Speeches by Downie.

“I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. In particular, the Government are delivering for Scotland once again with more renewable energy investment. He also talked, rightly, about Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine and why they have had a direct impact on ordinary people in this country, who we must protect now a…”

“I totally agree. I will cover those points about the challenges that we face in the Arctic from both those powers.”

“I absolutely agree that we must do more on all those points. Russia seeks to dominate the Arctic routes militarily and economically, while China positions itself as a near-Arctic state investing in infrastructure and shipping lanes to secure influence over future trade corridors. We must understand our geography and pr…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. Those are two points I will come on to, as to why the UK must act independently but also with our European allies in the High North and the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap in particular. We must always remember that Putin will respond to actions, not words, and we cannot…”

“I could not agree more. The UK’s position should be very clear: Greenland’s future is to be determined by people in Greenland and absolutely no one else. Initiatives in the UK must be matched with urgency and sustained funding. We must see a clear path to the 3.5%, plus the 1.5%, of defence spending agreed at the NATO …”

“I believe that that is what I did—or I certainly hope that is what I did. I would certainly like to see things move much faster, and in a way that is much clearer about the UK’s defence posture and intentions. However, to justify that action, the British people need to understand the threat that we face, and that must …”

“Once again, I could not agree more. Going back to the poisonings in Salisbury, the UK public need to be very aware that Vladimir Putin is now a threat to our shores—he has been in the past, and he will be in the future. It will be the most vulnerable people in the UK who will pay the price of that aggression, which is …”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of the Arctic and High North on UK security. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I am delighted to introduce this debate and emphasise the importance, as we have seen in the past week, of the Arctic and the High North to UK security. The UK…”

“I am going to pick up some elements around energy security. There are two aspects. I will start with the security of supply. We have also heard arguments that reducing reliance on fossil fuels strengthens security by limiting dependence on foreign supplies of gas. Do you agree with that? Does replacing the gas to deriv…”

“I would like to move on to more physical security of energy supplies. We have seen in Ukraine and elsewhere—and you alluded to it as well, Doug—that idea of energy as a target of war, via kinetic means, cyber-attack or anything else. You could argue at the moment that oil and gas is vulnerable. I guess that the questio…”

“Is it that, up to this point, we have not thought about physical security of our energy supply, including transit of LNG, in the same way? We have not thought about how we secure our energy supply in every sense.”

“Doug, do you have anything to add to that, particularly on that element about Chinese technology?”

“Can I just ask you about that idea in particular? We know that Ukraine has a more distributed power network now as a result, so that it is not just one target. It felt that that more distributed network is less vulnerable. Yes, there are more targets, but, fundamentally, you cannot take them down as easily, because you…”

“I have a very quick question on SMRs. I was in the US recently and a couple of people mentioned something that they were working on called the Janus programme, which was the involvement of the US Department of War, as we were instructed to call it, on SMR development because of their nuclear skills. Is that something t…”

“I will try to contain these questions into one. Looking at the NDA’s plan for the decommissioning of nuclear, is there anything in newer technologies such as SMRs that will affect that challenge? How do we make decommissioning work properly and effectively? Is overcoming the challenge of decommissioning the largest bar…”

“You have answered the question about SMRs, but are the setbacks and cost overruns that we see on SMRs—it is the biggest line in the DESNZ budget for nuclear—the biggest barriers to new nuclear that need to be overcome both technically and for the public?”

“Is it a governmental problem about not managing resources or a real problem? Is the way that the Government are managing it the problem or is the problem in the decommissioning itself?”

“In common with colleagues, I thank all the Members on the Government Front Bench for their work on this investment, including the former Secretary of State for Scotland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), and the current Secretary of State. Grangemouth can be seen from the Fife coastal pa…”

“Does anyone else have any brief points on that?”

“I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the waits that transgender people face in Scotland, which are far too long. I recently met a group from the transgender community in Dunfermline who are concerned about their safety when they are out on the streets, whether going out on a Saturday night or doing anything else tha…”