Speeches by McNeill.

“The hon. Gentleman is perfectly well aware that the majority—three quarters—of those claiming agricultural property relief will be completely unaffected. However, what will affect every single person in Scotland is the Chancellor’s Budget that is set to help with living standards, to drive growth and to put the financi…”

“Over the last year, this Government have taken action to fix the foundations of our economy, to put the public finances on a sustainable path and support growth. Despite the UK economy being forecast to be the second fastest growing G7 economy this year, and despite private companies such as Iberdrola investing £10 bil…”

“Through the Pride in Place programme, we are investing almost £500 million to revitalise communities across Scotland. As part of that, the Scotland Office has recently completed the collection of evidence from MPs, MSPs, local authorities and community groups to inform the selection of 14 new neighbourhoods that will e…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. While he might not be surprised to discover that I disagree with his assessment of the Conservative educational legacy south of the border, we can all agree as Scots that it is absolutely appalling that a full 42% of Scottish young people today are leaving Scottish educatio…”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Education (Scotland) Act 2025 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2025. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this order today. Like all the Scotland Act orders we have consid…”

“I am delighted to do that.”

“It is worth reflecting—the Secretary of State mentioned this earlier—that almost every conversation we have with any stakeholder in Scotland ends up being a conversation about skills and access to work. It is such a fundamental problem for all our businesses and organisations. It is worth reflecting on what is happenin…”

“If I could just put on record that the parliamentary representatives from Ayrshire have done a superb job of impressing upon me and the Department the challenges associated with the Ayrshire deal. We are in discussion with the Scottish Government about a time where the DFM and I can visit Ayrshire to get to the bottom …”

“To have places that people will want to live and work.”

“I would count Pride in Place as being about regeneration, which obviously has a relationship to growth but sits slightly adjacent to it. The formula that has been used for the determination of the local authority areas, which is the only announcement that has been made so far, takes into account both deprivation and ac…”

“I would focus more on the objectives than the nomenclature. There will be local growth funding available that is targeted on place-based growth, and there is Pride in Place that is targeted on place-based regeneration. The nomenclature is neither here nor there, from my perspective. What is important is that the UK Gov…”

“The funding that is available is in these two broad areas: Pride in Place, which I would characterise as focused on community regeneration and targeted, and there will be local growth funding. The modalities of that will be laid out in the coming months.”

“There will be information about the local growth fund in due course. The Pride in Place programme is very much a continuation of that spirit of place-based intervention. We have been the happy beneficiary of so many of the impacts of the deal programme so far.”

“There is a lot of ongoing evaluation of all the deals that are in flight, including those coming towards completion. Also, the Scotland Office has been having some sessions for parliamentarians to make sure their perspective on the deals is heard, and I believe you have all been invited to these. We are focusing on a n…”

“We are thrilled that every bit of Scotland is now covered by a deal. They are all in flight at different stages of maturity and therefore different stages of their evaluation of impact. We are keen, with our partners in the Scottish Government and relevant local authorities, to make sure there is as much transparency b…”

“We recently convened a high street summit where the Scottish Hospitality Group and the Scottish Tourism Alliance were both represented. We are in ongoing discussion with them. I am speaking at the Scottish Tourism Alliance convention in the coming months. They subsequently sent in some interesting evidence, and we are …”

“On what the Scottish Industrial Strategy Advisory Council had to say and what they heard when they were in Scotland, I chaired that meeting. As you might imagine, as with lots of meetings convened at the Scotland Office, people took the opportunity to relay a number of questions to other Government Departments. They wa…”

“This decision brought fishing policy in line with agricultural policy, and indeed both of them in line with other forms of devolved spending. As the Secretary of State says, this brings us in line with the Scottish Government’s request that spending in devolved areas is for them to determine and it is a settlement that…”

“We have had 14 Bills that have received LCMs; that is 12 UK Government Bills and two private Members’ Bills, so that is working quite effectively at the moment.”

“If I could, Chair. I am sure the Committee will be familiar with the clean energy jobs plan that was published on 19 October. To offer some reassurance, the estimation in that is that clean energy jobs could almost triple in Scotland. We are looking at about 15% of all direct clean energy jobs being situated in Scotlan…”