← LEADERSHIP TERMINAL

UK PARLIAMENT · SITTING

Brian Leishman

MP for Alloa and Grangemouth · Labour · United Kingdom

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Fuel is being transported hundreds of miles from Stanlow in Cheshire to Scottish airports, increasing emissions and undermining our local fuel distribution industry.

TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2026-07-16 · READ IN HANSARD

Both were launched when the Iranian Government were sat around the negotiating table. Secondly, there is the rapid unravelling of the subsequent ceasefire under Trump’s maximalist attitude, with his having stopped the military campaign which his Administration had started in the first place without agreement or approval internationally.

IRAN · 2026-07-15 · READ IN HANSARD

We must also openly denounce and separate ourselves from the Trump Administration’s dangerous and hypocritical tactics, specifically Trump’s willingness to initiate and pursue illegal wars while claiming to negotiate.

IRAN · 2026-07-15 · READ IN HANSARD

I have often quoted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in this place, and it says: “It is now 85 seconds to midnight.” That is the closest the world has ever been to annihilation.

IRAN · 2026-07-15 · READ IN HANSARD

This could easily become an all-out full-scale war with devastating consequences, not just for the people of Iran but for the wider middle east region and, of course, for hundreds of millions more, with the economic and environmental impacts reaching across the globe.

IRAN · 2026-07-15 · READ IN HANSARD

We now witness a new cycle of rapidly worsening tit-for-tat military action, with the Islamic Republic Government targeting commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz and US assets in neighbouring countries, and the US launching blunt-force bombardments, primarily of cities and areas along Iran’s southern coast, but also elsewhere in the…

IRAN · 2026-07-15 · READ IN HANSARD

The complete record

Every one of 423 lines we hold for Brian Leishman, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 9.

  1. Q10. First, let me welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement of £200 million from the National Wealth Fund for the industrial future of Grangemouth. Today, I want to ask specifically about the workers facing redundancy. Given the assurances from the Prime Minister on 18 February and repeated by Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour Leader, as recently as 4 March, can the Prime Minister confirm that the guarantee given on 18 months’ paid protection will be honoured for all those workers losing their jobs due to the Grangemouth refinery closure, including the shared services workers, and will he say how the payment can be claimed by all those affected?

    ENGAGEMENTS · 2025-03-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  2. We, the United Kingdom, have obligations under the genocide convention, international law and the most basic principles of being human. We say we are committed to upholding international law, but what does our country actually do? The Government have approved more arms export licenses to Israel than they have suspended, they continue to use RAF Akrotiri to assist the transfer of US military cargo to Israel and carry out surveillance flights over Gaza gathering intelligence that could aid in the targeting of Palestinian civilians. When the International Court of Justice ruled that genocide is “plausible”, the Government should have cut all military ties with Israel. Instead, it has chosen to continue arming and enabling a regime that conducts annexation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

    MILITARY CO-OPERATION WITH ISRAEL · 2025-03-18 · READ IN HANSARD

  3. It is both an honour and a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) for securing this debate. From the outset, let me be absolutely clear about what is happening. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been slaughtered in Gaza. Women and children account for the vast majority of the dead. Entire families have been wiped from existence. What is left for those who survive? Starvation and disease, with homes and hospitals turned to rubble and dust. They now also face renewed airstrikes. Just last night, more than 400 Palestinians were killed in Israeli bombings. That is not defence; it is the annihilation and the attempted eradication of a people.

    MILITARY CO-OPERATION WITH ISRAEL · 2025-03-18 · READ IN HANSARD

  4. Many people are of the opinion that the Government have taken decisions that breach international law. These opinions will not be changed unless there is transparency and accountability.

    MILITARY CO-OPERATION WITH ISRAEL · 2025-03-18 · READ IN HANSARD

  5. I am in complete agreement; it is undeniable that these are war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. Every weapon part that the UK supplies and every piece of intelligence that we share makes us complicit. We must immediately suspend all arms sales, cease all military co-operation and impose economic and diplomatic sanctions. Anything less is just another stain on our history and an unforgivable betrayal of the Palestinian people to whom, let us be completely honest, we already owe a historical debt. I co-signed a letter to Th e Guardian newspaper from the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). It called for an independent public inquiry into the UK’s role on what has happened and continues to happen in Gaza.

    MILITARY CO-OPERATION WITH ISRAEL · 2025-03-18 · READ IN HANSARD

  6. There is to be a much reduced testing process for oil at the import terminal at Grangemouth. Is the Secretary of State concerned that, if imported oil does not pass these reduced tests, it cannot be used, leading to Scotland suffering a fuel shortage?

