Speeches by Doogan.

“With clause 86, the Treasury in Westminster continues to treat Scotland’s vital Scotch whisky sector as a cash cow, with duty rising again in line with inflation in the Budget. As the Scotch Whisky Association warned, the previous 3.65% increase to spirit duty reduced revenue by 7%, costing the Treasury £150 million, s…”

“The hon. Member refers to his belief that the Scottish Government are engaged in anti-jobs policies. Can he therefore explain why unemployment in Scotland is substantially lower than it is in England?”

“I remember precisely the dynamic that the hon. Member sets out in his local high street. We used to have it in Scotland, too, until we introduced minimum unit pricing, which took the very large volume, high-strength alcohol products off the shelf in Scotland, or at least put them way up in price. He can check with the …”

“The Minister says that she has considered carefully the fairness of the changes in this clause. Has she considered at all the compound effect of this and all the other taxes that are currently killing hospitality businesses?”

“It is not enough just to freeze rail fares; they should be cut, as the Scottish Government have done in Scotland. It is fair to say that English rail commuters should enjoy the lower level of cancellations enjoyed by rail commuters in Scotland. That is why ScotRail, with its public ownership, has the highest customer s…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, and I genuinely mean that in this instance. Every drug death in Scotland is a tragedy, and the painful reality is that the number of drug deaths remains far too high. The latest figures indicate that 898 people are suspected to have died in the first nine m…”

“Is the shadow Minister as aghast as I am to hear Labour Back Benchers taking credit for the substantial U-turn on the family farm tax, as though it was inevitable, when it was they who introduced the tax?”

“I am interested to know how keen the Minister is to adhere to that distinct element of the Labour party’s manifesto, because it seems clear to rural communities up and down Scotland and elsewhere on these islands that it is pick-and-mix as the Government introduce things that were never in the manifesto and fail to del…”

“I wholeheartedly endorse the resolve across this House to continue to help Ukraine to prevail against this aggression. By extension, I therefore commend the armed forces personnel who enabled and assisted the US in this very slick interdiction of a rogue vessel—a key element of the funding of Russia’s war in Ukraine. T…”

“Refined hydrocarbon fuels are excluded from the Government’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, meaning that although UK refineries face emissions trading scheme costs of £50 per tonne, overseas fuel producers do not. That is clearly incomprehensibly damaging in economic terms and is self-evidently counterproductive w…”

“I pay tribute to the Minister: he is back out again doing a sterling job of being a totally discredited Chancellor’s human shield. He will remember the Finance Bill that we debated just before Christmas, which took three hours in this place, and two hours of that was taken up with agricultural property relief, as I poi…”

“Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker—but unfortunately for the haulage industry, 2026 promises to be a year of increasing freight crime from haulage operators up and down these islands. Whether it is Alan Davie of Forfar, Taylor’s of Forfar or McLaughlan’s of Perth, who operate up and down from Scotland to England, when d…”

“8. If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a specific offence of aggravated theft from commercial vehicles.”

“I want to explore more widely, Mr Greenwood, the headwinds that you say you are experiencing from the UK’s policy environment. Is it the highest energy costs of any developed economy? Is it the green levies that are applied to your industry here? Is it the increase that you have had to sustain on your national insuranc…”

“I know you are obviously not INEOS and you will not speak for PetroINEOS, but that CBAM issue you are talking about, was that a material consideration for the owners of Grangemouth as they tried to reconcile their operating costs versus their revenue stream? CBAM must have been a central element of that.”

“I am just digesting that for a minute. There is a concern that the £1 billion that Mossmorran needs is actually backlog maintenance that should have been getting done anyway, but from your answer just there the £1 billion that could be invested in Mossmorran—if there was a business case for that—is to facilitate the wh…”

“Mr MacGregor, what do your members think when they hear the UK Government talk about the future of North sea oil and gas running out in 10, 20, or 30 years in the same breath as they say there is a ban on new exploration licences? Are they concerned that the UK Government do not actually understand that in order to ope…”

“Not to cast aspersions, Mr Greenwood, but we know to our cost at Mossmorran that the ethylene market is a global market, and you are going to remain in that global market. Just from pure business terms, if you have reduced the global capacity by closing Mossmorran, is that not advantageous to the rest of your output gl…”

“I want to explore your last point about the jobs that will be protected at Grangemouth. Is it too early to say whether there is any read across from the jobs that are at threat in Mossmorran? Is it too early to say whether there are opportunities there, given the recentness of the statement and the announcement on Gran…”

“Can you remind us who makes up the joint taskforce that is being led by Fife council?”