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Ian Murray, Edinburgh Southern CLP.
Previous occupation – one man band.
Current occupation – Secretary of State for Scotland in the UK Labour government.
Let me say that again – the UK Labour government.
Think of how long we have waited to say those words.
14 long years of Tory rule.
14 years of Tory sleaze, cuts and chaos.
Last July, Labour activists and candidates from every corner of Great Britain kicked them out of office – and it was Scotland who led the charge, with the largest swing to Labour anywhere in the UK.
That charge was led by you – our incredible party members. So I want to start my speech today with a very simple message. Thank you
Thank you for every leaflet delivered, every call made, every street stall staffed, every door knocked, every conversation had.
As co-chair of the campaign with Jackie Baillie, I know how hard you all worked every single day.
Let’s be honest, it has been a tough old decade for the Scottish Labour party.
But you stuck it out.
You kept fighting – to save our party, and win the trust of our country.
So Labour’s victory in July is dedicated to you.
And there were a couple of others who didn’t do too bad.
The inspirational and driving leadership of two of my friends.
Anas Sarwar and Keir Starmer.
When they stepped up to lead our party, Scottish Labour had been led to third place and fourteen per cent in the polls.
Just over three years later, we won an incredible 37 constituencies across Scotland.
We asked Scots to stop sending a message to Westminster and send a government instead.
And when I walked into government, through the doors of No10 and then into the Scotland Office on the 5th of July, I knew I was standing on the shoulders of our great Labour movement.
A movement that was able to take a working class boy, growing up in the Wester Hailes estate in the 1980s, and give him a seat at the Cabinet table.
And when I first sat down, a few seats along from the Prime Minister, in a room which has shaped so much history, I thought of my parents.
I was just 9 years old when my Dad died. I watched as my Mum struggled to raise two boys on her own, working several jobs, as the worst of Thatcher’s social policies hit Scotland hard.
She was in Woolworths as a cleaner; The Busy Bee Bar as a cook; a bookies as a cashier.
She knew that hard work was the only way to survive. Her government said there was “no such thing as society.” We were written off.
Well conference, sat in the Cabinet room, thinking of my Mum and Dad, I made a promise to myself, and I’ll make it again to you today.
I will never forget who we are here to serve – a government of service – in the service of working people.
Because government is about service, and our 37 Scottish Labour MPs will never forget that either, whether they are sat on the government benches, or working in their constituencies.
In the Scotland Office I have my brilliant Scotland Office Minister, the new MP for Midlothian Kirsty McNeill.
My PPS Mel Ward represents Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy and Martin McCluskey, the Scotland whip, is in Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West.
Every one of those seats was held by an SNP MP this time last year.
Elsewhere in government, we have Douglas Alexander, the MP for East Lothian and our Trade Minister.
While Michael Shanks, our by-election superstar from Rutherglen, is helping Scotland win the global race for clean power as Energy Minister.
And on the backbenches and on select committees, in local workplaces and in their communities, each and every Scottish Labour MP is working day in, day out to bring change to Scotland.
And we need to be confident in shouting about that change.
We must not allow our positive messages of hope to be drowned out, as our opponents intend.
Those achievements – the hallmarks of a Labour government – are things for which we have spent years, sometimes decades, campaigning in opposition.
They are the difference we make when Labour gets serious, grows up, and wins elections.
Since July, we have established GB energy, owned by the public and headquartered in Aberdeen, with £8.3 billion to invest across the parliament.
That’s despite the Tories and the SNP trying to vote it down.
We have reformed Universal Credit, to leave the average household claiming it £420 better off.
We protected the triple lock, giving Scottish pensioners an extra £470 in April for those on the new state pension.
The national minimum wage, one of the proudest achievements of the last Labour government, boosted by this one, giving hundreds of thousands of the poorest paid Scots a pay rise.
We delivered justice for retired mineworkers, with 7,000 mine workers set to be around £1,500 a year better off thanks to changes our Labour government has made, and because of the decades long campaign from our proud mining communities.
And, despite the fiscal inheritance, we delivered the biggest budget settlement for the Scottish Government in the history of devolution.
That means more money for the NHS and public services in Scotland than ever before.
Before the election, we made a promise to end austerity. It was a promise made, and a promise delivered.
£4.9bn extra for the Scottish Government. Austerity ended.
Made possible, not by slogans or grievance, but by our Scottish Labour MPs and our UK Labour Government budget.
A budget rooted in Labour values. It gave most to the poorest, and asked those with the broadest shoulders to pay their fair share.
The first UK Government budget since Alistair Darling to have a straight line of redistribution along the income scales.
And how did the SNP respond to this austerity ending budget with the biggest ever settlement for the Scottish Government?
They voted against it.
Because while John Swinney is quite happy to spend the extra money, he does not share our values when it comes to raising the revenue to pay for it.
This is the man who lobbied for tax breaks for private schools, wants to shield millionaire landowners from inheritance tax, and just this week refused to back Labour’s plans to tax private jets.
