packaged, cutting down the cost of energy usage, but will, more of course, reduce her emissions as her country and her fever targets? On the issue of questions, we are now moving onto the next item of business, a debate on motion number 1338, in the name of John Swinney on Scotland can do a framework for entrepreneurship and innovation. Can I say to members who have taken part in the yn ddim yn ddigonwys oedd yn gweithio i'w ddechrau a chyfnodd aethau i'r dda, os ydych yn gweithio i'w gweithio i'w ddechrau i'w ddechrau i'w dda. Rwy'n credu i ddweud y mae'n ddewch. Yn 14 munud ar y ddechrau, rwy'n credu i ddweud y ddewch yn ei ddweud ar y dyfodol sy'n ddewch i ddweud ar gyfer dwych new-enter-prices in Scotland. That is a fundamental area of policy for the Scottish Government, recognising the importance of ensuring that we create the strongest and the most vibrant climate for business development activity in our country. If we encourage more people to enter into business start-up and to encourage those businesses to grow, that can contribute significantly towards the realisation of the wider ambitions that the Government has to boost and to strengthen the performance of the Scottish economy and to create opportunities for all of our citizens to flourish through their participation within the Scottish economy. The Scotland Can Do framework was published by the Government last year and it is a shared statement of our intent along with our partners towards Scotland becoming a world-leading, entrepreneurial and innovative nation. Essentially, a can do place for business to take place. This is an ambitious framework and I want to take this opportunity to update Parliament on the elements in place to make sure that the vision that is contained within that shared statement of intent across a range of different partners is transformed into a reality of stronger business growth in Scotland and a more emphatic economic performance as a result. The framework is ambitious and I will talk more about that ambition later. I also want to emphasise that the Scotland Can Do framework is not just an ambition but an approach that draws on the very best that our nation has to offer in providing the most sympathetic and supportive climate in which companies can do business. One clear example of the approach that the Government is taking is the action that was taken to establish the Scottish Edge Fund, a competition that makes awards of up to £100,000 to some of our country's most talented early stage entrepreneurs. The concept was originally put to me by Jim Duffie of an organisation called Entrepreneurial Spark, who has a commendable track record of improving business performance and business start-up rates, as a vehicle through which to give new and innovative companies a boost towards realising their goals and their economic opportunities. The real strength of the Edge Fund is how it was taken forward in a committed partnership between the public sector, represented by the Scottish Government and its enterprise agencies, the private sector, represented by the Royal Bank of Scotland and the third sector, represented by Entrepreneurial Spark. This collaborative approach has contributed to a vibrant high-profile competition, which, since its launch at the end of 2012, has already made awards totalling over £3.3 million to 85 businesses in Scotland. In fact, winners from the first four rounds alone have gone on to create over 200 new jobs, generate an additional £8.5 million in turnover and secure external funding of more than £4.3 million, and not in considerable impact in such a short space of time. The purpose of the fund, which has been made to me strongly by many of the people involved in the community, is that although the sums of money that are distributed towards individual companies may not seem like the largest sums of money, they are absolutely critical in the business development process in enabling people to take ideas from a conceptual stage to actually implementing business ideas and giving new entrepreneurs some reasonable prospects that they can deliver greater financial performance as a consequence. I view the Scottish Edge Fund as an example of an area where the Government is able to work collaboratively with its partners and, as a consequence, to lay the foundations for a truly lasting legacy that supports business development in Scotland. That is why, towards the end of last year, I agreed that management of the Edge Fund would shift from our enterprise agencies into a new charitable company that is sponsored by the Hunter Foundation, led by Sir Tom Hunter. That will not only help to ensure a sustainable future for the Edge Fund, but it will also ensure that it is truly owned by our partners in the business development ecosystem that we have been determined to create. The ecosystem is another aspect of the approach that is encapsulated by the Scotland Can Do framework. Rather than individual organisations or initiatives being viewed or viewing themselves as the answer, our approach as a Government is characterised by developing diverse partnerships working collaboratively with other organisations to supply specific business needs. A good example of that is how Government works in partnership with local authorities, supporting them to deliver business provision through Business Gateway to Scotland's start-ups, early stage and established businesses. Business Gateway helps to support over 10,000 start-ups a year and assists over 17,000 unique businesses. Business Gateway helps to support over 10,000 start-ups a year and with an estimated annual spend of £226 million in 2014. Local authorities play a key role in facilitating support for growth in this sector. That is an area where Scotland is particularly strong and will continue to strengthen our activities. Whether it be youth or female entrepreneurship, local or social enterprise or business innovation, Scotland has a growing wealth of support mechanisms to help to realise the dreams of visionary companies and individuals. One of the clear obligations that we place on all the players within the system is that they must operate in an integrated climate where there is support offered to individuals, whichever organisations they decide to support. That is the principal concept that lies behind the business development ecosystem, where individual companies will be able to secure the necessary support that they require regardless of where they go. We place the onus on the different players in the business development ecosystem to work together co-operatively to make sure that the needs of the business community are fully and adequately met. That challenge is one in which the Government continues to engage to guarantee that we have the necessary co-ordination and collaboration to make sure that businesses are not, in any sense of the word, passed from pillar to post, which would clearly be an undesirable and a debilitating sense for new emerging businesses. I give the commitment to Parliament that we will look readily at how we can ensure that the different elements of the business development support network are properly connected to meet the needs and the ambitions of the business community. I set out some of the areas where we as a Government are helping to breed a culture of ambition, collaboration and innovation in relation to different groups within the population and different areas of activity. First of all, in relation to supporting young people to develop the skills that they need to achieve their ambitions, it is a central element of the approach to the Government's agenda in that respect. That is why we continue to work with a range of partners to ensure that the right support is available both within and beyond our education system to encourage more young people to consider entrepreneurship and to establish in their own business as an option that they may wish to take forward. John Mason, for giving way very much. I wonder if he feels that the young people in schools are being encouraged to consider entrepreneurship or having their own business, because it seems to me that sometimes there is an emphasis in the schools, as I think in my case when I was at school, that you went and worked for a big organisation. I certainly recognise the—I am not sure if Mr Mason and I were in the school system at the same time, but I suspect that we were around about the same era. I recognise the characteristic that he sets out at that time. I think that we are in a different place now because of a number of different measures that have taken place. Some of the work that our predecessors took forward through determined to succeed, which changed much of the climate in the school organisation about the interest in establishing businesses. A lot to do with the fact that significant entrepreneurs in Scotland devote a lot of their time to leading the process of awareness-raising in the schools about that point. I think that the situation is better than it was, but it is something that we must ensure is taken forward in a more commanding way. The approach is designed to ensure that young people are able to embrace the crucial characteristics that are essential in setting up a business. The work that the Government has taken forward has been designed to support that through the wider application of the curriculum, but also the partnerships that exist with entrepreneurs to raise awareness. One of the other measures is by the partnerships that we set up with organisations such as the Princess Trust. At the start of this year, I was pleased to announce over half a million pounds of support to the Princess Trust for the purchase and renovation of a new enterprise and employability hub in Glasgow. This facility, which is set to be the biggest of its kind in Scotland, will be a great resource for young people in the west of Scotland area and, indeed, for a very wide part of Scotland that will find this facility very readily accessible. The greatest resource, however, lies not just in the buildings that we have put in place, but in the people that use them and the expertise and enthusiasm that they can bring to important tasks. For many years now, the Princess Trust has played a vital role in encouraging and supporting enterprise among Scotland's young people through the provision of funding, expert advice and mentoring. I hope that out of the sustained financial support that the Government has given to the organisation, we can continue to build on that proud tradition in the years ahead. The second area where we are encouraging a greater focus on enterprise and entrepreneurship is in our colleges and universities that play a vital role in providing timely support and encouragement. The bridge to business programme that we are supporting in Scotland's colleges, first piloted in 2013, is an initiative that aims to inspire, connect and support college students into business. Its impact is now being felt widely across Scotland's college network. It is also a great example of the collaborative Scotland can do approach that I have highlighted. For example, in recent months, Bridge to Business announced link-ups with the Scottish Institute for Enterprise and the online marketplace ETSY. The former will give college students access to a broader network of support, including workshops and competitions. The latter will allow them to more easily test their business ideas in the real world. Young Enterprise Scotland deserves real credit for their innovative delivery of this exciting scheme. Our universities are also active participants in the interface model, which is designed to link academic ideas with the business community to encourage and to foster business startups. I have seen in action a whole range of different organisations that have emerged as a consequence of all that activity. Thirdly, female entrepreneurship is another priority area for improvement. A recent reminder of its importance was provided by research that was published by Professor Carter of Strathclyde University. The findings of which indicated that, if women's participation in enterprise matched that of men's, it could boost our economy by around 5 per cent. I am delighted that Professor Carter is now making a contribution to the First Minister's Council of Economic Advisers, where her global-leading research on entrepreneurship will be available for the Government to consider and to influence our framework. If the ambitions and horizons that were set out by Professor Carter in her research were translated into reality, that would equate to more than 100,000 new businesses and an extra £7.6 billion to Scotland's GVA. The achievements that can be delivered are significant if we are able to ensure that there is greater participation by women in the culture of entrepreneurship. Those are the reasons why the Government supports the development of a women's enterprise action framework, which we launched earlier last year, in conjunction with Women's Enterprise Scotland, where the only country in Europe that has this kind of collaborative policy framework to encourage women to enter entrepreneurship. However, it is action that counts, and the document outlines a range of actions to help and encourage more women to set up and to succeed in business. Various partners from the ecosystem are helping with delivery, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Business Gateway and Cooperative Development Scotland. Another key initiative that we are supporting as a Government is the development of a network of women's enterprise ambassadors. Already there are 15 ambassadors from a range of sectors and backgrounds helping to inspire and to encourage the next generation of significant female entrepreneurs within Scotland. All of that activity fits into the wider economic framework that the Government is taking forward. At the heart of that work is the emphasis that we place on innovation. As a key driver of productivity, it is essential that we deliver greater innovation to contribute towards the success of the Scottish economy. I believe that our innovation approach and the intent that we have shown by putting innovation at the very heart of our economic strategy is one of the key elements that will ensure that we have the right economic interventions in place. We intend to build on the strength of our universities, whose excellence in research was further strengthened by the fact that the research excellence framework last year found that each of Scotland's 18 higher education institutions undertakes world-leading research of significant quality and that the number of institutions and the proportion of their activity in the research excellence framework has grown into the bargain. We intend to build on the innovative contribution of key businesses such as Sky Scanner, which is one of the fastest growing businesses in the world, based here in our capital city, but driven by a constant focus on innovation and productivity improvements, which we have seen in a number of different areas in the Scottish economy. That emphasis on innovation goes along with the other key pillar of our economic strategy, which is the necessity to encourage more companies to become involved in international market activity. Evidence ensures that as businesses become more international, they also become more productive through exposure to new ideas, new technologies and new ways of working. A recent Scottish Enterprise evaluation report highlighted that companies that receive both innovation and internationalisation support report bigger impacts than those that receive one or neither. That is why, through Scottish Development International, we are working to support up to 10,000 more businesses across a range of sectors to develop the skills to go international. The whole focus of international connectivity is an essential part of encouraging more and more of the company base of Scotland to become