Visit to Scotland

Q9. When he next plans to visit Scotland.

The hon. Member asks about visiting Scotland. As he knows, my first visit, within days of becoming Prime Minister, was to Scotland, where I met the First Minister. I have also visited Scotland for the meeting of the Councils of the Nations and Regions in October, for the Interpol General Assembly in November and for the British Irish Council in Edinburgh in December. I look forward to going again very soon.

Interestingly, the Prime Minister could not tell me when he will next be visiting Scotland, but does he agree with the withering assessment of the eminent politics professor Sir John Curtice, who says that the current UK Prime Minister is

“the worst thing that ever happened to Anas Sarwar”?

If he does not—and he should—does he think that it is stripping Scottish pensioners of their winter fuel payment, abandoning workers in Grangemouth or attacking the national insurance payments of farmers that has catastrophically torpedoed Labour in the polls in Scotland? When he does get a date, he can even bring his Chancellor with him to back him up on the numbers—assuming that she is still Chancellor by then.

I remember when that rhetoric used to come from SNP Members sitting down there—

That’s the same answer you gave the last time.

Order. Mr Doogan, I want no more.

The hon. Member has to shout because the SNP Members are so far away at the back and there are so few of them that otherwise they would not be heard.