Parliament's party history for this member: Liberal Democrat ( – present).
Register of interests
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.
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From my election to parliament, unremunerated trustee of the Links Trust, St Andrews, which manages the golf courses owned by the public around the town. As a trustee I receive a card entitling me to 25% discount in the golf course shops or restaurants.
Scottish Government figures released yesterday show the lowest level of new house building in more than a decade. Ahead of the Budget, councils in England are expected to benefit from new investment to stimulate council house building and access low-interest borrowing. Will the Minister engage with her Scottish Government counterparts to encourage similar support in Scotland to help local councils to build more homes and, in turn, support local economic growth through construction?
<Question HRSContentId="{DD1F9CCE-9FA8-49B6-AEA1-63222486910E}">7. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{F6CFA1D8-9C48-479A-A71E-A3CBB05EF429}">What support his Department is providing to Afghan women and girls. </QuestionText></Question>
During Evidence Week, I met Dr Sara Polo to discuss violence against women and girls in conflict areas, including Afghanistan. Although many aspects of the national action plan on women, peace and security are encouraging, academics such as Dr Polo have pointed out that there are areas for improvement, such as including victims of non-sexual violence in NAP initiatives. What discussions has the Minister had with academics about the NAP, and how can academics engage further?
When the Minister announced new refugee pathways in September, we were told that Afghan women and girls would be prioritised. I have since received correspondence that says there will be no prioritisation. Can we get clarity on what is correct?
In North East Fife, civil service pension delays are not the only issue. I have previously spoken in this House of the “Jobs Forgotten” campaign for retired former police officers who are dealing with the failings of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, so I found the comments from the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) interesting.
My question to the Minister is this: one of the things my office is finding is that, just as they manage to sort out somebody’s case, a new one comes in, so I appreciate the interest and focus on complex cases, but are we not just firefighting if we are not stopping new cases emerging in the first instance?
A Gazan student who is currently displaced in Egypt has been offered a place to study at the University of St Andrews and, following her acceptance, has been granted funding from several foundations. However, the Home Office has declined her student visa application on the basis that it does not believe that she is a genuine student. That effectively means that her place is lost, because the appeal process will take in excess of 12 months. We need an explanation for why the criteria for student visas <span id="1296" class="column-number" data-column-number="1296"></span>seems to have changed without anybody being informed. What are the Government doing to remove the backlog in administrative reviews? Will the Leader of the House raise this case with the Home Secretary?
I am very grateful to both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) for allowing me the opportunity to contribute to this debate, and I am glad that we have a little bit of time for me to do so. I have to admit that I have interpreted the title of the debate, “NHS Maternity Services”, a little broadly, but I represent a rural constituency in Scotland, and I recognise many of the things that my hon. Friend has referred to in his speech, as well as the contributions of other right hon. and hon. Members. My hon. Friend has demonstrated not only a real understanding of the acute needs in his constituency, but a broader understanding of the challenges that maternity services face. That is why the issues he has described are replicated in many parts of the UK, including Scotland.
In the UK, a baby is born roughly every 50 seconds. Given that, we might expect maternity services to be among the best-resourced and best-supported parts of our NHS, but we know, as we heard this afternoon, that this is not the reality. In Scotland, nine in 10 midwives report chronic staff shortages, and nearly three quarters of maternity units are not staffed at levels that are considered safe. In rural areas such as mine in North East Fife, those pressures can be even more acute. Despite the extraordinary dedication of our midwives, nurses and support staff, an overstretched system too often leaves women and families without the care and support they deserve.
In the limited time I have, I want briefly to share the stories of two of my constituents. The first is Kristie Haldane, who has shown immense courage in speaking publicly about her experiences so that others do not have to suffer in silence. She experienced both an incomplete abortion and a traumatic miscarriage. On both occasions she received treatment that, for a variety of reasons, fell far below the standard anyone should expect. It is important for us to remember that this is not just about the experience itself, but the impact it has on people’s mental health, as it has on Kristie’s. It has impacted her employment and her confidence. Following her experiences, she lost her job and experienced homelessness, and struggled to access the support she desperately required.
What struck me was not only the grief that Kristie endured, but the loneliness and isolation that accompanied it. After her miscarriage, she was discharged from hospital and feels that she, her partner and her wider family received little support. At the moment when compassion <span id="1365" class="column-number" data-column-number="1365"></span>and care were needed most, she felt abandoned by our system. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the patient experience team at NHS Fife. As constituency MPs, we all support constituents when they are making complaints, and the reconciliation process that Kristie has gone through—with my support and that of my team —has helped in some ways to understand what happened, but also to ensure that we learn lessons.
Turning to my second point, we talk about maternity care in the context of pregnancy and birth, but we know that there are key challenges in reproductive health more broadly. I have another constituent whose experience highlights the importance of informed patient safety. Tammy Payne was prescribed the contraceptive injection Depo-Provera more than a decade ago, but was not warned about the potentially increased risk of developing meningiomas, a type of brain tumour. After experiencing persistent double vision, she was diagnosed with multiple meningiomas and subsequently underwent surgery to relieve pressure on her optic nerve. When one of the tumours returned, she required a craniotomy, a major operation involving the temporary removal of part of the skull to access the brain. She has been left without the use of one eye, and feels betrayed by a system that was supposed to inform, protect and support her.