involved in higher-value productive activity. I will draw my remarks to close by commenting on one other area where we are extending the framework that emphasis on enterprise and business development, the encouragement to organisations to become more innovative. That is to extend the message not just to the private sector business community but also to the social enterprise community within Scotland. The Scottish Government has placed a significant attention on the necessity of encouraging the development of a broader range of social enterprises that will be critical partners in ensuring that we tackle some of the inequality that exists within our society and encourages and motivates more individuals to become participants in the Scottish economy. For example, the social entrepreneurs fund that we have established plays a key role in developing new ideas that will support both our economy and the changing needs of our communities. This fund, which is delivered by Firstport, has already helped more than 280 individuals to set up and run a business with a social or an environmental purpose. Last year, I was pleased to be able to grant social investment Scotland the repayments made to loans made through the Scottish investment fund to provide match funding to create the social growth fund into the bargain. That fund represents a substantial investment in and demonstrates our commitment to social enterprises. It will provide more support for social enterprises and community business in Scotland, making them much more self-sufficient and sustainable and help them to improve the lives of people within our communities. One of the key aspects of the Government's thinking is that we want to extend the reach of this innovative framework, not just to the private sector but into the social enterprise community, and to enable that sector to make the connections that are required to deliver success. Last week, I had the pleasure of attending an event organised by Firstport, which was designed to connect social enterprises with some of the angel investment community within Scotland that are focused on ensuring that they invest for a long-term benefit of a financial but also a social and economic nature into the bargain. I was delighted to see so many of Scotland's angel investors willing to consider the opportunities that exist to invest in social enterprises and to support them into the bargain. In conclusion, the Scotland Can Do framework represents an approach that cuts across all backgrounds and sectors and will, I hope, continue to generate the entrepreneurial success and innovative approach that allows Scotland's economy to thrive. We have brought together a range of expertise through this framework within the public, private and third sectors, which gives us the ability to deliver very focused support, to encourage more people to enter the world of business development and enterprise. I look forward to sustaining this policy agenda and to the benefits that will accrue as a consequence. On that basis, I move the motion in my name. I now call Murdo Fraser to speak to and move amendment 13338.1, 12 minutes or so, Mr Fraser. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I start by welcoming this debate this afternoon on Scotland Can Do. It is clear that there is much to be done to raise the level of entrepreneurship in Scotland and the amendment that I have lodged to the motion to make some reference to the challenge. Before I turn to the detail of that, I think that it is important to set out the economic backdrop to our current situation. We are seeing good economic progress in Scotland after a difficult and turbulent period. The economy continues to grow strongly and the projections are that this will continue. Employment is at record levels. Unemployment is still on a downward trend and youth unemployment and the climate count is at its lowest since 2008. The tough decisions taken by the previous Westminster Government have paid off and the new Conservative Government will continue on the path that has helped to deliver economic success. The nature of the economy and the employment market is changing. We have seen fewer public sector jobs but more jobs created in the private sector. Since 2010, nearly 127,000 new private sector jobs have been created in Scotland, bringing us close to a near record high of over 2 million. Some 35,000 new businesses have been created over the past five years, so we are seeing some progress in the right direction. However, there is much more to do. According to the Office for National Statistics, in each year from 2011 to 2013, Scotland accounted for 7 per cent of the UK's businesses below our population share. Scotland has a below-average rate of business birth. According to the Scottish Government's own statistics, in 2013 Scotland had 49 new business registrations per 10,000 adult population in comparison to a UK figure of 67. If we take London out of the picture, the UK figure would be 58 per 10,000 resident adult, so we are still lagging behind even that. While we are getting better, we have still some way to go to match the UK average or even the UK figure if we exclude London. It is important that we set in context the very good work that is on-going and that the Deputy First Minister referred to in his opening remarks. It is not just the Scottish Government's own statistics that highlight the issue. The recently published report by the Enterprise Research Centre on Benchmarking Local Innovation and Innovation Geography of the UK shows that, in amongst parts of the United Kingdom, the three areas that have the weakest innovation performance overall are Eastern Scotland, Northern Ireland and Cumbria. Across a whole range of measures, including product and service innovation, new to the market innovation, process innovation, strategic and marketing innovation, research and development and collaboration, Scotland is consistently towards the lower end of the table according to the study. It is interesting that, if you look at the most successful areas, they tend to be in central and southern England and clusters around Cambridge and Oxfordshire are showing the greatest success, but, even in the north of England, the Tees valley is the best performing of northern local economic areas and, generally speaking, is doing better than Scotland is. It is not just in terms of the bare statistics that we are not doing as well as we should. According to those independent academic reports, we are lagging behind other parts of the United Kingdom. What would be interesting to know—perhaps the Deputy First Minister could address this in his winding up—is that the Scottish Government has done any recent research into why we perform relatively poorly. It is perhaps easy to see why our figures lag London, one of the great cities of the world with a dynamic, fast-moving economy, but we are still performing worse than the average in other parts of the United Kingdom. We will all have our own ideas as to why that should be. The Scottish economy, traditionally, has had a different structure with a larger public sector than elsewhere in the UK. We may have different cultural attitudes towards risk-taking than other parts, but before we can properly devise measures to close the gap—which must be our ambition—we need to understand the reasons for our historic poor performance. There are three national indicators on performance to help us to measure progress towards becoming a world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation. First, there is the aim to increase the number of visitors in Scotland that we have heard the statistics on those. Secondly, there is an ambition to increase spending on research and development. While that did increase in the period from 2006 to 2013, from 1.35 per cent of GDP to 1.55 per cent, that increase has been lower than the rate in the EU as a whole, meaning that the gap between Scotland and the rest of the EU has increased and we have fallen further behind. Thirdly, there is an ambition to improve knowledge exchange from university research. Always the indicator shows how much more work there needs to be done. In that context, the Scottish Government's enterprise and innovation strategy is a welcome set of measures. A whole range of initiatives have been outlined by the Deputy First Minister this afternoon that we would warmly welcome. He referenced, for example, the Scottish Edge Fund, which grew out of the entrepreneurial spark programme that was headed by Jim Duffy. I know from having spoken to people involved in that programme that what great value it is to budding entrepreneurs who very much appreciate, in particular, the experience mentoring and the provision of peer-to-peer support from those who have experience. I am also very welcome that that is supported by Royal Bank of Scotland, who has a particular ability to help to provide finance for those who are looking to start up new businesses. The Deputy First Minister referred to the work of public agencies. In the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, we are always keen to scrutinise the work done by public agencies and to look at their focus on improving entrepreneurship. The feedback that we have about agencies such as Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise tends to be very positive from account-managed companies. I think that there remains an issue as to whether we have the right level of support for companies that do not meet the criteria for account management. Is business gateway providing the right level of support for everyone else? Do we see the aligned and focused business support to improve entrepreneurial and innovative capabilities that the can-do document refers to? Do we see enough support for entrepreneurs and innovative businesses that enable them to work in the digital economy? The report also refers to access to finance. Although the situation may be improving slowly with the overall improvement in the economy, it is clear that this is still a major barrier to business expansion. What we are seeing as the committee found out last year is companies resorting to more innovative approaches such as crowdfunding or angel investors in order to raise the capital that they need, but it is still an area where serious attention is required. The action framework makes reference to the need to grow exports. I commend members the recent report from the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee on internationalising Scottish business and, specifically, our recommendations. There is a lot of good work on going, but still too few of our businesses are exporting, and those are in too limited a number of sectors. Scottish development internationalism, the lead agency, is doing good work and is highly regarded by those who benefit from its services, but is it doing enough to reach those who have the potential to export and do not currently do so? The committee also found that there is a need for a single portal for businesses needing advice on exporting, with the sense that we still have too cluttered a landscape and in some areas a necessary duplication of effort. We felt that SDI was the public agency best placed to lead this work in Scotland, having a coordinating role with the others involved and also having full engagement with the private sector. Those are all areas that need attention, but I think that the most significant part of the strategy will be in changing culture. We need to promote entrepreneurship and innovation at all levels of education, from schools through to colleges and universities. Every student at further or higher education should have some access to entrepreneurship training, because we are very good in Scotland at producing ideas and where we tend to fall down is translating them into wealth-creating businesses. The University of Scotland briefing for this debate has a lot more to say in relation to some of those ideas, and if I have time in my closing remarks, I will turn to some of those later in the debate. However, it is absolutely right to say that we need role models to inspire young people in entrepreneurship and innovation. Television programmes such as The Apprentice or Dragon's Day might provide good entertainment, but they do not always provide the most positive view of the business world. The can-do strategy has a long list of strands of work being taken forward. Those are all worthy, and it is probably the case that there is no silver bullet that can deliver the growth and entrepreneurship that we all want to see. I hope that the current strategy will deliver greater growth and entrepreneurship, and I hope that we can all share the ambition that we can make Scotland at least as entrepreneurial and nation, as our neighbours elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I am a pleasure in moving the amendment in my name. I remind the chamber that we have time available in this debate. I call Graham Pearson. Thank you for allowing me to contribute to this afternoon's debate. First of all, I commend all those who are involved in business across Scotland and the entrepreneurs, many of whom operate unseen across the landward areas, towns and cities of our country, who are committed to creating the economy that we have discussed today. Those in the private sector, the agencies and the third sector commitments do a grand service on our behalf. In that endeavour, the Government commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation is welcomed by those on this side of the chamber and will be supported in any real actions that it takes to deliver on the stated aims that Scotland can do. In consideration of those aims, we should never less identify the context in which they operate. Enterprise and entrepreneurial endeavour are not of themselves virtuous outcomes. The pursuit of profit is a necessary part of any business enterprise, but at the same time, employees, customers and the wider community should feel the benefits delivered by business in the round. Scotland and the wider UK economies are beginning to move forward, but the benefits are currently fragile and tentative at this stage and reliant on a world economy still recovering from the global economic crash that was mentioned earlier. I am happy to. The member talks about entrepreneurship and the importance that any benefits be shared around in the profits do not just appear in one place, so we agree that the ownership of new enterprises like a co-operative model employee ownership is also part of the answer here. I am pleased to acknowledge that all approaches to entrepreneurial benefit and business development has a benefit for wider communities if properly managed and properly utilised. The Industrial Communities Alliance reported in March 2015 that the upturn in economic growth is already leaving older industrial Britain behind as it described. The impact for Scotland's communities affects 17 areas across the country, including the west coast, the airshares, the central belt, including Glasgow up through Fife and many other parts of our nation. Private sector employment during the period 2009-13 saw the British employment indices rise by 3.4 per cent, whereas in the older industrial areas it was recorded at 0.9 per cent. The average British claimant rate in terms of benefit support was 10.3 per cent. In the older industrial areas of Scotland it was recorded at 15.4 per cent. Those factors taken together with the growth of zero-hour contracts, part-time working, has for many families reduced their opportunity to play a part in the economic lives of their community. No access to mortgages, to credit and absence of dependable earnings for future acts to disable whole groups of society for a generation and beyond. However, what to do in a global market where substantial parts we identify as Scottish are owned and controlled outside this country? Our fish, our spirits industry, our power