Stewart McDonald: One of the things that rang in my ears after my recent visit to Ukraine was the frustration with what is happening not just in the US, but even in those European countries—Germany, the UK, France and others—that are a “yes” on weapons support. It is the slow yes that is frustrating people. What is the Minister doing to turn that slow yes to Taurus into a quick yes? More broadly, does...
Stewart McDonald: May I back the comments of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw)? You can back Trump or you can back Ukraine; you cannot do both. No Member of this House should try to ride two horses at once on this conflict. I am probably one of the few Members of Parliament who have been to Avdiivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, going back over six years. That long line of blood in the loss of...
Stewart McDonald: Last year, the Prime Minister and other senior Ministers were given the conclusions of a Government audit of research programmes at UK universities with links to the Chinese state. The audit flagged up hundreds of programmes as being at high risk of potentially being used by the Chinese Communist party for military use, and other applications in strategic and sensitive areas as being of high...
Stewart McDonald: I will be brief—that is normally followed by a long speech. I am grateful to the hon. Members who came here today, to the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) for her co-sponsorship, and to my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), who granted the debate as a member of the Backbench Business Committee. It has been a useful debate. I recall the Minister’s...
Stewart McDonald: I do not know where the Minister gets his figures from, but he should look at the research that came out last week from the Centre for Cities. If we take my home city of Glasgow, if wages had gone up at the rate they went up between 1998 and 2010, the average wage in Glasgow would be £23,500 higher than it is today. Why is that so? Why has it not gone up?
Stewart McDonald: rose—
Stewart McDonald: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is talking about economic competence. When the Scottish Labour leader described removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses as economically incompetent—he went further than that, saying that it was “economically illiterate and morally bankrupt”—was he right or wrong?
Stewart McDonald: I beg to move, That his House has considered living standards. It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, to discuss what I think is the defining issue for all our constituents—not that you would know it from the acres of empty green seats surrounding us this afternoon—not just in the upcoming election campaign, but for many years and, arguably, for generations to...
Stewart McDonald: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problems that he mentions will manifest themselves in the constituency of every hon. Member present, without question. The idea that come the Budget, the answer is more tax cuts or maintaining an uncapped right for bankers to receive exorbitant bonuses is completely for the birds. It cannot be overstated how deeply young people feel that things are...
Stewart McDonald: What recent assessment he has made of the strength of the UK’s diplomatic relationship with China.
Stewart McDonald: The results of economic modelling from the Rhodium Group, the RAND Corporation and, earlier this month, Bloomberg on the impact on global GDP of either an economic blockade by China on Taiwan or a full-scale invasion, are horrifying. Am I right that the Government have done their own economic modelling for both those scenarios? If so, will the Minister publish it?
Stewart McDonald: It is most unusual for me to called so early in a Westminster Hall debate, Sir Mark, so I am grateful to you. I congratulate the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on securing this debate. There is no question that preventing misinformation and disinformation is one of the great challenges of our time, and it will only become more and more challenging, as he has adumbrated in...
Stewart McDonald: Indeed. The hon. Lady is entirely correct. The fact that so much of this has spread like a great blob—some might say—around Whitehall benefits only our adversaries and those who wish to pursue disinformation in this country. That is before we get to the growing problem of the things the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare mentioned—deep fakes and AI-generated disinformation—all of which...
Stewart McDonald: A great many of my constituents write to me on a daily basis demanding that the Government change their position to deliver a ceasefire, but on the point about language, when Israeli Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir said that Gaza should be essentially free of Palestinians, the Government, along with European counterparts, correctly condemned them, but when the ambassador in London called for...
Stewart McDonald: Notwithstanding President Zelensky’s meeting in the White House today and the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Capitol Hill in recent days, what are the Government doing to ensure that US support for Ukraine, which is the anchor of all European and broader international support, remains steadfast despite the ongoing political situation in the US?
Stewart McDonald: A few short years ago, my brother died by himself, at home and alone, having taken an overdose of drugs following a life of serious, harmful addiction. Last week, the Leader of the House stood at the Dispatch Box and dismissed the pilot in Scotland of drug consumption facilities. She dismissed them as somewhere safe and warm for heroin users—people like my brother—to take their heroin,...
Stewart McDonald: What assessment he has made of the state of devolution in Scotland.
Stewart McDonald: It is obvious that in order to cement a sense of economic resilience Scotland requires a population growth strategy, but the devolution settlement, unfit as it is, will not come anywhere near that, and the Government continue to set their face against it. Can the Secretary of State explain why?
Stewart McDonald: When we scrape away all the pomp, the ceremony and the pageantry of yesterday, there is a consensus—on the Opposition Benches at least, if it has not yet dawned on the Conservative side—that this is a decaying Government who are not really governing. Rather, they are presiding over a country in decline. That is evidenced by the acres of empty green Benches on the Government side of the...
Stewart McDonald: If the news is to be believed this morning, we are about to see another German U-turn—this time on providing Taurus missiles—just as we saw a U-turn on Leopards and the F-16s. Indeed, right across the Ukraine contact group, we keep seeing the same pattern of countries dragging their heels on a certain capability, only to finally give in. Admittedly, that does not include the Minister and...