Andrew Bowie MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  ( Urgent Question ) : To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on gas storage levels.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  All our constituents will be aware of the freezing temperatures experienced across the United Kingdom last week, dipping to minus 18° in the north of Scotland. However, many will not be aware of just how close this country came to an energy shortage, blackouts, or demand control—closer than at any point in the past 15 years. On Friday Centrica, the owner of British Gas, issued a stark warning that freezing weather and a spike in demand had reduced our gas storage to “concerningly low” levels—26% lower than this time last year. At a time when temperatures dropped below freezing for an extended period of time, our stores were set to last for less than a week. Earlier in the week the National Energy System Operator issued a call for electricity providers to step in to provide extra electricity to meet demand and limit the risk of blackouts, paying 10 times the average daily amount to keep the lights on, all of which will end up on the energy bills of our constituents. With an incredibly tight margin between demand and available power generation, we were once again forced to rely on reliable gas power plants to keep the lights on in this country, showing that gas is and will be a vital component of our energy security for decades to come. With their rush to meet the Secretary of State’s ideological target to decarbonise the entire electricity grid by 2030, this Government are playing fast and loose with our ability to keep the lights on. They are rushing headlong into a renewable energy dominated system—a Chinese renewable energy dominated system—but Ministers cannot escape the fact that when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, wind turbines and solar panels will not keep the lights on in Britain. We should be in no doubt that this Government’s ideological plans for our energy supply will leave the UK dependent on foreign imports, send bills soaring, and leave us teetering on the brink of blackouts. Interestingly, when Labour was last in government in 2010, the Secretary of State whipped his then Ministers to vote against Conservative proposals to increase gas storage capacity in the United Kingdom, with a Labour MP on the Energy Bill Committee saying that “the climate of this country, other than in the past month, is usually such that we do not quite need the same storage facilities as other countries in mainland Europe?” –– [ Official Report, Energy Public Bill Committee, 19 January 2010; c. 282.] Does the Minister think the Secretary of State regrets not backing that proposal in 2010? Does he accept that the push towards renewables will lead to higher levels of intermittency, and does he accept that we will need to urgently review our gas storage capacity in the immediate future?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  I would be delighted to give way to my SNP friend.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I join hon. and right hon. colleagues in congratulating you on your appointment. I hope you have enjoyed your first foray into Scottish politics this afternoon, and I look forward to seeing you back in this Chamber on many an occasion as we continue the various debates. Indeed, this is the second time in two days I have found myself here debating issues pertaining to Scotland, although in my view that is still not enough. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing this important debate. Cross-border connectivity is an issue he has championed as an MSP, as a Back-Bench MP and indeed as a Minister in the previous Government, and he continues that laudable work now. I am pleased that so many colleagues from across Scotland and Northern Ireland have come to the Chamber this afternoon to discuss this important issue. As I said, I and others here, including the Minister, found ourselves in this Chamber yesterday afternoon discussing the impact of the UK Government’s Budget on Scotland. To save Members from looking the debate up in Hansard or watching it on Parliament Live—I do recommend it; some stellar speeches were delivered—I will give a brief synopsis. For farmers, family firms, oil and gas workers, the Scotch whisky industry and the Scottish economy in general, the Budget was not good, but despite the best efforts of the Labour party and the SNP to undermine confidence, deter investment, stymie ambition and entrepreneurship and punish success, the fact is that across the UK and especially in Scotland, we need growth, investment and new jobs. For all those things, good connectivity to our biggest market by far—the rest of the UK—is key. It is integral to economic growth and business, but also to leisure, education and even health. Fundamentally, good transport links unlock opportunity across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is precisely why the Conservative Government launched the Union connectivity review. Despite the lack of co-operation from the Scottish Government, we made several critical commitments, including, as some have mentioned already, to supporting enhancements to the A75 between Gretna and Stranraer to improve the main artery linking south-west Scotland and Northern Ireland, recognising the vital importance of east-west connectivity within the United Kingdom; to funding for dualling the A1 between Morpeth and Ellingham, a vital road route between England and Scotland; and to funding for Network Rail to