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 66 of 95.
“The community does not feel comfortable, despite the best efforts of the shop owner, to go along and get their pensions on one side of the counter while standing next to someone buying their messages on the other. The Post Office needs to be more proactive in supporting people who are prepared to provide a sub-post office service. I spent an hour on Sunday night with the owners of the Palace Stores in Birsay in Orkney—a great little local shop that also includes the post office. They tell me that they have probably lost about a month of post office business because of poor connectivity. The broadband connection that is necessary to run a sub-post office is unreliable.”
“It has been a Herculean effort to find someone to take it on, but it shows that it is still possible to achieve that if there is willingness from a handful of people to make it work. It is difficult now to make a sub-post office work as a stand-alone business, and for that reason the few businesses that are left are generally being folded into shops, garages, cafés and other places. That is good for those businesses, but it requires a bit more flexibility and sensitivity on the part of the Post Office. I am thinking of the example of Stromness, the second largest town in Orkney, which for years had a stand-alone sub-post office. When that sub-post office was no longer allowed to continue, it was moved into a bakers and general store.”
“In my time in Parliament I have seen a large number of post office closures, although whenever there is a structured programme of closures we, in Scotland, generally do quite well out of it; we do not see very many post offices close because we have a small population spread over a large area of terrain. However, there has been a constant process of attrition. Time after time, sub-post offices have closed temporarily because the person running them has retired or moved away or is simply fed up with managing the business—and who can blame them? In fact, I have one post office that is about to reopen in the next month or two in the village of Finstown in Orkney.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in the debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who introduced the debate, and his colleagues on obtaining time from the Backbench Business Committee. It is almost trite to say that post offices, and sub-post offices in particular, are central to the life of many of our small rural and village communities, but that is very much the case. Indeed, as we see the withdrawal of other services, such as clearing banks, from such communities, they will only grow in importance. Maintaining a vibrant and viable network of sub-post offices across our smaller and more rural communities is therefore now more important than ever.”
“That is a disappointing answer. The campaign for a reduced rate of VAT for tourism estimates that a 5% rate would produce a higher tax take and could create 121,000 jobs across the country. That would be of particular benefit to many economically fragile coastal and island communities. Will the Minister meet campaigners to discuss things in more detail?”
“I share the frustration at the lack of progress in forming an Administration, but, as my noble Friend Lord Alderdice has observed, the absence of an Administration should not be a barrier to having a functioning Assembly, which is more important now than ever. If the renewable heat incentive issue remains a barrier to progress, will the Secretary of State use his best offices to ensure that Judge Coghlin’s inquiry comes to the earliest possible conclusion and that we do not have to wait six months to see its outcome?”
“Last week I had to deal with a constituent whose benefits had been stopped because she missed an appointment to be assessed for PIP. She missed that appointment because she was an in-patient in hospital in Aberdeen. Even after evidence of that had been exhibited to the Minister’s Department, it twice refused to reinstate her benefits because it said that it had done nothing procedurally wrong. Is the Minister content that that is how the system is supposed to work?”
“Far-flung places such as London, if you start your journey in Orkney, Mr Speaker. Faroese Telecom has a bold and exciting proposal to improve connectivity in Scotland’s islands communities, but it is in fact thwarted at every turn by Ofcom regulation. Will the Minister agree to meet me and a delegation from the islands and Faroese Telecom to discuss how we could use Ofcom as an enabler rather than an obstructer?”
“Having encouraged the Secretary of State to take this course of action, may I now welcome the fact that she has done so? She deserves credit for doing the right thing, and I have no doubt that she will have the support of the House as this matter goes forward. Many years ago, I served on the Standing Committee that considered the Enterprise Bill, and I recall that the provisions on this process were supported by all parties at that time. It strikes me, however, that in the light of this experience, it might be appropriate at its conclusion to revisit whether we do in fact have the processes we really need to ensure that we get the ends that we want to achieve.”
“The question of treating people with dignity is particularly important when it comes to the detention of children. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about the closure of the Cedars centre, which was not easy to set up or cheap to run but was about exactly that—treating people with dignity? Is he concerned that, unlike Cedars, the new arrangement has not had the active participation of Barnardo’s?”
