Scottish Economy

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 19 September 2013.

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Photo of Kevin Stewart Kevin Stewart Scottish National Party

The motion talks about

“the underlying strength of the Scottish economy”.

I will concentrate my speech on that underlying strength. Beyond that, I will talk about my experiences over the past few weeks of talking to businesses in the Parliament and in my constituency.

In a debate in the chamber last week, I mentioned the success of the offshore Europe conference, which involved some 60,000 delegates from across the world, 1,500 stands and many home-grown Scottish companies that are doing exceptionally well. We all know about the multinationals but, sometimes, many folk in here and elsewhere do not pay due attention to the work that is done by the many small companies in that sector. However, I am pleased to say that the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism takes cognisance of that. He spent quite some time at the offshore Europe conference, where he went down very well with the folk that I spoke to.

The oil and gas sector is thriving, but things could have been so different if the Conservatives had not U-turned on the silly tax measures that they introduced a couple of years ago. Although we are seeing record levels of investment in the North Sea basin, I think that we could have had even more. During the silly period, many companies took their money and invested it elsewhere, particularly in west Africa.

Over the past couple of weeks, many food and drink companies have visited the Parliament and have talked about Scotland the brand and how well they are doing. We also recently celebrated 100 years of the Rowett institute, which is a great Aberdeen institution—its first director won a Nobel prize, no less—that has been at the forefront of life sciences over that time.

In the remainder of my speech, I will concentrate on the life sciences. Last week, along with other colleagues, I had the pleasure of attending a Scottish Enterprise seminar at NCIMB in Aberdeen. When I went in and saw a badge that said, “We love bugs”, I did not think that I could ever say that. However, I came out of the seminar thinking, “I love bugs; I love the life sciences industry; and I love what is going on here in Aberdeen and the north-east of Scotland.”