Chamber and committees

Our next item of business is an evidence session on the report by the Fraser of Allander Institute, “The economic contribution of the Pharmaceuticals Sector in Scotland”. I welcome Adam McGeoch, economist fellow of the Fraser of Allander Institute. He is joined by George Davidson, the chair of the access and value group of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry Scotland and Professor Sir Michael Ferguson, regius professor of life sciences at the University of Dundee.

I understand that Adam McGeoch is going to give us a short presentation before we move to questions.

Okay. I thank the witnesses very much—

I am sure that it is.

We have heard that trials are doing well in America, so I am not sure about that correlation.

I want to make some progress. We have a few other questions that will be directed more towards Sarah-Jayne Dunn.

You can ask it now if it is brief.

We will take up those issues with the minister once we have him at committee.

You have both raised areas where other members will ask questions, but before we move on to that I have a question for Adam McGeoch about the Fraser of Allander Institute’s report. On page 25 you talk about the gender pay gap within the sector. I think that it is a bigger gap in Scotland than it is across the UK. Is that right? The report says:

“women earned 22% less than men working in the sector, compared to just 6% less at UK level”,

although we have a narrower pay gap across all sectors. You suggest that it depends where women tend to be focused within the pharmaceutical sector, which is more in the supply chain. Can you just talk us through why there is such a gap in Scotland?

Could George Davidson say something from ABPI about what needs to be done to tackle the gender pay gap. Is it recognised as an issue that needs to be addressed, and what is being done to address it?

I will now bring in Sir Michael Ferguson. In 2015—now eight years ago—the Scottish Government’s economic strategy identified life sciences as a growth sector. Have we seen the growth, since 2015, that we had hoped to see? Obviously, we have had a pandemic, which has had an impact on everything, but what do you think the barriers are to increasing the role of pharmaceuticals in Scotland?