Gordon McKee MP: speeches 2025

30 published records · newest first.

Speeches

24 Nov 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations · Hansard source
More
As has been said this afternoon, the ceasefire is hugely welcome, but it does not, on its own, restock a hospital, rebuild a home or feed a hungry child. Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK’s recognition of the state of Palestine is a crucial step in supporting the Palestinian people to rebuild their country?
18 Nov 2025 · Clean Power: Energy Sovereignty · Hansard source
More
Since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, energy bills have gone up because we are reliant on international gas markets. That means that families in Glasgow are paying more for their heating because of factors totally outside their control. What are the Government doing to ensure that Britain has control of its own energy supply?
18 Nov 2025 · Clean Power: Energy Sovereignty · Hansard source
More
9. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of clean power on energy sovereignty.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
There are many community groups in Castlemilk that are helping, including faith groups, and I will come to that later in my speech. There is no supermarket, but there is an Iceland and a B&M and there are countless off-licences. If someone wants a bottle of vodka or a frozen pizza, there are plenty of options. If instead they fancy an apple or a banana, it is a six-mile round trip.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is a problem across the country that frozen food and processed food are cheaper than fresh food. But the problem in Castlemilk is that people cannot even get access to fresh food, let alone that it is more expensive. Despite that, local people have a community spirit and a fighting spirit—they do not give up. Nobody shows that better than the Castlemilk Housing and Human Rights Lived Experience Board. Led by Anna Stuart, it has been campaigning for a supermarket for years. It even went all the way to the UN in Geneva to raise the issue. It told the world of the injustice that, in one of the world’s richest countries, millions are denied the basic dignity of nutritious and affordable food. A group of local residents should not have to go to the UN to ask for access to healthy food.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
I agree with my hon. Friend’s point. The Government have done a good bit of work in looking at ways to support community food markets that provide affordable fresh food to communities. I ask the Minister, when she responds, to commit to visiting Castlemilk with me to meet those on the frontline of the fight against food poverty.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
The hon. Member makes an interesting point, which I am sure the Minister will address. It is not just Anna helping the community, but many others. In particular, I would like to mention Maureen Cope, the long-standing chair of Castlemilk community council, who has worked tirelessly for almost 40 years to try to get a supermarket in Castlemilk. Despite “retiring” last year, she continues to fight for access to good food every single day. She is a real community champion. Others include local councillor Johnny Carson, who is in the Public Gallery today, along with councillor Catherine Vallis. They are both fighting incredibly hard for Castlemilk, and have been for a long time. It is not just adults doing that; it is kids too. The kids at Castleton primary school won an award for their film about the campaign for a supermarket, titled “It’s Just Not Fair.” In it, we follow Annas, a kid at the school who walks to the closest supermarket. In between, there are clips of the kids and parents reading out their biggest challenges: expensive bus tickets, having to eat unhealthy food and being unable to get nappies for babies. Annas finally arrives at the closest supermarket, an Asda, one hour and 15 minutes after leaving his home. Despite all the hard work by volunteers, as is so often the case, politicians have let the people down. In 2022, the SNP-run council said that a supermarket was “imminent”. It has not been delivered. While SNP councillors were patting themselves on the back for something that would not happen, they were simultaneously cutting the opening hours for the swimming pool, refusing to reopen the indoor bowling club and watching on as the SNP Government closed the police station. That neglect has consequences. When basic services are stripped away one by one and Governments do not deliver, communities suffer. I am pleased that the Labour Government actually want to fix the problem. There are innovative new solutions, such as tools to direct greengrocers to the worst-affected areas of food deprivation.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Institutions and Governments have failed Castlemilk for far too long. The Labour Government can help change that, and I am determined to play my part. I will always stand by the people of Castlemilk in their fight for a supermarket, and with all those across the UK fighting for access to good food. I have met supermarket operators and landowners to find a solution. Unlike the many politicians who have come before me, I will not promise something that it is not directly in my gift to deliver, but I can promise that I will not stop fighting until the community I represent has the supermarket it deserves. The people of Castlemilk and 1.2 million others across the UK deserve better. They deserve the same access to fresh, nutritious and affordable food that the rest of us enjoy and take for granted. I am determined to make that a reality, and I will not stop fighting until it is.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
