Scottish National Party MP for Aberdeen North since (elected). An MP continuously since .
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| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SNP | MP | Aberdeen North | – present | elected | — | Party history |
Parliament's party history for this member: Scottish National Party ( – present).
Every entry the member has in the Register of Members' Financial Interests, as Parliament currently publishes it. The wording and values are the member's own declarations; nothing here has been assessed by this site.
Totals add only the entries that declare an amount received: payments for work, donations, gifts, and funded visits (register categories 1.1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Ongoing employment is listed but not added, because its figure is a rate rather than a sum received. Each entry is dated by when the benefit happened, not when it was registered, and placed under the party the member sat for on that date. A member who changed party therefore has a separate total for each.
| Date | Category | Entry | Declared value | Sitting for | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8. Miscellaneous | Member of Investment Systems Council for New Capital Consensus. This is an unpaid role. | — | SNP | Register record |
Economic growth in the north-east of Scotland and our green transition rely on the carbon capture and storage project at Peterhead. Would the Minister make clear what assessment the UK Government have made of whether it will still go ahead, given their massive cuts to the project?
People desperately need support with the cost of living. They do not need brown sauce, gherkins or marmalade; they need help with the cost of living. If we look at the documents the Chancellor produced today, he is less likely to hit his fiscal rules than the previous Chancellor was. That is what the back of the OBR book tells us. Real household disposable income is going to drop in the short term. Labour Members will be standing on an election platform saying “vote for us” when household disposable income, a fairly reasonable measure of living standards, is going to drop in the short term. It will rise again only if gas and energy prices do what the OBR hopes they do—the OBR has been very clear that that is not by any means set—but who would like to predict what Donald Trump is going to do next? I certainly wouldn’t. We do not know what will happen. The only way in which people’s living standards will increase is if the international energy markets reduce the price of gas and oil. That is what the Chancellor is pinning his hopes on. The Chancellor is giving people £100 in this Budget, despite the fact that, as of January, energy bills will be £1,000 higher than Labour promised they would be in their manifesto—£1,000 higher. We have a situation where every single major household bill has increased over the course of this Government—every single one. We are seeing people really struggling with the cost of living, and what does the Chancellor decide to do? He decides to reprioritise capital spending. He decides to pull money from the Acorn project in the north-east of Scotland, which supports hundreds of jobs for carbon capture and storage, and which the Climate Change Committee said was one of the projects needed to get us to meet our climate change ambitions. That is one of the things the Chancellor has chosen to do today. The other problem, for which the Conservatives have a significant responsibility for creating, is the fact that the UK has an incredible level of index-linked debt. I am pleased that the Chancellor is moving towards reducing the percentage of index-linked debt, but only three countries in the OECD have higher levels of index-linked debt: Mexico, Israel and Chile. Moving away from that legacy left by the Conservatives is really <span id="359" class="column-number" data-column-number="359"></span>helpful in today’s financial climate. However, if the Government do not manage to make that, any slight change in the level of inflation or oil and gas prices could mean that the Chancellor massively misses his fiscal rules. The section on risk in the OBR’s Blue Book very clearly sets out how easily a very small percentage change could mean that the Chancellor will miss his rules. There is only about a 50% chance that is he going to hit the rules anyway—it is only about 52% in the back of the Blue Book. Therefore, given the volatility of the world, we should all be incredibly worried. We needed something dramatic. We needed something major to ensure that people can survive this cost of living crisis. We had the child poverty strategy earlier in this Parliament. It was deeply, deeply unambitious other than the removal of the two-child limit, which I fought for and entirely welcomed. Other than that, every single thing had already been introduced or announced. In Scotland, we have a much better child poverty strategy and, in fact, the most comprehensive cost of living package in the UK. People with children are looking at this Budget and thinking, “It does not help us.” Young graduates currently living with their parents up to the age of 25, which they have never done before, are looking at the student loans that they owe in England and thinking, “How can we possibly be paying our student loans until we’re 60, with no chance of a job?” Couples with children are looking at the fact that their parents could afford for one of them to work part time, could afford to have more children, and could still afford to go on an annual holiday. Couples now cannot afford that because they are poorer than the generations before. Folk in their 40s have no end in sight to their mortgage—whereas their parents had paid theirs off by then—because house prices have gone through the roof, and mortgage prices are even higher as a result of some of the decisions taken. What is the Chancellor doing? He is providing cheaper gherkins—great! Disabled people who are desperate to work, but currently subsisting on universal credit, know that they cannot afford the fuel needed to drive their car to a job. They cannot do that, but what has the Chancellor delivered? One hundred pounds. That is not going to cut it. We have pensioners who are living in terror of their next energy bill. They have lost trust in this Government thanks to the winter fuel cut that came with no warning and what was done to the WASPI women. The Chancellor has completely failed to recognise the huge number of people living in fear of the next bill dropping through the letterbox. He is living in a different reality from the rest of us. He is providing some changes around the edges. He says he is providing a little bit of breathing space, but it is not going to get people through this winter, never mind to the spending review or the Prime Minister’s wonderful 10-year plan that is supposed to be coming. We have made different choices in Scotland. We provided the baby box. We provided a cost-of-living package that is the most comprehensive in the UK. We provided no prescription charges. We provided free university tuition. We do not have access to all the levers. We do not have the ability to do what we asked of the Chancellor, which was to cut energy bills by at least £300—not even close to the manifesto pledge but getting there. We asked the Chancellor to make a difference so <span id="360" class="column-number" data-column-number="360"></span>that people can afford to get through this winter. We asked for the removal of VAT on various things, including petrol and diesel for the duration. We are pleased to hear the changes that have been announced on fuel, particularly on mileage, which makes a massive difference. A couple of weeks ago when Jackdaw was announced, the Government talked about removing the gas standing charges. We know that this is going to put up the energy bills for those people who use the higher levels of gas. We know that people in Scotland have significantly colder properties because it is colder in Scotland than it is here. What is the differential change? How many people in Scotland will be losing far more, given the extra that they will be spending? How many disabled or elderly people, who spend more time at home, will have to pay more on their gas bills because of the Chancellor’s choices? Has he actually looked at that? Is it in any way a progressive measure, or will it continue to screw over those people who are already screwed over by the current situation? The Chancellor needs to do better.
