Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank heavens for small mercies. I thank the minister for accepting amendment 51, although I realise that it is subject to the committee’s views. I also thank him for his dialogue and for his offer of continuing dialogue between stages 2 and 3, which I will certainly take up. I welcome his open approach.

The minister’s suggestion that some of my amendments are better addressed to the economic democracy group would be all well and good if the economic democracy group had been established and was meeting, but it is my understanding that it is not. That is an interesting theoretical suggestion from the minister, but not one that we can actively take up.

On the issue of insourcing, I do not see that purely as an issue of procurement, although I have an amendment on procurement later, which will be considered by the committee at stage 2. If you look at the examples that I gave, I do not think that HMP Kilmarnock was subject to some kind of franchising or procurement exercise when it was decided to bring the prison back in-house. ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper service are other examples that the minister’s own Government has been prepared to implement. I recognise the point that the minister made in the stage 1 debate, about what procurement looks like, but I think that we should also be looking at insourcing versus outsourcing, not just in a procurement context. As I said, I have an amendment on procurement to come.

The final thing that I would say to the minister and committee members is that, if they have not already done so, they should visit some employee-owned businesses, such as, for Mr Fraser, Carlton Bingo in Dunfermline, which I went to. Carlton Bingo has bingo halls in Stirling and other places. Sarah Boyack and Lorna Slater would be interested in Jerba Campervans in the Lothians. For Mr Kerr, there is Clansman Dynamics in East Kilbride, which is part of the Central Scotland region. I am sure that the deputy convener, as well as Mr Kerr and I, will have an interest in Your Equipment Solutions in Falkirk. Then there is Auchrannie Resort in Arran. I look to Mr Coffey for that—although it is not in his constituency, it is employee owned and an important part of that regional economy. Let me finish with Mr Stewart. I can recommend the Krakatoa music bar venue on the quayside in Aberdeen as a fine example of an employee-owned business that really includes its workforce. Those are wonderful, pioneering businesses.

Yesterday, in the budget debate, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government said:

“Scotland is a country of innovators and wealth creators.”—[Official Report, 13 January 2026; c 16.]

I think that those are great examples of innovation and wealth creation. I can think of no finer examples than those, and we should be using the bill to encourage the development and advancement of that part of our economy.

Amendment 61 is, again, an attempt to include Co-operative Development Scotland in the preparation of community wealth building action plans at a local level. I am concerned that its history, as well as its present and future, appears to have been written off. I think that it is an important part of the tools of economic development in Scotland. I know that it sits inside Scottish Enterprise, so I understand the minister’s argument that Scottish Enterprise will be consulted, ergo Co-operative Development Scotland will be consulted, but I am looking for something a little bit firmer than that to guarantee that that will be a dimension of the input from Scottish Enterprise and the enterprise network generally.

Amendment 65 is about having the local plan revised annually. Frankly, if the committee is not prepared to support the Scottish Government coming back to Parliament more than once every five years, it would be rather unfair to impose an annual regime on local government. I intend not to move amendment 65.

12:30

Thank you very much, convener.

What these amendments attempt to do is to promote and realise the potential of employee ownership in the economy. Instead of being quite so reliant on foreign direct investment, and instead of continuing to become more and more of a branch plant economy, we need to look at ways in which we can reintroduce more local and democratic forms of control. Employee ownership has been shown to be good for the retention and creation of jobs, and good for local and inclusive economic development, and it also cultivates longer-term thinking.

I have been an advocate of a Marcora-style law for some time. The Marcora law dates back to 1985, after Giovanni Marcora—a right-wing Italian politician, actually—introduced a statutory right for workers in Italy to be able to buy an enterprise that they worked in if it was facing closure or bankruptcy. It has since been amended to give those workers a preferential right—a right of first refusal—and it commutes their redundancy payments and three years’ worth of future unemployment benefits to help give them the capital to make the conversion. In turn, that is matched by the state on a one-to-one lira—and, more recently, euro—basis, and there is also support from co-operative federation funds.