industry, engineering, oil and gas are all substantially operated by overseas companies. Although located here, because of our environmental opportunities, our relatively stable society, our workforces education and expertise, transnational companies strive to make profits quite properly, but nations compete internationally in the desire to succeed and to prosper by attracting such industries to the doorstep. For some companies, that attraction to locate can be quickly undone to the detriment of dependent communities. Nevertheless, we have terrific advantages. Our environment, our education system, the quality of our people, our commitment to innovation, our ability to adapt all contribute to offering the opportunity for success in a small, well-connected nation capable of dealing with change. We also benefit from our membership of the EU, both in terms of direct funding from the EU itself but more importantly from access to a single market. We must continue to put the positive case for EU membership in the run-up to the EU referendum whenever that might be. However, that success is not a gift for the taking. It needs hard work, focus and engagement from all sectors of our communities and public authorities. It requires vision, leadership and a hunger to succeed against the ever-changing challenges globally from emerging nations on the capitalist scene such as China, India, Mexico, Turkey and, shortly, the American nations. Whilst the so-called brick economies may not have lived up to the more over-the-top hype of the last few years, emerging economies are markets with unparalleled potential. It is remarkable that China's 7.4 per cent GDP growth in 2014 was regarded by some as sluggish. Entrepreneurs and investors must be helped to access these markets. The creation of enterprise and the growth in numbers of entrepreneurs critical to the Government is very much the business of the private sector, but Governments can do more and, importantly, they can encourage success. What can we expect the Scottish Government to do? Increase its commitment to ensure that all our young people, particularly in deprived areas, gain access to university and see an opportunity for the future and report on the progress that it has achieved there. The number of young people from the poorest parts of Scotland attending our ancient universities continue to be effectively stagnant. Official figures for 2013-14 show that 196 students of 810 undergraduates accepted to study at Scotland's five medical schools were from private schools. What does that mean for people from the most deprived areas of Scotland? Chances of getting into biomedical sciences are a key area of our growth. I am happy to take the intervention. I thank the member for taking the intervention. I also acknowledge that university is not the only route to success for entrepreneurialism. Obviously, a lot of young people with many diverse talents may seek a different pathway. I, of course, acknowledge that and hope to come on to that point later on. Scottish Government should encourage universities to work even more closely with business to ensure that students are taught in tertiary education not only at the business interests but understand how to sell ideas as they go about developing businesses. Increase access by business and employers to schools from primary school onwards to develop effective mentoring and a wider knowledge of entrepreneurial skill sets and measure the results that are achieved there. Encourage and support initiatives such as entrepreneurial spark that already report impressive outcomes for the work, particularly the 82.3 per cent success rate of companies that work with the spark who are still trading today. Make the most of EU-UK regional development funds to maximise their impact on the older industrial areas. Encourage regional selective assistance. At primary school and onwards, promote students' involvement in engineering, building and skills apprenticeships. As Mr Robertson mentioned earlier, university is not always the way forward in entrepreneurial development. Commit to Erasmus, the EU initiative designed to involve Scottish young people in the wider European experience. Deliver a standard simplified and a framework procurement process for all public authorities designed to focus not solely on value for money in terms of the lowest price but consider quality and community impacts to encourage local business developments and again smart working. Redesign the planning environment to deliver timely and the responses to business needs whilst balancing community interests. Revisit the concept of city and town centres to address the evident decline that is affecting so many of our town centres and engage with retailers and businesses, particularly in having a greater influence on how development plans can be actioned for the future, for instance in the management of traffic and parking conditions. Commit to target-driven delivery of public wi-fi in our town centres and, of course, a fast-speed broadband that has been discussed in this chamber previously. Encourage the development of crowdfunding initiatives across Scotland, already growing at twice the rate of any other business in Scotland, doubling its business year-on-year in the last three years, and delivering on energy security so important to many of our main businesses. Government should deliver in reducing the unpredictability of policy outcomes. Business enjoys dependability and seeks to be able to plan in an environment that they know what is to happen. They complain about the obscure governmental language that describes policy intentions. Look to initiating substantial public projects designed to offer employment locally better to build for a future need employing our people than to pay benefits for unemployment and to create substantial work to protect intellectual property rights for those entrepreneurs that currently we do not even know about but who will develop the ideas for the future that can be removed from their possession as profits go elsewhere in the world. There is much that the Government can do to enable small business federation and chambers of commerce to tap into their practical knowledge at local level in developing ideas for the future, as well as investing in training, education and developing genuine entrepreneurial skills and develop a commitment to manufacturing products here in Scotland. In the last six months, as I have travelled to country speaking to those in business, I have been shocked at the numbers of machines that are used in our factories and our productions, of which almost exclusively come from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Scotland led the way in developing machines in a previous industrial revolution. We have the skills to develop the same expertise for the future and it is important that we should. The Government should develop and show its ability to listen to inconvenient messages from those engaged in entrepreneurial pursuits. Although I welcome the can-do action plan and will support the motion at the end of this debate, I trust that the Government realises that it does not know everything that it should know currently and needs to develop a listening ear and action those things that they hear. We now turn to the open debate this afternoon. I can't allow speeches of seven minutes or so. I still have a little bit of time for interventions. I call Linda Fabiani to be followed by Margaret McDougall. John Swinney began by saying that this Government's Scotland can do framework is ambitious. I am glad, because Scotland should have ambition. We have much to be ambitious about. We have a strong track record, historical and current of entrepreneurship and innovation. That is both individuals and companies. Of course, we have our greatest asset, our people. The can do framework recognises the great strengths and opportunities that our nation has and clearly sets out the areas for collaborative action. We recognise the key role that entrepreneurial activity plays in delivering sustainable economic growth. It is important that we look at our strengths and weaknesses in that regard, because some things are not as good as they could be. One of the things that I would quote is the number of women entrepreneurs. John Swinney mentioned that. However, how if we were able to match the number of men in entrepreneurial fields of work, we could generate a lot more for the economy. It was interesting to see that research from the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde University indicated that if women's participation rates matched that of men's, it could, in fact, boost the economy by as much as 5 per cent. I am pleased that the Scottish Government announced in March an investment of £85,000 in women's enterprise Scotland to take forward actions in the framework. It is the case that female self-employment is increasing. That is all great to talk about additional jobs, additional entrepreneurship and more people in work, but, of course, we have always got to look at the effects of that. For me, the most important key word in all of this is sustainable. For me, that means joined up thinking, and it means objectives other than merely growing the economy. For example, fair work is absolutely key to this. Again, I am pleased that, in tandem with the entrepreneurial initiatives that have been announced, we also have the fair work convention. The fair work convention is to provide independent advice to the Scottish Government on matters relating to workplaces, industrial relations, fair work and the living wage. It is all about the bigger picture, which is the objective, to reduce inequality, promote diversity and equality and, of course, increase that sustainable economic growth to the benefit of the country for all. I am pleased that the initial task of the fair work convention is developing, promoting and sustaining fair employment and a good framework for Scotland. Those things complement each other. Something else for me that is key is social responsibility. That can take many forms, both at home and, of course, in other countries. My constituency of East Kilbride has many, many examples of that. Can I mention, for example, Optical Express, which, as the member for Hamilton sitting beside me would ask me to point out, has a branch in Hamilton? Christina is wearing some of her spectacles. Optical Express does that work at home. In tandem with that, as Sighted International, it operates eye clinics in Kenya and Malawi. It is so very important, so it is about global responsibility and citizenship. We also have delivered next day personally, which is a courier service that is started by Businessman Bruce Gunn, providing work for those with disabilities and proving to be an extremely efficient and competitive company. Kansman Dynamics, robotic engineering, East Kilbride, a company that, since moving to an employee ownership model, has gone from strength to strength. The last one that I mentioned in this regard is some years ago. East Kilbride lab, Mick Jackson, had the business for good vision and Wild Hearts. Through Microtike, et cetera, his company Wild Hearts has passed on entrepreneurial skills and related social responsibility to school children in East Kilbride in Scotland and across the world. That brings me to what I think is absolutely key for this, the final key, and that is young people. I am again pleased that the Scottish Government is providing money to support the delivery of the young innovators challenge, which awards cash prizes to young entrepreneurs that develop from life-changing ideas. Entrepreneurship among young people is not as high in our country as it should be, and that has been covered earlier by others as well. They are capable of so very much. I am constantly impressed by the young people in the schools in my own town of East Kilbride, both at primary level and at senior school level. Beyond that, during apprenticeship week, when I was in East Kilbride group training association, again, the skills that were apparent from young people who had left school and decided to go for apprenticeships and engineering, the skills were immeasurable that they were showing, and also the ideas that they had about what they would do once they were qualified. So much is all about ideas. I am pleased that tomorrow—no, it is not tomorrow at all, it is Friday. On Friday, there are the go-for-set finals—go-for-set, the engineering finals every year that run for schools is taking place this Friday in Edinburgh. Yet again, there is a East Kilbride school in the final, called the Glen High School. Over the years, I have been so impressed by the ideas and skills that the young people from those schools right across Scotland have used to put together their environmental engineering schemes. Good luck to Calder Glen High School on Friday. We have the skills, we have the resource, and I believe that we jointly have the will and the motivation to succeed. I support the motion. I think that it is good that we have a framework that states quite clearly that, indeed, Scotland can do. I welcome this opportunity to take part in today's debate, Scotland can do, a framework for entrepreneurship and innovation. I am going to focus my time on the work of Jim Duffy's entrepreneurial spark, already mentioned by Mr Swinney and Murdo Fraser, which operates within Ayrshire and right across Scotland. It is also a partner within the Scotland can do framework. Entrepreneurial spark is an organisation that started in Scotland and has recently begun to expand its model to the rest of the UK, with eight hatcheries, as they are known, opening across the UK. Birmingham was launched in February, while Bristol Leeds Brighton will open in August. The remainder of the locations will be announced over the next 18 months. That is great news for entrepreneurial spark, given that they only started three years ago, and so far they have supported over 352 companies who have went on to collectively turn over just over £41 million in profit and created 1,028 jobs. In Ayrshire alone, they have supported over 40 businesses, and today I am going to focus on three very different examples, burst sparks, crucial drinks and planted money. Those examples will not only show the kind of work that entrepreneurial spark does, but also the ways in which it supports. That support can really make a difference to people's lives and their company's aspirations. Burst Sparks Ltd was created by Cass MacTamara. The company designs comfortable upright birth support, a new innovation that promotes safer, healthier births for mothers and babies. Entrepreneurial spark offered the company support in a proactive manner, giving Cass confidence, contacts and opportunities that she would not have obtained on her own. Since getting assistance from entrepreneurial spark, the company has won the edge award, the global ambition award and created three full-time jobs, and has a turnover of £260,000. Burst Sparks now has plans to open a distribution centre in Ayrshire. That example goes to show that when the right idea has the right support, people can and do succeed. The second company, set up by Scott Watson, is Crucial Drinks, a business that currently trades under the brand's The Lost Distillery Company, which is whisky, Six Saints Rum and West Indies Rum and Cain merchants. They applied to entrepreneurial spark because they wanted a risk-free environment that would coach them in starting a business from scratch while gaining them new contacts. Entrepreneurial spark helped in not only getting the idea off the ground, but also in giving Scott the confidence that he needed to leap into the unknown and actually pursue his idea, committing to a plan and a go-do. It helped to remove the clutter of the business world, allowing Crucial Drinks to take every step in achievable bite-sized chunks. That support has led to Crucial Drinks now selling