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 34 of 95.
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the operation of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency in Shetland. It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Ghani, and I welcome the Minister to her place. I am pleased to have secured this debate, although I am enormously frustrated that it has been necessary. Candidly, as a constituency Member of Parliament, I feel that this is now the tactic of last resort in protecting the interests of my constituency. I have never before found myself in this situation since I entered the House in 2001, despite having handled scores—maybe hundreds—of local issues that were much more complicated than this one. My history of engagement with the DVSA on the provision of HGV and motorcycle testing in Shetland goes back several years.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. As I indicated in my speech, when the costs were subsequently made known to me, they seemed higher than I would have expected. I was not party to the negotiations or discussions. I was told that the specification would have made it twice as thick as any other road in Shetland in terms of the tarmac to be laid. I think that there is more opportunity here to interrogate the work that has been done to get to these figures. That requires the DVSA to engage, instead of just saying, “That’s the cost, and we are not going to explain anything more.””
“The Minister is being very generous with her time. I appreciate that this is not part of her ministerial brief, as it rests with her noble Friend, but can the Minister tell me at what point the DVSA actually started investigating the Scatsta site? It is apparent to me from my dealings with the Minister and the agency that it had been well sighted on the difficulties that it had identified with the Ladies brae site in Lerwick. The point about the application for planning permission is that that went in only when I pointed out that nobody has done anything to obtain change of use permission.”
“The Minister, whom I thank for her answer, did suggest that Shetland Islands Council has been intransigent in this. I think it is fair to put it on the record that Shetland Islands Council first told DVSA in 2016 that it would be withdrawing from the site. It has extended the provision multiple times and, indeed, I understand that it has offered the provision of the materials to construct the site at Ladies brae. It has been exceptionally co-operative in what is the core function of the DVSA, not of Shetland Islands Council. Question put and agreed to.”
“T9. What evidence have the Government of Israel given the Foreign Secretary or her Department to justify the designation of six Palestinian human rights organisations as terrorist organisations? Does she agree with me—and, indeed, with the assessment of B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation—that this is not worthy of a democracy, and is more what we expect from repressive regimes?”
“I ask again the question posed by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas): how many of the 5,000 places currently allocated have already been filled, and how many of those people are already in the United Kingdom?”
“T6. I thank the Secretary of State for International Trade for her visit earlier this year to the European Marine Energy Centre in Stromness, when she heard that it has a very compelling case for the next round of contract for difference auctions to have a pot within a pot for tidal stream generation. We are disappointed that the first draft does not include the pot within a pot, so will she and the President of COP26 renew their representations to the Treasury for its inclusion so that we can take advantage of the opportunities?”
“1. With reference to his Department's “COVID-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan 2021”, if his Department will publish scientific evidence in support of the efficacy of mandatory vaccine passports.”
“I welcome the Minister’s very full answer, and I welcome him to the Dispatch Box. It was always a pleasure to work with him in his previous role, and I hope it will be a pleasure to work with him in this one as well. The Government have had no fewer than 13 different positions in relation to vaccine passports. They have said “yes” three times, “no” four times, and “maybe” or “we are having a review” six times. Rather than just asserting that the evidence is there, will the Minister commit himself to publishing it? If he is ever going to take his own Back Benchers with him, let alone the general public, the case will have to be made, and the Government have not made it yet—and, incidentally, are we going to get a vote before vaccine passports are introduced?”
“T6. People in fishing communities will have been interested to hear the Paymaster General assert earlier that we are taking back control of our territorial waters. May I invite him to clarify that? When he says territorial waters, does he mean water up to the 6-mile, 12-mile or 200-mile limit?”
“I am grateful to the Leader of the House for confirming that we will have the Second Reading of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill on Monday 18 October. Between now and then, will the Government reflect on the fact that the United Kingdom has today been added to the Civicus Monitor watchlist? Civicus has stated: “Civic space is in decline in the UK, with the right to freedom of peaceful assembly repeatedly targeted”. It also states that the “Judicial Review and Courts Bill threatens fundamental rights and democratic checks and balances which aim to hold the government accountable”. The other countries added to the watchlist today are Afghanistan, Belarus and Nicaragua. Surely we should be better than that.”
