Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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George Freeman
The evidence suggests that the UK is the fastest economy in the G7 in deploying renewables. Offshore wind costs have fallen by 60%. Of course, everyone can do more, but I do not accept the criticism that we have not been in the vanguard; we have been, and we are, and offshore wind and solar have been fundamental to reducing the cost of renewables. That is the best support against rising energy prices.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)
I am delighted to assure hon. Members that Scotland is at the heart of the UK’s transition to net zero—something I hope they will welcome. In November last year, we committed £20 million to the funding for tidal stream projects through the contracts for difference, giving Scotland’s significant marine energy sector a chance to develop its expertise. We have also allocated £40 million in carbon capture development funding for the Acorn Project and £27 million for the Aberdeen energy transition zone.
Patrick Grady
I am sure the rest of the UK welcomes that contribution to renewable energy as well, but local communities up and down the country, such as Partick in Glasgow North, want to champion the just transition by generating their own local renewable electricity. If the Local Electricity Bill, which has cross-party support on both sides of the House, is brought back in the next Session, will the Government make time and support it?
George Freeman
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which I will pass on to my hon. Friend the Energy Minister, who is currently suffering from covid. We have put money into the community energy fund. We are supporting community energy and we are passionate not just about the big infrastructure but, as the hon. Gentleman says, about community energy schemes.
Community Energy Schemes
Patrick Grady Excerpts(2 years, 12 months ago)
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Wera Hobhouse
I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that analysis. Do we all want Ferraris? Who knows? But we probably all want community energy. The problem is indeed the cost of entry for small local suppliers, and that is what the Government need to look at. As we have already heard from the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), it does not work on the ground. When the right exists, fine, but what is the practice? We need to look at what we can do to change the practice and at what is affordable for the small companies that want to enter the market.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The hon. Lady is being very generous with her time. As I have said in previous debates, I have local constituent groups who are dead keen on community energy and really want to be able to rise to the opportunity. In addition to rising to climate change targets and reducing emissions, there is an issue about resilience to climate change. We now have people in different parts of the country who have been without power for four or five days because of climate change-related weather storms. If we had local generation, there would be additional resilience in the system that would perhaps protect or shelter people a little bit from some of the damaging consequences of changing weather.
Wera Hobhouse
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Lots of small and diverse players are probably the answer to our future energy demands. The Government in the past have always considered bigger is better, economies of scale and all the rest of it, but we need to look much more favourably at smaller, diverse suppliers.
I need to make some progress, so I will remind everybody where we were. The Bill would lead to energy market reform that would empower community-owned and run schemes to sell local renewable energy directly to households, rather than small companies buying energy from bigger companies, then selling it on. It would make new community energy businesses viable and by bypassing large utilities, they would keep significant additional value within local economies. More of the money that we use to pay our electricity bills would circulate back to our local communities to create more skilled local jobs, more viable local businesses, stronger local economies and greater resilience.
Let us take my constituency of Bath as an example. Bath and West Community Energy has delivered 12.35 MW of community-owned solar photovoltaics, in addition to one hydro scheme. Many of these projects have been installed in schools and community buildings across Bath, including Ralph Allen School, Oldfield School, Walcot rugby club, Newbridge Primary School and Lewis House. Bath and West Community Energy systems generate enough electricity to match the annual equivalent of 4,000 homes. They have distributed nearly £300,000 back into local community grants, which go into supporting community action on carbon reduction and fuel poverty, which has been mentioned.
The group supports a wide range of schemes, ranging from community orchards and reuse and repair schemes to fuel poverty advice and even a cycle-to-work scheme using e-bikes. I am delighted that our local electricity distribution network operator, Western Power Distribution, is a registered supporter of the local electricity campaign. However, there are a number of problems facing local suppliers, including those in my constituency. Bath and West Community Energy has identified and is developing nearly 40 MW in a pipeline of projects that will work with communities, commercial developers and site owners, but its ability to commission the pipeline will depend on a number of different factors.