“T6. The manufacturers’ organisation EEF last week highlighted the difficulties that manufacturers are having in filling skilled engineering posts. Manufacturers warn that if the situation is not to get worse post-Brexit, they will need the flexibility to employ and deploy people across Europe. What consideration has the Secretary of State given to the representations from EEF, and what reassurance can he give?”
“If their business goes bust, no one will step in and give them a redundancy payment.”
“That needs to be tackled, and it is something that the Chancellor could usefully have taken on today. In fact, the Chancellor has introduced a tax increase for some of the most hard-pressed people in our communities. I think he has done this because he just does not understand what life is like for people who work as builders, plumbers, window cleaners or hairdressers, and for the many others who will be affected by this change. He says that this is about levelling the playing field between employment and self-employment, but we all know that that playing field will never be level, and that fact has to be recognised in our tax structures. Self-employed people take risks, sometimes putting their house on the line. The reality is that if a sole trader does not work, they get no sick pay.”
“That will be welcomed by the industry. [ Interruption. ] The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has just indicated that it will be backdated. This measure could have a significant effect on our continued exploitation of resources on the UK continental shelf. We will await the Government’s discussion document with interest and see what it says. The real story that will emerge from this Budget is the Chancellor’s lack of understanding of small businesses. He is really out of touch, and at no time was that more transparent than when he spoke about the changes to national insurance contributions for self-employed people. There are abuses of self-employed status. In the so-called gig economy, employers such as Uber are taking people on as self-employed agents when they are, to all intents and purposes, employees.”
“I am not, however, one of those who think that a determination to tackle climate change means that we should turn our back on hydrocarbons. They remain an important part of our economy, particularly in my constituency in the Northern Isles. I was a little underwhelmed by the Chancellor’s offer of a discussion document, especially since it was the second such offer, but on reflection, and having heard a few other emerging details, I believe that this at least shows an understanding of the need to take continued, serious action to help the North sea oil and gas industry. The Chancellor did not refer to it, but I understand that the Government have today laid before Parliament a statutory instrument—I have not yet had sight of it—to extend the definition of investment expenditure for certain categories of operating and leasing expenditure.”
“It was also disappointing for Opposition Members that the Chancellor seemed to have nothing to say about the need to tackle climate change. There are so many possible measures, many of which are not particularly expensive. There could have been more measures to encourage energy efficiency, and only a small amount of money would be necessary to develop renewable energy—most notably, in my constituency, through wave and tidal power generation—but there was absolutely no mention of those things. At a time when there are so many other pressures calling for the Government’s attention, it is more important than ever that the long-term issues—of which climate change is probably the most clamant—should not be forgotten.”
“The one recurring message, whichever sector I speak to, whether it is the Corporation of London or farmers, crofters and fishermen in Orkney and Shetland, is that a hard Brexit and the determination to leave the single market and the customs union, possibly without securing a trade deal, which would leave us on World Trade Organisation rules, would be disastrous for them. This is the first day since the Prime Minister made her speech at Mansion House on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has had an opportunity to give some reassurance, and to tell the various sectors of our economy that there was an understanding of their position, but he failed to do that. His failure to say anything on the subject was culpable and could ultimately be catastrophic.”
“I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to take part in this debate. It can occasionally be a dangerous debate in which to speak. In my experience, Budgets that are welcomed on Wednesday are often damned by Sunday, but I do not know what would need to happen between now and Sunday for this one to be described as exciting. Other Members have referred to Brexit as the elephant in the room. It is important that we understand and explain to those on the Treasury Bench why the Chancellor’s failure to address Brexit was so important. As a member of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, it is rarely necessary for me these days to stick my hand in my pocket to pay for bacon and eggs. Just about everybody wants to buy me breakfast to explain why Brexit is going to be so difficult for their sector.”
“That was the point I was making about Uber and other companies that take on people as nominally self-employed agents, when to all intents and purposes they are employees. That must be tackled, but this Chancellor seems to have no great enthusiasm for tackling the big corporates. The change will not hurt them; it will hurt the small sole traders who are working in their own right, rather than as agents of a bigger corporate.”
