Alistair Carmichael MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2026 · North Sea Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has come to a point of some interest. We talk about oil and gas as if they are one commodity, but they are very different things, of course, and she will know that the gas that is to be extracted in the North sea and also to the west of Shetland is brought ashore and goes straight into the UK market. The point about a global market and a global price for oil is well made, but oil and gas are different.

• 24 Jun 2026 · North Sea Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  Each time, the hon. Lady says, “Instead of that, it’s this.” It is not an either/or; it is an “as well”.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  May we have a debate in Government time on the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s proposed changes to the way it compensates those who give their time as coastguard volunteers? The agency’s current proposals are causing massive concern among volunteer coastguards in my constituency and right around the coastline. We risk seeing those volunteers being forced to walk away, leaving communities without the necessary protection as a result. Surely the Leader of the House can agree that not to take on board those concerns before making the changes demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for those who volunteer their services in this way.

• 21 May 2026 · Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  The largest sector of the manufacturing base is food manufacturing, but it was deliberately left out of the industrial strategy. As a consequence, food manufacturing is now facing rising input costs, especially from energy, and is unable to get the assistance that the Minister just referred to. The Food and Drink Federation thinks that food price inflation could get to 9% or 10% this year. With the benefit of hindsight, do the Government think that it was possibly a mistake to exclude food manufacturing from the industrial strategy?

• 21 May 2026 · Middle East: Economic Response · Hansard source

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  I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Last year, suckler beef farmers in my constituency were getting paid £7.30 per kilo for their finished product on the hook. Yesterday that was down to £5.75, and it is still falling. The price paid to dairy farmers for their milk is through the floor. Arable farmers are struggling after two catastrophically bad harvests. The red diesel duty cut is welcome, but it will not help farmers who are struggling with rocketing fertiliser prices or, indeed, those who are required to heat glasshouses. Opening the door ever wider to food imports risks undermining domestic food production. If food security genuinely is national security, surely our food producers and manufacturers should have access to the same support as other critical sectors. Will the Chancellor look again at adding food and drink to the Government’s industrial strategy, so that they can access the same support as other sectors?

• 20 May 2026 · Processed Russian Oil Products: Sanctions · Hansard source

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  For years, Ministers on the Treasury Bench have told us that oil is traded as a global commodity, so it makes no difference where in the world it is taken out of the ground and that, as a consequence, we can wind down production on the UK continental shelf—availability of supply would continue. Given what the Minister has had to announce today, is he satisfied that that argument still holds water?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T8. Airlines are already adding fuel surcharges to ticket prices as a consequence of current events. That may not be surprising, but does the Secretary of State agree with me that, if they are going to do that, they should at the same time publish a trigger point, so that customers will know when those fuel surcharges will be removed from ticket prices?

• 26 Mar 2026 · European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service · Hansard source

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  I think I can speed things up there, because I can tell the Minister exactly what the impact has been. Since we lost access to EGNOS, the number of cancellations to island communities has trebled, which in turn has put up the cost of tickets, and occasionally air ambulance flights are unable to get in. That has been the cost of coming out of EGNOS, and it is about time we found our way back into it. Will the Minister meet me, and perhaps his hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), to find a way of progressing this without any further delay?

• 26 Mar 2026 · European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service · Hansard source

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  12. What recent discussions she has had with the aviation industry on the potential merits of the UK rejoining the European geostationary navigation overlay service.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Middle East: Economic Update · Hansard source

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  Shetland is home to one of the largest onshore wind farms in the country, the operators of which are paid millions not to generate electricity because of grid constraints. As a result, the announcement this morning of a trial of discounted energy rates for communities such as ours will be met—possibly—with some excitement. When will we hear the details of how that will work and what it will mean in terms of reductions to the bills of my constituents?

