Speeches by Downie.

“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…”

“I thank everyone from across the House for taking part in the debate. Having listened to the debate, I am reminded of a comment made by a colleague shortly after the general election in a similar debate in Westminster Hall, when he reflected on what it must be like for someone to walk into the room during a debate invo…”

“Last week, I was pleased to take part in a cross-party delegation to Washington to discuss matters of defence, security and development. At every one of those meetings, which were with both Republicans and Democrats and from across the political spectrum, the importance of the UK-US relationship was emphasised, particu…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered St Andrew’s Day and Scottish affairs. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to mark St Andrew’s day and to discuss Scottish affairs. As a Fife MP, I begin by noting that the town of St Andrews is at the opposite end of the kingdom from my constituency…”

“I thank the hon. Member for her intervention and, indeed, for sponsoring my application to the Backbench Business Committee. She has anticipated one of the points that I will make later, and I should say that my speech does not mention either of those key figures in Scottish history she mentions, but it does mention ma…”

“I could not agree more. St Andrews University, which I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, is the heart of education in Scotland, along with institutions in Edinburgh, Glasgow and elsewhere across the country. [Interruption.] I see that university arguments are breaking out already among Opposition Members—or is …”

“Very briefly, we have heard in both sessions lots of mentions of short term, long term and medium term. What does that mean in your world? When we are talking about an inquiry into the cost of energy and how we get bills down, what is a realistic way to do that in the short term and what do you mean by short term? We h…”