Ministerial Code: Investigation of Potential Breach

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

This is a descent into absolute farce. Instead of the professionalism, accountability and integrity that the Prime Minister promised when he came into office, we are faced with calamity, chaos and corruption. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) continues to be investigated, the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) had to leave Cabinet in disgrace, and we are seeing revelation after revelation about the misdeeds and wrongdoings of the Home Secretary. First there was the request to organise a personal speed awareness course, and today we have the revelation that the Home Secretary did not disclose her extensive work with the Africa Justice Foundation, 19 alumni of which are now in senior positions in the Rwandan Government.

How can the Prime Minister continue to pretend that he is presiding over a Government with anything other than their own personal interests at heart? Is it not the case that the people of Scotland and all the people of these isles would be better served by politicians who understand and stick to the principles of public life in the ministerial code? Will the Prime Minister ensure that an investigation is undertaken into all the alleged ministerial code breaches? What is the point in having a ministerial code if Ministers simply ignore it?

[Jeremy Quin]

As I said earlier, there is information being gathered, and that will be the first point to determine the next steps. It is always interesting to hear from the SNP about farcical situations with ethics. The one advantage of a campervan, I suppose, is that it does not go very fast.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Jeremy Quin

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

It may shock the hon. Lady, and I apologise, but I cannot recall her exact parliamentary question. I recall the parliamentary question of the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), in which I believe he asked if it was my intention to publish the guidance. It was not our intention to publish it, but I have nothing to hide and am very happy to publish it. It is internal guidance; it will be adapted by different Departments. It is sensible to have guidance to ensure that civil servants know what they should be doing when invitations are issued to people who will be paid and given a platform in, and could cause embarrassment to, the civil service.

[Kirsty Blackman]

In the response to my written question last week, I was told that the due diligence and impartiality guidelines

“avoid invitations being issued to individuals and/or organisations that have provided adverse commentary on government policy, political decisions, approaches or individuals in government”,

in order to “retain impartiality” in the civil service. That is the opposite of what the Government are asking universities to do in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. Why is there one rule for the Government and another rule for universities? How is it impartial to only allow civil servants to hear speakers who agree with the Government?

[Jeremy Quin]

I appreciate that the hon. Lady has not had the opportunity to do so, and I look forward to her having that opportunity, but if she were to read on from the phrase that she quoted, which I assume appeared in the press, it refers to “adverse commentary” on Government policy

“that could undermine the Civil Service’s position on impartiality and create reputational damage.”

The guidance goes on to say that it is entirely possible for contrarian views—views critical of Government policy—to be shared with those who are at the point of policy formation. I want my civil servants to be fully informed of the arguments against Government policy. What is not appropriate is to have individuals paid and given a platform to create embarrassment for the civil service and potentially for the UK as a whole.

Civil Service Impartiality

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Jeremy Quin

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I am glad to hear the Minister talking about the hard work that the civil service does and being clear, in agreeing with his colleague the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), that Ministers and Secretaries of State would be nowhere were it not for the constant hard work of impartial civil servants. It is very important that the Minister talks to his Back-Bench colleagues and ensures that, in making statements about individuals, they are not tarring the entire civil service with some of the allegations that they are bringing forward.

I have asked repeatedly about anti-corruption champions, and while we are standing here talking about issues relating to breaches or potential breaches of the ministerial code, it is important that the Government get their house in order and ensure that we have an anti-corruption champion in place. Will the Minister therefore both talk to his Back-Bench colleagues to ensure that their language is moderated when talking about civil servants, and ensure that the ministerial code is adhered to so that we can be viewed in a better light internationally?

[Jeremy Quin]

The anti-corruption strategy is run by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security; I know he works actively on that, and an anti-corruption champion will be appointed in due course. With deference to the hon. Lady’s position, I think that is a very different scenario from what we are talking about today. For a start, we are talking about the civil service code, not the ministerial code. However, I agree that we always need to support and not undermine the impartiality and the perceived impartiality of the civil service. That applies to all of us, including the Leader of the Opposition.

