Oral Answers to Questions

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I was with the hon. Lady until her last point. I certainly think that racism in football is utterly disgusting and should be stamped out at every possible opportunity. She will have seen what happened in Bulgaria. I am delighted to say that the head of the Bulgarian football association was dismissed from his position as a result of what happened in that match. We will certainly be making sure that we do everything we can to stamp out racism of any kind, wherever it takes place in this society and whatever form it takes.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Connectivity across Angus is one of the most urgent issues in my constituency and I want to see full coverage: mobile roll-out throughout my constituency. I therefore wholeheartedly support the shared rural network initiative, which is a joint initiative between the Government and the four main mobile providers ensuring that we have masts in “not spot” areas and reciprocal agreements between the operators to ensure that my constituents, and constituents across the United Kingdom, have that access. Will the Prime Minister assure me that he understands that connectivity is a top priority in Angus, and will he ensure that the funding that needs to go into this initiative to get it going will be given?

[The Prime Minister]

Once again, the voice of Scotland—the voice of Angus. I thank my hon. Friend very much. We are indeed engaged in not just levelling up the provision of gigabit broadband across the whole of the country but improving the 4G mobile signal as well. It is our ambition to have 95% of the UK covered by the 4G mobile signal. We have made changes to the regulations and the planning laws to make it easier for the infrastructure to be put in place—and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has just assured me that her particular request is going to be addressed.

Prime Minister’s Statement

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The reason I am not worried about that is that there are no new rules of origin checks. This is a deal that I hope the right hon. Gentleman will get behind and support, because it represents stability and certainty for business.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

I think it important that other voices from Scotland are asking Scottish MPs to vote for this deal, such as the National Farmers Union of Scotland, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce and the Scotch Whisky Association. They all believe that it is best for industry, the economy and jobs. Scottish Conservatives will vote for this deal, and Scottish nationalists will once again vote for a no-deal Brexit.

[The Prime Minister]

There speaks the true voice of Scotland! My hon. Friend is perfectly correct in what she says, and I venture to say that the constituents of SNP Members overwhelmingly tonight want that party —even that party—to get Brexit done and move this country on. I bet they do, Mr Speaker!

Preparations for Leaving the EU

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Without access to tens of thousands of seasonal workers, our soft fruit industry in Angus and across the UK will suffer. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he recognises the importance of having a mechanism in place to ensure a smooth route for businesses to continue to function by having access to labour in a no-deal situation?

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely, and it is important that we look at the operation of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme and, if necessary, expand the numbers available to people in the soft fruit industry, for which my hon. Friend is such a powerful advocate.

Brexit Readiness: Operation Yellowhammer

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I do not. The Freight Transport Association, the Road Haulage Association and other organisations have been invaluable in making sure that the Government can take steps to communicate with individual hauliers, companies and traders about the steps they might need to take to obviate those risks. If traders ensure their goods have the appropriate transit accompanying documents or movement reference number barcode, they will smooth their passage through Calais without needing to go into any car park at all.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

While Scottish Conservative Members actively want a deal, Scottish nationalist Members are actively pursuing no deal, because they have no desire to support any deal put to this House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is better that the two Governments of Scotland work together? Will he explain what conversations he has had with the Scottish Government? Does he know how much of the no-deal planning and preparation money of the Scottish Government has been spent in Scotland?

[Michael Gove]

It is an interesting feature of this House that whenever a Scottish Conservative Member makes an important and honest point, the decibel level from the Scottish nationalist party Members rises to the sort of pitch normally heard at Parkhead when Celtic scores a goal. The truth is that my hon. Friend is absolutely right: while the Scottish Government have taken some steps to mitigate the consequences, there is more that they can and must do. I salute the work of Scottish Ministers such as Humza Yousaf and the Deputy First Minister, who have taken a pragmatic approach, but it is critical that the First Minister and representatives here live up to their responsibilities to the people of Scotland and support a deal.

UK Shared Prosperity Fund

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

Yes—I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that comment.

