Andrew Bowie
MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine · Conservative · United Kingdom
“The ongoing events in the middle east have rightly brought the state of Britain’s energy security back to the forefront. We are witnessing growing geopolitical instability, and it is having, and will continue to have, a direct impact on our energy security, supplies and, of course, bills.”
“We do not know when the pipeline will once again be operational, and as we have already heard, Saudi oil stocks for export could be depleted within days. With the safety of navigation through the strait of Hormuz remaining uncertain, the continued squeeze on energy supplies will only become tighter.”
“We are talking today about national security, and the Government are putting party before country. Great Britain has become increasingly and dangerously over-reliant on supplies of oil from overseas.”
“I do not think the Conservative party will take any lectures from Labour on records in the north-east of Scotland, given the result in Aberdeen South only a few months ago, but I would like to thank the Minister for warmly welcoming me to my new position.”
“I have a simple question for the Minister: will the Government finally approve Rosebank and Jackdaw—something we already did in government—or will they continue the previous Secretary of State’s campaign against Britain’s North sea oil and gas industry?”
“Where does the Minister want the energy that we need to come from if the Government do not get on and approve Rosebank and Jackdaw? The question today is a simple one, but the answer could be transformative—for the North sea industry, for the north-east of Scotland and for the United Kingdom’s economic and energy security.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Andrew Bowie, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 12.
“I thank the Minister for giving me advance sight of the statement, although I really have to take issue with the Prime Minister’s earlier comments, taking credit for Ofgem’s decision to lower the energy price cap. That decision was taken not by the Government, but by Ofgem using a Conservative mechanism, and it was in fact taken weeks before the current crisis began. But why let the facts get in the way of this Government’s spin? I am glad to see that the Government have today taken steps to support those households across Great Britain and Northern Ireland that rely on heating oil—steps that those of us on this side of the House called for when prices began to rise weeks ago.”
“The Government’s press release said that the Department’s “internal analysis” proved that CfD allocation round 7 would cut bills, but the Department refused to let us see that analysis when we submitted a written question asking to see it. Why is the Minister’s Department refusing to publish that analysis? What is it trying to hide? Will it finally commit to publishing a full systems-cost analysis of the new energy system, which was commissioned by the previous Secretary of State, so that we can have an open and honest debate about the cost of the new system? Finally, will the Minister commit to implementing the recommendations of the Fingleton review in full to make nuclear power much cheaper, quicker and easier to build in this country?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. It has been too long since I have had the pleasure of responding to the Minister in a Committee Room. As the Minister outlined, the regulations update the mandatory levies that electricity suppliers must pay to support the operation of the CfD scheme, the capacity market and the nuclear RAB model. These are technical changes, and the Conservatives will not oppose them. However, while I have the Minister’s attention, I have some questions to put to him. The Government came into office pledging to cut energy bills by £300, but, some 18 months later, we have seen no evidence of that promise being fulfilled. The sleight of hand in pushing costs on to tax bills has not had the desired effect. Does the Minister think that the Government will actually deliver a £300 energy bill cut?”
“Mr Speaker, “I would have preferred that Europe could make do with green energy, but the reality is different, and I fundamentally believe that it is better for Europe to get gas from Denmark than from countries outside our continent.” Those are the words of the Danish Energy Minister—a Minister in a Government looking to extend licences in that country. The Danes can see what is blindingly obvious: we will continue to have a demand for oil and gas for many years, and it is better that we use our own to support our own economy, support our own workers and support the existing industry that will invest in the future. Who does the Secretary of State agree with—the Danish Energy Minister, the head of GB Energy, Scottish Renewables, the trade unions and everyone else, or his colleague the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero?”
“The Secretary of State talks about global markets. Supporting the Scottish oil and gas industry supports 90 times more jobs than imports. Supporting the oil and gas industry yields 150 times more income tax and national insurance revenue than imports. Supporting the Scottish oil and gas industry delivers 400 times more oil and gas company taxes than imports, and supporting the Scottish oil and gas industry has a gross value added of £96 million for the UK, compared with zero from imports. Everyone else understands it. Will the Secretary of State please explain to everyone in the country what on earth the Government are playing at?”
