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 35 of 95.
“The right hon. Lady is making exactly the points that I hoped to hear from the Prime Minister and did not. The reasons that we went into Afghanistan in 2001 remain valid today. If the actions taken in recent weeks render a military solution to that problem impossible, we have to have a non-military solution. What does she see that non-military solution as being?”
“What assessment the commission has made of the adequacy of the data on electoral fraud used in support of Government proposals to introduce voter ID.”
“If the data show low levels, it is curious that the commission should have concluded that some measure of voter identification was necessary. May I ask the hon. Member to convey to the commission the view that, in fact, a rather more robust and substantial data-gathering exercise is required before the case can truly be said to be made for changes in voter identification?”
“Last week, I asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care a whole range of questions about the practical consequences of this voluntary scheme. I asked what constituted large events, who would be the judge of what they were, what was meant by encouraging businesses, and what would be the consequences for any businesses that resisted the encouragement from the Government. The Secretary of State had no answers to those questions. Will the Minister today answer the questions, if not necessarily for the benefit of the people in this House, then at least with a bit of respect to those who operate nightclubs, big events, restaurants, bars and others who have absolutely no idea what is going to be required of them?”
“Given the massive opposition that there is among those who operate nightclubs and events, the decision of the Government to make the introduction of covid identity cards voluntary is probably a sensible one, but may I explore with the Minister what he means when he says, “We reserve the right to mandate their use in the future”? We might have hoped, Mr Speaker, that the right that the Government sought to reserve was the right to seek the permission of this House to make their use mandatory in the future. I hope that this was just a small piece of ministerial arrogance that led the Minister to mis-speak, but I would like his assurance that we will be given the opportunity to express a view on this before the mandatory use of covid identity cards is introduced.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making compelling points. Can I suggest to him that in fact, with the agreement with Australia, the pass has already been sold? What other country with which we have now to enter into agreements is going to accept anything less than Australia has been given?”
“Australia allows growth hormones in beef production. It continues to keep its poultry in battery cages. It allows the branding of cattle and the cutting away of healthy flesh from the hindquarters of lambs.”
“I observe gently in passing that today’s debate illustrates very well the truth that Opposition Members and Government Back Benchers are never in a stronger position than when Governments are facing votes on legislation in the House. Perhaps if the resolve of some had been stiffened at the time, and guns had been stuck to, we would not be dealing with this problem today. As the hon. Gentleman said, there is a need for a strategy. I fear that we may already have a strategy, and if it is to be seen in the agreement in principle with Australia, our farming and crofting communities face some serious problems. I would like to see at its heart a concern for animal welfare. Others have made this point, but let me repeat it for emphasis: Australian animal welfare standards are very different from those maintained by our farmers.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing the debate. This time last week we were here talking about fishing. Today it is agriculture, dealing with many of the consequences of the promises that were made to the staple industries of many of our rural communities prior to our leaving the European Union. We are perhaps now seeing some of the disjunction between the rhetoric of the time and the reality of today. The hon. Gentleman outlined the history of his and others’ interventions on the Trade Bill and the Agriculture Bill when they were before the House.”
“That is why these trade deals will not happen solely in an international sphere; they will have real and immediate impacts in some of the smallest and most economically fragile communities represented here today. That is what the Government have to address. Their concerns are not fanciful; they are not confection. They are real and legitimate and they must be addressed.”
“Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) said, people with practical experience, not just the posh men in suits, but as we enter into trade agreements the experts in relation to farming, fishing and foodstuffs are to be found among the devolved Administrations around the United Kingdom, and they have to be taken along with them. Hill farming and crofting are the economic backbone of some of our most economically fragile communities to be found anywhere in the country. The money earned stays in those communities; it goes into the shops, the agricultural merchants, the vets and the post offices. It keeps children in schools; it keeps doctors, solicitors, accountants and others in practice.”
“Member for Tiverton and Honiton: when other countries go into negotiations with us they will expect the same opportunities as we have given Australia. We will hear from the Minister later, but it would appear that the Secretary of State is very keen to offer them the same opportunities. She seems to be on a mission to get more of such agreements. Her ideological commitment to free trade risks putting our farmers and farming communities at real risk. Other Members have made the point that the TAC will need to have representation from across the whole of the United Kingdom. It is good that we have, as the hon.”
