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Tag: Mhairi Black

  • Mhairi Black – 2023 Speech on the Manchester Arena Inquiry – Volume 3 Report

    Mhairi Black – 2023 Speech on the Manchester Arena Inquiry – Volume 3 Report

    The speech made by Mhairi Black, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, in the House of Commons on 6 March 2023.

    The awful events on 22 May 2017 led to the deaths of 22 innocent people and to hundreds more being injured and affected for the rest of their lives. Of course, the ultimate responsibility lies with the bomber who detonated his homemade device in the foyer of Manchester Arena as the crowds left an Ariana Grande concert. I welcome the fact that MI5 has reflected and apologised for its role in failing to prevent this heinous attack. For example, the report finds that intelligence could have led to the bomber being followed to a car where he stored his explosives. The inquiry also found that two pieces of information about the bomber were assessed by the Security Service as not being terrorism-related. An officer also admitted that they considered a possible national security concern on one of those pieces of information, but did not immediately discuss it with colleagues and did not write up a report on the same day.

    May I first ask the Home Secretary what steps she is taking to ensure that the security services improve in their communications and information sharing, guaranteeing that professional standards do not fall short, as they have done in this case? Secondly, the inquiry has found that the bomber was probably assisted by someone in Libya, but because of gaps in available evidence, that line of inquiry has not been addressed sufficiently. Can the Home Secretary provide further information on whether the investigation will continue to search for those who assisted the bomber? Given how much frustration the victims’ families are experiencing, understandably, as a result of information being withheld due to national security implications, will the Home Secretary at least provide reassurance to those families that the UK Government will leave no stone unturned in finding justice for their relatives?

    Suella Braverman

    I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Following the attacks in 2017, MI5 and counter-terrorism policing together carried out a series of reviews. Their 126 recommendations included: better data exploitation; the wider sharing of intelligence; and changes to how terrorist threats were assessed and investigated. An independent review by David Anderson concluded in December 2017 that

    “the recommendations taken as a whole will strengthen MI5 and the police in their ability to stop most terrorist attacks.”

    So a wide range of measures and actions have been taken since 2017 to improve data sharing, data exploitation and the assessment of intelligence. Let me give her and the British people the assurance that no stone will be left unturned by this Government to keep the British people safe. That is why have announced an investment of £370 million in a new counter-terrorism operations centre—CTOC. The new headquarters for London-based counter-terrorism policing, the intelligence community and Government partners will increase the strength, resilience and collaboration of our wholesale UK counter-terrorism effort.

  • Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mhairi Black on 2016-04-26.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, which (a) PFI contracts and (b) other large contracts between the Government and private bodies have been renegotiated since May 2010.

    Greg Hands

    There are over 700 operational PFI contracts across the UK, the large majority of which are managed and operated by local authorities, NHS trusts and the devolved governments. There is no requirement for any contracting authority to notify HM Treasury of contract renegotiations and, as a result, we do not hold the information requested.

  • Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mhairi Black on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much the Post Office has spent on settlement agreements and redundancy payments for Crown Office staff since January 2010.

    George Freeman

    Post Office Limited runs and manages its directly managed Crown post offices. Changes to the Crown network and arrangements for employees of these offices are the operational responsibility of the Post Office.

    I have asked Paula Vennells, the Chief Executive of Post Office Limited, to write to the hon Member on this matter. A copy of her reply will be placed in the libraries of the House.

  • Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mhairi Black on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many former Crown post offices which have been franchised have (a) closed and (b) relocated since January 2010.

    George Freeman

    Post Office Limited runs and manages its directly managed Crown post offices. Changes to the Crown network and arrangements for employees of these offices are the operational responsibility of the Post Office.

    I have asked Paula Vennells, the Chief Executive of Post Office Limited, to write to the hon Member on this matter. A copy of her reply will be placed in the libraries of the House.

  • Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mhairi Black on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much the Post Office has spent on refurbishing the premises of the Crown Post Office in Paisley since January 2010.

    George Freeman

    Post Office Limited runs and manages its directly managed Crown post offices. Changes to the Crown network and arrangements for employees of these offices are the operational responsibility of the Post Office.

    I have asked Paula Vennells, the Chief Executive of Post Office Limited, to write to the hon Member on this matter. A copy of her reply will be placed in the libraries of the House.

  • Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Mhairi Black – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mhairi Black on 2016-06-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much the Post Office has spent on refurbishing the Crown Post Office premises in Paisley since January 2010.

