Andrew Bowie
MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine · Conservative · United Kingdom
“However, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” publication today states that the Government’s projected oil and gas receipts for the next year, which are now expected to raise £5.1 billion for the Treasury, include: “production from currently producing fields (including Jackdaw), and the NSTA’s estimate of p…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you for granting this point of order. I am seeking some clarity because both this week and last week, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero indicated that no decision had been taken on whether they were going to grant approval to the Rosebank oilfiel…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Finally, Mr Speaker—at last, after two and a half years, this Government have found it within themselves to do the right thing, after exhausting all the alternatives. We have arrived at this destination far later than we should have. Jackdaw was first approved by us in 2022.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Government are serious about a new, pragmatic approach and serious about British jobs and British businesses, that surely means the forthcoming energy independence Bill will not contain measures to ban any new licences in the North sea—a purely ideological but unfathomable decision.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yet today, the workers in our oil and gas industry are to be thankful that after two and a half years of uncertainty, this Government—kicking and screaming—have finally done the right thing. I have no doubt that there will be more kicking and screaming from some of their Back Benchers today.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had oil downturns before, when global prices fell and jobs were lost in the UK. When it happened under our watch, we stepped up: we maximised recovery, cut taxes and turned the North sea into the most investable basin in the world.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Does the Secretary of State agree with the Scottish Labour leader, who says there is no question but that there has to be new oil and gas, or does he agree with his colleague the Energy Secretary, who has banned new licences in the North sea and is overseeing the accelerating decline of the UK’s oil and gas basin?”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think we all heard that, and I am sure Anas Sarwar did. The Secretary of State was unable to agree with his own leader in Scotland, and is so in hock to the UK Labour party that he cannot stand up for Scottish workers or the Scottish oil and gas industry. It has always been the party interest over the national interest for Labour, with no notice taken of the Scottish Labour party. Ten years ago, the Scottish Labour party was described by its own leader as being simply the “branch office”. Nothing has changed, has it?”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Perhaps the Government received advice on how to achieve community consent from President Xi Jinping.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The order provides a route to approval for onshore wind that entirely bypasses the consent of local communities and empowers the zealotry of the Secretary of State to impose infrastructure irrespective of the concerns of local people.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In just four short weeks, people across England will go to the polls to determine the future of their local communities. At that same time, the Labour party seeks to impose on those very same communities vast new energy infrastructure: huge solar farms and wind turbines with blade heights of 180 metres to 200 metres, destroying swathes of England’s green and pleasant land and going against the wishes of local people. As ever, only the Conservative party is standing up for those communities, and only the Conservative party believes that people in those communities should have a say over their local area. Labour would silence those communities, choosing to impose rather than to seek consent. In four weeks’ time, voters across this country will have that choice before them.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In Lincolnshire’s prime agricultural land, the breadbasket of England, this means a potential onslaught of proposals, despite the county council’s opposition to large-scale plans. I know how much this means to local communities—my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) has also made this point. I represent a constituency that is being subjected to vast swathes of energy infrastructure, and over the next few years approval will be sought for a whole host of new plans that will indelibly change a landscape that people are proud and happy to live in right now.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Today, the Minister seeks to go further still. In increasing the threshold for solar, he pushes for the development of giant solar farms. To be eligible for sign-off by the Secretary of State, solar farms have to be 100 MW in capacity. Currently, the largest—Shotwick solar park in Flintshire—is 72 MW. The change signals a free-for-all for giant-scale solar, and the instrument brings onshore wind over a 100 MW capacity into the NSIP scope. In Lancashire, that means Scout Moor II being in the Secretary of State’s gift to approve. Calderdale wind farm, with 65 turbines covering 9 square miles, is planned for Yorkshire and will be built on grouse moorland and farmland.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, living, as we do, in the north-east of Scotland and seeing around us the huge increase in energy infrastructure planned for rural communities over the next few years—it is quite daunting. It is therefore no surprise that there has been such vociferous campaigning against the plans, whether those for wind turbines, pylons, energy substations or battery storage facilities, all of which are in the pipeline for our communities. That is why there is such a pushback there and also such concern across many of the communities that will be affected by the change in England over the next few years. That is why we oppose the SI before us. In their first week in office, the Government approved three solar farms across Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Rutland, against the wishes of the local communities.