Euan Stainbank MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

  More

  Capita and MyCSP have failed public servants and ground lives to a halt. Derek tragically lost his wife Julie last year. We found that vital information in relation to Julie’s pension had been lost by Capita, and despite raising this in a previous debate, that case is still unresolved. Despite Capita’s supposed priority to death-in-service cases, it is Derek’s sincere and despairing belief that he will never get what he is entitled to. Tim retired in May. He sent everything he needed to immediately to Capita, which quickly confirmed it had received everything it needed, only to come back to Tim two months later requesting documents it did not initially send him. I could go on and on—terminally ill people waiting for hours on the phone; prison officers mentally battered and left for months without any updates from Capita. The fact that a single penny has been earned by Capita’s shareholders since it took on the contract is shameful. The fact that that contract was transferred to Capita on the cheap in 2023 is shameful. Minister, enough is enough. Insource this contract.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  Heavy goods vehicle drivers such as my constituent Peter Cunningham are vital to Falkirk’s local economy. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has directly risked Peter’s livelihood by requesting duplicate medical information a month after he already submitted it in full. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the relevant Minister on how DVLA and Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency delays are being addressed, and will he support my representations to help Peter get his licence back?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  The Prime Minister was right last week to say that too many buses are being bought from abroad. The 10% social value commitment from combined mayoral authorities following the conclusion of the bus manufacturing expert panel earlier this year will not be enough to protect British bus building as China continues to scale up its automotive dumping. Will the First Secretary of State work with devolved mayors, the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to bring social value requirements in line with the 20% she has rightly set for major Government contracts?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Fuel Duty: Cost of Living · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome the Government’s fuel duty freeze for working families, alongside the road tax holiday for hauliers and the diesel fuel duty cut. Fuel costs for businesses in my constituency, such as Northfield quarry near Dunipace, have nearly tripled due to the Iran war and the previous Government’s tightening of eligibility for red diesel. In the Budget, will the Chancellor consider extending fuel duty reductions for industries such as quarrying, which is essential for house construction and provides good local jobs for working families?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  Following years of closures of community spaces, places of worship have become increasingly precious to communities across my constituency, especially across the Braes villages. The SNP learned 20 months ago that it was responsible for support grants for places of worship, but has only now delivered a paltry scheme, with seemingly half the resource proportionately as that committed to the scheme down here, top-sliced from the already significantly reduced Historic Environment Scotland budget. Will the Leader of the House support a debate on the importance of places of worship to our communities?