One key factor is grid capacity. This area is currently heavily constrained. Investment is needed in grid improvement, but Bath and West Community Energy must compete with commercial companies with much more resources to secure a grid connection. Smaller operators do not have the financial resources that big commercial operators have. Another factor is partnership with local authorities. There is huge potential, and I am delighted that Bath and North East Somerset Council supports the Local Electricity Bill. Councillors keep telling me how popular community energy projects in their wards are in the consultation stages, but many projects do not make it to reality. There must be stronger support for local authorities to establish joint ventures and utilise local authority finance to invest in local community projects that generate local social and economic benefits on both public estates and in the wider community.
What is the biggest barrier to community energy? It is the right to local supply. Current energy market and licensing rules mean that community energy schemes to build new renewable generation infrastructure and then sell power to local customers face costs that are too high to make the schemes financially viable. A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research states that the financial, technical and operational challenges mean that initial costs exceed £1 million. As the Environmental Audit Committee has said, community energy contributes 278 MW of renewable energy as of 2020. That is less than 0.5% of total UK electricity generation.
Community energy has seen almost no growth in the past six years—a great waste of potential. However, there is a solution. I urge the Minister to add his support to the Local Electricity Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Wantage and is supported by 281 MPs from all parties. The Bill sets out the mechanism that can fix the UK’s local supply problem. Clause 1 states the purpose of the Bill—to enable the local supply of electricity. Clause 2 sets out the aim of smaller-scale renewable generators to supply electricity directly to a local area. Clause 3 gives Ofgem the task of setting up the local supplier licence process. Crucially, it requires that the process ensures that local suppliers face set-up costs and complexity proportionate to the scale of their operations.
Enabling Community Energy
Patrick Grady Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is always a pleasure, Sir David, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) on not only their efforts to secure this debate but their ongoing championing of the issue of reforming the energy market to support community production and distribution. They have consistently demonstrated, and have done so again today, the wide cross-party and cross-country support—I think every nation of these islands has been represented in the debate today, and every party, more or less—
Patrick Grady
Some might say that. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) might have slightly different views. This is all about devolving and empowering local communities, so I suppose it depends on what level we want to devolve it down to—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend is very sorry that he cannot intervene, but we can see him on the screen.
One of my local communities, which I am sure would quite happily be an independent country if someone would let it, is in Partick, in the west end of Glasgow. It is very supportive of the idea of the community council there; it backed a related Bill in the last Session and wants to see it come back again. Indeed, the Scottish National party as a whole support that; our usual spokesperson on these matters, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), sends his apologies for not being here today, but we can all be assured of his ongoing support, too.
Very briefly, in order to leave time for the Minister to respond to the debate, I will look at the importance of the principle and the concept of community energy, and at some of the experience that we have heard in Scotland. I also have a few questions for the Minister.
One of the best descriptions of the concept of community energy that I have come across came from the Glasgow Community Energy co-operative. Its share offer successfully completed on 18 June; it had over 170 applications and raised £30,000 of financing, which is helping to put solar panels on the roofs of a number of schools in the city. It has said:
“For us ‘community energy’ has a double meaning. Glasgow Community Energy aims to connect and empower local people through community-ownership and democratic involvement in our renewable energy co-operative, as well as by inspiring and sustaining community activism through our Community Benefit Fund.”
So, for the Glasgow Community Energy co-operative, community energy is about not just providing energy for the community but harnessing the energy of the community as well—that galvanising effect, that psychological effect if you like, which the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) referred to.
Of course, behind that are the long-standing pressures for reform of the electricity market, or the electricity bureaucracy as my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar said. There is a need for energy production and supply to be reformed, particularly in the face of rapid climate change. The need to get to net zero, as we heard right at the start of the debate from the hon. Member for Bath, requires low-carbon production and transmission. In the year of COP—the year when the UK is supposed to show global leadership—this is an incredibly important opportunity.