“Given that the Secretary of State still expects us to believe that the Prime Minister has faith in Anas Sarwar’s judgment, it is quite clear that the Labour party can still have a laugh—although it does seem to have an aversion to having fun. Why else would it be waging a war against Scottish pubs? Just like Scottish Labour’s election campaign, the sector in Scotland is hanging by a thread. Last year, one pub in Scotland closed every single week. But it is not just pubs: cafés, restaurants and chip shops all face the same. Will he and his Scottish Labour colleagues join Russell Findlay and the Scottish Conservatives in our call for pubs and hospitality businesses to be exempt from business rates rises this year, and will he do what he can to ensure that his Government stand up for Scottish hospitality?”
“It lays the foundations for the implementation of a Bill that the Scottish Government and the UK Government are neutral on. The Member’s Bill is not Government-sponsored legislation and, given that the assisted dying Bill is still under way in the Scottish Parliament and further steps remain required if that Bill is to sit within the Scottish Parliament’s legislative competence, it seems a strange sequencing of events pre-emptively to order the limited devolution of such powers to provide for the circumstances were the Bill to pass in Scotland.”
“The assisted dying Bill under consideration in the Scottish Parliament would, under clause 15, give Scottish Ministers the power to specify the drugs or medication to be used to assist a patient to die. As matters stand, that is within the reserved competence of medicines, medical supplies and poisons. The Member’s Bill under discussion in the Scottish Parliament requires clarity on that issue and a raft of other reserved competences, and it is entirely unclear how the Government intend to resolve them, hence the attempt with this modification order to tread a middle ground with a time-limited provision, as the Minister set out. Clearly, the issue of the regulation of medicines is integral to the MSPs’ consideration of the debate on assisted dying. This draft legislation, however, seems to be a leap ahead into a hypothetical position.”
“The order invokes the powers granted under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 to alter the devolution settlement, granting the Scottish Parliament new powers to legislate on medicines, medical supplies and poisons, which would otherwise be a reserved competence. Let us be clear: this is a novel and in some ways unprecedented circumstance. Use of that mechanism to amend the devolution settlement is rare. The last application was in 2012, enabling the Scottish Government to hold the 2014 independence referendum. That came about as a result of months of discussion, ending in the Edinburgh agreement signed by both the Scottish and the British Governments. The draft order, however, is unprecedented in so far as it makes provisions to enable the consideration of legislation that is not sponsored by the Scottish Government, but a Member’s Bill.”
“As you said, Mr Twigg, this is not a debate about the merits of the assisted dying Bill being considered by colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, nor indeed of the Bill going through its stages in the other place here in the Palace of Westminster. There will be strong, impassioned views on both sides of the wider debate, but the progress of the Member’s Bill in Holyrood is a matter for our Members of the Scottish Parliament. It is a conscience issue for those in my party and others. The matter before us is not the political context of the draft instrument, but the modification order itself—its competence, the precedent it establishes and its consequences. I must say that His Majesty’s Opposition have grave concerns about the implications of this instrument.”
“Even in the Conservatives’ diminished capacity in the previous Parliament, when we had only six MPs on the Government side from north of the border, we would have been able to muster more than one to sit on the Back Benches of such an important Committee, considering changes to legislation that will have a direct impact on the lives of Scots. I wonder whether the Government might think about what that represents and how it looks to many Scots who will be wondering where their representatives are, given that the draft order pertains directly to their lives and how we move forward on the important issue of legislating for and regulating assisted dying in this United Kingdom. That is a question for the Government to examine their conscience on.”
“I was planning to begin my contribution by asking why the Government had not taken up the advice of the Scottish Affairs Committee to have this debate on the Floor of the House. I wonder whether we can read into the absence of Scottish Labour MPs, and even the Scotland Office Whip, some lack of support for the Government’s decision and a worry from the Government about getting the order through. It speaks to a lack of respect for Scots, who will be affected by this change, that a Government with 37 Members of Parliament representing constituencies north of the border could not muster more than one to sit on this incredibly significant Committee.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I must start by saying that it is rather odd to rise in a Delegated Legislation Committee pertaining to an order that is significant to the functioning of the devolution settlement and that will affect constituents of mine, as well as those of my hon. Friends the Members for Gordon and Buchan and for Dumfries and Galloway, and to see such a lack of attendance from Scottish Labour MPs, with the notable exceptions of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire and the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), who is here in her capacity as the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee but cannot vote on the order.”
“I must once again put on record my dissatisfaction—and that of the official Opposition—that this incredibly sensitive and significant debate is taking place with very little interest or representation from Scottish Labour MPs, and is not being given time on the Floor of the House.”