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

  More

  Our democracy is precious but faces significant challenges, and if we want to protect our system, it must change with the times. The turnout for the 2024 general election was far too low, at below 50% in the poorest areas. Property ownership was still dictating representation, with renters voting at a rate of 38%, and owner-occupiers at a rate of 71%. The delta between younger and older voters is still too high. Expanding participation and trust in politics is an issue of equality, but also one of social, economic and generational fairness, and I am proud of the Government’s efforts to address that in the Bill. No Member who has spoken today is under any illusion about the limited trust in our current political system, and the bandwidth of that system to enable meaningful democratic participation, especially among those who need it most. MPs elected with increasingly fractured minority votes, and a Parliament that is sometimes unrepresentative of the voting intentions of the country, repel the trust, participation and engagement that our elected representatives in government need. It is not a party political point to state that; this is about every person stepping up to participate and seeing their vote reflected in this place. When MPs and Governments are enabled with a low share and turnout of the vote, increasingly fewer people see their ballot as meaning anything in this place. If that is their first experience of voting, they are far less likely to vote again. I believe that the Government can give us a route that starts from the first principles of enabling a system to become fairer and more representative and that sustains public confidence through an independent national commission. That is not something that the Government will do today, but they ought to do in the future so that the next Parliament does not start from scratch on long overdue reform to our electoral system. New clause 68, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), to which I have added my signature, requires registration officers to accept postal and proxy vote applications that are received after the deadline when there is proof of timely posting. That is a meaningful effort and step to prevent people from losing their votes after having made reasonable steps to submit it. It is not reasonable for voters to lose their say in an election because of the potential—and quite common—unreliability of the postal system, and the new clause would empower returning officers to count the votes of people who have made an effort in good faith to vote. Sadly, we see amendments from Opposition parties that would limit postal voting, such as Reform’s new clause 108, which would have created serious issues, especially in Scotland. For example, when the last general election was called, the last Tory Prime Minister called it for the first Thursday of the Scottish school holidays, and under new clause 108 thousands of people would have been made ineligible to vote through no fault of their own. In the last wheeze of parliamentary effort, amendments have been proposed to stop votes for 16 and 17-year-olds. I have to thank Conservative Members, because their arguments have only compounded my belief that this is the right step for the Government to take. It is ludicrous that amendment 6 and subsequent amendments link the voting age to the age that people can buy alcohol as a way of getting around the Government’s manifesto commitment in the Bill to extend the franchise. Perhaps Members would have been persuaded to support the amendment if we were to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote if they then went to a licensed restaurant for a sit-down meal accompanied by an adult. Sadly, that seems to have been omitted in the amendment. If there is a serious concern about where we draw the line on the age of capacity, I make the principled point that allowing 16-year-olds to vote so that they can have their democratic say in how the taxes that they contribute are spent and how the conditions of their labour are regulated is a far more rational place to tie that milestone than whether they would be able to have a pint at 8 o’clock while watching the Scottish premiership. The Government is right on this principle and I am glad that we will be able to achieve this milestone today. Opposition Members have made a lot of references to vote rigging. I find that ludicrous, principally because when votes for 16 and 17-year-olds were passed in Scotland it was with cross-party support, including from the Scottish Conservatives, and because engagement has been increased among 16 and 17-year-olds ever since. I cast my first vote aged 16 in the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections. I was not grateful for the Government of the day. I went out and enthusiastically voted for the SNP—a ludicrous proposal considering how much time I spend in this place opposing SNP measures. I voted because it was the right thing to do and it was recognised by the Scottish Parliament. I am glad that we have that cross-party consensus today: even if it is a majority and not the unanimity that we had in 2016, it is going to get this over the line. Sadly, the Conservative and Reform amendments have been about restricting political participation; comparatively, what we have heard from Government colleagues has been about expanding political participation. I hope the Government will go further and set up a national commission, but I look at this Bill as the first stage of our political reform agenda.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  Many constituents have reported significant delays in requests from the DVLA for medical information. My constituent Graham, for whom it took five months from first contact with the DVLA to resolve his inquiry, reported that the delay has had a significant impact on his mental health due to the loss of independence. Behind each of these statistics is a person, so I add my name to the welcome call made by my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson). Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement after the recess, so that Transport Ministers can hear about DVLA waiting times from hon. Members and update the House on what they are doing to resolve them?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Bus Manufacturing: Scotland · Hansard source

  More

  As legal action is taken against the SNP Scottish Government for the ScotZEB3 grant scheme, which inexplicably saw more expensive orders go to Chinese manufacturers and cheaper ones to Falkirk—no wonder SNP Members have not showed up this morning—the Government and mayoral combined authorities must take heed of the exponentially rising Chinese market share, which has destroyed 115 Scottish jobs in my constituency off the back of the grant scheme. What more will Transport Ministers do, alongside their colleagues in the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business and Trade, to send an explicit message to those who are purchasing buses with taxpayer cash that they should be buying British?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Bus Manufacturing: Scotland · Hansard source

  More

  11. What steps she is taking to support bus manufacturing in Scotland.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

