Plenary, 09 Oct 2003

Meeting date: Thursday, October 9, 2003

Official Report 692KB pdf

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Schools (Enterprise Culture)

Good morning. The first item of business this morning is a debate on motion S2M-467, in the name of Jim Wallace, on creating an enterprise culture in Scotland's schools, and three amendments to the motion.

As has been said before, growing the economy is the Executive's top priority because a successful economy builds better public services, opens up opportunities, creates wealth for all and enables us to pursue our social justice agenda. "Determined to Succeed: A review of enterprise in education" is another step on the road towards a more enterprising Scotland.

The debate is fundamentally about "Determined to Succeed". It is about a vision for our young people, their teachers and their schools. There is an urgent need to look at how we prepare our young people for their working lives as employees, employers and entrepreneurs. That is why "Determined to Succeed" and taking forward the Executive's response to that review are at the heart of our partnership agreement.

The Parliament is aware of the demographic challenges that we face. The number of under-16s in Scotland is forecast to fall by a fifth in little more than 20 years' time. At the same time, the number of older people will rise. Our labour force is shrinking dramatically, so we simply must ensure that our young people, who are tomorrow's work force, are given every encouragement to realise their full potential.

On business start-ups, we have to encourage more people in Scotland to think about establishing their own business. We want Scotland to be a place where people are not frightened to take that leap. As things stand, the figures suggest that Scotland lags well behind the other 30 countries that form part of the independent global entrepreneurship monitor project. For example, fear of failure prevents 40 per cent of our people from starting businesses, but the figure is only 34 per cent for our GEM competitors.

"Determined to Succeed" is intended to change the way in which young people learn so that they are helped to develop new skills, attitudes and behaviour. It is about being prepared to take sensible risks and to have a go. It is also about being able to face up to failure and see it as something from which to learn, from which to recover and on which to build future success. That is crucial to achieving our wider economic priorities.

What does "Determined to Succeed" offer a young person? It offers three sorts of experience: enterprise, vocational and entrepreneurial. It offers more enterprising learning so that every youngster will take part in an enterprise activity as an on-going and integrated part of their school life; it offers more vocational experiences and learning opportunities in the workplace; and it offers more chances for young people to work together by running their own mini-businesses in schools, for instance.

I acknowledge that significant progress has already been made. Although we will roll out the initiative in every part of Scotland, we will initially take it forward with a smaller group of local authorities. I am pleased to announce that plans for a majority of the initial projects are at a stage at which I can confirm in principle awards of funding. Those very substantial awards cover this year and the following two and amount to some £8 million. Of the 10 councils that have been identified to start projects this year, the six with which we have agreements in principle are: Argyll and Bute Council, which is to be awarded £689,000; Dundee City Council, which is to be awarded £800,000; East Ayrshire Council, which is to be awarded £787,000; East Renfrewshire Council, which is to be awarded £645,000; Glasgow City Council, which is to be awarded £3,009,000; and North Lanarkshire Council, which is to be awarded £2,073,000. I will make an announcement shortly about the four other local authorities that are to receive funding in the first phase. It is also worth reminding members that that funding comes on top of the major contribution that the Hunter Foundation has already generously made and which the Executive has matched.

That investment is absolutely essential, but it is made against a backdrop of existing good work and success that augur well for Scotland's future. Throughout Scotland, we already have excellent examples of the sort of work envisaged in "Determined to Succeed". In Oldmachar Academy in Aberdeen, pupils organised a citizenship conference for pupils and teachers from throughout the city, with all the planning, decision making, and individual responsibility that that implies.

In Glasgow, more than 1,000 pupils already benefit from the council's schools vocational programme, which allows them to get early exposure to the workplace and to develop the skills that employers need. With the help of cities growth funding, Glasgow City Council is now working with neighbouring authorities to help them to develop similar programmes.

Pupils in Portree Primary have gone back to the future to develop an award-winning record of local experiences of the second world war, and their product has been purchased by schools throughout Scotland. That is a first-class example of an entrepreneurial project that was developed in the community, was about the community, benefited the community and, above all benefited those who were engaged in it.

Has the Scottish Trades Union Congress been approached about involving the trade union movement in the world of work experience and in the creation of the entrepreneurial spirit? Obviously, good employers are those who recognise the trade unions.

I certainly accept that trade unionism has an important part to play. Indeed, as most members know, the Executive is regularly in contact and regularly engages with the STUC on a range of issues. I certainly wish the STUC to be involved as many of the projects are developed and taken forward.

In March this year, the First Minister and I launched the enterprise in education strategy. We talked then of the need for more of us in Scotland to see the glass as half full, rather than half empty. "Determined to Succeed" is about changing the culture of young people. It is about helping more of our young people to develop a can-do and will-do attitude.

If we are to make a real difference for our young people and help them to become enterprising pupils, we need enterprising teachers and enterprising schools. There are already excellent examples throughout the country. We intend to learn from and build on them. Let us be clear: "Determined to Succeed" is not about sending a young person into a classroom for a double period of enterprise. Our philosophy is intended to be embedded within and throughout the curriculum.

As I say, that is already happening. Enterprising physics is perfectly possible and is happening now—I wish that it had happened when I was at school. One example is the Scottish space school foundation, a partnership with NASA. Groups of young people from all backgrounds work on online modules, submit them and participate in science workshops. Some participate in a week-long school at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.

We need to engage with parents and carers. We want them to see what we are doing and to carry forward that spirit at home. For example, we want them to view vocational options as the first-rate opportunity that they represent: a way of providing the right option for the individual young person.

Against this background—the need for action, and the scale of the challenge that we face—the Executive has rightly taken the lead in driving implementation of "Determined to Succeed". We are facilitating delivery locally, so I want to spend some time this morning reflecting on what has been done.

From the outset, we have recognised that our strategy will take root only if we work directly with those who are responsible for delivering it. Therefore, local authorities are at the heart of our approach. They must own "Determined to Succeed". They drive it forward in their schools. They must engage—more than that, enthuse—their teachers. The signs are good. There is every sign that we are building on fertile ground.

Local authorities are doing impressive work. The education for work and enterprise agenda has been active for some time, so we must be careful not to suggest that everything I am talking about is new. There are already teachers the length and breadth of Scotland who equip their students with enterprising skills and the confidence and self-esteem that flow from them and who have been doing so for years. I recall visiting Fortrose Academy during the summer. There, I met a number of teachers who, for a considerable time, have encouraged their pupils to engage in many enterprising activities.

During the summer, I also visited the Sir E Scott School on the Isle of Harris in the Western Isles. There, I met an extraordinary group of young people. Led by an inspiring teacher and guided by two enthusiastic business advisers, the youngsters formed a company—Beartas—that designed, patented and marketed the first Isle of Harris tartan. Beartas became the first Scottish winner of the young enterprise UK award and competed strongly against similar companies from across Europe in the European finals. It was well recognised that they did Scotland proud.

The local examples to which the minister refers are all welcome. However, when I speak to employers, they tell me that they find that school leavers who come to them for jobs increasingly lack basic literacy, numeracy and communication skills. Will the minister outline what the Executive is doing to try to drive up standards in those areas?

I hope that Murdo Fraser would acknowledge that we are not talking about an either/or situation and that developing the enterprise in education theme and tackling numeracy and literacy are both important.

We have undertaken a number of initiatives to improve literacy and numeracy in schools. The Executive is committed to raising standards as part of our national priorities for education. The early intervention programme is providing funding to raise attainment in literacy and numeracy in the early years of primary school. Between 1999 and 2001-02, we provided £12 million to support in-service training and development for teachers, with particular emphasis on improving literacy and numeracy from primary 6 through to secondary 2. There has also been investment in family literacy schemes and the provision of home-link teachers. I assure Murdo Fraser and employers that the Executive takes improving literacy and numeracy skills very seriously indeed.

What struck me about the young people whom I met in Harris was not just their creativity and enterprise in identifying a niche market, the determination with which they pursued that, or their maturity in managing a substantial operation that involved many people, but their self-confidence and assuredness—that shone through. They had a vision of the future as a series of opportunities. All of them were certain that the enterprise project on which they had worked had done wonders for them; they expressed that clearly.

It is clear that pupils who engage and are committed have the ability to succeed. The other key partners—the Executive, local authorities, teachers, parents and the business community—need to ensure that they give such pupils the best possible support.

Members will recall that, of our total provision for implementation of "Determined to Succeed"—some £40 million over three years—£5 million is available this year. It was clear that attempting to stretch that provision across 32 local authorities would have been a case of spreading jam too thinly. As I have indicated, we identified 10 local authorities to work with us in writing plans for immediate implementation. I have announced funding in principle for six of those today.

My officials are visiting directors of education and their staff in the remaining 22 authorities and inviting them to work with us in drawing up plans for funding that will come into effect next April. All 22 authorities will have been met by the middle of next month. So far, it is clear that authorities enthusiastically share our view of what "Determined to Succeed" is about and want to use the resources that we are making available to deliver it.

As well as the investment of millions of pounds, the Executive is taking a number of other steps to help to foster an enterprising culture. We have seconded to my department two teachers who, since the summer, have been working alongside a number of local authorities to help them to develop their plans. We have also brought on board two business people to enable us to engage more effectively with the business community. We need more help from businesses. We need more business people to make available places in which young people may experience the reality of work—not just through traditional work experience, but in work-based learning opportunities. We need more business people and schools to come together in partnerships that can offer much to both parties.

We are investing in other key areas. With the welcome help of the Hunter Foundation, we are investing in the teaching profession—we are drawing on the financial resource that the foundation generously made available at the launch in March. We need to continue to develop leadership skills so that those who deliver "Determined to Succeed" in schools have the tools that they need. With the Hunter Foundation, we are establishing a pilot leadership programme for head and deputy head teachers. We hope that some 100 such teachers will experience that training in the coming year. We are also considering how initial teacher education might be developed better to reflect "Determined to Succeed".

We are determined to share our existing knowledge and best practice throughout Scotland, which will help schools, teachers and businesses that want to participate but are unsure how to do so. I am pleased to say that, shortly, we will launch a website with a core package for schools that introduces "Determined to Succeed" and on which we will signpost existing excellence in practice and provision. We will have sections that are designed specifically to meet the needs of parents, teachers, local authorities and businesses.

"Determined to Succeed" contains 20 recommendations, all of which the Executive has responded to. How many of those recommendations has the Executive implemented or how many does it have firm commitments to implement?

Brian Adam has done well to read "Determined to Succeed: A review of enterprise in education". I also commend to him the Scottish Executive's response, "Determined to Succeed: Enterprise in education", which indicates how we are proceeding with each of the recommendations. As I am in my final minute, I cannot go through and read out all 20 of our responses to the recommendations. Our responses are there and, what is more, the funding is available to back them up.

The dictionary defines enterprise as a

"readiness to embark on new ventures; boldness and energy"

and as "initiative in business". Those attributes are hardly new to us—many Scots have shown them throughout our history. We need to instil and nurture those attributes in all our young people, irrespective of their background. The awards that I have announced today, and those that we plan for all other authorities, will build on existing excellence and good practice. They will give more young people the chance to experience the learning that will let them take their place as the entrepreneurs and the enterprising employees and employers of tomorrow.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the "can do, will do" attitude the Scottish Executive's strategy for enterprise in education aims to engender among young people; notes that it is a priority of the Partnership Agreement to deliver the strategy in partnership with local authorities and businesses, and looks forward to the Determined to Succeed strategy giving young people the skills they need to take an entrepreneurial spirit from the classroom into a confident and prosperous Scotland.

The "Determined to Succeed" initiative is a worthy initiative that deserves to be supported. We welcome the steps that the motion advocates, which are sensible and will help to prepare all our children for the world of work, by helping to raise their confidence, self-esteem and motivation. However, we also believe that more needs to be done to ensure that we are not training many youngsters to leave Scotland. That serious reservation has nothing to do with the intrinsic validity of the proposals, which I endorse whole-heartedly.

"Determined to Succeed" is a move in the right direction. In Scotland, the total level of national entrepreneurial activity is low. The low business start-up rate shows little sign of a major, lasting improvement, especially as we face a material decline in population numbers.