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. I would be keen to see exactly what the Government are proposing on that front. Their plans, which are stripping away the rights of local communities, are doing great damage to communities across this country with shocking disregard—”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire, they are silencing local opposition. They risk alienating the British public in their costly rush to a renewables-based system without consultation and with no consent. The race to Clean Power 2030 is being done at the expense of all else. It is being done at the expense of our energy security, our national security and our standards on ethical supply chains. Just last week in this very House, Labour whipped its MPs to vote in favour of allowing Great British Energy to invest in supply chains despite evidence of modern slavery—the Labour party! The week before, the Secretary of State was collaborating with the People’s Republic of China, sacrificing our national security and tacitly admitting that his wrong-headed targets were unachievable without imports made with coal power.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would be delighted to come back and compare notes on how our respective parties have performed in the local elections on 1 May. The choice before the people of England who are going to the polls on 1 May is quite clear. Where they have a Conservative local authority, they get better services and better value for money, as is being demonstrated right now by the comparison between Birmingham and Bromsgrove. There could not be a better illustration of the difference between Conservative party local delivery and Labour party failure. That is what is on the ballot paper on 1 May, and I will debate the arguments around that with the hon. Member any day of the week. The Labour Government have made no secret of their plans to double onshore wind and treble solar, to be achieved by empowering themselves while disenfranchising local communities.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What is his message to the residents of Lincolnshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire and elsewhere, as they make their decisions on 1 May?”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yesterday we saw the price cap and bills go up. On the Opposition side of the House, we stand with communities, seek to empower local people and understand their concerns. We oppose this instrument, which enables the Secretary of State to continue to ride roughshod over the concerns of local communities in vain pursuit of the Government’s own legacy. Will the Minister recommission the whole-systems cost analysis that his Government scrapped on day one, and look at the facts? Can he tell us the cost of running the gas-fired power station fleet for 5% of our power, in addition to the rising curtailment costs, paid to turn off the growing number of wind turbines? Can he confirm that his proposed community benefits package is significantly lower than the scheme considered by the previous Government?”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are very proud of what we achieved during our years in government, building the first and fifth largest offshore wind farms in the world, which are generating power for Great Britain right now, and halving our emissions while growing the economy faster than any other developed economy. But this Government need to be honest with the British people about the cost of their arbitrary targets. The Labour party makes no attempt to account for the whole-systems cost associated with the renewables-dominated system. In fact, the Secretary of State cancelled the analysis commissioned by his predecessor. He does not want to know how much it costs, and it is clear that the Government do not want to know. It is wilful ignorance driven purely by ideology. At the election, the Labour party promised us £300 off energy bills.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I bow to my right hon. Friend’s expertise on raptors and on British bird life in general. That sounds like an entirely sensible suggestion. The Minister is taking notes, and I very much hope that he will take that suggestion back to the Department in which he is lucky to serve. The Minister has told us that onshore renewable infrastructure can unlock lower bills and that it is the cheapest energy source, but that is not the case. We have the second highest on-stream renewables in Europe, yet the UK’s domestic energy bills are among the highest in Europe. We also know from the Office for Budget Responsibility that the cost to businesses and households of subsidising renewables will increase from £12 billion to £19 billion by 2030. That is the true cost of the Government’s rush to net zero.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wonder what those titans of that proud labour movement would make of this today, because it was on this day in 1807 that the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act received Royal Assent, and 218 years on, Labour MPs are going to be whipped to allow the state to directly fund imports of goods built by slave labour in China. [ Interruption. ] They complain, but it is true.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is in the context of our increasing reliance on foreign states that I wish to speak to the Lords amendments, and particularly Lords amendment 2, tabled by Lord Alton of Liverpool. I am grateful to him, and we all recognise his long-standing dedication to this serious matter. I said that this was a sad day, and I feel for those Labour MPs, for many of whom I have a great deal of respect, who came into this House, into politics and specifically into their party because they believed in social justice and decency, and for whom this is not just a job but a vocation. They came here in July believing that they would be part of a project to create a better world, in the spirit of Bevan, Attlee, Hardie and Wilson.