Graham Leadbitter MP: speeches

Speeches

• 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.

• 7 Apr 2025 · Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. Pace is needed, understandably, but I do have some concerns in that due process needs to be followed with the devolved Administrations. Can she assure the House that sufficient time is being allowed for the devolved Administrations, including the Scottish Government, to be fully involved and engaged in a consultation on policy development, and the Scottish Parliament for any legislative changes that may be required? Secondly, what assessment has been made of the potential for those changes to impact negatively on carbon emissions in the UK and Scotland, and our respective Governments’ ability to meet statutory climate change targets? Will she publish any such assessments?

• 17 Mar 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. The latest figures suggest there are over 6,000 WASPI women in the Moray and Highland region, and they are an active and vociferous group. Of the 650 constituencies, my Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey constituency is in the top 25 for signatures on the petition. Women from my constituency regularly travel the many hundreds of miles to London to demonstrate and demand fair recompense from this Government and from previous Governments. Sadly, they are being thwarted at every turn. All the while, every day over 100 WASPI women die having seen no justice. WASPI women have proven that the communication with them was dire—the ombudsman’s report made that very clear, after very thorough investigation —yet not even a hint of recompense has been given. It is an utterly appalling situation. Let us be clear: the millions of women affected are of a generation of women who have been discriminated against throughout their working lives. They have been victims of getting lower pay than their male counterparts doing the same job, as has been well evidenced by equal pay settlements with numerous bodies. They have been victims of the glass ceiling, victims of both casual and overt sexism in the workplace, and victims of a patriarchal society that, although much diminished, still creates a major imbalance today. Women are far more likely to be worse off as pensioners than men and have, on average, much smaller pension pots when they come to retirement age. Ministers continually refer to the £22 billion black hole left by the previous Government. I accept that the financial legacy they have been left is pretty grim, but let us be clear: that refers to recurring spend and absolutely not to what would be a one-off compensatory spend. Financial experts, professionals and auditors take a very different view on one-off spend compared with recurring spend. We need to keep that in context, and I hope the Minister will reflect on that. Justice is justice, and it must not depend on budgets for it to be served. It is in that context that the vast majority of Labour MPs refused to vote in the recent Division on this issue that was forced by my party. I commend the small number who stuck to their principles and voted with us, and I urge the large majority who did not to consider their position on this matter seriously, and get back behind the campaigners they were happy to pose with for campaign photos in the run-up to last year’s election. I am humbled by the determination and drive of those campaigners, as well as the dignified way in which they continue to make their point. Campaigners from throughout the UK are once again here in numbers, and I commend and fully support their efforts to get the fair and just compensation they deserve.

• 13 Feb 2025 · Rolling Stock: Purchasing Models · Hansard source

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  At the moment, the rolling stock leasing companies take more than £1 billion of profit out of the railway. A substantial amount of that could be reinvested in improving the railway network. With the Bill for Great British Railways due to come to Parliament soon, will the Secretary of State look seriously at alternative financing models such as EUROFIMA—the European company for the financing of railroad rolling stock—or even a publicly owned ROSCO that could deliver rolling stock at a considerably lower price? Indeed, will she be more socialist and more ambitious with the Bill?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for the Scotch Whisky Industry · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. That is another point that I will expand on in a bit more detail shortly. We must continue to strengthen our trade relationships. While this debate is rightly focused on UK actions, it will not have bypassed hon. Members that there has been significant media comment on tariff actions taken by the US Administration in recent weeks, and on what potential future actions may be taken. Combined with global headwinds affecting the wider luxury brands market, it has unsurprisingly generated comment and speculation, both from within the sector and elsewhere. Maintaining a watchful eye and accentuating the positives of the existing trade relationships remain vital. On excise duty, the current tax regime is unsustainable. Scotch whisky and other spirits have faced a 14% increase in excise duty in just 18 months. Over the past 18 months the Treasury has lost £255 million, or £500,000 per day, in spirits revenue—a far cry from the £600 million that the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that the increase in spirits duty would raise. That Treasury loss from lower sales was projected by the industry to increase as the Chancellor’s recent decisions start to bite. If we want to examine the impact higher taxes have had on the retailers and the producers themselves, we need look no closer than right here. Last year a freedom of information request revealed that in the first 10 months of 2024, a year after the Conservatives hiked whisky tax, sales of whisky in Parliament’s gift shops plummeted, with average monthly sales of 5 cl bottles down 36% and 70 cl bottles down 16% by the end of October. That means that, when Labour MPs approved the Chancellor’s plans to further increase taxes on whisky products, they did not even need to leave the building to pass a shop adversely affected by the tax.