Population decline is a problem that is fast becoming a crisis. In July, the Registrar General for Scotland said in his annual report:

"population decline is often regarded as being symptomatic of poor economic performance and may even reduce confidence in the economy."

In other words, Scotland stands on the cusp of further decline. That view was reinforced as recently as last Thursday, when Professor William Baumol said in Glasgow:

"If these trends continue you will have a problem of huge dimensions and the solution will neither be easy nor obvious."

Although we understand the great need for the initiative, which will equip young people with key skills, we must also recognise the need for us to create conditions that persuade more youngsters to stay in Scotland. Until we do that, the jury will remain out on whether the initiative can help to deliver higher growth, more prosperity, higher productivity, improved competitiveness, higher living standards and, crucially, the stabilisation of our population.

The initiative should not simply be about economics or jobs; after all, we are talking about the young people of Scotland—our own children and grandchildren. For emotional, familial and social reasons, as well as for economic ones, we all want every young person to be all they can be. That is why "Determined to Succeed", in as far as it goes, is getting the support that we are giving it.

It will certainly provide our schools and teachers with focus and a structured support link to the world of work. It will make education more relevant to all our youngsters, by helping them to see education as a powerful passport to a better future. For business, there is the chance to put something back, as Tom Hunter is doing, and to play a part in channelling new ideas and new energy, which will help to create a better Scotland. That will increase the likelihood of more customers with deeper pockets. For the trade unions, there is the prospect of creating more jobs in a higher-added-value, high-wage economy. For the public sector, there is an opportunity to showcase its role and to help to produce well-rounded young people. The voluntary sector can provide a rich training ground for new, young volunteers and help to create a new generation of more community-aware youngsters.

For Scotland as a whole, the initiative can play a constructive role in generating the sort of growth that the Registrar General was quietly clamouring for. Such growth will involve greater participation in work and prosperity; population growth, with more people staying in Scotland; increasing levels of self-reliance; and the release of a contagious self-confidence. However, as I have said, in the current climate, that release might be more than the Scottish Executive has planned for.

As the member knows, I agree 100 per cent with putting the powers of the Scottish economy fully in the hands of the Scottish people. Does he agree that we need much stronger employment protection laws than those we have at the moment, so that companies do not hire and fire at the drop of a hat or withdraw from Scotland, as Hoover announced that it would do only yesterday?

I understand much of Tommy Sheridan's point, but the key issue is that Scotland must stay as flexible as it can be so that it is not painted into a corner. We are trying to catch up, so a balance must be struck. I understand the balance and the points that Tommy Sheridan makes.

The release that I am talking about might mean that more of our better trained and more entrepreneurial young Scots are drawn to faster-growing and more rewarding economies. Therefore, although we accept the good intentions and sound aspects of the Executive's initiative, we must have reservations.

There is plenty of evidence that our taxpayer pounds are enriching other economies, as talented young Scots, intellectual property rights and fledgling companies migrate to economies that are doing better than is Scotland's. We must acknowledge that an enterprise culture in schools is only part of the solution. The other and most important part can be tackled only when the Parliament recognises that our economic problems are all symptoms of a deeper problem—our status as a branch economy without the powers to compete. That analysis gains acceptance daily and faces flat rejection only in the chamber. That response surprises many people in Scotland and abroad who understand cause and effect and recognise a chain reaction when they see one.

Mike Rumbles is in favour.

Order.

We can prove—to Mike Rumbles's satisfaction—that lacking the ability to compete is at the root of most of Scotland's social and economic problems, as it causes the Scottish economy to be smaller than it could be, the loss of headquarters, and the low spend on research and development. It makes average Scottish incomes lower than those elsewhere and causes our historically diffident attitude to entrepreneurialism.

However, experience has now persuaded us that we need new generations of multitalented youngsters who are well able to compete and to start businesses; who dare to fail, but are also more likely to succeed outrageously; and who can take Scotland back to the top of world league tables.

To achieve that end, the Parliament must play a crucial catalytic role. It simply must create the conditions to help businesses to compete, by grasping the power to set taxes and having the wisdom to set them at lower rates than those in London and south-east England.

In the unlikely event that the Parliament was given extra powers or that Scotland separated from the rest of the United Kingdom, would Jim Mather advocate the Irish model of very low taxation and no investment in public services such as a national health service, or the Finnish model?

That is the debate that we must have. The key issue is that that beautiful balance can be achieved in a virtuous circle when wealth is being created. At the moment, we are in a vicious circle of taking lower taxes and having a declining population. That model is crazy. We should be a bit expansionist and imagine that we can have the best of both worlds. Other countries can achieve that.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Executive, which George Lyon supports, is tackling the new competitive global environment by sticking to an economic strategy that is unique in the free world. It is not really a strategy at all, as it has no target for growth and involves a housekeeping allowance from another Parliament. The strategy takes no control of tax rates, controls only spending and has no mechanism to increase or maximise Government revenue. The strategy is condemned to perpetuate a false-hope syndrome that locks Scotland into a powerless position in which it is unable to match the performance of economies that have the power to compete.

I call again for common sense to prevail and for the Parliament to demand more power, without which sound initiatives such as the "Determined to Succeed" initiative will produce the opposite effects to those that the Executive wants. We must address the core problem of competitiveness to create and retain wealth and talented people in Scotland.

Will the member give way?

I have taken a few interventions so I will crack on.

Last week, Kirsty Wark opened the new Allander series of lectures by suggesting that she sees a desire for us to pull together across the political boundaries. Perhaps that was triggered by Wendy Alexander, who was instrumental in making those lectures happen and who has called for a proper debate on the economy. She has gone so far as to say:

"A convincing case can be made for matching constitutional federalism with more flexible fiscal arrangements."

She is right and deserves congratulations on doing the right thing by Scotland. The Parliament must listen to those words, or we will neither confront nor solve our population crisis. That would be tragic, for a solution is available, but only if we act quickly and decisively. Otherwise, William Baumol will be right—the situation will deteriorate and the eventual solutions will be neither easy nor obvious.

I am aware that many members might still not accept that argument, in private or in public, and that others have some way to go towards conversion, but their conversion is just a matter of time, for no alternative is available. As evidence and personal experience grow, the people of Scotland will increasingly accept that powerlessness will not crack Scotland's problems.

Is independence Mr Mather's sole cure for the problems that we are debating? Is he prepared to use his considerable economic expertise to engage with the propositions that the Executive made this morning on entrepreneurship, which is an issue regardless of whether independence, federalism or the current set-up prevails?

Although Mr Mather's remarks are in order because his amendment deals with control of the economy, I remind him that the debate is about enterprise culture in Scotland's schools.

I am mindful of that. I merely point to the hole in the bucket through which talented people and wealth can haemorrhage out of Scotland. That is the clear and present danger of the current strategy, of which our competitors will increasingly take advantage. In the long run, that will create a remembered hurt even for the generation that we are trying to help, because it will see a lost opportunity.

It is time to implement initiatives such as the "Determined to Succeed" strategy, but it is also time to address the core problem. It is time for Scotland to start catching up with competitor nations and to be able to control, protect and build a more prosperous and fairer Scotland.

I move amendment S2M-467.1, to leave out from "take" to end and insert:

"have full rewarding lives and the entrepreneurial spirit required to take up and create rewarding options in a new and increasingly competitive Scotland, which has full control of its own economy."

I am pleased that we are debating how to create a stronger enterprise culture in our schools. I hope to address this vital topic in due course. Creating an enterprise culture is essential for our young people's prospects and our country's prosperity. A recent survey that I believe the University of Strathclyde conducted showed that the Scots are the people in the UK who are most jealous of others' success. That is the sort of attitude that we must change. Every step in the right direction—even one from the Executive—is welcome.

Experiencing a more enterprise-based ethos in school is worth while for young people. Moreover, creating an enterprise culture is a vital investment in tomorrow's entrepreneurs. It is essential to turn around our economic decline, but we can do so only if our people are prepared to meet the challenge of becoming wealth creators. I am sure that all members are aware of the statistics on poor economic growth in Scotland, which is far lower than in the rest of the UK. That shows the scale of the problem that we must deal with.

I go so far as to suggest that the left-of-centre political consensus in Scotland does not help us to create a nation of entrepreneurs. Mr Mather did not refer to that—perhaps he was watching his back in his party—but he might agree with me.

Entrepreneurs who are successful in business make money. Scots have a fantastic history of succeeding in business throughout the centuries, but we have a culture and a media that try too often to pull such people down. We must deal with that problem.

Does Murdo Fraser deny that the left-of-centre political consensus that he just decried has, for the first time in a generation, developed an economic strategy that is suitable for Scotland and is implementing that not only in business, but in the important area of education? That is a long-term strategy to deliver economic success.

Yes, I deny that. I think that by your fruits you shall be judged. We will wait and see. So far, little sign of any economic progress has appeared. If the strategy delivers results in 10 or 20 years' time, I will welcome that, but we will believe it when we see it.

Does Murdo Fraser accept that Scotland's low growth rate relative to the UK and the European Union—and to small European nations in particular—was just as bad under the Tories as it is under the Labour Party? Does he also accept that that is because we do not have control, so we cannot make changes?

I thought that we were discussing enterprise in education and I will try to stick to that issue, but I remind Brian Adam that, for a period in the early 1990s, Scotland's economic growth outstripped that of the rest of the UK. Of course, we had a Conservative Government at that time.

I have examined the recommendations in the Executive's report, many of which are welcome and some of which may help to create an enterprise culture. However, as usual with Executive publications, although the document contains a lot of target setting, initiatives and aims to work towards, I wonder how much meat is in it.

I recently looked at the Executive's enterprise in education website, which can be found at www.enterpriseineducation.org, to see how well the Executive is doing in promoting its strategy. I was amused to find that Nicol Stephen is still the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People and that the report that we are discussing has still to be launched—the website has not been updated since March. If the Executive is serious about encouraging enterprise in education, perhaps the minister should look at that website and decide that it is time to bring it up to date and put his house in order.

Our amendment talks about what the business community looks for. For the business community, enterprise in education is all very well, but it is not the priority. The business community's priorities are simple: it wants school leavers who have basic skills in literacy and numeracy, who turn up on time and who have enough communication skills to allow them to pick up a phone and be polite and clear in conversation. Those are simple demands. It is all very well trying to create an enterprise culture in schools, but if those basic skills cannot be fostered, groups such as the Federation of Small Businesses, with which I discussed the issue only last week, can rightfully ask, "What is the point of the strategy?"

The attainment figures for five to 14-year-olds that were published last December show that more than half of pupils fail to meet the basic standards in English reading. The figures for mathematics and English writing are also disappointing. Those statistics back up the anecdotal evidence from employers about young people who turn up for their first day at work unable to read, write or communicate properly.

We believe that young people should have more opportunities to get involved with further education colleges, training centres and work placements. I appreciate that such initiatives already exist, but we need longer programmes that involve contact of more than one day a week or one week a year and which would produce real achievements. We also want specialist schools such as the technology colleges that exist down south, in which enterprise cultures are embedded in the curriculum.

I was happy to find among the 20 recommendations in the Executive's report the Conservative policy of allowing 14 to 16-year-olds the opportunity to undertake courses at FE colleges and training centres.

Will the member take an intervention on that point?

I am sorry, but I will run out of time shortly.

That policy is one of the best ways in which to create an enterprise culture among our young people, especially among children who are disillusioned with the curriculum in their schools. Where trials of the scheme have operated, they have proved highly successful. Nevertheless, the recommendation in the report does not go far enough. I call on the Executive to extend the scheme to allow wider access to FE colleges rather than the basic one day or half day a week that is available at present. FE colleges have a key role in the delivery of enterprise education, and not just through giving school pupils access to vocational training. Many colleges offer taster courses for young people.

I want to set the record straight. Mr Fraser will be aware that the partnership agreement mentions the extension of further education college places to pupils who are over 14. I put it on the record that, in the academic year 2001-02, 58,000 young people under the age of 16 attended college for part of the week and pursued a wide range of courses, many of which addressed the kind of skills that Murdo Fraser considers necessary.

I am obliged to the minister for that clarification. No doubt the figures are correct, but the point that I was trying to make was that, rather than keep the existing situation, in which most pupils go to FE colleges for only a day a week, we should consider extending that experience and making it available more widely.

