Torcuil Crichton MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2025 · Haemochromatosis Screening · Hansard source

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  I will.

• 14 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for—

• 14 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  We can assure the Minister that he remains popular, as well as generous with his time. He mentioned the Government consultation. It has caused deep and sustained anxiety across the sector. When can we expect a substantive response to the consultation?

• 14 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 24 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have a number of nuclear veterans in my Na h-Eileanan an Iar constituency, as many colleagues do in their constituencies. What steps are Ministers taking to meet veterans, acknowledge their service and deal with the consequences of their service and their exposure to nuclear material?

• 27 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

• 5 Feb 2025 · Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I commend the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for securing this important debate. He and I know the importance of retaining a physical high street in our own highlands and island communities—the most rural in the country. It is their very rurality—the distance between towns, islands and villages—that makes it so important that we retain high street services in the towns we have. It is not all decline, of course. In the main town in my constituency, Stornoway, the construction of a £50 million cruise ship terminal by the Stornoway port authority has given a new dynamic to the town. There are now more coffee shops than there are butchers in Stornoway. Although I cherish the memories that the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross told us about of buying broken biscuits from his local shop, he must recognise that although times have changed, in the heart of our towns and villages there are older institutions: the butcher—there is a choice of three in Stornoway, and I will not say which one people should buy their Stornoway black pudding from, because they are all good—the crofters store, Tommy Nicolson’s the newsagents, and, as there should be at the heart of every town, the post office. It is the plight of the post office network, and plans by the Post Office to change or downgrade the Crown offices or the directly managed branches, that I wish to highlight today. I am extremely concerned about the potential closure of the main post office in Stornoway. That move comes as part of a wider announcement that 115 post office branches, which remain Crown offices or directly managed branches, are being considered for closure or moved to a franchise model. Our main branch in Stornoway is extremely valued by islanders—it is a beautiful building that is over 100 years old and in the heart of the town centre.

• 5 Feb 2025 · Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  I do. I mentioned that the building in which in the main post office—the Crown office—in Stornoway is housed in is beautiful and over a century old. Although I understand that the Stornoway post office may itself be retained, it may be converted into a franchise and moved elsewhere. That would have a detrimental effect on the town centre. The post office is right smack in the middle of town and easily accessible. It is, ironically, next to a closed TSB bank branch—the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross highlighted the problems of banks closing across the United Kingdom.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Accessibility of Radiotherapy · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I was very struck by the hon. Gentleman’s comment about longer journeys meaning shorter lives. There is no competition on journeys, of course, but my constituents in Na h-Eileanan an Iar and the Western Isles face some of the longest journeys in Britain to get cancer treatment, outwith and within the constituency. Somebody from Barra, for example, faces a three-day journey to Stornoway by boat, taxi and aeroplane for therapy and then a return journey over three days. I hope that that can be changed by sending people directly to Glasgow or, perhaps even better, by implementing a public service order to restore flights between one end of the island and the other. I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate and for his very telling comment about longer journeys meaning shorter lives.

• 6 Dec 2024 · European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill · Hansard source

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  I commend the hon. and learned Gentleman’s passion, but his problems are not unique. Anywhere in the highlands and islands of Scotland, or even in peripheral parts of England, has the same delivery problems as he does.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Future of the Post Office · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister’s comments on the Horizon scandal, which affected sub-postmasters in every constituency, including mine. However, I must express concern about Stornoway post office being on the list of the 115 possible closures. The loss of the main post office would be a dreadful blow for the town, so I urge the Minister and the Post Office to ensure that islanders have full physical access to Crown post office services. All options must be considered—except closure.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Poverty · Hansard source

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  5. What steps she is taking to help reduce levels of poverty.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Future of Fishing · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 5 Nov 2024 · Future of Fishing · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 5 Nov 2024 · Future of Fishing · Hansard source

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  I fear that the hon. Gentleman and his party might be targeting the wrong people when they blame the EU for the lack of fishing in British waters, because half of England’s fishing quota is ultimately owned by Dutch, Icelandic and Spanish interests. The problem is not access to waters; the problem is the concentration of ownership of the quota we already have. The way to revive communities, such as those in his constituency and Great Yarmouth, with which we have historical herring fishing connections, is to redistribute that quota and to make sure that the quota we have—that additional quota—is given to fragile fishing communities. It is about not keeping foreigners out, but making sure that the wealth of the seas is distributed fairly.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Future of Fishing · Hansard source

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  Na h-Eileanan an Iar, but the hon. Member can say the Western Isles.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Future of Fishing · Hansard source

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  I agree that we should disagree agreeably when it comes to common national assets such as fishing.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister and the Secretary of State for the work that they have put in to secure a future for the Harland & Wolff yard at Arnish in my constituency, and indeed at Methil, Appledore and Belfast. I understand that talks are commercially sensitive, but, as workers are anxious about their future, can the Minister update us on how the talks are going?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  Further to those points of order, Mr Speaker. May I pass on my condolences to Alex Salmond’s family, friends and former colleagues, and may I also do so on behalf of many of my constituents who would have known him and supported his cause? As a journalist, I landed very few blows—very few journalists landed any blows—on Alex Salmond. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned, there was one quarrel about fishing in 1992, which was forgiven eventually in, I think, 2006, by which time Alex Salmond had transformed himself and his movement; he had stopped being thrown out of his party and thrown out of this place, and had replaced that complaint with a message of optimism, hope and self-confidence, often based on his own hope, self-confidence and optimism, and nothing more. But that great communication skill, and that ability to forgive, if not forget, and to have political opponents but not political enemies, was one of his great legacies to his party, to all of us in this Chamber and to Scotland.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am glad that the hon. Member mentions rural communities, because the stain of terror reaches across the United Kingdom. One of the victims of the Ariana Grande attack was Eilidh MacLeod, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from the isle of Barra, whose mother, like many other parents in hearing the report, felt the ground shake and heard the blast that took the lives of Eilidh and 22 others. The response in Barra has been to set up a musical trust in Eilidh’s name to allow other young people to reach their potential. That response, as well as that of the Murray family in their tremendous campaign, shows that terrorism will not divide us, and our collective response here shows that although it may cast a shadow on the hearts and lives of those left behind, it will not diminish us.