Mr Alistair Carmichael
MP for Orkney and Shetland · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I do not know whether this is something I still need to declare, Mr Speaker, but I visited the Falkland Islands in 2003 as a guest of the Falkland Islands Government. They have never invited me back.”
“I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and also that my wife is a practising veterinary surgeon. What is happening was predictable because it was predicted. The Government were warned by the National Audit Office in June last year that they were unprepared for outbreaks of this sort.”
“The Minister is surely aware that there is no route to net zero that does not go through oil and gas hydrocarbons, and that not exploiting resources on the UK continental shelf leaves us reliant on imports, which also has carbon consequences that must be taken into account.”
“The transition to clean energy could be an opportunity to build a different model that would, to use the First Secretary of State’s own words, end “overly centralised decision making and over-privatisation”.”
“I welcome what the Prime Minister just said about strengthening farming. If he is serious about this, one of the first things he can do is ensure that our farmers do not have to compete with imported food that is produced to lower standards than we expect.”
“Q4. Like others, I have always respected the Prime Minister as somebody who was in politics because he wanted to give service to his country, and he has earned our gratitude for that. In my constituency, those who volunteer as coastguard rescue officers also do so from a wish to give service to their community.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,707 lines we hold for Mr Alistair Carmichael, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 28 of 95.
“Orkney and Shetland already have the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country. We have no access to the mains gas grid, which means that so many more of my constituents rely on heating oil. This morning my constituents are being quoted £1.22 per litre for heating oil. It is pretty clear that the market in heating oil has failed. Why are the Government not acting now to bring heating oil within the price cap mechanism?”
“As the carrier was named, a bottle of Bowmore whisky was smashed on its side. The smell of that malt whisky drifted across Rosyth and took me back to that day in 1977. I mention that because Her Majesty wove these threads throughout the lives of so many people, and enriched the fabric of our country. That is why we miss her and why we now pledge our allegiance anew to His Majesty the King. God save the King.”
“When we returned to Buckingham Palace after state opening we were left in no doubt that should that unfortunate diary mismanagement happen in future it would not necessarily be the Windsor horse show that lost out. I think back to the first time I saw Her Majesty in the flesh, when she visited Islay when I was growing up in 1977, as part of her silver jubilee tour. She often visited Islay privately as a guest of the Morrison family, and I pay tribute not just to Her Majesty but to the honourable Mary Morrison, who served for many years as one of her ladies-in-waiting. On that occasion, the Queen visited Bowmore distillery. It was the first time she had visited a distillery, and that visit came back to me in 2014, when I was present as Secretary of State for Scotland at the naming of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.”
“I do not know exactly what caused that look, but having been there myself with my wife on occasion I can only guess. Her Majesty visited Shetland in 1981, as its oil came onstream at the Sullom Voe terminal. She opened the terminal—something that was remembered on Shetland, unfortunately, because it was the day the IRA detonated a bomb in the power station there. While we all speak of her quite remarkable record of service, we should not forget that that service often came at personal risk. Like others, I treasure my moments meeting Her Majesty—very private and special moments. I served as Comptroller of the Household from 2010 to 2013, so I had a walk-on part in the state opening of Parliament. In 2013, we had the misfortune of a state opening that clashed with the first day of the Windsor horse show.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the opportunity to try to articulate the keen and profound sense of loss across the northern isles. Her Majesty made a number of visits to Orkney and Shetland during her reign, all of which built a real connection between Orcadians and Shetlanders and their monarch. One of the best remembered was in 1960, when she took the royal yacht Britannia to Stronsay and Westray in Orkney. Prince Philip was given the job of driving her round Westray in the most suitable available vehicle, the new 12-seater school bus. That produced one of the best pictures of Her Majesty that any of us will ever see. She is sitting in the passenger seat, laughing uproariously, while Prince Philip is in the driver’s seat with, shall we say, with a look of grim determination on his face.”
“In the absence of today’s cancelled debate, will the Leader of the House speak to her colleagues in the Home Office about restoring the Home Office hub that we previously had in Portcullis House? The biggest thief of time in my office is when caseworkers have to listen to a message on the helpline saying that there are more than five people waiting ahead of them. The Home Office has written to tell us that it will have a series of regional walk-in initiatives. Can she perhaps explain to the Home Office that the nearest one to my constituency is in Aberdeen, and that it will only be a walk-in service when my caseworkers can walk on water? They do brilliant things, but I fear that is still a little bit beyond them.”