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2025-03-18 · READ IN HANSARD

  7. It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. My thanks go to the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for an excellent opening speech. Since the announcement that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions made in December, Members of the House have become familiar with the findings of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. I was appalled at the announcement when it was made, and I am no less so now. Like many Labour parliamentary colleagues, I have attended rallies and met many WASPI women. In opposition, these victims of injustice had our unwavering support. Now we are in power, they are still no closer to getting what they truly deserve.

    WOMEN’S CHANGED STATE PENSION AGE: COMPENSATION · 2025-03-17 · READ IN HANSARD

  8. Millions of people are disenfranchised, demoralised and desperate, and it is no wonder that people are sick of hearing about fiscal constraints after 14 years of austerity, a pandemic and a cost of living crisis that has increased inequality all over the UK. Last July, the electorate voted for change from all of that, and there is no change in carrying on with failed Tory policies that serve to impoverish people. On this side of the Chamber, we all believe that the election of a Labour Government is about relieving the suffering of injustices, delivering social justice and fairness, making things better and building an alternative economy and society that works for the benefit of the many. The WASPI women are not asking for something that they are not due; all they are asking for is fairness and justice.

    WOMEN’S CHANGED STATE PENSION AGE: COMPENSATION · 2025-03-17 · READ IN HANSARD

  9. For the record, I certainly was not singling out any particular Minister. It is an issue—to be honest, an injustice—on which consecutive Governments have a stained record. Now that we are in power, it is on our desk, so we could actually make it right. The responsibility is with us in Government. In January, I sponsored a ten-minute rule Bill and voted for WASPI women to receive the justice that they deserve, and my commitment to them is ongoing. Today, I urge the Government to recognise that the people who voted for us do not want the language of “tough choices”, because “tough choices” always seems to mean working class people becoming poorer. It is clear that status-quo politics is not the answer.

    WOMEN’S CHANGED STATE PENSION AGE: COMPENSATION · 2025-03-17 · READ IN HANSARD

  10. Scandalously, the workers of the Grangemouth refinery are to be the victims of a very unjust transition. The folly of a foreign state and private capital being in charge of such a key vital piece of energy infrastructure is laid bare, especially with no UK Government involvement. I am curious as to what ownership role the UK Government will take in the new energy industries that will be at Grangemouth.

    NORTH SEA ENERGY · 2025-03-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  11. Now that we have the power that could correct the injustice suffered by the WASPI women, we really should deliver on what is right and deserved. Credit to the WASPI women: they continue to fight against the injustice of which they are victims. They are not going away. Theirs is a movement based on the values of fighting against discrimination and inequality, a struggle women know so well. We on the Labour Benches, as socialists, and especially my female comrades, know that power concedes nothing without demand. It never has, and it never will.

    INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY · 2025-03-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  12. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for securing both this debate today and a Westminster Hall debate on pay gaps just a few weeks ago. In a Scottish context, pay gaps are a very current issue: the Scottish Trades Union Congress has shown that women in Scotland can expect to see themselves earn an incredible £3,000 a year less than men, and the gender pay gap in Scotland has risen from 6.4% in 2023 to 8.3% in 2024. This is unfairness in action and shows that the fight is very much ongoing, as workplace gender inequality is still tolerated in modern society. Now we are in government, Labour would do well to heed the political power of women, especially those born in the 1950s, because their discontent at pension inequality has become a national movement—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign.

    INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY · 2025-03-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  13. There have been many powerful contributions by hon. Members across the House this afternoon. My contribution will not focus on abuse, violence, intimidation or even health issues. Instead, I would like to speak a little about domestic equality and fairness. It is an incontrovertible fact that women have been discriminated against by men for centuries. The historical struggle for equality and fairness that women have had and continue to have is incredible. The fact that it took until 1928 for women to receive equal voting rights with men is astounding, and it is wrong that it took until the Equal Pay Act 1970 to make equal pay compulsory between male and female employees. On the issue of pay, I thank my hon.

    INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY · 2025-03-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  14. The formal redundancy consultation process started last week for laboratories and stores at the Grangemouth site, with emergency response and other shared services consultations also about to start. The redundancies are due to Petroineos serving notice to end shared services contracts because of the imminent refinery closure. The Prime Minister has announced a support package, guaranteeing workers’ incomes for 18 months. Will the Secretary of State reassure the shared services workers who are about to lose their jobs at the Grangemouth site because of the refinery closure that they too will be eligible for the package of income guarantee and for reskilling support from Forth Valley college?

