Chris Murray

I am so pleased to support a Labour Budget that is backing Scotland and backing Edinburgh, despite the best efforts of the SNP to talk down its benefits and talk down my city. In particular, I welcome the announcement, which is of importance to my constituency, of £18 million for a UK advance chip design academy at Edinburgh University. That is how we build hope for the future. Modern iPhones contain at least a dozen chips designed in Edinburgh, and Edinburgh researchers helped to design a crucial sensor used in iPhone cameras, billions of which are now produced worldwide. Consider this remarkable statistic from historian Chris Miller: last year, in a single year, the semiconductor industry manufactured more chips than humanity had produced of all other manufactured products combined throughout human history. Artificial intelligence might appear digital, but it depends on something profoundly physical: chips, semiconductors and the infrastructure that powers them. We cannot afford to watch from the sidelines while the United States, Taiwan and others lead the field, and thanks to this Budget, Edinburgh will join them in the future. I have argued for years that Edinburgh can be one of the great powerhouses of the British economy, provided we have a Government who are willing to back its potential. For too long, however, we have had an SNP Government letting us down at every turn. Edinburgh is the local authority with the lowest funding per head in Scotland, and there are more homeless children in Edinburgh than in the whole of Wales. The SNP Government hoard money in Holyrood and starve Scotland’s capital city. Yesterday, we heard a Labour Chancellor reject that, and make the decisions that will help Edinburgh to thrive. Support for entrepreneurs, start-ups, scale-ups and founders will mean that the innovation of Edinburgh researchers pushes us into the future. The SNP position on Labour’s investment in Scotland is absurd in the extreme. We heard the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) attack the removal of standing charges from bills, despite having advocated for that policy in this Chamber only months earlier. The Scottish Government’s budget is 12.4% higher, even setting aside new responsibilities. Since Labour came to office, we have delivered £18 billion extra for Scotland’s budget. Where has that money gone? Why are my constituents still facing waiting lists, homelessness and potholes? It is because the SNP Government are so keen to look for grievance that they cannot even work out that they have been given more money. Labour is delivering for Edinburgh. What is holding us back are an SNP Government with no plans, no conception of what Scotland’s capital city can do, and no notion of how to use government to improve people’s lives.