Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Patricia Gibson and Tommy Sheppard(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Tourism: Covid-19
Debate between Patricia Gibson and Tommy Sheppard(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The great city of Edinburgh, more than most, welcomes people from across the globe. Members will be familiar with our city’s wonderful arts festivals, but its year-round reputation attracts visitors all the time. Combined with that, the conference centre stimulates business tourism and, of course, the city is a gateway to the rest of Scotland.
So tourism and hospitality are vital for the city’s economy. Some 33,000 jobs depend upon it. So it is almost impossible to overstate the harmful effect that the public health restrictions due to the pandemic have had on that sector. Last year, 1.5 million people came through Edinburgh airport in July. This year, the figure was 170,000. Last year, more than 3 million people visited Princes Street in August; this year, it was less than a quarter of that number. Half of our hotel rooms were empty this summer. Our visitor attractions were down 90% and, of course, our venues and theatres remain dark.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a passionate defence of Edinburgh, but he will share my concern that our islands, such as the Isle of Arran and the Isle of Cumbrae, have also suffered particularly badly. Despite my pleas to the Chancellor, the requests for extra help for these islands have gone unanswered. Does he not agree that sometimes support is needed because it is a question of sustainability for our island communities?
Tommy Sheppard
Indeed I do and I shall come on to that. At the core of this dilemma is the fact that the essence of these industries—hospitality and tourism—is bringing people together. Social distancing is the antithesis of what these industries grew up for, yet they are going to have to try to manage the problem. Everyone understands the necessity and requirement for the guidelines to be enforced, nobody more so than those working in these industries. The question is how we can manage.
We have all seen firms in our cities and towns trying to operate with reduced capacity. I have seen it myself in my constituency. Last month, in Perthshire on a family holiday, I stayed at several hotels and ate at several restaurants, all doing their utmost to conform to the guidelines that are to be enforced and, indeed, taking pride in their ability to keep their customers safe.
Behind the brave faces, however, there is a deep and dark despair. It is the despair that comes from knowing that, at the end of a hard shift, more money has left their bank account than went into it, no matter what they do. The truth is, for pretty much all those businesses, those reduced capacity operations are unviable in the longer term, although they do two things: they postpone the date at which money runs out completely, because they slow the rate of loss; and, more importantly, they retain some jobs, and capacity and expertise in the sector, so that when the restrictions change, they can spring back.
That is why I believe that the No. 1 priority now must be to look at those businesses and see how we can support their reduced capacity operation through to next spring. That means we have to abandon this silly, one-size-fits-all blanket policy that treats all businesses as if they were the same. We need a more sophisticated, more tailored and more targeted approach that works with individual businesses and tries to get them through to a position next spring when they will be no worse off than they are now. Support will also be required beyond that—even if the restrictions are lifted, it will take time for public confidence to return and for the market to get back to where it was at pre-covid levels. We should be planning for two to three years of further support.
It is right that the public purse should do that, because businesses are closed and closing because of public policy and a public imperative. That must be the priority. The Government cannot abandon support on 31 October, stand back and watch the sectors decline.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Patricia Gibson and Tommy Sheppard(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Scotland Bill
Debate between Patricia Gibson and Tommy Sheppard(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson
We will be proud to take responsibility for investing in the growth of Scotland’s economy, in our infrastructure and in the people of Scotland.
Make no mistake: the devolution of the welfare powers in the Bill is supported by Citizens Advice Scotland, Barnardo’s Scotland, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Church of Scotland, Oxfam Scotland, the Poverty Alliance, the Scottish Trades Union Congress—I could go on, but I think I have made my point.
We on the SNP Benches are seeking to protect those we represent in Scotland from the worst excesses of this Government. We speak with the clear democratic mandate of the people of Scotland, and behind that we have the increasingly raised voices of Scotland’s third sector and civic society. We must not balance the books on the backs of the poor. It is time that the Government listened to a valued and equal partner in this Union—Scotland—in the spirit of the respect agenda.
For the record, and for the avoidance of any doubt, the SNP set out unequivocally in our manifesto, as part of our welfare priorities, that there should be an immediate scrapping of the bedroom tax and a halt to the roll-out of universal credit and PIP payments. As far as working-age benefits go, the Bill does not meet what was set out in the Smith agreement.
The Secretary of State has argued that there is no effective UK Government veto over the powers in the Bill relating to welfare arrangements, limited as they are, yet there is a clear requirement for the Scottish Government to
“have consulted the Secretary of State about the practicability of implementing the regulations”.
The Secretary of State would then have to give
“his or her agreement as to when any change made by the regulations is to start to have effect, such agreement not to be unreasonably withheld.”
Is it likely that the current Secretary of State and the Scottish people would ever agree on a definition of what is unreasonable? For example, the people of Scotland believe that it is unreasonable that a party that has a far weaker mandate in Scotland than at any time during any of the years when it last led a majority Government now pontificates over what powers Scotland should have while reneging on the all-party agreements arrived at in Smith. The Secretary of State clearly thinks that this situation is entirely reasonable and presides over the Dispatch Box like a colossal Governor-General, with no shame, taking on the elected and legitimate representatives of the huge majority of the Scottish people.
For the sake of social justice in Scotland, for the sake of our most vulnerable, who are being crushed beneath the weight of the illogical and misguided attempts to punish those who require assistance from the state, for the sake of what was promised in Smith, for the sake of Scotland’s position as a “valued and equal partner” in this Union, for the sake of the wisdom of Scotland’s civic society, and for the sake of the SNP’s democratic mandate, I urge the Committee to support amendment 118 and new clause 45.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
We are considering a lot of amendments, and some of them cover quite technically detailed matters, but I think that the context of the debate is about big ideas; it is about big differences between this side of the House and the Government side of the House. I think that there can be no bigger difference than how we view our society with regard to welfare provision. On the Opposition Benches we see welfare as a means of social insurance whereby we work together to protect each other through periods of illness and disability and in old age, and also to protect people who are casualties of economic circumstances as they move from one period of employment to another. It is something we should provide with kindness and generosity and in the spirit of co-operation. I fear that the attitude of Government Members is founded on prejudice and parsimony. It is about a welfare state that grudgingly gives to people as a means of last resort. It is because of that difference in opinion that this debate matters so much.