Before I took those interventions, I was talking about the two icons, one of them being the Kessock bridge, which I will not go into now. It is there for everybody to see and is a monument to the fact that Europe has paid attention to the regions that need assistance. The other icon is the University of the Highlands and Islands. EU funding enables research capacity, new facilities and equipment and expert researchers, and it has enabled doctoral and post-doctoral students to support priority sectors such as life sciences, marine science, aquaculture, archaeology, Gaelic and the creative economy—all coming together to make the highlands the vibrant place it is. The University of the Highlands and Islands receives the largest Scottish grant of €7.17 million, out of €68.6 million throughout Scotland. The view of the University of the Highlands and Islands is that Brexit will reduce prospects in those areas.

Erasmus has enabled student and staff exchanges for more than 30 years. International collaboration and EU engagement are at the heart of the University of the Highlands and Islands, and have been since its inception. It was helped by the EU to achieve university status and title in 2011, and is a vital contributor to economic growth. More than £250 million of investment has been levered into the UHI through structural funding. Some 25% of the university’s non-teaching “other” income has come from the EU. If we were remaining in the EU, there would be much more potential for growth through the EU 2020-27 programmes.

Adam Haxell of MillionPlus, the Association for Modern Universities, said to me:

“On UHI itself, it is important to emphasis what a remarkable success story it has been. The idea of having a university that covered this area in the early 1990s seemed totally unrealistic to many, and it is thanks to the determination and perseverance of those involved combined with the spread of funds they were able to draw down on, namely European funding streams, that made it happen. Today, the university stands as a pillar of the regional economy of the Highlands and Islands and an important element of the modern social fabric. The range of courses that are offered through this institution, some of which relate directly to the regional culture and heritage, combine to create a unique local offer that reflects the needs and ambitions of local residents. Moreover, in the last Research Excellence Framework, 69% of research at the institution was deemed world-leading or internationally excellent. For an institution that only gained university title in 2011, this is a phenomenal trajectory and could not have happened without the support it got.”

He went on to say that

“Kate Louise McCulough has written on the historic framing of the ‘Highland problem’ in Scottish and UK public policy and how European funds played a critical role in its transformation from the 1980s to become ‘…an example of what a successful peripheral region looks like’.”

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Drew Hendry]

I will not; I am going to make some progress, as I indicated. There is very limited time.

Communities and charities have used European funding to benefit people, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. The Shaw Trust says:

“Without ESF—

European social fund—

“funding, Shaw Trust would not have been able to support 70,000 disabled people”

and

“offenders…to gain new skills, improve their wellbeing and find work”.

Equally Ours—formerly the Equality and Diversity Forum—says that EU funding has provided vital, dedicated support to individuals experiencing disadvantage, discrimination and abuse, as well as the voluntary and community organisations that support them. It says that the continuing lack of consultation on the UK shared prosperity fund is creating significant uncertainty for communities, organisations and disadvantaged people.

Communities and charities have now been waiting for years to find out what funding will be available post Brexit, yet so far there is nothing from the UK Government, other than a name, that the Union flag will be on it and that it will be administered by the Minister for local government in England. That is in spite of a recognition of how valuable the funds have been and a commitment made to replace them. The UK shared prosperity fund was promised by the Tories in their 2017 manifesto. They said that it would

“reduce inequalities…across our four nations.”

They said it would be “cheap to administer” and “low in bureaucracy”. Without a like-for-like replacement, inequalities will increase, and that is what we are now looking at. The Tories were right in the second part of what they said: the fund is cheap and there is no bureaucracy—because it does not exist.

The Library notes that many considerations are required for the fund, including priorities, objectives, amounts of money, allocation, method of model, length of planning and who administers funds. The latter role currently rests with the devolved Governments. All the organisations and charities that have contacted me agree with the conclusions of the all-party group on post-Brexit funding for nations, regions and local areas, which in turn received many submissions, including from the Welsh Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Scottish local authorities directly, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and numerous educational and voluntary bodies. They all said, first, that the fund’s budget must be no less in real terms than the EU and UK funding streams it replaces, and, secondly, that the devolved nations’ share should not be reduced and that it should remain a devolved matter.