    ECONOMIC GROWTH · 2025-03-05 · READ IN HANSARD

  15. Members have mentioned today, does not strengthen our security—actually, it weakens it. Aid is a strategic investment in our long-term national interest. We have seen the United States slash its foreign aid budget. AIDS and HIV clinics in Ukraine, Uganda, Liberia and South Africa are running out of medicine. In Sudan, 80% of emergency food kitchens have been shut down. People will starve because of the American decision. Let us not make that same mistake. International leadership is desperately needed, arguably now more than ever. The UK cutting overseas aid damages our credibility and diminishes our role on the world stage. Let us lead by example, not retreat into isolation. Let us reaffirm our commitment to being a force for good: a nation that stands up for its values, its security and, frankly, our global responsibilities.

    FOREIGN, COMMONWEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICE · 2025-03-05 · READ IN HANSARD

  16. It is an investment in global stability, security and a commitment to making the world a better place. As with all cuts, whether domestic or foreign, it will be the poorest, the most disadvantaged and the most vulnerable people who will be hardest hit. Tomorrow, we have the International Women’s Day debate. Women and girls in conflict-ridden areas such as Sudan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria and Gaza absolutely need our help. Cutting aid in those regions is not just short-sighted. It will abandon and consign millions to persecution, famine, illness and death. The Government claim the cut is necessary to fund an increase in defence spending, but framing things in that way is, frankly, wrong. Cutting international development, as many hon.

    FOREIGN, COMMONWEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICE · 2025-03-05 · READ IN HANSARD

  17. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing the debate. The enormity of the challenges facing the world right now can seem somewhat overwhelming. We are all, at varying speeds, suffering from the existential threat of climate change. We live in a global economy that is stacked in favour of the few, to the detriment of the many. These issues are driving forces for the volatile, unstable world we live in today. Our Government’s attitude to the international community and how we tackle our own domestic issue of increasing inequality should, therefore, be shaped by the principles of human rights, compassion and social justice—the very principles our party and our wider movement were founded on. To cut overseas aid is a moral failing. Foreign aid should not be considered as an expense to be cut.

    FOREIGN, COMMONWEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICE · 2025-03-05 · READ IN HANSARD

  18. It should not be working people who pay more tax, because wealth inequality is growing in the UK and improving living standards is ultimately what the Government will be judged on. Does the Minister see the merit in introducing an annual wealth tax of 2% on people with over £10 million-worth of assets, which would go an awful long way to raising £26 billion per annum to equalise society?

    TAXATION: IMPACT ON WORKING PEOPLE · 2025-03-04 · READ IN HANSARD

  19. When the Minister rises to speak later in this debate, can he confirm that the Government agree that the occupation is illegal, and that they will call on Israel to comply with the ICJ and demand an end to the occupation? While the UK has called for an end to settlement expansion, do the Government agree that Israel must comply with the ICJ and not only stop settlement expansion but evacuate settlers from Palestinian land?

