Meeting of the Parliament 21 January 2020
I thank the cabinet secretary for his on-going engagement on the bill in the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee and for keeping committee members informed of developments in work as it has proceeded, which has been very useful.
As I noted at stage 1, our economy is now run substantially in the interests of private capital rather than in the public interest—in the short-term interests of shareholders rather than in the long-term interests of society. I therefore welcome any attempt to place the public interest at the heart of economic policy. By investing in small and medium-sized enterprises, start-ups and businesses that seek to solve societal issues, a publicly owned bank with a clear vision and mission can complement traditional financial bodies.
Fundamentally, though, the Scottish national investment bank will exist to help to transform the economy by addressing the grand challenges that the cabinet secretary has outlined in briefings to members. Those challenges do not appear in the bill: nevertheless, I understand that they are the overarching framework within which missions will be set. The most important mission is the vital mission to accelerate the transition to a net zero emissions economy.
The establishment of the Scottish national investment bank is the result of many years of work by a range of thinkers, which I now know includes Richard Leonard—a great thinker from 1995. More recently, those thinkers have included the New Economics Foundation, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Common Weal and many others. I want to pay particular tribute, as others have done, to the work of Mariana Mazzucato and Laurie Macfarlane, whose thinking has been very influential in developing the proposals for the bank.
As members know, Greens have set out the broad parameters of a Scottish green new deal. Central to that is the need for investment in a greener economy. The role of the Scottish national investment bank should be central to delivering the transition to a net zero economy. The bank’s ability to provide patient capital should enable it to take a long-term view on investment decisions, which could prove to be transformative for projects that badly need transformational action.
At stage 1, Greens called for the Scottish national investment bank to have a clearer purpose, to work towards net zero goals, to give local government a stake, to give Parliament a say in the bank’s missions, and to have stronger ethics and equalities provisions. We have achieved some of that: amendments that we lodged at stages 2 and 3 were designed to deliver those priorities, including two amendments that were debated—although they were rejected—this afternoon.
However, we have some concerns about the bank. One relates to the report of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland, which was published yesterday. It says:
“The Scottish Government should ensure that its new National Transport Strategy and Strategic Transport Projects Review 2, which are due to be published during 2020, fully reflect the need to deliver an inclusive net zero carbon economy”.
It goes on to say that that should include
“Aligning strategic investment decisions to address fully the requirement for demand management”
in transport. It continues:
“For ... roads investment that is made as part of the above”
there should be
“a presumption in favour of investment to future proof existing road infrastructure and to make it safer, resilient and more reliable rather than increase road capacity.”
We face significant challenges in transport.
We also have concerns about the potential two-tier pension arrangements, which unions have highlighted to us. I understand that the shadow bank proposals in that regard have been agreed by the cabinet secretary. I point out—I will welcome hearing about this in his closing remarks—that that risks damaging the bank’s chances of providing a fair and progressive wage environment.
We believe that local government should have a significant role in the bank’s projects and missions. All 32 of Scotland’s councils have signed up to Scotland’s climate change declaration, so I look forward to further discussions on that.
The bill is a framework bill. The proof of its success will lie in the bank’s operational decisions in years to come, the decisions that are made by its sole shareholder—the Scottish ministers—and in the scrutiny that the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee applies in its deliberations.
Greens support the bill—we wish it well and will vote for it at decision time.
16:56