European and External Relations Committee, 12 Apr 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Official Report 116KB pdf

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Fresh Talent Initiative Inquiry

Item 2 concerns a paper with proposed terms of reference for the committee's inquiry into the Scottish Executive's fresh talent initiative. The paper summarises the background to the initiative, goes through the initiative's overall aims, identifies the focal points of the written evidence and outlines the schedule of witnesses from whom we may hear. In addition, a briefing was prepared in October 2004 by Ross Burnside of the Scottish Parliament information centre, who is with us today. That SPICe briefing paper covers the background to the fresh talent initiative and is available to members. We will use Ross's input in the course of the inquiry.

Do members wish to make points about the inquiry's remit?

The remit looks fine.

I am happy with the inquiry's remit. It is obvious why we will take evidence from some of the proposed witnesses, but I am not as sure about others. It would help if the clerks clarified why Tesco, FirstBus and Scottish Widows are listed.

From my early discussions with Ross Burnside about the terms of reference, it seemed a good idea to approach a large-scale employer in Scotland that might be able to take a more strategic view of how the fresh talent initiative might be helpful or what modifications could be made to it.

FirstBus has been recruiting in eastern Europe.

The comments that Alasdair Rankin just made would apply most directly to organisations such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, but FirstBus has had the experience of recruiting people directly from outside Scotland and all that goes with that. It might be interesting to hear from—

I would like an opportunity to be rude to FirstBus, but perhaps not on this issue.

You will, of course, have to remain in order for the duration of the inquiry. However, it would be interesting to hear FirstBus's perspective in that regard.

My point is along the same lines as Irene Oldfather's. I can see a reason for including the Scottish Refugee Council given that we are talking about incomers, but I am not sure why we need the Commission for Racial Equality or Robina Qureshi to be present. Why are we missing out organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Scottish Trades Union Congress?

One or two little points crop up in the paper about the terms of reference. The committee paper quotes the Executive's policy paper, which emphasises that

"we must boost the working age population, particularly the 25-45 age group".

As part of our inquiry, we should look at the polls that show that about a third of young Scots between the ages of 17 and 34 are willing to emigrate and work abroad. Against the attraction of the fresh talent initiative, we also have to look at the issues that pertain to the retention of talented young people in Scotland.

My second comment concerns the point in the committee paper that refers to

"Measures to be agreed with the UK government actively to promote Scotland as a destination for people seeking to use the work permit route to come into the UK."

We know that the issue of United Kingdom work permits will be retained at Westminster. We saw in reports over the weekend that the concept of the Scottish Executive establishing a diplomatic post in China was regarded with some concern. We need to do some costing around the issue of non-Scots students studying here and making Scotland their permanent home—after graduation they are permitted to stay on for an additional two years. Otherwise, the terms of reference are excellent.

Are there any other comments?

I know that the aims of the inquiry relate to employment and labour market trends, but I assume that we will also take a close look at the skills-employment mismatch. That is quite important. When we visited New York, Dennis Canavan and I met the delegate general of Quebec, who made it clear that his office had a skills-employment base to its activities. It would be helpful to look at that area during the inquiry and I am keen to do so, although I am also keen for us to be focused. Too often in our inquiries we get enthusiastic and invite witnesses from all kinds of areas and perhaps do not home in enough on some of the key issues.

As there are no further points, I draw this discussion to a conclusion. As regards the witness list, we dealt with the point about the larger companies and the perspective that we are looking for from them. I took the view that if we hear from those larger companies, we would not necessarily need the perspective of the business organisations at the same time, but I do not have a hard-and-fast view on that. If the committee wants to hear from the CBI, the FSB and the STUC, I am happy to add them to the list. Does that reflect a consensus of opinion?

It would be fair to have that balance.

Okay. We will add them to the list.

As regards the Commission for Racial Equality and Positive Action in Housing, we are simply trying to get as broad a perspective as possible on some of the practical issues that face people who come to Scotland from another country and to understand what they come up against. It might be that the fresh talent initiative is a good idea but is rendered futile because people are exposed to unsavoury behaviour when they come to Scotland. I would think that the CRE might have something to say about that, and we are trying to get an understanding of whether the right kind of welcome is given.

On the detail of the remit, we will alter the text to take into account Margaret Ewing's first point on the retention of young people in Scotland, as it is not quite covered in the draft remit. The other points that were made about work permits and overseas students are probably covered.

Be careful how you redraft it, because I would hate anyone to pick up the idea that we want to stop people travelling. It would be a sad day if Scots stopped getting experience in other parts of the world; we just want them to come back again.

It is also very much a matter of economic opportunity.

That is what underpins my point. I suspect that, if John Home Robertson and I had been asked when we were 25 whether we envisaged ever working abroad, we would probably have said yes. However, we do not have the statistical details, and it is important for us to retain talent as well as to attract it.

Irene Oldfather made a point about the aims of the inquiry reflecting the skills- employment mismatch. That is an essential part of what the inquiry should cover and if it is not stated expressly, we will do so. That also reinforces the point about the CBI and the STUC.

Something has just come into my head. We are talking about fresh talent and skilled labour, but we must not forget less skilled labour and the twilight area of casual labour. A lot of people from outside Scotland work as casual labourers in various industries. They are talented people who should be respected and whose rights should be looked after. Might it be worth taking even just written evidence from representatives of those who employ casual labour? Perhaps some of the organisations that are already on the list might be able to represent them.

That is a good point. I am aware from my own constituency experience that the food processing sector would not operate at the moment if it was not for migrant labour—for example, Grampian Country Foods is a major employer of such labour. The matter also affects Margaret Ewing's constituency among others.

Perhaps some food industry umbrella organisation, such as the NFU Scotland, could give evidence on that.

There is a Scottish Food and Drink Federation. We will investigate that point as well. It is a helpful suggestion.

I will address a slightly different aspect of casual labour. I have problems in and around Ayr with workers coming in from European Union countries and taking low-grade jobs in which people in our country have worked for many years. One site that Irene Oldfather will know is Craig Tara, the old Butlins site, at which, all of a sudden, a long-standing workforce has been dispensed with and workers from another country have been brought in. We must be a little bit careful about ensuring that there is always a place in Scotland for those who do not aspire to anything other than low-grade jobs.

We have to have an understanding of how that issue is handled.

The reality is that many businesses need such labour. I, like the convener, have in my constituency a food processing business—Kettle Produce—that needs seasonal workers and simply cannot get them in the current labour market in Fife. We need those who come from the European Union and, for that matter, further afield to do the job.

We will investigate what the best source of evidence on that area might be.

An issue that often crops up in all our constituencies is that of language skills. When taking written or oral evidence from Universities Scotland and leading academics, we should ask what facilities will be made available to teach language skills. Someone can be a wonderful dentist but if they do not speak English there will be problems. That applies to every kind of employment.

We will address that in our inquiry.

The fresh talent initiative has been raised by the First Minister so I thought it appropriate to give him the opportunity to address the committee if he so wished. That invitation has been extended and we await a reply.

Once the remit has been amended, it will appear on the Parliament's website along with a call for evidence. The first evidence session will be in two weeks' time, on 26 April, at our normal meeting time. Among the witnesses that day will be the Registrar General for Scotland. We will make available a SPICe paper giving a lot of the background information that I suspect will underpin what the Registrar General says.