Environment and Climate Change

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

In that spirit, I am very happy to give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald).

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene. I want to take him back to security. There are many teeth in the dangerous maw that is climate change, and security does not get enough attention. Between DFID, the Ministry of Defence and perhaps the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, will the Government at some point publish an analysis of how the global security effects of climate change affect the UK, and what part the UK sees itself playing?

[Michael Gove]

That is a fair point, and I will take it forward. In advance of our preparations for COP 26 at the end of 2020, I will ensure that we include in our deliberations the dimension of security, which I know is close to the hon. Gentleman’s heart.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock]

I am indeed aware of that issue, and I do think it is disgraceful. I cannot see how the Secretary of State has a leg to stand on in this regard.

This needs ambition—not personal ambition, but political ambition and the desire to see future generations able to breathe on this planet. We need to challenge an old measure of Government success—the measure that says that the greatest good a Government can do is grow GDP—and start to measure success by how much the Government can do to ensure that there is a future where the sustainability of communities and the environment is a touchstone.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Does my hon. Friend agree that for all the glossy words of the Environment Secretary, what is needed is for Departments to work together? As she knows, Dalgety Bay beach in Scotland is still covered in radioactive particles, and the Ministry of Defence has dithered and delayed on this. Does she agree that that needs to be addressed urgently; that it cannot wait until next year, as seems to be getting suggested; and that the message has to go to the Government that Scotland is not Westminster’s nuclear dumping ground?

[Deidre Brock]

I could not agree with my hon. Friend more. It has been three decades since radioactive particles were found on Dalgety Bay beach, and only now is the MOD finally committing itself to a clean-up of those particles. That is an utter disgrace. I would like, personally, to see an environmental audit of all MOD activities on Scottish land and water to see what that uncovers, and then, of course, the MOD paying for the clean-up operations.

We must have regard to the warning issued by the Governor of the Bank of England when he said that climate uncertainty was an economic risk and that climate challenges could become challenges in the financial markets. We have to see that, swallow it and move on. Action on climate change can be a threat to jobs, but inaction is a death knell, and not just to jobs. Mark Carney also said that there was opportunity in the changes to come, and that we should embrace that and welcome the possibility of new industries and new jobs arising from new technology.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is right, but dynamic alignment during those nine months would mean our being a rule-taker during that period. Dynamic alignment would allow us to be registered as a third country, but there would also be sanitary and phytosanitary—SPS—checks on a variety of products.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State speaks as though there is some distance between him and the tragedy that he has just outlined, but is it not the case that he is a senior author of that tragedy? Does he feel no sense of shame or responsibility? Should he not apologise for the mess that we are facing?

[Michael Gove]

It is the responsibility of those who voted against the withdrawal agreement last night—[Interruption.] If Scottish National party Members had a care for Scotland’s industry, Scotland’s prosperity and Scotland’s farmers, they would have voted for the withdrawal agreement last night, but I am afraid that when it comes to political positioning and separatist posturing, rather than serious politics, there is no equal to the ranks of the Scottish National party.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

In his denunciation of Stalinism from exile in Paris in 1951, the Polish poet and diplomat, Czeslaw Milosz, wrote in his seminal book “The Captive Mind”:

“Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.”

He was, of course, admonishing his fellow citizens who had sought to convince themselves that any progress was to come from the road to servitude that had been planned for eastern Europe in the wake of two world wars.

As we reflect today on the Herculean tyranny that engulfed the people of Europe in the form of gulags, gas chambers and a wall in Berlin, it is surely right that we ask ourselves whether we really want to embark on the road the Government are asking us to take next week. The Government are asking Parliament to clutch at their illusions. As we consider a document that seeks to sever our membership of the Union of Europe, we should remind ourselves time and again of what that great peace project was born from.

As Europe stood at the gates of hell, as it did for years, great leaders across the continent pulled it back and authored the fragile but imperfect peace that millions of us enjoy today. Those of us who believe in that peace should defend it and guard it with jealousy. After centuries of war among our people, a pan-European social, diplomatic and economic architecture, underpinned by rules, reason and a desire to keep the peace, is what our forefathers gifted to us.