“The Liberal Democrats welcome the extra money for social care, but I fear that it will ultimately be inadequate, and that we will be in the middle of another NHS winter crisis this time next year. I wonder how many more crises our NHS will be able to sustain while retaining good-quality staff and providing the service that we enjoy at present. My final point is about spirits duty— [ Interruption. ] I do hope that I am not intruding on the shadow Chancellor.”
“That brings us back to the same crux of the problem, which is that we are treating everybody with self-employed status as though they were living in the same way, but they are manifestly not. There is a distinction to be drawn between risk-takers and entrepreneurs, and those who are effectively employed but are treated as self-employed. That is the issue, but it will not be tackled by today’s change. Likewise, the digitisation of tax will affect many sole traders and small business people. It is welcome that the proposal has been delayed for a year, but we all know about the problems that will make it difficult and, frankly, I do not see many of them being resolved in a year. All we have done is kick the can down the road.”
“I am an easy person to miss. Spirits duty is being increased by 3.9%, which has already been rightly condemned by the Scotch Whisky Association. Not only will that affect an enormously important manufacturing sector for my constituency and for the Scottish and UK economies, but the effect will go beyond Scotch whisky. When I was first elected to the House in 2001, my constituency had what would be called one and a half whisky distilleries. We now have two full-time whisky distilleries and three gin distilleries. [ Laughter. ] I am not claiming responsibility or credit for that, but we all know that the market supplies when demand increases. The point is that that is typical of many areas of the country. It is a growth area with small, growing businesses that deserve support; they do not need to be clobbered in this way.”
“Indeed, although the Howard League tells us that 2016 was the worst year ever recorded for suicides in prison, with one prisoner every three days across the UK taking his or her life. Does the Minister accept that the earliest diagnosis— and the best diagnosis—will not make much difference if we continue to house prisoners in overcrowded prisons, with the most vulnerable being locked up 23 hours a day?”
“I agree absolutely with what the hon. Lady says. Does she agree with me, however, that there have been occasions in the not-so-distant past when we have allowed our standards to slip? The Government could demonstrate their bona fides for future intentions by taking a more open and transparent approach in settling cases such as the Belhaj and Boudchar case.”
“That will continue to be our position.” —[ Official Report , 25 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 291.] Those sentences should be on the desk of every Home Office and Foreign Office Minister. I would like to hear a more express statement about the possibility of sharing intelligence with any country in the world that uses torture, both because of our leadership position and because we must atone for some of our quite recent failings in this area.”
“Member for Twickenham that we are a world leader in this area, and it is more important now than ever that we maintain that position. At Foreign Office questions some time ago, I asked the Foreign Secretary whether he had raised the possibility of sharing intelligence with the Trump Administration in the event that they reverted to the use of torture, such as waterboarding or, as the President said during the campaign, something “a hell of a lot worse”. In the House, the Foreign Secretary said that that was an operational matter that he would not comment on —I think it is more a matter of policy myself—but in later correspondence he returned to the quote that the hon. Member for Twickenham offered us from the Prime Minister, who said that “we do not sanction torture and do not get involved in it.”
“Freedom from Torture was mentioned, and I was present in November at the launch of its most recent piece of work, “Proving Torture”. I have been associated with Reprieve for many years and have campaigned with Amnesty International in different parts of the world over the years, principally on the abolition of the death penalty but also on human rights concerns more widely. Whenever I have been in other parts of the world, it has struck me that however much we may beat ourselves up about our past misdeeds, foreign policy failings and other things, we are still seen, by and large, as a force for good in the world. That goes to the point that the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) made about the counterproductive nature of torture. It also touches on the point made by the hon.”
“I, too, express my gratitude to the members of the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the time to debate this subject. I commend the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) for her leadership in securing the debate. I note that, in a minor way, the pronunciation of the constituency of the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) risks becoming, for some people, an instrument of torture in itself. The hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) posed some very relevant and pointed questions to the Minister regarding the training of caseworkers in the Home Office. I will not repeat them, but they were pertinent and ones with which I would very much wish to associate myself. Like others, I place on the record my appreciation for the many non-governmental and campaign organisations that work in this field.”
“No one was supposed to work for more than six to 12 months at the very most on cases involving the sexual abuse of children, because they were such difficult and taxing cases, and the people who were involved in that sort of work ended up being burnt out. For that reason, I suspect that rotation among caseworkers who do asylum work should be taken a bit more seriously than it appears to be. I am mindful of your strictures about time, Mr Bailey, so although I could probably say a great deal more about this subject, I shall conclude my remarks and allow others to take part.”
