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Employment, Universities and Skills and Housing

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I congratulate him on his by-election victory of not that long ago. I must give credit where credit is due. With regard to the closures to which he refers, one was scheduled in another part of my constituency, Ullapool, but the Government have backed off. However, the alternative offices were, respectively, Wick, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), and one of the two centres in Inverness, in the constituency of my other neighbouring parliamentary colleague, so it would have been ridiculous to reduce the presence in Ullapool. I welcome that fact. A lot of work that was under way, and in the pipeline at a governmental level, has now been overtaken by economic events. The example cited by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr. Timpson) is one. The budget for Highlands and Islands Enterprise, although it comes within the purview of the Scottish Executive, has been cut by £50 million, and its purpose is to provide help in extremis. The budget decision was taken some time ago, but the financial situation has plummeted in the meantime, so some mechanisms of state support have been constrained just when they are needed. I therefore wish the hon. Gentleman luck with his ongoing campaign. The Government should listen to those in Crewe and Nantwich and constituencies across the country, where, sadly, such state support will be needed by citizens who already find themselves encountering hard economic circumstances. Alas, as we all know, they are liable to encounter even more of the same as 2009 progresses. I hope that the Government can take steps to assist with the problems of unemployment in Lochaline and in the wider community of Morvern. On the Queen's Speech as a whole and employment prospects, transport and infrastructure considerations are important for the entire economy, but for an area as peripheral and remote from markets as the highlands and islands of Scotland, such considerations, as well as the cost of fuel, are vital. I welcomed some of the Chancellor's recent announcements in the pre-Budget statement—it has been renamed so many times that the correct nomenclature is difficult to remember—running in tandem with the Queen's Speech. However, it must be said that the impact on jobs in the highlands of Scotland of the continuing difficulties generated by fuel prices and the way in which the Government have set about their revenue take remains crippling. I have mentioned one remote community, Lochaline, but another such community is Applecross, on the west coast of Ross-shire. The weekend before last, I was fortunate enough to be there and to observe that, thanks to tremendous efforts in that small and isolated community, the local petrol pumps had just been reopened as a result of the activities of the community and the Applecross community company. The company was able to raise enough funds to ensure that, when people needed to fill their tanks, they need not face—would you believe?—a 40-mile round trip to and from what were the nearest petrol pumps, in the metropolis known as Lochcarron, over the Bealach na Ba. If nothing has done so already, the mention of those place names will guarantee me an envelope from the Hansard reporters at the end of my speech! However, it is not just access to fuel that is vital to a community of that kind. The cost is such that it inhibits everything else to do with creating jobs and maintaining them. People face longer journeys and higher prices, along with few if any alternatives. The Government must bear it in mind that power companies in this country have received £9 billion from the carbon emission trading scheme that they have not passed on to domestic energy consumers: something should be done about that before Christmas. Meanwhile, the Government are continuing to rake a considerable amount into the national exchequer through the fuel costs that people are paying for their transport. All those factors have a massive inhibiting effect on the employment prospects of areas such as mine. The third and final issue that I wish to raise is related to employment, although it falls within the housing field, and the United Kingdom housing field. I refer to the level of housing debt. Because it remains a Treasury matter, Members of Parliament in the Highland council area have been lobbying the Treasury for some time on the extent of the council's existing overhang in terms of housing debt. The Treasury keeps citing the golden rule when it comes to trying to wipe out debt. For reasons that are well understood, the Government flaunted the golden rule in the context of the banking community; if they could do something similar in the context of a local authority such as Highland council, we might see the attainment of more Government objectives that are widely shared across the political spectrum. The Government could invest in energy efficiency—in home insulation, for instance. They could bring about a welcome raising of social standards, and improve people's general welfare. However, a potential triple gain in the form of trades and skills—which are good for employment, overall energy policy and improved living standards—is being threatened. The lack of employment opportunities is all the worse at a time when we are losing jobs and will continue to lose jobs, but I have identified an affordable and efficient way in which the Government could generate growth in an area such as mine. There is another way of doing that—partly through the Scottish Executive, but also through the Chancellor's welcome proposal in the pre-Budget report to front-load money over two years. Let me make a particular plea. In the context of geography and distance, the state of a main artery such as the A82, particularly between Glasgow and Fort William, remains an appalling indictment of present-day communications in a modern, developed country such as ours. Therefore, given that road's strategic UK importance for tourism and for shipping products generated locally south and out to European markets, any encouragement that the Scotland Office can give would be welcome. Over the coming year, we will face a very hard time indeed in our employment prospects and the social impact they will have. Let us hope that, beyond the fairly thin content of this Queen's Speech, there is action that the Government can take.