There is already in schools a range of programmes that schoolchildren can take up. Those programmes, such as young enterprise and the Duke of Edinburgh's awards, aim to increase the skills we are talking about. Although the recommendations in the report are useful, they will interest only children who are already involved in enterprise programmes. I wonder whether children who do not take up existing opportunities will want to take up new ones.

I think that it was George W Bush who said that he could not do business with the French because they did not even have a word in their language for entrepreneur. Although we all, I hope, want more entrepreneurs, we must be aware that we cannot create them through Government action. Rather than try to educate school pupils to be entrepreneurs, the Executive would do our economy a better service if more of our school leavers could spell the word "entrepreneur". The message from the business community and from existing entrepreneurs and wealth creators is simple: we should concentrate on improving basic skills in education before we try anything fancy. If the Executive does that, it will do more to help our economy than any number of glossy reports and recommendations will.

I move amendment S2M-467.3, to leave out from "welcomes" to end and insert:

"recognises the necessity of creating an enterprise culture in Scotland in order to help reverse our economic decline; welcomes any moves to encourage young people to become more entrepreneurial but understands that what the business sector primarily looks for from school leavers are skills in literacy, numeracy, communication and timekeeping, and accordingly calls upon the Scottish Executive to take steps to reduce the unacceptable number of school pupils failing to meet basic standards in reading and writing, widen access to vocational courses at further education colleges for 14 and 15-year-olds, and increase opportunities for school pupils to experience work placements."

The debate raises two questions: what do we want from children after their 12 years in education; and what do we expect from their teachers? How and what we teach our children should reflect our expectations of them not only as citizens and members of communities but as employees or, potentially, as self-employed entrepreneurs. Above all, education should be concerned with the development of the individual. The ultimate aim must be to enable each child to achieve his or her potential and to equip each child with the tools and skills to enable him or her to make their own choices about their future.

The focus of the debate is wrong because, obviously, the most important element in education is the child. If we turn round the emphasis to put the child, rather than enterprise, at the centre, we might begin to realise the potential of each child, which, we all agree, is the future on which Scotland's economy relies. If we equip and enable each child to grow in confidence and to have a can-do attitude, we will do more to prepare them for living in the wider world than we would if we were to equip them with the ability to run a business, which should come later. That is what the education system is all about. Each stage should deal with the appropriate development of the child.

Education is about more than simply increasing young people's skills for employability and self-employment. My concern is the emphasis that is placed on enterprise in schools. The review group's report states:

"The ultimate goal of Enterprise in Education must be the creation of successful businesses, jobs and prosperity."

Will the member give way?

I was just coming to my crunch point. [Laughter.] Now that I have members' attention, I point out that the review group's comment sounds as if children are robots or mere machines whose task is to grow the economy.

I appreciate the member's point. Does she agree that enterprise is also about creativity and ideas and that, in educating for enterprise in schools, creative subjects such as music and drama might produce self-confidence and assuredness, which the minister said are key to encouraging enterprise?

I was coming to that point in my next paragraph. Children are enterprising; they love making things and playing instruments. Schools have always encouraged learning through creative activities and such activity is to be encouraged. Children make and sell things for school events and learn that profits can be used to help to fund school activities. Does that part of their education need to be more formal, particularly at primary school? In secondary school, I would prefer greater emphasis on general skills training in citizenship, social obligation and a proper understanding of the implications of real sustainability.

An equally important point is that we need more emphasis on technical abilities and on subjects that enable pupils to make decisions about their skills and abilities. The wider the choice that pupils get in school, the wider will be their horizons when they enter the labour market. Widening horizons to give real choice is what education is about, not moulding children to fit the working world of today. That was all part of the curriculum not that long ago.

I have deep reservations about this aspect of the education system being influenced by some companies that have less than ethical intent. ICI is on the list of donors, but last year the company was ranked by Friends of the Earth at number 4 in its top 10 list of planet trashers. A Scottish oil and gas company that is mentioned in the schools enterprise programme was only last month dropped from the FTSE4Good index. The index, which is run by the FTSE Group, aims to reflect socially responsible corporate behaviour.

Where in the list of companies mentioned in the schools enterprise programme that provide support for the initiative are local, community-based companies or voluntary groups? Could it be that they do not have sufficient resources to be able to play their part in showing children that there is a wider meaning to the word "enterprise"?

Real creative entrepreneurial thinking is often found in socially sustainable environmental businesses. Dealing with all the waste and pollution that we create has to be the fastest growing business sector in Scotland. Developing the right attitude to that begins in schools with the teaching of citizenship and social obligation—creating awareness in children of the impact that they have on the planet today.

We must not allow money from businesses in schools. "Determined to Succeed: A review of Enterprise in Education" recommends that the Executive,

"with partnership funding from the business community"—

I will take a drink of water before I finish the quotation, if I have time.

Will the member take an intervention?

No. I am nearly finished and I am running out of time. We get only six minutes, not 10 like the other parties.

The recommendation in "Determined to Succeed" says that the Executive must

"provide financial resources for appropriate experiential entrepreneurial activities in all primary, secondary and special schools."

I hope that the schools have good English teachers to work that one out. The plain English interpretation of that statement worries me. That sort of input is not done from a philanthropic point of view, as businesses will be looking for a return for their money.

If we keep money out of the programme, we will help to level the playing field for small businesses that cannot compete in terms of money and resources. This is an important educational matter and as such should be funded by the Executive. Children are our future.

I urge the Executive to consider our amendment, rethink its review and look at the pressures that it may be putting on teachers to fulfil the review's recommendations, which are quite onerous. The Executive should question the consequences of the partnership arrangements that it has already established and broaden out the ethos of enterprise in a smart, successful, sustainable Scotland.

I move amendment S2M-467.4, to leave out from "welcomes" to end and insert:

"considers that the Determined to Succeed strategy should strive to deliver the development of self-confident, skilled young people with a "can do, will do" attitude who can create environmentally and socially sustainable businesses and shape successful communities; requires that enterprise be fully integrated with teaching on citizenship, social obligation and sustainability, and calls on the Scottish Executive to ensure that locally-based voluntary and social enterprises play a full and equal part alongside other businesses in helping young people to develop ideas and skills."

Labour believes that our education system is crucial to the development of young Scots and Scotland's economy. That is why earlier this year we committed ourselves in our manifesto to building a culture of confidence and aspiration in our schools by ensuring that every pupil has the opportunity to learn the skills of entrepreneurship at school. In response to Murdo Fraser's comments, I say that we want every young Scot to be equipped with the skills and confidence that they need to make their way in the world—that is, all skills. Members may have noticed that that commitment has been written into the partnership agreement.

That commitment ties in with our strategy to create a smart, successful Scotland and our commitment to lifelong learning. That is why the Executive gave such an enthusiastic response to the report of the education for work and enterprise review group earlier this year. Given his remarks, Brian Adam seems to have missed that.

Every local authority is to be asked to develop enterprise in education plans for schools in their area. Those plans will be developed with local economic forums, which will provide an important link with business. The key element is what happens in schools and their ability to foster and nurture creativity among pupils.

That said, I have to say that I was disappointed that the Deputy First Minister mentioned the word "creativity" only once in his speech and did not refer to "Creativity in Education", which is a document that I will say more about shortly. The review group did not mention that document either, in the references that it provides—I think there are seven in total—at the end of its report.

It has been said that

"The principal goal of education is to create people who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what others have done."

That is one of the comments in the report, "Creativity in Education"—it is not exactly a pocket-sized document—which was produced two years ago by Learning and Teaching Scotland and the IDES network. It deserves much wider exposure than it has so far received.

Another of the report's self-evident truths is:

"Unless more people leave formal education with an enhanced capacity to engage in, and make an active contribution to, innovation, much of what we label creativity and inventiveness and entrepreneurship and enterprise will remain unexploited to the detriment of both individuals and society."

This debate may be entitled "Creating an Enterprise Culture in Scotland's Schools" but I suggest that it is about creativity, because if creativity is not understood in education—by head teachers and classroom teachers—attempts to develop an enterprising or entrepreneurial culture will struggle to succeed.

Creativity might be defined as bringing into being something that was not there before. As Tom Bentley of the Design Council stated:

"Creativity is one of the most contested and misunderstood concepts".

It is often the case that creative people are regarded as a bit odd and a bit different from the rest of us. They are seen as being a bit strange in some way, but there is no reason why that should be the case.

Those concepts, and many more, are opened up for discussion in "Creativity in Education", which is a fascinating report that I recommend all members should read. It is aimed at teachers, whose behaviour it rightly describes as the biggest single influence on the atmosphere in any classroom. Teachers should surely be able to create and model creative behaviour. In so doing, they should encourage and empower young people rather than coerce them. That is why I was pleased to hear the Deputy First Minister talk about encouraging local authorities to enthuse their teachers. He also mentioned putting resources into a leadership programme for head teachers and deputy heads. I suppose that we could ask why such a programme is necessary. How on earth did heads and deputy heads reach those positions without understanding leadership or, I suppose, the need to pass it on? Nevertheless, we are where we are.

As "Creativity in Education" states, just as good teachers foster creativity in their pupils, so good schools foster creativity in their teachers. I know from experience that many teachers feel strongly that constraints and pressures tend to inhibit the creative abilities of young people and those who teach them. Teachers often feel that there is insufficient flexibility within the system—that is, at a senior level in schools, in the subjects taught by those teachers—to allow them to develop creative thought and activity with pupils. That fundamental problem will have to be faced up to and resolved if we are to progress to a point where enterprise and entrepreneurship are effectively developed in our schools.

Another quote from the excellent "Creativity in Education" report is:

"The teacher's job is not only to help children to do better in school; it is to help them do better in life."

That is hardly radical—it is basic, undistilled common sense. It is an idea that we should be able to grasp and an ethos that we should be able to instil in the way in which we develop education and the curriculum.

I welcome the commitment that the Deputy First Minister gave to putting serious money into developing enterprise in education. Spending plans for the next three years show that £7 million will be spent this year and £13 million will be spent the following year, rising to £22 million in 2005-06. I assume from the Deputy First Minister's comments that by that time all local authorities will benefit from those resources.

I have already stressed the importance of the Deputy First Minister's comments on the role of local authorities. However it is also important to state, particularly in the light of Murdo Fraser's comments, that without the sustained commitment of the business community in Scotland, enterprise in education as a slogan will not be effective. MSPs are regularly contacted by business organisations, which are not slow to tell us as individuals what they expect from us, or the Government what they expect from it. The Confederation of British Industry Scotland, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Forum of Private Business and the chambers of commerce might take a lead from a comment made some time ago by a famous statesman, John F Kennedy, and ask themselves not what the Government can do for them but what they can do for the Government, particularly in this regard.

The review group that produced "Determined to Succeed" recommended that the business community should match the funding set aside by the Executive over the full three years of the programme. There is not much evidence of that happening so far. It is pleasing to see the Hunter Foundation come forward with £2 million, but a lot more needs to be done. I hope that business will put its money where its mouth is and work with the Executive to contribute to the development of the next generation of creative and enterprising young Scots. If schools begin to put creativity at the heart of the curriculum now, today's generation will play a much more influential role in building Scotland's economy than happened with previous generations.

Time and again, I am struck by the fact that, when we press people in local and national circles on what they think is the biggest change that we could make to create a more successful country, they use the word "confidence".

For example, when the Enterprise and Culture Committee had its away day in the summer, we met key business leaders and discussed both that issue and Scotland's business birth rate. We pinned them down on the question, "What is the one thing that can make a difference?" and they replied, "More confidence." If one speaks to people in sports, the arts and in schools, we return again and again to the word "confidence".

The importance of confidence is being increasingly recognised: books on the subject are appearing; there are articles aplenty in the press and elsewhere; and more conferences on confidence are being held. If we could edge a bit further forward today to address how we can build confidence in this country, we would do something significant.

Does Susan Deacon agree that it is important that that work starts in primary school and not, as the Greens suggested today, in secondary school? Will she congratulate those teachers who have been trained in enterprise education? There are 250 such teachers in Fife and a similar number throughout the country.

