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 76 of 95.
“It is unfortunate that we have only 90 minutes to debate the regulations, but it is absolutely right that we should debate them on the Floor of the House. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) has done us a great service in bringing this matter to the Floor of the House. It is worth reflecting, however, that the reason why there is not more public outrage about the proposed changes is a reflection of the sheer complexity of our tax and benefit system. That will have to be addressed—not in this way—in the medium to long term. There was a lot in the Minister’s speech with which I could agree quite easily.”
“I say to him, because I know he is a genuine man, that if he has not had his assurances and compensations before the vote, he will not get them after it.”
“We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel—at last, we are seeing some wage inflation—but surely at this moment the Government should be encouraging people to take more hours, not removing the incentives to do so. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) made a characteristically thoughtful contribution, and one of the most significant. He said the Government’s proposals were strategically correct. He might well be right about that, but what he said thereafter in the rest of his contribution indicated they were tactically inept. I address myself to him and other Government Members who share his concerns, because they are part of the most powerful group in the House: Government Back Benchers. The Government have a majority of 12, so it needs only six of them to vote with us to take this down and make them think again.”
“I am sorry, but I am short of time. The average household in social housing could lose up to £1,700 a year under the changes. That means for every extra £1 earned, they will lose up to 93p in benefits. That is why the Government are not true to their stated intent to encourage people off welfare and into work by bringing forward changes of this sort. To understand why today’s statutory instrument is the wrong measure at the wrong time, it is worth reflecting on what happened to people’s employment circumstances after the 2008 crash. We expected steep rises in unemployment, and sure enough it went up, but not to the extent we expected, because employers kept people in work. However, their wages were frozen or reduced and those in part-time employment saw their hours cut.”
“The hon. Lady is talking about the consequences of giving the Bill a Second Reading. Will she address for a second, though, the consequences of not giving the Bill a Second Reading? Assisted suicide will be available; it will simply be available to those who have the means and the determination to go elsewhere. What does she think should happen for these people, and for those who are currently protected from prosecution by the DPP’s guidelines?”
“It was in that 2002 deal that the seeds of reform were sown, and we have seen significant progress since then. In 2000, before I was elected to Parliament, I attended a conference in north-east Scotland where Mike Park of the Scottish White Fish Producers Association was one of the speakers. He said that the further a skipper is from his home port, the less he cares about conservation of stocks. That has stuck with me ever since. I have always taken that as being the justification for regionalisation and bringing control of the industry back as close as possible to the communities most directly affected by it.”
“That came home to me in 2002, as a fairly new Member of Parliament elected in 2001: we had the December Council result, which was probably one of the most difficult for the industry to manage that people can ever remember. The week before Christmas, when the House had gone into recess, I went home to Shetland and had to address a mass meeting of the local fishermen’s association in the mission in Lerwick. It was as bleak and grim a meeting as I have ever seen; a week before the end of the year, not knowing what was going to happen come 1 January, the rug had been pulled out from underneath these men’s feet and they had no idea how they were going to manage the deal that had been landed on them. No other industry would manage itself, or allow itself to be managed, in that way.”
“Some 30% of our local economic product comes from fishing or fish farming—the seafood industries taken as a whole. I tell hon. Members that so that they can understand. Talk about common fisheries policy reform can often be quite jargon-heavy and a little bit dry and academic, but for us, as a community, it is anything but that. The fishing industry defines us as a community and underpins just about everything else that happens within our community. Indeed, across all sectors of the industry, more traditional models of boat ownership and operating exist in Shetland than in other parts of the country, from where they have perhaps disappeared. We retain fishing as a family industry, where generation after generation will want to go to sea and make their living as fishermen.”
“I am slightly disappointed to see the Chamber thinning at the rate that it is, but I am resigned to it. This topic has not suffered from a lack of debate over the years, certainly not during my time in the House. As we can tell from the number of Members leaving the Chamber, this issue matters a lot to a small number of communities and to a smaller number of people in a wider range of communities. My constituency of Shetland, in particular, is one of those communities where it does matter a lot. In 2014, we in Shetland alone landed in the region of 78,000 tonnes of fish or shellfish with a value of £76 million from local and visiting boats: 24% of all fish landed in Scotland in that year. In fact, the amount of fish landed in Shetland is greater than the amounts landed in ports in England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.”