    George Freeman

    The hon Member recently tabled a Named Day question on this matter.

    In my answer of 13 June I advised that this was the operational responsibility of the Post Office and I would ask its Chief Executive, Paula Vennells, to write to the hon Member.

    I understand Paula Vennells wrote to the hon Member on 21 June. This letter has been placed in the Libraries of the House.

  • Mhairi Black – 2022 Comments on the Resignation of Liz Truss

    Mhairi Black – 2022 Comments on the Resignation of Liz Truss

    The comments made by Mhairi Black, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, on Twitter on 20 October 2022.

    It’s like the Tories subscribed for a free month trial and have just remembered to cancel it.

  • Mhairi Black – 2022 Speech on Fifth Anniversary of Grenfell Tower Fire

    Mhairi Black – 2022 Speech on Fifth Anniversary of Grenfell Tower Fire

    The speech made by Mhairi Black, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2022.

    I start by echoing the sentiments of everybody in this debate. Everyone has spoken respectfully and it has been quite humbling to sit and listen to the memories of people, and I am not just thinking of the survivors themselves.

    The truth is that the inquiry so far makes really quite difficult reading, because it lays bare the level of incompetence, cronyism and indifference shown at both a corporate and governmental level. It is becoming clear that the manufacturers who made the cladding knew it was flammable, but ignored the tests proving it. There are claims that fire tests were rigged to look better and texts from employees seemingly openly joking about the mistruths their companies told. Overall, the inquiry is littered with evidence of a complete lack of knowledge, experience and regard for safety among those responsible for the tower’s refurbishment.

    As if residents living in a highly flammable building was not bad enough, we now also know that the organisation responsible for maintaining the building also utterly failed in its duty to do so. With a backlog of hundreds of incomplete maintenance jobs arising specifically from fire risk, it failed to repair and inspect fire doors. As a result, on that fateful night, smoke and fire ran rampant throughout the place.

    For years, residents repeatedly complained about how unfit the building was, and specifically about the risks of fires. Yet they were ignored and palmed off time and again. It has been said by a few hon. Members, particularly the hon. Members for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), and by the survivors themselves, that had the residents been majority white and wealthy the response would have been completely different—and they are absolutely right. The fact that that is held as an open fact that everyone is aware of, whether we talk about it or not, shows just how deeply embedded the problem is.

    As the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said, the treatment of survivors after the disaster is grotesque in itself. At every single stage, from when the fire first started right through the five years until now, those people have been failed at every single turn by the very people who should be helping them.

    The reason often given, which is quoted throughout the inquiry, is cutting costs; I think it was the hon. Member for City of Durham who made that point. Time and again, we see the company saying that flammable material was used because it was cheaper—it was to cut costs. Because of cost cutting, the council inspector responsible for ensuring the safety of the project had 130 other projects to keep an eye on at the same time. Our emergency services are stretched beyond their limit in the name of cutting costs.

    If someone told me that this fire happened in 1917, and that we were here as a memorial to remember the tragedy that instigated health and safety laws, I could believe that—but it did not. It happened in 2017. We are supposed to have health and safety. We are supposed to have standards. Yet, five years on, it seems that nobody, particularly in Government, is actually that bothered by it. There has been no accountability, and the companies are still receiving profits from this entire saga.

    Right now, we have half a million people still living in a building with some form of unsafe cladding. Officials still do not know how many buildings of four storeys or more could be at risk. The Government are yet to implement the majority of the recommendations from phase 1 of the inquiry, and as we have heard they have already rejected the idea that building owners should be responsible for evacuation plans for disabled people.

    While I accept, and I truly do, the warm wishes and the real desire to never see this kind of tragedy happen again—I do appreciate the sentiment—no matter how well-intentioned they are, words and platitudes do absolutely nothing. This tragedy started long before any fire. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith has said, if we are to be serious about this, and if we are to respect those who lost their lives, what is required is action, because it is action that makes the difference. We should take that action, learn from history, as we are supposed to, and reflect and respond, because otherwise—I agree with the hon. Member—as things stand, I fear there is every chance this will happen again.

  • Mhairi Black – 2022 Speech on Achieving Economic Growth

    Mhairi Black – 2022 Speech on Achieving Economic Growth

    The speech made by Mhairi Black, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, in the House of Commons on 18 May 2022.

