Jamie Stone
MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“While I am very fond of the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter), the House will not be surprised to hear that I do not hang on his every word.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), my good friend and colleague on the Petitions Committee, on his excellent introduction to this debate.”
“It is not really pertinent to the Minister, but those fledgling and now grown-up companies would not have come into being had it not been for a key decision taken by Harold Wilson’s Labour Government in the 1960s, which was to put in place the Highlands and Islands Development Board.”
“My point is that these companies actually teach vital local skills that would not otherwise be taught, create jobs in some of the remotest areas of the United Kingdom and provide a tourist product, which is absolutely crucial when it comes to visitors. When people, including right hon. and hon.”
“Just to be absolutely tidy, could I make a plea on behalf of those families where the member is deceased but the estate still has a claim? There is sometimes, possibly wrongly, an impression that these people are put to the back of the queue. Could I have an assurance that that would not be the case?”
“I want to raise the case of Hughie Stirling from Ullapool. He was on board a flotilla proceeding to Gaza with aid when the Israelis intercepted them in international waters and took them into custody. His partner tells me that he and others were shockingly mistreated—we are talking about physical abuse and even being beaten up.”
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“We could be faced with a parallel to the situation I described at the Scottish Parliament: skills could disappear. I am heartened by the news from Hull that turbine blades are going to be constructed there. That is good news and the Prime Minister was quite correct to emphasise that today. The point is that we should be making far more floating offshore structures in the United Kingdom—the cells, the blades and the towers themselves. While we have the fabrication skills in different parts of the UK, including in my constituency in Scotland, we should get that business going again and be training up the next generation. In the past, there was an organisation called the Highlands and Islands Development Board. Under the management of the Scottish Government, it has been left to become almost nothing.”
“My point is that when skills disappear, they can sometimes disappear forever. I worked as a young man at a yard in Wester Ross called Kishorn, where the mighty Ninian Central Platform for the North sea was built. I worked at Nigg, where a number of the hard steel jackets were constructed. At the highpoint of Nigg in the early 1980s, some 5,000 people worked there. They were highly skilled: they were trained in welding, fabrication and all manner of supporting disciplines to achieve some of the greatest structures ever built for the North sea. Today, many of those people are retired or nearly at retirement age, and my big worry—this echoes the point made by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe—is that although those people could pass on the skills and train young people in them, there is no effort to make that happen.”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on a most interesting speech. If one visits the Scottish Parliament—some Members may have done or may in future—one cannot help but admire the woodwork. The joinery, carpentry and cabinetmaking are of the highest standard. I was on the Committee that oversaw the building of that Parliament—it nearly cost me my seat in the 2003 Scottish election, but that is beside the point. What struck me very forcibly was that in the United Kingdom we did not have the cabinetmaking and joinery skills to produce a finished article of that quality. Most of the work was done by people from Romania, Poland and other eastern European countries.”
“Dounreay, in my constituency, was the site of the UK’s first fission reactor. Today, we have a highly skilled workforce, a licensed site and a local population that warmly supports the industry. Will the Government seriously consider involving Dounreay as we bring fusion to its wonderful fruition?”
“There will be people who are eligible for pension credit living in very remote areas, where connectivity is less than great. It is an appalling thought that they might miss out on what they are due. May I suggest to the Department that the way to reach out to those people might be through a database, followed by a mailshot?”
“In the county of Caithness, there is not one psychologist —a damning fact, because we know that mental health is such a problem. There is no hiding. The Scottish Government should get on with the day job and sort out the NHS in my constituency and the rest of Scotland. They have no excuses.”
“None of them is here. What a shame! Well, I am just going to say what other Members have said. I hope that the SNP Scottish Government get off their backsides and spend the money properly. There is no hiding now, and there is no excuse—they have got the dosh. Madam Deputy Speaker, how many times have you heard me talk about mums having to go on a more than 200-mile return trip to give birth in the middle of winter? Are we joking? It is amazing that something dreadful has not happened. The doctors I spoke to about national insurance contributions told me that gynae services in the far north of Scotland are on their knees. Dr Pearson told me about a mum who had to wait two years to get a hysterectomy. Is that not a disgrace?”
“Two doctors in my constituency, Dr Alison Brooks in Thurso and Dr Ewen Pearson in Wick, have made it very clear to me what the effects of the increase in employers’ national insurance will mean. I do not want to bore the Chamber, because we have heard a lot about that already, but the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), who is not in his place, referred to possible mitigation, and I hope that that will prove to be the case. Otherwise, we could face the diminution of services and even find that jobs will go, which would be totally and completely unacceptable. I was sitting in the Chamber when the Chancellor announced the £3.4 billion for the Scottish Government, and I heard nine soft thuds as nine chins hit the deck behind me. The SNP had the old, wailing dirge ready: “It’s Westminster what done it. We ain’t got the cash.” Oh!”
“Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker —I was not expecting you to do so. May I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) apropos farms and farmers? Madam Deputy Speaker, you—I can call you “you”—have heard me talk about health services in the remote far north of Scotland more times than I care to remember. Members refer to the NHS as being on its back, which is nowhere truer than in my constituency. The people in Caithness and Sutherland knew that when they came to put a cross on the ballot paper in July, which is why we got the result that we did. I would say to my hon. Friends who represent other Scottish constituencies that that is true elsewhere, too.”
“During the 12 years that I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, one of the most instructive and rewarding parts of my role were my occasional visits, with other MSPs, to HMP Porterfield in Inverness. Does the Minister agree that encouraging MPs to do the same would do a very great deal not just for young offenders, but offenders of all ages?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech outlining the Scottish context. Should the SNP Government not repair the damage done to maternity services in the north of Scotland, where mothers have to make a more than 200-mile round trip to give birth? They should put things right in the north and all parts of Scotland.”
“The Secretary of State mentions Orbex. At present, it employs 125 people; by 2030, it could employ as many as 500. Is the Secretary of State willing to visit Orbex in Elgin and, indeed, the Sutherland space launch site?”
“The eastern European workers have been the lifeline and the mainstay of the hospitality business in the highlands, an area where we have depopulation and an ageing population. Very often the hotels, restaurants and pubs struggle to find the people they desperately need to change sheets, wash up, work as kitchen porters and scrub the pans and pots, as we have just heard—I myself was a KP at one point. My point is very simple: I urge the Government to make it as easy as possible for businesses to offer the work that people desperately want and make it as easy as possible for them to come to the United Kingdom and contribute to our hospitality economy.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Chair. Back in early 2019, I was contacted by the beautiful Glen Mhor hotel on the shores of the Loch Ness, which wanted me to raise at Prime Minister’s questions that its Polish workers, who are vital to the business, were all going back. We all know why that was. Unfortunately, at Prime Minister’s questions, I stood up and invited the then Prime Minister Theresa May to accompany me to the Glen Mhor hotel. I did not get much further than that question because it sounded like an improper suggestion and the House collapsed in laughter. I should add that some weeks later I asked Theresa May another question about space launch in the highlands and she responded that she was very disappointed that I had not once again asked her to accompany me to a hotel. The point is a serious one.”
“The hon. Gentleman mentions business rates. As the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) said, pubs are closing twice as fast in parts of Scotland than they are on this side of the border. Sir Tim Martin, the boss of Wetherspoons, has in recent days strongly criticised the Scottish Government for their deeply unhelpful attitude to rating. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the finger should be pointed north of the border too, and that something should be done before more pubs close?”
“I value the Minister’s words. Does he accept my earlier point that those businesses could do with getting the eastern European and foreign workers they used to have?”
