Seòmar agus comataidhean

For the past few weeks, the committee has been working on the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill, and I think that there is consensus across the room that it is a good thing to ensure that more wealth is retained in communities and to help to build such wealth across Scotland.

I have heard frustration about the commentary that our enterprise agencies and Business Gateway are not set up to support co-operatives and other democratic business models, which means that, when people are looking to start a business, those models are not presented as options and the advantages that they offer are not mentioned. There is lots of data that shows that such businesses contribute more to their communities than traditional profit-based businesses.

In order to get the best bang for our buck in our investment, do you intend to use the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill to achieve a shift in how our enterprise agencies support businesses so that we can make the optimum use of funding to support the kinds of businesses that will help with community wealth building?

08:45

There is a lack of clarity about who is on what list. It will not be practical to get everyone around the table to develop the action plans, so the group needs to be small enough to be functional. It is not at all clear to me by which criteria members of either list are being chosen—whether it is by purchasing power, land ownership or other unspecified ways in which they might have local influence.

Although I think it is right that Scottish Enterprise is on the list, I would flag a concern that I had when we had representatives of the three enterprise agencies before the committee to talk about the bill. Both South of Scotland Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise appeared to understand community wealth building and their role in it, but the chief executive officer of Scottish Enterprise did not have a clear grasp of it, thinking, when asked, that bringing in foreign investment and high-paying jobs was community wealth building. It is not—that is not what community wealth building is. Those might be worthy goals, but they are absolutely not what community wealth building is. Some clear guidance on that to Scottish Enterprise will be required if it is to participate fully in developing the action plans and if it is to understand the consequences of its decisions.

Given the limited funding that is available to support community wealth building as an endeavour, it is vital to have the owners of assets around the table, so that they can be part of the discussion about how public assets can be used for the public good. That means that, instead of putting money in, you bring the people who have the wealth to the table. I am therefore proposing amendments 96 to 98. Forestry and Land Scotland is the largest landowner in Scotland; the Crown Estate owns the foreshore, which is critical for marine biodiversity and offshore energy, potentially including community energy schemes; and Network Rail owns a considerable amount of vacant and derelict land, particularly in west and central Scotland. Bringing those bodies around the table would allow their extensive assets to be used for community wealth building.

Michelle Thomson raised with you the importance of scaling up businesses. I think that we agree on that. Can you please give us more details on how the budget will support the scaling up of businesses?

In the past, you and I have slightly disagreed on support for start-ups. It is not that I do not support start-ups, but “start quickly, fail fast” is not a model that I am particularly supportive of. I prefer the idea of creating businesses with the intention that they will last a long time and support communities for a long time. In that regard, I think that taking already successful small Scottish businesses and helping them to scale up is the key.

I would certainly like to see more emphasis and guidance from you to the enterprise agencies on co-operatives, because they do not have to be small and worthy—they can be enormous and generate huge profits, too. The difference is that those profits stay in Scotland and Scottish communities, so I would love to see a bit more ambition on that front, now that we have the community wealth building bill.

I want to ask a final question about business before I move on to skills. From the breakdown of the budget that we have seen, it looks as if, for the enterprise agencies, capital investment has gone up and resource spending is down. Is that a choice that you have made, or is it something that has been forced on you? How do you imagine that affecting the work of those agencies?

I have no additional remarks, convener. I will press amendment 30.

Amendments 33 and 35, which seek to set standards for monitoring and data logging, including against agreed national metrics, would help put into place proper measurement of the progress on community wealth building, and would also give us the data to understand the starting points and disparity between Scottish regions.

I support amendment 82, in the name of Sarah Boyack, on reporting on impact. However, I am not convinced of the value of an independent review on top of all the reporting measures, so I will not support amendment 83.

On amendment 54, I think that Richard Leonard has the right idea, but surely the reference to “details” in the amendment would undermine commercial confidentiality. After all, co-operatives are still commercial enterprises and have the same confidentiality needs as other businesses. I hope that the member will consider revisiting and altering the amendment for stage 3.

As for amendments 55 and 56, again in the name of Richard Leonard, I do not think that annual reviews are a good use of resources. You would just have finished one report and then would have to start another, and that would impede progress.

I move amendment 33.

11:30

I have no further remarks, convener, but I will withdraw amendment 7.

Amendment 7, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 8 moved—[Lorna Slater].

Thank you.

Like other colleagues, I have lodged amendments in this group to add detail to the measures that are to be taken. Through the amendments, I explicitly call out fair work, community transport, support for co-operatives and community energy. In the interest of time, I will highlight only a few of the amendments.

On my amendments 2 and 14, it looks as though the minister has lodged amendments 75 and 87 to cover the same ground, so I am content not to move those amendments.

Amendment 36 seeks to clarify that commissioning and procurement are separate but related activities to ensure that local authorities are fully able to include commissioning in their wealth building planning.

Amendments 31 and 37 relate to when local authorities and public bodies dispose of land and other assets, and it seeks to ensure that they must think of something other than getting the most money. They must also consider how the asset fits into the community’s vision for itself and the common good. That is vital to local authorities being able to implement each community’s vision for itself.

Amendments 4 and 16 seek to include the consideration of local climate resilience and mitigation in community wealth building, for example through distributed or local power generation to ease local generation in the case of storm damage to the grid; or through flood protections for the community and of community land.

Amendment 22 seeks to recognise the importance of constructive and collaborative joint venture opportunities between communities and public bodies. If the amendment were agreed to, that would be an important step to formalising those relationships and creating new opportunities, but I am interested to hear what colleagues have to say on the amendment, and we will then consider whether to move it.

On amendment 43, I say to the minister that I am not sure that legislation is needed for the Scottish Government to work with the UK Government, and I would like to hear the Scottish Government commit to undertaking such work. If the minister is able to commit to that, I will not move amendment 43.

I am content with and will support many of the amendments from my colleagues in this group, but there are a few that I find problematic and cannot support. In the interest of time, I will highlight just a few of those, in the hope that we can revisit them at stage 3.

The first half of Richard Leonard’s amendment 50 is fine, but I cannot support the second half. My understanding is that the whole point of the Scottish National Investment Bank is its independence and freedom from Government interference in its investment decisions. It is right that that is so. Any attempt through legislation to get the Scottish Government to lean on the bank would undermine its independence, and I will not support any amendments that seek to do that. The only exception to that will be Richard Leonard’s amendment 51, which is sufficiently vague not to undermine the bank in that way. [Laughter.]

I have no further remarks, convener. I press amendment 6.