Douglas Alexander MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 26 Nov 2025 · Skills, Development and Training: Forth Valley · Hansard source

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  I sincerely hope the Scottish Government are listening to the very powerful points made by the hon. Lady. Some 89,600 young people in Scotland are not in work, education or training. That is equivalent to about 16.1% or one in six of our young people in Scotland. Scotland deserves better than a Scottish Government who are failing one in six of their young people.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Skills, Development and Training: Forth Valley · Hansard source

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  The facts are clear. The spending review was historic for Scotland and delivered the largest real-terms settlement for the Scottish Government in the 25 years of devolution, with an average of £50.9 billion per year between 2026-27 and 2028-29. It simply makes no sense to cut the further education college budget in Scotland by 20%, and it is definitely time for a new direction.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Skills, Development and Training: Forth Valley · Hansard source

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  The funding of Forth Valley college is a matter for the Scottish Government. Scottish colleges had their funding cut by 20% between 2021-22 and 2025-26. As the UK Government, we have delivered a record funding settlement to the Scottish Government. For as long as no final decision has been reached regarding the Alloa campus, I urge the Scottish Government, in the words of “Flower of Scotland”, to “think again”.

• 26 Nov 2025 · New Nuclear Sites · Hansard source

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  If you will allow me, Mr Speaker, it seems fitting to begin by congratulating the Scottish men’s football team on qualifying for the world cup next year. For the first time since 1998—when I watched them in France alongside the tartan army—we will be back on the world’s largest stage. Steve Clarke and the team truly are history makers, and we are very proud of them. Alas, today Scotland is being held back by the Scottish Government’s dogmatic opposition to nuclear power. New nuclear projects can deliver millions of pounds of investment and thousands of high-quality jobs and apprenticeships. Scotland is well-placed to benefit from the jobs, investment and energy security that nuclear can provide, but frankly we need a change at Holyrood.

• 26 Nov 2025 · New Nuclear Sites · Hansard source

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  Of course, new technologies are emerging, as the hon. Lady recognises. We are delighted that Rolls-Royce is one company leading that new wave of nuclear technology. We do not even need to look to the future; we can look to the most recent past for occasions when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine in Scotland. That is why Torness provides significant base load capability. We see new build nuclear as an essential part of that energy mix going forward. Alas, the Scottish Government do not understand that.

• 26 Nov 2025 · New Nuclear Sites · Hansard source

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  This at least seems to be an occasion for which there is genuine cross-party consensus. Not only have we urged a different approach from the Scottish Government—and I do so again—but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has already asked Great British Energy Nuclear to begin assessing Scotland’s capability for new build nuclear sites.

• 26 Nov 2025 · New Nuclear Sites · Hansard source

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  I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend. This is not just an anti-jobs measure by the Scottish Government; I would argue that it is an anti-science measure. Let us remember that nuclear power is carbon free. Given the climate change challenge we face, why would we want to resist a technology that can provide reliable, safe and cheap carbon-free energy for decades to come?

• 26 Nov 2025 · New Nuclear Sites · Hansard source

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  I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend: the expertise of our research centres in the United Kingdom, including the University of Strathclyde’s PNDC, is absolutely critical. The crucial research that they undertake will help to further the safe and effective deployment of new nuclear technology. We are watching a wave of nuclear technological innovation around the world. We must ensure that, as well as universities, communities across Scotland can benefit from it.

• 26 Nov 2025 · New Nuclear Sites · Hansard source

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  I should declare an interest in that Torness is in my Lothian East constituency. It provides about 750 highly paid, unionised jobs. Of course, we would welcome the opportunity for advanced modular reactors, small modular reactors or new build nuclear at the Torness site, but the EDF management there says that the opposition from the Scottish Government is preventing equivalent investment of the kind that was recently announced for Torness’s sister plant in Hartlepool.

• 26 Nov 2025 · New Nuclear Sites · Hansard source

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  I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman what I think it will take: it will take a change of Government next May. It is time for a new direction in Scotland.