look at options for boosting capacity and improving services more broadly between England and Scotland. In other important areas, we delivered improved transport connectivity, with major projects taking big strides forward. We were delivering long-awaited upgrades to the A1 coastal route between Newcastle and Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh, reducing congestion for the communities of Ashington, Felton, Alnwick and Amble. However, as has been said time and again today, away from cross-border routes, responsibility for our roads lies with the Scottish Government. Companies and individuals seeking to export fish landed at Peterhead, for example, or on Orkney and Shetland, are reliant on increasingly dangerous roads to get it to the border and then into Europe, as a result of the SNP’s failure to deliver on its promises. It has been almost two decades since we first heard the SNP make promises to improve some of Scotland’s most dangerous roads, yet those promises remain undelivered and, frankly, broken. The SNP promised to fully dual the A96—a road close to my heart, connecting Aberdeen and Inverness—the A90 and the A9 between the central belt and Inverness, but not one of them has been. Of course, we now know that the SNP’s promise to dual the A96 to Inverness by 2030 has been shelved completely, letting down people across the north-east of Scotland once again—and let us not even begin discussing the Laurencekirk junction in my constituency or, just further north, improvements at Toll of Birness on the road between Aberdeen, Fraserburgh and Peterhead. While we are rightly talking today about cross-border connectivity, let us not forget those who are reliant on the SNP to ensure they can get their goods and themselves to the border. Air travel, which Members have raised this afternoon, is similarly critical for not just business but remote settlements. We protected socially and economically vital domestic routes through public service obligations, and indeed we reformed how the PSOs operated to include routes that operate to and from different regions of the UK, rather than just into London. However, one route into London we did back was from Dundee: in 2021, we provided up to £2.5 million to fund direct flights between Dundee and London for a further two years, keeping a critical route running and ensuring that people at both ends of the UK could keep connected. We cut the reduced rate of air passenger duty for domestic flights to just £6.50 and consulted on reform to airport landing slot allocations, including proposals to ringfence some slots for domestic flights, which, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, is so important. I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on the Government’s position on that and whether they intend to issue a response to the consultation on ringfencing those slots for domestic flights. When it comes to rail, we committed over £1 billion for east coast main line upgrades, including a programme to replace Victorian infrastructure with digital signalling, which provides drivers with continuous real-time information. That was designed to boost train performance and cut delays. It is hard to overstate the importance of the east coast main line. A third of the nation’s population, who together produce more than 40% of the UK’s GDP, live within 20 minutes of an east coast main line station. The dreadful decision of this Government to hike air passenger duty will mean that people who do not live within a few hours of London on a main rail line such as the east coast main line—for example, those living and working in and around Aberdeen—will face higher fares and fewer options for travel. It punishes those who live outside the central belt and flies in the face of better connectivity around the United Kingdom, which brings us back to the woeful record of the SNP Government in Holyrood. I have taken the long train journey from Aberdeen to London on many occasions, and the time it takes to reach Edinburgh is striking. Almost a third of the travel time to London from Aberdeen is taken up just reaching Scotland’s capital. The SNP promised yet again in 2016 £200 million to cut journey times between Aberdeen and the central belt by 2026. Almost 10 years on, not even 10% of that money has been spent. As with roads, people who rely on infrastructure for which the SNP is responsible to get to the border are failed by the Scottish Government.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  I think what most hindered investment in strategic transport projects was the ineptitude of the Scottish Government. Colleagues and I have already gone through the SNP’s litany of broken promises to communities across Scotland, be that on the A96, the A9, the A90, the work on the A75, the new ferries to the Western Isles or the protection of air routes across Scotland. It is quite rich for a Scottish National party Member to talk about under-investment in transport when his party’s own record is so woeful in that regard; it might be one of the reasons that he and his colleagues number only nine Members of Parliament, compared with the large number that the SNP had in the previous Parliament. Let me move on from talking about the SNP and focus on the UK Labour Government, because we also have plans for them.