Amendment 49 is an attempt to fashion that Marcora idea within our legislative competence here. In so doing, it would broaden the statutory right, so that it could apply not just in circumstances of bankruptcy or closure, but in the event of a business being up for sale; if the owner was, perhaps, looking for a succession plan, or if the business was the subject of a takeover or faced downsizing. In those circumstances, there would be a right for workers to make a bid to take the enterprise over. For me, this captures the spirit of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 and brings them into the arena of industrial reform.

Yes, I think that it is absolutely central to the bill, because it is about retaining wealth in a local area and looking at ways in which we can wealth build in a community. What I am describing is a community of interest as manifested in the workforce. I also think that the proposal is in keeping with a long-standing tradition in Scotland that goes back not just to Robert Owen and New Lanark, but—and I say this to Mr Coffey—to 1761 and the Fenwick Weavers Society, which was the first co-operative society ever created.

Amendments 46 and 50 would add some practical measures that are within competence for inclusion in the community wealth building statement. Amendment 46 is a recognition that, while statutory redundancy payments and the regime that governs them are reserved, under Scots law, contract law is devolved. Again borrowing from the example of the Marcora law, which is long standing, I have sought to look at ways in which we can, within our competence, use equivalent measures. We have come up with the idea that any statutory redundancy—that is, contractual redundancy that is maybe written into an employee handbook or is in some written contractual form—could be called on to be brought forward to be commuted.

We start from where we are. I would like to have seen a much more ambitious bill in the first place, but this is largely a framework bill that is about laying down markers, and that is about encouraging rather than necessarily directly acting. What I am proposing with the amendments is that the measures are included in the ministerial plan and any future ministerial statement, and that the issue is addressed at that level.

If that is the case, I will not move it.

Amendment 52 simply seeks to insert into the legislation Co-operative Development Scotland, which was established in 2006. It has, in my view, been cut to the bone. It has been allowed to wither on the vine. It is woefully underresourced, although I have not had a chance to look at yesterday’s budget announcement. The long-term position is that it has been allowed to become marginalised.

Somebody said to me that there is one part-time member of staff working on employee ownership and one member of staff working on co-operative development. For Co-operative Development Scotland, that is a clear indication of massive underresourcing. It still appears on the enterprise agencies’ websites as the arm of the enterprise agencies for co-operative development. It is still on the Scottish Enterprise website, advertising one-to-one sessions with specialist advisers for those interested in converting to co-operative and employee ownership. For that reason, I think it should be explicitly included in the bill.

My second amendment in this group, amendment 53, revisits the suggestion from the Government that we review statements and plans only once every five years. I am quite interested in five-year plans when it comes to economic development—[Laughter.]—but I reflect on the fact that an interval of five years could mean that a statement is not made within a session of Parliament.

I am concerned, from listening to what Lorna Slater said, that perhaps she thinks that an annual return to such things, which is my Chartist instinct, is too frequent, but I put it to her and to others who take that view that every five years is far too big an interval. For that reason, my amendment asks the committee to consider a statement being produced every year.

Alistair Wylie wanted to come in on that point, and perhaps also on an earlier point. Over to you, Alistair—the floor is yours.

Should you not have been aware of that? Did you not have somebody from UHI’s court or a central figure from UHI who was in attendance at meetings of the board of management of Perth College? Is that not the channel through which such communications would be made and awareness would be raised about the budget situation and the lack of a budget?

On that more optimistic note, I will draw the session to a close. I thank those of you who have joined us online. We really appreciate you giving up the time. For those of you who have had difficulties with the weather, I hope that it improves for you soon and that you are properly re-engaged. We therefore place on record our thanks to Vicki Nairn, Mike Baxter and Alistair Wylie. We very much appreciate your patience and time, which has been very useful to us, this morning.

I also turn to the witnesses who have managed to make it into Edinburgh. I thank you all for the evidence that you have given us as a committee. It is very much appreciated. Tiffany Ritchie, Jacqui Brasted, Catherine Etri and Lynn Murray, we thank you for your time and for the information that you have been able to give us this morning and the way that you have answered a quite wide-ranging set of questions.

I now suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.