Balancing the Public Finances

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to be in Westminster Hall with you in the Chair, Ms Ryan. I thank the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) for bringing this debate to the House. It is an important debate to have. It highlights the fact that a huge number of Conservative Members live on a different planet from the rest of us. In particular, the speech of the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) did not seem to have any link with reality as I and my constituents know it.

Conservative Members are putting out economic soundbites that could easily have been lifted from the Conservative party’s manifesto, but that is not the lived experience of real people. That is not what is happening or what the just-about-managings are facing. They do not feel like their wages have gone up; they do not feel like the reduction in tax credits is at all helpful. I get that the personal allowance has been raised; that is brilliant and I am pleased that it has happened. I also get that the minimum wage has been raised, but it is not to a level that people can live on. That is the problem. It is still a minimum wage and it is not applicable to younger people in the job market. They may have families and housing costs—the same costs that those of us who are over 25 have—yet they are not worth the same wage as others. I am frustrated by the debate because I cannot believe that Members can spill this nonsense.

When the Chancellor gave the spring Budget statement, he reckoned that inflation would be 2.4% in 2017. Actually, in the 12 months to May, it was sitting at 2.9%. The forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility for earnings growth in 2017 was 2.6%. If inflation continues to grow at 2.9% and wages continue to grow at 2.6%, there will soon be a serious problem, particularly for households that are struggling with increasing levels of household debt. The Bank of England is concerned about the increase in household debt, which is at its highest since 2008. This is a real problem for families, especially when they will see their real wages eroded.

[Jeremy Quin]

Is the hon. Lady proposing higher Government spending, higher inflation and higher interest rates?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I was literally about to come to that. There are three ways for the Government to increase spending on public services: higher taxes, higher borrowing or higher growth. Those are not my words but those of the Chancellor, yet whenever an Opposition hon. Member suggests increasing public spending or simply not reducing it, Conservative Members say, “Oh, you will have to put up taxes.” As the Chancellor said, there are three ways to increase public spending.

Some of the things that Conservative Members said are a concern. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) said that, according to the Resolution Foundation, 2011-21 will be the worst decade for pay growth for 210 years. That is quite some statistic.

It is interesting that the Government talk about how wonderfully they are doing for young people. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that those born in the 1980s have by their early 30s accumulated half as much wealth as those who were born in the 1970s. The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean mentioned the IFS as a respected think-tank, and it won an award last night. If we are talking about mortgaging our future and concerns for the future, the lack of wealth accumulation compared with previous generations is a real problem, including for millennials. The way the Government are dealing with it is not working.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Jeremy Quin

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this Budget debate. I had the same pleasure last year, and I appreciate the opportunity. I want to talk about quite a few things. The Foreign Secretary talked about global Britain, but we are in fact looking at a broken Brexit Britain. We are looking at a package of unfairness not only in the Budget, but in the austerity that the Government have followed for years. Ordinary working people have not been supported by this Government or the previous Government.

The UK Government have their head in the sand, and they have it there for two good reasons. First, they do not have the faintest idea of what Brexit will actually mean. What they do know about the outcome of Brexit is that it will be bad, so they do not want to tell us what they know. Secondly, the Government talk all the time about how things will affect the ordinary working person, but most Conservative Members—or at least too many of them—do not actually have a clue about what it is like to be an ordinary working person. They do not have a clue what it is like to push a trolley around the supermarket and feel inflation going up, as it has done over the past three months. Inflation has gone up to its highest level in ages during the past three months. People are seeing a 15% increase in the price of butter and a 6% increase in the price of tea. Those things have a real impact on families’ budgets, because they are everyday essentials which people regularly buy, so when they go up in price people are disproportionately affected. In Scotland, 48.4% of adults have less than £100 in savings. Across the UK families owe, on average, £2,770—that is the debt that families have. This is a really tight situation for people. People are struggling; they are not able to save and they have levels of debt.

People who have had a mortgage in the past eight years have never seen interest rates above 0.5%. Therefore, if the Bank of England decides to raise interest rates because of the weakness of the pound, which is not inconceivable, these people will be hit by increased mortgage costs that they did not expect, because they had never seen such increases before and so have not planned for them. This Government are doing nothing to help the budgets of these people. I spoke to some of my friends about how they feel the economy hits them. Too many of them told me, “I lie awake at night worrying because I have no savings. What if my partner gets laid off? We have no money. We have no slack in our budgets.” With rising inflation, because of Brexit, and the fact that the UK Government are not willing to take action now to combat it, people’s budgets are going to be squeezed even more tightly.

