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 68 of 95.
“When I was last a Back Bencher, there was no such thing as the Backbench Business Committee. I got a bit of a telling-off from the Committee because apparently I did not fill in the form very well. Those things are important; I took its criticisms to heart. When the opportunity arises for a reprise of this debate, I will be able to pray in aid our excellent proceedings this afternoon to ensure that we can keep the issue on the Floor of the House and at the front of public attention, because that is where it belongs.”
“We have had a truly excellent debate. Although we have had contributions from 15 right hon. and hon. Members, including the Minister, we have managed to cover the full range of areas, instead of each of us standing up and piece by piece repeating what has already been said. I hope that we will see the debate as not just an event in itself, but the start of a process, and that the Minister will make good on his undertakings this afternoon, both on the prioritisation of policy work and on his continuing engagement with parliamentarians. It is clear that there is a common and shared interest in all parts of the House. For me, it is a matter of some satisfaction and relief that the debate has been as well attended and productive as it has been. I confess that this is the first time I have sponsored a Back-Bench business debate.”
“T6. When the Foreign Secretary met the President-elect’s team, did he make it clear to them that the United Kingdom will not share intelligence with his Administration if his Administration is then to use it in association with a revived US torture programme?”
“This is not the first time that the institutions have been brought to the brink, and each time leadership is required to bring them back. Principally, that leadership has to come from the parties in Northern Ireland, but there is a leadership role for the Government and the Secretary of State. He has the power under the Inquiries Act 2005 to constitute a public inquiry into the handling of RHI, so will he do so? As he finds his way through this, will he undertake to speak to all parties in Northern Ireland, not just to the DUP and Sinn Féin?”
“Taking at face value the criticisms that the Minister levels with regard to the provisions for victims of crime, can he tell the House why the Government have not introduced amendments in lieu, instead of just asking us to disagree with the Lords amendments? After all, strengthening victims’ rights was in the Conservative manifesto at the most recent election; how much longer do we have to wait?”
“On who should be involved and consulted in the review, will the Minister bear in mind that party litigants cross-examining their victims is just one species of the controlling behaviour that lies at the heart of domestic abuse and that, for that reason, there is a real and important role for organisations such as Women’s Aid to have their voices heard in this process?”
“The Minister is at pains to tell us what she cannot do, and we respect that of course, but can she give us an assurance that she will use her office to ensure that there is a proper plurality of ownership of the media in this country, and that the views of this House, which have been clearly and frequently expressed, will also be respected at the end of this process?”
“Will the Secretary of State speak to the BBC about the role it can play in the future of Gaelic language broadcasting? It currently spends less than 0.25% on Gaelic programming, and as a result the otherwise excellent BBC Alba is left with a 74% repeat rate.”
“The programme looks as though it might have slipped through the cracks of Government. It needs somebody to take it up, to give it direction and to ensure that, at the end of the day, we have something that merits and is deserving of the original vision we had when we embarked on the programme. It needs a political hero, and I can think of no finer a political hero than the Minister.”
“Something that can take up to 26 weeks and cost the supplier in the region of £21,000 will become an even greater pressure on them if they are working to bring in a greater number of installers to meet that somewhat artificially imposed deadline. Essentially, as I said at the start, the roll-out is a good thing, which the Government should be doing. We should not, however, pursue a timetable that will be counter-productive to achieving what we all know and agree is a good thing. To take a step back, I suspect that, since May 2015, there has been a lot of churn in Government energy policy, with a lot of changes, particularly in relation to subsidies for renewables and other areas. A lot of high-level political decisions have had to be taken, and the Department of Energy and Climate Change has been folded into its current home.”
“There is a lack of dual-band communication hubs, which use a frequency of 868 MHz and which are important for thick-walled properties and for reaching over long distances. The challenges of the DCC timetable have led suppliers to whom I have talked to conclude that they are unlikely to meet the technical challenges until probably mid-2018. With pressure, they may be able to pull that forward but, again, it all takes us closer to the 2020 deadline and makes it all the more difficult to meet that. The insistence on the 2020 deadline will bring a range of other issues for suppliers, such as equipment and training of installers.”
