Torcuil Crichton
MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar · Labour · United Kingdom
“Regardless of how we divide on the referendum, I wonder if colleagues on the SNP Benches will find it in their hearts to put political division aside at 8 o’clock tonight?”
“My constituent, Angus Campbell, held the only commercial licence for tuna in 2025. He has invested thousands in equipment and a route to market for the bluefin tuna now swimming off the Atlantic coast of the Hebrides. This year, he got no licence.”
“I thank the hon. Member for giving way, and I assure the Father of the House that the passion he feels finds a strong echo in my part of the world, where the cultural memory of being driven off the land is still very strong. The Father of the House said that he would avoid dry, legalistic points, but I agree with the hon.”
“I declare my chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for volunteer rescue services. I inform the House that, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for coastal communities, we are holding a joint evidence session for CROs next week, so that they…”
“On heating oil, the Scottish National party Government boasted that they would add £5.4 million to the £4.6 million the UK Government gave to domestic consumers. However, there is scant evidence that that is reaching my constituents in the Western Isles, which have the highest fuel poverty figures in the country.”
“My constituent Carol Campbell is a marine coastguard team leader in Stornoway. Civil servants like her do not just serve the public—they save the public. The June deadline has come and gone, and all she sees is a shambles. I know Carol; she has given a lifetime of service.”
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“Regardless of how we divide on the referendum, I wonder if colleagues on the SNP Benches will find it in their hearts to put political division aside at 8 o’clock tonight? I did not come of age in time for the 1966 world cup finals, but the older boys in my primary school were all nicknamed after the England world cup squad, so we had Nobby Stiles and Charlton in our Scottish playground. That is a Hebridean example of respect and rivalry. Does the Secretary of State agree with today’s Daily Record editorial, which says that “there is always room for friendly rivalry with neighbouring nations,” but that “Bringing…politics into football does nobody any”—”
“My constituent, Angus Campbell, held the only commercial licence for tuna in 2025. He has invested thousands in equipment and a route to market for the bluefin tuna now swimming off the Atlantic coast of the Hebrides. This year, he got no licence. In fact, the two applications that came from Scotland came from the Western Isles, but of the 29 licences allocated, none came to Scotland. Will the Minister review why there is no regional distribution of licences? Why was a fisher with an established track record of commercial landings turned down? Can the Minister look for a speedy resolution through a second round of licensing from the approximately 100 tonnes of quota allocated to tag and release, mortalities, bycatch and scientific research?”
“I thank the hon. Member for giving way, and I assure the Father of the House that the passion he feels finds a strong echo in my part of the world, where the cultural memory of being driven off the land is still very strong. The Father of the House said that he would avoid dry, legalistic points, but I agree with the hon. Member that that is what the UK Government are doing: using dry, legalistic points. Does the hon. Member agree that the UK Government should do as other countries have done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) pointed out, and go all-out by imposing a complete ban and then dealing with the legalities afterwards?”
“Can I also have an assurance that he will keep CROs fully informed about the process and come back before Parliament goes into recess to ensure that we are fully informed?”
“I declare my chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for volunteer rescue services. I inform the House that, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for coastal communities, we are holding a joint evidence session for CROs next week, so that they can come and tell their stories to parliamentarians. When I spoke to my CROs in Stornoway and across the Western Isles, their message was one that I hope has been received by the Minister: pause the consultation, listen to CROs and hear about the vital role that they play as a fourth blue light service. The role is about not just coastal rescue, but delivering carers and emergency workers to the elderly in time of need.”
“On heating oil, the Scottish National party Government boasted that they would add £5.4 million to the £4.6 million the UK Government gave to domestic consumers. However, there is scant evidence that that is reaching my constituents in the Western Isles, which have the highest fuel poverty figures in the country. Will the Minister join me in encouraging constituents to apply for support? Will he ask the Scottish Government to broaden the criteria and Advice Direct Scotland to get that money out the door, so that people are not left high and dry?”
