Labour Party MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar since (elected). An MP continuously since .
Parliament recordVoting recordWritten questionsEarly day motions
Entries on this tracker
254
Each filed under the party they sat for that day
Register entries
2
As currently published
Declared while sitting for Labour
£370
1 of 2 entries state an amount
| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | MP | Na h-Eileanan an Iar | – present | elected | — | Party history |
Parliament's party history for this member: Labour ( – 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3. Gifts, UK sources | Diagio - £370.00 | £370 | Labour | Register record | |
| 6. Land and property | Property in Glasgow | — | Labour | Register record |
<Question HRSContentId="{609F3421-3599-4063-9CC6-B67C2B1721BB}">1. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{CDA6AA5E-2E24-47A4-A7E1-437C427DDDC7}">What discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the co-ordination of fire and search and rescue services.</QuestionText> </Question>
I draw the attention of the House to my role as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for volunteer rescue services. These people are out there on call—on land, sea and mountains—to help the public. The Secretary of State’s statement is very welcome. As recent events, like the wildfires, have shown, these volunteers are a key part of our emergency response and resilience. Does she agree that there should be a dedicated point of contact for volunteer rescue organisations in Government, and that Ministers ought to consider bringing forward a volunteers charter, using the template of the veterans charter, to recognise and acknowledge the contribution of volunteers, their families and their employers in our fourth emergency service?
I commend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero for the decision to approve Jackdaw. It takes courage to lead, and the same logic applies to Rosebank. Does the Secretary of State agree that the £2 billion fund set up to transfer jobs from oil, gas and carbon into renewables sends a signal to workers that we are with them in the North sea, today and for years to come?
<Question HRSContentId="{276E96C4-2C8F-4A54-BAA8-720D6F8F7351}">Q8. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{859E6491-4436-43C6-B20C-47CD7AC44EB9}"></QuestionText>In bad weather—and sometimes we do have it in the Hebrides—one in six landings at the isle of Barra airport and 40% at Stornaway airport are turned away due to the lack of low-visibility radar, known as EGNOS. The European geostationary navigation overlay service is available to pilots at the touch of a button, but the Tories switched it off during Brexit. My constituents rely on flights not for holidays, but for health—for chemotherapy and for ordinary appointments that they should have at home. The Prime Minister has a summit with European leaders next month, so will he put EGNOS on the radar and on his agenda so that, at the very least, my constituents can get to their hospital appointments?</Question>
I pay tribute to the men and women of Scottish and Southern Electricity, who are out there right now reconnecting the homes in the Western Isles that lost power over the weekend due to the storms. Resilience is in-built on the islands, but as other Members have pointed out, we have major problems with connectivity because of the move from analogue to digital phonelines, which means <span id="206" class="column-number" data-column-number="206"></span>that when the power goes out, people do not have the phone or the internet—and they often do not have a mobile signal either. BT and Openreach’s response—to give powerpacks to vulnerable customers who ask for them—is simply not adequate, and mobile phone providers do not have the means to maintain their signal during storms. Will the Minister call in those companies and get them to up their digital game and ensure that there is digital resilience—not just in the places that are easy, but on the edge, where people are vulnerable, isolated from their neighbours, and where the ambulance is an hour away?
I thank the Chair for the report, which is one of many valuable reports that have come from the Scottish Affairs Committee under her leadership. I welcome it in particular as it relates to unlocking the potential of SMEs in Scotland, which, according to the report, currently receive less than 0.078% of MOD spending.<span id="80" class="column-number" data-column-number="80"></span> I was pleased recently to see the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry launch Project Safari at the MOD Hebrides range, which will make it easier and simpler for SMEs to access test and evaluation facilities here in the UK. Does the Chair agree that the 50 highly skilled jobs at the Hebrides range and the vast area of the Atlantic that it offers for test and evaluation are an invaluable contribution to the defence capability of this country and will help unlock the potential of Scottish SMEs to grow?
On the universal service point, there are huge disparities across the country. A Consumer Scotland report recently laid bare the deep divisions, with quality of service in HS postcodes—Na h-Eileanan an Iar, the Hebrides—standing at 59% whereas across the UK it is 76%, and of course the Royal Mail target is 90%. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a danger of fragmenting the service, and that commercial priorities take over and rural communities are left behind? If there is to be a service, it has to be a universal service, not a postcode lottery across the UK.