“It is frustrating for them not to be able to. Again, we risk damaging the concept by continuing to roll out something that we know to be suboptimal. SMETS1 meters do not have the flexibility of SMETS2 technology and, in particular, do not allow the switching of suppliers, which consumers regularly hear messages about from Government. Because of that technical issue, something in the region of 130,000 of the 3 million-plus smart meters that have been rolled out are currently operating dumb as a consequence of changing suppliers. There have also been issues about pre-payment customers—people have lost credit and payment card functionality has been lost—and we know that there will be other technical issues. There is still no industry-wide solution for what they call multi-dwelling units—what to you and I, Mr Gapes, would be a block of flats.”
“Even if we take the optimistic view that we may have operational roll-out of DCC-enabled services by April 2017, that still leaves us with, at best, three years and eight months to deliver the remainder of the target. That is how tight things are. The delays in the DCC have other consequences. The meters that have been rolled out are, for the most part, the first version of the smart metering equipment technical specifications—SMETS1, as the jargon has it—and a range of problems comes with that. SMETS1 has been rolled out because that is the only thing available at present, but SMETS1 was only ever intended to be a low-volume learning experience. The lessons have been learned and the limitations have been seen. Suppliers know the issues that come from SMETS1 meters and want to go on to SMETS2 meters.”
“That is the central resource needed to support smart meters. Just before the last election, the then Secretary of State signed off a replan of the DCC timetable. That left us with an aim to deliver the first operational services from 2016, with a central planning assumption of August 2016 as opposed to the original one of December 2015. The DCC, which is managed by Capita, has since drawn down all its available contingency and will have delivered all its final releases beyond the “maximum” agreed contingency, but we still have no confirmed date for the final release. Inevitably, given that we are now in December 2016, there will be slippage into 2017.”
“Smart metering is obviously not going to be the panacea that cures fuel poverty, but it is important as part of the suite of options available to us. It is ironic that those who stand to benefit most and have the greatest need are, again, being left behind in the roll-out process. A bit of political direction, understanding that this is not going to succeed if it is just left in the major conurbations and urban areas, and that when we say 100% across the whole of the UK, it needs to mean exactly that, would be of enormous assistance. What is being done by the Minister and his Department to ensure that those of us in what would be termed as hard-to-reach areas are not left behind? One of the major recent challenges, which is related to the connectivity issue, has been the performance of the Data Communications Company.”
“I suspect that, if we drew a Venn diagram of areas with poor connectivity and areas where we have a high number of households living in fuel poverty, we would find a substantial overlap. That is particularly acute in my own constituency. In the Northern Isles we have poor housing stock; long, dark, cold winters, because of our geography; and an ageing demographic. The Scottish Government’s most recent figures put levels of fuel poverty at 63% of households in Orkney and 53% of households in Shetland—the Western Isles were also up there at 62%—measured against a Scottish average of 35%. In pensioner households, in Orkney the figure is 85%, for the Western Isles it is 75% and in Shetland it is 44%.”
“They are now looking at the Airwave infrastructure that has been put in place for the emergency services, seeing the competitive edge that has been given to EE, which is the company rolling that out, and saying, “Surely we should be allowed to use these masts as well.” This is an area where public money is being put into infrastructure for one purpose, when it could have a benefit for another purpose. Surely, given that it is all the taxpayers’ pound, someone within Government should be joining up the dots to ensure that that does happen. The issue is the limitations of what is available through the connectivity available to our constituents. It does not meet the expectation and the promises. The danger is that something that is a thoroughly desirable proposal in concept, could be undermined by poor consumer experience.”
“Why didn’t you?” In many areas of the country, the key to the roll-out comes down to connectivity, which has indeed been problematic for the project and the concept as a whole. This ties into other areas of Government policy encouraging connectivity, especially for the more remote and rural areas. We know the commitments that the mobile phone operators have made in terms of expanding their coverage and getting 3G and 4G coverage across the whole country.”