I agree with Christine May about the importance of primary education and that it is wrong to focus only on secondary education. However, I go even further. The significance of the tremendous growth in and development of nursery education in this country is that that sector will bear enormous fruit in the future. That is the main point that I make today. If we are serious about building confidence, then, as Jim Wallace said, that task is not about two periods of enterprise education, where the pupils are taught how to run a business and given the toolbox to do that—although that is an important element of such education. In every aspect of what goes on in our schools, we must work to ensure that confidence is developed in our young people.

I welcome Mike Watson's comments—I wish that I had known what he was going to say, because he articulated effectively some of the wider points that must be made in the debate. Those points are missing from the Executive's documentation and, dare I say it, from the minister's opening remarks. If we are to build confidence in our young people, we cannot just talk about what goes on in the formal classroom environment or in what might be described as enterprise education. It is every bit as important that pupils get access to music and drama, to opportunities to speak publicly, to learn to express themselves, to build their self-esteem and to have the confidence to do things in life—in the world of work or elsewhere—in a way that fulfils their true potential.

Susan Deacon made reference to the importance of nursery education in creating that confidence. Does she agree that central to creating confidence is the contribution that nursery nurses make, and that their claim for regrading should be upheld to help them to make our children confident?

I think that we might be straying away from the purpose of the debate. Let us stick to the motion and amendments.

The important point is that all professionals—in any sector—who are involved in developing and working with our young people have a vital role to play. That is why we must ensure that we take steps to recruit, retain and train effectively an array of professionals.

Today's debate focuses on developing an entrepreneurial spirit in our schools, but what goes on in our communities is equally important. I would welcome any comments from the minister on my next point, which is about the links that need to be forged between our schools and communities.

Schools do not exist in a vacuum and young people do not grow up in a vacuum. Various people have mentioned the wider role of parents and families, but increasing activity in our communities provides the wider opportunities for young people to develop. New community schools are a good example of where the links have been made effectively.

I am bound to make a point to which Murdo Fraser paid scant regard with his spelling test: it is not a million years since we had a Prime Minister who said that there was no such thing as society. That led to the fragmentation of communities and to many people—not least our young people, who grow up in those communities—losing self-confidence and self-belief. The work that is under way in Scotland and throughout the UK to rebuild confidence in our communities and to give our young people an array of experiences that will make them confident adults is all part of rebuilding that sense of community.

Today I applaud the initiative taken by the Executive but, like other members, I want us to take a broad perspective on the matter. We can always do more to ensure that, in every way, we build confident young people. MSPs can take a lead today. There are far too many "buts" in our debates—people agree that something is a good thing that needs to be done, "but"; then we look for areas of disagreement. In this debate, there are areas of genuine agreement and if we work together we can make a difference. It will not happen tomorrow, but in 10 and 20 years we will have a better country as a consequence.

The purpose of the debate is to make a positive contribution to and suggestions on enterprise development in Scotland, an area with which I have been involved for more than 20 years—ever since I was 15. [Laughter.] I notice that the minister was quick on the uptake there.

I point out two things to the minister and to the chamber. First, a group of people in Scotland has been promoting enterprise education for the past 30 years and I have been trying to persuade Scottish Enterprise and the wider enterprise network to provide support to that group so that it can participate in the International Society for Business Education. Last year, I attended the society's conference in Frankfurt, at which representatives from more than 70 countries participated to share the experience of enterprise education in places as diverse as France, Poland, America, Canada and Australia. The conference was extremely useful and I ask the minister to look into how that organisation can be developed and supported in Scotland.

Secondly, I draw the chamber's attention—and the attention of the two new members of the Enterprise and Culture Committee in particular—to the Official Report of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee's meeting on 18 March this year. In this chamber, we debated the schools enterprise programme for three hours with young entrepreneurs from schools, Tom Hunter, Chris van der Kuyl and two entrepreneurs who had received support from the Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust. I will make three points about that meeting, of which I suggest that members read the Official Report, because it makes for good reading on the subject.

The major point that was made by the people from the schools, as well as by Tom Hunter and Chris van der Kuyl, related to the need for some limited form of micro-credit for the businesses that are set up in schools. I suggest that the minister considers the idea. One of the key features of any successful entrepreneur is the ability to manage real money. The minister did not outline in detail exactly what the money that he has committed to enterprise education is being spent on. It would be useful to hear that information in the wind-up speech from Peter Peacock—although I have never heard a speech from Peter Peacock that was not a wind-up.

My second point relates to the need for matching funding, which Mike Watson mentioned. I asked Chris van der Kuyl and Tom Hunter whether they could follow the example of the PSYBT. I speak as the founding executive director of the PSYBT, which combined the Prince's Youth Business Trust and the EFY scheme, which was not called after Effie from Ayrshire, but stood for Enterprise Funds for Youth. Those two programmes were merged way back in 1988 to form the PSYBT. It so happened that the 40th birthday of the Prince of Wales—I know that this will appeal to the Scottish Socialist Party—fell in that year.

We set a target of raising £40 million across the United Kingdom. Lord Young, who was the minister with responsibility for enterprise at the time, said that if we raised £40 million from the private sector he would match it pound for pound from the public sector and we ended up with a fund of £80 million across the UK. That was a revolving fund for investment in young people's new businesses. If I may say so—and I do not say it because the trust was set up by me—the PSYBT has been one of the most successful enterprise development agencies in the whole of the UK.

I shall take both interventions.

You have only one minute left.

I acknowledge what Alex Neil says about the PSYBT's success, but does he recognise that, whereas in the case that he cited businesses had to raise the money before the Government came up with the share that Lord Young had promised, the order is the other way round for the programme that I was talking about? The Executive has come up with the money and is now asking business people to put their hands in their pockets.

I am coming to that.

I think that you have time to deal with only one intervention, Mr Neil.

If Mike Watson reads the Official Report of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee meeting on 18 March 2003, he will see that I asked Tom Hunter and Chris van der Kuyl whether, if the Executive put money into the programme, they could guarantee that the private sector would match it pound for pound. They gave a commitment that it would, as is recorded in the Official Report. I suggest that the Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning goes back to Tom Hunter and Chris van der Kuyl, and to others in the entrepreneurial exchange and elsewhere, to set them the challenge of matching pound for pound not only the £5 million that is being spent this year but the £40 million that is being spent over the next three years.

My final comment is about what the Green party has said. I have to confess that, when it comes to economics, I have always regarded the Greens as being wired to the moon. That was confirmed this morning, because to say that there should be no private money in the programme is utter nonsense. That is telling Tom Hunter to go and fish with his money and not to invest in the programme. That would be absolute madness of the first order.

I have to say that my heart sank when I first saw the motion for today's debate. I worry when jargon such as "can do, will do" is trotted out. I have sat at too many business meetings where people have announced that we will have a "can do, will do" initiative, as if that will somehow solve the problem. If we carry on with that train of thought, the next thing that we will hear is the Executive announcing that it will remove all the rocks from the runway of the Scottish economy, get its ducks in a row and all that sort of nonsense. One thing that we have to learn is that jargon and glib phrases will not resolve the underlying problems that we face.

A lot of those problems are cultural. Amazingly, I found myself, at least for five minutes and eight seconds, agreeing with Susan Deacon, and even, for one or two minutes, agreeing with Mike Watson. Alex Neil drew our attention to the meeting on 18 March 2003, which was an illustrative event from which we can learn a lot. I took two main points from it. First, the presentations by the school children from Cathie Craigie's constituency were excellent, until one of the little girls who had made an excellent presentation was asked what she wanted to do when she left school. She gave what I think is the typical Scottish answer—and this is no fault of hers—that she wanted to go into medicine. In our schools culture, we still have a philosophy that leads people who are doing well towards the professions. If we go round Scotland asking parents what they want their children to do, we find that they want them, if they are doing well at school, to go into the professions. We have to be prepared to break that culture.

My second point about that meeting relates to the general issue of role models. Our children live in a soap-opera culture. How many soap operas are there in which we see successful business people? We see portrayals of businesses where people have no customers but are somehow supposed to be operating a business. At least there is one thing that children who are interested in business can learn from the Liberal Democrats—if they have a useless product, no matter how slick their marketing, they will always be found out in the end.

To return to a serious point, in the soap-opera culture in which young people operate, there are very few positive role models of whom people can say, "I'd like to be that person; that's a successful person." That is particularly relevant for children between the ages of 12 and 16. As Susan Deacon and Mike Watson said, the point also applies in other aspects of children's activities. In our primary schools, we find lots of youngsters who are interested in sport, but somewhere along the line, in the 14 to 16 age group, other cultural pressures come to bear on young people. That was one of the points that Chris van der Kuyl made at the meeting of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee. I shall quote him in full. He said:

"On the gap between primary school and secondary school, it is obvious that, when kids become young adults or teenagers, they desperately want to fit in. Kids run a risk of being ostracised for anything that is seen as out of the ordinary or a bit weird. They want to be wearing the same clothes as the others and so on. If children do something that is not seen as obvious, or is not something that everyone does or thinks about doing, then it becomes akin to a minority sport and can drift off into oblivion … We can change that only by encouraging every child to think that entrepreneurial behaviour is a natural thing."—[Official Report, Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, 18 March 2003; c 3181-82.]

That is absolutely key to this discussion.

David Mundell is making a fine job of identifying the different outcomes of Scottish educational aspirations for career and life. Has he made a similar analysis of the structural differences between Scotland and other nations where those attributes do not pertain?

I do not think that children at school think about structures as much as the SNP does. They think about the things and the culture that they see around them. Within that culture, which is what they see on the television and in the magazines that they buy, they are not getting positive business role models.

The initiatives that can be promoted within schools are to be welcomed. I have participated since the 1990s in many excellent business exchange initiatives, including a fantastic one linking children in Ayrshire secondary schools with children in Georgia in the United States. However, if the general culture in the country is not right, we will run into difficulties.

As a final brief point, I mention one more issue that was discussed at the meeting on 18 March. It relates to transition and the need to create an appropriate approach in schools. Youngsters cannot just leave with nothing to take forward. Peer pressure encourages them either to go to university or to earn decent money, but there has to be some middle step in that process if we are truly to succeed.

I welcome today's debate, as it highlights the fact that a smart, successful Scotland must also be a confident Scotland. Much has been said about making Scotland a more confident nation—Susan Deacon referred to that—but too often that is discussed in terms of asserting cultural identity or of constitutional reform, rather than of how we encourage Scots to be confident individuals and how we grow our economy to be enterprising.

We are all aware of the problems that Scotland has had in encouraging business start-ups. The enterprise networks have new targets for direct assistance to new businesses, but we must take a longer-term look at how we engender a culture of enterprise in Scotland. A wealth of research over the past 25 years has pointed to risk aversion and a fear of failure in the Scottish population. The right strategy is to encourage Scots to have self-belief from a young age, so that they are equipped with the vital skills that enable them to be enterprising and to start their own businesses.

When I was a student representative at the University of Aberdeen, I was fortunate enough to be involved in the steering committee for the centre for entrepreneurship. The centre is continuing its excellent work to encourage enterprise in the higher education sector. Last night, Jennifer Ng, a student from Aberdeen, won the most enterprising student in Scotland award, as part of the excellent Shell technology enterprise programme, which is successfully involving students in enterprise and industry. Enterprise is also being encouraged by staff in the further education sector, where education-business partnerships enable college students and teachers to obtain industrial and business experience.

The Executive has rightly identified a need to encourage younger pupils to be engaged in enterprise. I welcome the £40 million that has been earmarked for enterprise in education over the next three years and I welcome in particular the £5 million that has been invested in the schools enterprise programme. It is encouraging that, while there are excellent initiatives in secondary education, such as work-based learning opportunities for over-14s, the strategy is starting in primary schools.

It is impressive that the schools enterprise programme has a three-year target to involve 120,000 pupils in enterprise activities. It is also important that the programme goes as far as it can to achieve its overarching goal, which is to ensure that all primary pupils and secondary 1 and 2 pupils have the opportunity to participate in three enterprise experiences as part of the five-to-14 curriculum.

The partnerships that are involved in developing the strategy rightly involve people who have been successful in business, business organisations, trade unions and local authorities, as well as representatives from Young Enterprise Scotland, which has been engaged with that work since 1977. The work of the review group has been invaluable in ensuring that the strategy has the right focus.