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wonder how he would characterise the People’s Republic of China, where political opposition is illegal, where citizens have more limited political rights than in the Russian Federation, where dissent is invariably punished and where the use of forced labour is proven. In 2022 we blocked China General Nuclear from involvement in Sizewell C. In 2020 we prevented Chinese influence on our communications networks under the guise of Huawei. Yet despite serious concerns about the national security implications, the ethical implications and the high climate emissions, the Secretary of State and Ministers are opening the gates to Chinese technology in our North sea wind farms, to solar panels made with slave labour and to using coal power.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We were told it would generate energy, but it will not—it does not have a licence to do that. We were told that it would guarantee a positive return on every investment, but that is impossible. I therefore ask the Minister again: what will the entity actually do? Do they know? Will it be seeking an electricity generation licence? How will it bring down energy costs in this country? Turning to today’s proceedings, far from the Secretary of State and the Minister’s insistence that Great British Energy will free us from reliance on foreign dictatorships, this headlong rush to clean power by 2030 will, in fact, make us more reliant than ever on the People’s Republic of China. He and his Ministers are quick to note the reluctance to rely on petrostate dictators.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is a sad and quite incredible day in this House. We have debated this Government’s energy policies on many occasions in the past few months. We have frequently debated the merits, or lack thereof, of Great British Energy, an organisation about which we still know very little—what it is for and what it will do. We were told by the Labour party that it would bring down bills by £300, but bills have gone up. We were told by the Labour party that it would create jobs, but nobody can tell us how many or by when. We were told by the Labour party that it would be based in Aberdeen, but the interim chairman is based in Manchester and it looks unlikely that we will see little more than a brass plaque in the granite city. We were told that it would employ thousands of people, but that then turned to hundreds.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is something that we have debated time and again, and I am sure we will come back to this House to debate it again in the future. Great British Energy is not great, it is not British and it will not generate any energy. Public funds should not be—must not be—funding imports tainted by modern slavery and slave labour. British taxpayers deserve better: a domestic supply chain that creates jobs at home rather than funding abuses abroad. That is why we support Lords amendment 2, and I urge Labour Members to do the right thing today and vote for it as well.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend will not be at all surprised to learn that I agree with him entirely. It is purely the imposition on this country of arbitrary, needless targets, such as clean power by 2030, to generate headlines and get the Secretary of State’s name up in lights that is requiring us to become more reliant on the People’s Republic of China for the goods, technology and equipment to develop the solar farms, nearly all of which will be tainted by slave labour in some way, given the reliance on slave labour in part of that country for that infrastructure and technology. So of course I agree with him, and of course it would be much better if we were issuing new licences and continuing to support our own domestic oil and gas industry.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On 6 February, the Prime Minister announced that he would “take on the blockers” and build new small modular reactors, but do those blockers include his own Government? With essential work being delayed and paused at Sellafield, possible job losses at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and still no certainty for Sizewell C due to a general fear in the industry that the spending review will stymie the ambitions of Great British Nuclear, are the biggest blockers to new nuclear in the UK not in Labour’s Treasury?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last month, with surprisingly little fanfare from the Department or the Secretary of State, the Climate Change Committee published carbon budget 7. Among the more eyewatering recommendations was the figure put on the cost of meeting the obligations: £319 billion over the next 15 years. Frontloading that will be a net cost to industry every year until 2050. Is that exorbitant cost the reason that he cancelled his Department’s review, commissioned by his predecessor, into the whole-systems cost of net zero?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The right hon. Gentleman might be content with signing our energy sovereignty over to the People’s Republic of China, and he might be happy with his Government’s arbitrary targets and bans, pushing bills up and leaving us more reliant on importing and costing jobs, but we think it is time for a new approach, as the Leader of the Opposition said this morning, focused on security and cost to the consumer, not pie-in-the-sky targets with no plan to reach them. Will he recommission the review into the whole-systems cost? If not, what is he trying to hide?