Torcuil Crichton MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2025 · Haemochromatosis Screening · Hansard source

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  I do not disagree with that. Screening would be revolutionary. It would save money for the NHS in the short term and the long term, and, more important, it would save lives and put us two decades ahead of the rest of the world in preventive medicine. It would be transformative for my constituency. It would be radical, but only as radical as plans to offer every baby in the UK whole genome sequencing within a decade, a plan backed by the Health Secretary. Genomics, like these tests, would put us on the front foot in preventive medicine, as the Minister well knows. Of course it would cost money—£650 million is earmarked for the boost to genomics by the Department of Health and Social Care—but a smaller and more defined pilot scheme to lead the way in preventive medicine is to hand with the samples of high levels of HCT in the Western Isles. Given the given the cost per head of screening, it is logical that starting in the places with the highest rate of faulty genes would be the most cost-effective option. Initially at least, the Bill ought not to go to the national health service. The bill for gene testing in the Western Isles should be part of the community payback for the large-scale wind farm developments that are planned for the islands. There are already negotiations for community benefits, community funds and community shares in the many planned wind farm developments in rural Scotland. The renewables revolution is about saving the planet, but right now the consumer offer is simply to reduce bills. By properly harnessing the wealth of wind, we can not only make communities better off but transform the life chances and health chances of people and their children. The Viking genes results are not limited to haemochromatosis; they also showed high levels of hypercholesterolaemia in the Western Isles. That is simply inherited high cholesterol —a gene fault—that leaves many islanders, and many of my constituents, with high cholesterol and many with heart conditions, which again could be avoided with predictive medicine and early lifestyle and diet changes.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Haemochromatosis Screening · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend anticipates much of the remainder of my argument. As I said, the research and DNA testing in the islands could and should be paid for by community funds from large-scale renewable projects, just as similar screening projects proposed for Orkney and Shetland could be paid for by funding from wind farms there. From those discrete samples, much learning could be had, and then sampling and testing could be rolled out across not just the rest of Scotland but the rest of the UK. Luckily for me, my siblings and I were spotted early but, as I said, if left untreated and undiagnosed this gene can lead to serious arthritic symptoms, liver cancer and heart disease, the consequences of which are often attributed to other conditions and lifestyle factors but could have been easily prevented by testing. Given the resources, we could test for a wide range of conditions and help this generation and future generations of islanders to live healthy lives. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) said, if it works for a small, discrete population—there are only 21,000 adults in the island chain—the experience and lessons learned could be rolled out across the UK. I know, as we all know, that health services in Scotland do not fall within the ambit of the Minister, but the future of healthcare is in all our hands, and I urge UK Ministers and their counterparts in Holyrood to seriously consider a pilot screening study in the Western Isles. There is a clearly identifiable risk from haemochromatosis, and we should use the lessons from that screening to roll out haemochromatosis screening across the rest of the UK.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Haemochromatosis Screening · Hansard source

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  I do indeed agree. Haemochromatosis, although widespread, was not widely known about until very recently, but genetic testing, as well as simple ferritin level tests, will inform many more people. Early intervention is vital to preventing people from developing crippling illnesses which might otherwise be wrongly ascribed to a condition other than haemochromatosis. It is not just people such as my hon. Friend’s constituent who are affected. In Northern Ireland—or the north of Ireland, depending on how we view our maps—the situation is even more stark than it is in the Western Isles. Among the population of “Ulster Scots”, if I can call them that, there is a one in 123 occurrence of two faulty copies of the gene, which is similar to the incidence in mainland Scotland. The Catholic community in the north-west of Ireland have the highest concentration in the British Isles: one in 54 carry two faulty copies. On the basis of Professor Flett Wilson’s work, we can predict that one in 94 men in the Western Isles will develop HCT, and one in 80 men of north-west Irish ancestry—and the Irish diaspora is present in constituencies in Scotland, in London and across the United Kingdom—may have the condition, perhaps undetected and perhaps mis-diagnosed, and are possibly suffering from the long list of illnesses associated with an iron overload. In Orkney and Shetland, analysis of the Viking genes study uncovered rare cancers and lives were saved. In my constituency, people who were found to have the HCT gene have been alerted by letter. The figures for the Western Isles do not include people who did not take part in the study, but they constitute a timely warning about the advisability of screening, a procedure that is not expensive. In the Hebrides, it looks as though we should act on the spike in iron overload. Professor Flett Wilson has recommended islands-wide screening for this common blood condition, but I want to go further: I think that everyone in the Western Isles, or Na h-Eileanan an Iar, should be screened for too much iron in their blood, but I think they should also be offered DNA tests across the board to show what other inherited conditions they might have.