“What will the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues do in that situation? On that point, how does the Minister intend to preserve unity in the medical profession across the United Kingdom? How does she intend to preserve uniformity for those who conscientiously object within the medical profession more broadly? What was the reasoning behind selecting a section 30 order over a section 63 order? Does she have any concerns regarding the use of a section 104 order to resolve the remaining litany of inconsistencies that are not broached in this modification order? The Opposition will be voting against this mechanism today for the reasons I have set out.”
“Moreover, the limited approach does not resolve remaining inconsistencies that we would face should the Scottish Parliament’s assisted dying Bill pass—for example, the regulation of medical professions, and employment and industrial relations. There are significant concerns over the mechanisms that might be invoked to remedy the remaining competency challenges, namely through the section 104 order. The legislation poses a question that goes to the heart of issues surrounding devolution and Scottish Parliament competence. While we have consensus across the House that the issue of conscience regarding assisted dying in Scotland is now one for the MSPs in Holyrood to decide on, I cannot help but reflect on the truly disjointed situation the United Kingdom may land in if the Bill is passed in Scotland while defeated in England and Wales.”
“Furthermore, the veto power conferred on the Secretary of State, and the resultant confusion in terms of authority and accountability, is an unprecedented power-sharing lay-out, representing a departure from the constitutional norm we have had since 1999. The Opposition are absolutely not against the sovereign Government of the United Kingdom taking an increasingly active and interested role in the governance of Scotland, but this is not the mechanism nor the way to go about having the conversation. Indeed, it is yet another reason why this debate should be taking place on the Floor of the House and not in a Committee Room at 2.30 pm on a busy afternoon, with no Scottish representation—bar one.”
“I understand the Minister’s argument regarding the coherent regulation of substances across the United Kingdom, and the implications for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, but does she foresee any incompatibility between the consistent regulation of substances across the UK and the effective implementation of any assisted dying subordinate legislation that would identify medicines to be used for that purpose? Section 30 orders have never previously been used to confer powers directly on a British Government Minister. The precedent the order establishes is one of piecemeal devolution and disintegration.”
“On accountability, proposed new paragraph 4A(1) in article 2 of the draft order outlines the scenario in which powers can be conferred on Scottish Ministers to use subordinate legislation to identify the relevant medicines, medical supplies and poisons, subject to approval by the Secretary of State. Proposed new sub-paragraph (2) provides for the conferral of power to the Secretary of State for the regulation of such medicines. In either case, the Secretary of State retains a veto power over the regulation of medicines. The Scottish Government would not truly be accountable for the implementation, and the Secretary of State does not directly influence Scottish Parliament Bills.”
“We hold issue with the hypothetical nature of the draft order. Were the Bill to pass, it should then be for the UK Government to determine how we facilitate the devolution of such powers, so as to make it legal and competent within the Scottish Government’s purview. I do not think, however, that the right step is pre-emptively to devolve power ahead of a Bill being passed. That, I am afraid, runs the risk of setting a dangerous precedent for other issues and items, which may come about as a result of the Members’ Bill process in the Scottish Parliament—not least, perhaps, around issues pertaining to the constitution, which I am sure the hon. Member was not referring to in any way.”
“I also put on the record my thanks to the Committee and the role that it played in providing scrutiny to the draft statutory instrument before us today. The Minister has not explained why there are so few Scottish Labour MPs in the room this afternoon—the question I asked at the very beginning and thrice in my comments. It cannot be that, aside from the hon. Member for Glasgow West and the Minister, there is a lack of interest in this SI, given the important implications of the Bill and how law is delivered in Scotland—so might the Minister provide an explanation?”
“The Minister is being very generous with her time. As she referenced, I have been through numerous Committees with Conservative and Labour Ministers. It has never been the case that all but one of the Members on the Government Benches have been from outside Scotland. We are considering amendments to the Scotland Act 1998. Surely she does not expect us to believe that the 35 Scottish Labour MPs are so busy that they could not find time to come along to debate this important issue before us today.”
“It is unusual—indeed, unheard of, in recent months anyway—for the Secretary of State and I to agree on anything on energy policy, but it is probably not the first time this week that he secretly agrees with a Scottish politician. I know he agrees that new nuclear, particularly SMRs, offer huge potential for the UK and for Scotland. This week, Trade Unionists for Safe Nuclear Energy launched a petition addressed to the First Minister of Scotland, calling on him to lift the ban on new nuclear development in Scotland. Can that group expect the Department’s support?”
“Does the Secretary State not agree that this is the time for the SNP Government to drag themselves into, and to move Scotland into, the 20th century—let alone the 21st century—change course and lift this ridiculous ban?”
