Asked by: Scott Arthur (Labour - Edinburgh South West)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what steps he is taking to encourage the Scottish Government to support Edinburgh's financial sector.
Answered by Kirsty McNeill - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Scotland Office)
Promoting economic growth is one of the Scotland Office’s priorities and I am proud of the contribution of the financial services industry to the Scottish economy, with recent figures showing it is now worth £14.8 billion in GVA while directly supporting 148,000 jobs. Edinburgh makes up a sizeable proportion of Scotland’s overall financial and related professional services industry, employing 57,290 people.
To build on this sectoral success the UK government is developing a long-overdue industrial strategy, with financial services one of the priority sectors. This will ensure that the sector in his constituency is key to attracting investment and help support businesses in Scotland and across the UK.
The Secretary of State meets monthly with the Deputy First Minister to discuss a wide range of shared economic growth priorities.
Asked by: Scott Arthur (Labour - Edinburgh South West)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, whether he has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the Edinburgh City Region Deal.
Answered by Ian Murray - Secretary of State for Scotland
The Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal is an exemplar of strength in both delivery and impact, and provides the greatest return on investment of any city region or growth deal in Scotland.
The Deal has thus far delivered £2.2 billion pounds of gross value add to the Scottish and UK economy, from £600 million of Government Investment. The Deal is exceeding targets at every turn, with over 336,000 skills improvements engagements delivered through the award winning Integrated Regional Employability and Skills programme, and £200m of research funding secured for the Data Driven Innovation programme. It has also supported ongoing positive collaboration between six local authorities across the region.
I am confident this Deal will continue to build on its own successes to deliver a more prosperous region and UK.