We have heard about some of the enterprising activities and initiatives—such as work-based learning—in which pupils have been involved. Teaching staff have been given support to enable pupils to take part in such initiatives. The enterprise in education strategy must be part of schools' broader efforts to ensure that pupils are given the opportunity to play their part in building a smart, successful Scotland.

If we are to compete in the global marketplace, greater emphasis must be placed on learning modern languages. I understand that progress on that is being made at primary school level, but that must be carried through so that further progress is made in secondary education. We need to encourage more pupils to take up science and I hope that the Executive will continue to award the science enterprise challenge awards—the science Oscars—to schools. The most recent award was won by Harris Academy in Dundee. A great deal of the Executive's current work on the creation of intermediary technology institutes emphasises the need for scientific expertise, so it is essential that pupils are encouraged to engage in science subjects at school.

We must do more to ensure that all pupils gain the right information technology skills from as early an age as possible. I was heartened to hear yesterday that the Executive is investing £3 million to encourage toddlers to gain computer skills. I admit that I dread to think what I might have done to a computer if I had been presented with one at the age of three, but I am sure that the policy of encouraging children to gain computer skills at an early age is right.

Does the member agree with me and with the child development expert—I cannot remember his name—who writes in one of today's newspapers that children at that early age need interaction with other human beings? We will not build smart, successful pupils by sitting them in front of machines from the age of three. They need human interaction.

I agree—I do not think that anyone would disagree—that human interaction is the priority in the education of children of that age. However, surely the idea is that teaching children about IT will involve human interaction, as children will be in an environment in which they are encouraged by teachers. It is important that children learn those skills and are aware of those technologies from as early an age as possible, as Susan Deacon said.

In conclusion, I am sure that there is wide agreement in the chamber that encouragement of enterprise skills from an early age is the right strategy in the context of teaching the other skills that are required for Scots to succeed in the global marketplace. That strategy shows that the Executive is thinking beyond the short and medium term in encouraging economic success in Scotland. I welcome a strategy that will help young Scots to have the skills, talent and self-belief to ensure that the Scotland of the future is a smart, successful Scotland with a prosperous economy that is based on the achievements of enterprising citizens.

I might not be as young as my sprightly 35-year-old colleague Alex Neil but, like him, I spent 20 years in business. I spent 15 of those years running my own business, which gave me the opportunity to participate in a small way in the precursor to the scheme that we are discussing this morning. The earlier scheme was run by the CBI; John Ward and especially Charles Skene took a particular interest in it. I am well aware of the huge efforts that people such as Charles Skene and Tom Hunter have made—through genuine belief and not to drive personal benefit as was suggested by the Green speaker—to instil in our children the importance of enterprise.

Like my colleague Alex Neil, I would like to be relentlessly positive about the issue. The 20 recommendations in "Determined to Succeed" should be implemented; they are the result of a lot of hard work by the panel members and they have been commended by almost every party in the chamber. I will suggest five additional ways in which they might be taken forward. Perhaps my suggestions are implicit in the 20 recommendations.

First, there should be many more work placements to allow children, especially at secondary school, to spend time seeing what different walks of life and business are like. Secondly, for children of a slightly older age, shadowing is important. We already have shadowing in the Parliament, including people shadowing our work as MSPs. That practice should be widely extended into the private sector.

Thirdly, and perhaps most important, if we are to inculcate the importance of enterprise in order to ensure that the business of Scotland is business—in the same way as the business of America is business—our leading entrepreneurs must go into schools. I am thinking particularly of those entrepreneurs who are so public spirited that they give hugely of their time and effort to convey the importance of enterprise. It is not enough for the programme to be delivered solely by teachers, although I welcome their input, provided that training is in place, as is implicit in one of the recommendations.

Kids respond to leadership, inspiration and the example of people such as Tom Hunter, Brian Souter or Sean Connery—indeed, once Scotland is independent, I am sure that Sean Connery will tour many of our schools to that end. We want business people to go into schools to explain how they succeeded and to transmit their success, inspiration, force and determination to succeed. They would do so not for financial gain—that is where the Greens go so wrong—but because they want to grow business for the benefits that it creates, such as employment and opportunities for young people, and because they want to help Scotland to grow, flourish and achieve her true potential.

I rise to my feet not to disagree with Fergus Ewing but to ask him a question. Some businessmen will be role models and will take part in these things out of the goodness of their hearts. However, does the member think that we need some sort of encouragement process or carrot to make that happen still further?

I am genuinely not sure what the question is, but if Jamie Stone is asking whether I am suggesting that business people should be paid for doing such work, my answer is, "Most certainly not."

No, no.

I thought that that was what the member meant. Business people will do the work because they feel that it is right and because they want to do it. Like volunteers in the mountain rescue service or the fire service, they would blanch at and probably get angry about the idea that they should receive financial benefit. That is not what it is about.

I have two other brief suggestions. Every child now seems to be computer literate, but how many of them can type? Typing is an important skill to many businesses; it is a key and a gateway to success. Should we not consider including it as part of the programme? I realise that that may not be appropriate at primary school level because, apart from anything else, the hands of children of that age are too small to be able to use a qwerty keyboard. However, typing opens up a huge new vista. It is not a robotic skill; it is a gateway to opportunity in the arts, sport, business and everything.

I want the enterprise programme to be brought back to the Parliament. Members might remember that, early in the first session of Parliament, we experimented with the business in the chamber event. The result was a bit shaky, but I thought that such an event should take place at least yearly. Why should we not have children in the chamber, particularly secondary school children who have participated in enterprise programmes? We could have them in the chamber—or down the road, if we ever get there—on the first anniversary of the start of the programme to say what they did in the programme, what they got from it and what they understand about business. Let us have business people here as well and let us congratulate them all.

Shiona Baird suggested that businesses might get involved in the enterprise in schools programme for what they could get out of it. With respect, I fundamentally disagree with that attitude. She referred to companies from the FTSE index, such as oil companies, as if they are somehow bad per se. Such attitudes are obstacles to the success of the enterprise in schools project. Oil companies have their warts, but throughout the 20th century they released the potential for people to live a life of comfort and ease that would have been unimaginable in the social conditions of the 19th century. Without the oil companies we would not be here with the lights on.

I am sorry, but I cannot take an intervention. I will have to speak to the member later.

Without the oil companies, we would not be here with the lights on. Without the power that the industry produces, we would not have central heating or any modern conveniences. Cannot we just highlight the positive role that successful businesses have played in our lives? If we cannot, excellent ventures such as enterprise in schools will never succeed.

I hope that the minister will take up some of my five suggestions, which I proposed in a spirit of co-operation.

I believe that the subtext of all the speeches is that members support the motion. I know from my own family of the good things that have been done. For example, my eldest daughter, Georgina, took part in a school enterprise project that was hugely beneficial for all involved.

I will follow on from what Fergus Ewing, Brian Monteith and Mike Watson have said. My interest is in placements in businesses, which involves taking young people out of school and giving them a day or two in our business sector. I remember from my involvement in enterprise in Tain Royal Academy that it was sometimes hard to persuade businesses to take young people in. However, it could be done. The situation has improved and, as Fergus Ewing said, businesses offer help in many ways and for the best of reasons.

I am a bit concerned that Rab McNeil might mistake David Mundell for me and vice versa. To clarify the point, David Mundell has contributed to the debate but I am still to be heard.

Possibly.

The Scottish Parliament could set an example. We tell business that it must contribute money and offer placements, but I wonder just how good we are about getting involved. Local enterprise networks play a vital role in engaging with business and assessing what businesses can do to help young people to learn about enterprise, but how many young people get a day or a week with an enterprise company? I am not sure how many do, but perhaps there are some.

Other examples of organisations that could offer placements are area tourist boards and—this will appeal to our Green friends—organisations such as Scottish Natural Heritage and RSPB Scotland. There are many other such organisations. Dare I mention political parties? Do the Liberals, Labour, the SNP and the Tories take young people in? Maybe they do and maybe they do not. One thinks also of 121 George Street and the Church of Scotland in this context. One even thinks—dare I say it?—of such wonderful institutions as the Scottish Arts Council and Sir Timothy Clifford and the National Galleries of Scotland.

We have direct or indirect influence over all those organisations and we could encourage them to engage with everything that the minister talked about. Dare I go further and suggest that even the civil service could be involved? Does the civil service engage with our young people through offering placements?

Let us, as members of the Scottish Parliament, consider ourselves. We all have interns—or at least some of us do. However, do we bring in fifth-year or sixth-year pupils from secondary schools in our constituencies to work in Parliament? Some of us do, but many of us do not. Do the parliamentary staff engage with young people in that manner? I think that we can offer a great deal. I have often said in the chamber that we can use the Parliament's business exchange mechanism more fully. I want it, too, to assist in promoting the Executive's enterprise idea.

An old theme of mine is that the failure in some quarters to engage with and be constructive about young people is indicative of the failure by so many in Scotland to take our young people seriously. There are organisations such as pupil councils and youth parliaments and I look forward to the day when community councils the length and breadth of Scotland engage with young people by taking two, three or four of them on board and giving them voting rights. That would prove that we were taking young people seriously and it would allow us to show business what can be done. We must give young people the opportunity to learn about enterprise culture through placements.

Tain Royal Academy eloquently made a point to me today, which is that the minister is wise to involve two teachers in the Executive's initiative. However, we could go further. Many teachers in staffrooms the length and breadth of Scotland would welcome the opportunity to go out and spend a week with a business. That could work both ways and it would help to engender the enterprise culture within our staffrooms.

Jamie Stone might not be aware of the fact, but a large number of companies in Edinburgh have exchange programmes with teachers. However, if the Greens had their way, the money for such programmes would be withdrawn and the teachers would not have that experience.

I thank the member for the good news about the exchange programmes. Let us hope that the rest of Scotland can learn from that example.

No. Mr Stone is in his last minute.

There is sense in what Tommy Sheridan said earlier. Why should not the STUC and the unions offer placements? Business in its widest context is about not only management, but the people who work for businesses. I find myself agreeing with Tommy Sheridan in this instance, which may seem odd to members.

I am being deliberately partisan in urging the ministers, when they roll out the next list of councils in the enterprise programme, to consider Highland Council. Great things could be done in schools such as Thurso High School and Wick High School, which are in my constituency. I beg members to support the motion.

At heart, the debate is about ideology because the motion refers to creating an enterprise culture in our schools. Fergus Ewing's speech perhaps went to the heart of the issue because he said that without oil companies we would not have light or power and that we should be thankful for the oil companies' contribution to society. I think that what he means is that without oil we would not have those things. The truth is that we do not need companies to create power. What we need is an association of men and women organised to extract the power and supply the energy.

I will take an intervention once I have developed my point.

There are members in the chamber, including those from the Scottish Socialist Party, who believe that discussions in our schools on enterprise culture should include discussion of the share of national wealth. Should that share be divided in such a way that a collection of private businesses own and thereby control the majority of our resources? Or should we be talking in our schools about the beneficial social effects of oil, gas, electricity, transport and finance being commonly owned, instead of being privately owned for the pursuit of private profit?

Is Mr Sheridan really saying that we would have the benefits of oil without the entrepreneurialism that was shown by the people who built up the oil companies throughout the world from the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century? Is he really saying that without the so-called seven sisters oil companies and other oil companies—warts and all, as I said—we would have the benefits and the oil that we do? Does he really expect us to swallow that proposition?

Yes.

I think that Fergus Ewing has already had his reply. The answer is yes, because the natural resources of our planet should be used properly and sustainably for the benefit of the people of our planet, not the pursuit of maximum profit for private individuals. That is the view that the Scottish Socialist Party wants to promote today. There is a fundamental disagreement between the ideology of the SNP and the other parties, and the ideology of the SSP.

Is the member aware that, when the Soviet Union had a command economy with no private ownership, it imported oil and that, since the delightful end of that command economy and the return of private ownership, Russia has become a net exporter of oil, which—this is important to Mr Sheridan's point—brings benefits to its citizens?