“In 74% of the cases examined by Freedom from Torture, asylum caseworkers substituted their own opinion for that of clinicians, and in 30% of cases, asylum caseworkers disputed or queried clinicians’ qualifications or expertise. Those things should cause concern. They give context for the 76% of successful appeals that I referred to and relate to the points raised by the hon. Member for Harrow West. The hon. Member for Twickenham was absolutely right to say that the Home Office has a duty of care towards people who do such enormously difficult and taxing work, from which significant political pressure is never far away and which is done in the professional context of an occasionally toxic debate. I worked as a public prosecutor for some years a long time ago.”
“I take the Minister’s point that new information is sometimes provided on appeal that was not there in the first instance. Appeals may succeed for any number of reasons, but the fact that 76% of cases resulted in asylum being granted on appeal should concern Home Office Ministers. I suspect that if a judge sitting in a sheriff court in Scotland or perhaps a Crown court in England had 76% of his or her cases overturned on appeal, the Lord Chancellor would look carefully at the way that judge went about his or her business. There is more context in that report to support my contention that the 76% figure is concerning.”
“That is why it is important that as we enter a new phase of international relations with a new Administration in the White House, rightly or wrongly, we should have concerns about their approach to torture and put out there the highest possible standards. We should not forget—the Crown Prosecution Service has already said this—that Sir Mark Allen sought political authority for his actions in the al-Saadi and Belhaj cases, so it is difficult for us as a country to deny any knowledge or complicity in them. Freedom from Torture’s “Proving Torture” report contains several highly concerning statistics from the sample of cases that it examined, and I will remind the House of some of those. Some 76% of the cases that Freedom from Torture studied in preparing that report eventually resulted in successful appeals.”
“The case will presumably go through the courts to whatever conclusion is reached, but it is worth reflecting that we have got this far at the cost of £750,000 but we are just back at the starting line, and a lot more could still be spent on that case. The plaintiffs have offered to settle for £3—£1 each from the Government, the former Foreign Secretary and Sir Mark Allen, whose involvement in the case is fairly well documented. The al-Saadi case, which was very similar, was settled out of court without any requirement for the case to be taken. More significantly, Belhaj and Boudchar want an apology as well as their £3. No apology was made in the al-Saadi case, but it cost the British taxpayer some £2.2 million.”
“That is a fair point. I put it in those terms—I know the hon. Gentleman’s background—because we have some damage to repair. I am mindful of your strictures about the sub judice rule, Mr Bailey. We now have the final Supreme Court judgment in respect of the Government’s preliminary points in the Belhaj and Boudchar case, which I referred to earlier. I will not talk about the substance of that case, because that would clearly be inappropriate and I would be ruled out of order, but it is a matter of public record that the Government so far have spent £750,000 pursuing those unsuccessful preliminary points.”
“I am pleased to hear about the engagement with Freedom from Torture, and I encourage the Minister to consider that. I think that Freedom from Torture acknowledged when it launched the report that it was a small sample of cases. Its finding that 76% of asylum cases involving torture were granted on appeal is something that the Minister’s Department should be able to confirm or contradict. Is he able to do so?”
“I sense that the Minister is perhaps trying to get to his peroration, but if I may, I shall take advantage of the time remaining. In the course of my remarks, I referred to the Belhaj case. I am mindful of all the strictures on that, but does the Minister agree that it is in the national interest now, given the judgment of the Supreme Court, that we have an early resolution of it?”
“2. What discussions she has had with representatives of the fishing industry on the priority to be given to that industry in the UK’s negotiations on leaving the EU.”
“I have an instinctive sympathy for anybody who is delayed by planes. It is a big part of my life. The Secretary of State will be aware that before we had the common fisheries policy we had the London convention of 1964, which governed the access of foreign vessels to the six to 12-mile-limit waters. Is it the Government’s intention to remain a party to that convention after we leave the European Union?”
“I very much commend the hon. Gentleman and his constituents for the efforts that they have made. Looking beyond the leisure boating sector, does he agree that there is also an opportunity for lessons about planning, training and servicing equipment to be learned in the commercial sector? Fifty-four commercial fishermen were killed at sea between 2010 and 2014. Does not that show that the same lessons have a wider application?”