I thank the Chair of the Committee and all the team who pooled this together, including the Clerks who assisted on it. It is shocking that, as stated in the report, less than a tenth of 1% of MOD spend is directly for SMEs in Scotland. I have spoken to the Supplier Development Programme in Scotland and not only has it struggled to get the MOD to engage with it but the MOD’s tier 1 contractors have been unwilling to engage with it. The Supplier Development Programme is all about training suppliers in how to apply for tenders. Does the hon. Lady agree that more could be done to encourage those tier 1 contractors and the MOD to engage with programmes such as the SDP so that more smaller contractors can get parts of defence contracts? I am talking about not just welding apprenticeships but cleaners, water fountain repairers and the people who do all the things we do not normally think about but without whom the buildings would fall down.
I thank the hon. Members for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) and for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for initiating the debate, and, in particular, I thank the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) for his incredibly thoughtful speech. I am not going to get political about this, but our position for ages has been that we should renationalise Royal Mail. When I read that Royal Mail would be delivering second-class mail only every second weekday, I misread it as, “Royal Mail will be delivering second-class mail every second weekend.” I thought, “Oh, thank goodness! My constituents in Bridge of Don will be getting a better service than the one that they currently receive,” because every second weekend would be significantly better than what they are getting now. I have visited the delivery offices in my constituency. There is Bridge of Don, there is Mastrick and there is Kittybrewster. I think there is a benefit in living in Scotland in this regard, because the central comms people do not come to these meetings, so I get honesty from the posties. I am wondering what happens when I send a letter, or rather an email, to Royal Mail—there is no point in sending a letter—saying, “Mrs Goggins is having an issue with her mail delivery. She lives in Bridge of Don. Here is her address.” Does Royal Mail Central actually contact the delivery office and say, “Mrs Goggins is having a problem. Please reply and let us know what is happening”? Or does Royal Mail just send me an email back saying, “Everything is fine, it is all great, don't worry,” without actually speaking to the delivery office? The hon. Member for Lichfield talked about not having all the answers. Well, I will tell the House who has most of the answers: the posties. The posties know what changes need to be made. I went to one of my local delivery offices, and the staff were talking about the design of the cages and the design of the routes. They had asked Royal Mail whether they could change some of the routes and cages. Royal Mail took months to get back to them, but it turned out that they were not allowed to change the design of the cages—they were dangerous, with things falling off them—without the say-so of Royal Mail. It is an incredibly top-down organisation. The posties know how to fix this. The posties know how to improve their routes. They are making <span id="108" class="column-number" data-column-number="108"></span>these cases to Royal Mail Central, who come back to them with, “I know that that street is off this street, but we are going to keep it on the other route, just because we are in charge and it may look quite good on Google Maps.” I do not understand why Royal Mail is not listening to the posties, who know exactly what they are doing and who know how to improve the routes. As hon. Members have said, the issue is that Royal Mail’s leadership are trying to asset strip the organisation. It feels like they are not trying to improve the service. They do not care about improving the service; they just care about improving profits. We have been fighting on behalf of our constituents, but we have also been fighting on behalf of the posties, who are not being listened to and who feel like they are banging their heads against a brick wall. It is not just about NHS letters, although one constituent got in touch to say that they had not received any mail between 23 September and 14 October. They got nine letters, seven of which were NHS letters, and they have been put at the bottom of a waiting list because they missed their appointment. I can tell which letters are NHS letters when they come through my door or when I see them at the sorting office. I know which ones they are, as do the posties, but they are not allowed to take them out and ensure that they are being put at the top of the priority list.