“The Minister may wish to reflect on the fact that the purpose of the sub judice rule is the protection of proceedings in court; it is not for Ministers to hide behind. The Minister is clearly not going to answer the questions about the ministerial sign-off today, but can he, in fulfilment of his duties to this House, tell us whether or not that information is held within Government?”
“Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think that the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) was referring to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and what he said. It is clear that the hon. Member for Harrow East was relying on the privilege given to him as a Member of this House to make those allegations, and it is equally clear that the allegations are contested. What mechanism is open to Members when information released under privilege is contested in such a way? Does the hon. Member not have to repeat it outside?”
“We all know what Government undertakings in relation to trade agreements are worth, and it is not an awful lot. If the Secretary of State does not believe me, she can ask the farmers and crofters in my constituency. Is the breach of the undertaking on the trade agreement with Australia to be a one-off, or is it the start of a course of conduct?”
“I thank the right hon. Lady and her Committee for a typically thorough and well-reasoned report. It is an important contribution to this area of policy. Just this morning the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration reported that the Home Office response to dangerous channel crossings is “both ineffective and inefficient, exposing gaps in security procedures and leaving vulnerable migrants at risk.” At the heart of the problem in the Home Office is its basic mechanical inability to process applications, with a backlog of 125,000 and a shortage of staff, when it previously said that it would be employing 1,000 case workers—in fact, at the time of the report that figure was as low as 820. Does she have any view on whether even the figure of 1,000 would be sufficient to meet the current backlog and growing demand?”
“I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) not just on securing the urgent question, but on the vigour with which he prosecuted it. What the Minister has told us today is not what we were promised by way of scrutiny, and it is not adequate, especially since we now know that the current Foreign Secretary, when she was Secretary of State for International Trade, was warned that this deal would be bad for British farmers and food producers. Will the Minister take back to Government business managers the message that the House needs to be given the debate and vote that we were promised, and that in order to inform the debate, all the advice that was given to the then International Trade Secretary and her successor is required to be published?”
“Like others, I offer the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) all the deference that he deserves. The hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) said that the banks are “morally bankrupt”. Let us not forget that, but for the taxpayer, they would also be financially bankrupt. We have recently seen the withdrawal of the Bank of Scotland from Stromness in my constituency—the last bank in town. If we now hear that there is a rush of banks seeking to avoid the incoming legislation, does the Chair of the Select Committee agree that that is simply acting in bad faith, which the Government should not be tolerating and in respect of which they should be acting?”
“I have been here for quite a while now—I am just a quiet presence, so I would not be noticed. With all that the hon. Lady has set out being the case, does she agree that it remains incomprehensible that the Scottish and UK Governments both continue to allow industrial-scale fishing with gillnets, which not only leaves a massive amount of plastic pollution but is an utterly unsustainable way of catching fish?”
“I am delighted to hear the Minister speaking positively about the role of the civil service. That contrasts rather well with the way the Government in recent years have done nothing but traduce and undermine its position. I must say that the Prime Minister cannot remain as a caretaker. That is just putting the bull in charge of the china shop. This is not all about Ministers and politicians; it is about our constituents and the public services on which they depend and which, for months now, this Government have been unable to deliver properly for them. That is why they all need to go.”
““Not satisfactory”—I admire your magnificent understatement, Mr Speaker. Surely this admission illustrates why this man cannot remain as Prime Minister, even as a caretaker. He is simply not to be trusted. I have seen four other Prime Ministers stand at the Government Dispatch Box in my time in the House, and I cannot imagine any one of them becoming involved in an enterprise such as this. The relationship with Russia goes right through this Government. We were told four months ago that we would get the report on the golden visa schemes, but we still do not have it. When will that report be published? Why has it been delayed?”
“In response to Sue Gray’s interim report, the Prime Minister announced that he would set up an office of the Prime Minister to address what she had identified as “fragmented and complicated” leadership structures that, in turn, “led to the blurring of lines of accountability.” Given the variety of conflicting accounts that we have heard in the past few days, how does the Minister think that has worked out?”