“My constituent Carol Campbell is a marine coastguard team leader in Stornoway. Civil servants like her do not just serve the public—they save the public. The June deadline has come and gone, and all she sees is a shambles. I know Carol; she has given a lifetime of service. She tells me, “At 63, I am loath to continue working through another Hebridean winter doing 12-hour dayshifts and nightshifts, but currently I don’t feel I have any alternative.” What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that Capita and its chief executive are held to account for failing these lifesavers?”
“Distilleries in my constituency—I count nine of them—overwhelmingly rely on kerosene heating oil to make their product. Since President Trump’s folly in Iran, they have seen costs rise by 18%. It is not just the distilleries; seaweed manufacturing, chemical processing at Callanish and the iconic Harris tweed industry all rely on kerosene heating oil to make their products. Domestic consumers in the islands are helped by generous support from the Government, but can the Minister outline what the UK Government can do to help these energy-reliant industries that keep hundreds of jobs in Na h-Eileanan an Iar keep on going?”
“We should make more of tiebacks, and I would like to hear about Ministers doing so. The industry knows what that means—using existing infrastructure to explore and extract extra resources from the basin—but the public do not, and I call on Ministers to make more of tiebacks.”
“It is a mature and declining basin, and at the same time we face—as we do outside today—the undeniable reality of a warming planet. We have a responsibility to meet these challenges and a duty to those who will inherit the world after us to act. The transition away from the North sea and into renewables is not the same as abandonment. This Labour Government are not, and must not be, in the business of switching off the North sea. We must not allow a justifiable drive to renewables to lead us into decisions that as a nation we may later regret. There remains lots of work to be undertaken, revenues to be generated and energy to be produced in this sector. As long as this country requires oil and particularly gas, and that can be produced and processed domestically, we should carry on working in the North sea.”
“Its shifts, weather and fortunes ripple through the Hebrides just as much as they do through the communities of our Doric cousins. It is not appreciated by many in this debate on the transition away from the North sea that our identity, a sense of belonging and who we are because of where we work are a big part of this. The UK is undertaking one of the greatest economic and industrial transformations of our time, from fossil fuels to renewables and nuclear power. I wish the SNP Scottish Government, although apparently they now have a new industrial strategy, would show some maturity on nuclear power and recognise that it has a role in our future as oil and gas diminish. We should be clear-eyed about why we are moving out of the North sea.”
“I know that we will be one Scotland tonight in Miami, but in reality, Scotland has many different communities and many different voices. A large part of our island identity over the last two generations has been the North sea. The issues that anchored the by-election in Aberdeen South were currents that ran through the Western Isles during our May election as well. The fortunes of the North sea have shaped my village in Lewis and many other communities on the west coast and in the north. It has sustained us for two generations now. It is not just the men who have made that contribution; women are effectively running single-parent families because of the two weeks on, two weeks off or three weeks on, three weeks off pattern of the North sea. The North sea has become part of our identity.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I thank the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing this important debate. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) on his recent win. Of course, his was not the only big win in Scotland in recent times. In Na h-Eileanan an Iar—the Western Isles—the Labour candidate Donald MacKinnon won a historic victory after 19 years of SNP neglect and complacency. What we did in Na h-Eileanan an Iar we did against the political tide: despite the polling and without the magic of Makerfield, we created a new king of the north. In short, we won because of Donald MacKinnon’s island credentials. Our local identity trumped the SNP’s artifice of a national identity.”
“Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) said, it is not an either/or. Our task is not to choose between the two, but to manage the transition from one to the other responsibly, pragmatically and in a way that protects the country’s energy security and, crucially, ensures that we enrich the communities that have already powered this nation for two generations.”
“Let me be clear that I support a pragmatic transition in which we utilise domestic gas production rather than importing it, and support Scottish skills and jobs as we move the workforce into renewables and elsewhere. I accept that, as the hon. Member said, there may not be a like-for-like match between existing jobs and emerging jobs. The North sea is one of the most dangerous environments to work in anywhere in the world, and the pay reflects that. But this is not just a question of pay. It is not just a question of economics, climate change or tax regimes, important as all those things are. It is just as much a question of who we are—a question of identity and belonging, and the relationship that we have with place and our place of work, which is a powerful political emotion that we should take note of. And as my hon.”
