Speeches by Doogan.

“Is this—”

“A lot of your answer contained references to respect, Secretary of State, which I completely agree with. Do you agree with your colleague, the Secretary of State for Defence, who yesterday refused to say whether China was a risk to national security, but said that the Scottish Government were a risk to national securit…”

“Could you let the Committee know how many hotels are in Scotland?”

“How many of those 200 are in Scotland?”

“Secretary of State, did you say it is down to 200? That is UK-wide?”

“The wait lists have gone down.”

“I am not much interested in what your party or even my party wants. I am interested in fulfilling the constitutional ambition of the Scottish people and there is no means to do that in the absence of a referendum, which you are obviously quite keen to deny. Do you not believe that there is a significant appetite in Sco…”

“Another central tenet of the First Minister’s argument is that things have changed substantially since 2014. I am sure you are not advancing an argument that Scotland made a decision in 2014 and therefore it will not be in a position to make that decision ever again. On that basis, why is the pursuit of precedent not l…”

“Which he does weekly. But to be clear, and I think I am picking it up in your answer, as long as you decide independence is not a priority for Scotland, regardless of the sovereignty of the Scottish people, the choice over independence will be continued to be denied to the people of Scotland, even now when polling for …”

“To come back to the question, Secretary of State, the basis of the First Minister’s claim is that the precedent was set in 2011 when the SNP won a majority in that election. Do you agree that constitutionally the UK operates on the basis of precedent and so from that perspective the First Minister’s analysis is sound?”

“I think the Scottish Government are willing to run on a comparatively favourable record. Was that a no? After all that, I do not know whether you agree or not.”

“I will not have my time talked out, Chair. This is just rhetoric.”

“Do you agree with it, Secretary?”

“Secretary of State, the First Minister in Scotland has claimed that the SNP priority at the next election is a mandate for a new independence referendum. Do you agree with that assessment?”

“That was not apparent in your press releases.”

“So there aren’t hundreds of jobs that are going to be employed by GB Energy in Aberdeen. It is about the wider supply chain— the wider energy dynamic.”

“The shadow Minister will, of course, be delighted to know that the Scottish National party was the first party anywhere in the United Kingdom to introduce business rates relief for small businesses. As for the Labour Government’s business literacy, which the hon. Gentleman critiques quite accurately, does it concern hi…”

“The Scottish Secretary—a grown man who seems easy to upset—was very upset recently when the First Minister of Scotland had direct meetings with the President of the United States over whisky tariffs. The SNP and the First Minister will always stand up for Scotch whisky. Will the Chancellor follow suit, or will she cont…”

“Does the Minister understand the immediacy of the pressure on small businesses? She may have the best of intentions, and I am sure that prices will unwind in five or 10 years, eventually resulting in lower energy bills for commercial enterprise across the United Kingdom. That will not happen this week, however, or even…”

“The Ministry of Defence spent £1.2 billion with SMEs in 2024-25. Sadly, though, only 2.5% of that spending went to SMEs in Scotland, which report extreme difficulty in accessing those MOD contracts. This is an inevitable consequence of the MOD spending more in one region of England than it spends in Wales, Northern Ire…”