Hansard

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Crichton Campus

The one consistent thing about Mr Ballance's comments in the chamber is that they are consistently wrong. I said no such thing in the earlier debate.Mr Ballance must be aware that the University of Glasgow is an autonomous institution that takes its own decisions on the provis...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Crichton Campus

I met the principal of the University of Glasgow and the chief executive of the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council on 19 March. The university has confirmed that it will continue to deliver initial teacher training and social work at Crichton and that it rem...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Manufacturing

It would be helpful if the official Opposition, too, gave a balanced account of the performance of the Scottish economy in these and other debates. The decline in manufacturing output, to which Mr Mather refers, is of course not uniform across the sector. Areas such as chemica...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Manufacturing

I do indeed and I note that in the same period to which I referred, businesses in the Fife area accepted 72 offers of RSA totalling more than £20 million. Those offers relate to projects that aim to create or safeguard more than 3,300 jobs, which is a significant contribution ...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Manufacturing

Scottish ministers provide a wide range of support to manufacturing companies in Scotland. That includes financial support, innovation grants, practical support for companies to improve productivity and efficiency, and business and product planning services that are delivered ...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Alginate Industry (Western Isles)

The Executive values all such entrepreneurial activity and we pay tribute to all the young entrepreneurs out there who are building Scotland's economy. We pledge to continue to give them ever-increasing support.It is interesting that sometimes our economic future can be rooted...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Alginate Industry (Western Isles)

The Scottish Executive has undertaken no assessment of the contribution of the alginate industry to the Western Isles economy. That would be for Highlands and Islands Enterprise, through HIE Innse Gall, to undertake, as would the provision of support.I am encouraged that HIE h...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

Crichton University Campus

I do not envisage the University of Glasgow's not being present on the campus. There is a danger in the member's point that he may be arguing that provision from the University of Paisley and Bell College is inferior to that which is provided by other academic institutions. Th...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

Crichton University Campus

Through close working with Dumfries and Galloway College and other colleges, the newly merged institution will be able to provide strong transitional support for students who transfer from college to university. Scottish colleges are successful in providing that transitional r...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

Crichton University Campus

It should be the objective of public policy to secure not a regional approach to higher education provision throughout Scotland, but an approach that determines that quality education provision is available throughout Scotland to everyone who has the ability to access it. We c...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

Crichton University Campus

I congratulate Alasdair Morgan on securing this welcome debate, which allows us to continue to acknowledge the Crichton campus's important contribution to improving access to higher education in the south-west. Members have already highlighted that contribution, which I expect...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

22 Mar 2007

Scotland in the United Kingdom

The UK is up there.

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

That is where Stewart Stevenson is wrong, for the second time this afternoon. It is part of a resource, risk and revenue sharing that provides the economic rationale for the union. Derek Brownlee referred to it.In the 1980s, Scotland was in technical surplus—I remember it well...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

If the member does not mind, I would like to make my point.Not being a nationalist, I am accused of negativity in relation to nationalism but if I could see anything positive about it, I would be positive about it. It is just so destructive and divisive. If I was going to be p...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

Obviously that is down to Mr Stevenson's astute leadership of the good people of Banff and Buchan, as it is undoubtedly down to the astute leadership of Mr Rumbles that his constituency has the lowest unemployment rate of any in Scotland.With all due respect to Mr Stevenson, h...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

I, too, am grateful to Stewart Stevenson for his valuable contribution to today's debate. Let no one be in any doubt that the key to our future prosperity is a successful Scottish economy populated by successful businesses that drive economic growth. As Stewart Stevenson testi...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

I am interested in the analogy that is being drawn. Can we assume from it that an independent Scottish currency would be tied to the whisky standard rather than to the gold standard?

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

Unlike Mr Morgan, I am not a nationalist who thinks that the gap necessarily requires to be closed—Interruption. Members of the Scottish National Party are laughing, but Scotland benefits from the devolution dividend that the £11 billion expenditure represents. SNP members are...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

No. I will carry on, if the member does not mind.We have almost the lowest unemployment since quarterly records began—the rate is below the UK rate for the first time for generations. The most recent GDP data indicate that during the year to the third quarter of 2005, the Scot...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

What I equate with stability are the fundamentals of economic growth. That view is held not simply by the Labour and Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive but, more important, by the business community. If the member asks any business, large or small, anywhere in Scotland, what ...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

The fact that I am being attacked before I have said anything is a badge of pride that I wear in the chamber.In the five minutes that are available to me, it would be impossible to scotch all the myths that we have just heard on the Scottish economy and, indeed, the United Kin...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Small Business