  More

  In Falkirk, discussion of asylum policy has taken unprecedented command of our local debate. What has occurred in our community is an example of the failure of the past Government to provide solutions that work in the best interests of communities across the country, or the best interests of asylum seekers fleeing persecution and conflict, to put it mildly. The previous Government’s lack of control over the asylum system has almost destroyed public confidence in the system. The number of applicants rose from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands from 2020 onwards, which led to Ministers in a panicked state directing the acquisition of town-centre hotels for use as accommodation. They placed asylum seekers, who are unable to work, as Members have mentioned, into goldfish-bowl hotels across the country. They ground processing to a halt. They forgot about asylum seekers, and forgot, or simply did not care, about communities like Falkirk, which hosted them. We saw costs balloon, and we failed to stop the rise in the number of people coming through illegal routes. Under this Labour Government, on the other hand, Tory asylum hotels are down by over half since the peak of 400. Crossings came down 41% in one year, and claims came down by 12% in one year. We have also seen the grant rate fall from 45% in July 2024 to 39% today, enabling £1 billion a year to be saved in accommodation costs. Where the previous Government lost control, this Government have taken steps to restore it. The challenge that the Bill presents us with is finding a way to re-establish public confidence in an asylum system that many of my constituents have told me they are questioning. We cannot let the palpable anger—and there is anger out there, in certain corners of our community—irrevocably push us towards breaking the rights-based order that we have had for 80 years. We must demonstrate that we can control the asylum system without sacrificing our constituents’ rights, as many from opposition parties have suggested. The tone that the Government have used to communicate our record has caused, I will admit, reasonable concern in my constituency. There are concerns about the measures that we are considering today, and the measures that we have to acknowledge we are not considering today. I do not believe that we can deal with those concerns tonight by abandoning the essential objectives that the Bill seeks to pursue. If we vote against the Bill, we throw away an opportunity for asylum appeals reform. The backlog left by the Conservatives has been rapidly reduced, but many cases have been displaced into the appeals system. We must be quicker, imminently, to resolve appeals. If we vote against the Bill, we are throwing away a chance to build a system of controlled routes, which is the only sustainable solution to boat crossings, but one that requires the public to have confidence in the basic norm of an asylum system, which is being threatened. We also throw away a chance to align with our partners in the Council of Europe on article 8 interpretation, as we did in May in Chi inău, as we seek to resolve an international humanitarian crisis, instead of being pushed to the more extreme solutions that others offer. There are several areas where we could improve the Bill, and I will bring those up with Ministers in Committee. However, I will not be indulging Conservative Members, who broke my community’s confidence in the asylum system; I will support the Government in making a good faith attempt to resolve it.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome the Minister’s explicit statement last month that he wants to see the Cladhan hotel, which was opened by the Conservatives, closed. When any hotel closes, will he confirm that the vast majority of those being moved out will have their accommodation needs met within existing capacity?

• 25 Jun 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme: Insourcing · Hansard source

  More

  Capita has been fined millions for a multitude of past failures and has now failed to handle civil service pensions on a contract that the Tories signed off in November 2023, replacing MyCSP, which faced similar challenges. That has been to the significant detriment of many of my constituents, who are still waiting for payment—one is retired after receiving lifesaving surgery last year, and another is still waiting for payment 11 months on from being bereaved after the death of his wife. Will the Minister—I hope that the Government can answer this closer to the end of June—directly address Capita’s failure, end the contract and insource the civil service pension scheme?

• 25 Jun 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme: Insourcing · Hansard source

  More

  6. What recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of insourcing the civil service pension scheme.

• 25 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Following the Government’s welcome designation of four sectors as critical to national security, we have continued to see an exponential rise in under-investigation Chinese buses on our streets. In my constituency, 125 jobs were put at risk back in March following an SNP grant scheme that sent the lion’s share of the public money to Chinese manufacturers. I will repeat the question I asked the Prime Minister a few weeks ago: will the Minister designate bus manufacturing as a sector critical to national security?

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

  More

  I welcome the Government’s announcement of a review into the zero emission vehicle mandate, with the objective of slowing the phase-in of ZEV targets. However, I do not believe that this changes the direction of travel for bus manufacturing, which supports 50,000 jobs across the United Kingdom, and is similarly struggling with the rise in imported Chinese electric buses. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from Department for Business and Trade and/or Department for Transport Ministers to update the House on the scope of this reported review?

