Brian Leishman

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this debate. We hardly make anything any more. For decades, Scotland has been the victim of industrial vandalism, with our manufacturing base hammered. Last year Petroineos—in other words, the billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Chinese Government—ended a century of oil refining at Grangemouth. Ultimately, private capital and a foreign Government decided that 435 jobs were to be lost on site, along with 2,822 in the wider supply chain, removing a positive destination for local young people. Over £400 million per annum was lost from Scotland’s national economy, and Scotland’s fuel security was weakened. In my time in this place, I have been critical of both the Scottish and UK Governments. I stand by that criticism, but the truth is that the SNP Scottish Government knew about the closure for three years and did absolutely nothing to stop it. I will not allow anyone in the SNP to rewrite history on that—although I do not need to, because as everyone can see, SNP Members could not be bothered to attend the debate this morning. They are taking their passion for abstentionism and lack of participation in this place to a new level. This year, there is yet more industrial devastation as Alexander Dennis’s Canadian owners, NFI, stop bus manufacturing in Scotland, with 115 job losses. That is another piece of Scotland’s manufacturing base deemed disposable by international capital. And yet again the SNP Scottish Government have abandoned workers. Some 334 zero-emission buses were to be built through the ScotZEB3 scheme. Alexander Dennis was awarded 123; the Chinese company Yutong was awarded 166. The truth is that in Scottish politics it was the working class that propelled the SNP into generational power, and the SNP has rewarded communities with buses from Beijing. There are redundancies at Ferguson Marine. We are seeing the creation and promotion of the Tory idea of freeports, which means international tax havens for private capital to extract resources and wealth from Scotland. Make no mistake: the SNP is comfortable with all of that. With manufacturing, we are on the cusp of a green industrial revolution. We have an opportunity with renewables. But what have the SNP Scottish Government done to create new manufacturing jobs in that sector? They have had off-the-record meetings with corporations looking to get involved in Scotland’s renewable industry. The end result is a green investment portfolio worth £3 billion of green assets that were to be bought by private firms. That is money that the Scottish Government could have ploughed into manufacturing skills and job creation, transforming communities. Instead of building a Scottish manufacturing base that would create worker and community prosperity, the SNP went for outsourcing, privatisation and the continuation of pandering to foreign capital. The SNP are capitalists to their very core. I do not hold the desire for independence against the SNP or anyone that identifies as a Scottish nationalist—not in the slightest. Indeed, I respect their view. The reason I have no time for the Scottish National party is that it has decimated Scottish manufacturing and waged war on the Scottish working class.