The workaround on barcodes, for example, works only in some areas, and some of the health boards cannot use that workaround. It is absolutely a workaround; it does not ensure that we have a universal service obligation or that the postal service, which people rely on, is actually working. I do not know about the offices of other MPs, but my office often needs to get people’s wet signatures. Organisations such as UK Visas and Immigration or local councils will require us to get someone to sign a form, and many times we have posted that form to people but they have not got it. What are we supposed to do if people do not have a printer at home? A lot of people do not, understandably. If somebody, particularly in the Bridge of Don, does not have a printer at home and we post them a form, they will not get the letter. How can they get a democratic service, or get us to raise a complaint with the city council on their behalf, if they are not getting the letter? We have had too many by-elections this year, and a number of people in Aberdeen told us that they did not get their postal votes—they did not arrive. In a council by-election, it is hard enough to get people to vote, but when someone does not get their postal vote, they just say, “I won’t bother.” People are missing out on the democratic process because of the failure of Royal Mail, which cannot even prioritise those letters. I do not understand how Royal Mail can repeatedly say to each one of us, “Everything is fine,” or “We’re working on improvements,” when this is an absolute disaster.<span id="109" class="column-number" data-column-number="109"></span> The post is a lifeline. It is a really important public service, and we need Royal Mail and Ofcom to step up, but we need the Government to put on as much pressure as possible to ensure they do.
Does the hon. Member share my concern that Royal Mail bosses do not seem to want to improve the service? So many of my constituents are no longer posting anything because they do not believe that it is ever going to get there—the lack of service means that lots of people are turning away from the postal service completely. Does he feel that if Royal Mail continues down the route of putting DM26 in place without the amendments, people will give up on Royal Mail entirely and we will risk losing it totally?
I thank the hon. Member for talking about the statistics—it is really important to do that. I am concerned, though, that the statistics, particularly those provided by Royal Mail, are deeply inaccurate. My constituents say they are not getting mail for three weeks at a time very regularly, but Royal Mail has come back to me and said, “Everything’s pretty fine—don’t worry about it.” Is he concerned that Ofcom might not even know the full breadth of the issue, particularly as we have heard Members from Aberdeen, from the Western Isles and from Devon all raising the same issue? It is clearly happening everywhere.
On missed deliveries, and I suppose their emotional cost, the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), asked the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) about the resource cost for Royal Mail. Does the hon. Member for Wrexham <span id="126" class="column-number" data-column-number="126"></span>(Andrew Ranger) agree that the potential cost to the economy of Royal Mail not delivering these letters—the cost to public services, with NHS appointments being missed—could be rediverted in order to fund some of Royal Mail, were it to be renationalised?
Will the hon. Gentleman join calls for more granular data, so that we can ensure that every constituency is represented in the data? Some Members have talked specifically about towns and villages, where I appreciate that there is an issue, but there is also an issue in cities. A number of us who represent cities have said that we have problems.
We know that postal vote letters not being delivered is an issue, and a number of us have seen that in our constituencies. I appreciate that the Minister is being clear with Royal Mail that it is an important issue, but is she aware of or has she asked Royal Mail how many of those letters were not delivered on time? How many complaints have been made? We know that a significant number of people are not even making complaints, because they do not think there is any point.
Held . Recorded result: SNP Hold. Majority 1,760. 42,095 votes cast from an electorate of 75,925. Parties are as each candidate stood at the time.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirsty Blackman | Scottish National Party | 14,533 | 34.5% |
| Lynn Thomson | Labour | 12,773 | 30.3% |
| Gillian Tebberen | Conservative | 5,881 | 14.0% |
| Kenneth Leggat | Reform UK | 3,781 | 9.0% |
| Desmond Bouse | Liberal Democrat | 2,583 | 6.1% |
| Esme Houston | Scottish Green Party | 1,275 | 3.0% |
| Charlie Abel | Alba Party | 703 | 1.7% |
| Dawn Smith | Scottish Family Party | 352 | 0.8% |
| Lucas Grant | Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition | 214 | 0.5% |
| Seat | Dates |
|---|---|
| Aberdeen NorthElected 1 time | – present |
| Aberdeen NorthElected 3 times | – |
| Post | Dates |
|---|---|
| SNP Chief WhipOpposition Department | – present |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Equalities)Opposition Department | – present |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Work and Pensions)Opposition Department | – present |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Cabinet Office)Opposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Work and Pensions)Opposition Department | – |
| SNP Deputy Westminster LeaderOpposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Economy)Opposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (House of Lords)Opposition Department | – |
| Committee | Dates |
|---|---|
| Pension Schemes Bill | – |
| Speaker's Conference (2024) | – present |
| Media Bill | – |
| Procedure Committee | – |
| Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission | – |
| Finance (No. 2) Bill | – |
| Procurement Bill [HL] | – |
| Online Safety (Re-committed Clauses and Schedules) Bill | – |
| Online Safety Bill | – |
| Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee | – |
| Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill | – |
| Subsidy Control Bill | – |
| Procedure Committee | – |
| European Statutory Instruments Committee | – |
| Procedure Committee | – |
| European Statutory Instruments Committee | – |
| Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority | – |
| Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission | – |
| Scottish Affairs Committee | – |
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