• 24 Jun 2026 · Elections: First Past the Post · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and congratulate the Richmond Liberal Democrats on their universal victory in last month’s Richmond upon Thames council elections. I declare an interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary group for fair elections. Increasing political participation in a democracy is not just a nice thing to have; it is an imperative that all of us must focus on in the service of our constituents. In the years to come, I genuinely believe that it will be the difference between a politics that serves and engages all and one that continues to obscure decision making from communities, fuels rather than addresses discontent, and pushes reasonable people in the United Kingdom to lose faith in democracy and seek increasingly radical solutions. Progress has been made to increase structural participation, with the Government bringing forward votes at 16 in the Representation of the People Bill, finally aligning the voter age in general elections to that of Scottish local and devolved elections. Among other measures, the Government are taking steps in the Bill to strengthen our democracy. However, I believe that there is an omission in it: an acknowledgement that serious questions are now being asked about how we elect people to this place. Look at the general election results: turnout is decreasing. I may have won my mandate to this place by trebling my vote share in Falkirk, but that was possible only because my second-place opponent halved their vote share. The diminishing threshold for electing MPs and Governments demands a more pluralistic politics, or at least one that gives a greater number of people something to vote for instead of against. First past the post structurally embeds negative political campaigning into how we participate in democracy; it enables parties, the media and the public to crystallise in our subconscious pretty early on that only two people have the chance to be the victor in a majority of seats in the country.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Elections: First Past the Post · Hansard source

  More

  Does the hon. Member that if we are to move to an alternative system in Westminster, parties should agree not to game the system, as the Scottish Greens do when they fail to stand in constituencies such as Strathkelvin and Bearsden or Falkirk West and focus their campaigning on the regional seats, which leads to the iniquitous outcome of the 2026 Scottish parliamentary elections that I think she is suggesting?

• 24 Jun 2026 · Elections: First Past the Post · Hansard source

  More

  I completely agree that there is a wider point about the culture of politics, especially in how we should drive everybody in this place and local government to work together collaboratively, rather than pursuing the most populist option or blaming every problem on previous Governments. That has to be broader than simply reforming how we elect people to places, but I believe—I will bear this out later in my speech—that that is an essential first step. In preparing this speech, I recalled bemused family members handing me SNP leaflet after SNP leaflet, desperately shoved through their letterbox, that warned them to vote SNP to avoid electing a Tory MP. I believe that even the most optimistic Scottish Conservative in Falkirk would have found that a pretty remote possibility in 2024, or at any other time. But when normal people who do not spend all their time obsessing about politics read that, it tends to turn them off a wee bit. If we spend our entire time campaigning in general elections against a proposition and defining ourselves against a particular political party or perspective, we fail to lead our campaigns with our solutions to the problems the public face and want us to address. We diminish the opportunity for genuine scrutiny of our propositions, out of fear that the party or person we are running against will use it against us. It tends to encourage us to hide from debate, to reduce the utility and quality of public discussion and to disengage those people do not vote in our elections from that discussion. It is irrelevant how those of us with the privilege of sitting here as Members of Parliament may personally view the politics of certain political parties; when they are voted for by millions of people and they see only a sliver of representation in Parliament, it closes people off from this place, and it feeds into toxic populist narratives that can be weaponised by those parties against those of us who sit as MPs. They are able to pit us as for the system and pit those excluded from it as outside of the system. It also allows them to avoid a proportionate level of scrutiny that reflects the amount of support they have in the country. A system that enables voters to see their views, and the views of those with similar political allegiances, proportionately reflected in this place will go a long way to addressing many of those issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) touched on the more pluralistic electoral system used in local elections in Scotland and how it works to reflect views more broadly. Councillors of different political parties are often elected to serve the same people. Although that should culturally compel people to work together more effectively in communities, that is still a political challenge that we must address in tandem while we seek to replace the first-past-the-post system. Populist opposition for opposition’s sake is still rife. The relentless assignation of a problem’s cause to a sole person or political party in a particular office at a particular time creates a reductive and inadequate political debate that would be better spent evaluating multiple proposed solutions to the problems that people rely on democratic structures to resolve—especially because, out there in the real world, there is a substantially greater consensus on what problems we face as a country than would be suggested by the tone of conversation in this place, in council chambers and in devolved assemblies when they are evaluating the solutions. Whether the debate is on immigration, taxation or the defence of the realm in the House of Commons, or schools, bins or housing in Falkirk council chamber, a proportional system gives us a better chance to compel political parties to use their privileged elected positions to put forward competing solutions consistently. Our desire to strengthen democracy should lead us to create a crucible that enables multiple proposals to compete and for us to come to the best resolution. Our constituents would be better served by a voting system that empowers us all to do better than lazily harass from the sidelines those who happen to be in a particular office at any particular time. A cultural change is clearly needed, which cannot be achieved by simply replacing the electoral system, but replacing first past the post is an essential step. However, and this could be a point of contention, if we are to replace first past the post, we have to acknowledge that there is not currently an elected mandate to do so. There is also no consensus on which system should replace it, but we can see in the country that the current system is no longer commanding adequate participation to sustain a healthy democracy. That is why I and the members of the all-party parliamentary group support a national commission on electoral reform to be set up by the Government. I encourage the Minister to put that in the Representation of the People Bill when it returns to the House.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Cost of Living: Falkirk · Hansard source