“We are talking about the difference in standards. The problem that the hon. Member has, and many of his hon. Friends face the same difficulty, is that there is a fundamental unfairness in the Government’s approach. For decades, we have told our farmers that it is in their economic interest to go for top-end production, and raise the standards of animal welfare and environmental protection. Now they risk having the rug pulled out from under their feet. That is the question to which Government Back Benchers require an answer, and against which their actions will be judged at the next election. To come back to Australian standards, the cap that has been set in the agreement in principle on imports is so high as to be meaningless. I come back to the point that I made to the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon.”
“What assessment she has made of the potential effect of tariff-free trade of agricultural goods between the UK and Australia on UK farmers and crofters.”
“Patrick Krause, chief executive of the Scottish Crofting Foundation, recently made the point that the real risk for Scottish crofters from the Australia deal comes from the fact that other countries with which we do trade deals will want the same good terms that we have given to Australia. As he said, “Crofting is good for food, and also has very impressive environmental and climate-change mitigation credentials. And crofting is about the people—crofting has maintained communities in remote rural places.” How much of that does the Minister think will be said of the products that will be imported to replace crofted lamb?”
“The Secretary of State’s statement today is a quite remarkable achievement. I have followed Northern Ireland politics all my adult life and I can think of very few occasions when Secretaries of State in this place have been able to unite all five parties in Northern Ireland, but he today has achieved exactly that. They are, however, all united in telling him that on the question of an amnesty he is wrong. He stands at the Dispatch Box today and says that he makes no moral equivalence between those who broke the law and those who upheld it. Why then is he offering them all legal equivalence?”
“Do the Minister and her colleagues have that political will, and will they use it for the benefit of our fishing industries and the communities that rely on them?”
“Will it require a boat to go to the bottom of the sea before somebody takes responsibility and acts to end this irresponsibility? I am aware that I have already taken quite a lot of the time given to today’s debate. I have a lot more to say, but I am afraid that that must be left to others. In January, I asked the Secretary of State if he would meet me and industry representatives to discuss the problems facing the industry. He ignored the request then and has done so since, so I make it again today. Will the Minister sit down with Members of this House and industry representatives? Will she listen to us and engage? If not, I fear the anger and frustration in the industry will only grow. Our fishing industry still has enormous potential, but to realise that potential requires political will.”
“Put the fishing to the side on this matter, it’s the danger they put both vessels in that’s totally against the law,’ says Ross. Asked if he has experienced this before, Ross says that he has, and it is a growing concern for him and skippers across the fleet, but they are afraid that the authorities are not doing enough to protect the fleet and one day it will lead to a tragedy. ‘Yes, it’s happening too often,’ he said. ‘Last year another vessel did the same to us and I reported him to the Coastguard and MAIB but I didn’t hear any outcome, so I just presumed it was a waste of time.’” I have met the Minister and officials from her Department and others about this, and they all come out with lots of good and detailed reasons why it is awfully complicated and difficult to fix. These reasons no longer hold water, however.”
“She knows how close the Alison Kay came to disaster in her encounter with the Spanish gillnetter Pesorsa Dos. I have to tell the Minister, though, that the situation continues to be bad, and that in fact it is getting worse. On Monday 28 June, Ross David Robertson and his crew, in his trawler Mizpah, were operating in traditional grounds north of Shetland when they were confronted by the Genesis FD 19, a 30-metre, 298-tonne longliner. It crossed the bow of the Mizpah and came within three metres of hitting it. Ross David Robertson told The Fishing Daily , “‘We are trying to fish on grounds to suit our quota allocation but can’t get fishing because of these vicious wolf packs chasing us off. The seamen ship off these guys are totally horrendous.”
“It is just about the most unsustainable form of fishing imaginable: it contributes massively to the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans and means that for several square miles of water at a time, local boats are excluded from fishing areas that they have traditionally seen as their base grounds. For years, we were told that this was something that we had to live with as part of the common fisheries policy. That no longer applies, so why do we still allow it? The Minister also knows, because I have told her, of the friction between local boats and gillnetters. When the Fisheries Act 2020 passed into law, I urged her to give the Maritime and Coastguard Agency powers to police the waters in our exclusive economic zone, between 12 miles and the 200-mile limit.”
