Fergus Ewing
Independent · Scotland
“Last October, the Chinese renewables company Ming Yang announced an investment of £1,500 million in my constituency, which would initially create 1,500 direct jobs and lead to 4,000 jobs in phase 3.”
“As her cabinet secretary, I thank her for her diligence as a minister and congratulate her on the successful passage last week of a vital piece of Government legislation that was also supported across parties. I am glad that the bill that we have worked on together will—as I hope—pass this evening. It sends a strong signal.”
“I turn to the concerns of stakeholders, and particularly the teaching trade unions, with whom I have spent a lot of time in the past three years. First, I am sympathetic to some of the concerns from the teaching trade unions.”
“I will embarrass the minister now with all this praise in front of his colleagues, but he is known to be pro-business, and that is a good thing. Sadly, he is an oasis of common sense amidst a desert of disdain and disinterest.”
“Most practitioners will not need training, but those that do, definitely need it. Therefore, we need a focus on the training and on ensuring that it is available to all practitioners who require it.”
“Its work was diligent, detailed and critical to providing the scrutiny that allowed the bill to be improved. I pay tribute to Douglas Ross. He has been a diligent parliamentarian throughout, and I agree with him on what the Parliament needs to aspire to being when it comes to how it works and how contributions are made.”
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“The past four years have seen vital projects flounder and fail. That includes the A9 dualling, which was promised to be completed this year, but which, we are now told, will require 10 more years. That is just not acceptable, as a delegation made clear to the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Transport last June, when we asked for the work to be accelerated. It also includes the equally long-promised dualling of the A96. Some £90 million has been spent on that project so far and not one metre of tarmac has been laid. A freedom of information request for the detail of that project has been denied because of the exemption that relates to internal candour or discussion. The justification for that is to maintain “high quality policy and decision-making”. If that is high quality, what does poor quality look like?”
“I warmly congratulate Ash Regan on bringing this topic to the chamber. Improving connectivity is largely reliant on the delivery of strategic transport projects. Over the past four years, there has been, in my view, no other area of devolved policy in which so much has gone wrong at such exorbitant cost and so frequently as the maladministration of our major transport projects. I say that with great sadness. That is in contrast to the records of previous Administrations of different hues. We have seen the motorway network around the west of Scotland being made about as good as anywhere. The Forth crossing is a national icon of international standard. The Aberdeen western peripheral route and the Borders railway have improved lives immeasurably for those communities. As for Edinburgh, well, as we heard, they decided to choose the trams.”