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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 15 July 2025
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Displaying 930 contributions

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Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

That is a critical question, and it goes back to two points. One is that we are halfway through our resource spending review and setting out multiyear budgets. The strategy acknowledges and reflects the fact that we need multiyear budgeting for the approach to be successful. That is the bottom line. The resource spending review is due to be published in the coming months, and it will set out a medium-term trajectory on spending. However, on opportunities, we absolutely have to leverage in private sector funding in new markets. There is no question about that. It is well documented that, for example, the gap between what we need to achieve to meet net zero and what we have funding to be able to do is significant.

The bottom line is that the funding exists. As part of the Global Fund Advocates Network initiative, $130 trillion of assets under management right now that need to find a home have been identified. Either that money will find a home in Scotland or it will find a home elsewhere. I want it to find a home in Scotland, but, for it to find a home in Scotland, we need two things. First, we need to be clear about the green prospectus. We have built the £3 billion green prospectus, which we used extensively at the 26th UN climate change conference of the parties—COP26. We need to expand on that and bring in more initiatives so that investors can easily find opportunities. Those opportunities also need to align with our values—that is an important point.

The second thing relates to the supply chain. We face a choice. As part of the up to 25GW of offshore wind energy that might be developed over the next 10 years, we will create jobs outwith Scotland or in Scotland. The way to create jobs in Scotland is for businesses to be established, to grow and to identify and take a larger share of that market. I refer you to project 5 under “New Market Opportunities”, which explicitly says:

“Build on Scotland’s Strengths to Win an Ever Greater Share of Domestic and International Market Opportunities”.

That is the action that hits the nail on the head, and I do not want to miss that opportunity.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

The delivery plans will definitely flesh out the strategy, and as we have already said, we will make sure that there are clear metrics in those. We have set out, at high level, what we think the contribution to the Scottish economy will be over the next 10 years, but as Gary Gillespie said a few moments ago, some areas are, by their nature, more difficult to measure and define, particularly the opportunities that come with new markets. We are still at an early stage in relation to that. In other words, some things are easier to model than others. There is certainly a graph in the 133-page analytics paper of the overall contribution to the Scottish economy.

Some areas are easier to define than others. For example, when it comes to our export strategy, we will know what success looks like and, when it comes to fair work, success will be building in conditionality. Some things are easier to quantify and others are more challenging, and we will set out the metrics in the implementation strategy.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

I think that the chance is slim, but it is worth trying. To go back a year or so to Mark Logan’s review of the opportunities for the tech industry in Scotland, as an independent individual—not a politician—he set out clearly the need, for example, to have a tech visa. In my conversations with them, many industries talk about the need for industry-specific visas. That is not something that I can grant but, in the engagement with the UK Government, there has been no appetite or willingness to consider sector-specific visa arrangements for the tech industry, for example.

Thus far, I do not think that there has been much progress, if any. Even in industries where the issue is UK wide, we have not seen huge progress and, right now, the current discourse around refugees and migration suggests that we have a long way to go before making progress.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

It is quite a stretch to suggest that I am blaming the private sector; that is a quite remarkable misrepresentation of my remarks.

I am not saying that delivery has not been a focus. In response to Jamie Halcro Johnston’s and the convener’s questions about what is new, I said that our evidence suggests that we understand what the challenges are but that the issue now is that we should focus ruthlessly over a 10-year period on delivering what we know to be the solutions to those challenges. As I said, that is not going to grab any headlines, but we know what we need to do, and we need to persevere in delivering that.

New opportunities have also emerged—not least in Alexander Burnett’s part of the country—so the issue now is to ensure that we deliver on the supply chain that exists but needs to expand to meet Scotland’s opportunities. Clearly, the supply chain is where we need to work with the private sector to maximise opportunities.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

The economic inactivity figures are well documented in the analytics paper. The most common reason that is cited for economic inactivity in Scotland is temporary or long-term health problems. We also have big contingents who are in full-time study and who have caring responsibilities. “Economic inactivity” is a catch-all term, so getting underneath that and understanding how we encourage those who can work into work is important. The commitment in the strategy is to remove more of the barriers and to simplify the employability system by implementing the “no one left behind” strategy.

It is important to say that the people who are furthest from the job market will require greater and more intensive investment to bring them closer to it. That is a commitment that we are willing to make, but it requires significant up-front investment and willingness to work intensively with individuals. We have set out that commitment—we need to do it.