“Member for Bromsgrove is a member, recently recommended that community power schemes should have priority access to the grid. Communities and councils should have the right—indeed, they already have the right; it is just that it has not been enacted—to take a 20% stake in any commercial renewables scheme in their area, onshore or offshore, and commercial wind farm companies ought to be incentivised through the planning system to see communities as partners, not just as peanut beneficiaries of their schemes. In that way, my community and those across Scotland that have earned a fortune for this country and for commercial companies in the North sea will have a share in the future and the fortune of renewable energy.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. I hear him and I hope Ministers hear him as well. In that transition, we on the west coast and he in the Northern Isles have a privileged vantage point. We look eastwards to the North sea and the jobs and fortunes that it has provided to our islands, and we look westwards into the Atlantic and see the wealth of wind, the promise of renewable energy and the next chapter of our country’s story. The Minister knows that we in the Western Isles have the highest concentration of community-owned renewables anywhere in the UK. I believe that communities should have a big share in that new industry and in the renewables fortune. The Select Committee on Energy Security and Net Zero, of which the hon.”
“Most Scottish interests abroad this weekend will be centred on Boston, and if the Secretary of State is considering a last-minute bid for the world cup, he can fly there from Glasgow this weekend for just £740. That is just £100 more than it would cost my constituents to fly from Stornoway to Glasgow this weekend without the air discount. The rising cost of Loganair flights and the loss of the Stornoway-Inverness morning service is of great concern in the western isles, and we have already lost the Benbecula connection, with all the consequences that has. Will the Secretary of State work with Cabinet colleagues, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Transport—when he returns from his jaunt to America—and others in the industry to review flights across the UK?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement and the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for bringing this urgent question to the House. Cuba is on its last breath after a brutal four-month siege that is as commercial as it is ideological in nature. We have seen Spanish hotel operators pull out of the country. We have seen Canadian companies such as Blue Diamond and Sherritt, the Canadian nickel company, thinking again because of the threat of secondary sanctions. It seems that the US President is attempting to sweep aside Canadian and Spanish interests to bring in US crony companies and reintroduce the spirit of colonialism that led to Castro’s revolution in the first place. What discussions have UK Ministers had with their Spanish and Canadian counterparts to make it clear to the US Government that this is not acceptable?”
“I welcome the Government’s measures to support domestic consumers of kerosene heating oil. I am told that if those who are eligible filled their tanks today, they would pay the equivalent of what they will be paying in February 2027. In my constituency we have big commercial users of kerosene oil, such as distilleries, seaweed manufacturing, tourist amenities and chemical plants. What measures is the Department taking to support commercial users of kerosene oil?”
“I urge the Minister, as I have urged him before, not to talk to NESO, but to sit on it, and on Ofgem and on the grid operators, to find a route through and expand community-owned energy on the islands, and indeed elsewhere.”
“They know the North sea is a declining field, but they also know that the technicalities of tiebacks, which this Government have not made enough of, are the quickest way to bring more oil and gas on stream. Indeed, some 2.5 billion barrels could be developed using subsea tiebacks. Those North sea guys want what the guy at Ness football pitch wanted: certainty, and an orderly transition that has their jobs at its centre. As the Minister knows from visiting the islands and talking to community energy companies, we are at the centre of transition and produce more community-owned energy than any other place in the UK. The problem is that there is no space to get that energy out, with commercial companies dominating the 1.8 GW interconnector.”
“Further up the road, walking her neighbour’s dog, another constituent stopped us to state her concerns and objections about plans for a multinational 900 MW offshore wind turbine array—being less than four miles away, it is actually near-shore rather than offshore. Both those conversations reflect the concerns of many who find the scale of this transition overwhelming, or who feel that they are not being carried along on the journey to renewable energy and that the workers and the communities affected by this revolution are in danger of being left behind. Previous Governments have not backed community energy at scale. I look forward to GB Energy and the new energy Bill enabling a big leap forward in community energy. The North sea workers are skilled engineers, mariners and experts in their field.”
