Graham Leadbitter MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 22 Oct 2025 · Devolution in Scotland · Hansard source

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  I take the hon. Member’s point, but the fact remains that the personal independence payment is currently under threat from the UK Government. That will have a devastating impact on disabled people, and many Labour Members on the Government Benches would agree with that. On the economy and taxation, we have a more progressive income tax system. More than 50% of people working in Scotland pay less tax than they do elsewhere in the UK. I fully support that as a higher rate taxpayer.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Devolution in Scotland · Hansard source

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  Can I respond to the first intervention first? If a substantial budget cut comes through on the back of that, that will have a serious impact on what the Scottish Government can do, whatever colour that Scottish Government may be following the next elections.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Devolution in Scotland · Hansard source

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  I gently remind Labour Members that every single year should be the largest devolution budget, because inflation goes up every year. There has not been a negative inflationary year in my lifetime, so it should be going up every year. There should be a record settlement every single year. That is just inflation. That is basic economics. I know those on the Government Benches struggle with that sometimes. On council tax and water charges, we have the lowest in the UK. We are, for over a decade, the top destination outside London for foreign investment. Since the SNP came to power in 2007, GDP per capita has grown in Scotland by 10.3% and by 6.1% for the rest of the UK. There are things that have been done, both by the Labour and Liberal Executive in the first few years of the Parliament and by the SNP Government since 2007, that have delivered substantial benefits for the people of Scotland. On health, briefly, we have had more GPs per head than any other part of the UK for the past five years; they are also the best paid, recognising the challenge and importance of that role. Scotland’s core A&Es have been the best performing in the UK for nine years, with lower average waiting times. We have abolished prescription charges and, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) referred to, we have free eye examinations as well. In addition, more than 1,000 school building projects have been completed since 2007, and 96% of our school leavers go into further training, further education or workplaces. In his submission to the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross described this place as the parent of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, but I would describe the Scottish people as the parent of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government through the Scottish Constitutional Convention. I very much commend the hon. Member for his work in that role. Fundamentally, I would say that the parent of the Scottish Parliament is the Scottish people who voted for it and who continue to back it and elect it and the Government. That brings me to my final point. The Scottish Parliament is on a journey. It was formed in 1999 and has continued on a journey.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Mandatory Digital ID · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister said that this was mandatory if people wanted to work in the UK, so for every single person who wants to work in the UK it is mandatory. Is that not pretty much a compulsory ID card?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Mandatory Digital ID · Hansard source

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  When the Prime Minister unveiled this plan at the Global Progress Action Summit 2025, he referred to digital ID only as a tool for right-to-work checks; there was no mention of any linkage to public services. Within a matter of weeks, though, digital ID appears to have encompassed a disturbingly large part of people’s lives. I was astounded to see the Secretary of State for Scotland on the BBC defending the sudden push for “Britcards” by comparing them to boarding passes, train tickets and Tesco clubcards, which are on many phones already. Every one of those things is available in physical form and a Tesco clubcard is clearly optional. That cannot be said for this “Britcard” scheme. Ministers have repeatedly said that the scheme is not mandatory, yet the Prime Minister said it was mandatory for work purposes. He explicitly said: “Let me spell it out: you will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have a digital ID.” Surely, in anyone’s books that is mandatory. One of the most glaring issues is the fact that digital ID is a rewiring of the relationship between citizen and state, and is being done without a democratic mandate. A “Britcard” is not wanted and is not needed. It is a waste of public money and should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Alleged Spying Case: Home Office Involvement · Hansard source

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  After the Cabinet Office meeting of 1 September, did the Prime Minister receive a note on this case in his ministerial red box, and, if so, did he approve it? Additionally, did the UK Government give Chinese officials private assurances at any point and in any form that the application for the Chinese embassy in London would be approved?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Great British Energy: Public Sector Renewable Energy Use · Hansard source

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  Over a year ago, the UK Government promised that there would be hundreds of jobs for GB Energy in Aberdeen. A year on, the oil and gas industry in Aberdeen is haemorrhaging thousands of jobs and we are barely into double figures for GB Energy jobs. When will that promise be kept?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Energy Profits Levy: North-east Scotland · Hansard source

