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Dave Doogan MP: speeches

198 published records · newest first.

Speeches

  • 5 Feb 2025 · Chagos Islands · Hansard source
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    This matter must be so important if it consumes so much of the Minister’s credibility and £18 billion of taxpayers’ money. One would think there would be more than four Government Back Benchers here to speak about it. Is it that they do not care, or do they lack the literacy to discuss these issues? The Minister said on the “Today” programme this morning that we have passed the situation on to the White House, that we await its feedback and that, when we receive it, we will know exactly where we stand as a Government. Is that the type of sovereignty he is after?

  • 5 Feb 2025 · Visit to Scotland · Hansard source
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    Interestingly, the Prime Minister could not tell me when he will next be visiting Scotland, but does he agree with the withering assessment of the eminent politics professor Sir John Curtice, who says that the current UK Prime Minister is “the worst thing that ever happened to Anas Sarwar”? If he does not—and he should—does he think that it is stripping Scottish pensioners of their winter fuel payment, abandoning workers in Grangemouth or attacking the national insurance payments of farmers that has catastrophically torpedoed Labour in the polls in Scotland? When he does get a date, he can even bring his Chancellor with him to back him up on the numbers—assuming that she is still Chancellor by then.

  • 5 Feb 2025 · Visit to Scotland · Hansard source
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    Q9. When he next plans to visit Scotland.

  • 5 Feb 2025 · Visit to Scotland · Hansard source
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    That’s the same answer you gave the last time.

  • 4 Feb 2025 · Energy Suppliers: Winter Support for Consumers · Hansard source
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    What would help bill payers is the £300 cut to energy bills that the Labour party promised in its manifesto. Instead, bills went up £149 in October, they went up £21 in January, and they are going up again by £99 in April. Can the Minister explain where the source of this departmental ineptitude lies, and would she like to apologise to the people of these islands for writing cheques that her party cannot cash?

  • 29 Jan 2025 · Growing the UK Economy · Hansard source
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    It says on the cover that this is about growing the UK economy, but the statement’s substance is much more about growing the English economy. It has a passing reference to Wrexham and a nebulous acknowledgement that the Government will “build a pipeline of investable propositions…starting with strategic partnerships in the Glasgow city region”. Will the Chief Secretary perhaps flesh out what that means and, at the same time, explain why he did not allocate any funding to reimbursing Edinburgh University for the supercomputer, invest in SAF in Grangemouth, or invest in the Acorn project in the north-east?

  • 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source
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    Let me try to help the Minister understand where the Opposition’s concern is coming from: it is because of the realisation, or suspicion, that the arbiter of when and how 2.5% is realised is not the Secretary of State for Defence but the Chancellor. This is a Chancellor who scarcely understands the fundamentals of economics, much less the fundamentals of defence and the threat environment that these islands face. What will the path to 2.5% look like? Is there a date, or is it when certain criteria are met? Also, the Minister be clear on who the final arbiter will be? Is the Treasury saying, “2.5% when you need it,” or “2.5% when we decide it”?

  • 23 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs: OBR Costing · Hansard source
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    This measure is now revealed to be spectacularly ill-considered, leaving aside the fact that it is also a breathtaking betrayal of farmers, who were promised before the election that this would not happen. The measure groups intergenerational farmers with speculative millionaires seeking to dodge tax by getting involved in farming. It has put an immediate brake on investment in farming, which threatens to lower yields and drive up food prices. That then threatens to put inflationary pressures on the UK economy, which is already in a perilous state. This Government cannot just agree with the OBR when it suits them. They must agree with the OBR regardless of what it says. Will the Minister please respectfully pause the measure, take some time to think about this, and come up with something that will actually deliver for the Treasury but not push our family farming sector under.

  • 22 Jan 2025 · Russian Maritime Activity and UK Response · Hansard source
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    I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the actions it details to intervene in Russian activity in the waters around these islands. I also commend the diligence and professionalism of those men and women in uniform in the Royal Navy, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and the RAF. He said in his statement, though, that the UK will “continue to lead the way” on sanctions against Russia’s shadow fleet, but the UK is not leading the way on sanctions, is it? A Sky News investigation last week found out that the Government have no record of how many investigations they are carrying out into breaches of Russian sanctions. That follows a previous investigation showing that goods, including luxury cars, fossil fuels and items that can be weapons—or whose components can be converted into weaponry—have been flowing between the UK and Russia since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Surely the Secretary of State must be concerned that inaction elsewhere in Whitehall is potentially putting men and women in uniform in the UK’s armed forces at risk from Russia’s malign aggression.

  • 21 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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    Neither the US Federal Reserve nor the EU Central Bank are engaged in active quantitative tightening, but the Bank of England is. The Bank of England is costing the public finances in the region of £13 billion a year as a result of a fire sale of UK Government bonds. Last time I spoke to the Chancellor about that, she said that that was because of the Bank of England’s operational independence, which we all value, but that is not a licence for impunity. What discussions will she have with the Bank of England about releasing UK Government debt in a way that benefits everybody in the UK?

  • 14 Jan 2025 · Coastguard Helicopter Services · Hansard source
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    I doubt that!