  More

  The cut to VAT for family days out this summer starts along with the summer holidays later this week. This is a Labour Government acting to bring down the cost for families visiting Falkirk’s fantastic tourism, leisure and hospitality attractions. Many families are anxiously looking at the other side of the summer, with energy bills rising as a direct consequence of the illegal Iran war. Does the Chancellor agree that any forthcoming targeted energy bill support must similarly extend to working families?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Cost of Living: Falkirk · Hansard source

  More

  3. What steps she has taken to help support people with the cost of living in Falkirk.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  T4. The loss of Grangemouth’s refinery was a loss to Scotland’s economy. The Chancellor rightly consulted on including refined products in the carbon border adjustment mechanism to level the playing field for domestic refining—a level playing field the Tories did not pursue before the closure of Grangemouth was announced in 2023. Will the Chancellor meet me and other colleagues to discuss the merits of accelerating the inclusion of refined products in the CBAM?

• 11 Jun 2026 · Buses: Tariff Harmonisation · Hansard source

  More

  8. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade on harmonising import tariffs for diesel and electric buses.

• 11 Jun 2026 · Buses: Tariff Harmonisation · Hansard source

  More

  Imported diesel buses have a 16% base rate tariff, yet electric buses have a tariff rate of 10%. As we seek to transition fully to electric after 2030, and considering the existential risk that the under-investigation Chinese competition currently presents to the 50,000 jobs that depend on UK bus manufacturing, will Ministers consider raising this matter urgently with Business and Trade Ministers to encourage them to harmonise those rates at 16% at least?

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

  More

  Powering Futures is a fantastic social enterprise based in Falkirk. Every year its Challenge programme invites pupils to tackle real-life workplace challenges and matches them with workplace mentors from local businesses. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Braes high school and St Mungo’s high school pupils James, Josh and Gabriella, who won Ken Muir awards for exceptional displays of problem solving, communication and teamwork skills through the programme, and can we schedule a debate in Government time on the role that social enterprises such as Powering Futures can play in tackling youth unemployment, especially in Scotland?

• 10 Jun 2026 · Oil and Gas Sector: Employment · Hansard source

  More

  Jobs were lost at Grangemouth following Jim Ratcliffe’s decision to close the refinery. The then Tory Ministers, half of whom are now members of Reform, treated it as a commercial decision, and did and delivered nothing. In contrast, the UK Labour Government invested £120 million in December to save Grangemouth’s ethylene plant, but given the closure of the refinery, we must move far more quickly. What efforts is the Secretary of State making to deliver a new industry in Grangemouth with the £200 million allocated to the site by the Labour Government?