I welcome the Minister’s announcement and remind others that this is not just a question for the north-east or for Aberdeen South. There are only two postal code areas in the UK that do not have a jobs connection to the North sea, so despite the scant appearance of the Opposition Benches, this affects every constituency. I welcome the £2 billion investment in the transition, because we need those skills, that workforce and that supply chain as stepping stones to the transition to new industries. I caution my hon. Friends to ensure that we are not remembered as the Government who let down the North sea workforce in the way in which the Conservatives let down the coalfield workers. May I ask the Minister to detail, and encourage him to rush through, the tiebacks and the decommissioning that will keep us in the North sea for years to come?
I begin by welcoming the Minister to the Dispatch Box for what I believe is her first time as Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. Some might argue that 11.20 pm on a Monday night is just the right time for a Minister to make their debut at the Dispatch Box, and perhaps the right time to make the kind of speech I am about to make. I assure her, though, that we on the Labour Benches are very proud of her, and I am sure Members across the House will appreciate her talents and skills as they relate to the Scotland Office, other parts of Government policy and other parts of the world, where her dedication and leadership have been shown before. That is where the praise stops, because the ask I am about to make may well go beyond the Minister’s briefing and the Scotland Office’s budget. However, I hope she will be no less ambitious than I am, or my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes), for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), and for all points in between who have stayed on tonight to show their support not just for the Minister, but for an idea that would define not only a building or a city, but a country, and leave a legacy for this reforming Government that she and I serve in. For many, I hardly need detail the catastrophe that has befallen the Glasgow School of Art’s Charles Rennie Mackintosh building, and the pall it has cast over Scotland’s largest city for more than a decade now. I will quickly summarise the brutally cruel circumstances that led us here.
I do, and I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I will detail and explore some of those options later in my speech. She is right: it is shameful that we have this shrouded ghost on Garnethill casting a shadow over the city. To summarise, the fire that brought down the Mackintosh building broke out in 2014, as art students were finalising their end-of-year degree show. That fire was devastating and heartrending—I was in a meeting of another cultural board as the news broke, and people cried in that meeting as the smoke rose above Garnethill. Around 70% of the building was saved, although the library and the famous hen run—that glazed passageway so beloved by generations of art students—were lost. Despite that blow, the Glasgow School of Art and its patrons across the globe rose to the occasion and committed themselves to the faithful restoration of the building. That was painstaking and specialised work, but it was moving on apace when a second and much more devastating fire swept through the building in 2018, engulfing not just the Mackintosh building but the neighbouring ABC music venue on Sauchiehall Street.<span id="935" class="column-number" data-column-number="935"></span> The 2018 blaze was so fierce and all-consuming that its cause may never be known, but its consequences certainly are. Glaswegians are reminded of the destruction every single day, as the charred husk of the Mack building stoops withered and crippled on the city’s skyline. I was up there on Friday, between events at the Royal National Mòd in Glasgow—I congratulate the organisers and the city for hosting a brilliant week in the city of the Gaels. The contrast between the vibrant, youthful buzz of the revived and living culture that the Mòd represents and the tragic shadow hanging over the Mack could not have been stronger.
Held . Recorded result: Lab Gain. Majority 3,836. 13,528 votes cast from an electorate of 21,325. Parties are as each candidate stood at the time.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Torcuil Crichton | Labour | 6,692 | 49.5% |
| Susan Thomson | Scottish National Party | 2,856 | 21.1% |
| Angus MacNeil | Independent | 1,370 | 10.1% |
| Tony Ridden | Reform UK | 697 | 5.2% |
| Kenny Barker | Conservative | 647 | 4.8% |
| Donald Boyd | Christian Party, Proclaiming Christ's Lordship | 496 | 3.7% |
| Steven Welsh | Scottish Family Party | 388 | 2.9% |
| Jamie Dobson | Liberal Democrat | 382 | 2.8% |
| Seat | Dates |
|---|---|
| Na h-Eileanan an IarElected 1 time | – present |
| Committee | Dates |
|---|---|
| Energy Security and Net Zero Committee | – present |
| Great British Energy Bill | – |
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