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. In Russia today, there are rising levels of poverty and inequality and a rise in prostitution and slavery. The command economy in the USSR had serious faults, the most serious of which was the lack of democracy in the command economy structure. That democracy is how the socialist model of the SSP differs from that of the USSR.

What is the exposure of Polish workers to the global economy? After years of exploitation, they now experience grinding poverty and low wages courtesy of global companies such as Volvo, which moved its truck-building operations from Irvine to Poland because it could get cheaper labour and longer hours in that country. Speaking of their social and economic conditions, a Polish worker said that the Poles thought they were going to get America, but ended up with Latin America

When Carolyn Leckie intervened after Susan Deacon spoke about the importance of ensuring that our schools build confidence in our children, she wanted to make the point that, on our way up to the chamber today, we were handed leaflets by nursery nurses who have responsibility for the early-years education of our children and who have been forced to take strike action. What is the lesson that we are teaching those children about our culture? Is it that, because the work force that is given the task of early-years education is predominantly female, we can get away with giving them poverty wages and substandard employment conditions?

Is Tommy Sheridan seriously suggesting that wealth would be created without men such as James "Paraffin" Young of West Lothian, who found a way to tap shale to produce the paraffin that powered the lighting for Scots in the 19th century, and Rockefeller in America, who developed the great oil companies? Is he suggesting that wealth creates itself and that such achievements would have been brought about without such entrepreneurs?

Mr Sheridan, you are in your last minute.

That is unfortunate, Presiding Officer, as I think that I have taken quite a few interventions.

Mr Brocklebank misses the point, which is to do with the way in which that wealth is shared. We are talking about creating a culture in our schools that centres on human life skills, social solidarity and tolerance of one another, not on the ability to super-exploit another human being because it is possible to make money out of them. We must explain in our schools that every man and woman on the planet is equal and that we must grow and learn to share the planet's resources and wealth. I agree that action must be taken to create wealth from those resources, but the important question is how that wealth is to be distributed. Should we teach in our schools that it is to be distributed in the obscene way that it is at the moment, which results in a situation in which 147 people have more wealth than the poorest 3 billion people, or should we talk about the need to redistribute wealth and resources in order to improve the quality of life of all our children, instead of only those who happen to live in the western hemisphere?

I welcome the opportunity to speak in support of the motion and I was pleased to hear the minister's announcement of additional funding of £2.073 million for North Lanarkshire Council. I am sure that that money will be put to good use in developing and supporting the already extremely successful enterprise programme and projects that have been engaging with young people, teachers and the business community in the Cumbernauld and Kilsyth area and throughout the rest of the North Lanarkshire area.

As a number of members have said, instilling self belief and confidence is a most important part of our education system. Without belief in our skills and knowledge, we will not have the confidence to succeed. By working with young people at an early stage, we have an opportunity to end the traditional Scottish fear of failure and start to build the economy of the future through the young people of today. David Mundell emphasised that this morning and I hope that the Tories will help to instil that self-belief in the young people who were held down during the Tories' years in government.

Primary, secondary and nursery schools in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth have been developing enterprise skills programmes for some time. It has been recognised that providing hands-on work experience and opportunities for pupils to participate in team work delivers not only enterprise skills, but the development of a more positive attitude towards school and learning. Teachers who are involved in the programmes tell me that they improve both attendance and the level of qualifications that young people attain, as well as bolstering their confidence and determination to succeed.

Enterprise in education is not new in the area that I represent. Visiting schools and attending the events that showcase the products and services that pupils have come up with, I can see the pride that the young people take in the programmes that they are involved in and the way in which they are able to develop their skills.

Some members have mentioned the visit to Parliament of St Helen's Primary School during our first session. At the time, the then convener of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee noted that the children, who were from primary 5 to primary 7, were probably the youngest people ever to have given evidence to a parliamentary committee. Everyone who heard them speak could see the enthusiasm that had been instilled in them by being involved in the projects. They took control from the beginning, with support from enthusiastic teachers. They set up the programmes that they were going to be involved in, decided what to produce and hired the staff through the school's pupils' council. The benefits that their involvement has brought them and their community can be seen by everyone. The pupils involved themselves with the business community and were able to engage in partnership working with them and secure sponsorship.

Earlier, Alex Neil talked about micro-credit. I admit that my colleagues and I wondered what that was. We came to the conclusion that it was to do with pupils finding small amounts of money to keep businesses going. I do not think that the Scottish Executive should provide that sort of money. Provided that support is provided for the core programme, it encourages the young people if they have to find partnerships in the business community. As well as learning through the curriculum, the young people in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth have been able to become involved in business and are going to lunch clubs and after-school clubs to work with businesses. The businesses are keen to feed back in to the process as they understand the positive outcomes that can be achieved by engaging with young people at an early stage.

As I said earlier, young people of nursery age have become involved in the production of goods for something that will hopefully become an annual fair to showcase their products.

People who left that primary school have continued what they were working on there when they have gone on to secondary school. Four of the young people have set up a business, the roots of which were developed from their experience in primary school. I am a great supporter of enterprise projects in schools. We should be ensuring that our children succeed, and "Determined to Succeed" will help them along the way.

I will finish by quoting one of the teachers who came along to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee to give evidence. I think that every member at the meeting was impressed by her enthusiasm. She started by saying:

"Enterprise is a wonderful enhancement to the curriculum."—[Official Report, Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, 18 March 2003; c 3158.]

She went on to say:

"Enterprise is a wonderful way to enhance learning. Because they are enjoying themselves, the children do not realise that they are learning maths, language and all the other skills that we are giving them."

As was pointed out by the Tories this morning, some people suggest that that element is missing from learning. However, the teacher would

"recommend enterprise projects to every teacher".—[Official Report, Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, 18 March 2003; c 3164.]

She said that they are hard work, but worth doing.

While Scotland is recognised as having helped to make major advances in the past, through anaesthetic, penicillin, television and the telephone, we now have the opportunity to advance our young people by instilling in them confidence and determination to succeed. If we take the steps that are proposed in the initiative, that can only benefit the whole community.

This has been a very useful debate, not least because we have, for a change, heard a number of back benchers rather criticise, in an underlying way, the premise of this project, this initiative, this gesture, which has been launched by the Executive in the form of "Determined to Succeed".

In particular, I warmed to Susan Deacon's speech. I whole-heartedly agree that the initiative will count for nothing if pupils do not come out of school with self-confidence. It might show self-confidence to become a lawyer or a professional, but we will not get the entrepreneurs that we need to make a wealthier society if people do not have the self-confidence to take risks, to gamble and, importantly, to fail. I liked the comments made by Fiona Hyslop during an intervention and by Mike Watson during his speech regarding the importance of creativity. Creativity creates a spirit. It creates the imagination that drives people forward to come up with new ideas, to see opportunities and to find ways of delivering profitable businesses, which bring wealth to themselves and to others.

I appreciated the comments of Fergus Ewing and Alex Neil, who both explained how a great deal has already been done over the years. In particular, I would mention the work of ProShare and business dynamics courses, which have helped ensure that the voice of entrepreneurship is heard in schools. Fergus Ewing mentioned an earlier scheme, which ran for some considerable time.

For all that, I come to the debate as a fully-signed-up capitalist pig, and I make no bones about it.

Hear, hear.

Indeed, I am recognised in the chamber for it. I have been involved in the running of four businesses. I have tasted success and I have tasted failure. I have taken on pupils on work experience. I have hired and fired people.

Will the member take an intervention?

I must carry on at this point.

In my estimation, "Determined to Succeed" is nothing more than a gesture, and it will not necessarily deliver the prosperity, wealth and entrepreneurial skills that we want from our children, and which will help us in the future.

Brian Monteith mentioned four businesses, and said that he had tasted success. I am sure that he has tasted profits from those businesses. Could he tell us what sort of wages he paid?

I remember that I hardly took any wages myself. When people start up a business, they pay their employees. If there is a week or a month when the money does not come in, or a year when a loss is made, then the entrepreneurs bear the losses themselves. That is the sort of entrepreneurialism that we need to recognise and understand.

Our hearts are bleeding.

I am not looking for bleeding hearts; I am looking for an understanding in the Parliament of what a profit is. What holds us back is the sort of mentality that is behind "Determined to Succeed". It suggests that we need another initiative.

I must carry on.

It suggests that we need an initiative to bring us more managerial intervention, or an entitlement to enterprise. That comes from the same Executive that brought us an entitlement to golf lessons; it is the same Executive that cannot give us an entitlement to swimming lessons. The initiative is all about gesture politics.

As David Mundell explained, it is the culture that holds us back. The culture is wrong. It says that anybody who makes money must be like Ian Beale or Mike Baldwin. That is what is wrong throughout the United Kingdom, and it is particularly wrong in the Scottish Parliament. The "Determined to Succeed" document does not even mention the word "competition". How are we to tell pupils what it is like to run a business if the document does not even do that? Only once does it use the word "profit".

I must carry on.

The only time the word "profit" is used is in the context of its' being reinvested in the scheme concerned. This is not a Parliament of profit; it is a Parliament of loss. It never talks about how entrepreneurs will make a profit and how that will benefit people. We need to understand that profit is good. I love profit, and I think that we all need to admire profit. We need to recognise that profit is a good thing and that it comes out of competition.

I will take an intervention from Susan Deacon so that I can catch my breath.

Since Brian Monteith has owned up to what many of us have known for a long time—that he is a "capitalist pig"—is he also owning up to the fact that what he, and perhaps others on his party's benches, truly believe in is that free-market forces alone should determine the success of this country? If he is in the mood for what I said during my speech, will he agree that, during the Conservative years, while we saw confidence grown in some and wealth given to some, it was for the few and not for the many, and that that is what has changed?

You are in your last minute and must wind up now.

I appreciate that, Presiding Officer.

It is my proposition that the small amount of entrepreneurial growth and business creation that exist at present are the dying remnants of the Thatcherite economy that we had throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. Were it not for that, business growth would be worse.

I agree that creativity and self-confidence are important, but I reject the nationalist model that, somehow, if we had an independent Scotland, things would change in that regard. Jim Mather was not able to say whether Scotland would adopt the Finnish model, the Irish model or the Cuban model, with its intervention. That is because the model that the nationalists would give us is the Airfix model. We open the box, put it together and there is no undercarriage, so it cannot land and will not work.

We need a change in our culture, which must start with the Parliament believing in profit. I aspire to the day when Scottish Water, for example, is seen not as a not-for-profit company but as a not-for-loss company. That is how we should change and, if we did so, the Executive's project would at least have a chance.

Before calling Christine May to speak, I gently remind members that the debate is on creating an enterprise culture in schools.

I will try to stick to the subject, Presiding Officer. As others have done, I start by welcoming the initiative, and I am delighted to hear that there is genuine cross-party support for it, albeit rather grudging in some cases and a little woolly in others. Nonetheless, I think that everyone is agreed that it is necessary for us to instil a spirit of enterprise in our young people.

Doing so fulfils three criteria. First, it will support and take forward "A Smart, Successful Scotland". I remain an avowed advocate of that key, long-term strategy for the development of the Scottish economy. Secondly, and perhaps more important, it will improve the skills of individual young people. Lots of folk have mentioned building confidence and encouraging creativity, and the programme aims to do that and to help teachers identify the methods by which they can develop that. Thirdly, it will help young people see the importance of working together. Jim Mather, David Mundell and others spoke of the need for young people coming out of school and going into work to be able to turn up on time, speak properly and accept the discipline of a work environment, which is very important.

I will talk briefly about the up for enterprise programme, which Jim Wallace touched on. On 13 June, a large number of secondary school pupils in Aberdeen met people from NASA, and in my constituency Dr Bonnie Dunbar, a veteran of five NASA missions, spoke to 200 pupils. Our young people need such role models.

When I spoke to the enterprise in education staff who are developing the next wave of the programme in my area, I found that they were conscious of the need to encourage young people to aim to do those jobs in the local area that are suffering from a shortage of applicants. Those jobs are in travel and tourism, particularly in the north-east of Fife, the financial services industry, and the construction industry throughout Fife, but particularly in Central Fife. Last night we heard in the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament for construction about the issues that are important to the construction industry. For too long we have failed to recognise as we should the importance of the construction industry to our economy. All those areas offer a range of employment opportunities, for the professional to the basic, semi-skilled operative. They should, could and must be promoted as suitable opportunities for all our young people.