• 13 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T5. I welcome that the UK Government are to convene an urgent session of the UN Security Council this afternoon to discuss the food situation in Gaza. Will Ministers ensure that Dame Barbara Woodward takes a message from my constituents, including Mairi MacKinnon, Ian Stephen, Louise Scullion and Malcolm MacLean, who expressed their disgust and condemnation of the Israeli Government using food as a weapon of war? There are 71,000 children in Gaza. Will he ensure that that message is heard in New York?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My local authority, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar/Western Isles council is fast approaching its 50th anniversary. Formed in 1975, it brought together the many islands that make up Na h-Eileanan an Iar and gave the Outer Hebrides a unified identity. My father served as a councillor, and my brother currently serves; they are among many councillors and officials who have given service to the islands over the years. Our local authorities are not much loved, but by wishing Comhairle nan Eilean Siar a happy 50th anniversary, will the Leader of the House show that they are much appreciated?

• 27 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  May I tempt the Minister on a voyage to a far-off island? St Kilda is almost 50 miles off the coast of Lewis, and it comes within my constituency and within the Minister’s remit as one of those rare things, a UNESCO double world heritage site. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the Uig community in Lewis who want to build a global interpretation centre, a template for remote viewing these vulnerable sites? The meeting could be here in Whitehall, in Uig in Lewis, or on St Kilda.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I will turn my attention to GB Energy in a moment. First, I make another appeal to the Minister that from next year onwards the UK ought to allocate commercial bluefin tuna licences not on a “first come, first served” basis, or however the system works, but on a geographic and socioeconomic basis. While I have the Minister’s ear and we are talking about quotas, let me make an appeal for spurdog fishery, which is managed by the UK Government and allocated on a monthly quota basis to all vessels. Due to the introduction of a management measure banning the landing of individual fish over 100 cm in length, fishermen have been unable to develop a market. All buyers who show an interest in spurdog indicate that they would far rather have spurdog over 100 cm. As a result of the measure, local fishermen end up dumping large fish, which could secure—and, prior to the ban, did secure—higher prices. Some relaxation on the question of permitting the landing of spurdog over 100 cm would at least open a limited marketing opportunity for fishermen on those vessels. I do not want to wade into the big debate on quotas, on total catch allowances and on 2026—or perhaps I do. I will just wish the Minister well and ask him to consider some of the ideas that my hon. Friend the Member for that famous fishing port Brent West highlighted in his contribution. The quota should belong to no one. It should not be used to enrich those who are already rich from our seas; it should be treated as a national resource and a socioeconomic asset to be distributed according to port, postcode and socioeconomic need. As I say, there should also be a system of community quota, whereby excess quota or new quota is allocated to municipalities or regional development agencies to ensure that it is attached to landing ports and that it creates local jobs in coastal communities. There has been a lot of talk about GB Energy, spatial squeeze and the conflict between the fishing industry and the new offshore wind farm industry. I understand why the conflict exists. The developments are somewhat controversial, but they would be less controversial if the offshore industry, like the onshore industry, were forced to provide a community benefit or community share or to pay more to the Crown Estate Commission for permission to make wealth from wind, which should, of course, belong to no one. If those funds were allocated regionally and locally, we could address the data deficiency to which the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West referred. We could create our own marine research centres in our coastal communities—not necessarily run by the Government, but certainly run by those communities—so that in the competition for data and in arguments with environmentalists and with Governments, we can have the science, we can tell what is in the waters around us and we can tell how the environment is shaping up. These are leaps of the imagination, perhaps, for the quota system, but they should be considered seriously by the Government and by the fishing industry itself, if fishing is to have a future as well as a past.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the Backbench Business Committee and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for this important debate. I particularly thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tribute he paid to our fishermen who face dangers at sea each day—“For those in peril on the sea”. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) referred to the loss of the Solway Harvester; I well remember covering that tragedy as a journalist, and the shadow it cast on the Isle of Whithorn and Kirkcudbrightshire. My fishing community and the other communities I represent are quite different from those constituencies. The Western Isles account for 22% of the inshore waters in what is mostly an inshore fishery, although that might well have been 0% of Scotland’s inshore fishing grounds if the SNP-Green coalition had got away with its ludicrous plans for highly protected marine areas, which the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) highlighted. Although those plans were defeated, pushed away by a rebellion across Scotland’s coast and the songwriting power of Skipinnish, and have been put away for now, they have created a high level of uncertainty, which means that some fishermen are deciding whether to stay or leave the industry. In the Western Isles, the picture is mixed and somewhat rosy. We have had some £12 million-worth of tonnage landed in the past couple of years—something like 3,000 tonnes, of which almost 90% is shellfish and only 11% is white fish. Marine Scotland shows that there are 215 registered fishing vessels—small fishing vessels, like those for which my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) has just made the case—and something like 290 fishers, or about 7% of Scotland’s national total. The industry faces many different challenges in different constituencies, but we have a lot in common. I will give some attention to one of the biggest challenges facing the industry and the associated processing sector in the Western Isles. It was a pleasure to go to the annual general meeting of the Western Isles Fishermen’s Association a couple of weeks ago and see so many young faces among the attendees. There are young entrants to the industry, helped by locally administered schemes that encourage entrants. One such scheme is community quotas, which the Western Isles council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, has bought and which it licenses from quota to new entrants. That all helps people into the fishing industry and has a significant impact. That glimmer of hope should not mask something that is a problem for the islands’ industry, the Scottish industry and the UK industry: the lack of skilled crews. The demographics in the Western Isles are not good. Although I have talked about young entrants, the working-age population has dropped by 12% over the past 10 years, and there has been a 26% rise in the elderly population. All employers are competing for a reduced number of school leavers, and virtually all sectors are dependent on sourcing migrant labour to grow their business. The most important ask from the Western Isles fishing industry is that the Minister recognise that there has to be some flexibility in immigration policy to allow the needs and demands of rural and island areas to be accepted. The current sponsored employment scheme seems to have been based on city and urban salaries; it ignores the variation in wages in rural and island communities, which of course are lower and are coupled with increased food, energy and transport costs. I suspect that the £70,000 salary for a processor that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) mentioned has as much to do with the lack of skilled people as it does with the skills involved in doing the job. Only this week, I had some correspondence from the Isle of Barra. Barratlantic is one of the large seafood processors on our island chain. Christina MacNeil, the general manager, tells me that in 35 years of working in the seafood industry, things have never been more difficult. There is huge demand for langoustine and scallop, but supplying customers is becoming increasingly difficult because of the lack of staff. We can imagine how difficult it is on a small island. She has four Filipino workers, who have been employed there since April 2023; they came through the sponsorship scheme, but given the nature of the work and the lack of available staff, the company needs some flexibility in order to retain them. It can just about manage the salaries now, but if they increased to £38,000 a year the operation would be impossible. The company has been in operation for 50 years, but its future is in the balance because of restrictive immigration schemes. It is the same for fishermen. It is impossible to employ UK crews, as we know, so they must look overseas. Once again, cost is a criterion, but so too is the visa system. Crews need an English qualification at a very high level, which means that they are almost barred from entry. That creates huge difficulties for fishing boat owners and processors in my constituency. My plea to the Minister—it is echoed by others such as the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan), who is no longer in his place, as well as the Migration Advisory Council and almost every coastal community—is that there be flexibility in the visa system. We do not need a separate visa system, as some Scottish colleagues might argue. There is no need to replicate the system: we just need enough flex to take into account the needs of island and rural areas.