Community energy is also important for other reasons, including for energy security, so that we are not dependent on imported gas or electricity, or any other form of energy from overseas. Increased domestic energy production is safer and better for everyone. It is also important to tackle fuel poverty, which is a growing problem. Community energy also relates to the concept of localism, ownership and democratic control. We heard from a number of the Conservative Members that this process could be seen as part of what is supposed to be the Government’s levelling-up agenda—I think the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) said that, and he was quite right to do so. We also heard about international examples; Germany and Denmark were referred to by a number of Members, including the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). All of that speaks to the economic benefit that can be gained by local energy production companies. Employment opportunities also come with community energy, in installation, management, maintenance and so on. It is a win-win situation.
The Scottish Government fully back and fully reflect all of those positions, particularly the importance of decarbonising the entire energy system. Their most recent local energy strategy was published in January 2021 and says that the Scottish Government
“recognises that local energy cannot be delivered in isolation. It is not a standalone policy, but one that integrates and aligns with other key policies, including energy efficiency, eradicating fuel poverty, heat decarbonisation, local heat and energy efficiency strategies, and consumer protection. It will develop alongside and within a vibrant national energy network.”
The Scottish Government had a target of 500 MW of community and locally owned energy by 2020; that amount has been exceeded, so now we intend to increase the target to 1 GW for 2020 and 2 GW for 2030. Progress towards these targets has been positive, but changes to some of the UK Government’s subsidies, not least the closure of the feed-in tariff scheme, has undermined that progress. However, we continue to encourage shared ownership models as a means of increasing community-led involvement in commercial projects.
My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar will be very happy to hear—indeed, I am sure he already knows—that the Scottish Government are particularly committed to helping the communities on our islands to become carbon-neutral. Indeed, some of the pioneering work in this area has been done on the Isle of Gigha, with its early adoption of wind power. The SNP manifesto for the recent Scottish election said quite clearly:
“We support Carbon Neutral Islands which would be in the vanguard of reaching net zero emissions targets by 2045. This will include pilots for some islands to run on 100% renewable energy, to create circular economies tackling and processing waste, and exploring more sustainable transport options. We will work with at least 3 islands over this Parliament to enable them to become fully carbon neutral by 2040.”
My hon. Friend has the opportunity to lobby for many of the islands he represents in his archipelago to take part in that pilot.
That brings us to the Government. The short question coming from all hon. Members is, why not? What is the harm? I thought the Tory Government was supposed to believe in the free market, entrepreneurship and the flourishing of local enterprise, so why do they seem to be in hock to the big players? Why are they in hock to the traditional companies, who perhaps have the most to lose?
The simple ask coming from Members today is to let the Local Electricity Bill progress. It has wide cross-party support and a wide range of civil society support, from the Churches through to different manufacturers of the technology that would be used, and more. The Bill provides a very simple framework that would overcome existing barriers to entry into the market.
There are other things the Government could be doing as well. They could look at a replacement for the feed-in tariff that was so important in bringing so much renewable energy to the market in the first place. They could also help to stimulate demand for better local, greener energy by diverting funding away from damaging new nuclear technologies.
At the end of the day, much of this is about a vision—a vision for a fairer, cleaner, greener, locally led energy future. Unfortunately, that seems to be a vision that the UK Government are currently sorely lacking.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)
It is well known that we spent over £280 billion on an unprecedented package of support for businesses, including the job retention scheme, support grants and Government-backed loans. I speak regularly with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on all the support measures available for businesses, including in the next stage when we try to lead and help them through the pandemic and towards recovery.
Kwasi Kwarteng
Throughout this crisis, as I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, the Government have stood by businesses, as she mentioned, and worked tirelessly to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods across the entirety of our country. As we emerge from the pandemic, we will ensure that we seize the initiative, as she put it, to build back better, greener and faster from this pandemic.
Patrick Grady
Does the Secretary of State not accept that, if people who are excluded from support packages are forced to wind up their businesses and move to universal credit or social security, that is more costly to the Government and damaging to the economy in the long run? Surely it is better to bring the excluded in from the cold now than to pay the long-term costs of exclusion in the future.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I fully appreciate—this is our key message as a Government—that jobs and employment are a No. 1 priority. That is exactly why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor extended the furlough scheme. I am in constant conversation with him about how better to provide support for our economy under this distress.