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the industry receive an answer on the uncertainty surrounding the calculation of scope 3 emissions and environmental impact assessments? Given the announcement of £200 million to support the 400 workers affected by the closure of Grangemouth, how much does the Minister think the Treasury might need to find to support the 200,000 workers currently supported by the oil and gas industry? Does she agree with the Climate Change Committee that we will need oil and gas until at least 2050, and has she accounted for the higher carbon emissions associated with importing liquefied natural gas instead? Finally, let me ask whether she still sees the Department as a sponsor and a champion for the industry—because the industry certainly does not trust that to be the case.”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This Government are a complete joke, overseeing the wilful deindustrialisation of our nation. If the Minister will not take my word for it, perhaps she will take the word of the GMB leader, who said: “In the new geopolitical reality—it’s madness. If the North Sea is being prematurely closed down and we are increasing import dependence—that’s bad for jobs, economic growth and national security.” Or perhaps she will take the word of the general secretary of Unite, who said: “we need to resist any calls that amount to offshoring our carbon responsibilities for the sake of virtue signalling.” May I ask the Minister whether she has personally met any oil and gas workers since taking office, in order to understand what her Government’s policy means for them and their families, and whether the Secretary of State has done so?”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It may be “Drill, baby, drill” in the United States, but it is “Dole, baby, dole” under Labour in the United Kingdom. The Government’s decisions will cost our economy some £12 billion in lost tax revenue to the Treasury, on top of the £12 billion in lost capital investment. This makes a complete mockery of their claim to be anything like pro-growth. It is insanity to be doing all this to our own industry while becoming increasingly reliant on imports from abroad and causing more carbon to be released into the atmosphere: more imports of liquefied natural gas, fracked in the USA, frozen and then shipped across the Atlantic on diesel-chugging ships; or more imports from Norway, a net exporter, which is drilling from the very same sea from which we could drill ourselves. It is completely nonsensical.”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“People are leaving in their droves for other countries, such as the USA, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Norway, where the industry does have a future. She says we owe it to the North sea’s workers and communities to come up with a proper plan for their future, but this Government’s plan for the North sea is simply to shut it down. This Government’s plan is a betrayal of those workers. This Government’s plan will devastate the communities of the north-east of Scotland. It is said that in every oil-producing country in the world you will find an Aberdonian. It turns out that the only country in which you will not find an Aberdonian working in oil in the near future is Scotland, driven by this mad rush to clean power 2030 and the Government’s obsession with renewables at the expense of everything and everyone else.”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The consultation, announced yesterday, was trumpeted by Government spinners as the beginning of the end of the energy profits levy and a brave new dawn for the North sea. It is complete and utter rubbish. It is a total joke. The energy profits levy is higher now than it was before, because of the decisions of this Labour Government. The investment allowances have almost all been scrapped by this Labour Government. Crucially, the windfall tax is now in place for far longer—until 2030—because of this Labour Government. That is five years away, but the oil and gas industry does not have five years. Investment is drying up, and work is being put on pause. Companies are literally shutting up shop. The truth is that the high-paid, good, long-term jobs that the Minister speaks of do not yet exist in renewables in the north-east of Scotland.”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. Another day, another demonstration of this Government’s total ignorance of our oil and gas industry and the north-east of Scotland, their incompetence on the economy and their disregard for the hundreds of thousands of workers in our North sea, as well as their dangerous ineptitude when it comes to our energy security. No other country in the world, especially at a time of heightened global instability and volatility, would actively choose to aggressively and at pace shut down its domestic oil and gas industry, but that is exactly what this Government and in particular this Department, led by the eco-warrior in chief, are doing.”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As a direct result of the eco-zealotry emanating from the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the increase in the energy profits levy, the ban on new licences and the refusal even to defend the issuing of licences to Rosebank and Jackdaw, there will be a reduction in the total economic value of the oil and gas sector of £13 billion over the next four years, with 35,000 direct jobs at risk. Can the Secretary of State tell the House, as Scotland’s man in the Cabinet—the man on whom we all rely to make Scotland’s case and to act in Scotland’s interests—whether he has made any overtures to his beleaguered colleague at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, or indeed to the Treasury, to stop this madness?”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I add my congratulations to those of many others on the birth of the Secretary of State’s child recently. I read with some interest that the leader of the Scottish Labour party is considering publishing a league table to rank the performance of his Scottish Labour MPs. I will not ask the Secretary of State to say where he thinks he may sit in that table, but I will ask about jobs and the economy, specifically in relation to the energy industry.