“That was very much the context of the day. My only rejoinder to Mr Park’s statement would have been that the same was also true of Ministers and officials: the further removed they were from the management of stocks, the easier it was for them to impose unworkable deals that caused an enormous range of difficulties in practical terms. I exempt the incumbent Minister from that; he has always demonstrated a tremendous willingness to engage with industry and has a good working understanding of it.”
“I commend the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), for the work he did in the lead-up to landing a reformed common fisheries policy, because that developed the first iteration of the regional advisory councils to the point where they might even become regional management councils. That is the first point that I would like the Minister to take on. The advisory councils themselves are best placed to author the next iteration of their development. With the history of joint working and the body of expertise within the councils, that could now be done to improve and speed up the present rate of change.”
“There is not much that I disagree with there. The essence of the problem that the hon. Gentleman highlights is that fisheries management is something done to the industry and to the communities affected, rather than being something that they feel they have any ownership of, or are able to influence. Although there have been an enormous number of problems with the regional advisory councils, they have been a source of enormous progress and benefit and are certainly infinitely preferable to what we had before they were established, when everything was done in Brussels with simply no opportunity to challenge it. How we have been able to build partnerships between fishermen, conservationists and scientists, through the regional advisory structures, is exceptional. That has been taken on by various people.”
“In that way, he could deliver a change that would make an enormous difference to the industry and to the communities we represent, which would serve us all better as a result.”
“The CFP has badly served all the member states and all the various interests affected by it. It has affected particularly badly the communities that I and others in the Chamber represent. We now have an opportunity, and I suspect that the Government would find it rather easier to make progress and to deliver positive change in this area than they might in some of the others that the Prime Minister has listed as priorities. My request to the Minister is a simple one. On behalf of the House and the various fishing communities represented here today, will he make the need for reform and for tackling historic anomalies that have caused so many problems in Europe a priority for negotiation with other member states?”
“The CFP has not worked for fishermen, fishing communities, conservationists or scientists, so this is surely the time to take a blank sheet of paper and say, “We can do this differently.” When we talk about regionalisation and regional management, we should say, “Those can be written into any new or changed treaty.” When we talk about the principle of common access, we should be honest about the fact that it had its roots in the very earliest days of the community. It was perhaps understandable for a community of six nation states, but for a community of 28 member states—not just around the North sea, but stretching right across Europe, and including many that are actually landlocked—it makes no sense whatever. I cannot see many people in Europe, beyond the confines of the Commission perhaps, wanting to argue against such reform.”
“If we proceed piece by piece, we will reform neither the policy nor the constitutional architecture that sits around it. Now, however, we apparently have an opportunity to bring about reform. The Prime Minister has said that we are to have a referendum on a reformed European Union, and the issue before us is one of the areas of community policy and responsibility that is absolutely ripe for reform.”
“Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray). I hope Members will forgive the pun, but we have been pushing water uphill a lot of the time in reforming fisheries management and the CFP. That is because of the constitutional architecture within which the CFP, in its various iterations, has had to sit: the various treaties, the acquis communautaire, the principle of common access, which the hon. Lady mentioned, and the Lisbon treaty, which enshrined the principle that the conservation of marine biological resources, as only the EU could call fishing, was to be a sole competence—something about which I felt so strongly that I resigned from my party’s Front Bench when the issue came to a vote. We have had to live with all those matters, because it has been next to impossible to find our way around them.”
“For that reason, if the data are two years out of date, there will eventually be a difference between what fishermen are told is in the sea and what they actually find in their nets. That then results in a downward spiral, where the fishermen have no respect for what the scientists tell them, and the TACs and the quotas do not reflect what the fishermen find. The problem will become particularly acute as we implement the next stage of the discards ban; it has always been difficult, but it is now positively urgent that we deal with it. There must be some way in which an early, quick and dirty analysis can be done so that the data can be used in as close to real time as possible. The reason why I sought the debate, and why I am so pleased we have a good turnout, is the very point raised by the hon.”
