Chamber
Plenary, 22 Mar 2007
22 Mar 2007 · S2 · Plenary
Item of business
SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE
Manufacturing
Enterprise, Lifelong Learning and Transport
It is often suggested, particularly by the Scottish National Party, that RSA and other grants are exploited by rapacious foreign companies, which grab a grant, create low-skill screwdriver or call-centre jobs and, having screwed every penny that they can from the system, relocate overseas. Does the minister support that view? Or does he agree that recent grants to companies such as Semifab, CRC Glenrothes and Naylor Industries—I hope that will include Tullis Russell Papermakers Ltd, too—which are all in my constituency, are for local manufacturing companies to support innovative processes that raise the manufacturing game in Scotland? Does he believe that such assistance is vital for the stability and growth of manufacturing in Scotland?
In the same item of business
4. Christine May (Central Fife) (Lab):
Lab
To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it has in place to support manufacturing industry, what the value is of such support and how many jobs have been ...
The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson):
Lab
Scottish ministers provide a wide range of support to manufacturing companies in Scotland. That includes financial support, innovation grants, practical supp...
Christine May:
Lab
It is often suggested, particularly by the Scottish National Party, that RSA and other grants are exploited by rapacious foreign companies, which grab a gran...
Allan Wilson:
Lab
I do indeed and I note that in the same period to which I referred, businesses in the Fife area accepted 72 offers of RSA totalling more than £20 million. Th...
Jim Mather (Highlands and Islands) (SNP):
SNP
I cannot help but wish that, when I was an IBM salesman, the minister had been my manager because he seems to be able only to record gains and never to accou...
Allan Wilson:
Lab
It would be helpful if the official Opposition, too, gave a balanced account of the performance of the Scottish economy in these and other debates. The decli...