S2M-2644 Life Sciences

Scottish Parliament

Thursday 24 March 2005

[THE PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 09:30]

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Life Sciences

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Trish Godman): The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-2644, in the name of Jim Wallace, on life sciences.

15:00

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16:02

Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): I will take a slightly different tack from that which has been taken by my colleagues around the chamber and look a little wider. Scotland has a proud and long record in the life sciences. Edinburgh, in particular, became one of the leading centres—if not the leading centre—in Europe for the study of medicine. The reason for that was the specific local "asset"—ill health, or morbidity, made the old town of Edinburgh an excellent area for scientists and doctors to study, to test whether their remedies could deliver for the community.

That opens up an important area of interest. Just as we had, in the past, that pool of morbidity for a medical school, we now have for the future an enormous pool of knowledge in Scotland, which we are under-exploiting. We have a community that is genetically diverse, so we have a wide range of people who can be part of the community that participates in the developing and testing of new drugs. We also have one of the best-documented genealogical systems in the developed world. Our register of births, deaths and marriages records more information about both the mother and the father than is recorded even today south of the border. That is an important way in which we can create a database of information that may or may not be used in vivo—as distinct from in the computer—to support the life sciences. It is a priceless resource that very few countries have.

Yesterday we had an interesting debate on entrepreneurship, albeit that there was no motion for debate and perhaps a slightly uncertain purpose. Today we are touching on that vital subject again. The support for universities and the additional funding that the minister has adumbrated are terrific, because our universities are the intellectual engine of an important part of our future economy. However, that pool of information about our community and that intellectual engine are but two legs of a three-legged stool. They are not in themselves sufficient.

The Government's "Scottish Life Sciences Strategy" document makes reference to the disconnection between the financial community and the life sciences community. I agree that there is little connection. However, that might be based on something of a misunderstanding of the nature of our financial community. Our clearing bank system is highly developed, experienced, effective and world class, but it exists to support mature enterprises; it does not exist inherently—even through business and corporate banking—to do other than support mature enterprises. At the other end of the scale are start-ups, which are relatively well supported by our enterprise network. If start-ups can sell their idea to the enterprise network—if they cannot do that, they will not be able to sell their developed product to anyone—they are probably in with a semi-decent shout of getting some seedcorn money to get on with the job.

In the middle, frankly, there is a muddle. Scotland is far from alone in that. There are successful entrepreneurs who make their way through that muddle; they might get access to funds informally, or they might be more successful in persuading people to take risks. There is not enough support for businesses in the middle. That is not because of a lack of venture capitalists, because they do not always suit all our enterprises. Too many of our ideas falter after the idea has been proven by use of seedcorn funding, but before it has developed into something that can be delivered. We must examine that area.

Alex Neil referred, properly, to the need to fail. Oil companies demonstrate that very well—they strike oil by drilling enough dry wells. In other words, we must follow through on the things that we do not know will succeed so that we can find some that do succeed. When I worked in banking for 30 years, one of the dreadful things that used to happen to my colleagues in the branch network was that inspectors would appear periodically to look at the branch's books. If there was no bad debt on the books, the branch manager was relieved of his post immediately. If he had no bad debt, he was not taking sufficient risk in supporting his customers. The same must be true of us. We must have courage and ambition, and we must be prepared to allow for failure, but we must also be geared to learning from failure.

One of the interesting things about life sciences is that, compared with other scientific areas, the discipline is comparatively accessible to the broader non-scientific public. People can see the benefit that the life sciences deliver to human beings, whereas it is difficult for them to see the benefits of sub-atomic research with its quarks, mesons, charm, spin, charge and mass, all of which are only mathematical concepts. It is very different with the life sciences.

I will highlight some of the areas of the Government's document that the minister might want to consider further. On page 14, there are six objectives; I like that. However, only indicators are shown rather than something that would enable us to measure and manage the way forward. On page 18, there are 11 milestones, which give the dates by which the tasks will be undertaken. However, if we do not say how we will measure or how we will know that we have achieved what we set out to achieve, we will find it difficult to help the minister to help Scotland in that area. I encourage the minister to consider the subject further.

Some money can be made from having ideas in Scotland. Some money can be made from manufacturing, consequent on our developing those ideas, but our future is not likely to be in mass market manufacture. Once the manufacturing process is established and understood, international competition is likely to undercut us—competition is very fierce. The key for us is to occupy the middle ground of turning ideas into intellectual property, which is the process by which manufacture can take place in the future. We must retain control of intellectual property. We may need to have hunters who travel the world to find other people's ideas that are under-exploited. We will then become a centre that is known for turning ideas into products and which will attract more people here. The trick is not to discover or invent—it is to discover again when the time is right.

16:11