fox?
Kenneth Stevenson
I entirely agree, and we could go on. We could go on about the promised 800 GPs that are missing. We could go on about ferries. We could go on about everything. We could go on about selling off the seabed for well under what was required and not having any manufacturing input in Scotland for wind turbines or solar or any advanced manufacturing.