    For a party that prides itself on the economy, the Tories have a shocking record of running it. Our economy has the slowest growth in the G7. We have greater regional inequality than almost any other developed nation. Food banks now do the job of Government in providing for families—families that are more often than not in work.

    The Government could start solving this crisis by providing solutions, such as closing tax-avoidance loopholes or creating a windfall tax for energy companies. Instead, we get endless Bills paying lip service to a manufactured culture war. The priority is not the economy. It seems to be things like protecting freedom of speech, yet the Tories are the ones who banned schools in England from using sources that are not overtly pro-capitalist. They are cracking down on freedom of assembly and protest. They are privatising Channel 4, when the Culture Secretary did not even know that Channel 4 receives no public money, so the argument is not financial. When we consider, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) touched on earlier, that the Culture Secretary was once a key focus of a Channel 4 documentary about the influence that Christian fundamentalism has on UK politics, it becomes even more concerning that this decision is political and personal. It is not professional.

    Most terrifying of all, however, is that the Government literally want to get rid of the Human Rights Act. That begs the question: for whom do they think rights have gone too far? Do they know how scary it is to sit at home and wonder if it is you—is it your rights that are up for grabs? We have witnessed Windrush. Our economic strategy is to open our doors to the rest of the world when we need their hard work and then chuck them out 50 years later without a word’s notice. We tell our own citizens that their safety cannot be guaranteed in Rwanda, but we are perfectly happy to ship asylum seekers, people fleeing war and persecution, over to Rwanda as though they are cattle to be dealt with by someone else and despite knowing that the plan costs more than it will ever save.

    This is just little England elites drunk on the memory of a British empire that no longer exists. We have the lowest pensions in Europe and the lowest sick pay. We pretend the minimum wage is a living wage when it is not. We miss our own economic targets time and again. We are happy to break international law. We are turning into a country where words hold no value.

    Over the last 12 years, I fear we have been sleepwalking closer and closer to the F word. I know everyone is scared to say it for fear of sounding over the top or being accused of going too far, but I say this with all sincerity. When I say the F word, I am talking about fascism—fascism wrapped in red, white and blue. You may mock and you may disagree, but fascism does not come in with intentional evil plans or the introduction of leather jackboots. It does not happen like that. It happens subtly. It happens when we see Governments making decisions based on self-preservation, based on cronyism, based on anything that will keep them in power, when we see the concentration of power while avoiding any of the scrutiny or responsibility that comes with that power. It arrives under the guise of respectability and pride, which will then be refused to anyone who is deemed different. It arrives through the othering of people and the normalisation of human cruelty. I do not know how far down that road we are. Time will tell, but the things we do in the name of economic growth—the warning signs are there for everyone else to see, whether they admit it or not.

  • Mhairi Black – 2021 Comments on the Pandemic

    Mhairi Black – 2021 Comments on the Pandemic

    The comments made by Mhairi Black, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, on 6 May 2021.

    The pandemic has been tough for everyone, but particularly so for young people.

    It has disrupted their education, training and employment – and even stopped them enjoying many key rites of passage that make being young special – whether that’s school proms, graduation ceremonies, birthday parties, moving to university or even just being able to see friends.

    Scotland’s young people have made huge sacrifices for the rest of the country and there is more at stake for their future than any other age group.

    That’s why the SNP’s Young Person’s Guarantee is such an important commitment, and it’s why we’ll support their incomes by introducing free bus travel and scrapping council tax for everyone under 22.

    An SNP government will also deliver affordable homes, put ScotRail in public hands, create new jobs, help with housing costs, and create green jobs in order that Scotland is a net zero country.

    And in just a few days’ time, if re-elected, there will be new decisions to take on easing the covid restrictions that will mean much more normality for people’s lives.

    And as we look to rebuild Scotland, we have to ask ourselves who should be making the decisions that affect our lives.

    On May 6th, just like everyone else, young people will be asked how they want to see Scotland recover, and what future they really want.

    Is it Westminster and Boris Johnson, or is it Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP?

    Young people across the country could be critical in helping to elect a First Minister who has led us through this pandemic every day and a government that has equality, compassion and fairness at the heart of its policies, instead of putting Scotland’s future in Boris Johnson’s hands.

    My message to young people is this – don’t let other people decide your future for you. Get out and vote SNP, and stand up and be counted – because your vote can make a real difference.

    We have a choice of two futures, two different governments, one led by Nicola Sturgeon and one led by Boris Johnson.

    One that listens, and one that doesn’t.

    So today, make it Both Votes SNP to put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands.