Hansard

Like Mark McDonald, I would say that there are encouraging signs in this area—I noted from one of the briefings that the total early stage entrepreneurial activity rate among young people aged 18 to 29 more than doubled from 3 per cent in 2008-09 to 8 per cent in 2012-13. However, as has been fairly pointed out by other speakers, I think we have room for improvement.

Looking back, in Scotland we have traditionally been good at starting our own businesses and even growing them to become world-class organisations, but somewhere along the line it seems to have become the norm that we should be employees, rather than self-employed. There seems to have been a shift over time, and that was the way to go; indeed, as I said earlier, during my time at school that was the way we were probably encouraged to go. How many young people have thought of starting their own business? I share Mark McDonald’s experience of going into schools where products are being sold, but there is still a wee 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 runs in families. Someone who is self-employed may well train up a son or 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, the caring professions or whatever, perhaps we should not be surprised if the tendency is for them, as young people, to go down a similar route.

This week, I have a young person on work experience in my office—he is in the Parliament today. When I was preparing for this debate, I asked him what kind of people are going into schools to talk to the students about careers. He said that his school is good at getting a range of people in to speak to them about opportunities but that they tend to be from larger businesses, rather than from small businesses or people who have set up their own businesses. Time can be an issue. One of Mark McDonald’s examples was somebody who is studying and running their own business, and it is clear that such people do not have a lot of time to go into schools. I appreciate the cabinet secretary’s point that schools might have changed marginally since I left, but there is still a bit of an issue there.

The lad who is doing some work experience with me also said that he felt that there is less emphasis on self-employment and that students are not particularly encouraged to go in a particular direction where there will definitely be jobs. We have touched on that issue before. Schools should point young people not just to where they might like to go, but also to where there will be jobs. We do not want to try to fit round pegs into square holes, but we have a responsibility to tell young people about the areas in which jobs might be coming up.

It has to be said that some so-called self-employment is a bit artificial, especially around the building industry. In fact, it is tax and other legislation that encourages what is called self-employment but in which people—in many cases, it is men—are to all intents and purposes employees. I do not think that we should go down that route just to get the number of women up to match the number of men who are self-employed.

Some of my colleagues have given examples of businesses in their constituencies, and I do not want to be any different in 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. First, for eight years or so I worked for a nursing home group based in Lanarkshire that, interestingly, was run by an Egyptian surgeon. I learned a lot from that, not least that when someone is part of a small management team the buck stops with them and they have to put in whatever hours it takes to work through the problems that the business might face at any particular time. Going back to what Linda Fabiani said, I note that that is an issue in relation to encouraging more women, because if they continue to be the main carers, that becomes a big challenge for them. There are a number of connected issues that we need to deal with.

Secondly, I seem to remember that I mentioned in a previous debate the guy who replaced the boiler in my flat. He trained with one of the big energy companies and was employed by it. When he worked there, if they were replacing a boiler, they had one person to do the gas, one to do the water, one to do the electrical work and someone else to repair the plasterwork. When he moved out and set up on his own, it meant that he had to have all those skills and he had the challenge of finding new work to do, but on the plus side he got the financial rewards and the satisfaction of being in control of his destiny.

My third example is a young guy who moved into my constituency from Stranraer, or down that way, and took over a small business. I was hugely impressed by his doing that. It is not an easy market to be in because it is highly competitive and, as I said, he is not even from the Glasgow area. I find it interesting that he had the self-confidence to do that when many older folk—even ones who know the sector better—would not have the guts to do it. Self-confidence is part of the issue. It is a national issue and a deeper cultural issue too. Part of setting up a business is having the self-confidence to do it and, to be frank, that is not necessarily something that I would have felt that I had 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, which was set up by a woman, Petra Wetzel, who came to Glasgow from Germany to train as a solicitor and moved on to turn round a struggling business round about 2006 to 2008. West has overcome the challenge of being in a slightly difficult location—it is to the east of Glasgow and beyond the merchant city, which gets a lot of passing trade. West does not get as much passing trade and has had to build up a reputation so that people deliberately go there to get its products. I commend it for some of its products, including a German-style beer made in Scotland, which I think is unique. Its beers are now very widely available and it is expanding in a variety of directions. One of its slogans is that it has a “Glaswegian heart” and a “German head”, which challenges us to consider other combinations. A new business could draw ideas from other parts of the world but develop them in a Scottish context.

As we have been encouraged to use more time, I will throw in another local business, Vanilla Blush, which is based in Bridgeton and sells attractive underwear and swimwear for people who have had a colostomy or a similar procedure. Again, it is in a very niche market, although it sells worldwide via the internet.

I am disappointed that my colleague Gil Paterson is not speaking today because he is one of us who has run his own business. I am sure that he could have shared a lot of experience with us but he has chosen not to do so—unless he wants to intervene.

I find it interesting that, of the examples that I gave, two involve non-Scots—one Egyptian and one German. I wonder whether people from some cultures and backgrounds are more used to setting up and running their own businesses.