over 20 trademark brands and achieving more than £1 million in turnover. It is fair to say that, without the essential support, this business idea may well have remained just an idea. The final business, Plant It Money, is a fairly recent start-up and Kyle MacDonald launched its website and mobile app officially in February of this year. It is a financial technology company that simplifies financial planning and money management. The support provided by entrepreneurial spark was invaluable as it not only allowed them to gain a key understanding of how to launch a product and improve customer relations, but provided them with the key insight into the banking sector as entrepreneurial spark have a partnership with the Royal Bank of Scotland. It has already won an award as a company with high growth potential, as entrepreneurial spark's 2014 business awards. I would like to wish them every success in their endeavours and hope that they find the same success as the two previous companies that I have mentioned. This is just a few examples to show what vital support can mean to people and their entrepreneurial ambitions. It is crucial that start-up businesses are supported and organisations are in hand to cut through the minefield of the business world. It is concerning to me that Scotland lags behind the rest of the UK in business start-ups, with only 49 new business registrations per 10,000 of the adult population in 2013. We need to up our game and organisations like entrepreneurial spark play a big role in that. Scotland can do when we all work together and properly support start-up businesses. Entrepreneurial spark is only one example of that, and many of the businesses it has supported may not have made it on their own. It is important that we encourage and develop ideas to become reality. People succeed when they are provided with the confidence to do so and it is crucial that we support organisations that assist in doing that. I particularly welcome the Deputy First Minister's encouraging words and funding to support more women entrepreneurs to realise their ambitions in business. Right now, Presiding Officer, as we have already heard, Scotland is behind the UK average in business start-ups. I do not want to see Scotland reach the UK average. I want to see Scotland surpass it, and I know that, with the proper support and investment, Scotland can do it. Presiding Officer, there is at least one server that is due to some congratulations from us all. Finding out of capable, ambitious networks, demand and opportunities is a pretty neat way of capturing the whole thing. Working computers, as I have for many, many decades, we used to do that all the time, and it used to be the greatest fun we had. I want to talk about a rather eclectic subject, but it is one that is utterly relevant to the topic of today's debate, and it is about one of the threats that comes from one of the bills that is being brought forward in the Queen's Speech last week. I specifically refer to the investigatory powers bill that the Tory Government proposes. Within that, the key proposal is a requirement for a back door in software that would enable the security services to read the content of private messages protected by encryption. That sounds all very geekish in many ways, but it really does matter. Let me acknowledge that, of course, terrorism is a very important part of the threats to business throughout the world and to people's lives across the world, and we need to respond to that in an appropriate way. However, if we are going to continue to be, as the motion says, a can-do place for business, the core proposal in the investigatory powers bill simply cannot proceed. Let me just make a few points. If you have got to protect messages—and I will talk about the kind of messages that we need to protect—open up the software that protects messages so that some people have privileged access to read it, it is going to create a whole series of difficulties. First of all, the lawbreakers simply will not use software that has back doors. They will write their own, so it will not particularly affect those who choose to break the law and conceal the content of the messages. It will affect those who are obeying the law. Those with evil intent will be unaffected. Secondly, more critically, it will open up all our financial transactions to open scrutiny and potentially interference, because if you have got a way in, that way in will become a way in for lots of people. Why does that matter for Scotland and entrepreneurs in Scotland? It matters differentially because we are a leading source of innovative software for the financial sector. Margaret MacDougall has just referred to innovative software in her remarks. That kind of software in the future and that kind of regime that is proposed to be introduced might not be produced here. We have a significant interest in producing secure banking software, but if it cannot be developed here, it will be developed elsewhere. We had reference to Sky Scanner. Sky Scanner depends on the integrity of the transaction between it and customers worldwide, not just on that little padlock that appears in the top line of your browser. Behind that is software that protects the integrity and communication between Sky Scanner and customers. The opening up through this bill proposed by the Tories in the Queen's speech will damage the integrity of that protection. That is not just theoretical. Already in the United States, Phil Zimmerman, the creator of the world's most widely used email protection system, which is called Pretty Good Privacy, otherwise known as PGP, has already started to move his company to Switzerland because the United States Government is doing something similar. And if legislation proceeds in this way, high-tech, high-value contributors to our being, what the motion refers to, as entrepreneurial and innovative nation will simply depart. It is quite easy to do because these are not people with fixed assets here, big factories. The intellectual skills in their people are what can move and they can move tomorrow without any substantial difficulty. You have to accept too. Once you create a backdoor, the knowledge of that backdoor is supposed to be to the security services, but to lots of people in the security services inevitably will leak. The most secure software is always open source software, where everyone can look at the algorithm and improve it. The secrecy is in the key, a unique piece of information held by a single person. The operation and algorithms of backdoors will inevitably be by possible. If they are thought to be secret, they will soon be disclosed. None of this is new. Napoleon's peninsula or war campaign was undermined by Wellington's cryptologist George Scovel. He was able to read the intercepted and encrypted orders to the French troops rapidly and routinely. Napoleon lost the war because that was able to happen. Each generation moves on to new methods of protecting information. In World War I, the Cherokees and the Choctaw Indian tribes were used over the radio because nobody could understand what their languages said. In World War II, the Navajo, the Lakato, the Miscawi and the Comanche and even BASCs were used to protect information. The need to protect information in the centre of environments is nothing new whatsoever. The UK lost out a key opportunity. We have all got a little token that we use for accessing the Parliament's websites and facilities. It has the letters RSA on it that we use—Rivesch, Shamir and Edelman—American mathematicians who developed a very secure way of communicating. Of course, 30 years ago, a single sheet of A4 was a secret document that only came to light 10 years ago, which shows that nearly 10 years before Rivesch, Shamir and Edelman developed their system, GCHQ and its predecessors were already developing it. We lost the commercial opportunity in the UK and now the USA control things. It is important that innovation is not stifled by legislators simply not understanding the importance of and manners of working that there are for technology. Now, if we were to proceed with the proposal in the Queen's speech, we will no longer be as secure in our banking and communication as we currently are. That is a huge risk. Migration of services will inevitably take place, as is already beginning to happen in the United States. It will damage a key sector of the economy of the UK as a whole, but differentially, for Scotland, it is even more important. I hope that the cabinet secretary will think about this, and his officials will think about it, that we will be able to work all the parties here with colleagues at Westminster to make sure that that does not happen. Disappointing the Liberals are not with us today because I know that they are sensitive to this and will be on-site for helping to oppose this particular so-called innovation to protect us from terrorism. It will not do that, but it will damage business if it goes ahead in the form proposed, and I hope that we will all oppose it. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is always a challenge to follow Stuart Stevenson. I am certainly not going to be talking about investigatory powers, snoopers charters. I was going to start with a note of history, but Mr Stevenson has already taken us back to the era of Napoleon, so I am a wee bit snookered on that. Nevertheless, Scotland is, of course, the birthplace of Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Fleming and James Watt, and it is no stranger to innovation. The challenge, of course, is to turn innovators into entrepreneurs. The Can Do framework recognises the strengths and opportunities that our nation has. Linda Fabiani has talked of the need to increase the number of women entrepreneurs, but we also need particularly to encourage the young. Of course, our schools, colleges and universities have an important role to play in encouraging the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, but youth unemployment rates will now at their lowest levels since 2008 are still too high, and self-employment rates for under 34s, a key group for innovators and new enterprises, are still some way behind older workers, so encouragement is needed. The Princess Scottish Youth Business Trust, established earlier this year following the merger of the Princess Trust and Youth Business Scotland, does an excellent job in providing support to young people looking to start and grow their own businesses, but more can be done, however. For example, by the introduction of explore enterprise courses in Scotland, currently the nearest four-day course for aspiring entrepreneurs in Scotland is in Berwick on Tweed. Wales and Northern Ireland, on the other hand, will be home to five and seven such courses respectively, so I, for one, would welcome an attempt to have some of those courses a bit nearer to home. On a more positive note, the provision of a £205,000 grant from the Scottish Government to support the young innovators challenge as part of Scotland Can Do is welcome, as Linda Fabiani has already mentioned. It is just one way in which future generations of entrepreneurs are being supported in Scotland. The 2015 theme of the young innovators challenge is social innovation and entries that could address problems and create opportunities related to healthcare and wellbeing, low-carbon and sustainability, and smarter communities are invited. Emphasised throughout the document is smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, with a hope that it will accelerate Scotland's ambition to be a world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation. The Horizon 2020 programme, of course, emphasises the need for sustainable development. Presiding Officer, nowhere is innovation and the pursuit of sustainable growth more ably displayed than at the University of St Andrews, which continues to make a profound impact on innovative new projects every academic year and undoubtedly provides a significant influence on some of its students. In 2013 research into the use of a tractor beam until then, nothing more than a fantastical idea from the mind of Jean Roddenbury, brought to life by the film and TV series of Star Trek, the love of Roseanna Cunningham, was led by academics in St Andrews, who is not with us today, but with us in spirit probably. The Physics Department at the University also recently opened the doors to its brand new unique state-of-the-art research laboratory that will allow it to conduct further work into the use of lasers and the study of individual atoms. Elsewhere at the university, the biology department and the sea mammal research unit have led the way in research into the world's oceans and the behaviour of some sea mammals through the tagging and tracking of harbour seals. It is this kind of work that sets St Andrews apart in Scotland as being the home of some of the most groundbreaking scientific research. Scotland, of course, has a key role to play in research and it is really pleasing that, according to the research excellence framework published in December, all Scotland's universities are undertaking world-leading research. It should not be the case however that Scotland's universities work independently from the business sector when it comes to research and innovation. There is a great deal of collaboration that can take place between the two sectors. Again, St Andrews is leading the way on this front, with the forthcoming 25 million energy eco hub at Guard Bridge, which could one day be home to new renewable technologies and training opportunities. The potential for the university's Guard Bridge site has not yet been fully tapped, but I am delighted that the Scottish Government, together with the European Regional Development Fund, has invested in it to the tune of £11 million worth of funding for the project. It is this type of potential collaboration between our universities and our business community that will indent gender new links and new opportunities for future generations of Scotland's workforce and provide fresh and exciting opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs. North East Fife is, of course, no stranger to entrepreneurialism. Dozens of sole trading firms or small businesses are flourishing in the rural economy, courtesy of not least super-fast broadband connectivity, but we must encourage super-fast broadband everywhere. Without that connectivity, opportunities for innovation and for budding entrepreneurs will undoubtedly be diminished. The provision of suitable facilities from which to trade is also essential to success for entrepreneurs, which is why the fresh start scheme is also important. Of course, we can point to an increase in the number of businesses in Scotland, even if, as Murdo Fraser pointed out, the number of business startups has not caught up with the rest of the UK. I, too, will be interested to hear comments from the cabinet secretary on that in his closing speech. However, business gateway fulfills a valuable role supporting 10,000 startup businesses every year. Hopefully, the banks will provide funding more readily in the future. That is an essential for entrepreneurs. It is hopeful that they will provide more funding than they have done in the past, but there are early signs, according to the press, that things are easing. The Scottish Government is playing its part through the development of the Scottish Investment Bank. Let us not forget the importance of the small business bonus, a lifeline for many new businesses while they get up and running. I am delighted by the First Minister's commitment to that in the next Parliament, should this Government be re-elected. While the powers contained within the community empowerment bill to give local authorities new powers to create local business rate relief schemes, to meet local priorities is much welcomed. Scotland can do that because it already does. The potential exists to do much more, however. Many thanks. I now call Ann McTaggart to be followed by Mark McDonald. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I take the opportunity to express my pleasure in taking part in this important debate this afternoon. The Scotland can do framework was launched to set out areas of priority in which the Scottish Government can act to see that Scotland becomes a world-leading and innovative nation for business. It is only right that we commend the work of the stakeholders who have contributed to the framework so far and the many issues that have been raised should further instruct the Scottish Government as it sets out to achieve the aims of this report. It is clear to me that underpinning the need for further innovation entrepreneurship is the importance of staying part of the European Union. As part of the EU's SPART specialisation platform, Scotland is able to promote focus on areas within the country that provide unique competitive advantage, which, given the distinctive nature of some of our Scottish businesses, is crucial in allowing those companies to flourish in the global marketplace. Scotland, of course, has always had a tradition of innovation and skill in business. As a nation, we have produced world-class entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and can lay claim to having invented the modern world. Those past achievements should rightly be celebrated but, more importantly, current successes such as the development of the next generation's prosthetic limbs by touch bionics and Alexander Dennis's limited hybrid buses are at the forefront of research and development in the world today. Equally important is the recognition that it will be this kind of research and development funding and work that will provide Scotland with a 21st century economy and deliver employment in areas not yet created. However, there are many challenges to be overcome if Scotland is to reach its full potential. Skills for growth, sales and technology were all identified as underdeveloped by the Scottish Government's report, so to securing appropriate finance for many growing businesses. I welcome the involvement of organisations such as Interface, which have introduced more than 1,800 businesses to academic partners over the past few years. I also welcome the work of Scotland's universities, which work with 19,000 Scottish businesses every year, but I acknowledge that that must be built upon. I believe that Scotland's attitude to entrepreneurship has to evolve. We require further inclusion in schools, further education and a cross-society increase awareness of the opportunities starting to own business can provide. We need to see an increase in collaboration between our public, private and third sectors, strengthening each sector as we move towards a highly skilled, highly waged economy. Crucially, we need to ensure that people are encouraged from all walks of life to become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses. I welcome the opportunity to have this debate this afternoon about the future of Scottish business. I commend the Government on its efforts so far, while acknowledging that there is still much work to be done. We need to see continued increases in research and development funding, further support in finance for growing businesses and provision of adequate places, particularly in further education, in order to train and upskill the entrepreneurs of the future. I speak in this debate from the perspective of somebody whose father, in 1998, took the decision with one of his fellow employees at a company to go and start up their own company, their own business, which is still going to this day and has grown from the point at which they developed it. I have a keen interest in seeing the entrepreneurs and the business people of the future being supported, because I have seen firsthand how businesses that are developed from a very early idea can grow and flourish. It is worth noting that, while undoubtedly acknowledged by the Deputy First Minister, there is a road still to travel in some areas and there is still work that needs to be done, hence the establishment of the Scotland Can Do framework. However, it is worth noting that between 2008 to 2013, which is the last period that figures are available for, the number of business births, as you will, in Scotland increased by 32.8 per cent. That was as a comparison to a 29.8 per cent increase for the UK as a whole. While I accept that Mr Fraser and I could trade statistics, there is a positive trend in business startups in Scotland. Indeed, the number of businesses in Scotland in 2006 was 351 per 10,000 adults. It is now 377 per 10,000 adults. There has been progress. Undoubtedly, there is still work to be done. I think that what this debate will help to crystallise is some of the ways in which that work can be carried forward. One of the welcome measures that the Scottish Government has put in place has been the small business bonus scheme. Speaking to small businesses in my constituency, for many of them, those who started up following the small business bonus scheme have seen it as a very important factor in weathering them through those early years. Often, when a business starts up, it can be difficult to get things going early on, and financial pressures can be at the early stages. Things such as the small business bonus are absolutely important to businesses, especially when they are set against a wider context. In Scotland, and I appreciate that the same will exist in parts of England, but in Scotland and particularly in the north-east of Scotland, often the distance that needs to be travelled in order to get products to customers and to markets outside of the immediate local area is that little bit further and therefore incurs an additional cost. There are also the recent changes to VAT that took place, which pushed VAT up to 20 per cent. That again affects the margins for those companies and often can be the difference between somebody choosing to pursue an idea and somebody saying that that idea at this particular stage will not be taken forward. I note that Mr Fraser suggested that what we needed to see more of were role models to whom young people in particular could aspire to. Being the helpful soul that I am, I have brought along two such role models with me, not literally, but I have brought along two examples of entrepreneurs in the north-east of Scotland who I think are the very kind of role models that we should be pushing out there. Indeed, they are being pushed out there certainly in the north-east of Scotland. One of those is Jamie Hutchins, who his business is not in my constituency, but I have had the pleasure of meeting Jamie and sampling the products that he produces. He established a company called Coco Ooze, which is a chocolateeers manufacturing high-quality chocolate products. He established that in 2008 at the age of just 17. Now, in 2015, he employs a team of 25 people and has a coffee shop and chocolate workshop in the city centre of Aberdeen, providing opportunities for people to go in and do their own chocolate making workshops and parties. Recently, he won the Young Talent Award at the Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards. Jamie decided to do that while training to be a chef and working alongside a master chocolatier and decided from there that this was the route he wanted to pursue. Another individual who is based in my constituency is Dr Deborah O'Neill, who established the company Nova Biotics in 2004, which was a spin-out company working in the biotech area, developing anti-infectives for difficult-to-treat medically unmet diseases. Nova Biotics has been a very big success story in the north-east of Scotland, and Deborah O'Neill was awarded entrepreneur of the year at the 2014 Grampian Awards for Business Excellence. I highlight those two examples for a couple of reasons. One, because there are two individuals who have shown entrepreneurial excellence and are the kind of people who we should be pushing out there as role models. Another, because they came into the entrepreneurial field in very different directions. One, through working first hand from a very young age and determining that he wished to establish his own business. Another, through the academic and university spin-out route, which again is something that we should be pushing and highlighting, particularly to those who are developing some of the excellent research in our universities as to how that research can then lead to business opportunities in the future. I am happy to take an intervention from Mr Mason. John Mason, with great interest to Mr Macdonald's constituents. He said that role models, and I wonder if he knows if they have been going into schools at all, because we have picked up, I feel a little bit, that maybe the school pupils are not being exposed very much to people who have set up their own businesses. I could not say offhand whether either of the two individuals that I have mentioned have been in the local schools, but I do know that one of the things that I speak to often when I speak to head teachers in my constituency is about the drive to establish enterprise networks in schools, enterprise clubs and to push pupils to consider operating small businesses within the school. Often, when I go to the school fairs, as we all do in our constituencies, you can see pupils at those fairs selling products that they themselves and the enterprise groups within the schools have produced. I think that that work is on-going in our schools. I note that the clock is ticking, so there is one final point, if I may, Presiding Officer.  It may be ticking, but I can certainly give you the time back for the intervention. Oh, well, okay. I can see other members instantly regretting that. One final point, if I may, Presiding Officer. That is around the opportunity that can arise from adversity. In the north-east of Scotland just now, we have a situation where, in the oil and gas sector, there are individuals who are facing potential redundancies, but, at the same time, often from those situations, individuals who have never given thought to establishing their own business may choose to do so if the right support is there and if the opportunity to take that direction is there. As well as the excellent work that is being done by the energy jobs task force in trying to find new employment for individuals. I wonder if we should also be looking at what opportunities are there to maybe have the advice and support given to those individuals who find themselves either in a situation of redundancy or at risk of redundancy in the oil and gas sector. To maybe consider moving into establishing their own business, given especially that oil and gas is identified as one of the eight innovation centres. I hope that that is an idea that, if it is not already being taken forward, might be considered. I will leave it at that, Presiding Officer. Many thanks. I now call John Mason to be followed by Siobhan McMahon. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. To start with, as Mark McDonald did, I would say that there are some very encouraging signs in this area. I noted in one of the briefings that the total early stage entrepreneurial activity rate TEA among young people aged 18 to 29 has more than doubled from 3 per cent in 2008-9 to 8 per cent by 2012-13, but it has been pointed out fairly by other speakers that we have room for improvement. I think that when we look back in Scotland traditionally we have been good at starting our own businesses and even growing them as well to become world-class organisations. However, somewhere along the line, it seems to me that it has become the norm that we should be employees rather than self-employed. There seems to have been a shift over time that that was the way to go. As I said earlier, during my time at school, that was the way that we were probably encouraged to go. Still, I wonder how many young people have thought of starting their own business. I share Mark McDonald's experience of going into schools and products being sold. However, I think that there is still a bit of a jump from that to people leaving school and starting their own business either immediately or later on. Sometimes the kind of work that we do does often run in families and someone who is self-employed may well train up a son or a daughter in preparation for taking over the family business. Clearly, that is not inevitable and I firmly believe that youngsters can and do choose very different routes from their parents. However, if children grow up in a particular family environment, be that self-employment or in the caring professions or whatever, perhaps we should not be surprised if the tendency is for that young person to go down a similar route. This week, I actually have a young person in my own office in Parliament today on work experience. Because I was preparing for this debate, I was asking him about this and what kind of people were coming into the schools to talk to them about careers. He said that his school was very good at getting a range of people in to speak to the students about opportunities, but it did tend to be from larger businesses, and maybe there weren't from small businesses and people who had set up their own businesses. There is an issue there with time, because, as Mark McDonald said, one of his examples was somebody who was studying and running their own business. Clearly, they do not have a lot of time to be going into schools, but I think that it is an issue. I appreciate the cabinet secretary's point that schools may have changed marginally since I left. However, I do feel that there is still a little bit of an issue there. However, as I said, the lad who is doing some work experience with me said that he felt that there was less emphasis on self-employment and that they were not particularly being encouraged to go in a particular direction where there definitely would be jobs. I think that, generally, that is an issue that we have touched on before, that schools do not just point young people to where they might like to go but also where there will be jobs. Clearly, we do not want to try and fit round pegs into square holes, but we have responsibility to say to young people the areas where jobs might be coming up. It has to be said that some so-called self-employment is a bit artificial, and especially around the building industry. In fact, it is tax and other legislation that encourages what is called self-employment for people—in many cases, it is men—to all intents and purposes as employees. From that point of view, I do not think that we want to go down that route just to get the numbers of women up to match the number of men who are self-employed. Over the years, I note that some of my colleagues have given examples of businesses in their constituencies, so I do not want to be any different on that regard. Over the years, I have come across a number of people who have set up their own businesses, not just in my constituency but beyond. For eight years or so, I worked for a nursing home group based in Lanarkshire, which, interestingly, was run by an Egyptian surgeon. I learnt a lot from that, not least when you are part of a small management team, the buck stops with you and you have to put in whatever hours it takes to work through the problems that that business might face at any particular time. Clearly, that is an issue going back to what Linda Fabiani said about encouraging more women, that if women continue to be the main carers, that becomes a big challenge for them. So there is a number of connected issues that we need to deal with. Secondly, I seem to remember in a previous debate, I mentioned the guy who fixed my boiler, or replaced my boiler, I should say, in my flat. He was somebody who had started training with one of the big energy companies and had been employed by