Speeches by Crichton.

“If the hon. Gentleman does not wish to blame the SNP Government for the economic mismanagement of Scotland, why does he provoke SNP Members with his choice of Union Jack socks?”

“I hope the hon. Member will forgive me for not giving way to him when I was mid-flow during my own speech. We are waiting until 2031 or 2032 for our ferries. We need ferries this winter, not next decade.”

“Let’s move on to the technical stuff now. I am interested to hear how Tesco uses the NDA to deliver stuff to supermarkets, and how you make money like that. You spend something like £100 million on R&D each year and you are at the edge of innovation; with everything you do, it is the first time it has been done. Are th…”

“What do you get out of that? Do you get patents that you can then sell on?”

“Corhyn, David and Euan, thanks for coming in, for your evidence and for your expertise and for keeping us safe, I guess. I have technical questions about R&D and where we get value for money out of that, but I want to go back to a version of the question that the Chair asked you at the beginning about what keeps you aw…”

“Our plants do not have missiles flying over them every night like Ukraine’s do, but we are in almost a cyber war with hostile actors. You mentioned that security and cyber are among the pillars of the NDA. Have you seen an uptick in cyber-attacks in the last couple of years?”

“This is a bonus question from DESNZ. DESNZ has just issued a strategic review of the National Nuclear Lab, which we have not had time to digest. I do not know if you have had time to do that, but did you feed into the review?”

“Do you have to buy in technology and patents from other sites around the world?”

“You alluded to Sellafield possibly becoming an innovation centre for robotics in nuclear waste handling. Are you working on that?”

“I notice that the report calls for greater transparency with key stakeholders and for key stakeholders to reciprocate this transparency. That seems like a civil service criticism.”

“How do you get on with the National Nuclear Lab? What is your relationship like?”

“I am grateful for your forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I very much welcome the announcement made by the Secretary of State today, although its arrival is almost as late as my own arrival in the Chamber this afternoon, for which I apologise. The ban on LGBT people serving in the armed forces until 2000 was a failure …”

“I do not know if the Leader of the House has been caught up in the wild swimming trend, which we in the Western Isles just call “swimming in the sea”. One of my constituents has taken that to the limit: Colin S. Macleod, charity fundraiser extraordinaire, has been swimming a mile’s length of the beach every day this ye…”

“Let me follow on from what Chris was saying and turn back to community energy and community energy generation. My new best friends, Jürgen Maier and Michael Shanks, have both said that they want to see 8 GW of power coming from community generation, yet your connection plans do not mention community energy at all.”

“Thank you. Finally, how will you ensure that all these regional energy strategic planners engage with communities? Do you need to signal on that too or do you have a system to do that?”

“Why not? If you are winnowing out the zombie projects but keeping your queue—your gateways 1 and 2—if you do not designate community energy and you do not give community energy projects a derogation to get connected quicker, they will not get connected at all, because they do not have the professional back-up of the le…”

“Hello, Fintan and Kayte. Thanks for sharing your expertise and your evidence. To pick up on the point that Wera was making, isn’t one of the best ways to engage communities to give them a direct share in the profit flowing through the pylons? Isn’t one of the lessons from Ireland and Denmark and Germany that the larger…”

“But if you categorise them as a technological solution rather than an ownership model you are disadvantaging them. Chris talked about the man from Whitehall deciding. Do you need a signal from Jürgen and from Shanks that they want community energy projects to have a derogation to skip the queue, for lack of better word…”

“I commend the hon. and learned Gentleman’s passion, but his problems are not unique. Anywhere in the highlands and islands of Scotland, or even in peripheral parts of England, has the same delivery problems as he does.”

“Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating all the winners of the Saltires, Scotland’s national book awards, particularly Jen Stout for her courageous and compassionate dispatches from the frontline in Ukraine? On a lighter note, I congratulate all the Gaelic singers and musicians who triumphed at the Trads…”