The earlier question about the need to access skills demonstrates that we need to support into work as many people as possible, but we also need to understand what is preventing people from working. For some, it is the caring responsibilities that I mentioned in my earlier answer to Maggie Chapman. For others, it is full time study, which is good, and for others it is ill health. Given all that, there is quite a small group of people whom we need to work with to encourage them into work and to provide them with the support that they need.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

That is a great question. Running through all our budget discussions on the economy is our asking what we are going to do and saying let us do it really well.

We have set out our belief that entrepreneurial people and culture are among the key building blocks of economic transformation and that we will, therefore, prioritise them when it comes to funding and we will expand them. Alongside expansion of the tech-scaler programme, we will create pre-scaler hubs so that we engage much earlier with potential high-growth businesses. We are committed to that approach. We want to do it in partnership with the private sector, so we will prioritise it as we have already prioritised implementation of the Logan review.

You are right to say that, inevitably, that will mean that there are other things that we cannot do. That takes us back to my point to Colin Smyth: when we stop doing certain things to focus on what we have set out in the strategy, there will be questions. However, we have set out the blueprint in the strategy. That is what we want to deliver and it is what we are focused on delivering. Rather than trying to do everything under the sun, let us focus on where we think we will make the biggest impact and really shift the dial. That is what the strategy captures.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

There is specific reference in the strategy—because we are post Covid, I guess—to the need to build in resilience.

On specific action, we are committed to expanding a programme that we already have and in which you are probably well versed: the supply chain development programme, which is about improving the capacity, capability and development of Scottish supply chains. It includes identifying and targeting Scottish companies that have the skills, capacity and capability to allow them to bid for, win and deliver contracts in key industries. That goes beyond ScotWind. The programme is about identifying intentionally such businesses and working with them to improve their resilience. Some of them might already be operating within the key supply chains, but others might not be and should be building their business more.

Identifying those businesses and working with them is a more intensive way of working than just waiting for the supply chain to develop its own resilience. However, after Covid, many supply chains are far more resilient than they were going into Covid because of the necessity for them to have adapted.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

We are still focused on that target. We carefully monitor the progress of the export strategy, on which my colleague Ivan McKee leads.

Gary Gillespie might want to answer the question about the impact on the export target, because his team have been doing extensive work on monitoring the impact of the war in Ukraine on our trading arrangements, as well as on our resilience as an economy.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

That is a big focus for us. The brand is identified in the strategy as one of our strengths and as one of the areas of greatest growth.

We already know that, in Scotland, we have more assets under management that is defined as ethical than would be our proportional share in the market. There has already been disproportionate growth in ethical financing, so there is a huge opportunity to position Scotland’s brand as being distinct from that of the rest of the UK. That is largely because we have a well-known and well-regarded financial services industry in Scotland, and because we have, on our doorstep, significant opportunities to connect what our financial services are doing with our natural assets, for example. I refer to my point about the significant opportunities in that regard.

Just a fortnight ago, we launched the Global Ethical Finance Initiative with none other than Mark Carney, who was the keynote speaker and with whom I shared a panel. The issue is firmly on his radar, and he is conscious of the work that we are doing. We had a lot of interest from around the world in that launch and in what we are trying to achieve. Such initiatives set Scotland apart. Of course, we want to build on the legacy of COP26, in particular.

On the question about branding, we have set out a plan through the Global Ethical Finance Initiative. We are working on it, and we are keen to position Scotland as the home of ethical finance.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

National Strategy for Economic Transformation

Meeting date: 16 March 2022

Kate Forbes

We can consider and defend what was said by the Bank of Scotland and in the “Green Jobs Barometer” that is published by PWC.

We are doing quite a lot of work in Government at the moment to measure green jobs. There are narrow ways of measuring green jobs, but a lot of jobs that could be classified as green are being established and created in a number of industries.

For example, I recently met one of the largest real estate businesses in the world, and it can reference a number of jobs that have been created, including as a result of work in Scotland, that directly contribute to making non-domestic properties net zero. At the moment, jobs such as those are probably not classified as green jobs, but they contribute to making the country as a whole net zero. Our approach through the strategy is to ask where the challenges are, meet them head on and ensure that we build a more robust supply chain.