“I wholeheartedly welcome that answer. Scotland has great potential; if I say that “The Traitors” was filmed at Ardross castle in my constituency, the Secretary of State will know what I am talking about. I take the point that these matters are devolved, but Mr Angus Robertson seems to flip-flop when it comes to funding the arts, so I would be grateful for everything the Secretary of State can do to get Netflix, or whoever, to look hard at the Highlands.”
“In Scotland, carers get 61p per mile for the first 3,500 miles, and after 3,500 miles, they get 25p per mile. That is not good news given the vastness of my constituency—half the size of Wales, they tell me—and the mileage that carers have to cover. A lot of those wonderful people are saying, “Enough is enough,” packing up and calling it a day. In north-west Sutherland and Wester Ross in particular, we have an ageing population that desperately needs that kind of support, but carers are just giving up and going. It is not because they do not care for the people they are helping, but because they simply cannot afford it. The cost of running their cars is far greater than what they receive for the vast mileages involved.”
“I will be brief. I support the motion and everything that has been said today, and I look forward to the Government’s response. As many people know—including perhaps you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am an unpaid carer for my wife Flora. With the salary that I receive as an MP, I can afford to do that. I care for my wife because I love her. She has been disabled for 25 years. I will talk about one aspect of the support that we get. When I am here in Westminster, a wonderful team of professional carers go and see my wife every morning, look after her and see what needs to be done. They are fantastic people, and I owe them such a big debt. This is where I might try the patience of the House slightly, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I want to mention an aspect that is not helping those carers: the remuneration that they receive for mileage.”
“The hon. Lady makes a very wise point that demonstrates the interconnected nature of unpaid carers and professional carers, because the best solutions come when they work together. I will conclude with this: we have a problem. It is perhaps not pertinent to the Minister who is before us today, but I hope that the Treasury will consider the issue of remuneration rates for mileages, perhaps with the Scottish Government. Those rates have not been revisited since 2011, and since then, we have had about 40% inflation. We can see what is wrong; let us sort the problem.”
“Lastly, so many of our skilled female workforce are unable to deploy their skills to the full to the betterment of Scotland’s economy because the care that they need for their children is simply not there. They cannot leave their homes to go out and make money for the family and serve Scotland in the best way they can. If we can get that right, we can realise the potential of our female workers; again, we would be very foolish not to. Thank you, Mr Dowd—I believe I have kept within the allotted time.”
“The hon. Member rightly talked about the potential of renewables in the North sea, but virtually none of the nacelles and blades are made in this country. We have the fabrication and welding skills, so we should utilise them, as was done in the 1970s. If we do not do that, we are missing a trick. My right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) is rightly an avid exponent of the potential for space launch from Shetland. I, too, am a keen exponent of the potential of Sutherland in that regard. Orbex, which is based in Morayshire, currently employs 150 and hopes to have perhaps 500 by 2030. There is enormous potential, but the UK Government must match the level of funding coming from Germany and France for the space industry. That is a challenge for the Government, and I am sure they will do their best to meet it.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) on a very thoughtful speech. I want to make three brief points. When the North sea oil came, the then Labour Government saw to it that oil fabrication yards were established in different parts of Scotland, two of which in the highlands, at Kishorn and Nigg, I worked in. They were important because they helped halt and reverse highland depopulation—the curse of the highlands and islands for far too long. Welding and fabrication skills were relocated from Glasgow and the Clyde, and other parts of the UK, to those yards, and some of the greatest structures still working in the North sea today were built there, including the Ninian Central and Magnus platforms. We have the skills there today, but they are ageing skills.”
“Does the hon. Gentleman accept my point that these skills are ageing? We still have them but, if we do not pass them on, they could vanish and it will be much harder to train a new generation of welders and fabricators.”
“I congratulate the Minister on his appointment; I am sure he will do a very good job indeed. I may be a Liberal Democrat, but I recognise that one of the greatest achievements for the highlands of the 1960s Labour Government was the establishment of the Highlands and Islands development board, which did a great deal to reverse depopulation. Today, under the auspices of the Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise—its successor body—is a shadow of its ancestor. I wonder whether the Minister would agree to talk to the Scotland Secretary to see how, working with the Scottish Government, we can revitalise HIE.”