Jim Mather talks about raising taxes by growing the economy. By how much will he grow the economy to fill the £11 billion gap that is the differential between the taxes that are raised in Scotland and the amount that is spent on public services in Scotland? How will he fill th...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Christmas Day and New Year's Day Trading (Scotland) Bill:<br />Stage 3

As a lifelong trade unionist, I agree entirely with that perspective. Does Karen Whitefield agree that, contrary to what Mr Fox said, the prospect of a statutorily underpinned code of practice that would prevent the compulsion of workers to work on new year's day against their...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

07 Mar 2007

Christmas Day and New Year's Day Trading (Scotland) Bill:<br />Stage 3

Does Murdo Fraser agree that there is a difference between a person who works in an essential service or a continuous manufacturing process being contractually required to work on new year's day and a person who is coerced—sometimes subtly—against their wishes by a bad employe...

Allan Wilson: Lab Committee

07 Mar 2007

Subordinate Legislation

I will answer Murdo Fraser's questions first. The delay in lodging the order to introduce the obligation was in part a consequence of an extensive consultation process with the suppliers. It is true that differing views were expressed about altering what had been a tried and t...

Allan Wilson: Lab Committee

07 Mar 2007

Subordinate Legislation

I hope that I will not keep the committee too long. Members will recall that we last discussed changes to the renewables obligation exactly a year ago. At that time, we mentioned the vital role that the obligation had played in what most people regard as the welcome growth of ...

Allan Wilson: Lab Committee

07 Mar 2007

Subordinate Legislation

Whatever happens, there will be a new Executive in place, and nothing I say can commit it to a decision. Theoretically, the new Executive could abandon the commitment that I have given to introduce debt relief, as well as the freezing of interest charges in the debt arrangemen...

Allan Wilson: Lab Committee

07 Mar 2007

Subordinate Legislation

No—I think you will find that it is a certainty.

Allan Wilson: Lab Committee

07 Mar 2007

Subordinate Legislation

The short answer to all three of Christine May's questions is yes. The caveat to my answer is that a new Administration will be in place after 3 May.

Allan Wilson: Lab Committee

07 Mar 2007

Subordinate Legislation

When I commended the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc (Scotland) Bill to Parliament on 24 May 2006, I made a commitment to introduce at stage 2 an element of debt relief into the debt arrangement scheme. An amendment to enable that was discussed by the committee on 7 November 2006...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Committee

07 Mar 2007

Subordinate Legislation

You have taken me by surprise, convener, as I thought we were going to start with the draft Renewables Obligation (Scotland) Order 2007. It does not matter.I am here to move S2M-5559, which seeks the committee's approval for the draft Fundable Bodies (Scotland) Order 2007. The...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

How much would it cost the Scottish consumer to dismantle the single market in UK electricity supply and transmission?

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

Will the member give way?

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

As a matter of fact, I did. I see no problem with that.I asked the SNP shadow environment spokesperson about the cost of its policy. He could not answer my question, but Maureen Watt did so on his behalf, with a quotation of circa $1 billion for the cost of the Peterhead proje...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

I will deal, first, with a point that Jim Wallace and Maureen Macmillan made very effectively. It relates to the old problem of the SNP trying to face two ways at the same time. SNP members consistently talk green in the chamber but turn yellow outside it when a populist bandw...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

Is the member proposing that Scotland's or the UK's energy needs should be determined by public opinion polls?

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

We have heard tributes to Greenpeace's pioneering campaigning on environmental protection. Does Shiona Baird agree with Patrick Moore, the former leader of Greenpeace, who, in today's Daily Express, argues that nuclear power is the only way forward in terms of combating climat...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

I have already outlined the Executive's position. Our policy on new nuclear power stations was made clear in response to the Department of Trade and Industry's energy review, and it will be set out again in the UK Government's proposed white paper, which I am reliably informed...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

We have just heard the usual litany of misrepresentation of the Executive's approach to renewable energy and our position on nuclear power. After all the debates that we have had in this chamber, I would have thought that even Richard Lochhead would have a grasp of our positio...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

21 Feb 2007

Environment

Mr Lochhead's latter point is interesting. I have noted his party leader's comments in the press about the subject. Does Mr Lochhead know how much BP demands in public subsidy for the Peterhead project to go ahead? How does he propose that we should foot that bill? Would the t...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Crichton University Campus