• 19 Mar 2026 · EU-UK Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement: Negotiations · Hansard source

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  Obviously, there are real opportunities to be had from the completion of an SPS agreement, but those who import fresh produce, in particular citrus fruit, are concerned that imports from countries outside the European Union will become more difficult and more expensive as a consequence. May I encourage the Secretary of State to engage more vigorously and in greater detail with the Fresh Produce Consortium, which brought these concerns to my desk recently?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  I commend the Minister for admitting that he does not know how much this is going to cost, but it is almost six months since this became Government policy, and now he has decided that it is time to consult the public. Can he tell the House how much it has cost us so far?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Type 1 Diabetes: Infant Testing · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to you for allowing me to take part in the debate, Sir Alec. I apologise for my late arrival; I had a five-hour delay to my flight today, which is all part of the joys of highland living. I particularly wanted to take part as a consequence of representations I received from my constituent Gina Tait, who, but for the grace of God, could have found herself in the same situation as Lyla’s parents, with the same consequences. The fact that she did not was because she was simply not prepared to take no for an answer. Gina told me that after her daughter had been seen the first time, by a GP in Britain, she was left feeling that she was somehow a pushy parent. Then, when she was on holiday in Morocco, she took her daughter to see a GP there. Again, she was told that there was nothing particularly wrong, and was nearly fobbed off with antibiotics for tonsillitis. It was only when she insisted for the third time that her daughter was diagnosed. Gina was not a pushy parent. She was a good mother who knew her own child and, as she says, “something just felt wrong”. As well as Lyla’s law, which I 100% support, we need a campaign here and now so that parents have better awareness of the symptoms—the four Ts to which reference has been made. In that way, parents can act for themselves and take better control of the healthcare that is there for their children. I am delighted to see this petition debate today, and I am grateful to you, Sir Alec, for allowing me to take a brief part in it.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Mr Speaker, you will recall that in 2003 this House voted to support George Bush’s war in Iraq, and that 10 years later we voted not to support Barack Obama’s intervention in Syria. I believed, and still believe, that on both occasions we made the wrong decision, but it was of critical importance for the political and even the social cohesion of this country that those decisions should be made in this Chamber. The people of the United Kingdom will not support an intervention that does not have a clear objective and a clear plan for the post-conflict period. Will the Prime Minister be guided by these principles, and will he ensure that this House is given its place in whatever is handed to us in the weeks and months to come?

• 2 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the 2014 referendum experience. After that, I brought a section 30 order before the House to give the Scottish Parliament the power to lower the voting age to 16 for local council and Scottish Parliament elections. I can tell the hon. Lady that there is nobody in Scotland now suggesting that we would go back to a voting age of 18. Is that not the acid test for the strength of our case?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Energy Developers Levy · Hansard source

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  I urge the Minister to learn from the experience of Shetland and Sullom Voe, 50 years ago. We took the most important step on North sea oil and gas coming ashore in Shetland, but on our terms: there was a genuine funding stream coming to the community. If we give the whip hand to the corporates, they will always use it to their benefit.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Energy Developers Levy · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member has really come to the nub of the matter: the energy companies that are building and installing the renewable capacity are making a lot of money out of it. In my constituency, there are turbines whose owners are being paid for not generating anything, while we have the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country. Does that not speak to the fact that we need wholesale reform of the way the energy market is regulated?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Firearms Licensing · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman’s point about the DVLA is an interesting one. If I consider my casework load over the years, I would not necessarily hold up the DVLA as a model of the advantages of centralisation. Are we not losing sight of the fact that, when Parliament legislated in the first instance for two different classifications, it did so for a reason? That reason, in essence, has not changed. There is a risk that, in pursuing something that is essentially procedural, we come away at the end of the day with worse outcomes, which are surely what matter to all those who care about the safety issue.

• 12 Feb 2026 · UK-EU Agritrade: SPS Agreement · Hansard source

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  If our ultimate destination were re-entry, whether by the back door or front door, I suspect that the hon. Gentleman and I might struggle to find a common position. Let us be clear what we are dealing with. An SPS agreement is tightly drawn, and is about our food producers having frictionless access so that they can get their products to market in our single biggest market. That is why there is a real opportunity here. To my mind, the veterinary medicines agreement, for example, goes beyond trade; it is a matter of animal welfare. Allowing questions of constitution to get in the way of providing the animal welfare products we need, in any part of the United Kingdom, would be unforgivable.

• 12 Feb 2026 · UK-EU Agritrade: SPS Agreement · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman knows my views on this; in fact, I have touched on them already. I think it is absolutely essential. It is to the benefit of everybody that those responsible for the negotiations have the fullest understanding of the views in Parliament, out there in the production sector—CropLife UK is a good example of that—and of farmers, who have day-to-day responsibility for these issues. A good SPS agreement that gets things right should not have too many unintended consequences. While a cliff-edge implementation would apparently result in the loss of £810 million, a lengthy implementation period would allow us the opportunity to smooth out any wrinkles that we might inadvertently have agreed to. We know from the trade and co-operation agreement that rushing can sometimes make things more difficult in the longer term.