“Marine Scotland figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show a massive disparity between the approach to UK boats and to the French and Spanish fleets, which are allowed to go about their business virtually unmolested. Why is that? Is it, as was suggested to me, because fisheries protection officers do not have the same access to real-time catch data from foreign vessels as they do for UK boats? Again, the complaint is the same around the coasts; it seems that what is true of Marine Scotland is true also of enforcement agencies south of the border. The Minister has heard me speak before about the practice of gillnetting off the west of Shetland. This practice is environmental lunacy.”
“However, as we enter the third quarter of the year, having only recently and finally established the quota entitlement for this year, we still do not know how these in-year quota swaps are going to work. Can the Minister tell us when the industry might expect to be told how it will get access to the extra quota that it needs? With every week that passes, this becomes more urgent. Another theme that came through loud and clear from fishermen in every part of the country was their unhappiness at the inequality of treatment when it comes to sea boardings by fisheries enforcement officers. In Scotland, that is the responsibility of Marine Scotland.”
“One major processor in Peterhead told me a few weeks ago that he was constantly at least 10% down on his required staffing levels. That means that either he is paying overtime to his staff, or he has to restrict the range of work that he takes on; either way, it has a massive impact on his profitability. What is the Minister doing to bring home to our colleagues in the Home Office the need to ensure that the processing centres have access to the skilled labour that they need? The Prime Minister’s deal was deficient in many respects. For the catching sector, one of the most dramatic of those was the loss of easy access to in-year quota swaps. The Secretary of State assured us that those could easily be agreed on a Government-to-Government basis.”
“He had sought to mitigate his loss by selling his fish at a much lower price on the domestic market and, in doing so, he managed to limit his loss to £20,000 rather than the £50,000 loss that he had originally faced. When he applied for help to meet that restricted loss, he was told that because he had sold his fish—he had done the responsible thing—there would be no assistance for him. If, when the Minister promised in January to help exporters, she had meant that to qualify for that help, they would have to leave their fish to rot, she should have said so. Will she revisit how that compensation scheme has worked? Processors have been badly hit as a result of their inability to source the labour that they need to run their businesses.”
“They feel let down and used, and they want answers. At the start of the year, we saw catastrophic gridlock as exporters seeking to take advantage of what would traditionally be the busiest week of the first quarter were unable to get their fish to market in continental Europe. Promises were made then that British businesses would be compensated for their losses, and I spoke to one local exporter in Shetland who was looking at a loss in the region of £50,000; he was not alone. The Minister and the Secretary of State made big promises about compensation schemes, but how did that work out? I spoke to the same person again yesterday.”
“Why are they allowing uncontrolled fishing by foreign vessels in our waters?” From Cornwall, at the other end of the country, a skipper wrote to me as “someone who has fished for 40 years from my home village of St Mawes in Cornwall.” He said: “There were 18 boats worked here when I started, all with 2 or 3 crew and now we are down to the last 2 trawlers, both working single-handedly due to the constant negativity surrounding the industry. With Brexit we had a golden opportunity, the one and only chance to keep these vessels out to at least 12 miles, the meridian line would be the next goal but no, an unbelievably weak Government has put us in a worse position than before.” In coastal and island communities around the country, the anger and frustration felt by fishermen is almost palpable.”
“There are also plans to cut the cod quota further in 2022, so it begs the question why are we still using the broken quota system the EU put in place now that we are an independent coastal state?” Magnus, a 19-year-old fisherman from Whalsay, who has plans to buy into a whitefish boat with a few close friends and so is the future of this industry, asked: “Why is the fishing industry having to fight their own Government for survival? Why do their advisory boards have no qualified fishermen or ex fishermen or fish processors advising them?”
“The emails came in from all around the coast, from catchers, processors, engineers and traders, and all with the same message: the deal struck by the Prime Minister on Christmas eve is not what they were promised and, six months into its first year, it is causing massive difficulties. One Shetland skipper spoke for many when he wrote: “I run a small wooden 22-metre trawler around Shetland. We have a ridiculously small cod quota and we find it impossible to avoid cod, there is more cod around Shetland right now than at anytime in living memory but our quota is minuscule. It has been said by skippers recently that you can catch your year’s quota in one day!”
