 The next item of business is a statement by Neil Gray on a leading Scotland's journey to becoming a start-up nation. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement. Therefore, there should be no interventions or interruptions. I would invite the cabinet secretary around 10 minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am convinced that high growth entrepreneurship can power the transformation of the Scottish economy. The economic impact of new and scaling firms is colossal. They are 40 per cent more productive than the economy as a whole, act as a magnet for external investment and radiate innovation through customers and supply chains, driving job creation and wage growth beyond the walls of their own enterprises. In Scotland, the true value of our start-up community goes beyond what can be measured by hard economic analysis. Our entrepreneurs are people of vision, drive and imagination, and through the problems that they solve and the jobs that they create, they use those gifts to make better futures for our people and our communities. I think of Blackford analysis, which uses the power of artificial intelligence to improve patient outcomes. I think of Rusa, a Google-backed seafood trading platform that protects our waters by eliminating waste and empowers local fishermen to command the best price for their catch. I think of intelligent growth solutions. A rapidly scaling firm whose approach to precision farming is at the frontier of the push to deliver global food security. Those companies and dozens more dispel the myth that growth and wellbeing are contradictory economic principles. It is for all those reasons that this Government is setting a vision to establish Scotland as one of Europe's leading start-up economies. We begin this journey from a position of strength. Despite significant macroeconomic headwinds, our start-up ecosystem last year attracted record investment of £953 million, outperforming all UK regions with the exception of the so-called Golden Triangle between London, Oxford and Cambridge. However, our pride at that success must be tempered by the reality that, over that same period, the Swedish ecosystem attracted capital totaling £5.4 billion. That illustrates the scale of the prize and underscores the gap between Scotland's entrepreneurial potential and its performance as perhaps our greatest economic opportunity. What we needed was a plan to help us to realise that potential. That is why we appointed Mark Logan as Scotland's first chief entrepreneur. We have worked closely with him, producing a series of publications that together form a sophisticated and comprehensive plan to drive the systematic reforms that are necessary to establish Scotland as a world-class entrepreneurial economy. That new plan proposes actions across the strategic domains of gender equality, infrastructure, education and international presence. I will now proceed to take each of those in turn, describing our achievements today and our priorities in the current financial year. I will begin with the Scottish Government's response to pathways. Anna Stewart and Mark Logan's groundbreaking review of how we can support more women to start and scale businesses. I thank Anna and Mark for their work and recent engagement, which has helped to persuade me of the need to drive so hard on this agenda. The pathways review findings are stark and its recommendations are bold. Only one in five of Scotland's businesses are led by women. Start-ups founded by women receive only 2 per cent of investment capital. The lack of meaningful progress is explained by deep-rooted societal barriers that disproportionately impact women. The review correctly describes that as a denial of opportunity on literally an industrial scale. That is intolerable in the wellbeing economy that I am dedicated to building. We have a moral and economic duty to meet those challenges head-on. That is why I am proud to announce that we are accepting this report and will immediately work on its implementation. The report's recommendations are broad and powerful, encompassing cultural change, long-term intervention in education and more immediate support to women in business. I will therefore focus my remarks on the actions that we will prioritise in this financial year. First, we are committed to the creation of pre-start centres and pop-ups, focused on encouraging women to start businesses and providing best-in-class support to help them to develop products, adopt sound commercial strategies and get early access to funding. As part of that work, we will give early consideration to how we can implement the proposal for a concept fund, offering women the seed funding that they need to turn good ideas into growing businesses. Second, we will relaunch the Scottish Government's competitive ecosystem fund, with an explicit focus on supporting projects and address the review's key themes of entrepreneurial technique, access to finance and education. I am also pleased to announce that we will maintain our support for the organisations such as Women's Enterprise Scotland, Investing Women and Business Women Scotland ahead of a shift to competitive funding in future years. Third, we will work with our enterprise agencies, the Scottish National Investment Bank and private sector investors to open up investment avenues for women-led businesses and for other under-invested groups. And finally, we will improve our collection and reporting of data, developing a dashboard of measures to evaluate the extent to which our actions are succeeding. Moving on to entrepreneurial infrastructure, the Scottish Government is well in its way to delivering arguably the finest system in Europe dedicated to the creation and scaling of high-growth businesses. The £42 million tech-scaler network is a game changer for our start-up community, putting the wind of Silicon Valley technique into the sales of Scottish innovation. That is a complex project, delivered on time, on budget. Six of the seven physical sites are fully operational and already host 247 start-ups, with a further 1,300 members accessing virtual support and education, the