| Allan Wilson:
It is a bit
of a surprise to be called to speak, because I did not realise the running
order, but there you go. Life is full of surprises.
I considered
how to construct my speech for today's debate, which comes in the wake
of John Swinney's fair and honest assessment of the committee's deliberations,
in the early hours of this morning. I had been in the company of a number
of Labour colleagues, none of whom I see with me today. We were guests
of the Federation of Small Businesses; members of that organisation are
consumers of local economic services and business support services, key
drivers in the Scottish economy and major players in our efforts to build
a knowledge-based economy and to tackle some of the endemic structural
problems that John Swinney referred to. I was reminded that many of our
social inclusion targets demand a functional and responsive small business
sector and the rebirth of an entrepreneurial culture, which used to characterise
our nation. As John Swinney mentioned, the creation of 100,000 new businesses
and the generation of wealth and employment, which flow from entrepreneurial
activity, are at the centre of what the Parliament and the Executive hope
to achieve.
Scottish Labour's
1999 manifesto emphasised the creation of a strong and dynamic economy
and the role of Government—in our case principally on the supply side—in
fostering enterprise at all levels in Scotland. The manifesto proclaimed
Scottish Labour's duty to equip our people and businesses for the challenges
of the 21st century. It recognised that knowledge, skills and innovation
are the keys to future prosperity. It committed Scottish Labour's representatives
in the Parliament to providing skills to individuals, supporting entrepreneurs,
investing in modern infrastructure and creating the right climate in which
to generate wealth, with which we could address our economy's well-documented
problems with employment and training.
The effective
delivery of local economic services and business support services, therefore,
is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. For Scottish Labour, that
end is the delivery of our social justice agenda. The committee's report
must be seen in that context; not as an end in itself, because manifestly
it is not, but as a means. It is not the only means—criticisms of the report
have made that clear—but it is the best bet for an end to the problems
of duplication, replication and confusion that have plagued our system
of business support and the delivery of local economic services, to which
John Swinney referred.
It does not
matter that the report does not represent the purist agenda of the Federation
of Small Businesses, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the Confederation
of British Industry, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the
enterprise network or—dare I say it—the Scottish Executive. In fact, it
is a strength and a bonus that the report does not represent any other
agenda apart from, perhaps, Scottish Labour's vision that the
"future business
support regime should have a range of more flexible financial and other
tools . . . essential to ensure that indigenous businesses have the . .
. support they deserve . . . to attract the new types of inward investment
we most want."
We are committed
to the principle of arm's-length, long-term, business-led enterprise and
lifelong learning strategies. The Labour manifesto for the Scottish Parliament
elections proclaimed:
"The Scottish
Parliament must get the one stop approach to business development right
at the local level."
I trust that
at the end of today's debate, and in ensuing debates on the national economic
framework and the enterprise network itself, the Parliament and the Scottish
people will conclude that we have delivered on that pledge.
The Enterprise
and Lifelong Learning Committee has sometimes been held up as a good example
of the new politics, and there has been widespread praise for the conduct
of both the committee members and the ministers for their constructive
approach to the inquiry. Much of the credit undoubtedly goes to John Swinney
and Annabel Goldie and, more generally, to the other committee members
for the creditable transformation of their party political swords for their
economic ploughshares. That does not make any one of us less of a political
animal, but it makes the sum of our efforts more of an economic asset to
our nation, which is ultimately what the committee is all about.
As a result,
I was disappointed—though not necessarily surprised—at some of the criticism
that came our way, muted though some of it was. Despite the suggestion
by the FSB or COSLA that only its agenda can provide the knowledge economy
that we seek to build, I do not accept that either organisation, the Enterprise
and Lifelong Learning Committee, Scottish Enterprise or the Scottish Executive
has the monopoly of wisdom in that regard. That lends weight to the committee's
findings.
As John Swinney
pointed out, partnership is not an end in itself, and partnership as a
means to an end provides the best perspective for the way forward. If partners
of equal esteem in the forums cannot, or will not, co-operate for the common
good, the committee's message in the report is quite clear: the Executive
must act to protect that common good and the future of our local economic
services and business support. For example, there were fairly substantial
differences between our respective manifestos in many areas of the enterprise
and lifelong learning agenda, such as individual learning accounts, business
support or interest rates. However, if committee members can submerge their
political differences for the common good, it is perfectly possible and
eminently desirable that all the partners to the proposed local economic
forums—whether local enterprise companies or local authorities—can submerge
their far less fundamental differences to work towards a common objective
of building a more effective, efficient and inclusive economy in which
all can participate and from which all, not the few, can benefit.
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