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  A number of skilled jobs are going out of the North sea, and many of these workers will go to other countries—that was the point made by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). That is not sustainable for the skills transfer into the offshore renewables sector, and it is denting investor confidence. There is a serious risk that the build-out of offshore renewables will not go fast enough if investor confidence disappears because of skills loss. It is hugely important that the EPL is addressed as quickly as possible to prevent that from continuing.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Energy Profits Levy: North-east Scotland · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Energy Profits Levy: North-east Scotland · Hansard source

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  The loss of skills impacts investor confidence in the North sea. That investor confidence is directly linked to investor confidence in renewables, given the lack of availability of skills that will result. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government need to give an end date for this so-called temporary measure as soon as possible, and that that needs to be implemented as soon as practicably possible?

• 11 Sept 2025 · Bus Services · Hansard source

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  The SNP in government has introduced free bus travel for under-22s, and last week, it scrapped peak rail fares. Those measures support access to employment opportunities, put more money in people’s pockets, and support local economies, especially in suburban and rural areas. Will the Minister acknowledge those excellent measures for consumers in Scotland and consider their benefits for the rest of the UK?

• 11 Sept 2025 · UK Ambassador to the US: Appointment Process · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister was hiding behind process yesterday, and is doing the same today. Did the Prime Minister know about these messages before Prime Minister’s questions yesterday?

• 11 Sept 2025 · Life Sciences Investment · Hansard source

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  I welcome the right hon. Member to his new role, although admittedly I am surprised that Labour have adopted the fire and rehire strategy. Scotland has one of the highest concentrations of life sciences hubs, and in the past five years has created six innovation centres directly aligned to life sciences. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of this announcement on Scotland’s research and development sector, and what support does he plan to put in place?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Hiking excise duty by 14% over the past two years was expected to raise £600 million for the Treasury in duty on spirits, but it has actually cost £600 million. With 70% of spirits produced in Scotland, this is nothing short of a tax on Scotland. The Chancellor has 77 days to back Scotch, support Scotland and sustain growth in this iconic and entrepreneurial sector. Will she therefore commit to reversing the Government’s attacks on a great Scottish success story by bringing down whisky duty in the Budget?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Member on the point about employer national insurance contributions, but in the Press and Journal today—one of the august daily papers in Scotland—there are reports that highland hoteliers are struggling to recruit. The large part of the blame for that is laid at the door of Brexit, and the current immigration policy does nothing to help the highlands and islands in Scotland. There is demand for a rural visa, which is fully backed by the Federation of Small Businesses—

• 1 Sept 2025 · Poverty Reduction · Hansard source

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  Two million pensioners in the UK are in poverty, and the British state pension is among the worst in north-west Europe. During the independence referendum, Better Together claimed that our pensions are more affordable when Scotland is part of the UK. Eleven years on, will the Minister tell me exactly what the Union is doing for Scottish pensioners, other than impoverishing them?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Poverty Reduction · Hansard source

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  9. What discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on reducing poverty.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs · Hansard source

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  The workers of Grangemouth deserved far better than they got from the Labour Government. To add insult to injury, they have had to watch them pull out all the stops for Scunthorpe and Prax Lindsey. In a written answer to me, the Energy Minister refused to confirm how much money the UK Government had spent to continue operations at Lindsey. Will the Secretary of State now come clean and tell us what price they are willing to pay to save jobs in England, which they were not willing to pay to save Grangemouth in Scotland?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review · Hansard source

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  The report by NESO has clearly uncovered serious structural failings at National Grid, but let us not forget that the Government’s response to the outage was severely wanting as well. On the Monday following the outage, the Transport Secretary confirmed that she was relying on the contents of a three-day-old conversation with Heathrow, with no assessment from the Government and no conversations with National Grid. Can the Secretary of State assure the House that sufficient lessons are being learned in Government to ensure that, when the power supply to critical national infrastructure is affected in the future, the Government are not left without answers again? Additionally, Members will understand the phrase “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”, meaning “Who guards the guards?” Why did it take such a serious outage for the National Grid to be audited like this? Surely better oversight may have identified the shockingly poor risk management.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery · Hansard source

