S5M-15507 Supporting Entrepreneurship

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Linda Fabiani): The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-15507, in the name of Kate Forbes, on supporting entrepreneurship.

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Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):

I start by encouraging Dean Lockhart to walk a couple of hundred metres up the Canongate, cross the road and go into the Canongate kirkyard. In the north-west corner he will find Adam Smith’s grave, and I suggest that he reads what it says on it. However, I will leave that for another day.

The Tory amendment mentions business start-ups. I had a quick look at one aspect of that by looking at the Companies House figures and, lo and behold, the figures, which are published quarterly, show that the increase in registered companies in Scotland is going at about 4.06 per cent per quarter. Guess what the figure is in England and Wales. It is 4.06 per cent per quarter—it is very similar. I absolutely accept that the base in Scotland is smaller—

Daniel Johnson: Will the member take an intervention?

Stewart Stevenson: I am not going to have time. I ask the member to forgive me.

There are all sorts of reasons for those figures, but I cannot develop them here in the time that is available.

I want to say a little about taxation, because the Conservatives are also focusing on that. The key thing that helps to start businesses is a friendly tax regime. The small business bonus is hardly a disincentive to small businesses and it is not replicated anywhere else in these islands. This Government has done extraordinarily well.

Of course, by taking away student tuition fees, we are also making sure that the next generation is equipped to do the things that we need—

Liam Kerr (North East Scotland) (Con): Will the member take an intervention?

Stewart Stevenson: I will not. It is just because of the time. I am halfway through already. I ask the member to forgive me. I am sure that his intervention would be worth listening to, but I just do not have time.

We are supporting both entrepreneurs and innovation, because the two are bedfellows. This debate focuses on entrepreneurship, and we must be conscious that, when we support start-ups, new businesses and new ideas, not every one that we support will ultimately be successful. Something that I want to know but which I have found rather difficult to find is the failure rates. If they are too low, we are being too unambitious in the way that we support companies.

I worked as a technologist in banking, and if a bank branch had no bad debt, the manager was instantly taken out of position because he was not being ambitious enough in his lending. If he had too much bad debt, he was also taken out and hung, drawn and quartered, so there is a balance to reach, but we must recognise that there is risk associated with entrepreneurship.

There are some outstanding examples, and I will mention one from Gillian Martin’s and my constituency experience. Ten years ago, in Fraserburgh, two lads started BrewDog. It began with two people under the age of 30. Today, they have had to move to get a bigger site in Ellon in Gillian Martin’s constituency, and the company is worth more than £1 billion. I very much welcome the fact that it is going to be supporting the business improvement district initiative in Peterhead by bringing a BrewDog bar to the main street. That is absolutely terrific.

In the few seconds that I have left, I note that we also need to think about how we support intrapreneurs—in other words, entrepreneurs inside big companies. The best initiative that we had at the Bank of Scotland was when Bruce Pattullo said in the early 1980s, “Our objective is to double the size of the bank in 10 years.” That was the single objective and everybody in the organisation knew it. We did it in seven. Keep it simple—it works.

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