Choice is more decline or new direction with Labour

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, bottles whisky during a visit to the Glenkinchie Whisky Distillery to mark the UK-India trade deal (Picture: Andrew Milligan/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Consider some of the achievements of the Labour Government so far. We’ve increased the minimum wage, delivering a pay rise for 200,000 Scots, and protected pensioners’ living standards by guaranteeing the Triple Lock, something the Conservatives are now wavering over.

We’ve ended austerity and provided a record budget settlement for the Scottish Government, with an additional £9.1 billion over the next three years thanks to Labour, meaning more money for Scottish public services. The SNP voted against it at Westminster but were happy enough to spend the money in the Scottish Budget. The public will rightly ask where they have spent their money? We’ve introduced the Employment Rights Bill, the most ambitious set of workers’ rights proposals in a generation, which will ban fire and rehire, strengthen parental leave and end exploitative zero-hours contracts.

We’ve safeguarded the UK’s last blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, allocated £200 million for Grangemouth’s future and brokered a deal to secure the Methil and Arnish fabrication yards. Contrast this with the SNP’s years of inaction on Grangemouth, and their silence on the mothballing of the Dalzell and Clydebridge steelworks. We’ve invested for the long-term, with the recent Spending Review confirming £750m for Edinburgh University for the UK supercomputer, billions for GB Energy and a big commitment to nuclear south of the border. Meanwhile, in Scotland, the SNP clings to its ideological objection to nuclear.

In England, where health is delivered by the UK Government, we are already seeing marked improvements in the NHS. We promised two million additional NHS appointments in the first year and have delivered four million. This could not be more different to the desperate situation in Scotland; last week the chair of BMA Scotland warned that the Scottish NHS is “dying before our eyes”.

On the international stage, we’ve agreed historic new trade deals with India and the United States, which will see Indian tariffs on Scotch whisky immediately halved, and then further reduced to just 40 per cent, and US tariffs on steel and aluminium slashed to zero. Additionally, we’ve reset the relationship with the EU with a new partnership which stands to be of enormous benefit to Scotland’s young people and businesses. This comes alongside my Scotland Office Brand Scotland mission, which seeks to promote Scottish exports and attract foreign investment. In the face of unprecedented geopolitical instability, we’ve remained firm in our support for Ukraine and increased defence spending, which, in addition to keeping Scotland safe, will support our thriving defence industries from the Clyde to Rosyth and create jobs across the country.

Changing a country is not like flicking a switch. We’ve had to make tough choices, and I know that people are as impatient as I am for change to come faster and go further. But be in no doubt, the work of change has begun. A year from now, that work continues in the Scottish elections, when Scots will have the opportunity to choose between more decline with the SNP or a new direction with Scottish Labour.

Ian Murray is MP for Edinburgh South and Secretary of State for Scotland