Climate and Ecological Emergency: UK’s Response
Patrick Grady Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I am grateful for the opportunity to show solidarity with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), not least by taking the perch that she is quite accustomed to on these Benches. This is an important opportunity to demonstrate the cross-party and cross border ambition that exists to tackle the climate emergency. The Scottish Government and First Minister were the first on these islands to declare a climate emergency. I am still not sure whether the UK Government have declared an emergency in the way that the House as a whole has, but there is undoubtedly cross-party agreement on the need to raise our level of ambition and the level of action that we are taking.
The Scottish Parliament has already passed a second climate change Act, with genuinely world-beating carbon emissions reductions targets. Of course we have the opportunity to go further and faster, as technology and political allow us to. We are also committed in Scotland to a just transition, transforming local economies, and we have already committed to higher environmental standards and nature standards, including on air pollution —amendments of the type that the Tory Government were rejecting when the Environment Bill was debated last week.
We wish the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion well with her Bill. It is disappointing that the procedures in this place are not allowing it to have the proper debate that it deserves, but she has given an indication of how popular campaigning and determination can make these things work, so perhaps, beyond the Queen’s Speech, we shall see a further opportunity for proper debates and votes on the proposals, to test the will of the House on them.
In Glasgow, my city, we look forward to hosting COP26 later this year. I hope that, one day soon, Scotland will be able to become an independent signatory to the Paris agreement and whatever protocol arrives from Glasgow, but in the meantime the UK Government must lead by example. Talk is not enough, and we are demonstrating tonight that the cross-party ambition and the political will is there if the Government are willing to take that action.
UK Space Industry
Patrick Grady Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the UK space industry.
I am delighted to have secured this important debate today and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for us to consider such an important topic. We all need good news stories in these difficult times, and I believe that the growing space industry, with timely and sensible support from the Government, could quite literally provide a rocket boost to the economy and be a force for good for the country and the planet.
Space is one of the UK’s fastest growing sectors, trebling in size since 2010. It will inspire the next generation and provide fantastic opportunities in science, engineering and technology. It has huge potential for the levelling-up agenda, creating highly skilled jobs right across the UK from Shetland to the south-east of England. It can also play a crucial role in measuring and meeting climate change targets. I welcome the fact that space has been recognised as a critical national infrastructure, in that we now depend on space for navigation, communication, broadcasting, running public services and increasingly for national security. It impacts all our everyday lives and has the potential to really enhance them. So while I am delighted by the recognition of the scale of the potential for space, there needs to be a better co-ordinated and determined effort to support the industry to reach its goals, and I look forward to getting the details on that from the Minister later today.
Space is already a growing success story. It supports 41,900 jobs in 13 of the regions and nations of the UK, bringing in some £14.8 billion in 2016-17. The Scottish space industry also punches well above its weight and is home to almost a fifth of the total jobs in the UK sector, valued at £880 million in 2017-18. Scotland now hosts more than 130 space organisations, including the headquarters of 83 UK space firms. We now need to build on that strong base to be globally competitive at every stage of the process from the design and manufacture of smaller satellites through to the launch and the interpretation and application of the satellite data produced. We have our unique selling points, and we are making great progress. Glasgow is now a European capital for manufacturing small satellites, building more than any other place outside California.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He is absolutely right about the importance of the space industry and the significance that it has for Glasgow’s economy. Research in the space sector is hugely important as well. Madam Deputy Speaker, I was sporting a University of Glasgow mask, just as my hon. Friend was sporting an Irn-Bru mask. The University of Glasgow has played a huge part in the identification of gravitational waves, for example, which is helping our understanding of the universe as well as driving forward technological developments.
Owen Thompson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Use of the data that we can gather from space is important in so many different ways that can contribute to so much that we can take forward.