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  20. On 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice delivered its advisory opinion in respect of the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem. The ICJ was clear that Israel’s occupation, annexation and continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful, and that Israel is under an obligation to end its unlawful presence in the OPT as rapidly as possible, with the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements. The Court built on the determination that Israel has committed systemic violations of international humanitarian law by recognising that Israel has permanently acquired territory by force and suppressed the right of Palestinians to self-determination.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  21. I beg to move, That this House has considered the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is an honour to serve under chairship today, Dame Siobhain. It is also an honour to bring this debate to Westminster Hall, and I am delighted to see so many parliamentary colleagues in attendance. With that being the case, I am not planning to take up my full allotted 10 minutes, as there is obvious enthusiasm among Members to participate in the coming hour. There are many colleagues here who have been passionate campaigners for justice for many years, and I would like to hear as many speeches as possible this afternoon.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  22. The Court’s opinion is that Israel has the obligation to make “reparation for the damage caused…to all natural or legal persons concerned” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  23. I am in complete agreement with my hon. Friend, and I pay testament to the work he has done to bring this issue to Parliament in the primary Chamber. I would also appreciate it if the Minister could explain why—to quote the UK ambassador to the UN—we supported “the central findings of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion”, but then abstained at the UN general assembly on 18 September 2024, where an overwhelming majority of nations supported the ICJ’s advisory opinion? They demanded that Israel brings to an end, without delay, its unlawful occupation within no more than 12 months’ time, by 18 September 2025. Israel has developed and maintained its settlements through the forced removal and displacement of Palestinians.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  24. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that topic. That is something that I will mention at more length later on in my contribution, but yes, he can rest assured that I do. I am in firm agreement with my hon. Friend. The ICJ advisory opinion is significant because it adds to the growing international consensus that Israel is committing the crime against humanity of apartheid against Palestinians. That language is extremely important, because the international community has witnessed, and continues to witness, annexation, occupation, segregation and apartheid. The world is the witness of crimes against humanity, and while the UK Government are in denial about what constitutes a genocide, millions of our own citizens, Amnesty International—as mentioned before—and many nations from the international community are not.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  25. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution as well. I think it is fair to say that, when we look at President Trump’s recent comments, it takes us into a new and rather diabolical position, with his efforts to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their homeland. His comments about making Gaza a riviera of the middle east are frankly appalling, and an explicit denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. The hard truth is that the UK needs introspection—to look at what we have done, and what we continue to do, to allow these dreadful acts of death and destruction to happen with impunity. I ask the Minister to please explain why the UK has sold, and continue to sell, arms to Israel—arms that have been used in committing atrocities against the Palestinian people.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  26. Our nation’s role as the former colonial power in Palestine, issuing and implementing the Balfour declaration of 1917, presiding over the dispossession and disfranchisement of the Palestinian people, has imposed an historical debt, which continues to grow the longer we refuse to stand up for the inalienable rights of Palestinians. Will the Minister commit the UK Government to undertaking a thorough review of their diplomatic, political, trade, economic and military relations with Israel, to identify any aspects that assist and empower Israel’s illegal occupation, and to stop those aspects? Will the UK Government suspend trade privileges, agreements and negotiations with Israel, pending the outcome of that thorough review?

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  27. The seizure of land and homes, the forced displacement, the destruction of civic, educational, cultural and religious infrastructure, which are all protected by international conventions and treaties, to which this country is a committed signatory, are all examples of settler colonialism and Israeli Government-authorised apartheid, that sees removal of the local population through ethnic cleansing. For decades, the international community has looked away and ignored the suffering of the Palestinian people. I put it to the Government, through the Minister, that the time for the UK to show international and moral leadership is long overdue, especially regarding Palestine.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  28. I thank my hon. Friend; I wholeheartedly agree. Again, that is something that I will turn to later in my contribution, when we look at a variety of actions that the UK Government could undertake. I also ask the Minister to defend the words, and lack of action, from our Government, which have enabled the Israeli blockades to continue—blockades that stopped lifesaving aid, food, water and medicine from reaching besieged Palestinians who were starving and in the most dire need. Historical context is vital because the persecution Palestinians suffer is not recent. That treatment did not start in October 2023. For Palestinians, the Nakba began many decades ago. From the mass dispossession of the Palestinian people in 1947 and 1948 to the present day, ethnic cleansing has been a constant.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  29. The ICJ is clear that all states have an obligation not to recognise, aid or assist in maintaining the illegal situation of occupation, and to stop providing assistance that sustains occupation and to ensure compliance with international law, through diplomatic and economic measures. In conclusion, the UK Government have a very simple choice to make. Do we side with an apartheid state that has seized territory; displaced and contained people into an open-air prison; eradicated communities and centuries of culture; ethnically cleansed a people and committed genocide? Or do we join the call that many in the international community have already made for full compliance with international law, recognition of the state of Palestine and justice for its indomitable people?

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  30. I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. My answer is quite simply yes, I agree. That was an appalling statement. I would like to think that our country is frankly better than putting a pound and pence figure on the cost of a humanitarian disaster and genocide. I put this to the Minister. Will the UK Government ban the importation of goods from illegal Israeli settlements, which facilitate and give credibility to their existence? Banning the importation of goods from Israel’s illegal settlements brings into line our commitment to international law and human rights.

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  31. I thank the Minister for his response. I also thank the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller), and all other right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. It is my opinion that the Minister did not answer all the questions that I set out, so I will submit them in writing. While there is currently a ceasefire, the humanitarian emergency facing Palestinians is very much ongoing and peace in the middle east looks a very fragile thing indeed. I will include in my letter to the Minister a suggestion that he looks into Mark Smith’s comments in greater detail, as Mr Smith details that senior officials and Government Ministers protected arms deals—

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  32. The Grangemouth refinery is a vital piece of Scottish infrastructure, and its economic contribution to the Scottish economy is worth more than £400 million every year. The Grangemouth refinery is also a joint venture between PetroChina, owned by the Chinese state, and INEOS, a multinational conglomerate. Together, they are Petroineos. The refinery is due to close, with thousands of jobs being lost, an unjust transition and Scotland having to rely on importing oil, all at a time of great global volatility. Why are this Government allowing a foreign Government and private capital dictate Scotland’s industrial capacity, its ability to produce oil and, overall, our national security?

    ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE: CHINESE COMPANIES · 2025-02-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  33. Fourteen years of austerity have created a new stratum of society: the in-work poor. Recent talk of ruthless cuts to social security is beyond alarming. Does the Secretary of State agree that having a welfare system that covers the cost of essentials, as proposed by the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, would alleviate hunger and hardship, and therefore relieve considerable strain on the NHS?

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2025-02-11 · READ IN HANSARD

  34. How do the Government address Amnesty International’s concerns that economic activities with illegal Israeli settlements contribute to both their sustainability and their growth, thus undermining Palestinians’ rights, and that business enterprises involved with Israel’s illegal settlements may be involved and complicit in international crimes?

    ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES · 2025-02-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  35. With a capital investment of £50 million over five years, the Government have the chance to give the Coalfields Regeneration Trust an opportunity to help to partly reindustrialise coalfields communities that would create thousands of jobs. Our communities need to be invested in, not forgotten and consigned to history as somewhere that used to have industry. Our communities deserve an awful lot more than that.

    COALFIELD COMMUNITIES · 2025-02-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  36. Then, of course, we had a pandemic whose true death toll can never be accurately calculated. Inequality has become even worse because of covid, and inequality is a very real killer. Yesterday my constituency was yet again the victim of industry leaving, when the workers at the Grangemouth refinery were served their redundancy notices. On site, more than 400 highly skilled workers will lose their jobs, and when we factor in the wider supply chain, there will be nearly 3,000 job losses. Like the coal industry, a vital energy creator will be lost forever. A different decade, a different Government; nevertheless, strikingly similar social consequences will be the result. Let me finish on a more positive note.

    COALFIELD COMMUNITIES · 2025-02-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  37. Addiction issues, health problems, inadequate transport links, high suicide rates and people relying on emergency food parcels just to survive all point to Government failure to tackle deindustrialisation and the inequalities that it produces. If the 1980s and 1990s were the decades in which industry and manufacturing left communities like mine, the 2010s were the period when austerity ruled. Austerity was an assault on the poorest, the most disadvantaged and the most vulnerable in our society. Now we see reductions in opportunity, negative social mobility, low-wage employment, the gig economy, communities across the country ravaged as leisure centres close, and an unrelenting attack on the public services that are the very fabric of our communities.

    COALFIELD COMMUNITIES · 2025-02-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  38. Clackmannanshire is like other heartlands that have been deindustrialised; the economic and social consequences of industry closing 40-odd years ago are still being felt today. Our young people face the challenge of finding local employment of the kind that will pay a wage that will allow them to contribute to the economy, to participate in society, and one day, perhaps, to buy a house and raise a family in comfort. Naturally, that being the case, there has been an exodus of young people, meaning that talent and potential leave local communities. My inbox tells the tale of the social devastation that is commonplace in deindustrialised areas.

    COALFIELD COMMUNITIES · 2025-02-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  39. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) for securing this debate and my many hon. Friends for their outstanding contributions this afternoon. Clackmannanshire has a proud mining heritage and, like so many other places around the UK, the pit was at the very heart of many local communities. It was somewhere that was more than a workplace; it was a generational employer where comradeship and trust were the things that brave workers, who went underground and put themselves in danger to keep the country warm and moving, relied on. I am proud that the Government announced that the entirety of the mineworkers’ pension scheme would be handed over to ex-coalminers and their families—hundreds of my constituents will benefit—and the positive noises coming from Ministers about the BCSSS are welcome.

    COALFIELD COMMUNITIES · 2025-02-06 · READ IN HANSARD

  40. 4. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to implement the findings of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report on women’s state pension age.

    WOMEN’S STATE PENSION AGE · 2025-02-05 · READ IN HANSARD

  41. It is fair to say that people are disillusioned with politics and politicians because they feel that things do not change—not for the better, anyway. The Tories would not compensate the WASPI women, and it looks like neither will we. The Tories here and the Scottish National party Government in Holyrood abandoned the workers of the Grangemouth refinery, and I have to say that, so far, our Government have not fared any better. My question is a pointed one: do the Secretary of State and the wider Government not realise that if we do not provide the positive change that we promised and improve living standards, the next Government could be a hard-line, far-right effort that looks to impoverish society further?