“Friend is quite correct to place this issue before us, and I hope he will be encouraged—though I am sure he will need no encouragement—to bring it forward again. It could have been tackled some years ago, but a perceived inertia at all levels of Government to actually do something about this issue meant it never was. There is a great opportunity here. Knowing the Minister, whom I congratulate on his appointment, and knowing my next-door neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, I have every confidence that this will be the start of a discussion that, if we are positive about it, can achieve a fruitful outcome.”
“Friend has talked about taking people along with us, and that is incredibly sensible advice, because they are paying a 50% premium above other buyers of electricity. If we can take people along with us on the Orkney and Shetland model, it will work—but the key is how we go about it. He also rightly mentioned affordable housing and how such a fund could be used to address this issue. I was recently in the village of Achiltibuie in Wester Ross, speaking to young people who had summer jobs there. I asked what they did in winter when the hotel closes. The answer was, “We have to head south.” Why? Because there is no housing in a place like Achiltibuie. There is absolutely no affordable housing. That is a dagger at the heart of the viability of communities in the highlands, because it leads to school rolls falling and so on. My hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald), on securing this debate—the first of what I am sure will be many debates in years to come. He has talked about what Norway has done, and he is correct to say that my constituents look out of the window when it is cold and see the turbines going round and round, but the money heading south. That is not a good thing at all. The coldest community in the whole of the British Isles is a village called Altnaharra in central Sutherland, where on 30 December 1995 temperatures hit an astonishing -27.2°. If that is not cold, I do not know what is. My hon.”
“Does it not strike the hon. Member as strange that SSE proposed to underground the cable in the highlands from Dundonald to Beauly, yet says that it is impossible to do so in other parts? That is a very mountainous part of the highlands, so I think there is something in what my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald), my constituency neighbour, said about it being possible.”
“She once stopped me on the Royal Mile, shortly after Alex had become First Minister, to say that she had got that dreadful upright piano out of the drawing room at Bute House. She just wanted me to know that. My thoughts are not only with Alex’s family but with his circle of friends, to whom he meant a very great deal. Our condolences should go to his family and to his friends as well. Charles Stewart Parnell made his name in history, and I believe that Alex Salmond will do so in exactly the same way, for many years to come.”
“He was a superb debater—I have never seen his like. What was fascinating about him was that he was a fully developed politician so early in life. He knew exactly what he was about and was determined to achieve his end. I was also briefly in the Scottish Parliament, as the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) alluded to. In 2007, at a reception at the Signet library in Edinburgh, he said, “Jamie, I want a word with you.” He cornered me in one of those half-moon-shaped alcoves and told me very forcibly how supporting the SNP Government in 2007 would lead to a revival of the Liberal party in the Scottish Parliament. Mention has rightly been made of his widow, Moira, whom I found to be a very nice person indeed.”
“Further to those points of order, Mr Speaker. It may come as a surprise to Members to learn that I have a photograph of Alex Salmond in my back hall. That is because a long time ago, he, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and I were all members of the Students’ Representative Council of St Andrews University. It was a sleepy organisation in which we debated this and that. Then, with a flash and a bang, like Mephistopheles appearing in “Doctor Faustus”, he was there from nowhere—a fully equipped, fully armed, formidable young politician, still in his late teens. That came as a shock to us all. Having debated with him in student debates, I can tell the House that if he turned that laser eye on you and fired a verbal sally, it went straight through you, and then straight through the wall behind.”
“I very much hope that this will be the start of a constructive dialogue with the Government, and between the Scottish and UK Governments, on how we can, as has been said, grip the issue, shake it out and sort it once and for all.”
