Hansard

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy and the Government for bringing the debate to the chamber to allow us to discuss Scotland can do: a framework for entrepreneurship and innovation. As a society, we should be grateful for the contribution of our entrepreneurs. I am happy to put on record my 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.

While I was preparing for my speech, I was reminded of the so-called “You didn’t build that” speech given by President Obama on his campaign tour of the United States in 2012. I am sure that many members will recall that the president was chastised by the rival Republican campaign as playing down entrepreneurs and their contribution to American society. In fact, the point 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 it should never be forgotten that our public services built the schools that taught them, the hospitals that cared for them and all of the other services that they have relied upon. By all means, recognise the efforts and drive of the “go-getters”, but the contributions 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 ministerial foreword of the “Scotland CAN DO” action framework, the cabinet secretary seemed to recognise that point, writing in underlined letters that

“enterprise and growth must be accessible to all and for the benefit of all.”

The aspiration to maximise the potential of entrepreneurs for the betterment of our entire society is undoubtedly shared throughout the chamber and Scotland.

I have said it before and I really mean it: 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 made by the Government in this area and I accept that in many ways the Scottish Government is hindered in its efforts to make its statement a reality by a regressive Tory Government that does not share its values, but the Scottish Government must be held accountable for the areas over which it exerts 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 Government members have spoken about just is not serving everyone in our communities. As the Scottish Labour Party spokesperson for women’s employment, I will go into a bit of detail about the challenges facing women. I am happy to say that this Government and its predecessor deserve real credit for the increase in the number of women who are self-employed compared with the number in 2004, but there is still work to do on that front. As of 2013, only 7.8 per cent of women were self-employed, compared with a figure of 15 per cent for men. Statistics from the close the gap partnership project indicate that only one third of chief executive officers in Scotland are women. As Linda Fabiani said earlier, the professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde, Sara Carter, has demonstrated the entrepreneurial disparity in those numbers, stating:

“If rates of women-led businesses equalled those of men, the contribution to Scotland’s”

gross value added—

“would increase by £7.6 billion to nearly £13 billion. This equates to a 5.3% 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, and I hope that they go some way to challenging the figures that we have in front of us today.

We all know that the science, technology, engineering and maths sector is one of the fastest-growing areas of our economy, and we need as many qualified people as possible in it. However, the scale of occupational segregation in the sector remains truly astonishing. Last year, only 68 out of 24,000 engineering apprentices were female. Statistics from Skills Development Scotland do not suggest that we can expect that position to get much better in the years to come, given that 85 per cent of those doing information technology courses at school are male. It is clear that we are just not doing enough at the high school level to promote STEM subjects to young women. Too few of even the few women who graduate with a degree in a STEM subject pursue it for a career; the Government’s 2015 “Maximising Economic Opportunities for Women in Scotland” report demonstrated 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, but now they have the potential to hold them back. All the signs suggest 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 trap them in traditional roles, which are all too often low paid and low skilled. Even the Government’s flagship modern apprenticeship programme seems to have only reinforced 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.

In a debate that seems to me to be fundamentally about how we empower our constituents to unlock their true potential, it would be remiss of me not to mention the damaging impact that the cuts to college places have had 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?

I remind everyone here of some pertinent facts: on average, women working full time in Scotland earn £95.60 a week less than their male counterparts and it is still common for women to take a cut in their pay grade and job status in order to find suitable flexible work. Until we right those wrongs, we will never unlock the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation of 50 per cent of our population. Scotland can do, but must do more.