“From the various energy companies and consumer groups that I speak to, such as Citizens Advice and Which?, there is growing consensus that the target will not be met but that, with a determined adherence to it, we could bring a range of unintended consequences. This is a good time to look at these things again, when there is not a great deal of political heat surrounding the subject—no pun intended. However, if we get to the point where we have to review the target in two or three years’ time, at that point, politics will come into it. I am no better than anybody else; I will be there in two or three years’ time with the Hansard of today’s debate saying, “You were told at the time that you needed to do something.”
“That is significant progress, but when it is measured against the fact that we have in the region of 27 million households, and there may be in the region of 53 million energy meters to be installed, we see the scale of the challenge that the Government now face. My first question for the Minister, when he addresses this issue, is: what is the likelihood that we are going to get to the 100% target by 2020? At this stage, are the Government looking at the possibility of reviewing it? What conversations are they having with Ofgem and what dialogue do they have with the suppliers in the industry?”
“The foundations that we could lay through the smart meter roll-out could be built on in a significant way, both from the point of view of consumer flexibility and choice and in contributing to some of the wider issues about fuel poverty and climate change. The Government have a target of 100% smart meter roll-out by 2020. What I want to explore this morning is whether that target is likely to be met, and whether it may be sensible at this point to reappraise the desirability of meeting that target. Given the history of the project to date, sticking to that 2020 deadline may bring some unexpected consequences. Energy UK has told me that so far its members have installed in excess of 3 million smart meters.”
“Obviously, there are a tremendous number of variables in an estimate of that range and over that period of time; I am one of those people who thinks that the upper end of that estimate could be conservative. Before the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change was dissolved, I had the pleasure of serving on it. Our last report on the energy revolution looked at what is being done in other parts of the world and, in particular, on the west coast of America in California and Seattle. It is apparent that many technologies that will assist consumers in the demand-side management of their energy use are not that far over the horizon.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered smart meter rollout across the UK. It is a pleasure to have secured this debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I think—or at least I hope—that the subject of the debate this morning would not be described as a matter of political controversy; it is a matter on which there is broad agreement. Essentially, I approach the debate on the basis that the Government are doing a good thing in the smart meter roll-out and, as a parliamentarian, I think it is our duty to explore whether they are doing it as well as might be possible. In the early days, we estimated that the smart meter roll-out could save the UK economy as a whole something between £17 billion and £40 billion between now and 2050.”
“I completely accept what the Minister says about the signals that can be sent by taking the foot off the gas, to use his analogy, but there are technical issues coming down the tracks. The suppliers are all telling us that the roll-out could take them into the middle of 2018. What is the Minister doing to engage with the suppliers to bring that date forward?”
“The Minister cannot get away from the fact, though, that different parts of the country have different labour and immigration needs. In the northern isles at present our fishing industry is being crippled because white fish boats in particular cannot get the visas for the crews that they need to go to sea. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the fishing industry to find a way around that?”
“The right hon. Gentleman is right. The common feature of all the jurisdictions he mentions is that their fisheries management systems have the fishermen at their heart. This is not a question of where control is exercised; it is a question of what we do with it. Whitehall is just as capable as Brussels of excluding fishermen from fisheries management.”
“Worse, if the Faroese boats choose to land their fish in Scotland, they are then penalised by their Government. The Minister will know that the talks on the next iteration of this deal are to be held in Brussels on 6 and 7 December, so may I instil in him the strongest possible resolve in tackling this, because the imbalance of this deal becomes more egregious with every year that passes?”
“Like the right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), I want to bring a few items from my shopping list to this debate. The Minister has already heard my worries about the Faroese deal on mackerel. There was enormous scepticism among the Scottish pelagic fleet, the Shetland pelagic catchers in particular, when the deal was brokered a few years ago. However, they did accept that they would give it a go. They gave it a go, and it is clear that that scepticism was, if anything, understated. This deal really is not working, as was highlighted recently by the report from Seafish, which pointed out that in 2015 Faroese boats caught almost 33,000 tonnes of mackerel in EU waters, mostly in Scotland’s, while Scottish boats got absolutely none from the Faroese waters.”