“That is one of the reasons that people are leaving Caithness and heading south. It is as simple as that. Good Government treats the different parts of the UK fairly, whether they are remote, depopulated, or what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who has left us now, referred to as the concrete of London. The point is that a good and fair Government will give people an equal chance in life to prosper and do well. It is not all doom and gloom, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) said. There are hopes for the future. We could look at other models of recruitment, imaginative ways of providing housing and incentives to get employers to come to remote areas.”
“Why do they want us to leave?” That was very sad. Also, when I travel in Wester Ross and west Sutherland I see the old European signs with the stars on them saying, “This stretch of road was paid for with the help of EC money.” That was a huge loss to us all. Whatever we might think of the EC, the structural funding or something like objective 1, which was designed to reach the most disadvantaged areas including those that face depopulation, was a great loss to us all. I hope that His Majesty’s Government will look at the issues. Time is short. There is a massive problem that matters hugely to my constituents. I could talk about health, which has been mentioned already in this debate. The fact that Caithness mothers have to travel more than a 200-mile return trip to give birth in Inverness is a piece of nonsense.”
“If incentives can be put together that will encourage qualified staff—dentists, doctors, teachers —to come to these areas, that would help so much. As my hon. Friend from across the Minch mentioned, there is a carers’ crisis. We see that in west Sutherland. We have an ever dropping number of carers, so who will look after the old people? People are giving up. The Government could tweak the rules governing the taxation of mileage that carers are burdened with. It is a very big disincentive indeed. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) talked about the loss of the migrant workers, as did the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris). The fact that we do not have those people—they have gone—makes a huge difference. I can remember Polish people in Easter Ross asking me, “Do they hate us?”
“That is absolutely not the case. One only needs to travel on what we call the Causeymire—or the Causewaymire—across Caithness from Latheron to Thurso to see the myriad empty ruined croft houses either side of the road. Those once upon a time supported families but that is not the case now. It will be exactly the same across the Minch. My neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire mentioned schools. Just north of his constituency, we have a problem with recruiting and retaining staff for some of our primary and secondary schools. That is becoming a big issue. Such problems are a disincentive for people to come or employers to move to the highlands and offer employment. I am very taken by what my Welsh friend, the hon. Member for Ceredigion Preseli (Ben Lake), said about Western Australia.”
“Indeed, it could be said that, in Caithness, the advent of Dounreay was equally important in not just halting but reversing depopulation. Even today, Dounreay keeps the lights on in Strath Halladale and Bettyhill, because many people have a croft, but they also have an income from Dounreay. To be plain with colleagues, I come to this from the issue of high-quality employment above all else. As my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) just said, that is crucial, because without jobs, depopulation will continue. I congratulate all speakers; all the important points have been touched on. My neighbour across the Minch made an important point. He said that there is a perception that the highlands and islands, and indeed many other parts of the UK, are full up.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my neighbour from across the Minch, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), on bringing this important subject to the attention of this place. I am old enough to remember a time, when I was at school in Tain, when my father said to me, “Your future will lie in the south. Go south, young boy, because that’s where the jobs are.” Then, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) so wisely said, the oil came—and come it did. In my case, that meant working in the Nigg yard, as so many others did—at its height, there were 5,000 people employed there. I married and brought up my children in my home town of Tain. I was one of the lucky ones.”
“I have the honour to represent the most remote, the most sparsely populated and the coldest constituency. The Secretary of State, in responding to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), said earlier that the Government would try to maximise the take-up of pension credit, and I accept that, but would they accept that sheer remoteness and sheer distance can militate against people taking up this offer? I ask the Government, via the right hon. Gentleman, to please look at this issue, because it means an awful lot to my constituents.”
“The point I made to the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), is a fair one. Distance and remoteness militate against take-up. People living in very remote hamlets in the highlands do not necessarily perceive the Department that they should. Can I have an undertaking from the Minister that the Government will look at this issue?”
