Speeches by Murray.

“There is a drive for efficiencies in the sense of what the Government have been trying to do through the spending reviews, and to shift the day-to-day spending from administration of Government Departments to frontline priorities in terms of programme budgets. That has not been different in the Scotland Office. Brand S…”

“This is normally what happens in terms of the process. You would make a bid to Treasury for the funding of a particular project and it would determine whether or not, in principle, it would support it. The Budget announcement in that sense is the principle, and when the Treasury says through the Chancellor that it will…”

“In terms of across the world?”

“I am not quite sure I understand the question.”

“I see. The genesis of Brand Scotland, and everyone will know this, is that wherever you go in the world and talk about Scotland people automatically think of and imagine the products that we have here: whisky, salmon, tartan, and our cultural experiences. There will probably be some professional services as well becaus…”

“No, the GREAT campaign is the UK’s principal brand. That has now been running for the best part of two decades. Therefore, it runs parallel with the GREAT campaign, but we cross-contaminate each other. What we are trying to do with Brand Scotland is make sure that whenever the GREAT campaign is doing something, Brand S…”

“Brand Scotland will be reported as part of the Scotland Office’s annual report, as would always be the case. It has to be a flexible programme because we are trying to encourage Scottish exporters to export more and for Scottish exporters, who are thinking about exporting but have not done so yet, to start exporting as…”

“We have the full business case, approved by the Treasury, which sets out what we are trying to achieve with the money. Broadly, there are three pots. The first pot is trade missions, the second is being able to help and encourage exporters to export more, and the third is trying to encourage inward investment. There ar…”

“There are a few things that fall from that. First, if any business in your constituency thinks there is a market it can try to exploit, tell it to get in touch and then we can perhaps put it in touch with a mission in-country. There is some grant funding available, between £3,000 and £20,000, which it could access to h…”

“They are complementary, not in conflict. They are supposed to complement each other and not compete. This is Scotland Office’s drive, through UK trade and Foreign Office networks, to try to improve exporting, sell more Scottish products to the world, and get more inward investment, so they are complementary to each oth…”

“In all honesty, I do not see it that way. If a business in your constituency ends up exporting more to India on the basis that we, or the Scottish Government, have done something, I do not care who wants to take credit for that. I need one—”

“No, because our mission network is designed through the grant funding, in particular the £3,000 to £20,000 to help individual businesses and organisations go to them directly to look for that grant funding. I do not think that grant funding is available through the Scottish Government’s processes.”

“The Cabinet Secretary is not overly impressed with Brand Scotland but we are working together to try to make it as fruitful as possible.”

“The strategy of the Government in terms of trade deals in general, and the US in particular, is to make sure we are doing everything in the national interest. We have lower tariffs with the United States than anywhere else in the world. It was really important to get that over the line. There were tens of thousands of …”

“The 10% tariff on Scotch whisky is a concern. It is low but, hopefully, the direction of travel you can see in our relationship with the US is very positive in trading terms. Having spoken to the industry, I am confident. It is worth saying that every single sector and business leader, including the Scotch Whisky Assoc…”

“In all honesty, I do not think it is threat. I think it is a reality now because the refinery has closed. The vast majority of those jobs have gone, save for the decommissioning jobs and those that have to be there for safety. That gap has always been the biggest concern. Whether it be Project Willow or the Falkirk and…”

“I can give you a number of examples. I was appointed to the role of Secretary of State at 5 pm on Friday 6 July, and at 8 am on Saturday 7 July I was in the Scotland Office being briefed on the issues at Grangemouth. Without putting too fine a point on it, both previous Governments had failed to look at the seriousness…”

“It is operationally independent in the sense that projects that come forward to bid into that £200 million ringfence will still have to be investable propositions under the remit of the National Wealth Fund, but it was a commitment from the Government to say, “We are confident that there are some big investable proposi…”

“To be fair to Ineos, it did facilitate Project Willow. It worked very closely with the consultants to get Project Willow together because it had to drive it in terms of what the site’s capability was, and what the site currently has on its footprint. I have never had anything other than good faith discussions with Ineo…”

“A great question. I have been to see the spaceport, and I understand the Committee went to have a look last month as well. It is a spectacular place, and we should be making sure we can exploit that to keep the first mover advantage. The investment of £20 million has gone into making sure there are UK manufactured rock…”