• 12 Feb 2026 · UK-EU Agritrade: SPS Agreement · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I welcome him formally to the Committee and thank him for his contribution to its proceedings. We benefited from our time at the John Innes Centre, and it is not a subject of any controversy to say that the Committee was very impressed with the professionalism of all those who work there and their commitment to improving our commercial advantage in precision breeding and gene editing. It is fair to say that the position on precision breeding in England is one that farmers in other parts of the United Kingdom look to with a degree of envy, and it would be a great shame if we lost the advantage that England has from being an early adopter. From speaking to people in the Commission, my impression is that they are keen to see the steps the UK has taken as encouragement for their member states to come towards our position, and that dynamic alignment will not necessarily be a one-way process. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that point, and any SPS agreement that does not respect and enhance our advantage will miss a most important trick for our farmers.

• 12 Feb 2026 · UK-EU Agritrade: SPS Agreement · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right. She was on the Committee when we heard from the Swiss representatives in Brussels, and they were successful over a rather longer negotiation period. I give credit to the Prime Minister for having created a political environment in which a negotiated agreement this year is not just possible but expected. I understand all the reasons why the Prime Minister would want to see the earliest possible implementation—there are imperatives coming from the political electoral cycle, shall we say—but at the end of the day it is more important that our farmers get what is necessary to allow them to take advantage of the agreement. If they cannot sell the products into market, we have missed the whole point of having an SPS agreement; it would be an agreement simply for the sake of it. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that, in this agreement, as in any other trade deal we have, leaving ourselves open to the import of food produced to lower standards than we expect of our farmers would be absolute madness.

• 12 Feb 2026 · UK-EU Agritrade: SPS Agreement · Hansard source

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  On any objective analysis, it is very important that we get this right, and we can get it right by doing it slowly and carefully. The hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst)—the lobster capital of Europe—referenced the report from CropLife UK. The report seeks to quantify the financial cost of a cliff-edge implementation, and puts it as high as £810 million. CropLife UK is obviously not saying, “Don’t do this,” but simply, “If you do this with no proper implementation period, there will be financial cost attached to it.” At a time when the Government’s central mission is economic growth, and when that growth must be available to every community in the country —rural as well as urban—taking that sort of risk for the political imperative of timing seems an unacceptable way of managing such an important agreement.