“One reason why I love being in debates with the hon. Lady is that she always anticipates my next point. That is exactly why I think this is a timely debate. However, before I touch on that, I should like to make a brief reference to one other aspect that hinders the work of the regional advisory councils and everybody else involved in fisheries conservation. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and all the scientists involved in it are required to use data that, by the time they are implemented, are about two years out of date. One of the biggest difficulties with our total allowable catch and quota system is that it will work only if it accurately reflects the amount of fish in the sea at any moment in time.”
“This is the first occasion that I have participated in a debate with the hon. Lady. I am delighted that she is here as successor to Austin Mitchell, who took part in these debates for many years but in a very different manner. On Norway, the sensible regional management of the North sea would involve the coastal states that are members of the EU and Norway. The point about the current EU architecture is that that is simply not possible. With a different constitutional architecture, there could be genuine regional management involving Norway and EU member states.”
“Resolved, That this House has considered reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.”
“That was an impressive canter by the Minister through the issues raised in this debate. I have only one point that I want him to take away. I accept and welcome the progress that he has outlined in reform of the common fisheries policy. He has my support and the support of my family—well, my family certainly, but also my party. [ Laughter. ] He has our support in moving towards the next stage of CFP reform. The truth is that that strengthens, rather than weakens, the case for reforming the constitutional architecture on which the policy base sits. That is the architectural framework that really has to reflect the policy that we now have. There is an opportunity here and I do not think that the Government should be resistant. They could become heroes at the end of the day. Question put and agreed to.”
“Like others, I commend the hon. Gentleman for his work, and I am grateful to him for his comments about my former colleague Sarah Teather, who did tremendous work in this area in her time here. On the lack of a time limit, does he think that inadequate access to legal representation is one of the reasons why people end up in open-ended detention in that way? The briefing supplied to us today by Bail for Immigration Detainees points out that 11% of those detained have never had any legal representation at all.”
“In addition, there are the difficulties of language and the mental health problems that inevitably arise, as the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) said. We can understand the importance of getting proper representation to people in such situations.”
“Frankly, if we rightly apply such a standard for our own people, why should the standard be different for those who come here fleeing persecution in other countries? That brings me to the point about the availability of legal representation that I made in my intervention on the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). I have no doubt that the lack of access to legal representation contributes to making many cases last longer than the 12-month period identified by BID. At the time of the last BID survey, only 50% of people had representation when they were interviewed, and 11% never had any representation. We all know why: these people come from countries with very different legal systems and access to justice is on a very different basis, if indeed there is much state-provided justice at all.”
“It is not doing the job that we as taxpayers require it to do. When I see such figures, I inevitably draw on my own professional experience. Before I entered Parliament, I was a criminal court solicitor, like the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). I started my professional career as a procurator fiscal depute. We worked to very strict timetables in Scotland. Any prosecutor remanding people on such a scale and getting convictions for only 38% of them would have found themselves in some difficulty with their superiors. It is worth comparing how we treat those detained for immigration purposes with how we treat other people in our community whom we detain in the criminal justice system and the mental heath system. In neither case do we detain people without a time limit or any sort of judicial supervision of their detention.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in this very important debate. As other hon. Members have done, I commend—as best practice for other all-party groups to follow—the work of the groups that produced the report during the last Parliament. I am grateful for its acknowledgment of my former colleague Sarah Teather’s leadership in this area during her time in the House. In looking at the scale of this problem, the surveys recently carried out by the Bail for Immigration Detainees group are interesting. During the most recent survey period, 216 people left detention after more than 12 months. It is worth reflecting on the sheer scale of that. My greatest concern is that, ultimately, only 38% of such people were required to leave the country. Therefore, the system is not just inhumane, but inefficient.”
“If that is how we treat people suspected of a crime, I see no reason why we should treat people seeking refuge any differently.”
“Indeed. I was very struck by the constituent’s email that the hon. Lady read out. It is clear that that lady has significant language difficulties. Nobody in such a situation should be left having to represent themselves before a court or tribunal. These are exactly the sort of people for whom legal aid is designed and is absolutely necessary. If I could make only one change, it would be in relation to the need for a time limit. In my time as a prosecutor, when we detained somebody or remanded them in custody, they had to be brought to trial within 40 days on a summary complaint or within 110 days on an indictment. Those were very demanding timescales to meet, and it could be very difficult to do so, particularly for complex crimes. However, such people were given priority because they had been deprived of their liberty.”
