{"id":208678,"date":"2025-06-23T21:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T21:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/208678\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T21:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T21:35:13","slug":"uk-industry-plan-to-disproportionately-benefit-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/208678\/","title":{"rendered":"UK industry plan to disproportionately benefit Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PAPA Media<\/p>\n

Scottish Secretary Ian Murray says the plan will cut energy prices and help create jobs <\/p>\n

Scotland will disproportionately benefit from the UK government’s new industrial strategy, a Labour minister has claimed.<\/p>\n

Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said the 10-year plan would help lower energy bills for businesses, improve skills and create jobs. <\/p>\n

The UK government strategy focuses on eight sectors, including manufacturing and clean energy, but not one of Scotland’s key industries, food and drink. <\/p>\n

Murray said the priority sectors were a “microcosm” of the Scottish economy, and defended the decision not to include food and drink. <\/p>\n

The Scottish government has raised concerns that measures to reduce energy bills for businesses are not scheduled to start until 2027. <\/p>\n

The UK government strategy identifies industries where the UK is already strong and therefore should have the potential for faster growth.<\/p>\n

The eight sectors are manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, digital and technologies, financial services, life sciences, and professional and business services.<\/p>\n

Murray told BBC Scotland News: “It’s a great industrial strategy for the whole of the UK but actually it’s really disproportionate to Scotland because the eight key growth sectors that are part of that strategy are a microcosm of the whole Scottish economy.” <\/p>\n

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

Scotland’s food and drink industry, including the Scotch whisky trade, is estimated to contribute \u00a315bn a year to the country’s economy <\/p>\n

The Labour minister said that while the food and drink industry, estimated to be worth<\/a> \u00a315bn a year to the Scottish economy, was not a focus of the strategy, it would benefit from UK trade deals.<\/p>\n

“We’ve done trade deals with the EU, India in terms of whisky and food and drink and the US,” the Scottish secretary told the BBC. <\/p>\n

“So there is other things sitting alongside the industrial strategy, including on trade deals, that are really benefiting the food and drink industry in Scotland.”<\/p>\n

He added that the plan could help cut energy bills by up to 25% for more than 7,000 “energy-intensive” businesses by 2027.<\/p>\n

What else is in the industrial strategy? <\/p>\n

According to the energy strategy, Scotland is to be “at the heart of the UK’s energy transition”.<\/p>\n

The document highlighted commitments to a \u00a3750m supercomputer in Edinburgh<\/a> and \u00a3200m for the Acorn carbon capture<\/a> project in Aberdeenshire.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also announced \u00a330m for the video games sector – with several developers based in Scotland – and \u00a330m for research and development for each of the devolved nations.<\/p>\n

Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes said: “The UK government’s industrial strategy confirms much of the focus described in Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy. <\/p>\n

“We will play our part in ensuring any new investment builds on Scotland’s strengths in energy, life sciences, critical technologies, advanced manufacturing and the other sectors described.<\/p>\n

“Cutting energy costs for businesses is something the Scottish government has long been calling for. However, we are concerned this measure will not begin until 2027.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PA Media Scottish Secretary Ian Murray says the plan will cut energy prices and help create jobs Scotland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-208678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114734833784666127","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}