“Local councils, VisitScotland, the local economic development agencies, the Scottish Government and the UK Government should all be pulling together to find a new strategic approach that will allow every community in the country that engages with the industry to do so in a better, more strategic way. That way, the very different needs and opportunities that will go to a place such as Greenock or Southampton are not ones that will operate to the disadvantage of communities such as mine. There are all sorts of opportunities from the industry, but we have to accept that there is a diversity of opportunities and all need to be accommodated. This is the point at which we can reboot that relationship, and I hope Governments and other public agencies, the industry and communities can all work together to do exactly that.”
“If they do not want them, we will not come to their communities.” I hope that as those operators rebuild and as we rebuild our relationship with them, we may be able to see that done rather differently. There are real opportunities for some of the most economically fragile communities in the Northern Isles: places such as Fair Isle, which has a population of about 60 people. A small cruise boat coming into dock there can have a tremendous impact and can be a real opportunity. However, again, to get the maximum benefit from a visit from a cruise ship, communities like that will require a bit of support from outside agencies.”
“A good number of local businesses in Orkney and Shetland are now highly dependent on cruise traffic. There are also a number of self-employed tour guides who have grown an industry that simply was not there before. They have certainly missed cruise traffic; its return will be important. In all things we should try to find the positive from the negative. The absence of cruise ships since March 2020 and the beginning of their slow return is something that we should take opportunity from. I would like my communities to take a much more strategic approach to engaging with the industry, and, by the same token, I would like to see better engagement from the industry with my communities. In the past, the larger operators would often say “These are our terms of business; people can either take them or leave them.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) on securing this debate. In recent years, the cruise industry has become one of the most important and, occasionally, controversial parts of the visitor economy in the Northern Isles. I suspect we are not the only community around the coastline to find ourselves in that position. The industry has grown over the years, starting with just a few ships and gradually growing to more and bigger ships. As a consequence, we have lacked a strategic approach to the development of that particular part of the visitor economy. It is nobody’s fault, but it is a little like the frog in water that just gets warmer—eventually, we realise that there is a severe impact.”
“The hon. Lady touches on something very important. The capacity for cruise ship passengers to spend money when in port is very often determined by the terms of the contract that they have with the cruise ship. That is why I say that in rebuilding the industry and looking at the impact it has on different parts of the country, we need that sense of partnership. We need our communities to be talking and to be able to influence the ships, as well as the other way around.”
“Due to the way in which the Government have gone about this, it will not be open to the House to take a different view, because instead of re-examining and reopening the powers of these offices as a whole, we will be looking only at the manner in which they are elected. It is for that reason that the road the Government have gone down tonight is ill advised and will ultimately provide the citizens with poorer representation as a consequence, which is why my hon. and right hon. Friends and I will be opposing the motion tonight.”
“Members currently sitting on the Government side of the Chamber will be sat on the Opposition side, and they will then find the truth of the way in which they seek to treat this House today; and that is a fairly tawdry truth, I have to say. There is a lot more to the various devolved offices mentioned in the instruction than simply the electoral system. One reason why these offices were to be elected using a proportional or semi-proportional system was that it was felt necessary to have proper protections because significant powers were being devolved. Indeed, had it been known at the time that these offices would later be elected by first past the post rather than an alternative system, the House may have taken a different view at that time.”
“It is a generally accepted truth—and, indeed, a fundamental truth of politics—that just because a Government can do something does not necessarily mean that they should. It is quite a while since we saw such a clear and clamant example of that truth as we have before the House tonight. The Government appear to have been caught on the hop, suddenly noticing, after 20 years, that the Mayor of London is elected using a second vote. I think we have to have some sympathy for them—we know that there are some on the Government Benches who would never claim to be speedy learners—but it is still quite important that this House should be allowed to do the job that we are all sent here to do. I remind the Government that the day will come when hon. and right hon.”
“It shows that, because of the way the industry is structured and operates, enforcement of conditions is a game of regulatory whack-a-mole.”
“That is Irish Ferries coming into Dover in Cypriot registered ships—seeing that, one begins to understand the complexity of international shipping. It continues: “as revealed by recent inspection of the WB Yeats by the Inspector for International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) in France (Irish Ferries have blocked ITF access in UK and Irish ports)”. It then quotes the pay rates on the W. B. Yeats, Rosslare to Cherbourg, in June 2021. A bar and galley steward gets an hourly rate of £6.47; an able seafarer has an hourly rate of £6.89; both a cook and a plumber had an hourly rate of £7.42; a receptionist earned £7.69; and a bosun earned £9.39. In fact, going back a few years, some of the ships that were operating in the North sea were paying figures that were less than half the lowest figures in the RMT briefing.”