UK citizens, not least in Scotland, have been among the largest beneficiaries and most enthusiastic participants. Just look at the rhapsodic uptake of the freedom of movement. Where once the skies and waters of Europe were filled with warring air forces and navies, now our skies are filled with innumerable airlines packed with people. Our waters and skies were once the scenes of war, and now there is free movement across a market of 500 million people.

Gone are the days of tyranny, war and walls. Instead, a new easyJet generation have had their hearts and minds opened to the continent. We have all been made immeasurably richer by the ability to move around the continent, driven by a desire to do commerce, exchange ideas, experience new cultures and share our own. Surely free movement is an unparalleled triumph of democracy.

Look at what opening up the nations of Europe, and all the advancements of humankind that followed, has done for Europe. Look at what it has done for countries that were once satellite states of the Soviet Union or that lived under one of Europe’s assorted dictatorships. It has transformed nations and economies. Where once stood communism and Nazism, there now stand strong democracies across the continent with a free press, an open economy and civil society.

Freedom of movement is quite literally the living embodiment of the freedom that wars have been fought over, yet here we have a Government presenting the ending of that diplomatic achievement as some kind of gain. Only a fool could think so. Only the historically illiterate could champion the ending of the freedom of movement.

In my constituency there are just under 1,500 EU nationals in active employment, with many more studying or living in retirement. I cannot, in all good conscience, return and tell them that I have voted to end the very right that has allowed them to come here and, worse, that they will have to pay £65—essentially a tax on foreigners—and go through a registration process, all to enjoy the rights that they currently enjoy and have enjoyed for decades.

I foresee Scotland regaining her independence, which I want with every fibre of my being. I believe that the nations of the UK will always be the friendliest of neighbours, looking out for each other and looking out for each other’s interests in the different forums that underpin the international rules around the world.

[James Cartlidge]

Which currency would that independent Scotland use?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I will confine my remarks to the issue at hand.

The current constitutional arrangement forbids Scotland from interacting on an equal footing either with our neighbours in the rest of the UK or, indeed, with the other nations of the European Union. We in Scotland can see it every day, whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not—we see the cost to Scotland of not being an independent country and member of the European Union. Instead, we are locked in a Union that has little appetite to take Scotland’s interests into account. Nobody is buying the empty platitudes of the “plucky Brits” that once struck a chord at home and abroad. This is the stuff of white noise and it makes us a laughing stock in the capitals of Europe.

I do not want this miserable deal imposed on Scotland, but I also do not want it imposed on the people of the rest of the United Kingdom. It is solipsistic; it is isolationist; and at times it is even capricious—I want nothing to do with it. The deal puts us on a devastating path, as the security landscape across the continent and the wider world is ever more complex. So I will not vote for a deal that discards our security needs—needs that the Government fail to take seriously.

The day when we were originally due to vote on the deal, 11 December, marked five years since the then Yanukovych Government in Ukraine opened fire on young protesters in Maidan Square who wanted to join the European Union. How perverse that this sorry Government would ask us to vote to leave that European Union on the day that marked five years from when the so-called “heavenly hundred” were killed by their own Government for wishing to join the European Union.

I say this to progressives around the UK: Scotland has stood by you since Brexit was voted for in 2016. When Scotland finally—finally—regains its independence and seeks to join the European Union as an independent member state, I say to our progressive friends around the UK: just as we stood by you, we want you to stand with us.

Agriculture Bill

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock]

I am not sure what the right hon. Gentleman is speaking about, because we will also have tariffs imposed on us as a result of these discussions, and they are alarming. Lamb farmers in Scotland are certainly very concerned, and a tariff of something like 46% has been suggested to me.

