Chamber and committees

I have a couple of comments. The committee has dealt favourably with the issue and is committed to receiving regular updates from Registers of Scotland. I agree with Fiona Hyslop’s comment about the seriousness of such issues, should they arise, and the impact that they have on people. That is not the same as wholesale problems happening at scale, which seems not to be the situation.

Therefore, I am in favour of closing the petition, but I am also strongly in favour of keeping a focus on the issue through regular attendance by Registers of Scotland at the committee. That is important.

Thank you for that additional insight. I suspect that one of my colleagues will want to pick up on that, because it is an interesting thread. Does Adrian Watson have anything to add to what has been covered so far?

That is okay.

Thank you for that. You have given us a lot of the “what”, but the “how” will be the challenge.

Before I start, I draw attention to the sunflower for Ukraine that I am wearing. It was made under the auspices of Space Art Scotland, which is a rehabilitation programme for prisoners—a wonderful idea.

The late Dr Jacob Bronowski argued that the feature that distinguishes human beings from other animals is that we have not only a significant biological history but a cultural history that helps to define who we are. Of course, women have a different biological and cultural history from men. I sum up the problem for women in business as follows: the cultural approach to business has been framed by men for men and simply does not reflect our wider society.

The motion speaks to what I think is an essential truth. If Scotland is to reach her economic potential, the power of women must be unleashed, and for that to happen we will have to see a major cultural shift. We need a culture for business and enterprise that enables women as well as men. There are real strengths in difference, and research literature demonstrates that diversity, particularly cognitive diversity, aids effective group-based decision making in business. On that point, although today’s debate is about women, I believe that we need more inclusive diversity across the board, and indeed on the boards.

There is much to commend in the progress that has been made in some areas over recent years. For example, in March 2014, the Scottish Government published a framework and action plan to increase the impact of women’s enterprise on the Scottish economy. Using a partnership approach, it has been pioneering and was the first of its kind anywhere in the European Union. Scotland established women’s enterprise ambassadors, and there have been many workshops, held by Government bodies such as Business Gateway and a range of private sector firms, all of which have focused on encouraging women in their business ambitions. However, that can never be enough when we face unstated cultural assumptions that continue to limit women’s engagement.

The barriers are quite profound. Research from Women’s Enterprise Scotland has found that women start their businesses with 53 per cent less capital than men, ask for 39 per cent less funding and, consequently, are hugely undercapitalised from the outset. Its research has also found that, every year, women-owned companies contribute to the Scottish economy £8.8 billion in gross value added, which is more than comes from food and drink, the creative industries or sustainable tourism.

Women have created more than 230,000 jobs, but that is not yet enough. I hope to see the day when women-owned businesses in Scotland have created closer to a million jobs, and I do not regard that as an unreasonable ambition.

The most recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report on women’s entrepreneurship was published in November 2021, and it provides both hopeful and worrying insights into recent trends. On the hopeful side, it points to the ambition of women-led businesses to increase their number of employees. In mid-2020, 30.2 per cent of women entrepreneurs who were surveyed expected to hire six or more employees in the next five years, which was an increase from only 18.7 per cent in the 2019 report. Although that is encouraging, it is still less than the 48 per cent of men who have high expectations for growth.

However, as Global Entrepreneurship Monitor makes clear, the patterns of entrepreneurship vary widely when comparing women and men. In 2020, women far exceeded men on the rate of solo entrepreneurship, or solopreneurship, but that factor could indicate an inability to access finance at the same rate and stages as men rather than necessarily a business or lifestyle choice. Those types of businesses add value and can start to break the barriers. For example, INDEZ, which recently gave evidence to the Economy and Fair Work Committee, writes of a study that suggests that e-commerce is breaking the mould in gender equality. It suggests that, unlike in the gaming industry or other areas of digital, around 50 per cent of business owners in e-commerce are female.

We can learn from areas of progress beyond our shores. Some time ago, I was fascinated to listen to a TED talk by Halla Tómasdóttir, who managed to take her company, Audur Capital, through the eye of the financial storm in Iceland from 2007 onwards by applying so-called feminine values to financial services. I will mention just two of those values, the first of which is risk. Tómasdóttir argues that we should not be risk averse in preventing innovation, but nor should we be cavalier with risk, which was characteristic of testosterone-filled males who were the authors of the financial crash. I would also argue that risk assessment today must take a different approach, given that its history and development have been fundamentally about men-owned businesses.