“To the east, the Ness district looks to the mainland and over the horizon to the North sea, where much of its wealth has come from over the past decade; out to the west is the wild Atlantic, from where the wealth of wind will provide and power the transition away from carbon and renewables. At Ness football ground, where the under-eights were in fierce competition, one parent gave me his simple political priority: to keep the North sea open. It has provided him and his family with the means to stay on the island, as it has for many other families around that pitch, although it means that many mothers are effectively single-parent families for half their children’s lives.”
“Much of the debate we have heard today I heard in the village of Eoropie on the Isle of Lewis last Saturday morning, when I visited there with Donald MacKinnon, our new Labour MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar. Donald fought a tremendous campaign and will be a brilliant MSP. He raced against the tide for the Western Isles and kept the Atlantic beacon alight for Labour during our summer squalls. I also pay tribute to Dr Alasdair Allan for his public service to the islands as MSP over many years. Just as the islands were at a political tipping point the other week, so too are they at the fulcrum of this debate on energy security.”
“I thank the Chancellor for her statement and her nimble response to the energy shock, including support for heating oil consumers, who make up half the households in Na h-Eileanan an Iar. The future of energy security is not an either/or. We must pursue renewables with a community share in the wealth of wind, and we must use the tiebacks that she detailed to exploit existing licences in the North sea fully. Will the Chancellor encourage other Ministers to match her commitment by hastening the review of Jackdaw and Rosebank? That would not just ensure energy security, but send a message to workers that we are with them in the North sea and the wild Atlantic for years to come.”
“I urge my constituents to apply early for support as soon as they have receipt of their oil delivery, and I call on the Scottish Government, the UK Government and Advice Direct Scotland to be fully transparent about the distribution of funding both during and after the scheme, and in terms of amounts and geographical distribution.”
“This kind of ping-pong shambles benefits no one, and I fear it will lead to a lack of uptake of support. In talks with Advice Direct Scotland, officials assured me that the scheme is operating, that nearly 5,000 people have applied and that 16,000 applicants are expected across the six months the scheme is open. By rough calculation, 16,000 times £300 is £4.8 million, which is only half the amount the SNP Government claim to have allocated to the scheme. I do not want heating oil support by stunt, whereby only half the fund is distributed.”
“The Scottish Government have doubled the sum to £10 million, which is welcome, but announced that instead of funds being distributed through local authorities, which know their area and their constituents, the fund is operated through Advice Direct Scotland, a Scottish charity that gives free, impartial advice to people across Scotland. As soon as the scheme was announced, my constituents reported a glitch in the system. People applying from the Western Isles found their online applications bouncing back. When they called the helpline, they heard a recorded message instructing them to apply without supporting evidence, informing them that they would then receive an email to which they could attach receipts of eligibility and evidence of supply.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you as Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this timely debate, and I thank the Minister for visiting the Western Isles last month to hear directly from my constituents in Na h-Eileanan an Iar how the spike in prices has affected them. As he heard from consumers, prices have doubled since the conflict broke out. There is huge demand, limited competition and, of course, an island premium on deliveries. People appreciate the emergency heating oil fund announced by the Government, which will send £4.6 million of support to Scotland for consumers in need. This being Scotland, of course the SNP wants to do things differently.”
“Like the hon. Member’s constituency, many businesses in my constituency, including distilleries, rely on kerosene heating oil for manufacturing processes. Would he urge the UK Government and the Scottish Government to devise a loan scheme to help these businesses to get over this Trump spike?”
“If officials from Advice Direct Scotland can tell me, as a constituency MP, the number of applicants they have, and the estimated number they will have—16,000, with 5,000 applications already last week—surely they can provide that information to the UK Government as well.”
“Some 40% of flight diversions from Stornoway, Benbecula and Barra airports in my constituency could have been avoided if we were part of EGNOS, which was shamefully abandoned during Brexit by the Conservatives. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) pointed out, this has huge social and financial implications —schedules are cut, and people are considering not just their travel arrangements but their living arrangements, because without 21st-century connectivity we cannot live 21st-century lives. I urge the Minister to consider the costs and benefits of rejoining EGNOS, and by all means to meet me and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, as well as some Cornish MPs who have raised this issue.”