“On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I wish the Secretary of State well in her endeavours in convening the talks. We very much share her aspiration to see a fully functioning Assembly in Northern Ireland, although I have to say to her in all candour that I think the answer lies not in her hands but in those of the Northern Ireland parties themselves. She speaks of the possibility of suspension, but my understanding is that that would be next to impossible politically and that there would be significant legal impediments to its happening as well. What assessment has been made of those legal impediments?”
“I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way because she has come to the nub of the argument. Is not the distinction between desperate people in one place who have made a journey and desperate people in another place who have yet to make a journey as false as it is offensive? Surely our contribution to helping people who are in need should be based on need, not on a decision that they might have made from sheer desperation.”
“Although it is welcome that the Government have moved their position, that is why they now need to do a great deal more.”
“I say to the Home Secretary that it is clear that the Government have a lot of catching up to do with public opinion. The Prime Minister often speaks with dewy-eyed fondness about his support for British values. If that is true, we should consider his current position and compare it with that of the German Chancellor. When asked about the numbers arriving in Germany, she replied: “If so many people brave such hardship to come here, this is a sign of approval for us…The world sees Germany as a country of hope and of chances. That hasn’t always been the case.” That is masterful understatement, but the question it brings to my mind is how the people of Britain will be seen on the world stage. That is what is at stake here. It is not a question of numbers, but of our standing in the world.”
“The Government are right that in the medium to long term the solution will be to keep people within the country or within the region as far as possible, but does the Home Secretary really think that people are going to stop making that journey simply because we have punished those who have already made the decision to do so in the most desperate of circumstances? It brings to mind the Victorian distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor—that somehow some desperate people are worthy of support while others are not. We should help all those who need our help on the basis of their need and not on the basis of a decision they have made in desperate circumstances. As has been said, this is a significant moment for our country. This debate is not just about refugees; it is about how we see ourselves and our place in the world.”
“The other issue that requires revisiting is the Government’s insistence on raiding the international development budget to pay for this in-country work. It has been paid for from the reserves in the past, and I do not see why it should not be again now. The work of the Department for International Development is absolutely crucial in ensuring that, in the medium to long term, the need for people to leave their country as refugees is eliminated. Using this money for spending in-country is an exercise in robbing Peter to pay Paul. As I said in my intervention on the shadow Home Secretary, I would like the Home Secretary to look again at the exclusion from assistance of those who have already made the journey and are already in Europe.”
“Yesterday’s announcement by the Prime Minister of humanitarian visas for five years is exactly the sort of initiative that we ought to be taking. It is welcome and we commend the Government for it. I also commend them for the work that they continue to do in-country with refugee camps, especially in Syria. That work is absolutely essential and a very good use of the money that we have in our international aid budget. I also welcome the announcement that the number of refugees to be taken from Syria is now to go up to 20,000. However, spreading this over the five-year period of the Parliament needs to be looked at again, because the need for these people to come to this country is in the here and now. The Government’s refusal to accept the urgency and immediacy of the problem requires revisiting.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing the House to have this debate today. I congratulate the shadow Home Secretary on her initiative in seeking the application for it under Standing Order No. 24. We will return to this subject again tomorrow in the Scottish National party’s Opposition day debate, so I think it is fair to say that it will not suffer from under-scrutiny. I welcome and recognise the significant movement in the Government’s position that we have seen in recent days and weeks. I say to the Home Secretary, who I am delighted to see remains in her place throughout the debate, that where the Government get things right they will have the support of Liberal Democrats and, I suspect, of all Opposition parties.”
“May I therefore suggest that the Prime Minister convene a summit of the leadership of all the parties represented in this House, so that we can construct a policy for the reaction to this crisis that will unite our country rather than divide it?”
“I recognise and welcome the change in Government policy in recent days and weeks. The Prime Minister might no longer be describing refugees as a “swarm”, but there is still a lot that he could be doing to catch up with public opinion here. We should not be raiding our international development budget to pay for this, we should not be restricting our help to those who are currently in the country, and we should not be resisting efforts to build a common EU position. The people of Britain do not want to see the human misery of hundreds of thousands of people being used as a political football; they want a non-partisan approach.”