“His contribution will be missed, and I am sure that hon. Members from all parts of the House will want to send condolences to his family. I hope that David would approve of what today’s debate is about, which is giving a voice in Parliament to our fishing industries—industries that were promised so much by politicians, from the Prime Minister downwards, and that now look to him and them to deliver on what they promised. When the holding of today’s debate was first announced, I put out a call for evidence to hear the views of people in the industry and its associated sectors. I anticipated a healthy response, but even so I was astonished at the volume and content of what I received.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered fisheries management after the UK’s departure from the EU. It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Sir Charles. First, I place on the record my gratitude to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this debate. Before turning to the business of today’s debate, I want to say a few words about the recent and very sad passing of David Linkie, former editor of Fishing News . David’s work on Fishing News was more than just journalism; it was a mission to give a voice to the fishing industry and to the communities that depend on it. I will not claim to have agreed with every word he ever wrote, but we do not have to agree with someone to acknowledge their passion, sincerity and commitment, and in David, all that and more shone through.”
“When the Backbench Business Committee offered us 90 minutes on a Tuesday morning, they asked whether that would be good enough. I replied, “Consider your hands duly bitten off!” I hope that they will feel that we have made good use of the time this morning. I want to see this subject back in the Chamber with a longer debate because this is really just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Thank you for chairing what has been an excellent debate, Sir Charles; we have covered just about every sector and geographic area possible. It is unfortunate that nobody from Cornwall made it on to the call list. That was one notable omission. Essentially, we can pull two strands from this debate. The first is how very different things could have been if we had had the implementation period, for six months or so, to bed these arrangements in. We said we needed that, but we did not get it. Secondly, as we have heard from the different examples around the country, the worst fisheries management has always been the most centralised. If the Minister takes nothing else from this debate, she must take back the need to engage with the industry, devolved Administrations and local communities as widely and effectively as possible.”
“I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way, because he has made reference a number of times now to powers that are being repatriated subsequent to our departure from the European Union. Does he not accept that when it comes to matters such as agricultural payments and fisheries management, we now have the highly unsatisfactory situation where the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for example, acts as a UK and an English Ministry? Does he not think that that makes the case for devolution within England?”
“The Leader of the House is being generous with his time. Surely the logic of his position is that if it is unsatisfactory for this House to be at the same time a UK and an English Parliament, the same thing must apply to the Executive.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, because, in Scotland in the 1990s, her party and mine were part of exactly that: a constitutional convention. However, I remind her in the House that that was not about a question of national identity, as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) suggests. It was about better governance, and it was about bringing control of affairs back closer to the people. So the question of who speaks for England is not the appropriate question. The question should be: who should be speaking for the various parts of England?”
“Finally, how will the data that is captured in this way, which belongs to us all, be held and protected?”
“Last week, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s review was reported to this House as having concluded that covid vaccine certification was not necessary and would not go ahead. Since then, however, there seems to have been a review of the review, because the Secretary of State said today that “the Government will be encouraging businesses and large events to use certification in high-risk settings”. Can the Secretary of State tell the House now what constitutes a high-risk setting in this context, and who will be the judge of what is a high-risk setting? What constitutes “large events”, and who will judge what they are? What is meant by “encouraging businesses” and what will be the consequences for any businesses that resist the encouragement from Government in this way?”
“For the record, I agree with a lot of what the hon. Gentleman says with regard to the social contract, but if his analysis is that we are genuinely out of the end of the emergency period, then surely the same question—if not now, when?—should be applied in respect of the start of the inquiry?”
“I very much share the hon. and learned Lady’s analysis of the work of openDemocracy and the Good Law Project. On the subject of emails that are only now coming into the public domain, does she agree that intervening to delay the publication of data relating to care home deaths in Scotland, as a story in The Scotsman indicates that Fiona Hyslop did, was, at the very least, ill advised?”
“We need a bit of sympathetic and strategic planning of the time to be taken. The matter that we are talking about today—covid contracts—is exactly the sort of thing that could be dealt with in the early stages of the inquiry, which is why we should be able to start it.”
