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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 17 February 2025
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Displaying 2042 contributions

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Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]

City Region and Regional Growth Deals

Meeting date: 5 February 2025

Willie Coffey

My final question is on AI. You mentioned the AI National Robotarium project in Edinburgh, which is a growth deal project. Allied to that is the exascale computer project, which was not part of the growth deal but is closely aligned to the whole project concept in Edinburgh. We also asked the Secretary of State for Scotland about that three weeks ago. Everyone’s understanding was that that investment was earmarked for Edinburgh, but he told us that, when his Government came into office, there was “no money” behind that project whatsoever. We are talking about £900 million of investment for that supercomputer in Edinburgh.

However, the secretary of state did not tell us that the project has been shifted to Oxford. In the past three weeks, we have discovered that the supercomputer is being built but that it is being built in Oxford. Last week, it was announced that there would be about £78 billion of investment in the Oxford to Cambridge growth corridor, and I presume that that investment will encompass funding for the exascale computer. Have Edinburgh and Scotland been short-changed by those decisions?

Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]

City Region and Regional Growth Deals

Meeting date: 5 February 2025

Willie Coffey

The convener talked about different models of providing money to areas in the UK. Is the £78 billion of investment, in effect, a new growth deal, but for the Oxford to Cambridge corridor?

Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]

City Region and Regional Growth Deals

Meeting date: 5 February 2025

Willie Coffey

Good morning. The Ayrshire growth deal’s annual report that was issued in November shows that there has been a drawdown of only 8 per cent so far on both Governments’ commitments. Of that 8 per cent, 70 per cent is for one project. Does the Scottish Government consider that to be good progress, five years into the programme?

Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]

City Region and Regional Growth Deals

Meeting date: 5 February 2025

Willie Coffey

Thank you.

Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]

City Region and Regional Growth Deals

Meeting date: 5 February 2025

Willie Coffey

Thank you. The project list shows 18 projects in the Ayrshire growth deal. Two of them, we know, have been dropped. There are another 10 that have not drawn down a single penny in five years. That is more than just a problem of two projects having to be dropped; that suggests to me that there is a wider problem.

This is one of the few opportunities that a parliamentary committee gets to scrutinise the growth deals. As you know, we do not have a formal scrutiny role—we are not part of the partnership boards and so on. Do you think that we need to revisit what the scrutiny picture looks like, to give the Parliament, its committees and its members an opportunity to have some involvement in and oversight of progress?

Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]

City Region and Regional Growth Deals

Meeting date: 5 February 2025

Willie Coffey

Cabinet secretary, you kindly said that there is still a commitment to the funding if Ayrshire takes the time to redevelop and repurpose some of the project ideas. When I put the same question to Ian Murray three weeks ago, he said:

“There is no threat to that funding at this moment in time.”

We can take from that what we will. However, he also said:

“with every week that passes, the funding becomes smaller, because of inflation”.—[Official Report, Economy and Fair Work Committee, 15 January 2025; c 14.]

Is it reasonable to expect that funding pot to sit unused and untapped for such a prolonged period, with the progress that has been made?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

“Local government in Scotland: Financial bulletin 2023/24”

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Willie Coffey

In paragraph 55 of the report, the Accounts Commission talks about the Strathclyde Pension Fund and the windfall that members of that fund have received. However, there are not really any figures about the size of the windfall that each of the fund’s 12 members actually received. To return to the transparency that we were talking about earlier, do those members declare that figure in their own accounts so that we can see what they have made from the fund? Also, I know that they are planning to reduce their contribution over the next few years, which will again save them significant amounts of money. Is that quantified anywhere?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

“Local government in Scotland: Financial bulletin 2023/24”

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Willie Coffey

Good morning, Jo Armstrong and colleagues. I have two or three questions.

First, the proposed settlement for this year is £1 billion more than it was last year. That represents a 4.5 per cent increase in cash terms and a 2 per cent increase in real terms. However, if we look back to 2022-23 going into 2023-24, we see that the real-terms allocation to councils went down. Will you give us a flavour of what causes the ebb and flow and the up and down of allocations? Was inflation one of the biggest impacts in relation to that reduction?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

“Local government in Scotland: Financial bulletin 2023/24”

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Willie Coffey

Do you not have a figure to hand from the statements that have been made, just to assure the committee?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

“Local government in Scotland: Financial bulletin 2023/24”

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Willie Coffey

I am sure that committee members would welcome any figures that you can find on the windfalls.