Vote for the success story, not out of fear

Published on Sunday 18 February 2007 00:05

ON FRIDAY I met businesspeople in Glasgow.

They were not at all complacent about the challenges facing Scotland, especially the crucial task of educating our young people to ever higher levels of skills. They were concerned about social exclusion, transport and congestion, the impact of the changes in our environment and, of course, the risks of new global competition. But they were also optimistic, upbeat, enthusiastic about Scotland's prospects. They were confident of Scotland's ability to compete in an era of globalisation. Their horizons were bigger than Glasgow, bigger than Scotland, bigger than the UK. They are open to the world, willing to stand on their own merits.

Their confidence was shared by everyone I met in Scotland. Whether I was talking to the mothers at the Stepping Stones project in East Glasgow, or young Scots at Labour's Youth Conference, I couldn't help but sense the spirit of optimism about the future and that this was firmly based on Scotland's economic performance. It was an antidote to the relentless negative picture of Scotland painted by the nationalists and underlined what Scotland, and the rest of the UK, continues to gain from a successful partnership now 300 years old.

It's not just that Scotland under Labour, like the rest of the UK, is no longer scarred by the deep recessions which were such a disastrous feature of the Conservatives' economic mismanagement. It's the fact that the strength and stability which are now a feature of the whole of the UK's economy have given Scotland, with its own devolved Parliament, a chance to shine. For even when compared with the strong performance of the UK as a whole over the last decade, the economic facts show Scotland is doing rather well and picking up pace.

Under Labour, Scotland's economy has grown every year. Unemployment is below the UK average when, before 1997, it had been above. In fact, the proportion of people in work in Scotland - now 76.1% - is the highest among the four nations of the UK and among the highest in the entire European Union. Over a quarter of a million more Scots are in work than a decade ago. Scotland, helped by the policies of Jack McConnell and the Labour-led Scottish Executive, is also benefiting from a surge in high-quality, high-skilled jobs. Within the UK, which remains the top destination in the world for inward investment, Scotland, according to one authoritative survey, attracted 20% of new jobs.

Investment in research and development is growing much more strongly in Scotland than the rest of the UK, closing what has been a historic and worrying gap. The result has been that Scottish firms are now leading the way in the UK in creating new products. You can look at the finance industry where employment has grown by some 70% or the life science industry in Scotland, which already employs more people than the electronics industry. There are many fields in which Scotland has world-class industries, but few will be more exciting than stem cell research and regenerative medicine.

All this helps explain why living standards are rising in Scotland. Growth in gross weekly earnings has been higher in Scotland than anywhere in the UK in three of the last four years. Outside the south and the south-east with their high cost of living, incomes in Scotland are the highest in the UK. Indeed, incomes in Edinburgh are currently higher than any area in the UK outside the richest part of London - Notting Hill and Chelsea. Scotland is rightly taking its place as one of the richest countries in the world. So it's not hard to see why, perhaps for the first time in a century, more people are coming to live in Scotland than leaving.

I don't believe that the economy is the only thing that matters. But I do know that without a strong economy many other ambitions will remain just dreams. It's because of the strong economy across the UK that Westminster and Holyrood acting in partnership have seen such progress in tackling some of Scotland's deep-rooted problems.

Long-term youth unemployment, so long a scandal in Scotland, is now virtually gone. Instead of 30,000 young Scots sentenced to the scrapheap 15 years ago, there are now 30,000 modern apprenticeships. Over the last decade, the strong economy and a determined effort to spread prosperity and opportunity has lifted 200,000 Scottish children and 200,000 Scottish pensioners out of absolute poverty. It's also enabled huge investment in public services, including 2bn to rebuild Scotland's schools.

Scotland has come a long way in the last decade. The new devolved partnership is providing the platform for Scotland and its people to prosper. There remain, of course, problems to overcome and pockets of real deprivation. Over the next few weeks, Jack McConnell and I will set out how this modern partnership will work to spread opportunity and prosperity further and to accelerate the progress there has already been. We will be setting out how we can work together on issues from economic investment to climate change and child poverty; showing how we can help each other advance and deliver a Scotland of even greater ambition in the years ahead.

The Union between Scotland and England may now be three centuries old. But it is very much a partnership for today and for the future in which we all continue to benefit. As I said on Friday, achieving success in the modern world is more than ever a team game. We need to work together, to strengthen links, not smash them apart. Scotland and England are tied together not just economically but through our values, our history, our families and friends. The Union is a source of stability, of strength, of possibility and opportunity.

So I don't want people to vote in May out of fear; though, of course, the negative impact of separation on living standards and investment is all too clear. I want people to look at what Scotland has gained within the UK and under Labour - and to be excited about what more a modern Union of nations can achieve for us all.