• 12 Feb 2026 · UK-EU Agritrade: SPS Agreement · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Ms Jardine. It is, as ever, an inestimable pleasure to serve under your stewardship in Westminster Hall. May I place on record my appreciation of the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for me to make a statement to mark the publication of our Committee’s fifth report of this Parliament, “UK-EU agritrade: making an SPS agreement work”? The report is the third major output of our long-term inquiry into animal and plant health. As part of our inquiry, we have spent time in discussion with domestic stakeholders in farming and food production and with officials and parliamentarians in Brussels. It is clear from our time in Brussels that the Prime Minister’s reset in May 2025 has created a political environment in which the early conclusion of a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the European Union is a realistic objective. Progressing towards an agreement at pace brings with it both opportunities and threats. The main threat we identify is that the process of dynamic alignment could result in us aligning with regulations that weaken the position of our food producers, as it might deny them access to products on which they currently rely. That threat is particularly acute in relation to plant protection products used by our arable farmers. This is a complex area where the needs of our farmers must be understood and protected. I do not doubt that in the negotiation of the agreement the Government will seek to do that. I am less convinced, however, that in practice they will have the depth of knowledge necessary to avoid the law of unintended consequences coming into play. That depth of knowledge exists and is readily accessible for the Government from British farmers and other businesses involved in the manufacture of plant protection products. Securing their fullest engagement is the best way to ensure that any agreement is workable and will not leave our food producers at a disadvantage. On the subject of engagement, I observe in passing that, when in Brussels, the Committee benefited from high-level and good-quality engagement from officials in the Commission and Members of the European Parliament, as well as other relevant organisations. By contrast, our engagement with our own Government has been less straightforward. The Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations declined our invitation to appear before the Committee and has offered instead a private briefing for me as Chair. I am afraid that that offer, while appreciated, rather misses the point of how Select Committees work, and especially how the EFRA Committee works. I am not blind to the sensitivities of a live negotiation, but we are a Select Committee of the House of Commons charged with the scrutiny of the Government. For us not to scrutinise fully the Government’s conduct of these negotiations would be a dereliction of our duty, which I am not prepared to countenance. Let me place on record that the Committee’s work on this most important of areas for our food producers is continuing and that we look to the Government for better engagement than we have had. If the sensitivities of the negotiation mean that Ministers are unwilling to appear in public—that is not an unreasonable position—other means must be found for the Committee to fulfil its duties. At the very least, I would hope to see a briefing of the whole Committee in private. A central issue in these negotiations is dynamic regulatory alignment. Under such a model, the UK may be required to adjust domestic laws when the EU changes its own, particularly in areas such as animal welfare, pesticide regulation and precision breeding. We heard deep concerns from the agrifood sector that unqualified dynamic alignment risks placing additional burdens on UK farmers, while undercutting them with cheaper imports produced under weaker standards. Our report therefore recommends that the Government seek a Swiss-style carve-out for animal welfare rules, ensuring that the UK is not compelled to follow every regulatory change that could be to the detriment of higher UK standards in this area. Similarly, the Government should seek an exemption from dynamic alignment for precision-bred products. Some of the UK is ahead of the EU in this area, with farmers in England already having been enabled to grow and market precision-bred seeds, plants, food and animal feed. Without an exemption, we risk losing the benefits of moving first. Mandatory alignment with future EU rules could undermine our progress and innovation and weaken the UK’s leadership in the sector. On pesticides and maximum residue levels, we heard evidence that EU rules developed post Brexit may not reflect UK agronomic conditions. Imposing them without consideration of our climate, crops and production systems risks unnecessary burdens for growers, which at best may be impractical, but at worst may be impossible. We therefore recommend that any sanitary and phyto- sanitary agreement must guarantee that UK scientific evidence is fully considered in all risk-based decisions affecting our agriculture. Our inquiry also highlighted that SPS alignment will not succeed without public understanding and trust. Dynamic alignment involves choices. We need a national conversation between Government and the public to set out the realities, opportunities and constraints of a potential SPS deal. I turn now to Northern Ireland and the provision of veterinary medicines. Although veterinary medicines are not formally within the scope of the SPS agreement, they remain an unresolved and urgent issue under the Windsor framework. The continued uncertainty about the availability of veterinary medicines in Northern Ireland poses real risks to animal health, farm businesses and trade. We therefore recommend that the Government pursue a veterinary medicines agreement with the EU, concurrently with the SPS discussions, and set out clear timelines and priorities for doing so. For Parliament, these negotiations raise fundamental questions. If future EU regulatory changes may affect UK law, Parliament must have a clear and meaningful role in scrutinising the negotiations and any subsequent rule changes. We have recommended that the Government publish detailed plans for parliamentary scrutiny, including how EU legislation would be assessed before being considered for assimilation into UK law. A workable SPS agreement will require careful, phased implementation. Border authorities, the Food Standards Agency, local authorities, port health teams, laboratories and industry all made clear to us that significant regulatory change requires long lead-in times. Staff training, new systems and revised working practices cannot be introduced overnight. We therefore recommend a minimum 24-month implementation period for any major regulatory changes arising from an SPS agreement. In this report, we have set out the opportunities of an SPS agreement, and they are significant. A well-designed agreement could ease trade, reduce costs and strengthen ties with our largest trading partner. But the risks are also significant. Poorly managed alignment could burden farmers, erode trust, undermine innovation and weaken the UK’s ability to act on its own scientific evidence. Our recommendations are practical and proportionate. They are designed to ensure that any SPS agreement supports UK agriculture, strengthens biosecurity and commands public and parliamentary confidence. It is crucial that the Government enter these negotiations with absolute clarity and purpose and a determination to safeguard the interests of the UK’s agrifood sector. Farmers need certainty, fairness and a Government who recognise the weight of their responsibility. The stakes for our farmers, food system and national resilience are simply too high for anything less.

• 12 Feb 2026 · Rural Mobile Connectivity · Hansard source

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  It would be wrong to let this moment pass without reflecting on the fact that EE has its network of masts as a result of significant public investment, because it got the contract for the emergency services network. Does that not impose a duty on it to do more than merely commercial negotiation in relation to other companies?