“Can we have a debate on the teaching of geography, especially to Ministers and civil servants? Anyone passing through a UK airport at the moment will see adverts—doubtless quite expensive adverts—for the GREAT campaign, which features a map of most of the country. I say “most” of the country, because that map does not include Orkney or Shetland. It does include the Isle of Man—which, last time I looked, was not part of this country. It is a bit insulting to the many businesses in Orkney and Shetland, which are at the forefront of leading technology exports, to see ourselves excluded by our own Government in this way. Will the Leader of the House fix it?”
“May I add my voice to those who have said that the Minister deserves full credit for getting us to this point? The inquiry is of course about ensuring that those who have done wrong in the past are accountable. However, we already know that at the heart of this problem was the culture at the top and the centre of the Post Office, which essentially did not trust the people at the coalface. If we are to ensure that this never happens again, we have to know that that culture has changed. Quite apart from the inquiry into the past, is the Minister satisfied that those who are currently at the top and the centre of the Post Office have genuinely received that message about a change in the culture?”
“The decision to leave the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service satellite programme last year has had catastrophic implications for the reliability of lifeline air services, and even the Air Ambulance Service, across the highlands and islands. We were told at the time that it was done on the basis of cost, but we now know that, for every pound spent on EGNOS, there is a £2.60 benefit to the UK economy. This was one of Dominic Cummings’ madder ideas. Is it not time to admit as much, rejoin EGNOS, and improve air services in the highlands and islands?”
“How many people have been resettled in the UK under the ACRS, since it opened in January, who had not been evacuated under Operation Pitting?”
“Paragraph 2 of the human rights chapter of the Good Friday agreement provides that “The British Government will complete incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European Convention on Human Rights…with direct access to the courts, and remedies for breach of the Convention”. Can the Justice Secretary tell the House whether the Bill constitutes a unilateral repudiation of that, or is that something that he has negotiated with the Government of Ireland?”
“If the changes that the Government recently brought forward are so significant and substantial, why do they feel it is necessary to have a pause for reflection again now, so soon?”
“In terms of accountability, does the hon. Gentleman agree that where an allegation of impropriety is made against a Minister and is investigated, as a matter of principle the outcome of that investigation, whatever it is, should be published?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way eventually. I am sure that we all share his aspiration to have a process in future that commands public confidence, but he has not yet mentioned what it was about the previous system that did not command public confidence. What was it?”
“Why does the Home Secretary say, as she did in her statement, that “It is no use pretending that those people are fleeing persecution” when they are not? She will be aware that Home Office figures state that 98% of those who make the channel crossing claim asylum, and that 64% of asylum applications are granted at first instance, rising to almost 80% after appeal. There are only three options here: either the Home Secretary in demonising those people is making an incorrect statement, or the Home Office figures are incorrect, or the Home Office is granting asylum applications to people who are not fleeing persecution. Which is it?”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for the Cabinet office if he will make a statement on requests made to the First Treasury Counsel to assess Government proposals to override the Northern Ireland protocol.”
“It is a matter of fundamental import to this House that Members are being told by the Government that the content of a Bill is not in breach of international law when that assertion is based on information that is incomplete, and apparently intentionally so. The Government have put First Treasury Counsel in an almost impossible situation. We are fortunate indeed that he has been willing to take his professional duties more seriously than those who sought his legal advice. We know the position about the publication of Government legal advice, but that relies on Governments acting in good faith and their legal advisers being free to give the best advice that their professional skills allow. That full advice must be published for the Bill.”
“Can the Minister confirm to the House that this information in the public domain is correct? Was Sir James asked to give an opinion on the merits of the legal advice that the Government had been given or not? Can the Minister tell the House why the request to Sir James was framed in this way? Sir James is understood to have volunteered that he found the argument of one particular lawyer advising the Government “considerably easier to follow and more convincing”. The lawyer in question had said that it would be “very difficult” for the UK to argue that it was not “breaching international law”.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question. It was reported on Tuesday evening that Sir James Eadie QC, First Treasury Counsel, had not been consulted on the legality of the Government’s proposed legislation to override the Northern Ireland protocol. This was denied directly by the Prime Minister yesterday in a response to a question from the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood). It would now appear that, at the very least, the answer given by the Prime Minister to the hon. Gentleman was incomplete. We have learned in subsequent media reports that while Sir James was consulted on aspects of the proposals, he was in fact asked not to give an opinion on whether the plan would breach international law, and was told to assume that there was a respectable legal basis for the Government’s position.”