“It took until 2016 for us to get the Chilcot inquiry report—all 12 volumes and executive summary of it. I do not think that it is hyperbole to say that by the time the report came the moment had somewhat passed. Personally, I still use that report—six volumes act as a laptop stand, and the other six ensure that the door will not blow shut if I open the window. That, I am afraid, is the danger that faces us, and it is why we have to have an early start to the inquiry. If the need for restrictions has passed, as the Prime Minister and so many of his Back Benchers have told us, surely the time has come for us to start that work. I am sympathetic to the views of those who act as scientific and medical advisers, but the inquiry, when it comes, will have to deal with so much more than just the public health aspects.”
“It was a rare moment in public life, because there was a sense that—in that much misused and overused phrase—we were “all in this together”. It pains me to say that many of the things that we have seen and heard, and that we have discussed today, have done so much to damage and diminish that sense of national endeavour. The earliest possible clarity and resolution of these things—to pick up the words of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire, the earliest opportunity to decide what is hyperbole and what is hard fact—matters for our politics as a whole. I was here when the House voted to go to war in Iraq. I believed then, and have believed since, that that was a major strategic error in the United Kingdom’s foreign policy. That was in 2003.”
“Friends will support the motion in a Division; however, by way of clarification, we will do so because of the words that SNP Members have put in it, not necessarily because of many of the arguments that they have advanced in support of it. The inquiry requires to be early. There is no real justification for a delay until the spring of next year. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) spoke about the social contract. As I said to him at the time, I very much share his analysis. In fact, it is because of that social contract, which essentially comes down to the relationship between the citizen and the state, that an early and thorough, but not overly lengthy, inquiry is absolutely necessary. To go back to the spirit of March 2020, there was a genuine sense of national endeavour.”
“I am pleased that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) took us back to the position pertaining to March last year, because that is a very important piece of context for this whole debate. It informs the decisions we took then: what we knew about the likely course of the pandemic and how much, in fact, we now know was probably guesswork. I will return to that, because I think it is an important piece of context for the decisions that this House took then and the accountability we are now entitled to demand of Government for the exercise of the powers that this House gave them at that time. Effectively, we gave them the powers on trust. My right hon. and hon.”
“We can go back as far as the granting of the power to force people to carry identity cards in 1939. We might have thought that that would finish in 1945, but in fact it was the early 1950s before a court ruled that the emergency had passed and the carrying of identity cards was no longer necessary. I also want this inquiry to look at what the decision-making process was to ensure that we continued with these emergency powers, because I would suggest that the moment had probably passed in September of last year and had almost certainly passed by March of this year when we renewed them for the second time. So there are questions that can be answered now. They must be answered now, and it is in the interests of politics and the standing of this place that they should be answered now.”
“An inquiry that starts now might have a fighting chance of bringing at least preliminary decisions to this House and to the public before that point. One that starts in the spring of next year—we know that spring is a moveable feast in Government calendars—will almost certainly still be doing its work when it comes to a general election in 2023, if that is when we get it. The point is that, in March last year, this House gave a lot of power to the Executive—unprecedented amounts of power. Those powers for the most part, actually, have been unused, but still the Government insist on holding on to them, because that is in the nature of Governments. Once Parliament gives power to the Executive, the Executive are always very reluctant to give it back.”
“Actually no: it is not an either/or. I think it is eminently possible to have a quick and dirty analysis. In fact, given that we may be looking at further waves, vaccine resistance and the rest of it, I think it is very important that we do have an early analysis of some of the public health aspects. However, that should not be a barrier to a fuller and more thorough analysis of things when we have the full facts available to us. As I say, other public inquiries have proceeded in that way, and I see no reason why this one should not. The reason why I think it is particularly important that we have an early start is that, as we read in many of the newspapers, the Government’s intention is possibly to go to the country in a general election as early as 2023.”
“Surely the biggest difference, though, between the situation today and that facing Edward Heath in the 1970s is the amount, the nature and the regulation of the spending of money. Heath did not have a long period before a short period of expenses and there were not those controls. Effectively, this Bill will allow the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister alone to be the only person who knows when that long period starts and to pile the money in. That is what this is about, is it not?”
“If, as the Minister says, this is about the point at which the Prime Minister can command the confidence of the House, surely that is something that can only be determined by this House and not the Prime Minister, so the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is a good one.”