“That improvement is a consequence of the changes made in fisheries management, in particular the creation of regional advisory councils, and of the significant pain that was borne by the fishing industry and communities during the decommissioning programmes of 10 years ago. The attractions of this opportunity to the catching sector are pretty obvious, but there are concerns for the future beyond that sector. The processing sector heavily relies and has relied for many years on the availability of workers from other EU countries. Those people want to know what their future will be. If we are to have a set of World Trade Organisation rules and if there are tariffs on trade, that will have a seriously disadvantageous impact on processors, which will also hit the catchers. That is why it is crucial to get clarity as early as possible.”
“In the light of everything else, it will perhaps be a trickier negotiation than in recent years, but the environment will be slightly less febrile than when the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) was fisheries Minister. I go back 12, 13 or 14 years in such debates, and back then we thought it possible that the spawning stock biomass of North sea cod had reached a point from which there would be no recovery. In fact, we have a seen a quite remarkable recovery in North sea white fish stocks, but that has not happened by accident—a thought that occurred to me as the right hon. Gentleman was explaining the changes. I think around 47% of stocks are still overfished—too high, but a significant improvement on where we were.”
“We need a better way of using that information to inform the process so that whether we use quotas, days at sea, closed areas or whatever, the information on which we rely properly and accurately reflects the stocks in the water. We must not forget that even if we leave the European Union and even if we have control over the waters as others have suggested, that would not be the end of our interaction with the common fisheries policy. We share waters in the North sea, the English channel and the western approaches in the Irish sea, and other countries have historic rights of access to our waters. If they continue to mismanage stocks in a way that was unfortunately a feature of the past, that will have continuing impact on our fishermen, too. I wish the Minister well as he goes to the December Council meeting.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who brings his customary clarity and simplicity to today’s arguments. However, I disagree with a great deal of his analysis of the problems. It must be stressed rather more than it has been that taking back control is only part of the answer. There is then the question of what we do with it. If we are to construct our own domestic fisheries management system, there is an opportunity to put fishermen, conservationists and scientists at the heart of fisheries management—proper regional and local management—and to use scientific advice. The right hon. Gentleman said that 50% of such advice was wrong. I doubt that, but I do know that it is at least two years out of date by the time it informs the decision-making process.”
“Without actually knowing what “this document” is, I am not sure; I am afraid that my eyesight is no longer good enough to be able to read the title from here. Wittingly or otherwise, the hon. Gentleman has hit on a very important point, which is that although we always get excited about the December Fisheries Council meeting, the real deal is the one done with the EU-Norway talks. That is where the shape of the fishing entitlement of the fishermen in my constituency is determined, and we look forward to hearing from the Minister exactly how we will interact with those talks in the future. A trilateral discussion surely seems sensible, but we will wait to hear what he intends in that regard.”
“The basic problem is not just the indifference of the Home Office; the way these rules operate, if they are allowed to operate, means that they are pushing fishermen into fishing where the immigration rules allow them, rather than where is safe or where the fish are to be found. Surely the Minister should be speaking to the Home Office about that.”
“I am sorry, but I want to keep within the time limit if I can. The landing obligation also continues to be a source of concern, as a result of the so-called “choke species”. This year, stock levels of cod, haddock and whiting in the North sea are particularly healthy—they are there in abundance—but there is a real danger that they could be excluded as a result of having these choke species. Again, that is an example of why it is so important that when the science is used to inform the decision-making process and quota it is accurate and up-to-date. It would be utterly perverse if Shetland’s white-fish fishermen were to be punished for fishing in waters where the stocks were healthiest. Other Members have also spoken about the position on non-EU crew members, which has been particularly acute in my constituency.”
“Does it not come to the fact that, for most people, actually getting refugee status and getting here is only part of the beginning of the story, not the end? The hon. Lady is talking about people who need to rebuild their lives from the ground up, and there is no better context in which to do that than the family environment.”
“The Minister will be aware that such age verification will inevitably require the companies concerned to hold a lot of data. What assurances can he give the House that those data will not be liable to being hacked, as happened in the Ashley Madison case?”
“Will the data therefore be held in an anonymised form that will not allow the people who have provided them to be identified, should the data be stolen? The best security in the world can still be breached?”
