Speeches by McAllister.

“Can I ask Councillor Woodbridge about UK Government support as well, please, Chair?”

“My question is to all three of you. Everyone in Scotland is familiar with the ferry fiasco, with the Glen Sannox and the Glen Rosa. I think we are now up at £400 million plus spent on that. To my mind, fixed links relates to a more remote question about population decline. From hearing your evidence this morning, it so…”

“I was asking you about whether we have to move towards a two-ferry solution rather than the single ship plan. Also, how do we compensate the Islanders, the population who are suffering massive economic losses every time the ferries fail? The ageing fleet is 30 plus, 40 plus years. It is just not good enough.”

“Many of my constituents are rightly worried about the harms that children face online, including exposure to self-harm content, online bullying and addictive platform design. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that the Government’s consultation on banning social media for under-16s will result in decisive ac…”

“1. If she will take urgent steps to protect children online.”

“On Monday of this week the former MP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Tony Worthington, sadly passed away. He was the MP for my home town of Clydebank from 1987 until 2005. Over 18 years in this House, he championed many causes, not least the campaign to secure compensation for victims of asbestos-related illness and their…”

“I have always been assured by both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary that the case of my constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal, who has been arbitrarily detained in India for eight and a half years, would continue to be raised at all levels, but I understand that the Foreign Secretary met her counterpart Jaishanka…”

“Our ambitious child poverty strategy puts more money into the pockets of families and working parents. Removing the two-child cap benefits 2,260 children in my constituency, and the Secretary of State is doing much more on top of that, which we are missing out on in Scotland. Does she agree with me that we need a Gover…”

“In December 2023, the Scottish SNP Government slashed their affordable housing budget by £200 million—a 26% reduction. We have record levels of children in temporary accommodation in Scotland—10,000—and under the SNP’s watch, rough sleeping has increased by 66%. Scottish Labour is promising 125,000 new homes to add to …”

“The whole House will have cheered on Rory McIlroy’s historic back-to-back Masters victory at the weekend. However, when 60 courses have closed across the country over the last five years, and when courses such as Dalmuir in my West Dunbartonshire constituency remain open only because of a community-led takeover, can th…”

“I appreciate that it is always difficult to give a timeframe, but when do we reach the tipping point when it benefits my constituents, for instance? When can my constituents in West Dunbartonshire, and customers across Scotland for that matter, see the benefit of that infrastructure investment in their bills? When do t…”

“I wish to bring to the Minister’s attention the experience of one of my constituents, who has given me permission to provide this information. She is profoundly deaf—that is how she describes herself—and has relied on Access to Work for 25 years. Despite this, she was recently told, via a no-reply email, to telephone o…”

“Good morning, Minister. You stated previously—in front of another Select Committee last month, in fact—that investment in the electricity grid was “not optional”. However, it could be argued that the pace of that investment and the resulting cost passed on to bills is a policy choice. I think we would all agree there i…”

“So you can all confirm in writing after this Committee that anyone who cancelled their contracts still received the full level of compensation that they were entitled to and those payments have been made?”

“Can I ask a supplementary on that, Chair?”

“On the compensation offered to customers, is it a prerequisite that that compensation is offered to them if they continue to remain customers of each of the three of you?”

“You are all confident on that?”

“Thank you.”

“So even when they cancel their contracts because they are dissatisfied with the cover, you are still compensating all those former customers?”

“It is not just a credit to a future bill?”