Ian Murray MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Scottish Public Services · Hansard source

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  I absolutely join my hon. Friend in that call, and I pay tribute to his tenacious campaigning to see East Calder’s new medical centre delivered. I am 10,000 GP places short in my own constituency, and the SNP needs to take that seriously. The spending review generated £5.8 billion in health-related Barnett consequentials for Scotland. My hon. Friend is right to stand up for his community in East Calder, and I ask the SNP: where has all the money gone?

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Scottish Public Services · Hansard source

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  I have had a minimum of 14 billion conversations with the Treasury with regard to funding in Scotland. This is the largest settlement ever in the history of the Scottish Parliament. This Government’s decisions in the October Budget and the spending review have given us the highest growth in the G7, the highest business confidence in a decade, record inward investment, three major trade deals and the conditions for four interest rate cuts, all helping businesses right across Scotland—everything that the hon. Lady and her party voted against.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Scottish Public Services · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend quite rightly speaks out against the cuts to Cumbernauld fire station, which sadly is just one example of the SNP’s dangerous mismanagement of Scotland’s fire services, as the Fire Brigades Union in Scotland told me just last month. There are 9.1 billion reasons why the SNP Government should choose to invest in local services, including in Cumbernauld, but after 18 years of failure and neglect my hon. Friend’s constituents will rightly not hold out much hope. Across Scotland, we need a new direction next May, with Anas Sarwar as the First Minister.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Scottish Public Services · Hansard source

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  I am sure Members across the House will have seen the wonderful news this morning and join me in congratulating Ferguson Marine on winning a substantial Ministry of Defence shipbuilding contract through BAE Systems. That is great news for the workforce, who will play a key role in keeping our country and its people safe. Shipbuilding on the Clyde is thriving thanks to the UK Government’s record investment in defence, supporting 4,000 jobs; this is a real defence dividend for Scotland. This is investment that the SNP seeks to block, but Labour will build. This is the last Scottish oral questions before summer recess, so can I thank you, Mr Speaker, your team and all the House staff for all your work over the last year? This was a historic spending review for Scotland that ended austerity. Along with last year’s Budget, it delivered an extra £14 billion as a UK Labour Government dividend to Scotland. That is more money for our NHS, police, housing and schools. Scots will not accept continued SNP failure on Scottish public services and will rightly ask the SNP: where has all the money gone?

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Scottish Public Services · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues voted against the Budget. They voted against all the measures to raise revenue in the Budget, and they voted against the actual spending of it. From the second that this Labour Government took power just over a year ago, there was £14 billion extra going into the Scottish budget. The Scottish Government need to be spending it well, and I am sure the Scottish public will look dimly on a Scottish Government who cannot spend it and improve our public services.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Scottish Public Services · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes a good point about the Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh, which is a symptom of the whole of the Scottish Government’s strategy for our NHS services. The SNP promised a new Eye Pavilion in its manifestos in ’07, ’11, ’16 and ’21, and it is yet to deliver it. I bet we see the same process and the same promises in its manifesto in May next year. One in six Scots is stuck on a waiting list, the NHS app is years behind other parts of the UK, and we have the worst cancer waiting times on record. I am sure the hon. Lady and millions of other Scots know that the SNP has failed their NHS. If the SNP had any idea how to fix it, it would have done it by now.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  Under this Government, it is the working people of Scotland who will feel the benefit of economic growth. We have given the largest settlement in the history of the Scottish Government—£14 billion extra. The stability in the economy has enabled four interest rate cuts, meaning cheaper mortgages for home owners. Fuel duty is frozen, meaning 3 million Scots motorists pay less at the pump. The minimum wage is up, meaning a pay rise for 200,000 of the lowest-paid Scots— [ Interruption. ] That deserves a large cheer, because it is for the lowest-paid Scots. Also, the warm home discount has been extended to half a million Scots.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman should go and speak to Scottish businesses and apologise for voting against the Budget and against the £14 billion extra that will go to Scotland as part of the spending review. As a result of the decisions taken by this Government, we have the highest growth in the G7, the highest business confidence in a decade, record inward investment, three major trade deals and four interest rate cuts—all helping businesses right across the country.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Spending Review 2025: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  Yet again, I agree with my hon. Friend. I pay special tribute to both her and my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey), who have done so much to make sure we can get work into Ferguson Marine. Again, it will not be lost on the House, or indeed the Scottish public, that the defence industry is supporting jobs in Scotland and straight into Ferguson Marine. Where the Scottish Government walk past on the other side, we will invest.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Industrial Strategy: Impact on Scotland · Hansard source

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  I join the hon. Gentleman in paying respects on the 37th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster. It has left an indelible scar on Scotland, and we will never forget the lives that were lost, but we will also never forget that it was the catalyst for making sure that the North sea is the safest place to do oil and gas anywhere in the world—the UK is world leading. I can answer the hon. Gentleman’s question by saying that he and his party have opposed all the initiatives that this Government have put forward in order to get to clean power by 2030. I gently say to him that when he finds out who the former Energy Minister was in the previous Government, he is going to be very disappointed.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Industrial Strategy: Impact on Scotland · Hansard source

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  The energy profits levy was brought in by the former Energy Minister in the previous Government, who just so happens to be sitting across from me at the Dispatch Box today. We have the North sea transition consultation, which has closed. That sets out the pathway to a just transition in the North sea, which will protect jobs, and we want to get to clean power by 2030. Those are the jobs and the careers of the future, but that transition has to take those jobs with it.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Industrial Strategy: Impact on Scotland · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman needs to calm down a little bit. One of the key opportunities for investment in Scotland is the opportunity to invest in the renewable energy sector, so that we can realise our plan for clean energy by 2030. Much of that will be capitalised by the national wealth fund and GB Energy, both of which the hon. Gentleman and his party voted against.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Industrial Strategy: Impact on Scotland · Hansard source

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  You will be unsurprised, Mr Speaker, to hear me say that I agree with my hon. Friend. I was astonished to learn that the SNP was blocking investment in a national specialist welding centre on the banks of the Clyde, putting its own student politics before job opportunities for working-class young people, and that it was doing so at a time when one in six are not in education, employment or training. Putting politics before people is just not good enough, but where the SNP stands down, Labour will step up and fund that centre. We will invest in defence, and create a defence dividend that will mean jobs and opportunities for everyone in Scotland.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Industrial Strategy: Impact on Scotland · Hansard source

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  The industrial strategy is transformational for Scotland. A year ago, the Government inherited an industrial crisis after 14 years of no plan and a complete lack of interest on the part of the SNP and the Conservatives when it came to Scottish industry. However, I congratulate the SNP on its job creation programme: it has created tens of thousands of jobs in China, Turkey and Poland. Rather than standing up for Scotland, it has been shipping Scottish jobs overseas. Scotland has a proud industrial past, and Labour’s industrial strategy will work to ensure that we have a bright industrial future. We in the Scotland Office will be doing all that we can to exploit these opportunities.