them. When he worked there, if they were replacing a boiler, they had one person to do the gas, one person to do the water, one to do the electrical work and someone else to repair the plaster work. But when he moved out and set up on his own, it meant that he had to have all these skills himself. He had the challenge of finding new work to actually do, but on the plus side, he got the financial and the satisfaction rewards of being in control of his own destiny. My third example is a young guy who moved into our constituency, I think, from Strunrar or down that way. He actually took over a small business within the constituency. I have to say that I was hugely impressed at his doing this. It was not an easy market to be in. It was highly competitive and, as I said, he was not even from the Glasgow area. I found it interesting that he had the self-confidence to do that when many older folk, even ones who might have known that sector better, would not, frankly, have had the guts to do that. I think that self-confidence is part of the issue in here. That is a national issue, and it is a deeper and a cultural issue as well, that part of setting up your own business is having the self-confidence to do it. Frankly, it is not necessarily something that I myself would have felt when I was younger. One of the fastest-growing small businesses in the east end of Glasgow has to be the west, microbrewery, pub and restaurant. Interestingly, that was set up by a woman, Petra Witzel, who came to Glasgow from Germany to train as a solicitor and has moved on to turn around a struggling business in around 2006-2008. She has overcome the challenge of being in a slightly difficult location to the east, further east in the city, beyond the merchant city, where there is a lot of passing trade. She does not get the same kind of passing trade. She has had to build up a reputation so that people deliberately go to west in order to get their products. I have to commend them for some of their products, including a German-style beer made in Scotland, which I think is pretty well unique. Their beers are now widely available and they are expanding in a variety of directions. One of their slogans is Glaswegian Hart with a German head, which challenges us to consider other combinations where a new business could draw ideas from other parts of the world but developed in a Scottish context. As we are encouraged to use more time, I thought that I would throw in another local business, which is Vanilla Blush. They are based in Bridgeton and have the interesting business that they sell attractive underwear and swimwear, but it is for people who have had a colostomy or other similar procedure. Again, it is a very niche market but it is selling worldwide on the internet. I have to say that I am disappointed that my colleague along here, Gil Paterson, is not speaking today because he is certainly one of us who has run his own business, and I am sure that he could have shared a lot of experiences with us, but he has chosen not to do so unless he wants to intervene. I found it interesting that, of the examples that I gave you, two involved non-Scots, one in Egyptian and one in German. Is it in some cultures, is it in some backgrounds that they are more used to setting up their own businesses and running their own businesses? Mr Stevenson? I wonder if there is perhaps a bit more entrepreneurship around than we perhaps recognise, because it is not all commercially applied. If a church runs a coffee morning, they are being entrepreneurs, they are getting in money, providing themselves, and the people involved are entrepreneurs, perhaps the difficulty is moving people from that position of being able to do something that is capable of earning money into running a business and all the paperwork and administration that goes with that and perhaps not fully understanding and feeling confident that they can do that. Perhaps we are entrepreneurs, perhaps we just need that little bit of leg up into commercial exploitation. That is fair, and I am interested to say that Mr Stevenson uses that word confident again in his question, which I touched on earlier on. I think that that is definitely part of the issue in all that. I feel sometimes that the UK system, too, encourages people not to grow their own businesses but to sell out. It does seem that some countries are better at keeping that. We already mentioned when I intervened in Mr Pearson that we should look at other kinds of ownership, such as employer ownership and co-op. In conclusion, I am very supportive of the re-emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation. I hope that we can see more businesses started in Scotland and that they can grow and develop without necessarily losing their own local routes and ownership. I thank the cabinet secretary and the Government for bringing forward this debate to allow us to discuss the Scotland Can Do framework for entrepreneurship and innovation. As a society, of course, we should be grateful for the contribution of our entrepreneurs. I am happy to have the opportunity to put on record my own admiration for the spirit that they have shown to get where they are and to state my hope that we in this chamber will do all that we can to support them. I was reminded while I was preparing for my speech today of the so-called You Didn't Build That speech given by President Obama on the US campaign to in 2012. I am sure that many of you will recall that the president was justised by the rival Republican campaign as playing down entrepreneurs and their contribution to American society. In fact, the point that he was making was a sensible one that we would do well to remember today. Nobody, no matter how successful they are, got there alone. Those who have achieved success should be congratulated for it, but should never be forgotten that our public services built the schools that taught them, the hospitals that cared for them and all the other services that they have relied upon. By all means, I recognise the efforts and drive of the go-getters, but the contribution of the public and private sector workers who helped them to get where they are today are just as worthy of our adulation. In the many sterile forward of Scotland can do, building on our vision to become a world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation, the cabinet secretary seemed to recognise this point, writing in emboldened letters that enterprise and growth must be accessible to all for the benefit of all. The aspiration to maximise the potential of entrepreneurs for the betterment of our entire society is undoubtedly shared across this chamber and Scotland. I said before, and I really mean it, that our Parliament works best when we come together across party lines and work towards improving the lot of our constituents. I recognise some of the efforts that are made by the Government in this area. I accept that in many ways the Scottish Government is hindered in efforts to make this statement a reality by our regressive Tory Government, who do not share the values. However, the Scottish Government must be held accountable for the areas over which it accepts full control. As the Opposition, it is our obligation to bring those matters before the Government, because at the moment the enterprise and growth that the Government members are talking about just isn't seven everyone in our communities. As the Scottish Labour Party spokesperson for women's employment, I would like to go into a bit more detail about the challenges that women face. I am happy to say that this Government and its predecessor deserve real credit for the entities in the number of women who are self-employed compared to 2004. However, there is yet work to be done on that front. As of 2013, only 7.8 per cent of women, in comparison to 15 per cent of men who were self-employed, while statistics from the Clos-the-Gap partnership project indicate that only one-third of chief executive officers in Scotland are women. As Linda Farby-Annie read it earlier, a professor of entrepreneurship at Rathdaud University, Sarah Carter, demonstrated the entrepreneurial disparity in those numbers, stating, if rates of women-led businesses equal those of men, the contribution to Scotland's gross value added would increase by £7.6 billion to £13 billion. That equates to a 5.3 per cent growth in the size of the Scottish economy. I welcome the initiatives that the cabinet secretary spoke about in his opening speech, particularly the network of women ambassadors. I hope that this goes some way to challenging the figures that we have in front of us today. We all know that science, technology, engineering and math sector is one of the fastest-growing areas of our economy, and that it is in this area that we need as many qualified people as possible in. Yet the scale of occupational segregation in the sector remains truly astonishing. Out of 24,000 engineering apprentices, only six to eight were female last year. Stars from Skills Development Scotland do not suggest that we can expect this to get much better in the years to come, with 85 per cent of those doing IT courses at school male. At a high school level, it is clear that we are just not doing enough to promote the STEM subjects to young women. Too few or even those few women who do graduate with a degree in a STEM subject did not pursue their subject for a career. With the Government's 2015 maximising economic opportunities for women in Scotland report demonstrating that 73 per cent of female STEM graduates do not work in the field after graduation. It used to be that advances in science and technology liberated women now have the potential to hold them back. All science suggests that the jobs of the future will come from the industries that women are less likely to work in. If we are not careful, we will lock women out of those career paths and track them in traditional roles, which are often low-paid and low-skilled. Even the Government's one flagship modern apprenticeship programme seems to only reinforce gender segregation. As many here will already know, in 2012-13, 98 per cent of construction apprentices were male and 97 per cent of children's care apprentices were female. A debate that seems to be fundamentally about how we empower our constituents to turn their true potential, it would be remiss of me not to mention the damaging impacts that cuts to college places have added on women's prospects of studying STEM subjects. Since 2007-08, there has been a drop of 41 per cent in the number of women at college. With damaging cuts like that, how can we expect women to fulfil their promise? As I bring my speech to a close, I would like to remind everyone here that there are some of the pertinent facts. On average, women working full-time in Scotland earn £95.60 a week less than their real counterparts, and it is still common for women to take a cut in the pay grade and job status to find suitable, flexible work. Until we write those wrongs, we will never unlock the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation of 50 per cent of our population. Scotland can do, but it must do more. I will now call on Clare Adamson to be followed by Chick Brody in seven minutes. I am delighted to rise in support of the Scotland Can Do framework, which makes clear Scotland's ambition and sets out the priority areas where the Scottish Government continues to support and act to see Scotland become a world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation. Like many of my colleagues in the chamber today, I had a life and career prior to politics in the information technology sector. I was an oracle project manager with a number of consultancy firms and later laser European development manager for a global document management company launched in Glasgow. I hope that you will indulge me a little in my personal interest if I concentrate on the fantastic digital technology economy in Scotland today. That is, of course, if Mr Stevenson has not scared them off to the Swiss Alps. I take a keen in the industry body, Scotland IS, and I would like to reference a recent press release from them, How Scotland Learned to Create the Billion Dollar Tech Unicorns. Its rates of Scott Tech sector is thriving, even with a venture capital problem. It may have escaped the attention of Old Street, but the technologists of Silicon Glen have been busy of late. For the last few months, Fanjol, fantasy sports specialist that hailed from Edinburgh, have looked likely contenders to become the second £1 billion company to emerge from the Scottish capital following the success of flight comparison sites Sky Scanner, which attained unicorn status only this February and also began in Edinburgh. Sky Scanner CEO Gareth Williams had a vision of a single website that could collect, collate and compare prices for every commercial flight in the world. From a simple Excel spreadsheet, Sky Scanner was born. This company has grown to become the number one flight search engine in Europe, and in 2011 a Singapore office was open to help to grow Sky Scanner in the Asia-Pacific market. It now operates worldwide, UK, Singapore, Beijing, Shenzhen, Barcelona, Sofia and Budapest. It is simply one of the great success stories of entrepreneurship in Scotland. Scotland-Gaeth go on it in its article to talk about the support that is given to the tech industry in Scotland. Code Basin Edinburgh is housed in an unassuming civil service building in the south side of the city. It is sprawled across three floors, the incubator, houses some of the keenest technology firms in the whole of Scotland. It is a spin-off from a previous startup incubator known as TechCube, and the project's founding companies literally put up walls and just got down to business. Code Basin is perhaps one of the most prominent examples of the Scottish tech sector coming together to support its members, tenants and the incubators enjoy a host of formal and informal benefits from monthly leases to regular meetings in which they can swap tips in the industry. In the interest of Mr Stevenson to know that despite some of the threats to the software industry that may come as a result of the Queen's speech, one of the things highlighted by Code Basin users is the quality of life in Scotland. It is great that the industry has been at the forefront of advocating better working conditions such as assets and the assets are hardly trivial given that they are based in the rolling hills of Scotland, and it is a much more likely home for unicorns than the camped, smoky city of London. If I can stick with those unicorns this time of the fantasy variety, the world of fantasy games entertainment is about as far away from my own experience as it is possible to be. But as a co-chair of the cross-party group on computer games industry, it would be remiss of me not to mention the great work that has been done to support entrepreneurs in this area. Later this month, Expo North will take place in Inverness. In the last couple of years, Expo has been increasing the presence of games and computing games companies. Last year, it saw a dozen companies taking part in a games playground, showing off their titles to an audience of hundreds of creative industry types from music, film, television and other areas of the creative industries. In a recent report, the Tiga Association of Independent Games Developers Association's Tiga published a report called Scotland's video games industry's blooming and contributes £99 million to the UK GDP. The research was carried out between 2012 and 2013, and some of the areas that Tiga highlighted as the number of game-developing studios grew from 81 to 94, an increase of 16 per cent, the number of creative staff in studios grew from 766 to 964, an increase of 26 per cent, the number of jobs has increased by 18 per cent, and combined direct and indirect tax revenues generated by the sector for the Treasury increased