“I welcome the UK Government’s support for heating oil customers in my constituency and the follow-up support from the Scottish Government, but I am slightly baffled that the Scottish Government have chosen to centralise support through Advice Direct Scotland, instead of entrusting local authorities. Will the Minister urge the Scottish Government to use local expertise, such as Tighean Innse Gall, which he met last week, and Point and Sandwick Trust, which have that local knowledge to find hard-to-reach customers, because we know that in rural areas people are reluctant to come forward for support?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Despite talk of a “complete and total” resolution of hostilities from across the Atlantic, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) that we cannot give false comfort to our constituents that there will not be lasting economic and military consequences. What detail can the Secretary of State give us, and when, on the leading role that he sees the UK playing in keeping the strait of Hormuz open?”
“I thank the Minister and the Government for their swift response; £4.6 million to Scotland will be very welcome in my constituency, where up to 50% of homes outside the town of Stornoway rely on heating oil. What discussions has the Minister had with the Scottish Government to ensure that the £4.6 million is distributed through local authorities through the crisis grant fund; that local authorities have maximum discretion in how they distribute that fund; that we have maximum accountability on how the money is spent; and that we have maximally swift delivery of this much needed support?”
“T4. When it comes to the rising cost of living, may I ask the Chancellor to look again at the rural fuel relief scheme? The scheme is meant to give a 5p discount per litre on petrol and diesel in specific island rural communities, but I have checked and found that, in Stornoway in my constituency, petrol is 138.9p today, yet in the middle of Glasgow it is 129.9p—9p cheaper. The scheme works in reverse, with urban drivers having all the advantages of competition and choice. The scheme costs little, but inflation has reduced it by 35%. I ask the Minister to press the accelerator and go an extra mile.”
“I thank the Chancellor for her statement, for her support for the armed forces, and for acknowledging the anxiety of constituents abroad. Closer to home—at home, in fact—half of my constituents in Na h-Eileanan an Iar outside the town of Stornoway rely on heating oil to heat their homes. They face great uncertainty, with no guarantee of delivery, or of price on delivery. I hear what Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis fears regarding price gouging and price rises, so I welcome Treasury talks and hope that they will lead to further scrutiny and regulation of this unregulated industry. Otherwise, I will have to introduce the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the old Lewis tradition of cutting peat for winter fuel.”
“Despite fears of trade tariffs, I have checked and the price of a pint of beer in Boston, Massachusetts, where Scotland is due to play its first game, is about $8. That is a bargain, because the SNP wants to charge its fans £750 a pint to have a drink with the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), who, unusually, is not in his seat today. I am always open to a pint with the Opposition, but would the Secretary of State rather have a beer in Boston with the tartan army or a pint of bitter with the SNP?”
“In places like Na h-Eileanan an Iar, going the extra mile to provide care is part of the job, and I pay tribute to the carers in my constituency who travel miles in darkness and bad weather to deliver support for the elderly. In some parts of the Western Isles, and indeed across rural Scotland, there simply is not the working-age population to provide that care, and immigration cannot solve that problem entirely. Does the Minister agree that it is only by increasing wages and paying social care staff properly—something for which Scottish Labour has been calling for some time—that we will increase the number of carers in rural areas, and provide a proper care service?”
“Will the Minister ensure that the banks, Link and associated authorities expand and adjust their parameters, so that sparsely populated areas and island populations continue to have access to banking services?”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) for securing this important debate. To echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack), I have come to Westminster Hall today following discussions with Lloyds Bank, which has decided to close the Benbecula branch of the Bank of Scotland in my constituency; there have now been two bank closures in my constituency in a few short years. That closure decision appears to be as irreversible as it is regrettable, but the danger now is that we will have no banking hub, because the banking population of Uist is too small to fit within the parameters of one.”