“The Minister seeks to justify the Government’s position by tying it back to the principle of parliamentary privilege, as if that is somehow an absolute and inviolable principle. But it is a principle that we in recent years have watered down in relation to the creation of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and now the Independent Complaints and Grievance Service. This is not any more the trump card that it used to be. If this House is to be subject to independent investigation as Members, why should the Prime Minister and his Ministers be treated differently?”
“The Government should have done that, but they clearly have no intention of doing so, so we in this House must.”
“We need to get the parties together to build a consensus and have the discussion to ensure that we can have a ministerial code of conduct that can command the confidence of the public and of all parties in the House and not be seen to be the creature of any individual party. The position of the independent adviser on the ministerial code is now long past remedy. Given everything that we have seen in recent weeks and months, it is no longer tenable to say that, yes, he or she can initiate investigations, but only with the consent of the Prime Minister of the day. It is that requirement for consent that fundamentally undermines the office. Trust has been breached. It is for the House to demonstrate that we understand the scale of the damage done and to repair it.”
“These issues were all debated in 2009 when IPSA was set up, and the question of privilege was taken very seriously at that point. That was one of the few votes— I think there were four—that the Labour party lost in 13 years in government, but it was necessary at the time because the public outrage at the expenses scandal, when people learned about what MPs had claimed for and been paid for, was such that significant change was necessary. It was necessary to modify the doctrine of parliamentary privilege to maintain the standing of Parliament itself, and we are back in that position here and now. This is what we need to do.”
“It would be quite easily possible to build a political consensus, but that requires the Government to take a lead—one that we have not seen from them. It is also well past the time when the ministerial code of conduct should have been underpinned by statute. I say that with some measure of regret because, as I said in my intervention on the Minister, here is an instance where the Government are seeking to rely on the adoption of parliamentary privilege, but the House has already reduced the scope of that parliamentary privilege. We have handed the investigation of complaints of inappropriate behaviour to the Independent Complaints and Grievances Scheme and handed the regulation of our expenses and other allied issues to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.”
“We should start with those standards of behaviour, and measure behaviour by them. Instead, we are getting a code that looks at the standard of behaviour prevalent in Downing Street and seeks to match that. It is, if I may say so, the very opposite of levelling up. The report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life should be taken as a whole. It is not something to cherry-pick, unless of course there is some overwhelming, pressing reason as to why that should not be the case. On that point, the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare did produce some genuinely good and valid points. Again, it takes me back to the position that the House found itself in with Owen Paterson and lobbying last year, when the Government sought to proceed in a way for which they had not first built the political consensus.”
“To suggest that, somehow or other, the problems within 10 Downing Street and the Government as a whole can be addressed simply by shifting the desks around and taking a few people here, a Spad there and a principal private secretary elsewhere out of a job underestimates and genuinely lacks an understanding of the scale of the crisis that faces our democracy. Having said that, the mea culpas that we have heard from the Prime Minister have also been fundamentally undermined if it is true, as it has been reported, that last night, in the 1922 committee, he said, “I’d do it again.” If that is correct, it is difficult to see how the apologies given to the House and to the public are in any way sincere. Essentially, the position is that we require a practice, a code of conduct, that reflects the expected standards of behaviour.”
“The Government’s position on the report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and the ministerial code as a consequence, tells me that this Government are bothered not about improving things, but rather about protecting their own position, and especially that of the Prime Minister. We have heard some remarkable mea culpas from the Prime Minister in recent weeks and months, but the actions that followed those mea culpas have been somewhat pedestrian, shall we say? They certainly do not match the rhetoric of the mea culpa.”
“First, the position in which the Government have put themselves cannot be just wished away, and they will not move on to those important issues unless and until they address the position in which the Prime Minister has put them. Secondly, if those big and pressing issues are to be dealt with, that requires the Government to be led by a Prime Minister who has the political and moral authority to deal with them. It is apparent from the outcome of the vote of confidence last night among Conservative Members, that the Prime Minister has lost that moral and political authority, and it is difficult to see how he can regain it, certainly while he continues to behave in the way he does.”