“This was something of particular concern a few years ago, when I discovered that many of those working on the freight ships going from Aberdeen to Shetland, in my constituency, were deemed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs not to be in its remit for enforcing the minimum wage because the boats operated in international waters. Its definition of international water is being outside the 12-mile limit. I give credit to HMRC and the Government for having closed some of the loopholes, but we know that many of the jobs advertised will come nowhere near the level of minimum wage protection. The RMT briefing for today quotes some examples of that: “The expansion of Irish Ferries into Dover is a case in point. Irish ferries pay below the National Minimum Wage to its Cypriot registered ships”.”
“After that box was ticked, there was a commitment to retain them for a year, but after that, there was a cliff edge. There was a glut of one-year post-qualification officers. That is the challenge facing the Government, and I do not envy them. It is difficult for any individual country to take on companies operating in an effectively global environment. This is probably the best working definition of a global industry. In its briefing, the RMT illustrates some of the challenges affecting the enforcement of minimum wage legislation.”
“However, I would say that there is nothing inevitable about the UK maritime sector having a bright future; it will require a determined and driven strategic agenda from the Government to ensure that that actually happens. We have seen the issue at different times over the years. Going back 15 or 20 years, the Blair Government introduced the tonnage tax—a really good, welcome initiative. However, it never really achieved its full potential, beyond getting tonnage to flag under the red ensign, because it was difficult for the Government to get the conditionality attached to it: getting the number of officers trained under the tonnage tax, and then getting the shipping companies that had trained them to keep them on. There was a commitment to train officers in order to qualify under the tonnage tax.”
“During lockdown, many seafarers found themselves in difficult situations, caught between different lockdown regulations—testing, tracing, self-isolating—in different countries. In its briefing, Nautilus highlights its survey, which shows that about 11,000 maritime professionals fell through all the gaps in the safety nets; none was able to get assistance from the job retention scheme or the self-employment income support scheme. That statistic illustrates the different way in which the maritime industries work compared to those based onshore. Both the right hon. Member for North Durham and the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) believe that this is an industry with a future, and I endorse that sentiment.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Sir George. I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing the debate, and thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it. Such debates are all too rare. That, in itself, is an illustration of what the briefing from Nautilus calls “sea blindness”. One of the biggest difficulties the maritime industry faces is getting the political attention it needs in just about every respect—whether for its own development, for health and safety on vessels, or for minimum wage implementation. It all happens far from sight at sea. This debate is a welcome opportunity for those of us with an interest in the maritime industry to put some of those concerns on the record. It has been a difficult couple of years for those working in our maritime industry.”
“We saw this week that, in the tender for the construction of the two ferries to serve Islay and Jura, two of the shipyards tendering are in Turkey, one is Romanian, and one is in Poland. Not a single shipyard in Scotland or anywhere else in the United Kingdom is now being invited to tender by the Scottish Government. That shows that we need to have the strategy that everyone else has spoken about. If we have a gesture here on a difficult news day there, we do not do any favours for the people who work in these shipyards, never mind island communities such as Islay and Jura.”
“Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) knows, we have a difficult recent history of this, north of the border. Two ferries are being procured from a shipyard owned by the Scottish Government: the replacement for the Glen Sannox and Hull 802—so called because, although it is now heading towards five years overdue, it still does not have a name. Partnership between Government and industry of the sort that the right hon. Member for North Durham is talking about worked very effectively with the procurement of the aircraft carriers and is something we should be taking seriously. However, the rigours of private sector involvement are needed to ensure that these ferries are obtained on time and give value to the taxpayer, as well as giving longer-term security for the workforce in the domestic shipyards we have left.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is characteristically generous. Others in the House, himself included, have been working on the issue as well. It comes back to the first point I made: as a former Prime Minister used to say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. People like us, talking about issues like that, on occasions like this, do allow pressure to be brought to bear, which ultimately leads to progress being made. The right hon. Member for North Durham spoke about the need for a more proactive and less competition- based approach to the awarding of contracts. In principle I agree with him, and I understand what he is saying when offering comparators from Europe and around the world. To sound one note of caution, as the hon.”