I ask Chris Ballance to be patient, as I will come to that point.I pay tribute to Glasgow University for its support of Crichton campus and I hope that it will maintain its connection with and support for Crichton. I encourage the funding council to complete its work to develo...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Crichton University Campus

I will continue my point.Comparisons have been made with the level of provision and investment in the Highlands and Islands—Alasdair Morgan made such comparisons—but that is like comparing apples with pears. I offer to assist. The funding council does not fund higher education...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Crichton University Campus

Let me make progress.The funding council allocates a block teaching grant to institutions. It is up to each university, as an autonomous body, to decide how to allocate its resources to its activities and facilities. As has been said, in 2006-07 Glasgow University will receive...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Crichton University Campus

I thought that I had just explained to Chris Ballance and other members that ministers are denied by law from doing what he suggests. Interruption. Chris Ballance may not accept that, but that is the law that members passed.

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Crichton University Campus

I advise the member to be patient in that regard.On student numbers, I believe that the overall level of provision at the Crichton campus should, at the very least, be maintained. Alasdair Morgan may not think that that is important, but it is. Assertions that participation in...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Crichton University Campus

I thank Elaine Murray for providing us with the opportunity to debate a subject that is of great importance to our policy position, and for her speech, which encapsulated the issues better than most.In the light of what has been said, it is important to stress that the members...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · One Plus

Indeed. I am a long-term supporter of workplace learning and the trade unions' role in encouraging such learning, so it gives me great pleasure to welcome the Amicus delegates to the chamber. Applause.I pay tribute and give due credit to the work that all unions do in the work...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · One Plus

I am well aware of the integrated and co-ordinated services that One Plus provided in my constituency and other members' constituencies. As Rosie Kane says, it was important that those services were integrated in the way that they were. It was a devastating blow for the Scotti...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · One Plus

The situation is still developing, but information that has been received to date suggests that a large number of labour market trainees have been placed with new providers. A wide range of local authorities, local enterprise companies, colleges and child care and social care ...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Small-scale Hydroelectric Power

I accept much of what the member said, but not his final comment. There has been significant progress in renewable energy development as a whole in the current session of Parliament. However, I accept that the planning processes should be streamlined and made more conducive to...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Small-scale Hydroelectric Power

I agree that an appropriate balance needs to be struck between protecting the environment—particularly the water environment—and promoting renewable energy development, including small-scale hydro schemes. As I understand it, the power sector was well represented in the early ...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Small-scale Hydroelectric Power

Small-scale hydro developers gain extra income under renewables obligation schemes, which provide significant incentives and encourage new schemes. In November 2006, the forum for renewable energy development in Scotland agreed to establish a hydro sub-group to promote further...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Business-University Links

I am sure that they do. As the member knows, we will debate the Crichton campus this evening. I understand that the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council is in discussions with partners on how best to deliver course content. I am sure that Mr Morgan would agree...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Business-University Links

I would indeed. Such collaborations and developments are vital in growing our economy, which is of course the Scottish Executive's number 1 priority. As we discussed this morning, as manufacturing moves east to low-cost destinations, it is vital that we compete on our skills b...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Business-University Links

Links between business and universities are a vital element of our economic development strategy. The Executive and its agencies are doing a great deal to strengthen those links. The knowledge transfer grant and the SEEKIT and SCORE programmes—the Scottish Executive expertise,...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Workers' Rights

I welcome the comments that have been made by Kenny MacAskill, Bill Aitken and Phil Gallie and hope that, at decision time this evening, the Parliament will send out a clear, fundamental message to employers that certain practices are completely unacceptable to the people of S...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Workers' Rights

I agree. Would the member agree with me that the UK has been spectacularly successful in that context? It is one of only three EU countries that have surpassed the Lisbon agenda target for full employment.

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Workers' Rights

Thank you, Presiding Officer—although that is not a long time in which to deal with what are fairly complex matters. I will perhaps come back to some of these issues in my closing remarks, but suffice it to say at this juncture that I have raised the issue that Irene Oldfather...

Allan Wilson: Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Workers' Rights

In the context of PACE, there is an issue when an employer refuses to co-operate with public agencies that deliver services, as has happened in the case that we are talking about. That gives us pause for thought about how we respond to such situations. I would not criticise th...

The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson): Lab Chamber

15 Feb 2007

Workers' Rights

I am a lifelong trade unionist, too, and the subject matter of the debate is close to my heart. I thank Rosemary Byrne and Solidarity for giving us the opportunity to debate workers' rights.The motion mentions Simclar Ayrshire. I think that I can express on behalf of all membe...