Innovations by companies such as AAC Clyde Space, Spire Global and Alba Orbital are already driving this world-class agenda. We are leading the way in rocket development in Europe through firms such as Skyrora in my Midlothian constituency and Orbex in Forres. We are making progress in the research and analysis side of the industry, and companies such as Ecometrica, Carbomap and Space Intelligence are helping to move Edinburgh towards becoming the space data capital of Europe. Edinburgh is the only place in the world to work with a NASA robot, the Valkyrie, outside of its headquarters.
Key industry players such as Ukrainian-born Skyrora boss Volodymyr Levykin tell me that they moved here because of the connections, the skilled workforce and our suitability as a place to live. Scotland is developing a space industry ecosystem, and the more it develops, the more it triggers further exponential growth. The Scottish Government were therefore right to identify space as a key priority for future growth. Their support has helped to give the burgeoning young industry a shape and structure, with the ambition to be Europe’s leading space nation and capture a £4 billion share of the global space market by 2030.
The Scottish Space Leadership Council has helped to bring together key figures from the public and private sectors, to ensure that their views are represented at all levels of government and to drive growth and collaboration, but we need co-ordination across all levels of government. A space strategy has often been promised, but we are still waiting to see it delivered. I am sure those watching today’s debate will be as keen as I am to hear what the Minister has to say on that front. To take things forward, we need to get low-cost access to space from UK soil. It is good news that seven UK spaceport sites are working together through the Spaceport Alliance to support launch activity. It is also good news that the space hub to be built in Sutherland’s A’ Mhòine peninsula received planning permission last year. With locational advantages for flight paths and access to orbits that 95% of small satellite launches require, it is now set to be a national centre for vertical launch and could support 400 jobs in the highlands and islands by 2025.
Yet getting the regulations in place is at times more like moving through treacle than rocketing away into a new space future. We need to get the regulations to permit rocket launches, to give clarity about how the system will work and to get it right. The framework was set up in the Space Industry Act 2018, but it is still not in place, and we still await the outcome of the consultation process. When we hear the results, I certainly hope that the Government will have listened carefully to industry voices and taken their concerns on board. So far there has been a lot of dither and interdepartmental confusion, and unfortunately a lack of determined leadership from the Government on these regulatory issues. I might be tempted, Madam Deputy Speaker, to suggest that a rocket somewhere might be helpful, but I shall resist. However, it is not always clear who is in the driving seat, if anyone.
We cannot jeopardise the achievements of an innovative home-grown industry by letting it drift and losing out on launch capability to neighbouring nations. The Minister will be aware of the real threat of international competition to UK launch businesses. One of our home-grown companies, Skyrora, has already tested a rocket with a 26 km altitude, but it had to do so from Iceland, where the regulations were taken forward, with all the essential safety aspects, but more quickly and far more favourably than has been managed here.
The concern is that the licence application process for launch will take far too long to process, resulting in the industry being uncompetitive. I hope the Minister can assure the House in her response today that there is a development strategy in place that embraces all parts of the space industry and has a clear imperative around which the Government, regulators and industry can coalesce to ensure the full potential of space ambition.
I was slightly concerned that, despite not having our home-grown regulation sorted, the Government were so happy and keen to sign the transatlantic technology safeguards agreement, to enable US launches from UK soil, potentially to the detriment of the industry here. The TSA was signed last June and announced by press release, but the text was not made public until October. Many industry players in the UK say they did not have a chance to read and comment on the plans until that point and had not been consulted on the details, nor was there an opportunity for questions and debate in this place, despite the promise given in response to written questions that I submitted. This might turn out to be a benign agreement, as the UK Government have claimed, but there has been no process to scrutinise it, and some aspects certainly raised the concern that UK start-ups could be ousted for big US-based corporate players.
The Government must do more to allay industry fears that it could transpire to be an exclusivity agreement, and they must reassure the industry that they understand and are sensitive to the commercial context in which these companies operate. The industry remains in the dark about how the agreement will actually function in practice, and it will only see the impact once it starts to acquire export licences. That kind of scenario testing should have been conducted openly and transparently beforehand.