I place on record my admiration for both Kristie and Tammy, because it takes enormous courage to relive those kinds of deeply traumatic experiences in public. I hope the Minister will engage with me, particularly on Tammy’s case, to discuss Depo-Provera and the risks it poses more widely. The truth is that neither of those women should have gone through what they did, which is one of the reasons why my party has long called for an independent maternity commissioner for England. We welcome the Government’s commitment to establish one.
In Scotland there has been constant, long-term campaigning by the Caithness Health Action Team, my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) and the new MSP for Caithness, David Green, for the SNP Government to finally provide better maternity services in the far north of Scotland. We welcome Professor McCourt’s independent review, which has a focus on the far north and will look at maternity services in Scotland. That will take into account the unannounced inspections of all 18 acute maternity units in Scotland that are currently being carried out. That is really important, but I think it demonstrates that we have much more to do across the UK to provide reproductive health support and maternity support. Women deserve better, families deserve better, and our maternity services deserve the resources that they need to deliver better care.
Agriculture accounts for around 15% of economic activity in my constituency, from the Howe, the bread basket of Fife, to the coastal farms of the East Neuk and down towards Leven, as well as the banks of the Tay. Despite its relative proximity to the central belt of Scotland, it is very much a rural constituency. It hosts both single family farms and larger producers such as Kettle Produce, specialists in prepared vegetables for major retailers, and Quaker Oats in Cupar, which is supplied by arable farmers across the area.
I regularly visit and engage with people across the sector in North East Fife and I want to take a minute to remember the Earl of Lindsay, lately of the other place, who passed away earlier this month and who was a constituent of mine. A Fife farmer, landscape gardener, conservationist and a Scotland Office Minister under John Major for the three Fs—farming, fishing and forestry—he was a dedicated person in the industry post 1997. My thoughts are with his widow Diana and family at this time.
I commend the local mid-Scotland and Fife NFUS for organising regular sessions with both MPs and MSPs to keep us up to date. Just last week, I was at Balbirnie Home Farms learning about their low-input farming approach. Before our recent recess, I visited South Straiton Farm in Balmullo, meeting Duncan <span id="1212" class="column-number" data-column-number="1212"></span>Pickard. He was very keen that I say in this Chamber that I had met a happy farmer, and now I have, but the reality is that farming is in many respects a precarious endeavour and for some, it is increasingly hard to make the numbers work.
Back in 2024, I secured a Westminster Hall debate on the barriers farmers face in accessing universal credit. It should concern us all that the very people who put the food on our tables are often forced to rely on a welfare system that seems stacked against them. I look forward to the Timms report with interest, having engaged with the Minister for Social Security and Disability, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms). If anything, the challenges facing farmers have become more acute. I say to the shadow Minister that we both stood outside Parliament during farmer protests with signs saying “Family farm tax” and I think we all knew what we meant: both the changes to inheritance tax and to business property relief. There is no doubt that those things have left families worrying about the future of their businesses.
I also want to highlight the recruitment of seasonal workers, which is badly needed to harvest the excellent produce grown in North East Fife. I would like assurances from the Minister that the seasonal agricultural workers scheme will extend beyond 2029. Farmers cannot invest in the future if they do not have the certainty that they will have the workforce they need to get food out of the fields now.
In Scotland, we have the future farming investment scheme, which is intended to provide certainty for farmers through to 2030, but Scottish Ministers need to set out how the proposed four-tier system will deliver fair, accessible and adequately funded assistance. Yes, it should reward positive action on nature restoration and climate resilience—that matters, of course—but it is vital that it sustains food production, rural livelihoods and smaller or remote farming businesses.
Farmers across my constituency continue to face significant financial pressures and it is clear that both the UK and Scottish Governments need to do more. Sometimes, frankly, that means getting out of the way, and encouraging innovation and expertise to develop organically. I have not met a farmer yet who does not care about the land and the animals they rear, or who is unaware of their role in mitigating against climate changes. On that note, I would like to invite everybody in the Chamber, at the conclusion of the debate, to attend the 25th anniversary of the Voluntary Initiative, which meets in the Churchill Room this evening.
<Question HRSContentId="{C41CDC99-7CB9-4F57-807E-B77292831FD9}">7. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{13A52C5E-A6D1-4F89-B647-4E66C75A33A0}">What steps the armed forces take to inform residents of low-flying drills by military aircraft. </QuestionText></Question>
Just over a month ago, my constituent had a Chinook helicopter fly extremely low over their farm on two occasions with no prior warning or engagement. Despite guidance that the Minister referred to that farms and livestock should be avoided, the flights caused significant distress, with a vet bill for urgent treatment for an animal who collapsed as a result of the flights. Can the Minister assure me that such incidents are investigated, and will she meet me to discuss this particular one further?