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.

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.