Some might question why we are talking about space at all, in the midst of a public health emergency and when people cannot feed their families, but space shapes all our lives. The sector helps to keep us safe, and it is precisely the sort of high-skilled growth industry that we need to support to drive the economy to recover.
There is also a responsibility—the green role that could be carved out by the space industry, which the Scottish Government are certainly very keen to pursue. Space is central to tackling environmental and social justice issues around the globe. Forget the outdated image of a space race, with astronauts boldly going where no one has gone before. The future will be very much focused on making things better where we are now. Data from satellites plays a crucial role in the fight against climate change and finding solutions for major issues that scar our planet. Some 35 of the 45 essential climate variables defined by the UN are measured from space. Similarly, of the 17 sustainable development goals set by the UN with an aim of ending poverty by 2030, satellite data plays a critical role in 13.
Data from earth observation satellites has been used to combat wildfire spread in the Amazon, to monitor glacier melt and air pollutants, to aid disaster relief operations, to measure ozone damage, to measure damage from natural disasters, such as the Fuego volcano, to track and predict malaria outbreaks and to tackle illegal deforestation and pirate fishing vessels.
It is great to see Scotland leading the way. Satellites built and launched in Scotland can monitor the environment in ways not previously possible, including mapping global carbon levels. Glasgow University and Strathclyde University focus on that work with their innovation district, and I welcome plans for the new £5 million satellite centre involving the universities of Edinburgh and Leeds, which will use cutting-edge satellite technology to help combat climate change, including helping lower the risk of people being affected by flooding.
Rocket launches do not exactly have a reputation for being green, but the new space industry must be an environmentally responsible one. Efforts must be made to reduce harmful emissions at launches, and I would like to see a role for environmental regulators such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in regulating spaceflight. The good news is that modern micro-launches being developed are a world away from the traditional massive gas guzzling old ones. Orbex, for example, built a micro-launcher fuelled by bio propane, which produces 90% fewer emissions than standard kerosene. Skyrora has successfully tested a fuel called Ecosene, which is created from plastic waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill.
In conclusion, the UK space industry is a massively positive story, but to ensure a happy ending, the Government must: give clarity on their long-term strategic goals; sort out the regulations with urgency; improve the level of scrutiny and consultation in their agreements; show an understanding and sensitivity to market forces; and show ambition in harnessing the potential of space in boosting our post-covid recovery and in tackling climate change. We are at the edge of a vast universe of possibilities for the space sector, so it is vital now that the Government provide the necessary vision, energy and direction to propel us forward.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
The Government have sought to engage constructively with the devolved Administrations throughout the passage of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill. The recent fruits of that continuing commitment include several amendments tabled by the Government strengthening a role for the devolved Administrations.
Paul Scully
The hon. Gentleman talks about grabbing powers back, but Scotland will be gaining powers in more than 100 areas that are at the moment controlled by the EU. Of course we will continue to work with important industries such as the aerospace sector and with companies such as Rolls-Royce to protect jobs.
Patrick Grady
Those of us who are paying attention will have seen that the House of Lords has passed amendments to the UKIM Bill to try to salvage what might be left of the devolution settlement, which the Government have explicitly rejected. If Members look at the Order Paper, they will see that it states:
“The Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru have each decided not to approve a Legislative Consent Motion relating to this Bill.”
How is this respecting the devolution settlement? This Government legislated to protect Sewel on statute, but now they are riding roughshod all over it.
Paul Scully
The Sewel convention envisages situations such as this, where the UK Parliament may need to legislate without consent. We regret the fact that the Scottish Parliament has chosen to do that, but the Bill is essential for protecting businesses and citizens across Scotland, and across the whole of the UK, as the transition period ends.
Exiting the European Union
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Alan Brown
I thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. The way things are just now, I worry about why so many people are withdrawing. Hopefully, everything is all in order. We know that the Whips usually try to force people to speak in debates, especially debates that might be short or dry, so it is certainly unusual that the Whips have been pressuring their colleagues to withdraw from today’s debate.