“There is of course room for more than one space launch site in the UK, and we wish SaxaVord well in its future endeavours. The Minister has talked about the economic benefits to the country, but for Sutherland a space launch represents a social benefit to young people and jobs for the future in a fragile and remote part of the UK. My request is simply this: Ministers have a good relationship with the company Orbex, referred to by the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter), and I would be grateful if that relationship could be built on.”
“As the Minister has said, the physical presence of police officers—coppers on the beat—is crucial to tackling antisocial behaviour, but during recent years we have seen the number of police officers in the highlands of Scotland decline hugely. That is extremely worrying and does nothing for public confidence in the police force. I know that policing is devolved to the Scottish Government, but may I with some passion ask the Minister: what advice does she have for me as a Scottish Member?”
“There is a crofter living in the Rhiconich-Kinlochbervie area of my constituency. He is very hard-working, he is well-liked locally and he has done a great deal for the local community, but he is German and he is trying ever so hard to get leave to remain, but it is taking forever. I would be very grateful if the Minister asked her officials to meet me to see how we can speed this matter on.”
“First, may I congratulate you on your appointment, Madam Deputy Speaker? Further to the point that the right hon. Gentleman has just made, I think it is fair to boast that Scottish education used to be the envy of the world, yet we now have so many staff vacancies in four of our highland secondary schools—Ullapool, Kinlochbervie, Farr and Gairloch—that the kids simply are not being taught what they ought to be taught and are having to rely in some cases on online learning, which is scarcely satisfactory. That is why the parents have banded together to form the Save our Rural Schools campaign. Is that not a damning comment on the Scottish Government’s delivery of education north of the border?”
“The right hon. Member is making a most interesting speech. Does he agree that the present size of the British Army is militating against recruitment? A great many people who might be good in the Army and have considered it as a career option are saying, “Actually, if I could get another job I might do better,” and that is very, very dangerous.”
“Finally, in defence debates during my years in this place, I have always thought the atmosphere of consensus across party boundaries very important. I know from my own family that it was encouraging to our servicewomen and servicemen to know that politicians were speaking as one. From what I have heard this afternoon, I have no reason to worry that that will not go on in future. I think that we can work together for the defence of our nation, which we love so well.”
“I served for a short spell of time as a private soldier in the Territorial Army, and one of my children served in the forces until recently. The size of our forces matters an enormous amount to my party, and I think we all understand that we are very far stretched at the moment—hence my intervention earlier in the debate about the present size of the British Army being not exactly helpful to recruitment. One other thing that I think is desperately important, based on when we met with the joint expeditionary force Foreign Ministers, is that—as all hon. Members have said—we must work across borders, we must work with the European community, and we must work with friends. Only by co-operation, by standing together, can we take on the Russian bear and see it off. As has quite correctly been said, if Ukraine falls, what is next?”
“I want to congratulate, through reasons of friendship, those on the Government Front Bench on their appointments; it is very good to see them in their places—and indeed, I am bound to say, it is good to see those on the Opposition Front Bench in their places. The shadow Foreign Secretary was quite correct to remind us of what is going on in Sudan. It is not just about Russia and Ukraine or the middle east; there are all sorts of terrible things happening in the world. I liked too the Secretary of State’s saying that Britain is “democracy’s most reliable ally”. We ought to remember that on a day like today, when all these new faces exemplify democracy in its good, healthy, working form. I do not have much time, but I want to touch on two points, one of which I think those on both Front Benches know I care passionately about.”
“I remember going in the car from the MOD to board our military helicopter, and the civil servant asking me and the present Secretary of State, “What do you think will happen?” I think we both said, “He’ll probably invade.” I also remember Ben Wallace saying, during the dinner with the Foreign Secretaries, “I am doing this because Governments change and it’s as well you are prepared, although you may belong to other parties, and that you know as much as you can about the defence brief.” I want to go on the record as thanking Ben Wallace for his very generous attitude to keeping me briefed on intelligence, and I thank the present Secretary of State for his generous offer to see that my colleague, my party’s defence spokesperson, is similarly briefed. That is very good news indeed.”