We have also seen wage stagnation as part of this package of unfairness. In 2022, average earnings will be no higher than they were in 2007. The UK Government need to take action—they need to be spending—to counter that and to make sure that people’s everyday budgets and everyday family incomes balance.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

Just to put this into perspective, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts are for inflation to be 2.6%, then 2.4% and then coming down to 2%. Although that is higher than we would like—it is above the target—it is not the kind of inflation we have seen in the past under other Governments. The hon. Lady is talking about a fiscal reflation—throwing more money into the economy—but that would increase inflation.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I am talking about putting more money into infrastructure, things that actually create jobs, and research and development. What we have seen in the UK is pitiful productivity. In Scotland, we are beginning to counter that, as our productivity has grown much faster than the level in the rest of the UK. That is partly because of the fiscal stimulus given by the infrastructure packages we have put in place, which has allowed us to make a difference to productivity. If the UK Government intend to take us out of the single market and to make it more difficult for us to have trading relationships and to export, they will need to make sure that they are increasing productivity to counter that, otherwise we will face a real issue on the lack of wage growth.

The Chancellor stood up and said, “It is fabulous what we are doing for the oil and gas industry. We are going to make it easier for oil and gas companies to transfer late-life assets.” This is really important, because the oil and gas industry will continue to take oil out of the ground for a very long time to come. Some fields are nearing maturity and may be operated by one of the big operators, and we need to make it easier for those assets to be transferred to some of the newer, smaller operators so that they can “sweat” them: get the maximum economic recovery out of those assets. My problem with what the UK Government announced is that they announced it last year and did not do it; they announced this exact thing on late-life assets last year and it has not been done, so I hope they will forgive me for not dancing around in excitement at the fact that there is now going to be a panel of experts to look at this thing that the Government announced last year—it would have been nice if they had actually done it back then.

I want to mention the £350 million of extra money that is going to Scotland. It was kind of the Chancellor to stand up and say, “We are giving £350 million of extra money to Scotland,” but this is rubbish—it is not what is happening at all. Because of how the Barnett formula works, if the Government spend more money in England and Wales, it just so happens that Scotland gets an extra slice as a result. The Chancellor cannot pretend that he is giving lots of money to Scotland while asking Departments to make 6% cuts and in the face of continuing austerity. He cannot stand up and say that the Government are giving Scotland all this money, given that we have had a £2.9 billion real-terms cut over the decade from 2010. It is ridiculous that we are in this situation.

I wish to touch on a couple of things that the Foreign Secretary said. In response to an intervention, he talked about falling back on WTO rules and how it would be “perfectly okay”. I am interested to see the analysis that he has done on that, because I do not think it would be perfectly okay. I think he is guessing, imagining, inventing—[Interruption.] He is hoping with his fingers crossed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) says. I say that because falling back on WTO rules and most favoured nation status is a harsh reality for our exporters, particularly for our small and medium-sized enterprises.

On SMEs, the Foreign Secretary said that people on my side of the House were mocking entrepreneurial spirit. He is from the party that has made changes to the national insurance contributions of the self-employed and he is accusing us of mocking entrepreneurial spirit! We are supporting entrepreneurs. We are supporting those people in small businesses, particularly the incredible numbers of women and people on lower incomes who have started businesses and taken on the mantle of self-employment. This is really important. These people have decided to become self-employed and now this Government are taxing that aspiration.

This Budget has dodged far too many of the important issues. It has not spoken about the real fallout from Brexit. The Government are unwilling to give the OBR any real information, and the improper forecasts that they have therefore been provided with have allowed them to dodge those issues. Despite all the comments in the run-up to it, this Budget has been shambolic. It has dodged the issues, taxed aspiration and done absolutely nothing for the oil and gas industry beyond what was promised last year. This is not a Budget that is promising for Scotland. It has increased the package of unfairness and consigned ordinary working people to a long-term lack of prosperity.