I hope that you can show some forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker, because as I thought there were so many speakers in the previous debate, I did not expect to be called so early in this one, so my notes are a wee bit haphazard; hopefully, you can bear with me on that.
I must commend the shadow Minister for her speech and for the amount of information that she covered. She highlighted the deficiencies that the Minister did not cover. She said that, in actual fact, when we talk about the movement of goods, one of the key issues is what it means for businesses and whether they are ready for this. We can talk about divergence in standards of the EU, but are businesses ready for what will happen on 1 January 2021? Have the Government given enough support to businesses? When we turn on the radio just now, it tells us all, “Get ready for Brexit”. That is all very well, but it does not actually tell us what we need to do. What is the point telling us to get ready, when there is no information that is clearly accessible to businesses about what they need to do? Are IT systems up and running? The companies need to know what they have to do to be able to export, and that is before we even get to divergence.
Just today, ironically, my office got a letter from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is supposed to be aimed at all businesses, but I can assure the Minister that although that letter might be a bit of propaganda, it does not clear up what businesses need to do going forwards.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I hear that from businesses across my constituency as well. A lot of them do not know exactly what they are supposed to do or how they are supposed to prepare. The simple solution to this surely is to extend the transition period, as we called for in our Opposition day debate before the summer. There would be no shame in the Government taking a little bit more time to get the negotiations right and to give people time. If they do not want to call it the transition period any more, they can come up with a different name for it—call it the implementation period or the adaptation period, or something like that. There would be no shame in it; we are in the middle of a global pandemic—no one foresaw this coming. It would do nobody any harm, and then one day they would get the glorious Brexit they are looking for, rather than the cliff edge that we seem to be barrelling towards.
Alan Brown
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am pretty sure that many businesses across the UK would agree with what he said. It would be a simple, common-sense approach. It could be called the emergency covid implementation period—something that would give businesses a bit more certainty in the short term, while the Government sort out the mess.
The key question I had for the Minister earlier is about where we are on the consent of the devolved nations. Importantly, what discussions have been had with the devolved nations about what will happen if the UK Government wants standards to diverge from those of the EU? What would that mean in terms of how the devolved nations operate? What will it mean going forward? Are they going to ride roughshod over the wishes of the devolved Administrations, as with the UK Internal Market Bill and the shared prosperity fund, which was a mechanism to bypass the wishes of the devolved Administrations? Is that what we are looking at? It is symptomatic of the entire Brexit process and debacle.
I looked at the explanatory memorandum at the weekend—unusually for me, on Saturday night I was sad enough to read an explanatory memorandum. It said that the Welsh Government had granted consent, but the Scottish Government had not. The explanatory memorandum has now been changed and does not reference either the Welsh Government or the Scottish Government. It would be great if the Minister would clear up where things are on that. I would be happy to take an intervention—I am still happy to take an intervention. I see there are none coming.
I refer to a letter from Ivan McKee to Michelle Ballantyne MSP, convenor of the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee. He said:
“The UK Government is seeking to lay the SI as soon as possible in order to secure a debate in the UK Parliament before the end of the year. This timeframe means that the SI would need to be laid before Scottish Parliament consent is confirmed, however Mr Zahawi’s letter states that they will not debate the SI until consent is received, therefore the Scottish Parliament should have the usual 28 day period in which to scrutinise the notification.”
In the preceding paragraph, he also says:
“Scottish Ministers therefore consider that consenting to the regulation remains appropriate.”
The Scottish Government have indicated that they are willing to consent to the SI and are willing to work with the UK Government on it. The UK Government committed not to debate the SI until consent was given. As we are now debating the SI, I ask the Minister again whether consent has been formally given. Perhaps we can assume it has not been; it would be great if the Minister could clear that up later on.