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  I had not got around to criticising the Labour Government—if hon. Members give me time, I will get there—but I gently point out that this concocted mess that the Labour party likes to trot out is as nothing compared with the economic situation that we had to deal with when we came into government, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, in 2010, which led to so many of the tough decisions that we took between 2010 and 2015. It is as a direct result of decisions taken in the recent Budget that we have seen growth falling, confidence slipping, investment drying up and, today, gilt yields rising to their highest level in more than 20 years. That is on the Labour party’s watch and has nothing to do with the Conservatives. We left it with the highest growth in the G7, inflation down to 2% and investment at record levels. I am proud of our record in government. I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to stand there at the end of his time on the governing party’s Benches and say just the same. As I said, we have questions for the UK Labour Government. We are yet to see a convincing reason for the cancellation of the last Government’s plans to dual the A1 between Morpeth and Ellingham, so will the Minister lay out the reasons? There are also questions about what rail nationalisation will mean for the upgrade projects currently under way, which would benefit Union-wide connectivity. Should we expect fare rises, like we have seen with ScotRail, for services to England after rail is nationalised by Labour? On the Borders railway, as my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk asked, could the Minister update us on where we are with the Tweedbank to Carlisle corridor? Why was the feasibility study abandoned? On air passenger duty, what do the Government say to those people living in Scotland, further away from the border, who rely on air links to get to cities south of the border for business and leisure? On transport more broadly, the Government’s record so far gives us cause for concern, and makes us sceptical that Union connectivity is a priority for Ministers or is likely to improve over this Parliament. The Prime Minister himself said that Labour-run Wales should be “a blueprint” for what a UK Labour Government could achieve. That is terrifying. We all know what that really means; we have seen the imposition of blanket 20 mph speed limits and the cancellation of major road building projects, and Labour has cast doubt on its plans to electrify the north Wales main line. So what does Labour-run Wales mean for the rest of the United Kingdom?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  Of course, ferries are increasingly important. I did not want to embarrass the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) by dwelling too much on ferries, because that is something on which the Scottish Government have such an embarrassing record. The ferry links between our islands and the mainland—be they the links with Orkney and Shetland, the Western Isles or across to Northern Ireland—are vital to the economic success of our country, linking communities and providing essential routes for health, leisure and tourism and to export the goods that are produced in those communities. The way that those communities, especially in the Western Isles, have been let down by SNP ineptitude to deliver new ferries on those routes has been embarrassing. The sight of windows being painted on the side of a ferry just so that it can be launched in a PR stunt by the former First Minister will go down in history as one of the most embarrassing moments for the Scottish Government in recent times. Frankly, they owe an apology to those communities who have been so let down by their failure to invest properly in the future. It is not only the Western Isles; other communities rely on ferry connectivity, and it is essential that they get the funding they deserve. We do not only have questions to ask of the Scottish Government, whose record on transport is dismal. We also have questions for the UK Labour Government about their own record, the decisions that have been taken and their future plans.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  Of course we would welcome a reduction in accidents, but I have yet to see any evidence that that is a direct result of blanket 20 mph limits. Actually, by the way, I do not think the Labour party in Wales is still in favour of those; I believe that the new First Minister abandoned the blanket 20 mph policy. It is certainly something that would be greatly worrying were it rolled out across Scotland. Good connectivity and good transport connections are essential. The responsibility for connecting communities and creating opportunities within Scotland lies with the SNP. Our internal market is vital to the economic success of Scotland and the wider United Kingdom. Connections from Scotland to England, and indeed across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, are integral to making the economic progress that we need, and that is the responsibility of the British Labour Government. Now is the time for action, not words. Scotland’s economy and communities desperately need that.