“Niall Stuart, the chief executive of Scottish Renewables, says of this decision that it is “bad for jobs, bad for investment and can only hinder Scotland and the UK’s efforts to meet binding climate change targets”. Why does the Secretary of State think he knows better than Niall Stuart?”
“I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way; he is being generous with his time. May I help him out? In the past when this was discussed, it was suggested that it could be trialled, if it had to be trialled, on a single Bill. He tells the House that he has identified that Bill in the current programme. Instead of going forward with the full range of changes and all the infrastructure required for the Speaker’s Office, why does he not try it out on this one Bill? That would be a meaningful trial.”
“It will not just apply to the single Bill; it will also apply to all the certified secondary legislation. It will require significant administrative infrastructure being put in place for the Speaker’s Office. If, after a year, we decide that this is not the way to go, what happens then?”
“That is the logical conclusion of a nationalist political analysis, but for a United Kingdom Parliament, it is a dangerous road down which to go.”
“This cannot be regarded as a proxy English Parliament. If the people of England are to have a Parliament—I hope that they will have one, or some series of Parliaments or assemblies, or whatever—surely this should remain the United Kingdom Parliament and that principle should be inviolate. The hon. Gentleman said that he was not in the business of saving the Union, and there will be little dissent about that. Let me tell the House—I hope it is accepted—that I am in the business of saving the Union, which is why I look on these proposals with genuine terror. These proposals and the language that they have already introduced to the debate are a genuine risk to the continuation of the United Kingdom. We have already heard in the debate today that it is “our issues and our votes” as opposed to “their issues and their votes”.”
“In that context, it must surely be possible—if we are all acting in goodwill—to find a compromise and build a consensus that will allow us to go forward together. I am afraid, however, that we are not there yet, and the revised proposals from the Leader of the House bring us precious little closer to building that consensus than we were last week. I commend the words of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) who spoke on behalf of the Scottish National party, and the House should listen in particular to two things that he said. First, he said that the Government are seeking to shoehorn an English Parliament into the United Kingdom House of Commons. That is a dangerous enterprise on which to embark, not least because it betrays a lot about the attitude of Government Members to this place.”
“Gentleman will understand that sometimes the people who will tell him what to do will be those at home in St Ives, and on such occasions we must listen to those who are telling us what to do. Let me start by accentuating a few positives. I join those who have commended the Leader of the House for turning today’s debate into a general debate. That is of enormous assistance to the House because it is already apparent from today’s proceedings and last week’s debate under Standing Order No. 24 that an enormous amount in these proposals still requires debate in the House. I commend the shadow Leader of the House for seeking to proceed by building consensus. It seems to me that in neither of the debates so far have we heard anybody deny that there is a problem that requires a solution.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, particularly to follow the maiden speech by the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas). In a debate that in many ways is about what it is to be part of the United Kingdom, it is fitting that the Member who represents the most southerly constituency in this House should be followed by the Member who represents the most northerly. The hon. Gentleman demonstrated a fine affection for his community, and I wish him well in his time here. I noted his description of himself as somebody who does “exactly what he is told”. I was Chief Whip for the Liberal Democrat party, which included his predecessor in the last Parliament, and nobody would ever have levelled that accusation at him. I hope that in time the hon.”
“It does nothing to address the lack of proportionality in the representation of people in England and nothing about the virtual disfranchisement of 4 million people who voted for the UK Independence party, for whatever reason. It does nothing about the gross centralisation of power in England. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) should be talking to his constituents about all those things. If he does, in the same way as we did over a long time in Scotland, I think—”
“I will come to what the proposals do and what we can possibly do through the use of Standing Orders in a minute. As for this business that there is an unfairness but we only want to address it on our terms, the ship has sailed, I am afraid. We embarked on a process of devolution in 1999 that set up a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly and, later, a Northern Ireland Assembly. More has been devolved to them and devolution has been good for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I want to see devolution for England, too, but it is about an awful lot more than simply what is on offer here. The proposal is a curious beast that offers devolution within Parliament but not within the Executive.”
“I listened with courtesy to the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) and I ask that he does the same for me. If the hon. Member for South Leicestershire does the same as we did in Scotland to build consensus, his people will realise in time that what is being offered here is pretty small beer and that they deserve something better.”