Allied to that is the need—and here I agree with Tommy Sheridan and the other socialists—to have properly structured pay scales and to identify and recognise the need for improvement in training and qualifications. I am pleased to note in the briefing that I had from the Association of Scottish Colleges that it is working with schools in identifying the transitional period—ages 14 to 16—when young people are deciding whether to pursue a vocational or other course. There is a need to recognise the qualifications gained in schools and in the programmes that are available to young people in colleges.

I return to the point that I made in an intervention earlier this morning on the importance of enterprise training for primary-school teachers, which "Determined to Succeed" recognises. I agree with Susan Deacon. What is being done in the nursery class sets the foundations, but the core skills need to be developed and encouraged at primary and secondary level, and for that we need teachers who know what to look for, who know how to deliver and who have skills developed through the release programmes in partnership with industry.

Unlike Brian Monteith, I am an unreconstructed socialist and I believe that Government has a role. However, we have to foster partnership and Brian Monteith is right that the Government should recognise the limits of its role, because we need the support of business. That is what the document encourages and that is what I want all of us to encourage. By the end of this session of Parliament I want to see us achieving the targets and being able to come back to Parliament and say what we have done as a result of the glossy document that has been produced.

I will start by quoting an American actor. I was not sure whether that would be appropriate in a week when American actors and politics have combined, but I remembered that Lord James Douglas-Hamilton quoted Arnold Schwarzenegger's "I'll be back"—perhaps he has a hotline that we do not know about. The quotation that I want to use is from Lauren Bacall, who said:

"Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly."

I found the quotation in a document from Midlothian Council about its enterprise challenge final 2002-03. We are talking about creativity, confidence, ideas, and daring to be different. When we fly a kite, sometimes it falls, but we learn from that and we go on to succeed. We have heard remarks about the problem of people's fear of failure, but we are also not very good at celebrating success. I ask the Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning to concentrate on those issues.

In West Lothian, Bathgate Academy and Balbardie Primary School have won Skene awards, which Fergus Ewing mentioned, not once but several times. I noticed that the minister mentioned six councils that will get funding. I hope that the councils in the Lothians are among those that have yet to have their funding announced. We should hear how much of what is a not inconsiderable sum will be spent in that area.

Tommy Sheridan wants to wait for a world socialist revolution. In the here and now, we have to ensure that people have jobs when companies such as Motorola and NEC leave. The jobs for the many are created by the enterprise of the few. We must not mock enterprise in the Parliament, because that would do the people of Scotland a disservice.

Will the member give way?

No, I am sorry.

I move on to the school curriculum and what it means as far as creating confidence, self-assuredness, ideas, creativity and imagination are concerned. I welcome the move by the Minister for Education and Young People to abolish national testing, for which the SNP has called for some time. That will provide space and time in the curriculum for teachers to do what needs to be done now, including the literacy and numeracy that Murdo Fraser talked about. We should not consider the review of the three to 18 curriculum in a narrow sense and say that literacy and numeracy will be learned in only English and maths; literacy and numeracy can be learned throughout the curriculum.

Will the member give way?

No. I am conscious of the time; the Presiding Officer has warned me.

One of the curriculum challenges that we face is to ensure that enterprise is not just about business studies, but about creativity, ideas and daring to be different. When we review the three to 18 curriculum and when we consider removing some of the bureaucracy and time constraints that teachers face, it is essential that we ensure that music and drama are valued as the engines for creativity.

We have to recognise that we cannot expect children to arrive at school confident. We have to ensure that we value children and those who care for children in the early nursery years, which are the foundation for the future.

I turn to the social responsibility agenda. The problem in this debate is that we are covering too much. We have strayed all over the place and covered a variety of ideological arguments about capitalism and socialism. Enterprise in schools is the focus for the debate, but we must also consider citizenship in schools and social responsibility. Most of the businesses that are run in schools are co-operatives. The foundations of responsibility are there. The children might go on to be the profiteers that Brian Monteith wants to celebrate, or they might end up running co-ops.

Let us give young people the opportunity to experience enterprise regularly throughout their lives. Before I became an MSP I worked on understanding industry. I was involved in proposals on bringing education, industry and business together. We are a small country and we can create a dynamic. We can do what Fergus Ewing suggested and try to create that spirit and dynamism on a yearly basis. We cannot end our fear of failure if we are told that we cannot run our own country and that we cannot do things for ourselves. Self-confidence comes from leadership and I would like the minister to show some to the people of Scotland.

The Green party amendment attempts to define better what we mean when we talk about enterprise in education. The dictionary definition says that an enterprise is a business firm, but it also says that an enterprise is a venture, a bold undertaking, and a readiness to engage in a bold undertaking. That is the definition that we should take into schools when we talk about enterprise; and yes, Christine May, it is the definition that we should take into primary schools too. We should be preparing our young people for a lifetime of bold undertakings and ventures. Jamie Stone's comments gave us a sense of how wide enterprise can be. It is not simply about business.

We have to prepare young people for ventures. Key to that will be confidence. Jim Wallace started this debate by talking about the fear of failure. It is important that we address that issue. Susan Deacon spoke extremely well on it and was backed up by Brian Monteith and Mike Watson. When we consider confidence, we should not consider only enterprise but other areas of the curriculum in which we can stimulate confidence in young people. I include the arts in that.

Some of the ventures that our young people will strive towards and hope to make a success of in future will of course be business enterprises. Young people will need the confidence and skill to go into self-employment. They will also need to know how to take ideas and make them into new products and services that will meet the goals of a sustainable society. However, there are other, equally important, ventures that are crucial to the well-being of our communities.

Scotland is the birthplace of the co-operative movement and of social enterprise. There are enterprises and ventures whose objectives are not entirely about wealth creation but are also about a fair distribution of wealth and about sustainability. The Executive is now edging towards allowing communities to take more control of their own resources. The Green party welcomes that; we welcome community control of resources. Over the summer, the First Minister pointed the land reform agenda firmly towards towns as well as villages. Community control of assets would be fantastic. This century, Scotland could see a flourishing of community control. However, that will not happen unless we can tool up the next generation to manage the assets in their communities effectively if communities choose for that to happen. When we bring enterprise into education, we must allow social enterprises and the voluntary sector into our schools—not only businesses—so that young people will, in future, be able to manage assets at community level.

Although I shouted at him at the time, Alex Neil's comments on micro-credit were very helpful. We should allow ideas on micro-credit initiatives in the outside world to come into schools. Young people should learn about credit unions, local exchange trading schemes and other similar initiatives. The problem with "Determined to Succeed" is that there is little linkage between enterprise—in its particularly narrow definition—and other issues in the Executive's partnership agreement such as citizenship, the environment and the community. That linkage must be a lot stronger to enable sustainability. There is a danger that those who shout the loudest, and those with the biggest resources—such as the multinational companies—will have disproportionate access to our schools. We need a level playing field to ensure that the enterprise experiences that are offered to young people are offered by businesses, the voluntary sector, social enterprises and—as Tommy Sheridan said in an earlier intervention—trade unions. People have to understand how to organise in the workplace.

We need better screening of the private sector materials that are coming into schools and we need to think carefully about private sector funding in our schools. We need Executive funding for educational materials, not private sector funding. Leaving aside Alex Neil and Fergus Ewing, I wonder how many members would be happy for Brian Souter to provide educational materials for schools.

I urge members to support the Green party's amendment. If Fergus Ewing and others read it, they would find little that they would have a problem with. We are trying to broaden the definition of enterprise. All members in the chamber could support that and I urge them to support our amendment.

Jamie Stone was right when he said that all the amendments show an underlying support for the thrust of the Executive's motion. Fiona Hyslop recognised that when she complained about people going off on tangents. I was surprised when she then went off on a tangent of her own—independence—which is irrelevant to the central point.

Enterprise in education is vital for Scotland, as has been acknowledged across the chamber. The need to encourage entrepreneurship among our young people has been a consistent message from Liberal Democrats for a long time. Jim Wallace has a long-standing personal commitment to that encouragement; he has advocated it for many years. Today's announcement of the funding programme—£8 million, including £3 million for Glasgow—to support the building of entrepreneurship in our schools is hugely welcome, especially as part of the broader strategy in "Determined to Succeed", which almost everyone in the chamber has welcomed. There may have been nuances in the views of what the debate should have included and what it should not have included, but no one would dispute that the debate has wider aspects. Many members have spoken about those aspects today. The strategy will fulfil the commitment in the partnership agreement to raise to 100 per cent the number of schools that are involved in enterprise in education. That is an important central initiative.

I accept that the business sector requires skills in literacy and numeracy. I also accept the importance of older secondary pupils having the option of accessing vocational courses in further education colleges. Other contributions can be made through citizenship education. However, as Jim Wallace said, it is not a matter of choosing between those options; they are all important. We have to move forward vigorously on all fronts, as the Scottish Executive is doing. The partnership agreement contains solid commitments on all those fronts. That was insisted on by Liberal Democrats. That 14 to 16-year-olds should be able to attend college was a strong and specific campaign theme for the Liberal Democrats at the recent elections. We have to build on the progress that the Executive has already made.

Many good points have been made. Alex Neil totally ignored the SNP amendment and suggested a role for micro-credit. He was right to do so. David Mundell rightly stressed the importance of the cultural environment and the centrality of role models. He talked about the importance of soaps on television. Mark Ruskell spoke about the need to allow social enterprise activities into schools. Jamie Stone made an important point about the business exchange, which has been a controversial issue in the Parliament. It is right that we should support the business exchange to show the Parliament's commitment to the enterprise agenda.

I would like to make two other points. One concerns the broad range of the issues. Yesterday, as convener of the Education Committee, I hosted a meeting of a group of organisations that were campaigning for the inclusion of sustainability right across the school curriculum. That will be a key theme. The partnership agreement contains a commitment to that, and we have to put flesh on the bones to make things happen.

My second point is to do with informal education, which has not been touched on in this debate. We cannot lose sight of the importance of the scouts, the Boys Brigade, the guides, the youth clubs and the various informal educational organisations that are very important in building leadership skills. In a different, more natural and more voluntary way, they do that at least as well as it is done in schools. Support from the Parliament and the Executive for some of those organisations is not great and more support would make an important contribution towards the objective of enterprise in education.

I want to touch on Tommy Sheridan's point on the announcement by Hoover in Cambuslang of the proposed end of manufacturing there, with the direct loss of 250 jobs. Clearly, there are many issues involved in that. I hope that the Scottish ministers will do everything possible to try to avoid such an end result and to deal with the consequences if that is what happens. However, part of the background to the issue—this also applies to Motorola, which Fiona Hyslop mentioned—is the need to have available alternative employment options that are built by enterprise. The citizens of Scotland need the ability to go forward in that realm.

These are important issues. Let us now go forward and make it happen. We have agreement across the chamber, so let us not muddy that message by sniping about the important enterprise initiatives that the Executive is taking forward. I support the motion.

I very much welcome Robert Brown's comments about the importance of youth organisations.

This has been a good wide-ranging debate. I was particularly interested in the disagreement between Fergus Ewing, Fiona Hyslop and Tommy Sheridan. Tommy Sheridan brings to mind the statement of King Alfonso of Castile, who said, "Had I been present at the creation, I would have had some useful hints to make to the creator of the universe as to its better organisation." Sadly, we need to deal with the world as it is. We need the enterprise first, before its benefits can be spread throughout the community. After all, those of us who are familiar with the Old Testament will remember that, after Adam and Eve bit the apple, they needed an entrepreneur to make all those clothes.

We believe that enterprise is important and essential. It follows that we must develop the skills of those who work with their hands as well as of those who work with their minds. The Conservatives made a manifesto commitment not only to maintain current Government investment in skills and learning but, in particular through the modern apprenticeship, to give schoolchildren a choice of continuing with traditional education at school or, from the age of 14, pursuing technical education at a further education college.

We believe that programmes involving schools with work placements and colleges should be enhanced. We want to ensure that all secondary 3 and secondary 4 pupils who wish to do so should have access to further education. Indeed, we warmly welcome Glasgow's vocational programme as an admirable example of how courses can lead to jobs and a growing enterprise economy and culture.

