It is a pleasure to be called on the first day of this debate on the Loyal Address. In fact, never in the modern history of this Parliament has an intake of MPs had to wait so long between their first and second Gracious Speeches as those of us who were elected in 2017. It is fully 846 days since Her Majesty last addressed Parliament in the other place, and 841 days since I spoke in that debate, delivering what was my maiden speech. That in itself is hard to believe, for in the interim, while so much has changed, so much, sadly, has remained the same.
On that stupefyingly hot June evening, after I had bored those unfortunate enough to be in the Chamber with my tour around Deeside, Donside, the Geerie, the Mearns and North Kincardine, I raised concerns that businesses and people in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, and indeed around Scotland, needed certainty and stability in our country and in our economy. I concluded that evening by making this plea:
“What...this country”
does
“not need is further uncertainty in the shape of another referendum on Europe or another general election, and they certainly do not need another referendum on Scottish independence.”—[Official Report, 26 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 403.]
As I said, so much has changed, and yet, sadly, so much remains the same. For what have we heard from the Opposition so far today? Sadly, it was almost exactly the same as we heard two and half years ago. The SNP is obsessed as ever with referendums—so obsessed, in fact, that it is currently taking a referendums Bill through the Scottish Parliament to
“provide a legal framework for the holding of referendums on any matters within Scotland’s control.”
That is all well and good, except that the trouble is that the SNP has not yet worked out that the essential element for any referendum to have meaning is that the interested parties accept the result—it is not very hard. So here is a novel idea: how about, before inflicting further division and uncertainty on the people and businesses of Scotland, the SNP accepts the result of the two referendums held within the past five years and works with us to make membership of the United Kingdom, outside the EU, work for Scotland? Until that day, the SNP can never claim to be working in Scotland’s national interest, only for its own narrow political interests, and it can never claim to offer the certainty and stability being cried out for by businesses and people all across this country.
Then there is Labour, which, in the time it has taken the Conservatives to negotiate two deals between this country and the European Union, has not even concluded negotiations within its own party, or even among its own Front Benchers. What is it this week? Is it a referendum and then an election or an election and then a referendum? Is it remain, is it leave, or is it a deal? Labour—a party with more plot twists than an episode of “The Real Housewives of Cheshire”, except that it does not take a Wagatha Christie to work out who is stabbing who in the back in this augmented reality. As for the Liberal Democrats, they have nothing to offer other than ripping up the result of a referendum that they were one of the first parties to call for.
As the late Iain MacLeod so memorably put it, the socialists can scheme their schemes and the liberals can dream their dreams, but we at least have work to do. So while the other parties in this place have spent two years obsessed with plots, schemes and ways of trying to bring this Government down and deny the will of the British people, we did get to work. First under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and now under the current Prime Minister, this party and this Government have been delivering for all the peoples of our United Kingdom, including—and, I would say, especially—for Scotland. This Conservative Government have delivered over £900 million extra funding for the Scottish Government, meaning that the
Scottish Government’s budget will have increased in real terms to £32 billion by 2020. We have delivered city and regional growth deals across the country. We have frozen spirits duty, supporting our vital Scotch whisky industry. We have had VAT lifted from Police Scotland and the Scottish fire and rescue service.
We have continued to support our oil and gas sector, to the tune of £2.3 billion, maintaining our globally competitive position and making the North sea basin the most attractive basin in the world in which to invest, while introducing the transferable tax history mechanism. We have recently righted the wrong—and I admit that it was wrong—of convergence uplift money not getting to Scotland’s farmers by delivering not just £160 million to them but an additional £51 million to ensure a fair funding settlement for the agriculture industry across our United Kingdom. Unemployment is at its lowest level in half a century and youth unemployment is at its lowest level ever. We have taken millions of the lowest paid out of tax altogether, cut tax for millions of others, and ensured that military personnel will not be punished financially solely for being based in Scotland, combating at least in part the regressive and failing policy of taxing middle-income earners more for doing the same job north of the border than they would be in any other part of our United Kingdom. In doing this, we are also the first major economy to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, cementing our place as a global leader in the fight against climate change.