“The difference is that this Secretary of State’s ambition for nuclear pales in comparison with our ambition when we were in government. When I served as the Minister for nuclear, it was a source of the greatest frustration that, despite the many countless—indeed, huge—strides we took to kick-start the new nuclear age in the UK, none of the investment or the jobs would be seen north of the border. The Scottish National party is most at home refighting the battles of the past—they tend to be the battles of the 14th century—but in this age of nuclear revolution across the world, the aversion to nuclear is inexplicable. It is a luddite approach. The SNP is anti-science, anti-progress and anti-jobs. There can and should be a future for nuclear in Scotland.”
“May I also ask the Minister what assessment he has made of the risk of carbon leakage in the maritime sector and whether he believes the safeguards under this instrument are sufficient? We do not simply oppose this instrument; we will vote against it. We oppose the UK ETS and carbon taxes that are crippling UK manufacturing and businesses and deindustrialising Britain at a criminal rate. On behalf of all those who this Government are harming by their reckless actions, we ultimately oppose this Government.”
“The Government estimate that more than 145 oil and gas support vessels will be impacted by this instrument, but we know they do not care, because most of the vessels sail out of the port of Aberdeen, which is already suffering job losses as a direct result of the Government’s policies on oil and gas. Aberdeen city and shire have no Labour MPs or MSPs, so we know the party does not care about the fate of that city, its industry, economy or people. Those of us who live there feel that every day. What impact does the Minister think the extension will have on the north-east of Scotland and the UK oil and gas sector—a sector already suffering blow after blow from the Labour Government? What impact will that have on energy security?”
“1 would argue, and I know my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East will argue, that the connections to those islands are just as vital as connections to the Scottish isles. Believe it or not, Sir Jeremy, it gets worse. Although the extension is a major blow to the maritime industry and UK shipping competitiveness overall, it is another death knell for the oil and gas industry, which is yet again being totally shafted by this Government. This instrument includes in its definition of offshore vessels those that support the oil and gas industry, which are not protected by the 5,000 GT threshold.”
“This is without doubt one of the worst pieces of legislation I have seen come before us in three Parliaments and nine years on Government Front and Back Benches and now in opposition. For every £1 spent on decarbonisation as a result of the framework, £8 will be spent on bureaucracy. That is insane. That does not support businesses or growth. The only thing growing here is the burden of red tape—the Government’s favourite colour—on UK industry. I take this opportunity to put on record my support for the specific exemptions made for fishing vessels and ferry services providing essential connectivity for Scottish islands. It is vital that they are exempt from the burden of the restrictions, albeit it is to be for only one year. One questions why the Isles of Wight and Man and the Scilly Isles are not afforded the same level of concern.”
“Article 18 of the order details the facts to be logged on each voyage for ships completing fewer than 300 voyages per year, including: “(a) port of departure; (b) date and hour of departure; (c) port of arrival; (d) date and hour of arrival; (e) total amount of each type of fuel consumed; (f) emission factor for each type of fuel consumed; (g) amount of each greenhouse gas emitted.” The burden then falls on the maritime operator to produce a risk assessment to identify potential sources of error in data flows. I recite that content only to illustrate the extent of the burden that this regulation imposes on the sector. This instrument extends the ETS burden to the UK shipping industry to the tune of £175 million in administrative costs alone. That is utterly absurd.”
“Worse, the industry is expected to comply in three months’ time, while still awaiting guidance to be published on how they can implement it. Even for this Government, that is either incompetence of the highest order, a deliberate attempt to squeeze a hard-pressed industry even more to make up for the shortfall in Treasury receipts as businesses and individuals up sticks and get out of the United Kingdom. The Department’s own impact assessment quotes an £85 million cost to British business as a result of this mechanism and we have not even turned to the burden that this mechanism is going to place on operators. This emissions monitoring plan represents a ridiculously onerous administrative burden on maritime businesses.”
“The nominal purpose of this extension is to encourage decarbonisation in the maritime sector, which is a laudable aim—not that it will have any impact on global maritime emissions, given the fact that the USA, China, India and others have no plans to curb their emissions in the maritime sector. As a result, this mechanism will actually function purely as a carbon tax. To pretend otherwise would be this Government at their absolute abject worst. This is not a mechanism to decarbonise; it is a pernicious tax being levied on one of our most successful industries. Access to alternative fuels is not sufficient to decarbonise at the level required by the scheme. The infrastructure that the UK maritime industry requires to transition to low carbon simply does not exist at the scale that will be required.”
