Marra to pair shipbuilding skills case with regional-growth argument
In his first speech as Scottish Labour leader at the UK Labour conference in Liverpool, Michael Marra is expected to cite shipbuilding skills needs and a conditional £30bn comparison with Manchester’s growth as separate arguments for shifting power and funding towards Scotland’s regions.
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BBC UK reports that Michael Marra is expected to use his first speech as Scottish Labour leader, on the first day of the UK Labour conference in Liverpool, to make two related but distinct arguments for decentralising power. For the specific example of shipbuilding, he is expected to present welders from the Philippines and South Africa working on the next generation of Scottish warships as evidence of a failure in skills policy and a shortage of skilled Scottish workers.
His separate regional-growth argument is a conditional comparison: Marra plans to say Scotland’s economy would be £30bn larger if its regions had grown over the past decade at the same pace as Manchester. That figure is his claim, not a verified economic outcome.
Marra is expected to call for skills policy to be devolved to Scotland’s regions and for councils, colleges and industries to have more control and funding. The shipbuilding example concerns the skills available for a particular industry; the Manchester comparison concerns regional growth. He is presenting both as grounds for shifting decision-making and resources locally, not as evidence that decentralisation would necessarily resolve the shipbuilding skills problem.
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