    WOMEN’S STATE PENSION AGE · 2025-02-05 · READ IN HANSARD

  42. Alarmingly, there has been talk of ruthless cuts to welfare. That would be utterly devastating as any cuts would push more families into poverty. We will not see a reduction to child poverty by economic growth alone; it will require targeted policy action—something that the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation agree with in their essentials guarantee. Do Ministers have plans to change the basic rate of universal credit so that it reflects the cost of life’s essentials—food and household bills?

    CHILD POVERTY STRATEGY · 2025-02-03 · READ IN HANSARD

  43. Small local businesses in Grangemouth such as pubs, restaurants, cafes, hairdressers and garages all rely on the custom that they receive from the workers of the Grangemouth refinery, but the Government have been very passive in allowing the refinery to close, thus impoverishing the local community. What message do the Government have, first for the refinery workers who face redundancy, and secondly for the small local businesses that rely on their custom?

    SUPPORT FOR HIGH STREET BUSINESSES · 2025-01-30 · READ IN HANSARD

  44. Likewise, no worker—especially not hard-working prison officers, who have a physically, mentally and emotionally demanding job—should be expected to go to their place of work, and carry out their duties to the standard they want, and is expected of them, in an environment that makes their role so much harder and unpleasant. Like so many problems the Government face, these are not issues that are of our making. However, they are our problems to sort now, and a problem like prison maintenance does have a solution. The Government should take the leap, and stop the overwhelming reliance on the private sector to provide services. It is time the Government trusted themselves to provide a solution. We can then invest in people and provide a quality of service that looks after workers, communities and the infrastructure of our country.

    OUTSOURCING: GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS · 2025-01-29 · READ IN HANSARD

  45. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) for highlighting the need for prison maintenance insourcing and her call for the Government to bring all prison maintenance back in house at the earliest opportunity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East said, it is well documented that our prison estate is crumbling after years of neglect, with prison maintenance privatisation being an example of escalating costs while service provision deteriorates. For our prisons to be the rehabilitation facilities that society needs them to be, they cannot be the decrepit and fetid facilities that so many are currently.

    OUTSOURCING: GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS · 2025-01-29 · READ IN HANSARD

  46. It is an honour to serve under your chairship today, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for highlighting this issue and securing this debate. The faith that the private sector will always deliver value for money and the standard of service that we require and desire is rooted in a political ideology that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Like many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I was delighted by our party’s pre-election pledge to oversee the biggest wave of insourcing for a generation, so that we can see a change in culture from the continuous erosion of service provision, the reliance on the private sector and the race to the bottom. I pay credit to my hon.

    OUTSOURCING: GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS · 2025-01-29 · READ IN HANSARD

  47. If the Grangemouth refinery closes in 2025 and the recommendations of Project Willow will not be ready for years to come, thousands of jobs will be lost—the very definition of an unjust transition. How can the Government possibly claim to have a credible industrial strategy for Scotland if they allow that to happen?

    GREEN ENERGY SECTOR · 2025-01-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  48. T4. The previous Conservative Government decided to back an INEOS project in Antwerp, with a £600 million loan guarantee. I have spoken with the current the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) about that, and I have been told that the Government have no plans to stop that money, even though INEOS plans to close the Grangemouth refinery, with the loss of thousands of jobs. Why is there £600 million for Antwerp and not Grangemouth, and why would the Government allow that to happen and not use the £600 million as leverage with INEOS, to avoid Scottish job losses?

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2025-01-21 · READ IN HANSARD

  49. Are the Government considering compensation schemes for homeowners who have suffered financial losses due to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in their properties? If so, I am especially interested in the Barnett impact for the Scottish Government of any such scheme, as I have constituents from Tillicoultry whose lives have been seriously impacted.

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2025-01-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  50. Q8. In the general election campaign, Labour leadership promised that if we won, we would step in and save the Grangemouth refinery, retain those jobs and invest in the refinery’s future. Six months later, that has not happened yet. If the refinery closes, thousands of jobs will be lost and Scotland’s national security will become massively weaker. Now that we are in power, I know that the Government should use that power to intervene and save the refinery jobs, protect Scotland and deliver on the promise to build Grangemouth for the future. Will the Prime Minister do that?

    ENGAGEMENTS · 2025-01-15 · READ IN HANSARD