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Draft Electricity Capacity Mechanism (Amendment) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. Good morning and happy new year. It is good to be back in this Committee dealing with yet another piece of delegated legislation. The draft regulations make changes necessary for the operation of the capacity market outwith the EU and sensibly revokes the 10-year approval requirement. On that basis, I do not oppose it and we will not stand in the way of business today. The capacity market scheme was introduced in 2014, as part of the electricity market reform, to ensure security of electricity supply by providing payments for reliable sources of electricity generation capacity, or in some cases for reduced demand. In 2013, the Government identified that while introducing renewable energy sources into the energy mix, “The amount of gas capacity we will need to call on at times of peak demand will remain high, with potentially significant amounts of new gas generating capacity required by 2030.” That prediction rings true, and truer still when we acknowledge the intermittent nature of weather-dependent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. That is why in a speech made at Chatham House in March, the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), called for new unabated gas power plants, to make sure that we can keep the lights on when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. As the NESO report states: “Around 35 GW of unabated gas (broadly consistent with the size of the existing fleet) will need to remain on standby for security of supply. This requirement for gas capacity will remain throughout the early 2030s until larger levels of low carbon dispatchable power and other flexible sources are able to replace it.” Indeed, its “Clean Power 2030” plan sets out the intention to reform current market mechanisms such as the capacity market to “help enable the continued operation of unabated gas for security of supply.” This will, however, be more expensive due to the sporadic use of gas as a result of the dominance of renewables. The capacity market will provide income to combined cycle gas turbine plants, which will produce only 5% of overall generation, requiring much higher capacity prices. As the Secretary of State charges toward grid decarbonisation, it is imperative that we retain our capacity for gas generation and maintain the capacity market scheme to facilitate that, but due to the decisions made by the current Government it will be more expensive —one of the many pitfalls of their “renewables at any cost” approach. I am sure we will soon debate this at greater length and in greater detail; it is not for today’s Committee. We have no problem with the specific provisions of the draft regulations before us.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source

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  These socks were a Christmas present from my mother; I promised her that I would wear them at work and that is what I am doing today. They are very good socks, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing the Chamber’s attention to them. As I was saying, that was Labour’s workers tax—their state penalty on family businesses—and its first attack on business. Let us turn to its second attack on successful Scottish industries, specifically the Scotch whisky industry. The week after Burns night, which is in a couple of weeks’ time, tax on spirits such as whisky will rise, and will continue to rise by a percentage higher than the consumer prices index. The industry is already suffering from a decision to raise duty by 10% last year, which some of us protested about from within Government at the time, and which led to a reduction by £300 million in revenue for Treasury. The move by Labour increases the tax discrimination on spirits and undermines any claim that this Government can make about supporting brand Scotland. If this is how the Government treat Scotland’s national export, we really have some big questions to ask. This Labour Government are taxing entrepreneurship and penalising success. However, they are not content with hammering small businesses, our workers and our most successful food and drink export. They are also intent on destroying one of our most successful industries, one which is integral to the economic success of north-east Scotland and on which so many thousands of jobs and indeed our energy security depend—our oil and gas sector. The decision to extend and increase the energy profits levy, to remove most of the investment allowances and to ban all further exploration is driving away investment and leaving us far more reliant on foreign imports. The evidence is there. Apache has already said that it is pulling out of the North sea and there were others to follow. Labour’s changes to the windfall tax will cost up to 35,000 jobs and £13 billion in economic value, and all so that it could splurge on eye-watering public sector pay rises to buy off its union paymasters, who supported Labour into Government. But I have not finished yet.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source

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  I read that a couple of seconds before I stood up to speak, and of course it is extremely worrying. The trajectory of the UK economy under this Labour Government should give us all cause for concern, which is why it is right that we are having this debate today. I am just surprised that it was secured by a Labour MP.