I want to mention to the minister the concerns and worries of the small business sector. It feels that there is an insufficiency of soft and basic skills and of the ability to turn up on time.

I must also raise with the minister the fact that, under Tony Blair's Government, schools south of the border have more diversity in their curriculum. That is because the UK Government has supported specialist technology schools and specialist business and enterprise schools, which have been a success. Exam results show that specialist schools constitute at least 76 of the 100 highest-performing comprehensive schools in England. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has stated that he has plans for several hundred more specialist schools.

The Prime Minister himself said:

"Why shouldn't there be a range of schools for parents to choose from? From specialist schools to the new city academies, from faith schools to sixth forms and sixth form colleges offering excellent routes into skilled employment"

and university.

"Why shouldn't good schools expand or take over failing schools or form federations?"

I endorse those wise words, which are good Conservative policy. If that policy was good enough for Tony Blair's Government, surely it is not too much to hope that the Executive might be coaxed in the same direction.

I welcome the Executive's commitment to creating an enterprise culture. To be successful, we need to concentrate on standards of literacy and numeracy and on basic skills. We support a more vibrant curriculum that encompasses FE courses on a much wider footing than at present. We wish to extend the opportunities that exist at the moment. I look forward to the minister's reply.

I have certainly enjoyed listening to this morning's debate. I was glad that Mr Wallace opened the debate by referring to Oldmachar Academy, which happens to be in my constituency and to be where all five of my children had the benefit of a very good education. I am familiar with the youth enterprise scheme that has been run in that school for many years. Indeed, one of my sons had the joys of tussling with the successes and failures associated with such enterprises, when perhaps not everybody was pulling their weight.

If Alex Neil's suggestion on micro-credit was about the provision of share capital, I can tell him how the scheme worked at Oldmachar, where pupils were offered the opportunity to provide share capital. However, that may well reflect the nature of Oldmachar's catchment area and would not necessarily be the case for every school. Alex Neil's suggestion for micro-credit is well worth consideration.

This week, I visited a primary school in Aberdeen where the head teacher has started an enterprise in education programme. She has done that off her own bat and without any support from either the business community or the education department or, indeed, from any of the wonderful new initiatives that are about to come forward—although I note that they will not start in Aberdeen as yet. That head teacher hopes to roll out the programme over the years. I hope that we will see much more of that sort of thing.

Recognition has rightly been given to some of Scotland's entrepreneurs and to the positive contribution that they have made in the development of the programme. Among those who have been specifically mentioned today are Tom Hunter, who has given significant financial support to the programme, and Charles Skene, who has a long-standing association that has rightly been recognised.

Does the member agree that there must be some sort of ethical vetting of the people who are involved in the scheme from the business side? Alternatively, does he agree with his colleague Fergus Ewing, who seems to be quite happy to allow anybody, including international arms manufacturers, to become role models for our pupils?

That is a scurrilous comment and I ask Eleanor Scott to withdraw it. At no point did Fergus Ewing refer to international arms dealers—

He did not seem to agree that there should be any vetting or that planet trashers should be excluded.

I will move on.

At the moment, about 30 per cent of our youngsters leave school with no qualifications. Until recently, our education has been driven by a desire to produce people with academic qualifications. As a consequence, we have a society that is good at invention but not at all good at innovation, which is why our economy has such a poor growth rate. I would like encouragement to be given to the 30 per cent who have perhaps no great interest in being academics but who may well have within them the desire to grow, develop and contribute as individuals. It may well be that some of our entrepreneurs will come from that 30 per cent.

As a fellow director of the Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange, does the member agree that the Parliament and other arms of government, including the greater enterprise network—the local enterprise companies and so on—also have a role to play? I made that point in my speech.

As a fellow director of the business exchange, I am more than happy to endorse that. We should show leadership.

It is wholly inappropriate that those who contribute positively with their leadership are attacked on the basis that they contribute for selfish motives. That is disgraceful. There are certainly dangers that people might do things for selfish motives, but why should selfish motives be ascribed when much of what is happening is being done in a selfless way? Indeed, that is where the distinction arises.

Does Brian Adam agree that for many people who have created businesses—among whom I would include some members in the chamber, such as Jim Mather and possibly, in a modest way, myself—the greatest satisfaction is seeing the dignity and the joy that is brought to the people who have benefited from the jobs that have been created? The remarks from the lady over there were simply outrageous.

I am happy to endorse what Mr Scott has said. The suggestion that the proposals are about our school system training robots and indoctrinating people into the culture of free enterprise is wholly inappropriate.

However, I have considerable concerns about the dependency culture that we have. Susan Deacon's remarks were right on the button. We need to increase self-esteem and confidence. We want self-reliant people and a self-reliant country. Indeed, as we encourage people to be independent as individuals, we may well get to the point where we achieve that as a nation. In fact, the only issue on which I disagree with the Executive is that although it recognises that confident nations and states have a number of attributes, it does not go all the way. In order to have a confident nation, we need to have a strong sense of identity. That is growing and the Parliament contributes to that.

We need to have an enterprise culture. That will take time to grow. When I intervened on the minister, I voiced my concern that we are not growing the enterprise culture fast enough, and that the detail does not exist. We should have a genuine meritocracy and burgeoning autonomy, but we need the power to compete, because otherwise our young people will disappear to stronger economies where decisions are being made by the people themselves.

I am pleased to be able to close this debate on behalf of the Executive. For the most part, it has been extremely constructive, with a significant degree of consensus on the main thrust of what the Executive is seeking to do. That is welcome confirmation of what the Executive wants to do, and gives us confidence in driving forward the agenda.

It is fitting that the Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning and the Minister for Education and Young People have been involved in the debate, because that signals the close co-operation that exists between our departments and the need to align the schools agenda with the enterprise agenda to a significant extent, so that we create jobs and opportunities for our people.

One of our national ailments, to which a number of members referred, is the low business birth rate. A big part of enterprise in education must be to support the attributes in our young people that will drive the creation of successful businesses and jobs in the future, and produce the prosperity that flows from having those jobs.

The minister will be aware that there is a particularly low business birth rate in parts of the Highlands. Given all that the minister and I try to do to promote enterprise in the Highlands, does he agree that it would be appropriate for the Executive to consider adding the Highland Council to the authorities that will receive money to promote enterprise among our young people?

I assure Jamie Stone that that will be the case. All local authorities will be invited to join the programme to ensure that they are contributing across the whole of Scotland.

The skills and attributes that our young people will gain through enterprise in education will, of course, equip them to function highly effectively in a range of settings and enable them to be ambitious and enterprising in public work, just as much as in business; in the voluntary sector; and in the environmental sector, whether in a business sense or through voluntary organisations involved in, for example, recycling, energy saving and reducing the use of water. All those attributes that young people should gain through enterprise programmes will contribute to a range of settings in Scotland. We must develop young people's attitudes, build their confidence—which I will return to in a moment—and encourage them in their willingness to take risks, as Jim Wallace said.

I will address the large number of issues that members raised in the debate. Susan Deacon caught the spirit of what members wanted to say about the need to instil in all our people in Scotland a degree of confidence that, sadly, has been lacking for too many generations, and a self-belief that they have not been able to express in the past. That point was also made by Richard Baker, Brian Monteith, Fiona Hyslop, Mark Ruskell and many others.

Susan Deacon also made a point about the importance of starting the process of gaining confidence from the earliest years. As she rightly pointed out, that will be helped significantly by the investment in nursery education, by moving the new techniques of teaching young people into primary education and by deploying new techniques and enterprise in education in the secondary sector as a vehicle, as Cathie Craigie described, for other forms of learning. It is not just about enterprise in itself; it is about finding new ways of working, engaging young people in working together and expressing themselves in new ways, and giving them the self-belief and confidence to move forward.

Susan Deacon, Mike Watson and others mentioned the role of music, art, drama and sport, as well as enterprise education. Through those dimensions of school life, people often gain the respect that they require from their peers when they cannot gain it in an academic sense; they express themselves in new ways; they are creative; and they move forward in new directions in their lives. Part of the curriculum review that I announced last week seeks to free up space in the system to give us more choice and more flexibility, and to give young people more ability to express themselves and be creative. Mike Watson picked up on creativity in his speech. Having creative young people who have the confidence and self-belief to move forward is hugely important to the future success of Scotland.

On the subject of the curriculum, in opening the debate the Deputy First Minister talked about how we must overcome the fear of failure. How does the Minister for Education and Young People propose to do that if he allows there to be a curriculum in which no one can fail, and a system in which no school can seen to be failing, because no information is available on performance?

That is another fundamental misdiagnosis, along with one that Brian Monteith made in his speech. He fails to understand the agenda that we are pursuing. We are not frightened of information. We want to liberate people by the power of more information. The point is to make it relevant and to give people real choice and real insights into how their schools are performing.

Susan Deacon also made the point about the importance of connecting the school to the community. Of course, enterprise projects of the sort that we have described, through enterprise in education, are one means of doing that. It is not just about placement in the workplace and in communities; it is about young people running projects in the community for the benefit of others, such as environmental projects, and projects in relation to the elderly, young people and care. The report "Determined to Succeed", which underpins our approach, helps to put attitudes to those matters at the top of the agenda.

Alex Neil referred to micro-credit, as did Cathie Craigie, but the sense in which Alex Neil referred to micro-credit and its potential importance in this field was not the sense in which Cathie Craigie described it. It is not about keeping a business going but about the start-up capital to allow a small enterprise to grow. I agree with Alex Neil that that is an important point. In fact, one dimension of the plans that local authorities are bringing forward addresses that particular point, so that is already happening in our schools.

I thank the minister for his comments on micro-credit. Where is the money that has been earmarked being spent? We know where it is being spent geographically, but what is it being spent on?

Each local authority is producing a wide range of different approaches to widen the scope of opportunity and the range of placements, to give more support, and to ensure that there is a more systematic approach to embedding these matters in the curriculum. I would be happy to give Alex Neil a note on that, because the issues are quite complex and wide-ranging.

David Mundell talked about the problem, as he saw it, of too many young Scots in the past going into the professions when they were successful in school. There is nothing wrong with going into the professions—we need good doctors, teachers, lawyers and so on—but I take the spirit of what he said, which is about widening choice and aspiration and ensuring that young people do not see the professions as their only opportunity. Going into business is not only legitimate but something that increasingly we want people to do.

Fergus Ewing was uncharacteristically positive in his speech. I take this extraordinarily rare opportunity to agree with everything that he said. He is right to say that the agenda builds on existing experience and the lifelong experience of the sort that he has had in running his own business. It is not about starting afresh. I am happy to say that we want to gear up work placements significantly in the way that he described.

Murdo Fraser, with his reluctant support, made an interesting point about the ability of Scots to pull other people down. It is part of the Scottish psyche not to allow people to get above themselves and be successful. If this enterprise initiative is about anything, it is about giving people the confidence and self-belief to move forward, and about people having ambition and being proud of it and the contribution that they can make.

Sadly, Murdo Fraser spoiled his remarks with his amendment, which refers to "economic decline" in Scotland. Of course, the Tories are the best-qualified party in the chamber to talk about economic decline. It was under their rule that we suffered 3 million people unemployed in the UK, consistently high inflation, and interest rates of 15 per cent, which led to a lack of investment in business and public service infrastructure, and the kind of boom and bust economy that the Scottish people rejected. His amendment also refers to the unacceptable standards in reading and writing, when of course we are raising attainment in reading and writing and numeracy from the standards that the Conservatives left when they left office. We are doing that successfully because we are not complacent about these matters. We recognise that more has to be done, which is why we are investing in early intervention, in classroom assistants, in reducing class sizes and so on.

Jim Mather was also rather muted in his welcome for the strategy, although I was pleased at the extent to which he did welcome it. However, he spoiled things again by peering into the half-empty glass that the Scottish National Party always sees in Scotland and, sadly, being unable to distinguish between the constitutional constipation that Wendy Alexander referred to last week and the needs of our young people. We want our young people to be ambitious and to have confidence, and not to be told that they cannot succeed unless we have constitutional upheaval.

I could go on at considerable length but I can see that the Presiding Officer wishes me to draw to a close. I commend the motion to Parliament.