Obviously, the 1970s preceded the 1980s, and it was during the Labour Government of the 1970s that the UK economy had to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. However, let us not go over past history.

Many of the goals in the UK Government’s green paper are consistent with the recommendations of the ICA. The UK Government’s paper sets out a number of issues, including in particular the need to increase technical skills within our workforce and the need for higher levels of innovation in the economy, and those have also—quite rightly—been highlighted in the ICA paper.

In relation to a skilled workforce, we need to train our workforce better for high-end manufacturing jobs and to ensure that vocational and skills training are better aligned to industry and business demand. Scotland and the UK are fortunate to be home to many of the world’s top universities and they already provide world-leading research and development work, but the same level of investment has not been made in technical and vocational training opportunities. Consequently, in Scotland, we have a shortage of technical skills, with Scotland ranking in the third quartile of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries for the proportion of people with technical qualifications.

With the decline of manufacturing, the old system of apprenticeships also declined. That is a particular issue in Scotland, where we still have only half the number of apprenticeships per head of population compared with the rest of the UK. We agree with the ICA report that the UK Government’s apprenticeship scheme has been a step in the right direction in this area. We have also urged the Scottish Government to put in place 10,000 additional apprenticeship starts every year by the end of the current session of Parliament. We believe that that is the right policy to increase our skill set and, in turn, prepare the economy for a high-growth and high-wage outturn.

Let me turn briefly to innovation. For an advanced economy, higher levels of investment in innovation correlate with faster growth and income levels, both within different regions of the UK and internationally. Research and development leads to the creation of new products and services, more effective processes and higher productivity. In Scotland, the innovation centre programme is a welcome step in the right direction as it brings together industry and universities to address the innovation needs of industries across eight different sectors in Scotland. However, more needs to be done, and that is why we welcome the measures that are set out in the ICA paper and the UK Government paper that look to boost productivity and innovation across the UK.

I highlight the success that the UK has had in the car and aerospace manufacturing sectors, with the UK being the second largest car producer in Europe and a global leader in aerospace. That demonstrates that the UK can, with the right approach and the right policies in place, compete globally in key industrial sectors. In order that we can replicate that success in other sectors, I urge the Scottish Government to engage constructively with the joint ministerial committee that the UK Government proposes in its green paper so that, together, we can develop an industrial strategy to address the issues that the motion sets forth.

I thank Colin Beattie again for bringing this important debate to the chamber.