“The Government’s document also says that plan B could be brought into force at very short notice, so can the Secretary of State give the House some assurance that that will not happen without a vote?”
“Pages 23 and 24 of the autumn and winter plan specify that, as part of plan B, the Government will introduce vaccine passports for all nightclubs, for indoor settings of 500 people or more, which presumably would include this Chamber of 650 Members, for outdoor settings of 4,000 or more, and for anywhere—that is a very big place—where there are 10,000 people. How does the Secretary of State square that with his assertion in reply to the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), that the evidence on the usefulness of vaccine passports is just not there? If the evidence is not there, why are they part of plan B?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but it is not wholly accurate to say that the Bill does not relate to Prorogation. If she has regard to clause 3 and its inclusion of the words “or purported” in relation to the exercise of prerogative powers, she will be aware that there are some who feel that that raises the question of justiciability in relation to the Miller and Cherry cases. Is that not in fact an instance where the Bill does touch on Prorogation?”
“I will not detain the House for long but, because I was not able to intervene latterly on the Minister’s speech, I wish to put on record that the motion of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is required to be passed for this House to debate this matter today. In the event that the Bill gets its Third Reading, it will go to the other place, where very different rules apply. In the other place, it is required only that the House should determine that the matter is in scope, whether or not the ex facie scope is achieved. Essentially that means that, when the Bill goes to the other place, the unelected Chamber will be able to debate this matter. It is surely perverse that the Government should deny the elected Chamber the same opportunity.”
“On clause 3, may I take the Minister back to the inclusion of the word “purported” and, in particular, draw her attention to paragraph 166 and the comments of Baroness Hale in relation to the Joint Committee report? She says that “it looks as if it is saying, “Well, even if what we did”— that is what the Government did— “was not within the power that you have been given by the statute, the courts can’t do anything about it.” She goes on to say: “If that is the case, the courts would be very worried about that, because it would mean that the Government—the Prime Minister—had done something that was, at least arguably, not within its powers.” There is some force and logic in the argument of Lady Hale, is there not?”
“In the interests of clarity, is the Minister telling the House that the Government are asking Parliament to give them the power to do things that exceed the powers given to them and that nobody should be able to gainsay them?”
“Of most concern, however, was the fact that the Minister was asked three times whether this House would be given the vote that it was actually promised by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and three times he refused to give that commitment. Can the Leader of the House tell me now whether, in the time that remains unallocated, we will be allowed to debate and vote on the Government’s proposals?”
“May I briefly associate myself with the comments regarding the late Austin Mitchell? It was my privilege to work with Austin for many years on matters pertaining to the fishing industry. I know that his passing will be felt not just by his friends and family, but in fishing ports around the coast of the United Kingdom. May I recommend to the Leader of the House that, if he has not already done so, he reads my urgent question on vaccine passports in yesterday’s Hansard ? The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) opened the bidding for the Conservative Back Benchers by saying: “ What a load of rubbish.” —[ Official Report , 8 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 307.] What followed was three quarters of an hour that was not quite as polite and nuanced as that.”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make a statement on the Government plans for covid vaccine passports.”
“A study by the Night Time Industries Association found that 69% of its members view the introduction of vaccine passports as having a negative impact on business, and 70% said they were not necessary for opening their business. Why are the Government not listening to the experts in the industry? When will nightclubs and other businesses be told how will they be expected to check the vaccine status of their patrons? What legal authority will they have to do that and what will the consequences be for them if they do not do it? On 12 July, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care told the House: “As we move away from regulations, there will no longer be a legal requirement for any establishment to have covid vaccine certification”. —[ Official Report , 12 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 32.] When did that change and why?”
“On Monday the Minister at the Dispatch Box told me: “We do know that 60% of people who have had two jabs will not become infected with the Delta variant and therefore cannot infect someone else, although 40% will and can.” —[ Official Report , 6 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 75.] The 40% figure highlights one of the biggest dangers of the whole idea: taking people into large social gatherings where they think they will be safe from infection but in fact they are not. The Minister will know that there will always be some who cannot be vaccinated, so if entry to nightclubs or events is to be dependent on demonstrating vaccination, those people will be excluded. So can he tell the House: what assessment have the Government done with regard to their duties under equalities legislation?”