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) says, there is nothing wrong with Sunday leagues. Just as the Secretary of State and Scottish Labour were silent on gender recognition, and just as he and Scottish Labour are silent on taxing family businesses and farms out of existence, he and Scottish Labour are silent on the loss of an entire industry and its workforce, which will decimate the north-east of Scotland and impact the entire UK economy. If he and his Scottish Labour colleagues are not standing up for Scotland’s interests, Scottish workers and Scottish industry, can he tell me just what is the point of Scottish Labour?”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State said that the questions just asked were similar. Well, we did not get an answer on either of our two attempts, so I might try on farming. Scotland’s beef sector is at the heart of Scottish agriculture, with 80% of the country’s agricultural land grazing land, yet domestic beef production levels are set to reduce by 5%, with a 12% increase in imports expected to meet our forecasted demand. It is clear that this Government’s tax changes could not come at a worse time for Scotland’s farmers. Will the Minister please stand up for Scotland’s farmers and make the case to stop this madness?”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It only remains for me, on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition, to wish the new Lord High Commissioner well in her role; to thank the outgoing Moderator of the Church, Dr Shaw Paterson, for his service over this year; to wish the Moderator Designate, Rev. Rosemary Frew, well as she takes up the role; and to wish all those attending the upcoming General Assembly wisdom and patience as they deliberate on matters that mean so much to the national life of Scotland.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What we are doing today will baffle most of those watching our proceedings, not least those who do not know that there are two established Churches in the United Kingdom, but it is important, and it has the official Opposition’s full support. It is a significant gesture of good will and unity between two of Scotland’s largest Churches, and builds on the St Margaret declaration of friendship between the Catholic Church in Scotland and the Church of Scotland in 2022. It is yet another display of fantastic British pragmatism, and the sensibleness that has underpinned how Churches and the state have interacted over centuries.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That was followed by it officially approving those marriages, and it allowed ministers to conduct them in 2022. Whether it is through traditional church services, outreach in communities across Scotland and Europe, the Guild, CrossReach, or missionary work across the world, the Church of Scotland continues to touch and guide our national life in many ways. Religion in Britain is a funny thing. On the one hand, we famously “don’t do God.” On the other, we have prayers before every meeting of our national Parliament. On the one hand, unlike other countries, we treat our religion as private. On the other, bishops of one of our established Churches sit in one of our legislatures, and our Head of State is the supreme governor of one of our two established Churches.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The decline in numbers entering the ministry and the reduction in footfall in church buildings across the country have led to difficult—at times, heartbreaking—decisions being taken to sell buildings and reduce the Church estate. Yet there are huge positives as well. In recent decades, we have seen the Kirk move with the people of Scotland and modernise. It allowed women to be ordained back in 1968, some 24 years before the Church of England did likewise, and that led to huge growth in the number of women in leadership roles in the Church. The Church has had multiple female Moderators of the General Assembly, the first being Alison Elliot in 2004. In 2015, the Church allowed congregations to appoint ministers who were in same-sex marriages or civil partnerships.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“So many people had so much interaction with the Church, but Scotland has changed, and in many ways for the better. In many ways, however, the changes in Scotland have presented challenges for the Church. Church membership, which was just shy of 1 million when I was born, sits now at just over 200,000. The General Assembly, which for many years sat as the one national forum in Scotland at which issues of importance to people across Scotland could be aired in public and debated, was covered as a sitting of a Parliament would be. Since the creation of the Scottish Parliament, it has not engaged the same media interest as it did in the years preceding 1999.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The songs still sung at certain football grounds between fans of certain rival teams speak to a more difficult time in the history of Scotland and indeed the Churches in Scotland—one that, sadly, has not totally been consigned to the history books. Scottish public life was until incredibly recently dominated by the Kirk. Its General Assembly was covered in the same way as the sitting of a Scottish Parliament—at that point not in existence—would have been. Its membership when I was born in the mid-1980s sat at around 1 million people, and its presence touched the lives of a great many more. It had daily five-minute slots on Scottish television, with “Late Call” being parodied so well by the late great Rikki Fulton, as well as the Boys’ Brigade and the Women’s Guild.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wonder if the Scotland of my grandfathers’ time—both of whom were born in Glasgow in the 1920s and both of whom went on to be Kirk elders—would have been as relaxed about such an appointment. Bear in mind that the Church of Scotland was formed out of the blood and fire of the Scottish reformation, with John Knox in his revolutionary zeal creating the only truly national Calvinist church. It dominated public life for centuries: for better, especially in the realm of public education; and for worse, given that for too long it excluded all other forms of Christianity and adherence to anything but the Kirk’s form of Christianity from most positions of influence in public life in Scotland.