Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland
Conservative MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine
I join the Secretary State in wishing Steve Clarke and the Scotland team all the best in the upcoming world cup. I look forward to them bringing football home to Scotland on 19 July. It might be obvious to most why the SNP might want to distract people from the news at the minute, but it does not excuse it wasting more of Scottish taxpayers’ money pushing its divisive separation agenda,...
The list grows longer every week: BP, Hunting, Harbour, Chevron, Well-Safe, Petrofac, Ithaca, Xodus and EnerMech have all announced redundancies in Scotland’s oil and gas industry. For some unfathomable reason, this Labour Government seem to think that everything is fine, but is it not the truth that they are carrying out the wilful destruction of this country’s domestic oil and gas...
It is clear that Labour Members just do not get it—or worse, they just do not care. A week tomorrow, there will be a referendum on our oil and gas industry in Aberdeen, and the choice could not be clearer. Only one party is standing up for the granite city, for Scotland’s energy industry and for Britain’s energy security, and that is the Conservative and Unionist Party. The Secretary of...
The truth is there is no just transition. Everybody can see that except for the Government Front Bench. I spoke to a woman in Aberdeen just yesterday, born and raised in that city and raising her family there. She had worked in oil and gas and, actually, was proud to be playing her part in developing the energy technologies of the future. She was a lifelong Labour voter—no longer, because...
We have been over this before: BP, Hunting, Harbour, Chevron, Well-Safe, Petrofac, Ithaca Energy and, just this morning, Xodus Group are all laying people off. Xodus specifically blamed the slowdown in the roll-out of renewables due to the decline in oil and gas in the North sea. The former Health Secretary the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), Tony Blair, academics,...
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to make a statement regarding the Government’s decision to issue general trade licences for sanctioned processed oil products prohibited under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
In their 18th packet of sanctions in January this year, His Majesty’s Government prohibited the import of Russian petroleum products produced in third countries from Russian oil, obliging importers to provide proof of the origin of oil used in petroleum product production. Yet yesterday evening at 7 pm, while we in this very Chamber were debating the future of our own North sea oil and gas...
I thank all the speakers and contributors to this afternoon’s debate. I especially thank and welcome the contributions from my right hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) and for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes); my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), for Isle of Wight East (Joe...
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what impact the delay in responding to the gas resilience consultation will have on (a) energy security and (b) preparedness for future supply shocks.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, when he plans to respond to the consultation on gas system resilience.
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of planning guidance in accounting for the potential presence of undocumented military remains where local authority records are known to be incomplete.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what due diligence is required of energy transmission developers to assess the presence of protected military remains on proposed development sites.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether his Department has issued guidance to energy companies on engagement with local historians, museums, and independent researchers with specialist knowledge of wartime crash sites.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of current processes to identify and protect historic military aircraft crash sites during major infrastructure developments, including electricity transmission projects.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the Ministry of Defence (a) requires and (b) recommends on-site surveys by appropriately qualified specialists to determine the presence of military aircraft remains prior to construction works.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what role the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre plays in overseeing or approving works which may disturb WWII aircraft wreckage; and how frequently licences have been issued in such contexts in the past five years.
