Chamber and committees

The cabinet secretary will know that I think that a good green industrial strategy is very important in setting out Scotland as a place for investment in key sectors as we move forward in the just transition. However, I have noticed an area of incoherence between the national strategy for economic transformation and the green industrial strategy. I hope that the cabinet secretary can elaborate and tell us how she is going to align those strategies.

The NSET includes a list of 14 opportunities, which is quite a long bullet list, and many of those have a sub-list. That does not come across as very strategic but as a massive shopping list. It is wonderful that Scotland has so many opportunities, but that is not a strategic approach. It makes sense that the green industrial strategy is a shorter list, but that shorter list is not a subset of what is in the NSET. Two things that are in the green industrial strategy do not appear in the NSET at all. One is carbon capture, utilisation and storage, and the other is energy-intensive industry stuff, which includes chemicals, paper and steel. Those are all great industries, but neither CCUS nor those energy-intensive industries were identified in the NSET as opportunities. How come they have suddenly appeared out of nowhere, as it were, in the green industrial strategy as key opportunities? What evidence was used to generate the opportunities in the green industrial strategy versus those in the NSET? How are we supposed to know what our strategic priorities are when we have two disparate lists?

The difficulty is, when the goal is growth, as it is in the PFG, that gives no reassurance that growth will not be just the pursuit of maximising GDP while causing negative outcomes elsewhere.

It is misleading to say that our goal is growth, given that, as the cabinet secretary has set out, our goal is a wellbeing economy, in which people’s lives are improved, communities are strengthened and businesses are safe to invest. That might mean that GDP comes down a couple of notches, because we need to redistribute wealth or to invest more in public services. It is important to be clear on whether we are going after a wellbeing economy rather than maximising a single metric no matter what the cost to society.

Just to make sure that I have understood, can you confirm whether the UK, of all the countries on the list, had the lowest provision of childcare?

I am also a member of Unite the union.

I should probably disclose that my husband was on a zero-hours contract for several years, so I am aware of the sharp end of that. Thank you very much for that.

My next question relates, slightly, to the barrier between reserved and devolved powers. How did the UK and Scotland compare with the other countries on the list with regard to childcare provision, and how much do you think that that affects the data?

Okay. I just noticed that, when we averaged it out, England was at the bottom of the table. It is an interesting comparison and shows how the Scottish Government is trying to balance things in an upwards direction.

For my last question, I want to change the topic slightly and look at workers in rural areas. It is an issue on which we have done some work, but I am interested in your work on it, too. I note that the hospitality inquiry report highlighted the challenges facing hospitality workers, particularly when housing is provided as part of their job. I am aware from my previous role that that is also a challenge in the agriculture sector, where workers, gamekeepers and so on are often housed as part of their job. When we looked at putting in place conditionality with regard to Scottish Government grant funding and attaching it to the real living wage, we found that the agriculture sector was struggling in that respect. I am therefore interested in hearing about the issues for rural workers, particularly with regard to being paid the living wage and other aspects of fair work. What are the conditions like now for rural workers and what can we do to improve them?

Colin Smyth has highlighted very well one of the examples of powers that are reserved and not part of the devolved settlement. I will pick into another one. Helen Martin made the point, and I am worried about it as well, that the use of zero-hours contracts is significantly up from 2016. I would like to hear why that is. Why are zero-hours contracts a problem and what can be done? It would be useful to know what can be done in a devolved sense, because we are here to hold the Scottish Government to account, but it is often sometimes useful to know what is reserved.

That highlights clearly the frustration in relation to how, even if we are not arguing about quantums, communication—especially between the two Governments—about what might come years down the line could be improved.

For my second question, I will pick up on what Douglas Colquhoun said about evidencing the impact. A couple of weeks ago, I put this question to South of Scotland Enterprise and Highlands and Island Enterprise. You give out direct support in loans, grants and so on, but how do you measure the impact of your indirect support? How do you evidence teaching someone to fish versus giving someone fish?

I got different answers from the two enterprise agencies: South of Scotland Enterprise said that it was in the process of delivering those metrics, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise was less clear on how it showed the most effective intervention on the economy. As great as it feels to give out money, is that the most effective intervention, or are those other things equally effective? I am interested to hear your views.

I have three questions. My first is for both organisations. Both of your business models depend very heavily—at the moment, anyway—on Government decisions year by year. Every time I speak to an organisation, there is frustration about not having foresight, as there is no multiyear funding, which means that they do not know what is coming. I am interested in your view of the current system, which means that your organisations are dependent on the capital budget that comes from the UK Government. How does it affect you that you do not know year to year how much money you will have? I am interested to hear from both of you, but particularly from SNIB, on how plans to make the bank stand alone commercially—as in, that future profits would not be rolled back into the Scottish Government budget—would help to delink the current process? Scottish Enterprise may not have the same options.

Can I ask a very quick question, convener?