“Food manufacturers, oil refineries, power stations and more are all subject to this framework. As the levy on emissions increases, naturally prices paid by end consumers are also driven up. That is why we have said that when we are re-elected to Government in three years’ time, we will repeal the ETS framework and begin to undo the great damage to Britain’s industrial base being done by the actions of this Government. We only hope that it will not be too late. The draft order requires maritime operators to participate in the scheme, enacting a requirement on ship operators to produce an emissions monitoring plan.”
“It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Jeremy. The draft order affects the implementation of the UK emissions trading scheme, which replaced our participation in the EU ETS from 2021. As the Minister set out, the scheme was established under the Climate Change Act 2008 by the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Order 2020. In the draft order, the Department seeks to expand the scope of the UK ETS in line with the Secretary of State’s net zero agenda. We saw just last week an instrument brought with the effect of reducing the free allowances under the scheme, increasing the carbon tax on industry from 2027 onward. The increasing cost on industry per tonne of greenhouse gas emitted is a burden that weighs on the UK’s industrial competitiveness.”
“As somebody who served in the Royal Navy for four years after I left school, I have full awareness of maritime operations and of the importance of our United Kingdom. I was talking about the gross unfairness of this legislation and the impact it is having on some communities around this kingdom, whether on the Isle of Wight or in Northern Ireland. The Minister has the audacity to claim that CBAM is protecting British industry, when his Government’s policies are doing more to undermine British industry than any policy of any Government in recent history. The deindustrialisation we are seeing in this country is something of which his party, which still laughably calls itself the Labour party, should be utterly ashamed. I ask him to withdraw his remark about the ignorance of maritime affairs.”
“They could adopt the Conservatives’ cheap power plan to cut everyone’s electricity bills by 20% and scrap the reckless clean power 2030 target, which is locking everyone into paying higher bills for far longer.”
“The Secretary of State has already been forced, by this House, to ban Great British Energy from spending taxpayers’ money on solar panels when there is evidence of forced labour in the supply chain, and of course we welcome that, but can he assure the House that he will apply that same ban on slave labour to solar panel installations funded by the warm homes plan? When will he publish details of how that mechanism will work, so that it can be scrutinised by the House? The Government are ignoring the fact that the affordability crisis that the Secretary State talks about is a crisis of his own making. They are ignoring the fact that they are locking the country into paying higher bills for far longer. If they truly want to encourage people to adopt green technology, like heat pumps or electric vehicles, they need to make electricity cheap.”
“We cannot ignore all the costs that this Government are imposing on the housing sector, and the impact that they will have on the cost of living for families. The Government are going to set up a new quango, the warm homes agency, to administer these schemes. Can the Secretary of State tell us how much this quango will cost the taxpayer, how it will be held accountable, and why he decided to spend money on setting up a new quango rather than those functions being delivered by his own Department, which he controls?”
“As for the changes to the minimum energy efficiency standards for rented homes, the Secretary of State will know that the previous Government did more than any other to improve energy efficiency standards, with half of all homes having an energy performance certificate rating of C or above when we left office, compared to 14% when the Secretary of State left office in 2010. Has his Department carried out any impact assessment of what the 2030 deadline will cost landlords, and how much of the cost will be passed on to renters? His own Government’s data shows that it will cost more than £12,000 to upgrade a home from EPC E to C—£12,000 that will then be passed on to families in increased rents.”
“Just imagine that there was a plan on the table to cut the cost of running a heat pump by 20% instantly: a cheap power plan that would not involve raising taxes on working people to fund handouts; a plan that would axe the carbon tax, and scrap the Secretary of State’s rip-off wind subsidies to cut bills for every family in the country. Would that not be a far better approach to making make heat pumps much more attractive? What steps will the Department take to ensure that low-interest loans will provide good value for money? How many homes will benefit from the low-interest and zero-interest loans scheme, and how will it be determined who gets a low-interest loan or a zero-interest loan?”
“There is a serious risk that the Government’s legally binding targets are forcing them to push people into buying heat pumps, but all those families will be locked into sky-high running costs, because the Government have a political target that is pushing up electricity bills at the same time. This plan does nothing to address those high ongoing running costs. Indeed, last week the Government announced that they were locking the country into higher energy prices for decades through their botched wind auction.”
