Chamber and committees

Thank you for those points. I will move on. I would like more information, which I think will be of general interest to everyone. In your letter to the committee dated 30 August—thank you for that—you mention that you plan to launch Scotland’s first framework for tax. It would be helpful if you were to share what additional information you can about that. I am generally interested in the discussion about tax that we had last week.

I also refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I receive income from residential buy-to-let properties and I am a shareholder in a property management company, but I receive only a benefit in kind in the form of life cover and no other income. I am a former MP and I have been asked to continue as an ambassador for a Westminster all-party parliamentary group for fair business banking, for which I receive no income.

Does Ivan McKee agree that no free trade deal is ever completely free, and that the Australia deal comes at a particularly high cost for Scotland, including in terms of lowering standards for consumers?

Good morning, everybody. I am a former employee of Standard Life and of the Royal Bank of Scotland, but I hold no shares in them.

I am a sole trader of Thomson Holdings, which is a property investment company for buy-to-let residential property. I receive some income from that, which is declared in the register of interests.

I am a director of Senza Rit Ltd, which is a property management company for residential property. I receive a benefit in kind in the form of life cover, but I receive no income from that. That is declared in the register of interests.

I am a former adviser to the Northern Ireland Assembly all-party group on fair banking and finance, for which I received no remuneration, and I am a current ambassador of the Westminster all-party parliamentary group for fair business banking, for which I receive no remuneration.

I nominate Kenneth Gibson.

Kenneth Gibson was chosen as convener.

[Inaudible.]—and would have voted yes.

I certainly agree with the First Minister’s comments about the furlough scheme. With 3.4 million people still on furlough, and 553,000 fewer people in payrolled employment, it would be utterly unthinkable for the Tories to cut support prematurely.

The Scottish Licensed Trade Association, along with other businesses and trade unions, has called for

“an extension to the current support schemes available such as furlough, VAT reduction”

and

“deferral of loan repayments”.

Does the First Minister agree with that call?

To ask the First Minister what engagement the Scottish Government has had with the United Kingdom Government regarding Covid-19 business support, in light of the rise of the delta variant. (S6F-00134)

I very much welcome this timely debate. I must start with the declaration of an historical interest. In late 2017 and early 2018, I was a co-author of two reports on Brexit and Scottish business that drew attention to the prospect of a hard Brexit having significant implications for skills availability. Brexit has been harder than was anticipated by any of the over 200 business leaders with whom I engaged. It is fair to say that none of the business leaders anticipated the attitude of the UK Government would be characterised by an “eff business” approach. As a direct consequence, Scotland’s skills challenge is even greater than expected.

I agree completely with the motion when it stresses the challenge to our labour market from the utter madness of the Tory Brexit. Skills shortages are increasing. Ending free movement is hugely damaging. We face a future filled with uncertainty, and the disruption to international trade raises huge questions for business. So one thing is clear—[Interruption.]

I shall not give way. For the record, Presiding Officer, I have noticed a huge difference between this Parliament and Westminster in that the vast majority of members here engage in substantive debate, whereas Westminster is characterised by barrack-room lawyers—hence my refusal to give way.

One thing is clear: the labour market that we need to prepare for is not the labour market of pre-Brexit and pre-pandemic Scotland. Thankfully, the Scottish Government has not been standing idly by and has commissioned a range of work. In this speech, I will reference the Higgins report and the Cumberford-Little report, both of which give a clear sense of what is needed if we are to have the skills to meet the challenges of the future.

The Cumberford-Little report, “One Tertiary System: Agile, Collaborative, Inclusive”, makes a telling observation when it states:

“we must insist on excellence rather than competence within the content, assessment, and currency of technical and professional qualifications.”

That is a welcome call from an excellent Government-commissioned report.

The call for a focus on excellence is mirrored in other quarters—for example, in the Higgins report, “Towards a robust, resilient wellbeing economy for Scotland”, which gives considerable prominence to the importance of skills development in building a sustainable future. Of particular interest is its emphasis on ensuring the provision of high-quality skills that effectively reflect real-world business and economic needs. For example, it raises an issue of business concern in the following terms:

“Many apprenticeships have high value in the labour market, but this depends on their quality ... Expanding the number of apprenticeships in this period of depressed economic activity will be challenging. Generating new apprenticeships that are not of high quality will undermine the reputation and value of apprenticeships.”

Therefore, as such reports make clear, putting quality at the heart of skills development is of fundamental importance.

I hasten to add, however, that I wholly appreciate the competing demands and complexities that the Scottish Government faces. It is right to have a concern for short-term challenges, particularly for young people, given the potential that exists for serious long-term damage to be done to individual figures and the economy, but our concerns regarding the wider economy, business and young people are not mutually exclusive. It is perfectly rational to have short, medium and long-term ambitions for the skills sector, where issues of excellence and quality are one of the golden threads.

From a business and economy standpoint, the Government has also undertaken a great deal of work in recent times to develop effective policy frameworks that set a clear international context for our needs. Excellent work that was led by Ivan McKee in producing “Scotland: a trading nation” identified 15 priority 1 countries and 11 priority 2 countries for our exporting ambitions. Separately from that, the office of the chief economic adviser to the Scottish Government conducted a competitor analysis across 66 goods sectors and 19 service sectors, using data from more than 100 countries. That formidable piece of work identified eight key competitor countries for Scotland.

There is a tie-up there. Remarkably, seven countries are priority 1 countries and also our key competitors. I will not list all those countries, but research shows that they have a very high commitment to skills development to international standards. Therefore, I ask the minister whether there might be a case in the future for looking at international skills benchmarking with such countries.

The work that the Scottish Government has done in commissioning external research and undertaking its own research is to be commended. As we move forward, the Scottish Government will have my full support as it faces the complex and developing skills challenges.

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland regarding the joint letter signed by the devolved children’s commissioners, which described the two-child cap as a

“clear breach of children’s human rights”. (S6O-00031)