Speeches by Murray.

“The oil and gas industry is an ageing industry. We know that it will continue to decline and has been for some years now. It is important to say that oil and gas will be with us for decades to come, and we do require that world-class workforce to be able to ensure that we can have that active base in the North Sea, but…”

“We inherited an industrial crisis at the election as well—right across Scotland—as well as an economic and public finances crisis. That industrial crisis has touched on pretty much everyone’s constituencies, whether it be in oil and gas, Grangemouth, Mitsubishi Electric, Alexander Dennis buses, Harland & Wolff. The lis…”

“The Brand Scotland strategy is being worked on at the moment. It will have three major strands to it. It will be about the trade mission that we committed to in the election campaign, so making sure that we are actually going out there, working in conjunction with our DBT colleagues, our FCDO colleagues, and the Scotti…”

“Yes, and actually the Delivering for Scotland board I suspect—and I am not quite sure I have told Laurence this yet—we may have put specific boards now on our key four priorities of the Scotland Office, one of them of course being Brand Scotland, which may or may not be the next one that we do in terms of getting all G…”

“Let me reflect on the Budget we have just had. When the Chancellor got to her feet on 30 October, to the time she sat down, Scotland was better off to the tune of £4.9 billion. That is the largest single settlement in devolution’s history. I think we should celebrate that. It shows a direction of travel from this UK La…”

“The beauty of devolution is it is up to the Scottish Government to spend the money in the ways in which they wish to spend it. We do have some commitments of course—education being one—and there will be some money going in directly from the VAT on private school fees and will be spent on education. There has been some …”

“I would not want to open up a discussion about the fiscal framework in this Committee. It may be a very long inquiry that you may want to start yourself because it is hugely complex, but there was a fiscal framework review before the election that I think doubled the allocation that was allowed for resource borrowing, …”

“It is a multifaceted question and there are lots of answers to it but let me go to pay first of all. It was the largest increase in the National Living Wage, but the right thing to do because we have a situation in this country whereby 70% of people who have a connection with the welfare system are in work. One or both…”

“As I have already said, there is pain in the Budget. We understand that, but we had to make lots of tough decisions in order to try to set the economy in the direction of travel that will benefit your constituents in the rural areas in the short, medium and longer term. I do not want to—”

“We had a manifesto commitment not to increase Corporation Tax above the 25% that it is currently at, to give that economic stability for businesses right across the country. That is the right thing to do because, with all due respect, we have been in power since July, the last 14 years will be difficult to turn around.…”

“I would refer Committee members to the Institute for Fiscal Studies report that says that the Scottish Government’s budget problems are as the result of the decisions that they have made, in large part. Those are political decisions that are made. They have every right to make them. They have the mandate from the elect…”

“The £150 million is not my figure but we have three things already. First, the £750,000 for Brand Scotland, essentially effectively turns us into a de facto spending Department because we have to spend that money on the Brand Scotland issues. There was £1.4 billion in the Budget for the regional growth in Scotland, pro…”

“I am very happy to respond to those. May I ask for the current Committee to refresh that letter and send it back to us, if that is possible, on the basis that the current Government do not have access to the previous Government’s issues. I am very happy to respond. On space, I spoke at the Space Expo in Glasgow back in…”

“The key things are that the Prime Minister has been pretty clear that Scotland will be at the heart of this new UK Labour Government. We want to achieve the UK national missions that were set out in our manifesto, but also those have to be achieved across the whole of the country. Growth has to be in all four corners o…”

“Congratulations to you on your election back in July. We have four key priorities. We have reshaped the Department and Director Laurence Rockey may wish to add something to this, but we have four main priorities. The first one being economic growth, which is the national mission of course of the UK Labour Government as…”

“I can give you some practical examples. We have already managed to get both the Scottish and UK Governments to jointly fund Project Willow, which is about the future of the Grangemouth site. We worked with the Scottish Government and our colleagues in Treasury and MHCLG to get the Falkirk and Grangemouth growth deal ov…”

“Essentially, we cross between the politics and the legal here in terms of section 35. Just to emphasise what Baroness Smith has said, the very fact that section 35 had never been used before in the 25 years of devolution actually shows the strength of the Scotland Act in terms of its operation. What section 35 was doin…”

“The manifesto commitment was very clear. It was for the nations and regions and the mayoralties of England. MHCLG has put out an offer to regions or areas of England that do not have a mayoral structure to set up a structure so they could be involved in the Council of Nations and Regions. It was set up for the First Mi…”

“The intergovernmental relations infrastructure is indeed complex but it has been built up over a number of years to deal with various issues, to ensure that people know what is happening and that common interests and goals can be looked at across the infrastructure of both Governments. The Council of Nations and Region…”

“The hon. Gentleman will not have to wait long. The Budget is in about an hour’s time, and the Chancellor will lay out all the spending plans in that Budget. The biggest impact on his constituency of Dundee will of course be made by GB Energy, given what that will do to our green energy system; it makes me very surprise…”