“Member for Devizes is about to leave the Chamber, so I will not pursue the point any further than that. There is one point in the Government’s position with which I have some sympathy, because there are other important issues that the House ought to be discussing. The cost of living crisis is unparalleled in my adult life—I cannot remember anything like this since my childhood years in the 1970s—and the strategic challenges of a ground war in mainland Europe are something I thought I would never see in my life. Those substantial issues demand and require the attention of Parliament. However, I part company with the Government on two points.”
“It is a crying shame that we do not have more speakers on the Government Back Benches today, because the contributions we heard from the hon. Members for Devizes (Danny Kruger) and for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) have been good and thoughtful. I found more to recommend in the contribution from the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, but when listening to them both I was left thinking that surely, with a bit of good faith on both sides, this is a debate that we as Parliament could have that would put our politics into a better position. I regret very much that I do not see that political good faith coming from the Treasury Bench, and in the absence of that we must look for it among Government Back Benchers— [ Interruption. ] Obviously I have been too generous in my praise, as the hon.”
“I was struck by the Minister’s reference there to an unelected, all-powerful, unaccountable individual; it reminded me that Dominic Cummings was the subject of correspondence in July and September last year between the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and the Cabinet Office, with regard to his activities post leaving Downing Street. ACOBA has never had a response to that correspondence. When will it get one?”
“Hikvision has produced the equipment that is used for surveillance in Xinjiang and it now wants access to our market. It would send a really powerful signal to say, “If you provide equipment of that sort to a place like China, you are not welcome in this country.””
“I suspect that the Minister gave a more revealing answer than she had intended to give to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), when she said that if there are to be restrictions on the UN party visiting the province, that would achieve only one thing: to expose China as a country that disliked outside scrutiny. That would hardly be exposing something that is a secret. Many of us hoped that that would trigger something more substantial by way of meaningful action from the Government. Let me give the Minister the opportunity to answer the question posed by the Opposition Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), and the Minister’s hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), who asked about Hikvision.”
“Today’s revelations just add to the horror that we all feel about the continuing treatment of Nazanin, but she is not the only UK dual national, in Iran or elsewhere, to suffer such treatment. May I bring to the Minister’s attention the case of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a UK-Egypt dual national currently detained in Egypt, who has been tortured and has been on hunger strike for 53 days? Will the Minister meet his family and make representations to the Government of Egypt, hopefully with the same vigour that she has shown in relation to Nazanin?”
“In all candour, I do not envy the Secretary of State’s task. He describes it as painful, difficult and sensitive. All those words are absolutely correct, but this is not the first time we have been in this situation. Since the days of John Major and Tony Blair, the only way we have been able to make progress is to get everybody together to build consensus and then introduce legislation. It is surely already apparent from today’s debate that the Secretary of State does not have that consensus, so what does he hope to achieve by introducing this legislation?”
“I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Any fair-minded person can see that international factors are clearly at play, over which no Minister can have total control, but we can control the support that we give to our domestic food producers. Is this not the moment to do as the National Farmers Union has asked of the Secretary of State and pause the Department’s programme of basic payment cuts to farmers? They will see their payments cut this year by 25%, next year by 30% and the year after by 50%.”
“She has been told that she can get the replacement only if she can produce a crime reference number or an insurance claim from the time. Surely we are capable of treating that generation, to whom we owe so much, with a bit more consideration and respect than that.”
“I welcome the Leader of the House’s announcement that we will have the opportunity to pay tribute to the quite remarkable contribution that Her Majesty the Queen has made to the life of this nation for the past 70 years. I hope that, as part of that, we may reflect on how we treat that generation in general. My 98-year-old constituent Shelagh Connor recently enlisted my help to get support for the replacement of a medal that was awarded to her late husband in the second world war but stolen from a missionary station in what was then Tanganyika in 1956. Mrs Connor wants the replacement medal so that her grandson, who also serves in the Royal Army Medical Corps, can wear the medal that was originally given to his grandfather.”
“The Home Office has had the report that it commissioned from Stephen Shaw on immigration detention since 2018. What progress is it making in relation to the implementation of its recommendations?”
“8. What recent discussions he has had with his Faroese counterpart on access for Russian fishing vessels to shared UK-Faroese fishing grounds.”