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Future of Fishing · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for that; as he knows, fishermen in my constituency look enviously to the north at the vast amount of value landings that have come from the Shetland field. But, if he looks a little further south than his own constituency, Orkney council owns prawn quota, which it then leases out to young fishers to get into the industry. I dare say there are enough fish in the sea, and certainly there is enough quota to be shared out, not to have a deleterious effect on his own constituency. When the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) mentions 2026, I think of only one event, the Scottish Parliamentary election, at which I hope this will be an issue, but of course 2026 is also the time of quota renegotiation with the EU and Norway. I hope with the additional quota and in these negotiations, that we can find common ground and a way of sorting this out so that our most fragile coastal communities benefit from the resource at their doorstep.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet), who has proved by her passion and ability that she will soon emerge from the shadow of the beast and make the constituency her own. I welcome the Report stage of the Bill, which will be the first to pass into law in this Parliament. Labour is delivering change within weeks of coming into office. The Bill has the potential to transform not just the way in which we produce power in this country and the impact that we have on our burning planet, but the way we live our lives. It could also have a transformative effect on the communities we serve. I commend the work of the Secretary of State and, in particular, of the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), who has seized the agenda and grasped the potential of that transformation, which could be huge. It will match the scale and ambition of Tom Johnson, the legendary Labour Secretary of State for Scotland who brought power to the glens through the creation of the hydroelectric dam schemes that are now part of the highland landscape. Moving to renewables and transitioning away from carbon must involve balancing and maintaining jobs in the North sea, which are such a vital element not just of our economic and energy mix, but of the incomes of many families in Na h-Eileanan an lar. That is why I welcome the move to introduce a skills passport to help workers transition from one industry to the other, and why I welcome the co-operation this week between the UK Government and the Scottish Government in reviewing the outdated bureaucratic processes building new infrastructure and creating large energy projects. Untangling that regulatory framework and rewiring the national grid is a hugely complicated exercise. The Bill will achieve that by setting up a company, GB Energy, which will itself be the vehicle for reducing bills, involving communities and transforming the way we produce energy. If the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), is looking for £300 off energy bills, she can accompany me to the village of Tolsta in my constituency, where one community-owned turbine has just distributed, as it happens, £300 per household to help people with their household bills and energy needs. Community energy will be a large part of what GB Energy does. We heard in evidence from Juergen Maier, who will chair GB Energy, that he and the Labour Government are committed to community energy as part of that mix. Some of the amendments will seek to make community energy a part of the founding structure of the Bill. It will be part of the company, as set out in the explanatory notes to the Bill, but there is no necessity— [ Interruption. ] It is not necessary—

• 29 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Lady recall the evidence of Juergen Maier, EDF, SSE and the Minister to the Committee? They all gave commitments to community energy and to the local power plan being almost an eighth—almost £1 billion-worth—of GB Energy’s plans.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  I could have said it in Gaelic. [ Laughter. ] It is not necessary for that to be part of the Bill or the company. Communities must be at the heart of what GB Energy does, and community energy is at the heart of much of the wind production in my constituency—although there are commercial plans, too. Scotland’s community-owned wind farms provide, on average, 34 times more benefit payments to local communities. I have given the example of just one village with one turbine, so imagine what three estates with nine turbines could do in terms of community benefit. Let us be in no doubt, the transformative move towards wind-farming—onshore and offshore—will be mean an extremely profitable, multibillion-pound industry. Communities that host such infrastructure, or which have serious infrastructure passing through their areas, must benefit as well. People will not mind the pylons going past as long as some of the profit comes to them. That will be a critical part of the contract between GB Energy, developers and communities. Communities settling and making deals should not be left to chance.