Hansard

Roads are, of course, important—all transport links are important. The Scottish Government is doing all that we can with our limited resources to push forward that agenda. It is a pity that inflation has rocketed for all road-building materials. That is thanks to the then Conservative UK Government’s budget a few years ago, which caused inflation to rocket and the cost of everything to go through the roof, which has made it a lot more challenging for the UK and Scottish Governments, and many other Governments, to deal with such issues.

The Highlands and Islands Regional Economic Partnership covers 51 per cent of Scotland’s landmass, encompasses 99 per cent of Scotland’s community-owned land and has more than 22,000 registered businesses and more than 1,200 social enterprises. It has undertaken work that shows that tens of billions of pounds in investment could come to the region in the years to 2040. The Scottish and UK Governments should be engaging and supporting it in that.

Across our regions, Scotland has huge opportunities in offshore wind, carbon capture, energy storage, hydrogen and decarbonisation of heat and transport.

We also have a rapidly growing space technology sector, which is expected to be worth £4 billion by 2040.

Digital technology is Scotland’s fastest-growing sector for inward investment, with excellent opportunities across cybersecurity, data, fintech, games, global business services and many other areas. As of 2021, we had more than 10,000 registered businesses in the technology sector, and we have 15,000 new graduates every year in digital technology fields from Scotland’s universities. According to the investment firm Beauhurst, a record £454 million of equity fundraising was announced in Scotland’s tech sector in 2021.

Scotland also has one of the largest life sciences clusters in Europe, with around 770 life science organisations that employ more than 42,500 people.

We are committed to doing everything that we can to support opportunities in those sectors. We need the UK Government to match that and we welcome constructive partnership working with the UK Government. It is fair to say the current UK Government is more constructive than the previous Tory Government, but we have to be honest and say that that was a very low bar.

However, the work on green freeports is a positive example of our working together on some issues—even with that previous Tory Government. In that case, a UK Government policy was tailored and amended to fit the Scottish context with our addition of fair work commitments, for example.

Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport Ltd will focus on the green industrial transition and has already seen a commitment of £350 million by Sumitomo for a subsea cable factory. In fact, the green freeport has ambitions to attract £6.5 billion of investment, which will result in more than 11,000 jobs for the Highlands.

Our green freeport in the Firth of Forth also has huge economic ambitions. It is aiming to bring in £7.9 billion of investment and to support more than 34,000 jobs across the UK. Forth Green Freeport Ltd has a footprint in Grangemouth, which is rightly the focus of a great deal of attention at the moment. The First Minister recently announced a further £25 million of Scottish Government support for the just transition of the site, thereby taking our total investment to £87 million. We welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement of the availability of investment from the UK’s National Wealth Fund Ltd. We hope to hear, in due course, more details of how that investment will be taken forward and support the cluster.

I must also repeat the First Minister’s call about carbon capture and storage at Grangemouth. Although the UK Government recently announced support for projects in Teesside and Merseyside, no green light has been given for the project involving Grangemouth, despite promises from previous UK Governments.

Another positive example of collaborative working with the UK Government is through our city and region growth deals. We have 12 growth deals in Scotland, with the Scottish Government’s total investment amounting to more than £1.9 billion, which more than matches the UK Government’s £1.5 billion investment.

We are also working with the UK Government to deliver two investment zones, which are in the Glasgow city region and in the north-east. Those will be supported by up to £320 million of investment.

The prospects in Scotland are significant, and we are ready and willing to work with the UK Government to capitalise on the opportunities that are ahead of us. Where there are UK-wide schemes, we will work on delivering the Scottish end of those schemes: I have given examples of where that has happened with the previous UK Government and the current one.

However, the crux of the debate is about recent signals from UK ministers that are causing, in business groups and elsewhere, concerns that the lion’s share of investment and resources will continue to be disproportionately unfairly focused in London and the south-east of England—the golden triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London. That is despite the fact that recent data shows that Scotland outperformed the UK on economic growth last year. If we want greater investment in Scotland, we need our colleagues in Westminster to recognise the significant opportunities that we, in Scotland, have to offer.

In January, the Chancellor of the Exchequer unveiled plans to deliver the Oxford to Cambridge growth corridor and stated that the region is the “home of British innovation”. As you can imagine, Deputy Presiding Officer, Scotland’s reaction to that claim was not particularly positive. Our innovations in Scotland have shaped and advanced the world consistently, continually and remarkably. Even more important is that we are home to the innovations that will shape the world of tomorrow.

We recently had the Prime Minister’s speech on the “AI Opportunities Action Plan”, which he delivered at University College London and in which he spoke about opportunities in Oxfordshire, Liverpool and Northumberland. In fact, he name-checked all four corners of England but made no mention of Scotland, in delivering a high-profile and much-anticipated speech on the artificial intelligence action plan for the whole UK.