“Nobody can doubt the hon. Member’s Europhile credentials, but I do doubt his party’s commitment to unions of any kind. Why else would the SNP spend more fighting a by-election in Shetland than it did fighting the Brexit referendum? When he has finished answering that, perhaps he can tell us why his party spent more fighting the Glenrothes by-election than it did fighting Brexit.”
“My concern, which I hope the Minister and the Government will take into account when considering any changes, is with the protection of crofting and croft land from the menace of greylag geese and, perhaps, the unforeseen consequences of a change in regulation. Our manifesto in 2024 promised to promote biodiversity and protect landscapes and wildlife. When it comes to crofting agricultural practice in the Hebrides, especially on the machair, we need to cull the geese to maintain the biodiversity of the ecosystem, to maintain the rural population, and to protect us all.”
“The burden of administration would fall not only on the licence holder but on the police firearms licensing unit. My constituents speak highly of the highland firearms officers and their expertise. The measures would also have an effect on the limited number of licensed firearms dealers in the Western Isles and the west coast. We must also consider the tourism impact; there is concern that shooting parties would decrease under the new legislation, but, as I said at the start of my speech, I hold no candle for the sporting or shooting lobby, any more than I do for radical conservationists.”
“There is also concern that shooting and culling skills will not be passed on if no new entrants come through from clay pigeon shooting or from holding and handling shotguns. They worry that their skill, which must be maintained and repeated to be kept at a high level, will be lost as well. There are administrative concerns and practical difficulties for island and rural geographies involving the storage of weapons and ammunition, with shotgun cartridges being much larger than the .223-gauge bullets commonly used in shooting. There is also the issue of transferring shotguns between licence holders and dealers. Borrowing and lending under current regulations is a common enough practice, where there are a limited number of guns or shooters and not all are available at the same time.”
“One member represents the Western Isles at clay pigeon shooting, which would also be affected by the change in regulation, and competes at national level. The shooters have been reporting difficulties in getting gun licences of late, which has occasionally led to individual marksmen not being available to take part in the cull when required. The islanders are not against firearms regulations—far from it. They see the logic in consolidating licences, but they see practical difficulties, too. The reclassification of shotguns would increase their own administration in getting properly certified, and the rising cost of licences acts as a disincentive to new entrants to the scheme.”
“As one of my correspondents put it: “We are unable to buy because it is in such short supply—because the flippin geese have eaten it all.” What does all this have to do with shotgun licensing? There is a cull of the geese, fully supported by NatureScot, the national nature agency, but it—and by implication the oats and the economics of crofting in Uist—depends on having local marksmen to shoot the geese. I met the Uist goose group a few days ago to hear members’ concerns. They, like the vast majority of people who hold gun licences, are the most law-abiding people one would care to meet. They take their firearm licensing and culling work responsibilities very seriously, and they are seriously good marksmen.”
“According to the Scottish Crofting Federation—I declare my membership and support for that organisation—we have gone beyond the tipping point, and these birds are causing significant damage to crops and grass. The problem is particularly acute in Uist and Benbecula, where the geese can be seen feeding on the precious grassland at any time of day or night and in any season. The damage that they are causing to the crofting system, and dare I say to the distilling process—the North Uist Distillery, which produces Downpour gin, relies on locally grown grain—is now dangerous. Uist short oats, over 1,000 years old, are a dying strain of seed in such short supply that it is now not available for crops all year round.”
“Being a Labour MP who believes in radical land reform, I hold no more of a candle for the shooting and fishing brigade than for the urban rewilders who, through the power of their laptop, want to reintroduce rapacious species to hunt flocks of sheep in the countryside. My concern is with conserving the human population and the agricultural and crofting economy that sustains the livelihoods of my constituents in Na h-Eileanan an Iar. We often hear that in New Zealand, sheep outnumber human beings four to one. In my archipelago, greylag geese outnumber our sheep 10 to one. Literally thousands of these marauding greylags, the largest breed of geese in the British Isles, now find their permanent home feeding on the machair grass on the crofts of the Western Isles, which my crofting constituents crop and use to feed livestock.”