Hansard

I, too, thank the European Commission for setting up what was a very useful trip, although it was a bit packed. By the end of it, a bit of overload was going on. There was probably too much information in the short time that was available. Nevertheless, the trip was worth while.I am fascinated by Finland's geography and history, which have led to the Finns being a self-reliant, self-sacrificing and innovative people. That is the impression that I was left with of the people of Finland. After we met members of the Finnish Committee for the Future, which Dennis Canavan mentioned, we had a useful session with the directors of the Confederation of Finnish Industries. They described how the national consensus builds in co-operation between themselves and the trade unions; how the trade unions are involved in their society and the decision-making process before they negotiate; and the way in which they dealt with the Finnish presidency of the EU and its outcomes. Some 130 important European meetings were held in Finland during the six months of the presidency.For me, the most fascinating aspect is Finland's policies on innovation. We visited TEKES, which is the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. The Finns push forward with risk taking and research and try to ensure that their economy is at the leading edge. They always recognise that they have the huge influence and impact of Nokia, but they are doing as much as they can to try to diversify their economy away from that base. They have to do that, but I guess that it will be some time before they are not reliant on Nokia. That brings me back to their geography and history and their self-reliance. In particular, they explained the turnaround in their economy since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. They managed to reposition Finland as one of the most successful countries in the world, at least in terms of gross domestic product. Switzerland and Finland are at the top of all the graphs on GDP and economic growth.In addition to having discussions with the Government agencies, we met the marketing company Otaniemi Marketing, which told us about its incubator project for small companies that are involved in ICT. I had not heard of that before. Under one roof, the company provides support, training and help with business plans to innovative small companies that want to get on. That was fascinating.We have masses to learn from the way in which business is done in Finland, although we have still to get to the bottom of whether the Finns are genuinely staying within the European Union's rules—it went quiet when we asked about that.Dennis Canavan covered some of the issues relating to education. I was fascinated by the fact that there is no inspectorate in Finland and that it is left to local officials and monitoring to ensure that educational standards are attained. The figures that we were given for educational attainment and for outputs for literacy and so on indicated that Finland is ahead of Scotland in that area. I do not know whether that is the result of Finland not having an inspectorate, but the issue deserves examination. Perhaps we are overburdening people with ticking boxes, instead of allowing them to get on with the job. I am not saying that we should throw away the inspectorate tomorrow, but there are points from which Scotland can learn.Equally, Finland has some fundamental structural problems that it must tackle and that will be significant in the future. Those problems relate not just to the health of the nation but to the economy and how Finland will deal with globalisation. However, the way in which the Finns are connected with the rest of the world will give them at least a chance of success. That comes back to the fact that they are a self-reliant, self-sacrificing and innovative people. I think that they will get through the challenges that they will face in the future.