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Renewable Energy Projects: Community Benefits · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I commend the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) for raising this important matter. Attendance in the Chamber shows just how important this element of GB Energy and the transformation we are going through will be to many constituencies. I rushed here—via lunch, of course—from the Committee considering the Bill that will establish GB Energy. The Great British Energy Act will be the first Act to pass into law in this Parliament—Labour delivering change within weeks of coming into office. That Act and this transformation will change not only the way we produce power and the impact we have on a burning planet, but the way we live our lives. It could have a transformative effect for communities such as mine. I commend the Minister for the way he has seized the agenda on GB Energy and seen the potential that the transition could have for places such as Na h-Eileanan an Iar, and the Isle of Eigg in the constituency of the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, which the Minister visited recently. As we move to renewables, we should not forget that we are transitioning away from carbon, and we have to balance the transition with maintaining jobs in the North sea, which are a vital to many economies, communities and families in Na h-Eileanan an Iar. The focus of the debate, community benefit, is one element of that transition. I prefer to describe and define it as “community share”. When people hear “benefit”, they think they are getting crumbs; when they have a share, they own it and control it. As it happens, my community has become the epicentre for community-owned wind farms in the UK. Community-owned turbines stretch from Barra in the south, to Galson in the north of Lewis. Those community-owned assets bring in millions of pounds each year to the communities that own them. Something like 23.5 MW is produced each year, which is a modest amount, but one that brings £3 million a year to small rural communities. Scotland’s community-owned wind farms provide on average 34 times more benefit payments to local communities than the equivalent privately-owned wind farms. If we do the maths, we can see the potential that community-owned energy schemes have to transform the whole of the UK. What is not to like about them? Community-owned schemes, which in my community support everything from warm home grants to native tree planting, are a template for what could happen in constituencies across the whole of the UK. For renewal and expansion, these schemes need funding, yes, but primarily access to the grid. For us in the Western Isles, that means getting reserved space, by regulation or legislation, on a planned interconnector—a 1.8 GW subsea cable that will connect us to the mainland and enable turbines swinging in the Atlantic to turn on lightbulbs in Birmingham, the City and many other places.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Renewable Energy Projects: Community Benefits · Hansard source

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  Yes, I will wind up quickly. There has been an apparent breakthrough, in that three community-owned estates have come together with a plan for a 43 MW wind farm and have been given a connection on the grid. That grid connection is crucial, but so is the massive funding gap that these communities face between getting from concept, through environmental regulation and planning, to connection. That is where GB Energy has a role. I have advocated for a community energy unit within GB Energy to help communities tackle the minefield of financial and regulatory complexities. The Minister cannot snap his fingers and bring GB Energy or a community energy unit into being, but if officials from GB Energy were to shadow and assist those three estates in their efforts over the next two years, we would learn an enormous amount about community energy and create a template that other communities across the UK could follow.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Renewable Energy Projects: Community Benefits · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman agree that the difference between Dumfries and Galloway and many parts of the highlands and islands that have benefited from community or commercially-owned wind farms is community ownership of land and that, were that pattern to be repeated in his part of the world, communities would benefit not only from community land ownership, but from owning the turbines that spin?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to hear that the Minister has such enthusiasm for municipal and community schemes. There are examples in my constituency of communities that have come together. There are three community-owned estates on the west side of Lewis with a plan for nine turbines generating 43 MW. That could bring in £4 million into that community, but it needs need pump-priming and help to get it there. Similarly, onshore windfarm schemes have been proposed and are in planning, with the offer for municipal and arm’s length companies of local authorities to take shares of up to 20%, as the Minister said. That is the kind of thing that GB Energy could do if we just get through this Bill.