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  Westminster’s mismanagement of the energy sector is clearly being felt across these islands, and the Government were right to arrange a statement today to address the possible closure of the Prax Lindsey oil refinery. However, that is not a courtesy that the Labour Government have ever extended to Grangemouth in Scotland: they have not once come to the Chamber to make a statement about it. We have seen Labour pull out all the stops for Scunthorpe and now begin that process for Lindsey. Will they think again and do the same for Grangemouth? The Shetland gas plant is also owned by Prax, and is also a significant employer. What steps are the Government taking to secure the future of this site, and why did the plant not feature in the statement, if only for the purpose of an assurance?

• 30 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The strategic defence review, published this month, clearly states: “The foundation of the UK’s approach to deterrence remains a minimum, credible, independent UK nuclear deterrent, assigned to the defence of NATO… The UK’s nuclear weapons are operationally independent.” Somehow, in the last 29 days, the UK Government have decided that they no longer see their Trident nuclear missiles as a minimum credible deterrent. Why was that major change in policy not announced in the SDR?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Transport: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  A number of immediate airport expansions are now planned around the London area, which is fair enough, but there is some concern about the protection that is required for vital links to airports in the regions and nations of the rest of the UK. Will the Minister provide an assurance that work will be done to protect those links and the local economies that rely on them?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Armed Forces Day · Hansard source