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When we think about it, however, it remains quite incredible that a practising Roman Catholic will represent our Protestant monarch, whose very first act as King, in accordance with the Act of Succession, was to take an oath to “inviolably maintain and preserve the Settlement of the true Protestant Religion as established by the Laws made in Scotland in prosecution of the Claim of Right and particularly by an Act intituled ‘An Act for securing the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government’”. Rightly, no questions will be asked about her appointment. There may in fact be some who question the appointment, but I think it speaks well to us as a nation—our two nations—that we are so relaxed about such an appointment today. It speaks to just how much Scotland has changed.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, I think we would all agree that it was carried out with ease by the late Queen Elizabeth, who demonstrated her commitment to, interest in and knowledge of both Churches throughout her reign—an interest, passion and dedication now matched by our King. Today, we see another brilliant piece of British pragmatism in what we are about to legislate for. To many in the outside world, the appointment of the brilliant Dame Elish Angiolini to one of the most significant roles in Scottish public life will rightly be seen as a well-deserved honour for one as successful as she has been in her field and in Scottish and British public life.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This makes today an even more significant moment in the history of the Church and the nation, so infrequently are matters of the Kirk discussed on the Floor of either of Scotland’s two Parliaments. Our relationship between Church and state in the United Kingdom is a brilliantly fashioned piece of British pragmatism—or possibly a fudge, as some might describe it. Only in Great Britain could we have a Head of state who, while being Supreme Governor of one established Church, the Anglican Church of England, is also an ordinary member of a completely separate Presbyterian Church, the Church of Scotland. But we do, and no questions are asked. It is a piece of ecclesiastical deftness that would be inconceivable in any other country.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given that it relates to one of the two established Churches of our United Kingdom, that is on the one hand surprising, especially when compared with the hours we spend debating governance and issues pertaining to the Anglican Church. But then, its privileged status as the established Church in Scotland—underpinned by the Acts of Union and the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Act 1707—means that since 1921, when the Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland formed part of the Church of Scotland Act 1921, it has not required any UK or Scottish parliamentary oversight regarding church worship, governance, constitution, membership or office bearers.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to rise to speak in this debate. In fact, it is a genuine pleasure to be speaking, as a member of the Church of Scotland, on an historically significant piece of legislation. It could be argued that this is the latest piece of the work that was begun with the passing of the very legislation that it seeks in part to repeal—the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829—to ensure full equality for Catholics in our public realm. I grew up not quite a son of the manse—it was three doors down—but very much in and around the kirk, and in eight years as a Member of this place, this is the first debate on any issue regarding the governance or affairs of the Church of Scotland that I can remember.”
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“I, too, will not detain the Committee for long, having already expressed the full support of His Majesty’s official Opposition for the Bill, and it will come as no surprise that we are not proposing any amendments in Committee. I do, however, have two questions for the Minister. When does he expect the Bill to go to the House of Lords, and can he assure the Committee and, indeed, the Church of Scotland that everything possible will be done to secure its swift passage to Royal Assent so that it is passed in time for the upcoming General Assembly of the Church of Scotland?”
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“I would like to record the thanks of the Opposition to those who have made possible this Bill, which will hopefully soon become an Act, and to Members from across the House for their contributions. I am grateful for the engagement with the Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church and Lady Elish herself. I think we can all agree that the Bill is a positive step and speaks well to the type of country that Scotland is today, which was certainly not the case 100 years ago. I express yet again my best wishes to the new Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly, and to all those attending its deliberations in its upcoming meeting in May. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I note that the draft order will need to be reviewed should there be changes to the Scottish adult disability living allowance or the reserved legislation. Can the Minister outline what circumstances would bring this about? On a broader point, the devolution of welfare is not straightforward. It may well become much more complex over time as the systems diverge. Why we devolved welfare in the first place remains a complete mystery to me, but I would appreciate answers to my substantive questions.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