Hansard

I will speak about the early part of the Government motion, which states:

“That the Parliament recognises the positive impact of entrepreneurial activity by women”.

I will do so by referring to some of the entrepreneurial women in my patch in the Scottish Borders and Midlothian. Some of what I will say will provide examples of the points that Murdo Fraser made about the kind of activities that women enter into. Most of the women that I will mention are involved in the consumer area and are family orientated. I was interested in Murdo Fraser’s speech, as I identified those points in my own.

Where better to start than in my patch in Gorebridge? The woman in question is Lynn Mann of Supernature Oils, which started as a sideline, as enterprises so often do for women. At first, she planned to commit two years to help to get a family business off the ground, but it is now a full-time and expanding job. She says that, although her father encouraged her to be entrepreneurial, she had to overcome cultural and social hurdles as a potential businesswomen. I will come back to that but, in passing, I say that my parents had a significant role in encouraging young women to be adventurous and ambitious.

My father made sure that his four daughters knew from the start that they would and should have the same opportunities as their brother. That was in the days when girls—at least, working-class girls like me—generally left school at 15, got engaged at 18, got married at 20 and had their first child at 22. I, partly due to my father’s intervention, did not follow that route map but so many girls in those days did. Indeed, some of the route maps that girls are destined to take are deeply embedded in the culture even all these years on.

However, to go back to Lynn Mann, she laughingly explains on the Supernature Oils website how she had 22 jobs before the business took off but that, somehow, all that experience has been useful in making the family business of cold pressed rapeseed oil succeed. That, together with support from the EDGE fund and from ESpark, has done the trick, as I saw for myself on a recent visit to the business, where Lynn, her husband and an expanding number of employees press, infuse and bottle the product. Lynn is now a women’s enterprise ambassador, helping other women to find their business feet.

There are other models for women—mentors-in-waiting, as it were. There is Ruth Hinks, who was master chocolatier and UK confectioner of the year in 2011. Her business, Cocoa Black, is located in Peebles, with dangerously delicious chocolate and extraordinary sculpting of chocolate exhibits. She has also now expanded into a chocolate and pastry school above the cafe at the Cuddy Bridge in Peebles. I warn people, if they cross that threshold, not to count the calories. Ruth Hinks’s entrepreneurial DNA kicked in when, at a young age, she asked her parents for money for some must have gizmo. She was told that she had to raise the money herself. Dismissing a potato-growing enterprise because it would take too long for the potatoes to develop to be marketable and there would not be a high profit margin, she made her first chocolate Easter egg and the rest, as they say, is Hinks history.

Then there is Debra Riddell of Breadshare, which is a community interest company involving the community in making nutritious bread using only natural ingredients. I have had a go—marginally successfully. Breadshare is currently located at Lamancha, near Whitmuir farm, where members will find Heather Anderson and her husband and their impressive organic produce. Whitmuir is in the process of becoming the first community-owned farm in Scotland. I have even bought a share.

I was interested in the cabinet secretary’s reference to entrepreneurship in healthcare, because, as we know, enterprising and entrepreneurial women are not only to be found in business. My final example is about Linda Davidson and Rebecca Wade, who are midwives. Members—if they are still listening—might ask, “How can two midwives be entrepreneurial?”

The two midwives, who are from NHS Borders, recently won an award for partnership working with Scottish Borders Council, to enhance child rearing and parenting services in the Borders. The idea is to work with very vulnerable young mums and sometimes young dads, from antenatal care through to looking after the baby—and indeed, the parents. Linda Davidson and Rebecca Wade are pursuing the idea of a specialised residential facility for vulnerable young parents and their babies, to provide support and help people to learn how to be successful parents, which sometimes involves breaking a cycle of bad parenting that the young parents themselves have experienced.

It is early days, but the ideas of Linda Davidson and Rebecca Wade, which are rooted in their experience—this is where women have the edge; they are very pragmatic—are not just exciting but sensible. I hope that, where I am able to do so, I can help to take those ideas forward.

I have met many more women across the constituency who are in business, the professions and the voluntary sector, and who are full of good and practical ideas. I am sure that other members meet such women. As a nation, we should applaud, encourage, support and value them.

That is partly our job, in delivering childcare, mentoring and help with start-up, for example, and it is partly the job of the formal education system. However, it is also the job of family, friends and the surrounding community to change the culture that Lynn Mann, with whose example I started my speech, encountered, and which many women still encounter and must overcome.