• 29 Jan 2025 · Outsourcing: Government Departments · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) on securing this debate. I want to take the debate in a slightly different direction, as there has not been much mention of national security so far. I am a Member for a constituency that has a large Ministry of Defence footprint, particularly in the RAF. Outsourcing of catering and mess facility management over many years has had a significant and detrimental impact on the cohesion of our fighting forces, not just on bases in my constituency, but in every base where outsourcing has occurred. The reason is because we have a two-tier workforce. We have people who have been TUPE-ed across from the civil service, who started their career as MOD civil servants. They are now working alongside people who are on considerably lower pay for doing the same job. That creates division in the workplace. People who are getting paid less, and are valued less, then do not value their employer. This is understandable: why should anyone value an employer that does not particularly value them? We end up in a situation where there is less attention paid and standards fall. There are situations where a contract is ending—with maybe six months left to run—and, for the sake of argument, let us say that the staffing complement for the team should be about 25 but it is now down to 15. Does the employer have any intention whatsoever of bridging that gap with another 10 people, when it is struggling to make a profit in the last six months of a contract? Absolutely not. It will be sucked up by the 15 people doing the job of 25. That is a totally unacceptable way to work. If we parliamentarians and the civil service believe that the people who work directly for them are worth a living wage, they should believe that for every single person that is doing a job that facilitates what that organisation does. It is a simple act of fairness. In the military, they talk about the esprit de corps or a single-force approach; if there is that separation, then that is not there. If people are not getting the quality of food or accommodation they want, they will not stay. We can spend a fortune training them, and they can be very good at what they do, but they will not stay in because the facilities are not good enough for them. If we want a coherent military, people who are dedicated to it and good national security, we must treat all the workers, whether they are service personnel, civilians or contractors —and I would rather they were not contractors—with the same degree of respect and with the same degree of rights. The other problem that I want to highlight is that people who have been TUPE-ed across when contracts have been put out may, broadly speaking, retain their pay and conditions, but what they do not tend to retain is their pension. That is an absolute travesty because it is completely mortgaging their retirement life and their right to a decent retirement. Many of them, particularly in more rural areas where our services are being provided, may not have other opportunities to move into another role within the same organisation to avoid being contracted out. I want to pick up on a point that was made about radical socialism. There is nothing radical about paying a fair wage for a fair day’s work. It is just a matter of human decency. I will leave it at that.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  I accept the point about ferries, and I would rather they had arrived on time and that the overspend did not exist, but we can compare that with High Speed 2, which is billions of pounds overspent, and the benefit to Scotland has diminished to near zero. There are other examples, including the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh, which was signed off by a Labour Government and was massively overspent. It was not the MSPs who supervised or had oversight of that, so there are examples from across all parties of issues with infrastructure projects. The important thing is obviously to learn from them and stop them happening again, which I fully support. Looking to the south-west of Scotland, I stayed in Galloway for a couple of years and I know very well what the A75 is like. It is a vital link to Northern Ireland, through the port of Cairnryan, and there is ongoing work there. I welcome the cross-party work on that and hope it can continue, with design improvements to the road. I very much support that, and I know that colleagues in the Scottish Government do as well. There has been a lot of work and discussion between the Scottish Government and the UK Government on rail issues. I very much welcome the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, which we fully support. Rail was already in public ownership in Scotland but, in fairness, that legislation has enabled us to ensure that that will continue—public ownership was the operator of last resort, so there was no surety about that, but now there is. There is a lot of mutual interest in getting this right, so will the Minister give an assurance that there will be strong engagement with the Scottish Government as the legislation develops? I hope that much of that can be addressed prior to publication. Finally, it is vital that we retain the protected slots at the key hub airports, which are critical to our onward connections to the rest of the world. Also, to pre-empt a question of mine that has been selected for tomorrow, and to use this opportunity to give a bit more context, EGNOS, the European geostationary navigation overlay system, is very technical—

• 9 Oct 2024 · Sepsis Awareness · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Christopher. I want to recount the experience of my constituency colleague and friend, Richard Lochhead, Member of the Scottish Parliament for Moray. Late last year, Richard became ill with flu-like symptoms at an event in Edinburgh. Days later, back in Elgin in the constituency, he collapsed at home and was blue-lighted to Dr Gray’s hospital in Elgin, and then on to the Aberdeen Royal infirmary. He had, of course, developed sepsis from what seemed like common flu-like symptoms. Richard has said publicly: “There’s no doubt that I’m lucky to be here.” The sepsis had attacked his heart and he required emergency open heart surgery. He was an otherwise healthy individual who enjoys cycling and, hopefully, he will be able to get back to that—I certainly think he will, given how he looked when I saw him most recently. He spent six weeks in hospital and said there were times when he “couldn’t do anything”. He also described having to learn to walk again. He lost his voice and that took several weeks to return. For any politician, obviously, losing their voice is a difficult thing to deal with. Richard has thankfully made a faster than expected recovery, having been at death’s door, although that recovery has still been many months. He is now back representing his constituents in his inimitable style, and carrying out his ministerial duties in the Scottish Government most effectively. I am sure colleagues will join me in wishing him well for his continuing recovery, albeit that he is most of the way there now. A combination of expert care, his own determination and, arguably, some luck, got him to that point, but many others—as we have heard from colleagues today—are not so lucky. It was reported in the excellent Press and Journal newspaper that in the last year alone almost one person a day in Grampian, Highland and Islands has died from sepsis. More than 2,200 patients needed ward treatment, with around six admissions a day in an area represented by just 11 MPs. With more than 600 MPs in this place, that gives an indication of how big and shocking the impact of sepsis is. This is bluntly a life and death issue, and I commend the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for bringing forward this debate and, vitally, for keeping the issue in the spotlight. The symptoms that have been described by others are critical for people to understand. No one should gamble on whether it may or not be sepsis. If they have the slightest inkling that sepsis might be the cause of an illness, they should get to a doctor and a hospital and get checked out.