from 35 million to 41 million, an increase of 17 per cent. That means that Scotland now represents 11.4 per cent of the UK total games companies, up from 8.8 per cent in 2012. The Scottish games industry is a high count of 2,726 employees, 10 per cent of the entire UK video games industry headcount, and it truly is one of our success stories. If I could quote Paul Durant, who is the director of business development at Abertau University, an institution that has become synonymous with the games industry, he says that he has been involved in establishing and operating incubation-type support facilities for fledging games companies since 1999. We must grow the volume of new IP creation in a greater number of early-stage companies to maximise our chances of picking and nurturing the potential winners so that they secure success in the international market. Well-disciplined and properly resourced business incubation will help to sustain those startups and build them into UK companies of scale. I could not agree more. Of course, Mr Durant Abertau University also serves as the governing body and member of the national virtual incubator. That offers support to the tech startups, young entrepreneurs and students incubating breakthrough business ideas. It involves research facilities, linking up science parks and academia all in the support of the industry. I was delighted this year when the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee conducted its inquiry into the economic impact of film, TV and video games industries. The committee believes that the video games industry in Scotland is full of talent, enthusiasm and ingenuity. It is a fast-paced industry, quite unlike any other, which provides high-quality job opportunities. We heard that, for the industry to thrive, it needed to be able to attract and retain talented people by creating sustainable and successful businesses. I believe that Scotland can do that. I now call on Chick Brody to be followed by Dr Elaine Murray. Seven minutes are there by preamist. I support the motion tonight. I do so because I am passionate about my nation and its performance. I have been somewhat lucky in my past to have run international businesses, to have helped small companies start up, to turn around companies that have been in trouble and I have never been disappointed by the challenge that is being faced by those that are being involved with at home and the acceptance of Scotland's position to support, manage and skill international businesses. I support the motion and I am passionate about the subject. There are many ways to define the success of a nation, whether it be financial, security of environment, energy supply, health, education or more certainly, and amalgam of all those. There can be only one certainty to distribute wealth and prosperity fairly, and that is to create it. Enterprise, growth and prosperity should be there for the benefit of all. That will only become, I believe, a focused economic strategy with a defined sector approach where we have or can have a competitive advantage. With improved productivity and outcomes, with innovation, yes, certainly from the R&D departments of our universities and the consequent technology transfers that flow from that, but also on the inquiring and solution-driven minds across our nation. All done, I believe, increasingly with the partnership of government, business and communities and also with, I believe, an increasing partnership of capital and labour. We do, Presiding Officer, have some internationally competitive entrepreneurs and I applaud the work that Scottish Development International does in supporting those. We have creative, educated and skilled people. A challenge, I think, is that we need more of them and that is where I believe the framework provides the foundation stone upon which to build.  Those growing businesses are a significant asset, but so are our natural assets and resources and we should not diminish those. I was happy only two weeks ago to put together investors and developers to look at our natural mineral resources with a happy conclusion that we have gold in Ayrshire and hopefully we will see development of that soon, but not just that. Nickel, cobalt, silver, all of the rare earths that we need to support potential export industries. The first challenge of any economic strategy is to establish, I believe, a vision of the kind of nation that we want to be, not just economically and internationally but socially at home. Mr Fraser raised some issues that we have discussed at the economy committee, but even he cannot deny that there has been, in a lot of cases, an acceptance of the challenge that faces us and to develop the opportunities that we believe lie in our way. Consider now, in that vision, what we should do now is to consider now an on-going, our strengths, acknowledge our weaknesses, seek, certainly seek opportunities and face and dispense with the threats that we also face. It is a meaningful SWOT analysis that provides us with our occurring basis to fully develop all of the economic strategies to support the vision that we have. Firstly, it is competitive at home and abroad. Secondly, it is reducing inequalities at home. That will, as a consequence—I have seen it elsewhere—generate increased productivity, as, indeed, will, thirdly, greater participation and stakeholder of employees in the workplace and in company outcomes, both in the public and the private sectors. Fourthly, it is innovative, not just as mentioned through the vehicles of the university R&D departments, but of the ideas of evolution and, indeed, the ideas of revolution that flow from the likes of East Parkes, which has been mentioned, social enterprises certainly and the third sector also. I give you one example. I was told of a guy who walked in off the street into one of our new business startup hubs and said that he believed that he could dry washing on roadways in the rain. Of course, everyone laughed. It is impossible. Until he produced this design of an umbrella and a canopy that was fitted to a rotary dryer, and, indeed, guess what? Yes, you can dry washing in the rain. Competitive, yes, innovative, yes, productive, certainly, and using techniques that have been used for some years past in terms of lean, kaizann, six-signor, and all the up-to-date improved productivity methods. Like myself, having been in technology, I remember Andy Grove, chief executive of Intel's autobiography, Only the Paranoid Survive, where he talked about suddenly coming in on several occasions on a Monday morning finding his business at all but vanished. Isn't flexibility and inability to respond to rapidly changing circumstances an equally important part of what makes a real entrepreneur who will be successful for the long term? It also requires the involvement of all the workforce to accept that capability. One of the other things that I talked about is skill investment. We have to expand our skill base to burst, for example, the gender bubble that says that it is okay, for example, for some women to work on oil rigs in the North Sea, but to do the catering, not the engineering, and certainly, as it has been called for, we need much more women entrepreneurs. In defining, Presiding Officer, the focused markets and product and service sectors, we wish to win the big opportunity and the requirements supported by our enterprise energy agencies will only be capitalised upon if we develop sales and marketing skills per the action framework, to develop sales and marketing, to develop language, to understand international customs. On that basis, the world is our oyster. One could, with a passion, speak about this for days, never mind seven or eight minutes. We have a great opportunity. I believe that the action framework provides the basis for that. As I said, it is a recurring need for review, but certainly with private and public capital investment on new technologies and infrastructure, we can improve continued focus investment in the skills of our people, so in having the right service of products, improving productivity, increased participation of trade unions, businesses, the third sector and communities, all will help. As well in the current environment, I say this meaningfully and strongly, enhanced population growth and requirement and a realistic proportionate equality consequently of income. Scotland can do and Scotland will do. Excellent. Many thanks. I now call on Dr Leanne Murray to be followed by Dennis Roberts. Thank you, Presiding Officer and I, too. I am pleased to take the opportunity of taking part in this debate. The Scottish Government's economic strategy states that the Government believes in a one Scotland approach and that tackling inequality and increasing growth are mutually supportive. Indeed, it would be difficult not to agree with that perspective. The stated actions to promote inclusive growth rightly include realising opportunities across Scotland, cities, towns and rural areas, and the need to deliver more equal growth across the country. I hope that the Scottish Government will endeavour to ensure that the whole country benefits from economic development. Its performance indicators will include specific reference to rural areas, such as Dumfries and Galloway and much of the south of Scotland, which has suffered from economic disadvantage for many years and has been difficult to resolve. I am not suggesting that the fault of this Government has been a long-standing issue in the area. The local economy is very dependent on micro and small businesses. There is nothing wrong with that, but few of them grow to become medium-sized enterprises. Wages are the lowest in Scotland, GDP per head is low, rural employment still tends to be in traditional rural industries and can be seasonal, low-paid and insecure. There are challenges with accessibility and connectivity that vary across the region. Of course, there is a shortage of affordable housing and relatively high levels of fuel poverty. Many micro businesses are not able to benefit from the apprenticeship programmes. As I have mentioned in previous debates, that could be addressed by enabling small businesses to share an apprentice with another local business of a similar nature. I hope that that can be taken forward. I welcome the significant investment in broadband in the region, investment from the Scottish and the UK Governments, and by Dumfries and Galloway Council. The investment is starting to make a real difference in parts of the region. However, we still have problems with mobile phone coverage. In some fairly well-populated towns and villages, such as Loch Mabon in my constituency, it is still difficult to get any mobile signal at all, never mind 4G coverage. In preparing for this debate, I was interested to read in the briefing from University of Scotland about the success of our universities and the work that they are doing on knowledge exchange and the creation of new businesses. That is indeed a change in culture, since the days that I was involved in academic research. Rody Campbell is not here, but I was involved at one time in using lasers to look at the structure of free radicals. However, in those days, pure or basic research was sometimes considered to be somehow morally superior to applied research. Of course, high-quality pure research is still very valuable, and Scottish universities remain extremely successful in those fields and long may they do so. However, the ability of research to drive enterprise has, over the years, been better appreciated. That change of culture is part due to national action over the years. Things like the creation of a Scottish Institute of Enterprise in 2002, promoting entrepreneurship among students, the increasing provision of incubation space and support by several of our universities, and, for example, collaborative ventures between universities to support postgraduate students who wish to start up their own businesses. The University of Scotland briefs examples of how universities can be the drivers of city development, but going back to the issues that are facing areas such as Dumfries and Galloway, I hope to see that our universities can be the drivers of town and rural development, too. For example, there are clear certain synergies that the universities that are already established in Dumfries and Galloway are promoting such as aspects to do the demographics of the region. Now, sometimes people talk about the older age profile in Dumfries and Galloway of the population, as if it is a problem. However, it is also an opportunity to develop the most innovative services and methods of support for older people, involving older people and their designs. As the demographic of so much of the first world ages, those developments provide opportunities in our region to become a centre of excellence for services to older people. I know that there are real ambitions locally to try and drive that forward. Similarly, the development of renewable energies, coupled with the expertise of researchers in the crime and carbon centre, provides opportunities for the region in developing new techniques and new business opportunities, not only in energy generation but also importantly in energy conservation. There has been already excellent research performed on tourism at the Glasgow University campus in Dumfries. Dumfries and Galloway College has recently opened new facilities at their main campus at the Crichton, which will support the new hospitality course, which is about to be offered there. I know that the education secretary had intended to come to open that, and unfortunately it was not able to do so at the last minute, but I hope that the Government will be able to see what is actually on offer at Dumfries and Galloway College. Tourism is important to the region and the focus of many of its micro and small businesses. I still think that we possibly could do better in helping businesses to work together to attract visitors to the area. We are in Dumfries and Galloway just next door to the lakes, and I visited on occasions last bank holiday being one, and I am always frustrated and envious when I see the numbers of visitors attracted into the lakes. I wonder if the member shares my excitement at one innovation that the area that she talks about has certainly brought us to, and that is the book town. The idea that towns can develop specialisms, even though they are remote and comparatively small. I wonder if there are lessons for entrepreneurship that arise out of the book town experience in Dumfries and Galloway. Dr Lane-Money. It is correct that, under a number of other ventures such as the Seven Steins project, which is the mountain biking trail throughout the south of Scotland, which brings visitors into the area. When we go to areas such as the lake district, you can see the difference between the congested roads. Whatever time of year it is, there are always visitors pouring into their towns. I wonder what we can do to bring some fraction of those visitors, some of those visitors, just a wee bit further north up the M6 and the M74 and into Dumfries and Galloway to enjoy our quieter area, but equally beautiful scenery of the area. Infrastructure improvements are key. We need to ensure that Dumfries and Galloway can do as we want Scotland to be able to do, and at times of economic restriction, every opportunity to track external investment, additional investment must be taken. The south of Scotland has lost out on European funding, which could have been used to improve infrastructure and accessibility, as the region itself is not, and that is two areas, despite many of us campaigning for this the last time round, which is probably around about a decade ago. Under the current designation, the low GDP of rural south Scotland is hidden, as it is included in the same designation to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and it would be helpful to the south, and it would be of absolutely no disadvantage to anywhere else in Scotland if the south of Scotland was designated as a nuts two area on its own. I'm sorry that this is going to be fairly eccentric. I just wonder if the fact that the road appears to be different, because the M6 becomes the 74, even though it's the M road, might actually be psychologically a little barrier for people in the latest. I've just thought of this off the cuff. I have to say that I've never thought about that, whether the road was actually an issue in there. I don't make any of these arguments to complain or moan about our hard lot. I think that there are real opportunities for my constituency and the region in which it is situated, but I don't think that they will be realised unless specific actions tailored to the needs of a rural area are now understood and taken. I'd also like to reiterate some of the points made by Graham Pearson that progress does need to be measured, and I think that the Government should be challenging itself by setting timescales by which its actions should be achieved, so that we can actually see how successful we have been in achieving those. I now call Dennis Robertson up to seven minutes, thereby please, Mr Robertson, after which we'll move to closing speeches. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I bring it asset as a people, and there's absolutely no doubt about that, but our people are as diverse as the opportunities that are there for them. If I look at my constituency in Aberdeenshire West, the oil and gas industry is probably the largest industry in that area, but it wouldn't survive without the diversity and support of the other infrastructures in that chain. That could be right down to the people who just opened the sandwich business to support the workforce, or it could be the person who decided that there was a lot of glass in the office buildings and become a window cleaner. The reason I say those things is because we need to look at our communities and where we live, and look at the opportunities that are there for our young people. When we're looking through the curriculum for excellence and there is, I suppose, some emphasis for our teachers to help to guide our young people for the opportunities in and around their own environments, that influence is sometimes stifled, smothered and perhaps even kicked out the park by their parents, because the parents sometimes think, no, don't, no, don't have that ambition, but of course it can be the opposite. I think that when I'm coming from, Presiding Officer, is this, that young people quite often need to make up their own mind and think about the opportunities that they want to do and the opportunities that they would like to take. I recently, with the apprenticeship week, visited Milton Brasary in my constituency, at Cratthus near Bancrae. There was a young lad there, a chef, that his ambition is to go to China and to learn the trade in China and come back and open his own restaurant. That's actually fantastic and that is because he has, he's doing something that he wanted to do. It's not an oil and gas, it's not something that was there within his family or anything. It was something that he felt he wanted to do and the opportunity came along through the apprenticeship. It's just diversity that I think that we need to nurture within our communities. Some of our communities can actually grow without having this aspect of internationalisation of exports, which is something that would be extremely welcome, of course, but sometimes we just need to look at it within our communities. When I looked at the fresh start programme that the Government extended for our hotels, restaurants and pubs, I started to think of some of the community areas, some of the hotels and pubs and restaurants. It maybe did close because it was too expensive. Maybe one of the things that we need to look at is how we support them. Certainly through the small business bonus scheme is something that is there that does help and enable the small businesses to grow. One of the aspects that my colleague Mark McDonald mentioned, VAT, is something that we can't obviously tackle in this Parliament. However, if we are going to encourage the small industry sometimes to have this sense of growth, purpose and opportunity to develop, then we need to look at what is there and what the obstacles are that are keeping them back. I say that the opportunities can be there, but we need to have the ability to nurture our young talent in the direction that they want to go. We have the lowest unemployment in the country in my constituency. In saying that, we have had trouble times recently within the oil and gas industry, but that has also been an opportunity for many to look at what is going on within their communities. Some of those engineers, for instance, are looking at the opportunities that might be within the public sector or starting their own business. That has been the same for the people coming out of the air force, using their skills to go into the oil and gas industry or renewables. The Government bodies that are there, I believe, are doing their best to try and encourage our young people in the direction that they would wish to go. SDS, for instance, provides the opportunities and mentoring for some people. However, what we heard in the EET committee when we are doing creative industries is that someone might have the idea—that idea in a software programme, in the games industry, for instance—that, because of their course, they had no skills in terms of setting up a business. They had no idea about getting the finance that they needed to set up the business. We need to look at what we are doing in terms of our universities and colleges who are looking at our young people and providing them the opportunity if they are going into a business world or hoping to go into that business world. In my constituency, recently, the Falzahugh restaurant was the best restaurant in the north-east. I mentioned that because it encouraged tourism in that area. That is something that we need to nurture in Scotland. We are a country that people love to come to, but they love to come not just for our scenery and our weather, but they like to come and explore our culture as well. If we are going to try and ensure that we have this ability to protect our tourism as well, we have to try and ensure that there is a gateway open to our young people to embrace that, because it is not all about that big business idea. It is not all about going into oil and gas. We need to look around us to see what opportunities are there. It may well be that, initially, you start off in one direction and perhaps go in another later. We have a fantastic diverse country and a wonderful diverse young people. I think that we will, because we can do. Many thanks. We now move to closing speeches. I remind all members who took part in the debate that they should return to the chamber now or as soon as possible to be in for the closing speeches. More defraiser, up to eight minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This has been a wide-ranging debate. We had Roderick Campbell, referencing Star Trek, Stewart Stevenson on the Snippers Charters, John Mason promoting Swimwear and Chick Brody heralding and Ayrshire Gold Rush. Fans of the Toy Story film franchise can look forward to a new character, Chick the Prospector doll in the toy shops in town for Christmas. The question that I raised at the very start, which is addressed in my amendment, is the fundamental question. Why are we lagging behind other parts of the United Kingdom? A number of members referred to this point in their contributions. Margaret MacDougall mentioned this and referred to the good work done by entrepreneurial spark and, in particular, their programme of opening hatcheries across the UK with support from RBS. She referenced one in Ayrshire, but it is happening elsewhere in Scotland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and are of great value. Margaret MacDougall, in her contribution, referred to our historic legacy in Scotland of innovation, which makes it perhaps all the more extraordinary that we have come to this past today in the country. Despite the great long list of Scottish inventors and scientists who we can all name, we are not doing so well in terms of entrepreneurship compared to other parts of the UK. Mark McDonald raised the question of businesses in the north-east and their distance from markets. Elaine Murray talked about specific problems in rural areas such as in the south of Scotland and the challenges that they face around connectivity, broadband, mobile phone coverage. They are familiar to all of us who represent rural areas. Perhaps the most thoughtful attempt to address this came from John Mason, who talked about a cultural issue that faces us, where perhaps we have grown up in a culture where the norm is being the employee, not the employer, not an entrepreneur. Is it the case that children in schools grow up in an environment where it is seen as being the norm to leave school and get a job rather than go and start a business? Is there an issue in schools that we have to try to address? The importance of a family environment where people have grown up working for others is not necessarily attuned to the concept of going out and working for one's self. Dennis Robertson mentioned this in his contribution a moment ago, where the role of parents perhaps is not always supportive of those who want to be entrepreneurs, where parents try and push children down a particular route to get a job, perhaps a career in the professions, rather than actually going out and setting up their own business. All that takes me back to the point that I made at the very start, which is that we need to properly understand what is behind that. Why are we not doing so well? Maybe that is an area where we need some research from the Scottish Government or one of its agencies to try and understand why we are not making the progress that we should be. If all the best strategies in the world will not deliver the success that we need if they are not underpinned by a proper understanding of the fundamental issues. One thing that came strongly through the debate from a number of speakers was the whole question of needing to change the culture and starting with the young people. There was a lot of reference made to the Prince's Trust. The Deputy First Minister mentioned the announcement of funding resource for a new centre in the west of Scotland, which is welcome. Clearly, it has an excellent track record under its previous guise of the PSYBT. It was well known for giving advice to young people, helping with sourcing of funding and providing a mentoring. That had a enormous impact on the whole generation of young entrepreneurs. Rod Campbell mentioned the young innovator's challenge, which is part of the can-do strategy that is also very important in encouraging young people in entrepreneurship. There is a role for the colleges. The Deputy First Minister mentioned again the bridge to business programme in further education colleges delivered by Young Enterprise Scotland. The Carnegie Trust in its research found that three out of four of further education students agree that more opportunities to meet local successful business people would be beneficial. More than 80 per cent who participated in an enterprise activity with a local entrepreneur at college found that useful, but only one in three of further education college students had been invited to such an encounter, which suggests that a lot of work is still to do. The Carnegie Trust is calling on the Scottish Government to support schools, colleges and universities to develop rather stronger relationships with the local business community, and it is keen to promote the use of alumni networks to bring local entrepreneurs and young people together to inspire and inform about the realities of business start-up. It is a partnership. It is not just the role of Government, it is the role of business and Government and all sectors working together to ensure that that happens. I am very happy to agree with Mr Robertson's comment. It is an area where we need all partners coming together and helping out. I want to touch briefly on the role of universities. Rodd Cameron reminded us of the good work being done on research at St Andrews. We know that Scottish universities punch above their weight in terms of research. They perform better than the UK as a whole, and research is fundamental. We also need knowledge exchange. Scottish universities are working with 20,000 Scottish businesses and 10,000 businesses outside Scotland, and that includes in that total 13,000 Scottish SMEs. We have more spin-outs from university in Scotland than any other region in the UK, including London. Eight innovation centres have been established in areas such as construction, biotechnology, aquaculture, oil and gas and others. When it comes to students, the Scottish Institute for Enterprise, set up in 2002, established with support from Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Funding Council, has increased the number of students who consider entrepreneurship a real option during and after their studies. Every Scottish university is taking part in its initiative. It runs competitions and events for students to try to make sure that they understand entrepreneurship and are equipped with the necessary skills. Some universities have entrepreneurs in residence. Some provide incubator spaces for new businesses such as Edinburgh, Napier and Aberty in Dundee. The role of role models is essential. Mark MacDonald mentioned some business in his constituency. He mentioned the chocolatiers. I was hoping to observe that, given his newly slimmed down version, he has not been sampling enough of their products. John Mason said that we need to have role models in schools. I think that that is right, but we need to accept that entrepreneurs are busy people. Their business is about making money and providing employment, and therefore we have to be sensitive to demands on their time when we ask them to help out in improving the culture for others. There are many success stories, areas in which we are leading the world. I heard in this debate about the creative industries where the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee recently produced a detailed report. Clare Adamson talked about SkyStandard and Fanjol, two world-leading innovative businesses with an international market based right here in Edinburgh, providing employment and with the skills here. We can lead the world in certain areas, but we need to do more of it. If we can emulate the best, we can build entrepreneurship in Scotland. We are doing some of the right things. The can-do strategy is a step forward in the right direction, but there is a figure show that there is still a long way to go. That has been an interesting debate, with much agreement about what we should be doing to support entrepreneurship and innovation in the Scottish economy. I confess, though, that I did not expect to hear a discussion about Napoleon, Star Trek, unicorns, colostomy bags and umbrellas for worldly gigs. I think that that is testament to the innovation and creativity of the members of this Parliament. In all seriousness, John Swinney is absolutely right. We should be ambitious for our country and our economy. At the heart of the debate for me is the importance of education, the encouragement of our young people to know that they can do anything, achieve anything and not to limit their thinking. To understand that working for yourself, being bold, innovative and creating wealth, are indeed all positive things to do. I well remember the young enterprise group at Dumbarton academy. I think that they managed to separate me from £40 for a game. Fantastic game, it was too, but what was more valuable were the