• 26 Nov 2025 · New Nuclear Sites · Hansard source

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  Of course I condemn such misinformation. The reality is that the Government are investing £340 million in the Rosyth dockyard. I was in Fife on Monday and met with Fife College, Fife chamber of commerce, Babcock, and Navantia UK from down the coast. Huge investment is going in but, alas, the Scottish Government seem resistant to harnessing the potential of defence growth deals to secure new opportunities, not least for apprentices in Scotland.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  It will not surprise the House that I am not going to prejudge announcements that the Chancellor will be making from this Dispatch Box in just a few minutes, but I certainly do not recognise the characterisation that the hon. Gentleman has offered of the first 15 or so months of this Labour Government. It was always going to take more than 18 months to undo the damage of the last 18 years. We have already seen 200,000 Scots lifted out of poverty and record rises in the national minimum wage, and that work will continue.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  Over the last year, we have increased the national living wage—a pay rise for 200,000 of the lowest-paid Scots—delivered a generational upgrade to workers’ rights, had five interest rate cuts, and expanded the warm home discount scheme, meaning one in five Scottish households are getting £150 off their bills. But we need to go further and faster, and the Chancellor has pledged targeted action to bring down inflation further.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  I hope we will be hearing more about energy bills later this afternoon.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  I would like to say that I am shocked and surprised, but very little that the Liberal Democrats do can shock or surprise me. The truth is that the Employment Rights Bill is expected to benefit people in the most deprived areas of the country by up to £600 in lost income from the hidden costs of insecure work. That is exactly the work that we as a Labour Government are called to tackle.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  We have always been clear that we wanted to take action on the basis of sound public finances. That is why it is a Labour Government that have been willing to take difficult and challenging steps. I am old enough to remember the criticism from those on the SNP Benches after 1997, and we went on to lift a record number of kids out of poverty. That is why I welcome our Chancellor’s approach.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  This Government have taken action and will continue to take action. In his rather partial account, the hon. Member missed out around 530,000 households in Scotland that are already benefiting from £150 off their energy bills this winter, and I hope we will hear more today.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  Only this morning there were discussions in the Cabinet involving me and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I pay tribute to the work that she and others in government have done to ensure both that upgrade to workers’ rights and that pay rise for the 200,000 poorest paid Scots.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  I was part of a Government that saw child poverty fall significantly. I believe that this Government will be true to that commitment. I hope there may be more for the Chancellor to say in the coming minutes, but be assured that we welcome all measures that reduce child poverty after many years in which, tragically, we have seen poverty rise.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Defence Sector: Skills and Training · Hansard source

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  I can offer the right hon. Gentleman the assurance he seeks in relation to facing down a Scottish Government who are dithering on defence. I pay tribute to him for his passionate advocacy of the site he speaks of in Dumfriesshire, and I assure him that we in the Scotland Office will continue to work with our colleagues in the MOD as we ensure that we have the factories we need to keep our country safe.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Defence Sector: Skills and Training · Hansard source

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  The UK Government are transforming our defence sector into an even more powerful engine of growth, with skills and training being a central pillar of the strategy. If the SNP-led Scottish Government will not do the right thing, we will. That is why we stepped up with £2.5 million to fund a specialist welding centre in Glasgow, and we continue to work on exactly that agenda.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Defence Sector: Skills and Training · Hansard source

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  I met with Navantia management in Fife on Monday, and I met with the Minister responsible for defence procurement yesterday. There are huge opportunities thanks to my hon. Friend’s powerful advocacy of the workforce in Methil and the work that we can do together. The truth is that we have a Scottish Government who are dithering on defence, and we have a Labour Government determined to do right by the country on defence.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Scottish Independence Referendum · Hansard source

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  Well, Mr Speaker, the quality of the SNP’s contributions does not seem to have improved since 2007, and neither has its arguments. In the face of failing schools and hospitals, and the inability to build ferries in the hon. Gentleman’s own constituency, what do we see? Once again, dreary documents about independence. The reality is that the SNP has let Scotland down, and Scotland deserves better. That is why we are up for the fight in May.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Scottish Independence Referendum · Hansard source

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  I was elected on a very clear manifesto, which made clear that this UK Labour Government do not support independence or another referendum. If, after 18 years, the SNP is not prepared to run on its record, that begs the question: what kind of record have they left, after 18 years in power? Behind the smokescreen it has tried to create by talking about independence, we know the reality: one in six of us on waiting lists, rising violence and falling standards in our schools. Frankly, Scotland deserves better.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Scottish Independence Referendum · Hansard source

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  Returning to the Dispatch Box as the Secretary of State for Scotland, I think it is striking that the SNP’s answers are no better than they were in 2017, 2014 or 2021. I simply ask: what is its policy on a Scottish currency? What is its policy on foreign reserves? What is its position on a Scottish pension? It is no better at answering those questions now than it was 20 years ago.