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is difficult to argue against home insulation, but I do not know whether we need legislation or an amendment to the Bill to achieve it, particularly when it is happening already in community-owned power companies such as Point and Sandwick Trust in my constituency. The company raises £1 million a year for its community, and distributed in the last 18 months £250,000 to people living in fuel poverty, to help with home insulation and heating costs. That is the template, the model and the example that GB Energy could help and sustain without need for the amendment.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I take the hon. Member’s point about rights. Usually, land rights prevent communities from taking a stake in energy projects. Community-owned land, which we have plenty of in the Western Isles and across Scotland, is the key—land that the community has ownership of. The other problem, which I am sure GB Energy should and will unlock, is access to the grid, to get community companies on to the grid; GB Energy and regulation from the Department should be crucial to achieving that.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to reinforce not just the evidence that we heard from the Minister and Juergen Maier about the commitment to community energy, but the evidence we heard from private companies about foreign Governments that are willing to allow communities and municipalities to take a share in community energy. None of what is in the Bill or what GB Energy proposes will happen without communities being involved. Communities will have to be involved at every stage —in generation, in transmission and in the purchase of the energy—otherwise we will find ourselves fighting communities every step of the way. It is vital that communities are involved. They are not just knocking at the door; they are taking over. My constituency, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, has the largest number of community-owned windfarms in the UK. They serve as a template for what could happen across the rest of Scotland and Britain if communities are engaged and take on the challenge of producing their own power. I was delighted with what the Minister said in the evidence session on Tuesday: GB Energy will be there to enable and help communities to get on the grid, get over the planning obstacles and the legal and financial obstacles that are sometimes in their paths. I think we should allow GB Energy to be set up and to get on with its business, and to enable communities to be engaged and involved not just in the production of energy, but in earning and reaping some of the profit that we will see from the wealth of wind.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you, Minister, for your assurances on the Bill’s commitment and your own commitment to investing in community energy schemes and municipal schemes. We have heard from industry witnesses today about communities taking a stake in their own projects and about not having an industrial strategy that is agnostic. That obviously means giving priority to communities and to getting community projects on to grid connections, and making sure that they get all the help they can get to bring their projects to fruition. Can you clarify how GB Energy might help with that? Michael Shanks: That is really important. There are two strands to this. The capacity building point, to which you allude, is critical. A lot of communities absolutely have the possibility, the option and the potential for some of these projects, but just do not have the capacity to deliver them. We see that as a critical role that GB Energy could have, as a sort of one-stop shop of experts to provide that support, help with the essential pre-planning work and help to navigate the connections issues. The second point around connections is really important, and it is something I am focusing a lot of time on within my wider remit as Minister: how do we clear the connections queue, while also prioritising the projects that we want to get connected much faster? Some of that will require us simply to build more network infrastructure to alleviate the pressures; some of it is building on the work that the previous Government did around prioritising the queue. There are difficult trade-offs. Far be it from me to give credit to the former Minister again, but there are trade-offs because it is important for us not to say that one project is more valuable than the other. There might be, for example, mechanisms around saying that one is more likely to be connected faster, or is further through its delivery phase and should therefore get priority over something else. There are also a lot of projects still in the queue that just should not be there at all, because they are nowhere near ready to be delivered. It is important that we work on both those things, but GB Energy can be a real catalyst for communities to unleash the potential that they have. I am really excited about the opportunities that are there. In closing, may I thank Committee members for their forbearance today? Can I also say that it is the first time since 2010 that a Minister has given evidence in a Bill Committee? I am glad that this Labour Government have brought back the practice of Government Ministers being responsible to Parliament and answering these questions. I look forward to doing more of that in future. Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned . —(Anna Turley.)

