Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2025
I will allow Mr Fraser to defend his numbers; I was just providing some other context. We should look at the measure that the Deputy First Minister presented, but it is just one measure. All that I am asking for is a more holistic view.
The Scottish technology ecosystem report—STER—was very useful and important, but I ask the Government to question whether we are implementing every element of it as much as we could. There are a number of areas where we could go further, not least of which is ensuring that we embed the right skills in the education system and that we are delivering more computing science teachers.
We have already touched on the interfaces with higher education. There are still issues for innovation in that area, and it is good that the Deputy First Minister addressed that. However, there are still too many barriers, including that many higher education institutions are simply taking too high an equity stake in spin-outs, and those equity stakes are simply getting in the way of companies that are going for series A investment and so on.
We also need to look beyond technology start-ups. It was interesting that, again, we have had a presentation from the Deputy First Minister that has focused on that. It is absolutely right that we focus on technology start-ups, but they are not the only type of start-up. Critically, other areas where we seek to develop high-growth businesses, such as advanced manufacturing, life sciences, and food and drink, are more capital intensive. In those areas, capital equipment and plant are more expensive than they are for technology firms. The barriers between the different stages of the pipeline, as set out in the Scottish technology ecosystem report, are much higher for those sorts of capital-intensive businesses, and we need a renewed focus on how we help them to thrive.
I point out that the contrast that the Deputy First Minister made between small and medium-sized enterprises and high-growth start-ups is interesting. There are two ways of looking at that. There is a lot of value in high-growth technology start-ups, but the other way of looking at those figures is that we have an issue with growth across the broad range of SMEs. As well as looking at high-growth start-ups, we must look at ways in which we can help all small and medium-sized enterprises to grow.
As John Tsoukalas’s report on Scotland’s productivity challenge sets out, 90 per cent of Scottish businesses have seen no growth during the past two decades. We must develop approaches that help all businesses to invest and grow and help all businesses of all sizes to reach their potential. With that, I need to close.
I move amendment S6M-17785.2, to insert at end:
“; believes that Scottish businesses across sectors have not had adequate support from the Scottish Government to break down barriers to innovation, and that support must extend beyond start-up stage to provide advice and investment for scaling up; notes that the proportion of businesses in Scotland that are innovating, that is those introducing or developing a new product, service or process, has fallen from 50% in 2012-14 to just 32% in 2020-22, and calls on the Scottish Government to reform Scotland’s economic agencies to better support entrepreneurs and innovation in sectors across Scotland, including capital intensive sectors like life sciences and advanced manufacturing.”
15:52
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