“Never before in peacetime have a Government in this country controlled, in this way, where we can go and with whom, and what to do. If the Government have concluded that this now has to change, at the very least this House must have a chance to make its voice heard and its views known. So when will we get the vote that the Minister promised us before the recess? The case for vaccine passports is riddled with inconsistencies. Nightclubs have been open since July and, notwithstanding recent events in Aberdeen, they have been relatively safe. If they are safe today for people to enjoy responsibly, what do the Government expect to change between now and the end of the month?”
“First, thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to ask this urgent question. As Big Brother Watch brings its campaign against vaccine passports to Westminster today, it is certainly timely. The introduction of vaccine passports will have enormous practical implications for the literally thousands of businesses across the country that will be required to gather and to hold our data. It is on those aspects that the answers are most urgently required from the Government—this must not be “in due course”, as the Minister has just said. The deadline for the implementation of this scheme is now just three weeks away. We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that a scheme of this sort opens the door to a major change in the relationship between the citizen and the state.”
“These proposals were trialled in 2019, and during that trial 2,000 people were turned away for not having the correct form of identification. Of those 2,000, 700 did not return to vote. Whether it is voter suppression is a question of semantics, but it is hardly encouragement, is it?”
“The Minister references the Committee on Standards in Public Life; why has she not included in the Bill any of the Committee’s recommendations on campaign finance?”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. As vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary China group—in fairness, one of 22 vice-chairs—may I say to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) through you that I very much share his concerns? It is obviously necessary for us to engage in every way possible, but when the engagement is of the nature he described, that goes beyond normal engagement, and that should be a matter of concern across this Chamber.”
“If the Treasury Bench, having missed the opportunity for prelegislative scrutiny, are able to get this Bill, in its current form, through both Houses—I anticipate that will be a bigger ask in the other place—they should undertake a programme of post-legislative scrutiny to ensure that the promises they make tonight are honoured in the execution. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) told me that she appears on the electoral register as Christine Jardine, but her passport shows her married name. That is by no means unusual, as in Scotland one’s name is the name by which one chooses to be known. That sort of thing could have been teased out by prelegislative scrutiny, but it is now too late. There are many other issues about which I am concerned but, unfortunately, time is against me.”
“We have heard instances of it described today, and indeed we knew for many years that it was a substantial and real problem in Northern Ireland. That is why, having identified the problem, it was right for the then Government to act to end it. But to justify the measures in this Bill, the Government should first have provided evidence to show there is a problem, and they have singularly failed to do so. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) said the Bill would have benefited from prelegislative scrutiny, and he is absolutely right. The cost-benefit analysis is to be seen in the pilot that the Government carried out in 2019 when, of the 2,000 people who were turned away from polling stations, 700 did not return, which should give us serious pause before we go down this road.”
““If I am ever asked, on the streets of London, or in any other venue, public or private, to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am…then I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it.” Those are not my words, but the words of the Prime Minister. I think we should watch the Division lists this evening with some interest. I have no doubt that he will perform that feat of gastronomic improbability while lying in front of a bulldozer to stop the creation of a third runway at Heathrow. The difficulty that the Government face in introducing the Bill is that their proposals for voter identification seek to produce a solution for which there is no obvious problem. That is not to say that voter personation does not happen.”
“I want to take a few seconds to place on record my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) on her excellent maiden speech. I am sure it is a matter of easy consensus in the House that Lib Dem maiden speeches are all too rare these days, and I thought my hon. Friend’s speech was exceptionally fine. As a former Chief Whip for my party, I was delighted to hear her declare her intention to prosecute her constituents’ case with an independence of mind to match that of the late Cheryl Gillan.”
“It will not be lost on many people that the various lines of defence that the Minister listed in his statement did not actually include his plans for vaccine passports, presumably because they do not offer us any defence at all. Taking a leaf from the book of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), may I remind the Minister of what he said on Twitter on 12 January? He wrote: “We have no plans to introduce vaccine passports…No one has been given or will be required to have a vaccine passport.” When no less a person than Claire Fox said, “Good to hear. Again. Can we hold you to this?”, the Minister replied: “Yes you can Claire.” For Claire and the many others like her who want to hold the Minister to his words, may I ask when we will get the vote that he promised us?”