The UK Government must now respect the devolution settlement and UK Ministers should commit to work with all the devolved Administrations to agree funding arrangements that make sense for all the nations of the UK. As I have said, currently the biggest piece of concrete information we have is a written statement from July 2018 that largely consists of a future planning framework for England, with, as mentioned, the English Communities Minister, who is judged on English community improvement, in charge of UK funding distribution.

The groups and communities aided by the funds do not believe that Westminster knows best how to act in the interests of the parts of Scotland that need the most support. They do not want to see a Westminster power grab. There have been no assurances about devolved powers, despite numerous questions raised in the House. In mid-November last year, we were promised that a consultation on the UK shared prosperity fund would be published before the end of that year, but there is still nothing. All the while, the hard-working volunteers, charities and communities face rising concerns about the future of the people they selflessly serve and about their own futures. They need more than the new Secretary of State for Scotland saying that he will put Union flags on all projects, with the attendant suggestion of misplaced priorities and a desire to interfere with devolution by insisting on UK Government agreement on all UK shared prosperity funding. It is unacceptable.

The Scottish Government are determined to defend and maintain the benefits that EU funding has given them, to defend the organisations I mentioned and to defend their hard-won fiscal responsibility. How will the shared prosperity fund ensure the flexibility, which currently exists with EU funding, to allow organisations to fund different policy areas, from biotech to tourism and education? How will the new fund enable strategic planning within organisations over the longer term, as EU funding has enabled? Will the Minister guarantee like-for-like funding for the €13 billion that would have come from the EU? Will he guarantee no detriment to the Scottish Government as a result of Brexit? Will he commit today to respecting the devolution settlement? If he cannot do those things—if he cannot make those commitments—he should work with his Government to revoke article 50, so that the money is not lost to our communities. If he is not able to do that, all it will do is show the people of Scotland that they need to make a new choice about their future—to be an independent country, taking their own seat in Europe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman may do his best to ignore the antisemitism in his party, but I think—[Hon. Members: “Answer the question!”] I think he should listen to the words of the former Labour party general secretary, the noble Lord Triesman, who said:

“We may one day be the party of anti-racism once again but it certainly isn’t today.”

The right hon. Gentleman has asked questions about injustice; let me tell him about an injustice. It is an injustice when you force people who are working hard day and night to earn an income for their family to pay more taxes because of a Labour party economic policy in government that led to the destruction of our economy. What do we see from the Labour party? You earn more; they want you to pay more tax. You buy a home; they want you to pay more tax. You want to leave something to your children; they want you to pay more tax—Labour’s £9 billion family tax. Labour used to have a slogan of “Education, education, education”; now, it is just “Tax, tax, tax. Injustice, injustice, injustice.”

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Q8.   I am a Unionist with every fibre of my being, which is why I was so aghast to hear Nicola Sturgeon’s colleagues talking about their wish to railroad through an independence referendum without a section 30 order—at a time when public services in Scotland are mismanaged and need that desperate resource, and with an economy that has stagnated. They are continually pursuing policies that cut off the circulation of our United Kingdom at Berwick, and not because they are in the interests of Scotland. Will the Prime Minister join me in condemning this illegal referendum approach and push the SNP to prioritise the areas that are actually in the interests of the people of Scotland?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The SNP promised people in Scotland in 2014 that the independence referendum was a once-in-a-generation vote. Now it is laying the foundation for another vote in just 18 months’ time. SNP Members often claim—they stand up and claim it here in this House—that Scotland is being ignored. It is being ignored by an SNP Government, obsessed with another referendum against the wishes of a clear majority of Scots. I agree with my hon. Friend that people in Scotland want a Scottish Government who focus on improving their schools, improving their health service and improving their economy—not one obsessed by separation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) has said, Nicola Sturgeon laid the draft legislation for a second independence referendum last week, but with only one in five Scots supporting what she is doing. Can the Minister assure me that his Department is doing all it can to protect and preserve our United Kingdom, which we are so proud to be part of?