“Let me now turn to the specific measures in the plan. The Department’s own figures show that the public are becoming more sceptical about heat pumps. Between winter 2024 and spring 2025, the proportion of people saying that they were unlikely to install an air source heat pump increased from 38% to 45%, and if you ask anyone why they do not want a heat pump, they will say it is because of the high up-front costs. [Interruption.] Yes, they will—but it is also because of the high ongoing running costs, which often make heat pumps more expensive to run than gas boilers.”
“We believe that there is a greater role in our energy system for home batteries, we support a more technology-agnostic approach to air-to-air heat pumps, and, of course, we believe that rooftop solar is much better than carpeting the countryside in huge solar farms, but the Secretary of State is ignoring the core problem. We are in an electricity price crisis of his own making. Even if we are as charitable as possible and accept that the Government will reach the 5 million households who they say will benefit from this plan, it will do nothing to cut bills for 83% of the country. However, all those households will pay much higher taxes because of Labour’s Budget, including taxes to fund the Secretary of State’s £15 billion plan, and they are struggling with their energy bills now because of the choices of the Secretary of State.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement. Today’s announcement is long overdue—overdue by an entire year, to be exact. During the general election, the Labour party claimed that it would cut household bills. This announcement should be part of that, but in that time, since the general election and on this Secretary of State’s watch, energy bills have not fallen; they have gone in the opposite direction. Energy bills are up by £200 since the election, partly as a result of the Secretary of State’s own political choices.”
“This creates barriers within the United Kingdom, just as NHS Scotland, which is unable to share data and records with NHS England, prevents seamless care across the United Kingdom. We do not wish to stand in the way of this statutory instrument, which seeks to make technical adjustments to existing legislation as a result of the 2023 and 2025 regulations. However, I wish to put on the record the official Opposition’s frustration with the Scottish Government’s endless duplication, waste and inefficiency, which is costing Scottish taxpayers dear.”
“From that flawed experiment, we now know that it matters not how much is given—for the nationalists, it will never be enough. Where devolution serves simply to duplicate work that is already undertaken, more efficiently and at lower cost, by the Department for Work and Pensions, we must ask whether the Scottish equivalent represents value for money for taxpayers or is simply yet another a marketing exercise for those who wish to create more separation between us. The division of payments for carers into a parallel system creates a new level of bureaucracy and adds complication in the system that we think is quite unnecessary. Those who are already in receipt of carer’s allowance would have to reapply for the carer support payment if they relocated to Scotland.”
“Although the order itself is technical and necessary, and we will not stand in its way, I would like to speak to the wider context of the instrument. The order follows the introduction of the 2023 regulations, an instrument of the Scottish Parliament that acted to replace the carer’s allowance in Scotland, originally administered under the Department for Work and Pensions, with a new type of benefit that served the same original purpose, administered by Social Security Scotland. The 2023 legislation epitomises the Scottish Government’s bureaucratic tendencies at the expense of Scottish taxpayers. In the wake of the failed bid for independence in 2014, the Smith commission set out provisions for greater devolution, and the resulting powers for devolution were set out in the Scotland Act 2016.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir Christopher. The consequential modifications are uncontroversial in and of themselves, serving only to substitute wording across existing legislation and update previous regulations to reflect the change in the definition of carer support payments. As the Minister set out, the order amends the defined terms in social security legislation to reflect the introduction of carer support payments, as introduced in the Carer’s Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 and the Carer’s Assistance (Miscellaneous and Consequential Amendments, Revocation, Transitional and Saving Provisions) (Scotland) Regulations 2025, as provided for by the Scottish Government’s Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018.”
“One way to lessen the bite of the cost of living for hard-working Scots would be to cut their taxes, letting people keep more of their hard-earned money. Unfortunately, for the nationalists that appears to be anathema. Instead, they are increasing foreign aid spending, which is reserved, to £16 million. They are introducing yet more tax bands and more new taxes, but nothing to incentivise people to find good, well-paying jobs. Conservatives know that you cannot tax a nation into prosperity. Does the Secretary of State agree?”
“The Labour Government are doing absolutely nothing to grow the Scottish economy, given the national insurance increase, the family farm tax, the unemployment rights Bill and the gutting of the oil and gas industry. Growth has been halved, unemployment is up and inflation is up. It is total incompetence. However, the Government are not only incompetent but weak—so weak that Scottish Labour announced that it would not oppose the SNP’s budget before its members even knew what was in it. We know that they are not very good at government, but you would have thought that after all these years they might have worked out how to do opposition, wouldn’t you?”