But of course, he was quite happy to raise taxes on nurses and teachers.
John Swinney – tough on our public sector workers, soft on millionaires.
The First Minister christened himself ‘full on John’ – conference I think he’s full of something else.
Now, conference, I know it hasn’t been entirely easy.
Every Labour government in history has inherited a bleak economic legacy and has had to sort it out.
But none have faced the same degree of economic and industrial carnage left behind by the Tories, in full knowledge they were not going to be around to pick up the pieces.
The public are impatient for change – and they have every right to be.
I share that impatience and I am eager to get on and deliver our plan for change.
But that plan would have failed if we didn’t first fix the foundations of our economy.
I know that, not just because of my time in politics, but because of what I did before.
Before being elected, I set up and ran my own businesses.
I know what it’s like to employ great people, make tough choices and I know the importance of making them early.
Back in 2005, I was in the hospitality business, and I set out to re-open a derelict hotel in West Linton.
It was my second venture into business, after running my own events and broadcasting company, so I knew a bit about investing for the long term.
I first went to see this hotel on a cold January morning, after it had been closed for a year.
It was damp, everything smelled of stale cooking oil – and as someone who used to work in a chippy, that smell still haunts me!
It was tired, bedraggled and falling apart (a bit like me today).
Now, imagine I’d just turned the heating on and opened the doors? Papered over every crack or bit of damp? Would it have been successful?
Maybe there would have been an initial boost from curious customers or a honeymoon period but it would have faded fast.
So what did we do? We fixed the foundations by investing.
We created en suite rooms, refurbished the public areas, modernised the kitchen, hired a new team and an upcoming exciting young new chef.
We sorted the fundamentals first and went full steam ahead with our plan.
Conference, the hotel thrived, and is still open today.
The damage to that hotel is nothing compared to the damage to our country from the economic experiments of the Tories and the distracted incompetence of the SNP.
Yet still they have nothing serious to offer.
They think you can sweep everything under the carpet and carry on regardless.
They think you can fix the NHS by simply talking about it.
They think you can invest in the economy by wishing for it.
Well conference, we know better. Scotland’s businesses know better. Scotland’s trade unions know better.
But we also know that fixing the foundations is not enough, we also need to deliver a positive vision for the future.
As some of you may know, my wife and I recently had a second baby girl, Loïs, she is 25 days old today.
I hope I don’t fall asleep during this speech before you do!
And as Loïs was born at home, two hours before the midwives arrived, I’ve very literally answered the Prime Minister’s call for his cabinet to always be delivering in Labour…
Many of you have asked me how I’m dealing with the tears, the tantrums and the snotters.
But I tell them I’ve been on paternity leave, so I’ve not been keeping up with SNP selection dramas.
But seriously, the new arrival makes me look at my daughters and think about the world I want our kids to grow up in.
We want a world of security and opportunity for them, not one of instability and chaos.
Which is why it is so important we take decisions for the long term and have a positive, ambitious vision for how we can use the levers of government to put Labour values into practice.
So I want to tell you a bit about my vision as Scottish Secretary.
I inherited a Scotland Office solely focussed on the constitution. But since July, I have completely refocused the department around four priorities – economic growth, green energy, Brand Scotland and tackling poverty.
Scotland can be the engine room of UK growth, to create new jobs, raise wages, and bring in the revenue to spend on our public services.
As Scottish Secretary, I’ve made resetting the relationship with the Scottish Government a priority.
But I have also rolled up my sleeves and got stuck into the knotty problems which are holding back Scottish growth.
Whether opportunities are being wrapped up in red tape or slowed down by a total aversion to risk from politicians – this old approach simply will not do.
We cannot wait around and hope that growth comes by accident.
So from huge offshore floating wind farms waiting to be built, to the future of Scottish shipbuilding and manufacturing, and our world class AI and tech sector.
I am getting stuck in.
I have no problem knocking heads together and championing Scottish growth at every opportunity.
But conference, we know that growth has to mean something for every local community, in all parts of our country.
That is why this UK Government is delivering £1.4 billion for local growth projects, right across Scotland.
That funding was promised to our communities by the Tories, but they had no intention of ever actually paying for it.
Scottish Labour MPs went in and found that money.
From the Drumchapel regeneration project here in Glasgow, to the long term plan for towns in Irvine, Greenock, Kilmarnock, Coatbridge, Clydebank, Elgin, Dumfries, Arbroath, Peterhead and Kirkwall, this government is delivering for the communities where the Tories left only broken promises.
We have delivered new local growth deals, with £25m for Argyll and Bute, and of course £100m for the Falkirk and Grangemouth deal.
We are also putting £26 million into the Forth Green Freeport, with Grangemouth at its heart, to attract investment and well paid, quality jobs to the area.
A Labour government, investing for growth in every part of Scotland.
And conference, we know that key to unlocking growth in Scotland is the green energy revolution, as we seek to lead and win the race for clean power.
But we need to get the transition right.
Because while we inherited a fiscal crisis – we inherited an industrial crisis too.
