Hansard

No thank you, sir.

There is a further £1.4 billion for local growth projects—at least £200 million for specific Scottish towns, including £20 million for growth and regeneration in my home city of Dundee. Just last month, I was with the Secretary of State for Scotland at the V&A in Dundee, announcing another £2.6 million of funding there, which will help to drive the city economy with tourist footfall and keep the Dundee tills ringing.

Just a few days ago, £200 million was announced from the national wealth fund to secure the future of the Grangemouth economy—a significant investment that was announced by the Prime Minister in Scotland, talking about Scotland and Scottish jobs and answering the call for Government to support the workers in that area. There was £125 million for Great British Energy, which is to be headquartered in Aberdeen, helping to attract investment for our clean energy future in the nation’s—and Europe’s—energy capital. There was £25 million for the 10-year investment in the Argyll and Bute growth deal—and there is much more.

However, we have to be clear that none of that was inevitable. In our debate last week about the budget and the budget process, we said that we cannot just will the ends; we have to will the means. The taxes that we often discuss are the cost of being able to invest in our economy.

The scale of the mess of the public finances has made some of those decisions difficult. Labour inherited not just a black hole but public services that were in crisis and zero growth in an economy that had flatlined for more than a decade. The disastrous and inept Tory Government had made to Scottish towns and areas many promises that it had no intention whatsoever of keeping. The evidence of that is in the fact that it had spent the annual national reserve three times over in the first quarter of the year.

Difficult decisions were involved in how to raise the money that I spoke about, but it is right that we invest. UK Labour Government colleagues stand ready to work in partnership with the Scottish Government and other stakeholders to deliver for the people of Scotland. That has been very clearly demonstrated, as I have started to set out, in the first eight months—only eight months—of the Labour Government. However, will it find a willing partner in the Scottish Government? By the tone of much of what the minister has said, it does not sound as though that will be the case.

I suggest that the SNP Government should start, in part, by putting its own house in order when it talks about investment. We can look to the report from the investor panel that was commissioned by the Scottish Government. I do not think that the Government expected that to be quite so excoriating. The report found that

“There are few visible opportunities for scale investment”

and

“Planning decisions are slow and sit in the system for unacceptably long periods”.

We could illustrate that by talking about Berwick Bank, which has just passed its second anniversary of sitting on the desks of the Scottish Government, and the huge impediment that that means for investment in the supply chain in Scotland, given the potential squandering of such a signal investment.

The investor panel goes on:

“It is not apparent that the Scottish Government considers the impact of its actions on investment appetite”.

All of that is a damning indictment of the prevailing approach—if we can call it that—of the Government as a whole. We can also look at its approach to the housing market and other areas.

Today’s grievance motion comes to us from an era that should have ended last July. The UK Labour Government, with Scottish Labour MPs at its heart, is possible because the people of Scotland willed it. Today’s announcement about the port of Cromarty Firth serves to underline that. Rightly, the Government stands ready to work with the Scottish Government for the good of Scotland’s economy and people. It is for the SNP to decide whether it wants to do that or to retreat back into the grievance, chaos and decline to which I hoped we had said goodbye last year.

I move amendment S6M-16667.1, to leave out from “deserve” to end and insert:

“must gain greater recognition in order to reach their potential, attract investment and deliver growth and opportunity across Scotland; welcomes the UK Government’s commitment to investing in Scotland since July 2024, which includes £200 million to secure the future of Grangemouth, £125 million for Great British Energy, based in Aberdeen, £5 million to support the Scotch Whisky industry, £1.4 billion in important local growth projects of which there is at least £200 million to revive specific Scottish towns, support for Glasgow City Region and North East Scotland Investment Zones and a commitment that Glasgow will be one of the four initial regions to benefit from strategic partnerships with the new National Wealth Fund; notes that these measures have been announced within months of a Labour administration, and, by contrast, the Scottish National Party administration took 16 years to convene an investor panel to make recommendations on how Scotland can attract international capital investment; understands that the investor panel for mobilising international capital to help finance the transition to net zero highlighted significant issues, including that the ‘prevailing perception is that the Scottish Government and wider public sector is not supportive of business’ and that ‘the current investment pipeline is too diffuse. A pipeline needs to be formed of projects that are properly costed, shaped and prioritised. It needs to be a real pipeline, not a wish list’; further understands that addressing these concerns will be key to unlocking the potential of Scotland to attract investment, and calls for the Scottish Government to use all levers available to it, and to work constructively with the UK Government, to achieve the shared ambition of delivering growth and prosperity across Scotland.”