Speeches by Flynn.

“May I extend an invite to the Secretary of State to come to Aberdeen and meet the highly skilled energy workforce, whose jobs are being put at risk as a result of his policies?”

“Have you seen any evidence that affords you the opportunity to change your opinion?”

“Have you seen any evidence over the course of the last year or two that would negate the work that you undertook as Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee? Have you seen any evidence that negates the conclusions that your committee previously came to in respect of supporting drug consumption? Your opinion appears t…”

“Good morning, Cabinet Secretary and Ms Zeballos. A few weeks ago, Neil, when I was at the facility and I posed a very similar question to the Lord Advocate, what was apparent to me was the express wish of those who were present for some sort of inhalation room to be put in place and, similarly, for a mechanism to allow…”

“Do you think that the public watching would regard it as acceptable that a Government Minister is quite happy to change their opinion on such a significant matter, as we have rightly heard earlier, on the basis of no evidence changing whatsoever? That appears to be what you are implying to me. The only thing that appea…”

“What evidence has come forward that has led to you changing your opinion?”

“At that time, did you support those recommendations?”

“Did you support those recommendations?”

“I cannot help but feel that the Minister is treating Members with a significant level of contempt by telling us that something will happen, but not telling us what that will be or when it will happen. On a more acute point, can he perhaps clarify for the House why he believes it is consistent for his Government to cond…”

“I will tell the Secretary of State what is bad for town centres, and that is job losses. On this Government’s watch, Robert Gordon University has been forced to publish a report that outlines that there could be 400 job losses in the North sea every two weeks. That is a Grangemouth-type shutdown every two weeks. How ma…”

“May I begin by echoing the revulsion of the Leader of the House in respect of the antisemitic murders in the United States of America in recent hours? “Cruel” and a policy that sees a third child treated “as almost a second-class citizen”. That is not my phrasing, but that of Gordon Brown in describing the Labour party…”

“I think the Front Benches need to calm the jets a wee bit. This is obviously not a surrender, just as it is obviously no substitute for membership of the European Union; nor, indeed, is it, as the Prime Minister has said repeatedly today, providing “unprecedented access” to the EU market—that is simply absurd. The deal…”

“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—no pressure. To see the Foreign Secretary finally find some fire in his belly on this issue was certainly most appreciated, but it was long overdue. Ultimately, as has been mentioned, the Government are still a block to action. Would he support this House being given votes on whether we …”

“In that context, particularly on the back of your Project Willow reference there, although it is relevant to the wider north-east, it is vital that we see projects such as Acorn taken forward, because of the multidisciplinary aspects that sit within that, and the ability for people to, as Neil said earlier, go from, ef…”

“Is there a wider danger, then, that, if we see what we are seeing at the moment, with job losses in traditional industry, we could see flight of those skills and that expertise abroad? It is a transient workforce, after all. Does that put an even greater emphasis on the need for not only investment in net zero, but als…”

“If we broaden it out, there are tens of thousands of people who are employed in the high-carbon industries in Scotland, in the oil and gas sector in particular, and particularly in the north-east of Scotland. Neil made reference earlier to Paul de Leeuw’s report, in which he talks about the Goldilocks zone, where you h…”

“We are talking a lot about people transitioning from the oil and gas sector into the renewables sector, and making sure that we have skills passports in place and that these individuals have the support that is required. Do you sense an appetite among people in that industry to do that, given that we appear to have acc…”

“I will be as succinct as I possibly can be. If you are a former employee of Beam in Westhill or Belmar Engineering in Altens, or one of the 250 Harbour employees who are about to lose their jobs, or one of the 350 who lost their jobs a couple of years ago, or a former employee of the refinery at Grangemouth, are you lo…”

“Yes, indeed. We could have another half an hour on that.”

“All of us in Aberdeen are very familiar with people who have moved to work elsewhere, and the consequence of that for us domestically. In that context, Neil, you mentioned young people. We are talking a lot about people transitioning, and a lot of these people are already in good jobs. In terms of young people, do we s…”