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  There are many gallant Members in this Chamber, in the Scottish Parliament Chamber back home in Scotland, and in other legislatures of these islands, both national and local—Members who have served in the armed forces with distinction and bravery. I pay tribute to them, and to those family and many friends who have served, and in some cases continue to serve. I hold them in the highest regard for their commitment to protecting the freedoms that we hold dear. That commitment is demonstrated by every rank and in every location where our armed forces operate. Scotland has a very proud and distinguished military history. Armed Forces Day has become a further focal point of community support for our serving armed forces and our veterans. In my constituency of Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey, there are around 4,500 serving personnel—around 3,000 at RAF Lossiemouth and around 1,500 Army personnel between 39 Engineers at Kinloss and the 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, the Black Watch, based at Fort George. They are supported by hundreds of Ministry of Defence civilians and military contractors, such as Boeing and BAE Systems, who jointly, with our serving personnel, deliver significant defensive and offensive capabilities for our military system. In addition, there are around 12,000 veterans in my constituency; I believe we have the highest percentage of any constituency in the UK. That reflects the north of Scotland’s very long and distinguished connection with the military. Once we add in immediate family, around one in five people living in Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey have a direct military connection—quite some figure. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the armed forces in the area are not viewed as a separate or distinct community, but rather as a significant and integrated part of the wider community. As is often the case in the north of Scotland, there is no fanfare, but rather an everyday respect and appreciation of the role of the armed forces embedded in community life. Frankly, it is something that just is. That is important. There is no “us and them”; we are a whole community. That does not, of course, equate to the armed forces being ignored, as can be readily observed from the significant numbers that turn out, year on year, across the constituency to witness acts of remembrance. I am very pleased that those numbers have grown over the last 25 years very significantly, and show no sign of dropping off. There are military children in most schools in the constituency, and some schools have a very significant percentage of military children. Military charities are well supported in the region, including SSAFA, the RAF Benevolent Fund, Help for Heroes, and Erskine Veterans Charity, which fairly recently opened a very welcoming and well-attended facility in Forres that is providing fantastic support to veterans. They can get together for a chat, or for the more extensive support that Erskine can provide. The military, including contractors, offers a fantastic range of opportunities to young people in the region, and many take up those opportunities. In my pre-parliamentary life, I spent some four years as leader of Moray council. During that period, we strengthened our role in delivering the armed forces covenant. We worked cross party and across the chamber in the council to do that. That has continued, with cross-party support, and the council achieved the gold standard in the employer recognition scheme. During my time as council leader, I was very pleased to support the developing civic link between the council and HMS Spey, a Royal Navy river class offshore patrol vessel currently operating in the Indo-Pacific, giving the constituency and the wider region really strong links with all three services. I will touch on some politics. I trust this will be taken in the positive spirit in which I present it. This is not a day for hard politics, but there are some things that could be better for our armed forces. First, on the covenant —I mentioned this earlier to the Minister—I very much welcome proposals to embed the covenant in legislation. There will, no doubt, be challenges associated with that, and financial implications, but it is, in my view, the right thing to do. I look forward to future opportunities to debate embedding the covenant in law. Secondly, one thing that frustrated me in my council days was comparatively rapid changes in numbers, notably at RAF Lossiemouth, which happened with no financial support to the council. Many councils with military bases, particularly air force bases, are in rural areas with small populations and consequently smaller budgets to operate with. That makes them less agile, because they simply do not have the money available at short notice to make the changes required to deliver services at a bigger scale. Other Members will, I am certain, have similar experiences in areas with significant changes in military numbers. If the MOD were a private developer, it would be contributing substantial sums to support growth in childcare, education and health provision, and a range of other public services. It would also be required to invest in infrastructure, such as improved roads and junctions in the area. The current design of our armed forces and the Government Departments that support them does not lend itself to doing that. This needs serious work. I am by no means a fan of everything that the US does, but in this regard when significant changes occur to military-related populations there, there is a Government Department that steps up for a period to support local authorities, including with finance, to help smooth changes, with investment in service provision and the local economy. Councils and health boards have to absorb big bumps in demand, and that is frequently easier said than done. We have a welcome opportunity to fix that. The Department in the US is called the Office of Local Defence Community Co-operation. It used to be known as the Office of Economic Adjustment, but I think that perhaps sounded a bit Orwellian. I would welcome further opportunities to debate this issue to see what progress can be achieved. The team in the US describes its role as helping communities to navigate the impact of Department of Defence actions and programme changes. That is exactly what we need to achieve in the UK, and it is particularly important as we move into an era of significantly increased spend on our armed forces and growth in our base numbers. There will be demand for more dentists, doctors, teachers and wraparound childcare. That puts a lot of pressure on local services and we need to navigate our way through that. Before I conclude my contribution, I would like to make three specific mentions. First, like a number of Members who have contributed to this debate, I am taking part in the armed forces parliamentary scheme—in my case, the RAF course—which has afforded me many excellent learning opportunities that enable me as a parliamentarian to better understand our armed forces and to more effectively represent constituents with connections to our armed forces. I pay tribute to the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust, which is behind the excellent scheme, and the military officers who support the scheme here in Parliament, who have given so much time and effort to ensure that the scheme is the effective learning tool for MPs that it is. I commend the scheme to other Members who may be interested in taking it up. Secondly, it was a real delight to give my constituent Evie Skinner a tour of Parliament earlier this week and to congratulate her in person for her well-deserved win in the Month of the Military Child poetry and art competition, set up by the excellent charity Never Such Innocence. Evie, who has a parent serving in our armed forces, should be really proud of her art piece on the theme of “Memories”, and I hope she and her family enjoyed their time in Westminster. Finally, this morning, I was pleased to welcome to Parliament several members of the Battlefield Co-ordination Detachment with their associated ground liaison officers, who are based with 1 (Fighter) Squadron at RAF Lossiemouth. The group was led by Lieutenant Colonel Gee Jenner and Captain Ant Butler, who, alongside their colleagues, are developing their understanding of the role of Parliament and the interaction between Parliament and our military services. Achieving that mutual learning is as important to the military as it is to parliamentarians. It is vital that we continue to support and celebrate the dedication and commitment of our armed forces, and Armed Forces Day affords us the opportunity to do just that.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Armed Forces Day · Hansard source

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  I very much welcome the work being done to bring the covenant into wider, and legislative, effect, with consequences where it is not applied. That will be important in delivering services to our armed forces right across the public sector, but there is a financial consequence. Parliament and Government need to seriously consider how that financial consequence is borne and distributed to ensure that those public services are empowered and financed to support armed forces personnel and, just as importantly, their wider families in the best way they can.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T10. Ministers have collectively restated their commitment to a two-state solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but only one of those states is currently recognised. I believe there is support in this House for recognition of Palestine, and that if the matter were put to a vote, that support would be expressed. Would that not strengthen Ministers’ hand, and will they bring the issue to a vote?