A LABOUR minister was dealt devastating blows by the Question Time audience in Glasgow – with one member of the public accusing the party of a “spiteful” attempt to frustrate independence by hammering the oil industry.
Energy Minister Michael Shanks was also told by another member of the audience on Thursday that his Government “won’t be able to deliver by 2026” and will lose the upcoming Holyrood election to the SNP.
In a bruising segment, the Rutherglen MP was confronted over the UK Government’s failure to rescue the Grangemouth oil refinery – with some audience members accusing Labour of seeking to “destroy” the Scottish oil sector.
One audience member said: “You talked about Grangemouth. Scotland is responsible for almost all of the oil production in the UK and we have so many oil refineries still down in England but yet the last oil refinery in Scotland is closed down.
Man in green top, "Scotland is responsible for almost all of the oil production in the UK" "We have so many oil refineries in England.. Yet the last oil refinery in Scotland has closed down" #BBCQT "This seems like a spiteful move.. Saying you're cripple our oil production so… pic.twitter.com/7AUG2pRGTI
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) February 6, 2025
“This seems just like a spiteful move towards the Scottish, saying, ‘We’re going to cripple your oil refinery production so that you can’t declare independence, because you won’t have this source of income.’”
Another man added: “Labour want to destroy the oil industry in Scotland totally. That’s what they want. They’ve been trying to do it for years.”
Another upbraided the Labour minister for Rachel Reeves’s failure to announce any major infrastructure projects for Scotland during a recent speech.
Last week, the Chancellor (above) announced that Labour would now back a third runway at Heathrow Airport and hailed plans to boost economic growth in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor in the south of England.
But despite saying that the expansion of Heathrow Airport would boost the Scottish salmon and whisky sectors, no specific projects were announced for Scotland.
The audeience member said: “Rachel Reeves announced a bunch of investment last week: on the third runway [at Heathrow], on Oxford-Cambridge, but none of these are in Scotland.
“Glasgow Subway, the third-oldest subway in the world, still only has one line. Edinburgh University, £800 million supercomputer, shelved. HS2 doesn’t even go to Manchester, let alone Scotland. You won’t be able to deliver by 2026, the SNP is going to be in power for 24 years.”
“There have been difficult choices along the way… but… the change this country needs can’t be delivered overnight” Labour’s Michael Shanks says his party is “determined” to offer more than “short term sticking-plaster solutions”, but real change will take time#bbcqt pic.twitter.com/MKSsLtACo5
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) February 6, 2025
Defending the Government, Shanks said: “There’s no doubt we’ve had to make some really difficult decisions, we’ve had to make some difficult decisions early on because of the fiscal mess that we inherited, where we had to make difficult financial decisions so that we could then in October announce a Budget that invested in public services.”
He said he was “acutely aware” that many of the Government’s decisions had been unpopular, adding: “I have to say to you, the change this country needs can’t be delivered overnight.
“What we’ve had for 14 years is a Government of slogans, of short-term, sticking plaster solutions that get us from one PMQs to the next, or one prime minister to the next, but they don’t deal with the fundamental problems in the country.”