  • 14 Jan 2025 · Coastguard Helicopter Services · Hansard source
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    The Minister rightly acknowledges the point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) about the use of search and rescue helicopters for ambulance services, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in extremis; it is not their job but they can do it. That happens in Scotland despite NHS Scotland funding two air ambulances and two fixed-wing aircraft, which is not the case in England. Is the Minister aware of any Government plans to introduce NHS-owned and operated airborne ambulance services to protect coastguard services in England?

  • 14 Jan 2025 · Coastguard Helicopter Services · Hansard source
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    The hon. Gentleman is laying bare the sentiment and bravery of the crews that operate these helicopters. They do whatever they can hopefully to bring safety and security, if not comfort, to people in coastal communities right around the British Isles. I may be the only rotary wing aircraft engineer in Parliament—I certainly like to think I am, anyway. Helicopters are inherently expensive, and it is incumbent on the Government to acknowledge that. That expense brings with it tremendous value. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, this is about the future? We are where we are, and relatively content we are too, but in future negotiations with contractors for this service the Government have to understand that, in their pursuit of value for money in Government services, there are many, many places to look before they look here.

  • 14 Jan 2025 · Coastguard Helicopter Services · Hansard source
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    The right hon. Gentleman is giving a comprehensive analysis of his concerns regarding this most vital of services to many parts of Scotland, including as far south-east as my constituency, and the people who make their living on the sea there. As the right hon. Gentleman says, this debate is about the future service. Would he like to see the Department and the MCA specify in the contract that a successful bidder will make certain cultural undertakings, if he thinks that is preferable to be prescribed? Does he agree that if the cost of providing a 15-minute response time seems expensive, the cost of failing to rescue lives will seem very much more expensive?

  • 14 Jan 2025 · UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue · Hansard source
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    It is beyond parody that His Majesty’s Chancellor would throw herself at the mercy of the Chinese Government and come back with £600 million in revenue over five years. Is she aware that £600 million in revenue is less than one ninetieth of HSBC’s annual profit? This is what she is holding up as a major achievement of the Treasury’s trade mission. My right hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) very reasonably asked what the Chancellor will do when, not if, her fiscal rules are breached. Will she increase borrowing, raise taxes or cut spending, not over five years but this year?

  • 14 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Relief · Hansard source
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    The right hon. Gentleman will know, as all of us in this room do, that in GB we enjoy some of the most competitively priced fresh produce available anywhere in Europe and that is precisely because of the investments in production technology that family farms have made over generations. Is he concerned that at a stroke this Government, myopic about the workings of agriculture, have made them immediately—overnight—stop that investment, and consumers will feel that in food prices?

  • 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source
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    I am unconvinced, to use parliamentary language, by the Minister’s reassurance that the lights did not almost go out last week. I am also unconvinced by his saying that the system is robust and resilient. This is the Minister who told electors in Scotland that energy bills would come down by £300 under this Government. They have gone up, and will go up twice more. Given the perilous gas storage situation—it is at 1%, compared to the 25% the EU enjoys—what steps will he take to de-stress the system by accelerating investment in long-duration energy storage?

  • 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source
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    Will the Minister give way?

  • 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source
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    Yes, the highest—so it is not as if there was some kind of low-taxation holiday spree and the Labour Government came in and put taxes up to compensate for it. Taxes were already the highest that anybody can remember and now they have gone up again by the highest amount in 32 years. It is absolutely eye-watering. The Chancellor’s refusal to step back from cutting the winter fuel payment from around 900,000 pensioners is absolutely— [Interruption.] They are chuntering that the winter fuel payment is devolved.

  • 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source
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    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

  • 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source
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    On that point, will the Minister give way with only seven minutes to go?

  • 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source
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    The hon. Gentleman mentions the litany of failures, as he sees them, in Scotland’s NHS. How then does he explain that spending per head is greater than it is the rest of the UK, that the number of doctors per 100,000 people is higher than it is the rest of the UK, that the number of nurses per 100,000—

  • 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source
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    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz—we always have to say that, but in this instance, I genuinely mean it. I am grateful to speak on this issue. When I saw this coming up on the agenda for Westminster Hall, I thought, “Goodness me, who has brought this?” It turns out that it is the Government. I thought, “That is all right. Well, let’s see what the facts are because this Budget had precious little in it to be welcomed in Scotland.” I will start with that which could be welcomed for Scotland. Thankfully, the Chancellor heeded the SNP’s manifesto call to change the fiscal rules to allow more investment in capital infrastructure. That was good and welcome, and it will be helpful. They also heeded the SNP’s pre-Budget call for greater investment in the NHS, which will be very welcome as we try to recover from covid and staffing challenges. But aside from those two things, on which the SNP gave the Government a menu, the Budget has been an unmitigated disaster for Scotland and Scotland’s economy. It has imposed billions of pounds of service cuts and tax rises that will hit working Scots in the pocket and do very little, if anything, to deliver on the promise that the people of the United Kingdom were offered as a prospectus in the run-up to the election.

  • 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source
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    Does the hon. Member agree that money talks? Despite how we might argue here in Parliament, money talks. Is he concerned that the yield on UK Government gilts over 30 years is now 5.22%, which is even higher than when Liz Truss tanked the economy?

  • 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source
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    His airlifted constituents—

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