Thank you, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She made a number of powerful points, and I am sure the Minister will come to them in her closing contribution. Castlemilk is what is described as a food desert—a place with no access to healthy food—and it is not unique: 1.2 million people in the UK live in an area like it. People might think we are talking about rural areas cut off by their geography, but these areas are often in towns and cities across the country. They are isolated because they lack basic services that every other community takes for granted.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
I agree with my hon. Friend; she makes a very important point. If we look at a map of the areas with a lack of access to healthy food and a map of the poorest areas in Britain, we will more or less be looking at the same map. In those areas, rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease are much higher. Adults in the poorest areas eat almost 40% less fruit and veg than those in the richest areas. In Scotland, the poorest adults are 10% more likely to be overweight than the richest adults. So nobody will be shocked that life expectancy in Castlemilk is eight years lower than the national average. When the only option is ultra-processed foods, maintaining a healthy diet becomes not just difficult but financially impossible.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Community ownership and co-operatives are an important part of how we fix a lot of problems in this country, not least this one.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
I beg to move, That this House has considered inequality of access to fresh and nutritious food. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell, and I thank the Minister for being here today. Castlemilk is a proud and resilient community, built in the ashes of the second world war. It was first built to combat inner-city housing pressures in Glasgow. The development offered indoor plumbing, heating and what was then a vastly improved standard of living. The people who lived there built something that bricks and mortar could not: a community—a place where neighbours looked after each other’s weans, as we say in Glasgow, took in messages for grannies and coached football for the teenagers. That community spirit has built local organisations, rebuilt social housing and renovated a football stadium. However, there is one challenge that Castlemilk has not yet overcome: the lack of a supermarket. That might sound like a simple ask, but to understand why Castlemilk does not have a supermarket, we have to take a step back. Let me paint a picture of what life is like for the 15,000 people who live in Castlemilk. It is one of the most isolated areas in Glasgow. Despite being just five miles from the city centre, there is no train station, just unreliable buses, and the nearest supermarket is three miles away. In an area where most people do not have a car, the options are a £6 return bus fare, if the bus turns up, and as a regular user of Glasgow’s buses, I can assure hon. Members that it often does not; a six-mile walk with heavy bags in the wind and rain, which I can also assure hon. Members there is lots of in Glasgow; or spending £20 on a return taxi journey. For many people, that £20 is the choice between accessing healthy food and turning the heating on. For old people, young parents or people with disabilities, that journey can be impossible—imagine having a pram, a toddler and three shopping bags and having to get two different buses just to get fresh food.
5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source
More
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am pleased to hear about those organisations in West Lothian. There are many similar ones in Castlemilk, and I will talk about that in a bit. But it is key that communities are not reliant on charity for access to fresh food—that is a very important point.
3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source
More
On a sunny spring afternoon, Linda Howard watched her husband and son walk down the path from her house. Even now, decades later, she can recall the details of that morning with perfect clarity. Young Tommy pestered his dad to let him join him at the football match. His mum did not want him to make the trip to Sheffield, but she saw the anticipation in his eyes, and was unable to say no and break his heart. As she said goodbye and watched them walk down the path, Tommy turned to wave one more time. She did not know it in that moment, but it would be for the last time, because her husband and son were heading to a disaster. Their lives would be cruelly taken in a tragedy caused by a failure of care, control and courage, and an instinct not to act, but to look away, as the crisis deepened. Ninety-seven people lost their life in the Hillsborough disaster, and thousands more lost trust because of the events that happened afterwards. The same instinct that led to inaction on that day led to deceit in the days that followed. The fans of Liverpool football club were smeared as a gang of drunks. The grotesque implication was that the dead were somehow responsible for their own demise, and grieving mothers, brothers, fathers and sisters were treated by the police not as bereaved family, but as accomplices to some indescribable crime. They were taken to a gym hall and forced to look through photographs of the dead to find out the fate of their family. Hillsborough was not just a collapse of a crush barrier; it was the collapse of trust. It was a moment when public officials saw their fellow citizens not as people to be protected, but as problems to be managed. I am ashamed to say that this is not unique in our history. Just ask the grandmother who came to this country on a boat, and contributed for decades, only for the state to turn around and tell her she was no longer welcome in her own country; or the tenant who warned that their building was unsafe, but found their home engulfed in flames before