Hansard

I take Liz Smith’s point. With community wealth building, our commitments on developing wellbeing economy metrics will be important. Community wealth building is a model that can deliver on the aspirations and ideals of the wellbeing economy.

As I move towards closing my remarks, I want to touch on the work of the Scottish Land Commission, which has launched community wealth building guidance that sets out practical actions that public bodies can take to use and manage land productively and in the public interest.

Our local authorities are driving the agenda, but other sectors and anchor public bodies are looking to embed the approach in their practice and engagement with local partners, including NHS Scotland, the police and fire services as well as our further and higher education institutions.

My proposition is that there is little to disagree with on this exciting new approach. Basically, it is about making our existing spend work harder to create fairer and more resilient local and regional economies. Community wealth building is about making all of the money work for local communities. The principles that underpin the model will increasingly influence the way in which the Scottish Government invests.

I turn to the development of legislation. During my discussions with the pilot areas and other key stakeholders, a number of potential barriers and impediments to the advancement of community wealth building have been raised. Earlier this month, I chaired the first meeting of the new community wealth building bill steering group. A broad cross-section of public, private and third sector partners have been invited to help develop and refine our legislative proposition. I also want to work with colleagues in the chamber and, where relevant, the United Kingdom Government as consensually as possible to ensure the continued success of community wealth building.

I am keen that development of the legislation is influenced by those with experience on the ground, so that we build on that knowledge and enthusiasm. That extends to ensuring that we measure progress, the model’s operation and the results and outputs, such as business growth, new job creation and having more land in community ownership. We also need to focus on gathering evidence about the beneficial long-term impacts of community wealth building.

Community wealth building can help to transform local and regional economies across Scotland. It can protect and create good jobs, and it can revive underutilised assets in our town centres and rural and island economies, unleashing the dynamism of community ownership and ensuring that local communities have a greater stake in their local economy. As Ted Howard says, Scotland is “becoming a global leader” in this field. We must be ambitious, bold and innovative in developing legislation to ensure that we realise the opportunity to unlock the potential of businesses and communities across Scotland, thereby creating a stronger, fairer and greener economy.

At an event recently, I was struck by a quote that I think was originally from Albert Einstein, who said:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

In rethinking our economy over the next decade, community wealth building can make a pivotal contribution.

This is perhaps not as erudite as an Einstein quote, but I was informed recently that, on an album released by the American band REM one year after I was born, there is a song called “Cuyahoga”. The song’s themes include repairing a damaged environment and the importance of community. The first line goes:

“Let’s put our heads together and start a new country up”.

I like the radical sentiment. The interesting connection is that the Cuyahoga River runs right through the centre of Cleveland, Ohio, which is the home of community wealth building. Creating Scotland’s future economy needs all of us to be radical and creative, and I think that community wealth building has a key role to play in creating that future.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises the huge potential of Community Wealth Building as a practical, place-based economic development model that can help transform local and regional economies to deliver a Wellbeing Economy for Scotland; agrees that Community Wealth Building can deliver more and better jobs, business growth, community-owned assets and shorter supply chains supporting net zero ambitions; welcomes the progress made by public, private and third sectors in implementing Community Wealth Building in Scotland so far; notes that the 2021 Programme for Government and recent National Strategy for Economic Transformation confirmed plans to introduce legislation on Community Wealth Building during the current Parliamentary session; believes that this provides an important opportunity to think creatively and innovatively about the interconnections and interdependencies between the economy, environment and society, and supports plans for wide engagement on this legislation.