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Welcome, gentlemen. In relation to clause 3(2)(a) and “the production, distribution, storage and supply of clean energy”, you have welcomed state intervention and the role of GB Energy in that. How would you feel about communities taking a direct stake in your onshore and offshore developments—say, 20%, as they do in Denmark? Tristan Zipfel: On our side—I am sure SSE does the same—we are definitely looking at that. We are trying to develop some schemes that go exactly along those lines. We have not done it so far. The link and the reward to communities have been through the community benefits fund linked to our projects. I live in Teesside: we have an offshore wind farm there, and I can tell you that the community benefit fund, over the last 10 years of operation, has helped dozens of local projects and initiatives. You are absolutely right to think the next frontier is to have more local ownership of wind farms. That could be through GB Energy, but it could also be through direct ownership schemes. We are looking at those options at the moment. Alistair McGirr: As I mentioned at the start, we partner with a number of different organisations; I mentioned Equinor, which is a state-owned entity. We are open to working with any kind of party on a commercial basis, be it a community or another developer. In that sense, the communities taking a stake in some of the projects is something that could be done. The question is: what are the terms of that arrangement? There is the critical point that any community ownership should be focused on co-investment. It should not just be the case that 20% of a project is passed on to a community, because that will be value that is basically taken out of the project, which then inflates the cost of the project. So the co-investment piece is very important. Whether it involves another developer, another state-owned entity, GB Energy or a community, I think that is a useful way of bringing capital into the UK’s low-carbon infrastructure.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes, what can the Bill and GB Energy itself do? Ravi Gurumurthy: I have already articulated what it can do on the development side to get rid of some of the risks to do with planning, consenting, grid connection and so on. On the more novel technologies—small modular reactors, floating wind, tidal range and so on—I think we have also talked about how if the state is co-investing in some way, it signals a degree of commitment and insulates companies slightly from the risks. In both the investor and developer roles, GB Energy can play a role in accelerating things. The biggest way in which the state can de-risk investment and increase private sector contribution is through the National Energy System Operator, providing a clear, strategic plan and forward visibility of what is happening in terms of technology and location. That is how I think we will get the investment—not just in the assets, but in the supply chain as well. Shaun Spiers: On clean, flexible power, what Green Alliance has proposed is a sort of vaccine taskforce-style operation to crowd in all potential technologies for this. It is not clear who would fund it, if GB Energy did not. That is a really important part of 2030 power decarbonisation. There is also the local power plan. The previous Government had a plan—I think it was in 2014—to power 1 million homes by community energy, which was abandoned four years later with about 67,000 homes powered. There is a clear remit here for making community energy economically viable and getting local investment in community energy.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Good morning, Mr Maier. Following on from Catherine’s questions, can you highlight how GB Energy will involve communities in the renewable transition? What kind of benefits will there be? The Secretary of State spoke about a mandatory community benefit. Juergen Maier: Thank you for the question. We have laid out the five key priorities of Great British Energy. One is to invest and co-invest; another is to enable and help to accelerate development; the third is very much about the local community energy that your colleague talked about earlier. That will be through community energy schemes. The reason we are so keen on that is that it is where community engagement really comes in. That will not be the gigawatts of renewable energy— the gigawatts will be in floating offshore wind—but I passionately believe that by engaging with local communities, whether that is with local solar, with onshore wind or with tidal-type schemes, you can really get that community engagement and community acceptance. Indeed, you can really deliver the local social benefit that those schemes can deliver.