anyone would listen; or the local businessman who held together a community, but who found that the output of a faulty computer system was treated with more deference by the authorities than his own word and honest reputation. These are not isolated stories; they are the same story. This was described by the Right Rev. James Jones in his report as the “patronising disposition of unaccountable power”. That posture has no place in a just Britain, because power without accountability is not strength, but corruption. In a true democracy, the state exists to serve the working-class widow on the Wirral just as much as the chief constable of a police force. The binding promise of justice in a democracy is that, together, we belong to a country to which we each contribute, and by which we are treated equally. It is the promise also of the movement to which I belong, which 100 years ago said that working men and women no longer required a patronising disposition; instead, they required representatives of themselves to bestow power on the powerless, and to impose on all of those who hold state authority a duty of candour. That is what the Bill does. It instils in the public contract an immovable commitment that the truth shall sit above all else, regardless of consequence. The people of this country do not demand perfection. They understand the inevitability of mistakes, but what they cannot accept is a state that obscures the truth from its own people. We cannot bring back the victims of Hillsborough, and we cannot erase the years of pain or decades of denial, but we can make sure that no grieving family ever again has to fight their own Government for the truth, so that when the next mother watches her son walk down the path, she knows that if tragedy does rear its ugly head, her country will stand with her, not against her, in the fight for justice.
8 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
More
T3. The £10 billion contract with Norway will help to guarantee shipbuilding on the Clyde for many decades to come. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the workers at the shipyard in Glasgow, and will he assure me that the Government intend to everything they can to promote Glaswegian shipbuilding around the world?
4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source
More
Local community councillors in Cathcart have long campaigned for step-free access to Cathcart train station. I welcome the investment in the spending review, but I would like to see some of that money come to Cathcart station. Does the Leader of the House agree that we should have a debate on train station accessibility, and would she help facilitate a meeting with the Minister?
8 Jul 2025 · Government Resilience Action Plan · Hansard source
More
The national risk register identifies cyber-attacks on critical national infrastructure as being of moderate likelihood but potentially catastrophic in impact. The National Audit Office has identified 58 key Government systems that have substantial cyber-resilience gaps. What more can the Government do to plug those gaps and ensure that our systems are secure?
19 Jun 2025 · Warm Home Discount · Hansard source
More
Thousands more of my constituents in Glasgow will have money off their energy bills this winter as a result of this Labour Government’s decision. I welcome the Minister’s statement and ask her to assure me that the Government will continue to work hard to deliver lower energy bills for families in Glasgow.
2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source
More
I was pleased to join the Secretary of State this morning in Glasgow, where he met some of the workers building the Type 26 frigate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) said, the Norwegian Government are considering placing an order for that frigate, so can I ask the Secretary of State to do everything he can to encourage our Norwegian friends to order the frigate?
22 May 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base · Hansard source
More
The US supports this deal. NATO supports this deal. India supports this deal. Does the Secretary of State share my surprise that Opposition Members seem so intent on ignoring our allies?
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
More
We have deals with India and with the United States, and now this Government are repairing our relationship with Europe—something that I and thousands of my constituents welcome. I congratulate the Prime Minister and ask him to go as fast as possible to secure the finalisation of the scheme that will allow our young people to live, work and study in Europe.
6 May 2025 · Counter Terrorism Policing: Arrests · Hansard source
More
May I thank the Minister for his statement and join him in paying tribute to the security services that keep us all safe? As he knows, the UK is under constant cyber-attack from states, including Iran. Will he update the House on what work the Home Office is doing to protect the UK from ransomware attacks?
27 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source
More
The football pitch at Merrylee primary school in my constituency is used by hundreds of kids every day, but it is in a terrible condition. It needs to be redone, but the local SNP-run council is refusing to provide funding, which means that local parents have to identify grant funding. Will the Leader of the House join me in praising those local parents? Will she make time for a debate on community football pitches?
24 Mar 2025 · US Cyber-operations against Russia · Hansard source
More
With GCHQ, the UK’s cyber-operations are genuinely world-leading. What assurance can the Minister give the House that we will continue to support Ukraine with our cyber-security?
19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source
More
Did the hon. Lady hear the question? Yes or no?

Published records only — not a full account of an MP’s work. How we work →