Meeting of the Parliament 12 September 2024
That is an extremely important issue and it has received the attention of the First Minister as well as the Cabinet Secretary for Transport. We must find ways of supporting businesses, while operating within subsidy control measures. There is no doubt about the significant importance of Alexander Dennis.
I will get back to the subject at hand. We have choices to make now that will shape the future. In our green industrial strategy, we choose to make Scotland more prosperous for the next generation of Scots. We have chosen prosperity with a purpose—prosperity that is a vehicle to improve public services and a just transition to net zero that has fair work at its heart and leaves no one behind.
The green industrial strategy is not the start of the journey: we have solid foundations on which to build. Since 2007, Scottish gross domestic product growth per head has been higher and our productivity growth has been more than double that of the United Kingdom. Our unemployment has been at near record lows for the past eight years. Although those feats are impressive, we are tethered to a UK economy that has stagnated. Most parties agree with that.
Even if we do not have the full economic powers that independence would bring, there is still much that we can, and will, do to help Scotland to prosper. We face many challenges, from the pressures on our public finances, to the hurdles that we face to reach net zero by 2045. Those challenges are not insurmountable. The message is that they offer enormous opportunity. If we can create the conditions for long-term economic growth, the next generation of Scots will benefit.
That is what our programme for government did last week. It identified the actions that we are taking to create an environment that enables development, investment and job creation. Investment now is critical if we are to transform and grow our economy. We are seeing evidence of that already. Last year, the Japanese company Sumitomo confirmed its decision to build a £350 million high-voltage-cable manufacturing plant at Nigg. It is estimated that the plant will create around 330 jobs and bring £350 million of inward investment into Scotland. The company could have gone anywhere, but it chose to come to Scotland and the Highlands. That is just one of many projects that have made Scotland the top-performing region outside London for attracting inward investment for the ninth year in a row.