Referendum on Scottish Independence

Debate between Ross Thomson and Alan Brown

Monday 13th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. This has been a lively debate and I look forward to adding to the liveliness.

Just hours after the European Union referendum last year and as the result was coming in—in fact, before all the votes had even been counted and before anyone had time to contemplate and reflect on what was an extraordinary result—Scotland’s First Minister was immediately on our television screens, seizing her opportunity to crowbar Scottish independence back on to the political agenda after the people of Scotland overwhelmingly rejected it in 2014. However, that was no surprise, as the First Minister has made clear, in her own words, that her pursuit of independence “transcends” all else. It transcends Brexit; it transcends national wealth; it transcends the opportunity of the next generation to get a quality education; it transcends health; it transcends transport; it transcends the environment; and it transcends everything else.

Since that day, bathed in the media limelight in Bute House, it has become crystal clear that in fact the SNP has overplayed its hand on Brexit and a second independence referendum. The opinion polls show that the Scottish people are the biggest barrier to a second referendum, because they simply do not want one. Since 2014, support for independence has crumbled. The question of independence has been polled more than 70 times, as my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) mentioned earlier. Since 2014, and consistently, no to independence has been in the lead in the polls, with an average of more than eight points.

I will touch on something that has also been mentioned during this debate and that I hear quite often from those who support independence when they look back at the referendum, in some ways through rose-tinted glasses. I accept that the referendum heightened engagement; some of the best examples of engagement happened during it, particularly in our school halls, where the younger generation were so engaged that some of the best questions and the best challenge came from them. It was also good to see such a high turnout.

[Alan Brown]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it was a mistake for the Scottish Conservatives to oppose 16 and 17-year-olds getting the vote in the referendum?

[Ross Thomson]

Scottish Conservatives actually advocate that those who are 16 or 17 should have the right to vote in elections and future referendums, and that is our party policy.

There was another element of that referendum campaign, which was how nasty and divisive it became. We have heard from other Members about some of their own experiences. As for me, my mother was chased down the road by an activist who was ripping down Better Together signs displayed in fields neighbouring our home; I saw war memorials in Aberdeen desecrated; I saw activists who were campaigning with us on our street stalls being intimidated and spat on; and let us not mention Twitter, which since the referendum has still been polarising, divisive and full of vile nastiness that we should all condemn and that should not be part of our discourse here in the UK. Unfortunately, a poison pervades our politics in Scotland following that referendum. It is still absolutely there and we all have a duty to try to stamp it out.

During the 2014 referendum, page 210 of the White Paper, which has been mentioned by other Members, stated that

“if we remain part of the UK, a referendum on future British membership of the EU could see Scotland taken out of the EU against the wishes of the people of Scotland”.

Despite that being in the White Paper, and despite all Scots knowing it, Scots voted overwhelmingly to remain in the UK and subsequently, in another referendum, the UK voted to leave the EU. Following the logic of the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), who articulated the benefits of a majority in referendums, we should respect the results of referendums whether we agree with them or not, and those results are that Scotland stays in the UK and the UK leaves the EU.

The First Minister seized on the votes of remain/no voters, hailing them as a justification for another referendum. In fact, that rush to divide the UK only served to alienate those remain/no voters. Furthermore, the SNP attempted simply to dismiss the votes of 1 million Scottish leave voters, including 400,000 of their own voters and MSPs such as Alex Neil, who is no longer a bashful Brexiteer; I wish some of his colleagues would join him, because we know they are there.

That left those voters voiceless and the anger among them is quite palpable, which we saw reflected in the general election result, because in the snap election that followed the EU referendum, and with the prospect of indyref2 hanging over the heads of Scottish voters, the SNP lost almost half a million of its votes and 21 of its seats, clinging on by the skin of its teeth in Perth and North Perthshire, and North East Fife. Notably, Angus Robertson and Alex Salmond are gone, both having lost their seats.

The Scottish people were repeatedly promised in 2014 that the referendum was “once in a generation”, and we have also heard the words, “once in a lifetime”. The people of Scotland seized on the snap general election to send Nicola Sturgeon a clear message—take a second independence referendum off the table for good. I have pondered what exactly Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond meant by that “once in a generation” phrase— that “once in a generation” billboard and media opportunity—but we all now know that it amounts to a mere 907 days. That is the 907 days between 18 September 2014 and 13 March 2017, when Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that she would seek to hold a second independence referendum in the autumn of 2018.

The SNP attempt to use Brexit to increase support for independence, but that strategy is clearly flawed, because at the end of the day none of the challenges raised by Brexit and none of the questions posed by Brexit are ever answered by tearing Scotland out of the UK, its most important single market.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Debate between Ross Thomson and Alan Brown

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alan Brown]

Yes, I welcome that collaboration and announcement. The hon. Gentleman made a joke about being parochial for his area and his constituency, but surprisingly I am not going to be that parochial. I would like to see all these projects develop, with local areas across the United Kingdom benefiting.

The hon. Gentleman talked about taking tiny steps forward. We need to take much bigger leaps forward—this is where I turn to the gloomy aspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey touched on—but we have taken backward steps. The Minister might not like hearing this, but it is important, and it has got us to where we are just now. Pulling the plug on the Peterhead project cost the Peterhead area 600 jobs, but it has the much wider implication that it dented investor confidence. The Government need to take action to recover that confidence and find ways to get private investment going forward.

In 2014, before the Scottish referendum, we were told by the Better Together campaign that only the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom could cope with a reduction in the oil price. Since then, we have sadly seen a reduction in the oil price, but we have not seen enough support from those broad shoulders. That is why the pulling of the project at Peterhead was a further blow to the oil and gas industry in that area of Scotland. That project could have been the perfect fillip.

[Ross Thomson]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the White Paper on independence was wrong when it talked about the proceeds from oil and that the Deputy First Minister John Swinney was wrong when he said that there would be a second oil boom? As we are talking about U-turns, will the hon. Gentleman join me in calling on the First Minister to perform a U-turn on scrapping the energy jobs taskforce, because that is needed to support jobs in Aberdeen?

[Alan Brown]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and for talking down the oil and gas industry in his area. Yes, the Scottish Government’s predictions in the White Paper had the future price of oil wrong—just like the UK Government and the Office for National Statistics had it wrong. The Scottish Government were somewhere between the two. We were not the only ones who got it wrong; economists got it wrong too. We admit that we got it wrong, but it is why the SNP has long argued for an oil fund, because that would have helped to smooth the trough that came. I am happy to acknowledge that point and put it on the record.

Returning to where I was going to go, the decision to pull the plug on Peterhead had wider implications for investor confidence. It has been acknowledged and was repeated in the clean growth strategy that risk was an issue with these projects, but in the previous competition the real risk was the White Rose project, where the contractors involved could not apportion risk between themselves properly and could not provide a compliant bid. In the Peterhead project, Shell was able to manage the risk. The Government need to review that and find out why Shell said it could manage the risk and provide a compliant bid. That has important implications going forward.

The National Audit Office report compiled after that decision confirmed that a total of £168 million was spent on the two CCS competitions with no tangible research and development outcomes to show for it. The Government may suggest that the contractors or personnel involved in the projects developed some expertise, but there is no guarantee that they will be involved in future projects. There is a risk that they will take their expertise elsewhere. That is why we need to go forward quickly. Following the decision on Peterhead, there has been the withdrawal of funding for onshore wind and solar power, which has caused problems in those sectors, leading to a 95% drop in expenditure on renewables. There is a clear pattern, and I highlight that to remind the Government that investor confidence is low and it must be stimulated. They need to find a way forward.

The Government can find ways forward to manage risk. In the Thames tideway project, they underwrote risk to the value of £5 billion. Hinkley Point C had bonds of £2 billion underwritten, not to mention the fact that the National Audit Office estimates that the project will cost £30 billion. We must remember that, unlike the other contracts for difference awards, Hinkley has a 35-year lifespan and not the standard 15. It is clear that where there is Government will, there is a way. They need to find that will and way for carbon capture and storage. The hon. Member for Waveney talked about the Oxburgh report, which highlights that CCS can deliver an estimated strike price rate of £85 per megawatt-hour. That compares favourably with £92 per megawatt-hour for Hinkley.

Other Members have highlighted the estimate of the Committee on Climate Change that CCS could halve the cost of meeting the 2050 carbon reduction target. In that respect, I welcome the clean growth strategy, which the Government brought forward last week. As I said at the time, however, the strategy gives mixed messages. It states that CCS will be deployed subject to cost reductions, but we need clarity. What are the Government’s cost expectations and what is the expected trajectory once the initial project is up and running? We need to remember how that compares with the “sign at all costs” attitude taken towards Hinkley. The Government also need to state clearly how they expect CCS to be paid for. Members from Teesside have highlighted the need to find a suitable and robust payment mechanism that gives value for money.

I welcome the Government’s statement in the clean growth strategy that they

“will work with the ongoing initiatives in Teesside, Merseyside, South Wales and”—

importantly from our perspective—“Grangemouth”. However, they need to clarify what “work with” means. What is the real level of support that they will provide? It needs to be more than working with or providing token support. As my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey highlighted, the St Fergus project in the north-east of Scotland is being supported by the Scottish Government and EU funding. When it comes to EU funding, what future funding are the UK Government going to allocate beyond the 2020 horizon? How do they see collaborative working going forward?

Due to the abrupt pulling of the previous competition, at great cost to the public purse, not only was the National Audit Office report undertaken, but the Public Accounts Committee also undertook an investigation. It made a number of recommendations; hopefully the Minister will advise us on how the Government will take them forward. First, the Committee recommended that the Government

“set out in its Industrial Strategy the role that CCS can play”.

I am not sure that there is enough detail in the industrial strategy on that yet. The next recommendation was that

“By the end of 2017, the Department should quantify and publish the impact across the whole economy of delays”

to CCS and of its not having been implemented yet. The Committee recommended that an

“Emissions Reduction Plan should set out a clear, joined-up strategy for deploying CCS”.

It also said that the Government need to look at different risk options for energy policies, that the Treasury should buy into the emissions reduction plan at the outset and that there is a need for less Treasury interference—the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy must actually make the decisions, rather than the Treasury intervening.

I hope that the Minister will respond to that, and advise whether the carbon capture, utilisation and storage cost challenge taskforce that is to be put forward will consider those aspects. I welcome the setting up of that taskforce. Will she also confirm how experts will be selected and incorporated into the taskforce, and what the terms of reference from the Government will be?

It is laudable that the clean growth strategy reiterates that we want to see the implementation of CCS. As the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) asked, what does large-scale CCS in the 2030s mean, what is the pathway to that, and what projects do we need to see on board before then? The mention of supporting hydrogen production is also laudable; that is certainly a good way forward. I would also highlight the fact that Scotia Gas Networks is looking to run demonstration trials up in Scotland, to see how that will work in a domestic setting.

It is laudable to say that the UK aims to be a global leader, but to be a global leader we need to lead from the front. We need financial commitment, drive and determination, and we need to see a clear way forward soon. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.