Chamber and committees

I meant with regard to changing something at significant scale—such as, for context, the 14 territorial boards and the five national boards—and restructuring it. I mentioned the Centre for Sustainable Delivery. I am talking about that scale of change and organisational restructuring. Is that something that you would expect to see mandated by the Government rather than being fed upwards from you or people who you face off with in other boards?

To follow on from that, you have indicated that the Scottish Government may receive further funding from sources other than the block grant. What are those sources? What do you see as the key risks for their not materialising? In other words, I am trying to flesh out the extent to which those sources can be relied on relative to the block grant, which we know has been significantly cut.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Last week, we had interesting evidence from Police Scotland in which it was made clear that that body simply would not have been created had it not been mandated by Government. I want to ask you some perception questions about your world. In Scotland, with 5.5 million people, we have 14 territorial boards and five national boards, and there is duplication of human resources directors, information technology directors and finance directors. Have you and your equivalents had discussions about attempting to change the scale and the current organisational structure? I know that the British Medical Association has released a report on that, but have you looked at the issue or suggested some change with your face-off equivalents in other boards?

My next question follows on from that. Local boards might employ individual staff under different terms and conditions. Does that inhibit flexibility when trying to move staff around? Is there not the same ease of transition because they are employed by different boards? Do you experience that when trying to attract people into your area?

You have prompted my next question. Off the top of your head, do you have any figures to show how capital investment in the UK over, say, the past 10 years compares with that in other states?

So any cut in the block grant has a potentially significant impact.

Is that approach even more prevalent in Scotland due to the tendency to focus on revenue because of the fixed budget?

I give these opening remarks with some trepidation, as I know that many esteemed academics will be speaking about the tercentenary of Adam Smith this week. I congratulate the vigour with which Professor Graeme Roy and Roger Mullin have pursued celebrations at the University of Glasgow and in Kirkcaldy respectively. Indeed, the inaugural event by Glasgow university was held in the Scottish Parliament, which is fitting. As Smith expressed in his “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, this place should ideally be where

“To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature”.

Many people in Scotland recognise the name Adam Smith, yet too few of those and the tourists who walk past his statue on the High Street of Edinburgh, Panmure house or his grave at the Canongate know of his lasting impact. Although we do not know the exact date of his birth, we know that Smith was baptised on 5 June 1723 in Kirkcaldy old kirk.

Smith studied logic, metaphysics, maths, Newtonian physics and moral philosophy at Glasgow university. After a short spell at the University of Oxford, he returned to Glasgow university, where he became a lecturer then rector. He then moved to Panmure house in Edinburgh, where he died in 1790.

He was a leading figure in the Scottish enlightenment, which produced a remarkable outpouring of ideas spanning a wide range of areas including engineering, chemistry, political economy, philosophy, literature, medicine and many other areas of intellectual life. The Scottish universities, not least Glasgow university, were central to that in providing a home for the exchange of ideas across disciplines.

Smith was greatly influenced by Francis Hutcheson, the Glasgow university professor and philosopher and, alongside his friends David Hume, Joseph Black, James Hutton, Dugald Stewart and Robert Burns, they took Scotland to the world. It is no coincidence that, in the 1760s, Voltaire, whom Smith visited many times in France, noted:

“We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization”.

The Scottish enlightenment asserted the importance of human reason expressed as ideas and a rejection of any stance that could not be justified by reason. Arguably, our current political world has much still to learn. Of course, he is best known as one of the founding fathers of economics, with his ideas still permeating economic theories today. Some would say that, to understand his political economy, you must first have read and understood his “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”. That articulates that we are, above all else, social beings and that our morality—or, in today’s language, our empathy—is guided by that fact.

Although reason is important, it is trumped by the themes that are set out in “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”: prudence, justice, beneficence and self-command, all of which are underpinned and developed by conscience or morality. Again, there is much in his book to guide us in Parliament. I will quote again. He said:

“We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.”

As put more colloquially by Robert Burns, we are all Jock Tamson’s bairns.

Smith went on:

“The prudent man is always sincere, and feels horror at the very thought of exposing himself to the disgrace which attends upon the detection of falsehood”.

His three natural laws of economics—the law of self-interest, the law of competition and the law of supply and demand—were laid out in his lectures at Glasgow university. Many of those concepts are fundamentally misunderstood and have been misappropriated, not least by the Adam Smith Institute in London.

By the time he wrote “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” in 1776, Smith had seen corruption and unfettered imperialism mixed with power held in the hands of just a few. The requirement for balance between competition, capitalism and a free market, known as “the invisible hand”, points to what we would now regard as an acute need for sustainability in economic growth.

He also had commentary to make about sensible trade, citing the example of wine making in Scotland: just because we could, that does not mean to say that we should, if the bottom-line cost of said trade is not commercially viable. He was also clear about the damage that is caused by tariffs. I suggest that some Brexit-supporting Conservatives reread that particular section in “The Wealth of Nations”.

In my closing remarks, I will return to Professor Graeme Roy and draw from an article that he wrote in December 2022. He said:

“Crucially, Smith is a ‘political economist’ and not just interested in understanding economic trends. He seeks to make the case for the institutions and structures in our society—such as the shape of markets—to be cohesive, fair and resilient. As we face complex intergenerational and global challenges, be it the climate emergency, rising inequality, or the cost-of-living crisis, there is much we can apply from Smith’s writings to today”.

Roy finished by saying:

“In today’s often toxic political culture and binary policy debates, a recognition that the big global policy challenges that we face require careful thought and, above all, respectful discourse between different sides of an argument”—

the use of reason, one could argue—

“is perhaps the greatest lesson we can learn from one of Scotland’s most famous sons”.

I look forward to the next 300 years of global influence. Thank you, Adam Smith.

Will the member take an intervention?

I will be very quick. I absolutely agree with what Liz Smith is saying, but I would perhaps go even further and say that I fear that the processes that one goes through in education in order to be able to apply judgment in decision making would be lost because, as she pointed out, that process is about much more than knowledge. Does she agree?