Women face particular risks that go beyond finance. Tómasdóttir makes the point that businesses do not succeed on the basis of spreadsheets, but through people. Her argument reminded me of my days in businesses where one particular role sought to deliver transformational change. I always used the phrase that we must deliver “through people, and not to people”, so her focus on due diligence involving emotional capital gives us all much to consider.

Some would argue that Government support for businesses during the pandemic has been gender neutral, but the actuality and the distribution of funding tells a different story: one not of neutrality, but of gender blindness. The United Nations describes gender blindness as including an inability

“to realize that policies, programmes and projects can have different impact on men, women, boys and girls.”

One example—with thanks again to research from Women’s Enterprise Scotland—is the distribution of the pivotal enterprise resilience fund, or PERF for short. It provided bespoke grants and wraparound business support to viable but vulnerable small and medium-sized enterprises in Scotland during the pandemic. Proportionately more funding was given to male-led than female-led businesses in every local authority area. In Angus, East Dunbartonshire and East Lothian, no funding whatsoever was allocated to female-led businesses from PERF.

I support a more rigorous and comprehensive approach to capturing and disseminating the gender-based data that we need not only for monitoring policy impact but for designing policies in the first place. On the two committees on which I sit, I have, on more than one occasion, raised that issue with a number of bodies in Scotland, only to find out that such data is not yet being gathered and disseminated as standard practice.

We need to take issues regarding women in business very seriously. I ask the Scottish Government to reflect on all policies and all strategies to ascertain, where appropriate, how they support women into business and those already in business. For example, the recent retail strategy mentions women but does not go far enough to flesh out specifically how women can be at the heart of retail’s future.

Professor Sara Carter of the University of Strathclyde said:

“Research shows that if women started businesses at the same rate as men, the number of entrepreneurs in the UK would increase dramatically. While the under-representation of women in entrepreneurship is an international concern, relative to other high-income countries, Scotland’s rates of female business ownership are persistently low.”

That is a rallying call for us all.

Access to finance is critical. We need an in-depth understanding of cultural barriers. Our programmes must ensure equality for women in business and we must continue the good work that has already been started to stamp out misogyny. There is a long way to go yet to create a level playing field for women in business, and I believe that this Parliament and this Government will play a leading role in that endeavour. Scotland means business and that means women in business.

I am aware of the Grangemouth future industry board, which has already been mentioned. We can all agree that Grangemouth is a hub for skilled manufacturing and high-value employment. Will the minister give a little more detail about the role that the board will play in ensuring that, regardless of any restructuring, Grangemouth continues to be a key part of the transition to net zero?

E-commerce, its enablers and the skills that are needed will be a big topic in the committee’s inquiry, and I suspect that other committee members will come in on that subject.

I will finish off the piece about women-led businesses. In addition to the areas that we have already highlighted, given that this is a generic inquiry into town centres, my second question is: do you have any other ideas about what we need to do to put women-led businesses at the heart of town centre redevelopment? I appreciate that that is a hard question, given that that is not your specialism, but I would like to hear other ideas before we move on.

I will pick up on some of the general themes. You will appreciate that the inquiry is wide ranging, and I know that you listened to the earlier panel. One of our challenges is to produce recommendations that add real resonance and meaning. So, based on the earlier session, which I know that you listened to, and this one, what two top areas can you pick out in which we should recommend that something be done? That is rather generic, but the area is so wide ranging that it would help us pull it all together if we could get a couple of thoughts from off the top of your head. If we did one or two things, what should they be?

I would like everyone to answer that. Neil Francis, you are smiling, so I will come to you first.

You have given us so many points. All that you have done is prompt further questions in me, but I will resist asking them as I am aware that other people want to comment. Siobhan, what are your top two things, if you can limit it to that?

You have spoken about women’s enterprise centres being at the heart of developing communities. I can see a virtual link with getting more women involved in e-commerce and what we want to do with encouraging science, technology, engineering and mathematics as we move down the generations. Are there any other ideas that would lend a shift to the systemic issues that we have with town planning? Most surveyors and traffic planners are men. It is perhaps a hard question, given that it is not your specialism.