“I rise to echo some of the concerns that have already been expressed by the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) about new clause 28. I should say at the outset that, as the parent of two teenagers, I completely understand the motivation of those who have raised these concerns with the Government. I commend them for the way in which they have done so, and, indeed, I commend the Government for responding in the way they have. However, I fear that this is another occasion on which the Government are responding because, as we say, something must be done. I fear that we are in fact going down a road that will leave us exposed to the law of unintended consequences.”
“In the Northern Isles some of our most important exporting businesses are in the very successful food and drink sector, but representatives of the sector tell me that it is almost impossible for them to plan for their future until they know what access they will have to EU markets. Will the Minister ensure that their voices are heard in these negotiations, as well as those of the big boys in financial services and the automotive industries?”
“May I welcome those elements of this statement that are positive? I am talking about the spending for infrastructure, especially in broadband and mobile phone signals, the reduction in fuel duty and the changes to universal credit. They are all steps in the right direction, but we wanted extra cash to be given to the NHS and social care, where it is needed, because as winter comes on we risk the problems becoming acute. I understand the difficulties that face the Chancellor today. He has a £122 billion black hole as a result of Brexit. As the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) said, instead of using the NHS as a political football, will he work with people of all parties and none to identify where that money can be found because, frankly, the NHS is too important to be treated like this?”
“We were then told that, in fact, it would be a media statement. At about 5 o’clock, when my office phoned again to give notice that I intended to raise this as a point of order, a very short press release was put on to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website. The point on which I seek your guidance is this: is a Minister in compliance with his or her duties to the House by saying that he or she will make a statement and then issuing a press release, given what Mr Speaker has said in the past about the House being told first before the media?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance in relation to a matter, notice of which I have given to Mr Speaker and, indeed, to the Foreign Office. Yesterday, during Foreign Office questions, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), in answer to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), concerning the demolition in the Negev of Umm al-Hiran in Israel, said: “I will be looking at this particular announcement and making a statement on this later today.” —[ Official Report , 22 November 2016; Vol. 617, c. 749.] At about half-past 6 yesterday evening, my office made an inquiry of the Minister’s office and was told that a statement would be issued as soon as possible. We were told the same thing this morning.”
“Is the Minister aware of the rising levels of violence directed towards those in refugee camps on the island of Chios, including volunteers? Is he aware that on 16 November the camp at Souda was attacked by about 60 members of the far-right group New Dawn? Boulders were thrown into containers containing refugee women and children. Following that, three volunteers, two of whom are UK citizens, were arrested by the Greek police. Can he assure me that every support will be given to UK citizens volunteering in that area to ensure that their rights are protected?”
“It is interesting that that answer does not necessarily address the question that I asked. Last week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the impact that weaker sterling will have on the cost of many of the essentials for which welfare benefits pay—clothing and food. It estimates that inflation for those items could be 2.7% next year. These circumstances were neither known nor anticipated when the decision was made to freeze benefits, so should they not themselves be the catalyst for a review of the decision?”
“May I remind the Minister that the purpose of setting up this inquiry was to find out the truth and to allow the victims of child sexual abuse to get closure? To achieve that, they have to have confidence in the inquiry. If the inquiry alone cannot command the confidence of victims, the Government still has a role to play. She or the Home Secretary should be meeting the victims’ groups. She should be hearing their concerns directly from them and seeking their remedies if the inquiry is to do the job for which we set it up in the first place.”
“12. What discussions he has had with officials of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on enforcement of the national minimum wage for seafarers employed in the North sea.”
“I am grateful to hear that the Minister is taking this matter seriously. It surely cannot be right for HMRC to deem that a ferry service that starts in Aberdeen and finishes in Lerwick is operating wholly outside UK territorial waters. It is nonsense for the body that is supposed to enforce the minimum wage to be undermining it in this way. Will the Government do something to stop this?”
“May I assure the Minister that I understand better than most people in this House the challenges of providing public services in remote island communities? However, if the Chagos Islands are where people belong and that is where they want to be, they have an inalienable right to be there. What the Minister describes today as practicalities exist only because of what this country did some decades ago. Paying £40 million over 10 years cannot buy out our responsibilities.”
“13. What recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of the vote for the UK to leave the EU on future recruitment of nurses to the NHS.”