Oral Answers to Questions

Pamela Nash Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)]

3. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support regeneration in Scotland through the pride in place programme.

[Pamela Nash (Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke) (Lab)]

12. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support regeneration in Scotland through the pride in place programme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Kirsty McNeill)]

The Scotland Office is backing Scotland’s communities with our £292 million pride in place investment. The plan will support grassroots movements that restore local people’s power, boost national pride and help people get on in life. It will revitalise our high streets, create jobs and improve safety and security. More than that, it will give expression to this Government’s core belief that communities are powerful and that in every corner of our country, we find millions of so-called ordinary people doing their best and doing their bit to transform the places they love for the people they love.

[Kirsty McNeill]

I commend my hon. Friend on his ambition for his seat and his sterling advocacy for it. He is right that this funding will help revitalise our high streets, create jobs and improve safety and security in Scotland. He is also right that the SNP is desperately out of touch with its squabbling over independence while services across Scotland are at breaking point.

[Pamela Nash]

Since the election last year when Labour came to power, our constituents in Scotland have seen their friends in England and Wales see real improvements in their communities and public services, while they look on and wonder what the SNP Government are squandering Scotland’s share on. Does the Minister agree that key to the success of the pride in place funding and projects, including the £41.5 million coming to Lanarkshire, is that we are putting power directly in the hands of people to make decisions about investments in their own communities?

[Kirsty McNeill]

My hon. Friend is right that both her constituents and mine look with some envy to the other side of the border where millions of extra NHS appointments have been secured while waiting lists in Scotland go up and up. Local communities are at the heart of Scottish life, which is why we are giving them control over hundreds of millions of pounds of investment to revitalise their high streets, take ownership of important local assets and build thriving and prosperous places to work, live and visit.