• 17 Jul 2024 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to have been elected to represent Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey, which is something of an amalgam of a couple of previous constituencies. First, I would like to thank the electorate of the constituency for sending me to this place to represent them and for putting their trust in me for the years to come. On my arrival here, an amazing job has been done by the House staff, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and others, and I cannot thank them enough for the welcome that they have provided us as new MPs. I have a number of predecessors that I need to thank, not least because mine is nearly two constituencies rolled into one. First of all there is Douglas Ross, who represented Moray for the Conservatives for several recent years. We were not very close on the political spectrum, it has to be said, but there were a number of occasions where we did come together across parties for the benefit of the constituency and the wider region, notably in the achievement of the growth deal for Moray and to maximise the spend that we got on that. I am sure the official Opposition would also want to thank him for his service in the Scotland Office. My predecessor in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey was Drew Hendry, who was a regular contributor from the Scottish National party Benches. He represented us as an Opposition spokesperson on the economy, trade, foreign affairs, business, enterprise and investment, and transport over several terms as an MP for that area. He was also an assiduous campaigner on energy poverty, which is a particular issue for the highlands and islands and in Moray. I hope that energy regulation is one of the areas that the Government’s commission on poverty will look at very seriously. My right hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), the leader of the SNP in this place, mentioned the two-child cap. I will not go into too much detail on that because it has already been well covered, but energy poverty is a critical issue for many families throughout the highlands and Moray. Bringing in a social tariff, for example, would certainly make a big difference to families right across the highlands. Other predecessors have included several well-known parliamentarians. Labour Members will, I am sure, be pleased to know that my constituency is the birthplace of Ramsay MacDonald, and it has also been represented very ably by several notable SNP MPs over the years. One of the most famous was Winnie Ewing, who reconvened the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and also represented the area in the Scottish Parliament, in this place and in Europe. Her daughter-in-law, Margaret Ewing, was an assiduous campaigner on poverty issues and will be well known to older Members of the House—or longer-serving Members of the House is perhaps more parliamentary. More recently there was Angus Robertson, who led the party in this place for a good number of years and is now a Cabinet Secretary in the Scottish Government. We can take a quick stroll through Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey. It goes from the white sands of Lossiemouth, Burghead and Nairn right up to the Cairngorms peaks. It has the city of Elgin in it, which has now been established as a cathedral city for 800 years; it is celebrating the 800th anniversary of the cathedral being established there. The constituency has the Speyside towns of Rothes, Aberlour and Dufftown. Dufftown, of course, is built on seven stills rather than seven hills. In the Badenoch and Strathspey towns we get Grantown, Aviemore, Newtonmore and Kingussie among others. We have surfing, skiing and mountain biking. There is a mountain railway, and we have a national park and a major wildlife park with everything from pine martens to polar bears. Moving back up to the coast, in Ardersier we have the green freeport. The Scottish Government have worked closely with the UK Government on that, and I am sure they will continue to do so. The green freeport is incredibly important to us in Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey. It is projected to have 3,500 jobs within 10 years, and it will be vital for just transition. That will need careful scrutiny over the coming years. Tourism, the labour market and affordable housing are major issues, particularly in the Badenoch and Strathspey area. Businesses have difficulty with staffing. They are often open only four or five days instead of seven. There is not really any significant unemployment—it is about 2% to 3%. There may be some room for getting more employment from the local labour market, but fundamentally the biggest impact on the labour market there has been Brexit. Immigration in that part of the world is a really significant issue, in that there is not enough of it. We have difficulty staffing care homes, the NHS and many businesses, which are fighting over the same labour population. We have iconic food, drink and fashion brands, including Walker’s Shortbread and Baxters, not to mention the 49 distilleries that produce malt whisky and the numerous other distilleries that produce gin and vodka. There are also a number of breweries. We contribute extremely significantly to the Exchequer, and it is really important that we get some of that back. We also have three military bases. Fort George currently hosts the Black Watch—the 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland. Kinloss barracks is home to 39 Engineer Regiment, and RAF Lossiemouth is home to Typhoon, Poseidon and arriving Wedgetail squadrons. The welfare of service personnel and veterans is absolutely vital, and it is something I will raise frequently in the House. Civilian aerospace and space are the other major emerging sectors. Orbex in Forres employs well over 100 people, and it will be doing vertical launches from Sutherland and the SaxaVord spaceport. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) will have to forgive me, but its headquarters are, in fact, in Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey. Finally there is agriculture. Crofters and hill farmers based in Badenoch and Strathspey in the Cairngorms national park face particular challenges. We also have arable and the pork sector in the laich of Moray, where there are again employment challenges that need to be tackled. Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey is the fifth largest constituency, and it takes more than two hours to drive end to end, but what a drive it is—I would recommend it to anybody. I look forward to representing the people living and working the length and breadth of my constituency.