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady should tell that to the hard-working Scots who are being laid off in Aberdeen in north-east Scotland as a direct result of the decisions of this Labour Government, including their decision to extend the energy profits levy, ban new investment in the North sea and preclude new exploration. She should tell that to those hard-working Scots who are worried about what the decisions by this Government will mean for them and their families, and whether they will have a job in Aberdeen in north-east Scotland in the next few years. Those hard-working Scots look with terror at what this Government are bringing down the line. I have not even turned to farming yet. I am incredibly proud to represent some of the best farms producing the best berries, beef, lamb and crops in Scotland. The vast majority of those farms are family-owned, but due to the changes in the agriculture and business property reliefs that I outlined when I described the situation facing family businesses, their future is incredibly uncertain. Many farmers have already come into my office and claimed that it is now simply too expensive and too difficult to countenance passing their farm on to the next generation. This Labour Government are overseeing the destruction of our family farms. Even worse than that, however, is that their naivety or their incompetence, or possibly a terrifying combination of both, has seen the Labour Government announce that the agricultural funding to Scotland will no longer be ringfenced, despite the specific and pointed ask of the NFUS during the election and in the run-up to the Budget. The impact of Budget 2024 on Scotland is, in one word, disastrous. Our small and medium-sized businesses have been hammered by additional taxes; our family firms and family farms fear for their future; our whisky industry is punished yet again for its success; our oil and gas industry, and its workers, have been sacrificed on the altar of the eco-mania, or possibly the egomania, of the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero; our agricultural sector has been ignored; and our Union, frankly, has been undermined. Growth is falling, confidence is collapsing, uncertainty is rising and people in business are worse off. That is the impact of Budget 2024 in Scotland. I wish my friends in the Labour party well in trying to sell this Budget to the people of Scotland, who seem mightily unimpressed with the Government’s performance thus far.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source

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  There are businesses across Scotland that are now seeking to lay people off, not employ new staff. In Aberdeenshire in the north-east, energy companies are seeking to lay off staff as a direct result of decisions taken by this Government. In fact, the negative impact of the Budget on growth and investment in Scotland will actually have a detrimental effect on all people in the workplace. So no, I do not agree that any of the decisions taken in the Budget will be to the benefit of hard-working Scots. In fact, I believe directly the opposite. This jobs tax—the increase in national insurance contributions —is an attack on our working people, our small businesses and our economy by this economically illiterate, as proven so far, Labour Government. For family businesses such as Walker’s Shortbread, William Grant, Tunnock’s or GAP Group, the situation is compounded by the changes to business property relief brought in by the Government. In GAP’s case, that will mean that a company that employs 2,100 people and that already pays more than £50 million in taxes annually will have an additional tax bill of between £50 million and £100 million, simply for wanting to move the business to the next generation. As Douglas Anderson of GAP said to The Times yesterday, this is “a state penalty on family businesses.” It is simply unfair.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source

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  It is a genuine pleasure, again, to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) on bringing forward this debate, although, rather like the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan), I was a little surprised that it was a Labour MP bringing forward a debate on the impact of the Budget on Scotland. As much as I would like to spend my time attacking the incompetence of the Scottish Government and their record, this is a debate on the UK Budget brought forward by the UK Government, so that is what I will focus on. I am grateful that the hon. Member for Livingston has given us the opportunity to express the worry and the concern felt across Scotland as a result of the frankly disastrous Budget that the Labour party unveiled at the end of October, which has already seen business confidence plummet, inflation tick up and hard-fought-for growth stall—quite a feat. Members do not need to take it from me, though; they can take it from Scottish business organisations. The Scottish Hospitality Group called the Budget a “blow to businesses across the country.” The Scotch Whisky Association called it a “hammer blow” to the industry, Offshore Energies UK called it a “difficult day” for the oil and gas sector, and the National Farmers Union of Scotland said it will cause “huge difficulties” for family farms, all while the OBR forecasts lower growth for the UK as a whole. With the biggest ever tax increases in one Budget hitting Scotland—already the highest-taxed part of the UK—even harder, Labour’s tax-raising Budget is straight out of the SNP playbook, and sadly will hammer hard-working Scots. Let us take some of the decisions in turn. There was the decision to raise employer national insurance contributions, which, by the way, was a flagrant breach of the manifesto commitment not to do so. NICs have been raised by £25 billion, lowering the point at which contributions start. This Labour Government are hammering the worst off, those in part-time work and those starting out by hampering their ability to get or hold a job. Labour’s jobs tax will cost nearly £900 for the average Scottish job.