“The root cause of the problem is the operation of the detention camp at Guantanamo. The Government supported President Obama’s aspiration to see it closed or its numbers reduced. The current President said when he was campaigning that he would “load it up with some bad dudes”. Do the Government now support President Obama’s position or President Trump’s?”
“The only table where we feature near the top—fourth from the top—is unfortunately the one showing the percentage of households in constituencies that are unable to get connection speeds of 10 megabits per second or more.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the rollout of superfast broadband to rural communities. It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. Anyone wondering why broadband should be of concern to me and my constituents could do no better than to look at the briefing paper prepared by the House of Commons Library for today’s debate. If anyone is looking for Orkney and Shetland in just about any of the various league tables in that paper, do not bother looking for us at the top of most of them, because we are generally at or around the bottom. We are the sixth lowest UK constituency for superfast broadband availability, and in the table for average speeds, the situation is even worse—we are fourth lowest.”
“Indeed. Breaking the picture down to ward level gives a much better idea of what is happening on the ground, but even when one looks at the statistics that are provided, one does not have the full story. I know from engaging regularly with BT in my constituency that it will say that x number of people within an area now have broadband access—it is doing that within postcode areas, essentially—but one will find that, even within the specified area, the people who can actually get superfast broadband will not be the same as those included in the headline figure.”
“I could make many comments about that sort of thing, but I fear that you would rule me out of order, Mr Brady. It does, however, illustrate the frustration that many people in rural communities feel, and it is becoming more acute. The evidence is growing that the disparity between the densely populated urban areas and rural areas is becoming ever wider.”
“However, if someone in an island community loses their job and another one is not available locally, they leave the island, which means that another salary is taken out of the local economy, another school has a smaller roll and fewer people are using the local post offices—the list goes on. That is why connectivity is essential for us.”
“If I can just make a second or two of progress, I will take as many interventions as I can later. The problem is acute for people in rural areas and it is particularly serious for people in island areas—it strikes at the heart of everything that we seek to do in maintaining island populations. A critical mass of population is essential to maintaining the economy and the social viability of any island community. In a rural area that is close to an urban area, if someone loses their job or their business goes into administration or receivership, they can move or they can drive for another half-hour or hour to get another job.”
“The hon. Gentleman and I both know the Faroe Islands quite well and we both know that they have been able to achieve the things that our island communities have struggled to achieve because they start from the presumption of a service that is provided for the people on the islands first. It is not something that is driven from, as it is for his community and mine, people in Edinburgh or even Inverness, which is frankly not an awful lot better. It is community and island-centric provision. That is what matters.”
“Superfast broadband—that means speeds greater than 30 megabits per second—is now available in 89% of premises, which is more than 25 million, across the whole of the United Kingdom. However, those high-level, headline statistics actually illustrate the acuteness of the divide—the growing divide—between urban and rural communities. In Scotland, 43.9% of people living in large urban areas, as opposed to 7.9% in remote urban areas, are able to receive speeds classed as superfast. Those unable to reach the 10-megabits-per-second threshold constitute 1.6% in large urban areas, as opposed to 54.3% in very rural areas. That is a good illustration of the gap between the digital haves and have-nots—the rural and the urban.”
“The hon. Lady has the advantage of me. I was mildly and pleasantly surprised to hear that we still have a controlling interest in Cornwall. I am sure that my colleagues there are doing their best in very difficult circumstances. I am sure equally, from the tone of her intervention, that the hon. Lady will be doing everything she can, in a non-partisan way, to work with them. Let me make progress for a minute or two. Ofcom’s “Connected Nations” report in December 2016 gave us a good snapshot of the overall picture. Average download speeds across the UK as a whole are now running at 37 megabits per second. However, 5% of premises, which is about 1.4 million, are unable to receive speeds faster than 10 megabits per second.”
“The position will never be uniform across any community but—I think that this distinction is material—there is a range of opportunities available in urban areas that are simply not available to those of us in more rural areas. It is invidious to play one side off against the other—in making the comparison between urban and rural, I am merely highlighting the difference and not trying to set one community against another.”