[Mr Lidington]

The Government believe, and I believe the majority of people in Scotland continue to believe, that all of us are stronger by being proud of being not only Scottish, English, Welsh or Northern Irish, but part of a union of four nations in the United Kingdom.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill (First sitting)

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th June 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Foster]

Of course, Chester is not just represented in the sewers; it is represented by the hon. Gentleman, who is sat here in the Committee doing his job, as always.

It was useful to hear the comment about putting our values into this place physically. Certainly, that is one of the things that the Sponsor Body will need to do. It was also interesting to hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales about the quarry in Derbyshire that provided the stone for Portcullis House. Again, that shows that, although this is a project in London, we do not want it to be a London-centric project. With all respect to hon. Members who represent Greater London constituencies, we want it to be a project that reflects the entire Union that this Parliament serves, and we will seek to spread the prosperity.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

I want to build on a point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales made about having not just contractors but materials from across the United Kingdom. In Scotland, Chinese and European steel was used for the £1.3 billion Queensferry crossing. This is not simply about cost, although we need to keep within budget; we must also look at the jobs, skills and businesses that we are supporting.

[Kevin Foster]

I recall my hon. Friend referring to that bridge project in a couple of debates in the Chamber about the UK steel industry. It is important that we use materials from across the United Kingdom, and create jobs and skills. The steel casting on the Elizabeth Tower—a project that has already been referred to—came from Sheffield, and the encaustic tiles in Central Lobby were produced in Shropshire, so there is already a spread across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who has been consistent in his condemnation of the regime. We are working through the Lima group; it is absolutely right that we should give support to the region as well as Venezuela in particular. I call on all Members to support and call for swift presidential elections so that we can let the country move on.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

The emergency £6.5 million UK emergency aid package to Venezuela was announced in February. Will the Secretary of State outline the priorities for that, especially given reports that up to 80% of Venezuelan households are without a reliable food source and the World Health Organisation’s suggestion that there has been a stark increase in maternal and infant mortality, and in malaria, tuberculosis and many other infectious diseases?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are prioritising healthcare and nutrition needs. We will keep monitoring the situation, as those needs will change over time. This is an emergency, and people are in life-threatening situations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am a little disappointed that the hon. Gentleman did not give me another invitation to come to a hotel in his constituency, but there we are. I thought perhaps I might have been able to look at the spaceport from the hotel windows. He raises an important point, and the development of this spaceport is significant. It will indeed be good for local business and local jobs—skilled jobs in an important area of employment—but as the hon. Gentleman says it will also give opportunities for the UK to offer services to other countries throughout Europe that are not able to provide those services for themselves. It is good for our economy, for the hon. Gentleman’s local economy, for his constituents and for the UK as a whole.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Unlike most professions, those in the armed forces do not get to choose where they are stationed, but those in Scotland are undoubtedly delighted to serve there. More than 7,000 of our armed forces personnel in Scotland are penalised by Nicola Sturgeon’s high-tax agenda. In my view, that is simply unfair. Will the Prime Minister commit to extend for another year the compensation that the UK Government paid last year to armed forces personnel based in Scotland? We need to send a clear signal that the Scottish Government are prepared to penalise those in our armed forces, while it is this Conservative UK Government who will always ensure that those who put their life on the line for our country will come first.

[The Prime Minister]

First, I pay particular tribute to everyone stationed at RM Condor in my hon. Friend’s constituency. She is absolutely right about those brave men and women across our armed forces who put their lives on the line for us. She is also right that both this year and next the SNP’s tax hike unfairly hits a majority of our brave and loyal service personnel based in Scotland. That leaves thousands of them out of pocket, and that is wrong, so we will again be providing financial mitigation payments to those negatively impacted for the tax year 2019-20 by these Scottish income tax hikes that mean Scottish income tax is higher than the UK’s. A single financial mitigation payment will be made retrospectively in 2020. The Scottish Government may ignore our armed forces; we stand by them.