Speeches by Doogan.

“In just two weeks’ time, the people of Wales will have an opportunity to elect a Government who genuinely care about child poverty in Wales—Plaid Cymru. In Scotland, the Scottish Government’s child payment has helped protect 407,000 children from UK poverty, and Plaid Cymru will do the same if it prevails on 7 May. Doe…”

“On 3 March, during the Chancellor’s vacuous spring statement, I raised with her that the war which had just started in the middle east would have an inevitable and immediate consequence for energy prices. I asked her what she was going to do about it, and she said that she had no plans to do anything about it. Today, t…”

“We were promised a statement on the British industrial competitiveness scheme; we got the Secretary of State talking about foutering around with the energy bills of less than 1% of UK companies and compensating them to some undetermined extent at some period in the next year. That will come as the coldest of comfort fo…”

“Just three weeks ago at the spring statement, I cautioned the Chancellor that significant fiscal intervention would be required to protect businesses and households in the face of the war in the middle east. She said at that time that, thanks to her actions, the finances of the UK were in robust condition. Now she prev…”

“Whatever has gone well in defence and whatever has gone wrong in defence in the United Kingdom over the last 50 years, it is the responsibility of the two main parties, one currently in opposition and one currently in government, and the ping-pong back and forth today has been a bit difficult to listen to. I heard the …”

“I think the hon. Gentleman thinks that he is being smart. I do not need to be reminded where Trident is based, and neither do the people of Scotland. We do not need to be reminded where the bullseye of the target on these islands is based. I do not need to be reminded how many Scots were asked whether they would like t…”

“I will make some progress. A key problem for the current Government is that when they took over in 2024, they set great store by their strategic defence review. They said that they were going to fix defence from the ground up, and that it would all be in the strategic defence review, but when the strategic defence revi…”

“We will disagree on that last point, but I am very happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman on the benefit of complex warship manufacturing in Scotland. It would be nice if it was occasionally framed as something other than a benevolent gesture from Westminster towards Scotland, as opposed to what it actually is: the Uni…”

“The United Kingdom invests so much in the independent nuclear deterrent—more than £100 billion over a 10-year period—but the Government cannot even tell us the 10-year rolling price. It is not independent, and I do not believe that it makes us any safer. We would be far safer if we invested that money in playing a lead…”

“One thing that unites the Prime Minister of Israel and the supreme leader of Iran is that neither could care less about what the UK Prime Minister says, and it is difficult to imagine that the US President is not in a similar camp. With fiscal headroom evaporating, business confidence vanishing and household budgets be…”

“Defence is a long-held and valued element of the Scottish economy. Scotland has a proud martial tradition stretching back hundreds of years. Added to its tradition of innovation, it is no wonder that we have so many primes in Scotland delivering outstanding equipment to a global market, but sometimes there is a bit of …”

“Thank you, Chair. Mr Donoghue, I don’t think it was just you who was surprised that the funding from the UK Government was contingent on match funding. That came as a surprise, as I understand it, to the Scottish Government themselves, who had not been consulted on the conditionality that the UK Government had applied …”

“rose—”

“Mr Donoghue, you referenced President Zelensky’s visit here yesterday. Are you concerned, because we have heard a range of views all pretty much chiming with each other, that there is some sort of cognitive dissonance between the expectation that people have that we will be defended as a population, but also reserving …”

“I raised this entirely inevitable circumstance with the Chancellor at the spring statement, and she did something that she is given to do, which was to glaze over briefly and then talk about the strength and broad shoulders of the Treasury because of the difficult decisions that she had taken, as though they affected h…”

“I am very happy to explain that to the hon. Lady when I get to that element of my speech, which I will in due course. The other thing that really irritates me about this Government is the way that they talk about the just transition. They say, “We will be using fossil fuels for another 50 years, and we will be producin…”

“How could I not give way to the Scottish Labour MP who has managed to come in here for the tail end of the debate?”

“What evidence did the Chancellor have to suggest there was profiteering in petrol retailing? The Petrol Retailers Association rightly took umbrage at the implication of the Chancellor; I think that did not go quite the way that she thought it would.”

“Before the hon. Lady gets back to her feet, she asked me about tax and she should be aware—although apparently she is not—that most income tax payers in Scotland pay less tax. Over and above that, her constituents do not have to pay for their tuition fees when they go to university. All her constituents, like my consti…”

“This is where I practise respectful disagreement. For rural areas such as my constituency, the constituency of the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan, and many other places across all four nations, this issue is really challenging. There is not limited access to public transport in many places such as ours; there is no …”