• 11 Sept 2024 · Rural Depopulation · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister, the shadow Minister and other right hon. and hon. Members who contributed to this debate. It was not bad for a birthday party—it turned out quite well. I particularly welcome the Minister’s suggestion of a reset of the thinking on immigration and the hint she gave of a more integrated strategy across Government, involving DEFRA, Seafish and the Home Office working together on the fishing visa issues that we raised. I also welcome her suggestions about the council of the nations and regions and about more devolved and sophisticated approaches to immigration. What she says is true: the problem of depopulation is a multiheaded hydra, as the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) put it, and responsibility for it does not lie at the Minister’s door, but some of the solutions can come from this place and other Governments and local authorities working together. I thank all Members for their contributions, which were lyrically encapsulated by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He spoke very movingly about sense of place, belonging and community, which I think is what we all want to retain when we talk about depopulation. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) talked about the drift from villages into towns. I warn them from my own experience in Na h-Eileanan an Iar that it is then only one more step on to the ferry, on to the mainland and out of the constituency. Housing and jobs were highlighted by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), who is my Westminster Hall tag-team buddy—we seem to be in every debate together! These are the solutions. No jobs means no people. No people, in the case of my constituency, means no language, culture or sense of belonging. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway spoke about the necessity of a multi-agency solution. There was understandable tension between him and the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart), who brought a great deal of expertise and knowledge gleaned from his chairmanship of the Scottish Affairs Committee. We thank him for that, as the chairmanship passes on. There is understandable tension over the idea of a separate Scottish visa. I think the solution lies in an integrated visa and perhaps in more sophisticated, more regional and more local visa requirements. After all, my phone knows exactly where I am, my bank knows exactly where I am and most of the time my online shopping cart knows where I am, so why cannot the Government know where skilled migrants work, onshore and offshore, most of the time as well? It will require local, national and regional solutions. It also requires a great deal of care and sensitivity because of how host communities feel about migrant communities and the importance of retaining the traditional communities, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) and many others spoke about. In conclusion, Ms Vaz, I thank you for your chairmanship, I thank the Minister and shadow Minister for their responses and I thank all hon. Members who took part. I hope that we can move this debate on. We face a depopulation crisis on the edge of Europe, but here at the centre of power, the lights on the dashboard should be on as well. We should start addressing these issues now, before they become structural problems that affect the entire economy. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered depopulation in rural areas.

• 4 Sept 2024 · Sheep Farming · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for securing this debate and herding us in. As we are gathered here today, some 4,500 sheep and lambs will be sold at the community-owned and run Lewis & Harris Auction Mart in Steinish, which is outside Stornoway in my constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar. The sheep will end up with finishers across the UK, and represent the culmination of a year’s work for crofters in Lewis. They also represent the deep connection that we see here today between the Hebrides and Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland, which is probably best symbolised in this place by the Woolsack that the Lord Speaker sits on in the other House. Wool and sheep are not worth as much as they used to be. I will not give you live market prices, but I know that with the main store lamb sales season in full swing prices are up. In Stornoway, prices were up by £11; in Dingwall, where Lewis lambs are sold, they were up by £6.85; and at Lochboisdale prices were up by £12. It is unfortunate that the corresponding lamb sale in Lochmaddy in North Uist has not gone ahead this year, but hopefully it may be restored. That shows the economic and cultural importance of sheep to my constituency and the Outer Hebrides. Sheep have played and will continue to play a great role in keeping communities alive. I come from a crofting community. I grew up on a croft rearing and sheering sheep, sending them out to the moor to our common grazing land, and overwintering and feeding sheep. Ironically, the common grazing lands, which we no longer use so much for sheep, now house wind turbines that bring community profit to the tenant crofters in our area. The crofting communities are in good shape, and they are in good shape because of sheep. Crofting is best described as small tenant farming, and it is the small tenant farmers who held together communities, towns, villages, language and culture across the whole north-west of Scotland and the islands. The backbone of crofting is, of course, sheep, but the sheep alone will not support us. The industry needs accessible and proportionate support to ensure its future. A recent in-depth report highlighted the importance of crofting and agriculture to island economies, but it also revealed the extent of the decline in sheep farming in the Western Isles in the last 20 years. Sheep numbers in the Outer Hebrides have decreased by 52% in the last 20 years, down from nearly 300,000 to 143,000 in 2021.