With the stark warnings about chaos in the chain for imported foods post-Brexit, one would think that domestic food security would be top of the agenda in DEFRA just now. As my friend the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) has just said, the situation is serious enough for a Minister to be appointed to oversee food supplies. That is the kind of ministerial brief we associate with wars in the middle of the last century. With that kind of concern, which is clearly a feature of Whitehall’s panic after failing to plan for Brexit, one would think that domestic food production would be getting a look-in now.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

During the recess a constituent of mine was in a care home and saw a poster that said:

“Rationing means a fair share for all of us”.

Does my hon. Friend think that was nostalgia or forward planning?

[Deidre Brock]

I certainly hope that we will not get to that situation, because it is an alarming thought. I thank my hon. Friend for that point.

Food production is missing from this Agriculture Bill. We have a Bill to regulate agriculture that is silent on the very essence of agriculture. I appreciate that not every aspect of a portfolio area can be present in every piece of legislation and that there will be times when things are missed, but surely we cannot miss out the core point of the legislation. We really cannot talk about how to regulate or support farming unless we also talk about producing food. Agriculture is not agriculture if it is only land management and form filling.

EU Referendum: Energy and Environment

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Philip Boswell (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

When considering this question, and in respect of investor confidence, my concerns are as follows. Investment in oil and gas renewables, or any energy or environmental project or initiative, relies on, among other things, stable legislation. Investors must be able to rely on the conditions under which they are prepared to invest lasting for, preferably, the duration of that project or initiative. That has not been the case with this Government and previous Governments.

There have been about 18 legislative changes in the oil and gas sector in the past 15 years. Allied to that, there has been the withdrawal from green initiatives such as the zero-carbon home policy. The green deal home improvement fund was abolished. Solar subsidies have been cut and the onshore wind farm subsidy has been removed. The door has been opened to fracking and a cap for biomass fuel subsidy has been introduced. The UK Green Investment Bank has been privatised, the green tax target on renewable energy investment has been abandoned and green car incentives have been cut. Particularly significant for me, as I worked on one of the projects, was the cancelling of the competition for carbon capture and storage.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is illustrating the sorry place the Government have now taken the country. It is no longer Britannia rules the waves: it is Britannia waives the rules.

[Philip Boswell]

That is an excellent point well made by my hon. Friend.

The legislative changes in that short list can do nothing but discourage investors from investing in new energy production. The cancellation of the £1 billion carbon capture and storage competition initiative set out in the 2015 autumn statement will make it almost impossible for the UK to meet its climate change targets.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for an ingenious connection, although the nature of the extraction in the two cases is quite different. The Environment Agency takes its responsibilities very seriously, whether in respect of quarrying or fracking. If there are particular concerns, I would be happy to sit down with him to discuss them in more detail.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

2. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on the proposals by the European Commission for it to levy fines on vehicle manufacturers that do not meet emissions standards.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)]

In the wake of the Volkswagen engines scandal, it is extremely important both that we have monitoring in place to check the real levels of emissions of nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants from engines, and that we have proper fines in place. This Department and the Department for Transport will look very carefully at the proposals that were put forward by the Commission last week.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am grateful for that very positive response from the Minister. Does he agree that it is time to break the relationship between industry, testers and regulators, so that the process is truly independent and so that Government agencies, whether they be in his Department or the DFT, act wholly in the public interest?

[Rory Stewart]

As a matter of principle, it is incredibly important that regulators are entirely independent of the industry they regulate. This is essentially an issue for the DFT. The reason the Commission’s proposals are interesting to ourselves and the DFT is that they include both the commitment on spot checks, with a clear indication of the fines, and a separation, as the hon. Gentleman says, the regulator and the industry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend; we are now exporting 1 billion pints of beer around the world. I have had the opportunity to visit the Ilkley brewery and taste its fantastic produce, as well as Fuller’s in London. I have not yet visited Burton—I am still waiting for the invitation. Perhaps it is in the post, so that I will be able to promote it, too.

[Stewart McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

When does the Secretary of State expect that her Department will become a living wage employer?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am committed to making my Department a living wage employer.