A decade without a proper industrial strategy has hurt Scotland’s energy workers.
Once upon a time the SNP promised Scotland would be the Saudi Arabia of renewables, but workers watched as opportunities flowed overseas.
Eight years ago the SNP promised a publicly owned renewable energy company for Scotland. It is nowhere to be seen.
Scotland has a proud industrial past.
And it will have a proud industrial future if we get the transition to net zero right, with jobs, wealth and opportunities for workers for decades to come.
And we have already started to make that a reality. The Scotland Office got stuck in across government to ensure the positive future of the Harland & Woolf yards at Methil and Arnish.
And conference, let me assure you – that is an outcome that simply would not have happened without Scottish Labour MPs like Richard Baker, Torcuil Crichton and a UK Labour government.
Now conference, Scotland is of course the best nation on earth.
On ingenuity and innovation we are second to none. We punch well above our weight in a variety of fields from salmon to scotch, from shipbuilding to financial services, from higher education to innovation – the world looks to us.
But for too long Scotland had two governments more interested in selling their version of Scotland to Scots, than selling the brilliance of Scotland to the world.
That is why the Scotland Office will invest in Brand Scotland.
We will no longer look inward. We will proudly face outwards and promote our country on the global stage, selling our goods and services to the world, while unlocking jobs and investment here in Scotland.
I have already led trade missions to Norway, Singapore and Malaysia, and I will be taking the best of Scottish culture and business on delegations to the USA, Japan and China in the coming months – all to create jobs and bring investment to Scotland.
The UK government has a world class global network of embassies, high commissions, and business groups. And as part of the United Kingdom, Scotland has access to that incredible platform, from which we can promote everything our wonderful country has to offer, drive economic growth and inward investment.
Because conference, whether it is funding for local projects, investing in green energy, or promoting Brand Scotland, it is all about generating economic growth.
But not growth for growth’s sake.
Gordon Brown once spoke of prudence with a purpose.
Well this government seeks growth with a purpose.
To raise living standards, create jobs and ultimately tackle the unacceptable levers of generational poverty that scar our communities.
Because every child in Scotland deserves the security and opportunity to get on in life, no matter the post code into which they are born.
Economic growth, green energy, Brand Scotland, tackling poverty.
Labour priorities, in a Labour Scotland Office.
And what a contrast seven months of a Labour government is to almost 18 years of the SNP.
This Labour government is banning exploitative zero hours contracts.
John Swinney thinks a zero hours job is a positive destination for a school leaver.
This Labour government will deliver opportunities for working class kids.
John Swinney marked them down.
This Labour government is delivering GB energy. Owned by the public and headquartered in Scotland.
The SNP promised a public energy company and all they delivered was £500,000 into the pockets of private consultants.
This Labour government has delivered more money for the NHS than ever before.
Under the SNP almost one in six of us are on an NHS waiting list.
28,000 Scots have gone private because we can’t take the pain anymore.
Can you imagine being so desperate for treatment, to have been waiting for so long, that you will take out a loan, or remortgage your house to go private?
That’s the two-tier NHS under John Swinney’s SNP.
That is just one of so many reasons why Scotland desperately needs a new direction.
It needs new energy and vision, to lead the government and the country into the 2030s.
It needs a leader with the courage to tear up a broken model and reform our public services.
Conference – Scotland needs Anas Sarwar as First Minister.
Because the truth is, John Swinney’s government simply belongs to a different era.
A failing First Minister, at the heart of a failing government since 2007.
When the SNP came to office, the iPhone hadn’t been launched in the UK.
Tony Blair was Prime Minister.
And Beyonce and Shakira were top of the pops with ‘Beautiful Liar’ – and I’ll resist the temptation for any SNP jokes there…
But seriously conference, Scotland simply cannot afford to enter a third decade of the SNP.
Last July, we ended 14 years of Tory sleaze, cuts and chaos.
We got rid of one of Scotland’s two rotten governments.
Next May, we can do it again. And set Scotland on a new direction.
With Anas Sarwar in Bute House, and Keir Starmer in Downing Street.
No hidden agendas. No stupid games in which one government tries to out-manoeuvre the other.
Labour governments, working together in a new partnership – delivering for Scotland.
That is the route to radical change, economic growth, and better living standards.
Conference – it’s within our grasp to make that happen.
Let’s seize this opportunity.
Let’s end the years of SNP broken promises.
Let’s turn our back on the politics of division.
And look forward to a Scotland full of opportunity and free of poverty.
Building an economy where no mother has to work several jobs to raise her children.
We can achieve it together – so let’s get out there, and elect Anas Sarwar as Scotland’s next First Minister.
Read more on Scottish Labour conference:
- Interview: Ian Murray on the latest polls, pat leave and Labour ‘not aping Reform’
- Joani Reid MP: ‘Here’s why Scottish Labour shouldn’t despair at the polls’
- Delegates at Scottish Labour conference set to debate motions on winter fuel, Cass review, and others
- Scottish Labour conference: Emergency motion on Palestine to be debated
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