This is about divergence. I understand the UK wants to protect itself from challenges. We can understand that—there is a need to have some legal protections—but the Minister did say it is not a precedent to diverging. Could she confirm that? Why would we want to diverge from the EU, especially at the moment, when we are still negotiating this trade deal that really determines the future of the UK, particularly in the short term, on 1 January? What is the status of the trade deal discussions? Surely the UK thinking about diverging has a massive impact on the trade deal because the trade deal will confirm what divergences are possible or not. It seems to me that the cart is before the horse. We can talk about taking back control, but unless the UK Government are capable of joining up the dots in the big picture, this SI matters not a jot.
Patrick Grady
I suppose we should commend the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) for turning up and contributing to this debate. Taking back control was supposed to be what it was all about, and where are they? Where are the Tories—the European Research Group, the Maastricht rebels and all the rest of them?
We had the same last night with the statutory instrument that directly amended primary legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament. Fair enough, it was relatively technical in nature, as is this measure, but it goes to the point of respect for the devolution settlement, and it goes to the point of democratic accountability that Brexit was supposed to bring forward.
Was the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson not right when she said that when the Government force through relatively technical stuff such as this statutory instrument what they are doing is driving a coach and horses through the devolution settlement, and they are doing our work for us, because they are undermining the case for the Union?
Alan Brown
I wholeheartedly agree. The shadow Minister used the phrase “rocket boosters” under the argument for independence, and I hope we do have these rocket boosters in place and getting fired up right now.
Alan Brown
I will need to catch up with the hon. Gentleman in better surroundings, and we can share a sausage and Talisker, but of course he makes a serious point. In actual fact, the devolved nations want a common framework for agreeing how goods move about. To be honest, if we get our wish of independence, we are going to operate that way as well. We want to work with the other nations, and that is really important. But the way this UK Government are going about it, they want to impose their will on the different devolved nations, and it is like it or lump it. Hopefully, we can toast a wee dram to independence and we will discover we will still be friends after that as well, even though we do not share the same aims at the moment.
Patrick Grady
I am sure the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) will be entitled to a passport as well, but is not the point that Lorne sausage and Scotch whisky—the indicators of these vitally important products—are at risk because of the lack of the UK Government’s ability to conclude a deal with the EU? That is the kind of thing that ought to be being addressed through statutory instruments like this, Madam Deputy Speaker, and that is why it is relevant to this debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
For clarification, I was not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman was in any way out of order in the points he made. I am just really concerned about the square sausage.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that we have just clipped through three items of business and the Leader of the House has been handling the Dispatch Box, should the House not be suspended again so that the Dispatch Boxes can be sanitised and Members who want to participate in the next item of business can make sure that they are present?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but I have taken the decision that, as we have just suspended and we have been sitting again for only two or three minutes, a further suspension is not necessary, and that the Leader of the House’s touching of the Dispatch Box was momentary.
Electricity Generation: Local Suppliers
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Ben Lake
I am grateful for the hon. Member’s intervention. He makes a key point: the transition to a decarbonised economy also has a lot of benefits in terms of economic development in areas such as his and mine, which have been left behind. This offers so many opportunities, and we would do well to make more of them.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. As we hear from the interventions, there are local groups and bodies around the country that are desperate to have these opportunities. Partick Community Council in my constituency, which is a very concentrated urban area, is keen to find out how it can innovate and use the abilities being proposed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Jake Berry
Of course. I will happily meet my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to the work he is doing in driving forward the hopes and dreams of those involved in the Mansfield bid for the future high streets fund. Many areas across the country will not have succeeded in going through to the business case of the first round of the fund. I remind them that the fund will open again to applications very shortly—[Interruption.] That includes the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who is complaining from a sedentary position on the Labour Front Bench. We will see what we can do.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Chris Skidmore
I am happy to take away that specific issue. I want to make sure that the curry industry in Glasgow continues and that local businesses continue to thrive. I am happy to take away the issue and look at it in further detail. We work closely with the regulator, Ofgem, to make sure that suppliers and individuals continue to benefit from a flexible energy economy.