length and breadth of Scotland. An end-to-end entrepreneurial curriculum has been developed, with courses ranging from beginner level through to the advanced techniques necessary to achieve scale. Reforge is Silicon Valley's most prestigious provider of scale-up education. Through tech-scaler Scotland is the only country in the world to hold a national licence with 47 entrepreneurs already learning and growing alongside the world's best businesses. A key objective is to ensure that the services offered by pre-start centres and existing ecosystem assets, such as NHS testbeds and the net zero technology centre, are seamlessly connected to the tech-scaler network, creating a powerful continuum of support for entrepreneurs in every industry as they progress through each level of scale. As part of ensuring that our existing ecosystem continues to flourish, I can confirm that we will once again support Scottish edges' excellent complementary work to identify and back Scotland's most promising new businesses. Just this Tuesday, in a speech to ecosystem builders in Brussels, the First Minister announced the publication of Ross Tuffy and Joe Little's report on entrepreneurial campuses, the Scottish Government's blueprint to position our universities and colleges as hotbeds of start-up creation and scaling. That work is about establishing an alliance with universities and colleges and catalyzing a movement that has already started to build in the sector through an increased focus on spin-out companies and the broader commercialisation of research. That movement is responsive to a shifting culture in which learners no longer view institutions merely as a means of acquiring a degree but as places where they can meet to co-founders, experiment with cutting-edge technologies and create the innovation-led businesses that are necessary to drive Scotland's economic future. The report sets out a range of initiatives to accelerate that mission, and we have provided £5.5 million increase in the 2324 university innovation fund to deliver it. I will turn to entrepreneurial culture and education. I take my hat off to our wonderful entrepreneurs and to the work that they do. Although there appears to be a perception that entrepreneurs must somehow be different, the evidence suggests and repeated studies have shown that consistent exposure to quality entrepreneurial education and networks is a powerful means of instilling the necessary mindsets, attitudes and skills—in other words, we can train our entrepreneurs. That is why I am pleased to announce that, over the coming year, I will work closely with ministerial colleagues, our partners at Young Enterprise Scotland, the Prince's Trust industry and, crucially, our teachers to systematically embed project-based entrepreneurial learning in schools across Scotland alongside other measures that we are working on for our schools. As the flywheel effect of our interventions across infrastructure, education and investment start to yield momentum, we will also have an eye to what that means for Scotland's presence on the global stage. The best entrepreneurial ecosystems are synonymous with the nations that host them, acting as a magnet for talent and inward investment. Our ambition is therefore to establish Scotland as a global hub for start-up founders and investors, akin to the reputation previously and presently enjoyed by Sweden and Finland. Recent events to showcase Scottish business in Helsinki, Silicon Valley and New York revealed strong interests from external investors in the quality of Scottish start-ups, an impression that we are keen to reinforce. We will embark on an exciting pilot this year to establish a branch of the tech-scaler network in the heart of Silicon Valley. That will allow the stars of the Scottish start-up scene to live and work for an extended period in the world's leading hub for innovation, exposing founders to expanded networks, world-class technique and enhanced opportunities to raise capital. As well as being hugely enriching and experience for the founders, the idea is that the quality of our companies will stimulate broader investor interest in the Scottish ecosystem. As that interest takes hold over time, we will look to build links with other leading ecosystems such as the Nordics, Canada and Ireland, bringing new ideas, talent and investment to Scotland. In perhaps the most challenging fiscal environment in living memory, the package of support represents an investment in our start-up ecosystem of up to £17.5 million this financial year. It is a package of vision and aspiration that sends a clear and powerful message to Scotland's innovators, entrepreneurs and disruptors. This Government believes in you and we are prepared to back you. I will close by reminding the chamber that it was a Scottish start-up led by James Watt that ignited the industrial revolution that transformed global living standards and lifted millions of people across the world out of poverty. With the health and demographic challenges post-pandemic, with the cost of living crisis, with climate change and the economic damage caused by Brexit, the challenges that we face today are no less profound. The world needs Scottish start-ups to get to work and we will help them on their way. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes, after which we will need to move on to the next item of business, and I will be grateful. Any members wishing to ask a question to press the request-to-speak buttons? I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement and for his advance site offer. I welcome the focus that he puts upon promoting entrepreneurship and the new initiatives being announced today. Those are much needed. The Government has had a troubled relationship with the business community, not helped by the fact that the junior coalition partners are actively hostile to economic growth. Our track record on business start-ups is poor. In 2019, the last year before Covid, Scotland had 48 new business registrations per 10,000 of the adult population compared to a UK average of 72. Excluding London, the UK figure is 62. Even on that basis, we are lagging far behind other parts of the UK. In welcoming the announcement today, I ask the cabinet secretary the following. Firstly, does he have a target for increasing the business start-up rate for Scotland? If so, what is it and for when will it be delivered? Secondly, in relation to the serious issue that he raised of the lack of start-up capital for women entrepreneurs, when does he expect the initiatives that he announced today to be delivered? Thirdly, in relation to entrepreneurial learning in schools, does he intend that that will be mainstreamed across the curriculum and taught to all pupils, or is it the intention that it will be an optional standalone subject? I thank Murdo Fraser for the constructive way in which he has responded to the statement and our statement of intent around making Scotland the start-up hub of Europe. He thanked me for advanced sight, some of the statements that we discussed last night with Daniel Johnson as well at the RBS dinner. We were discussing some elements of the issues that were before us, including access to finance, which I recognise as a major challenge for some of those who are looking to get access to start-up. That is exactly why we are looking to and instill the confidence in the market to ensure that access to finance can continue to come. I have mentioned in my statement the fact that we have already seen a record investment in Scottish start-ups coming over the last year. We want to build on that, but that is not enough. We heard last night evidence of where there are challenges. I will keep working with financial colleagues and with the business community to see what more we can do to ensure that access to finance can continue to flow. I do not have a particular target. I am happy to talk to Murdo Fraser about where we might see this ending up. I think that we have seen not least in what Murdo Fraser highlighted in his contribution, where we have room for growth and we certainly have room for growth. The work being done in schools, I will be working with my colleague Jenny Gilruth and education colleagues around how much further we can go in terms of ensuring that there is access to this type of education within our school environment. Daniel Johnson to be followed by Adam McKee. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I too thank the Cabinet Secretary for Advanced Sites. I welcome that focus because, undoubtedly, I agree with him that start-ups are a potential to drive new jobs and growth for the Scottish economy. I also welcome the reintroduction of the Scottish Edge funding. I know that that interruption led to a reduction in the number of awards that they were able to make this year, so that is welcome. However, can I engage in something of critical consensus? I agree that, while there are strengths, there are issues in Scottish start-ups and, indeed, in terms of the total number of start-ups, the only English region Scotland beat was the north-east. We lack at high-growth firms. We have 1.5 high-growth firms for 10,000 people compared to three. Indeed, my stat from last night that is ringing in my ears is that 40 per cent of Scottish businesses have never accessed any formal finance at all. Following on from the point about targets, the cabinet secretary said that there would be a score card. When will we have that score card and what metrics will it contain? Indeed, will it have a broad spectrum rather than just high-tech, high-growth start-ups? On the point around growth in small and micro businesses, we know that many businesses start but they install, so what initiatives will there be to help investment in growth amongst the broad mass and broad base of small and micro businesses? Can we make sure that there is no over-focusing of particular sectors? I am happy to have a further discussion with Daniel Johnson to answer some of those points in more detail and to get to some of the questions that he was perhaps looking to get to. In his questions, he diagnoses exactly why we need to take that intervention. He is absolutely right in terms of the statistics that he and I saw last night from RBS in terms of the work that is still needed to be done in terms of access to finance, in terms of encouraging greater numbers of start-ups. I am happy to engage with Mr Johnson over the summer months on answering some of the questions that he poses. I thank the cabinet secretary for the statement and I am hugely encouraged by the amount of work that is going into taking forward that entrepreneurial agenda. It is worth noting that Scotland's business start-up rate for young people is amongst the highest in the UK, thanks to the good work of young Enterprise Scotland, Princess Trust, Converse Challenge and others. Can I ask what the Scottish Government is doing to build on that good work, making starting a business be seen as a genuinely aspirational career choice and positive destination for young people, including information and support for young people thinking of becoming entrepreneurs? First of all, I pay tribute to Ivan McKee and Kate Forbes for starting this work that I am now able to build upon to ensure that we have the foundations of the support network to ensure that we not only have the infrastructure that allows for people to be able to start their own business but that there is an encouragement from an early age to be able to do that. He is absolutely right in terms of the work that is being done with the likes of young Enterprise Scotland. I remember that I was involved in young Enterprise when I was at school with a wonderful initiative that is done alongside the Princess Trust as well, in addition to ensuring that young people are exposed as early as possible to that type of mindset. I also point Ivan McKee to the announcement that was made this week by the First Minister around entrepreneurial campuses. I think that it is going to make a transformational change. Liz Smith, to be followed by Rona Mackay. Can I also welcome what the cabinet secretary has said, but can I ask him if he also agrees that this is only going to be deliverable if there is a broader perspective on economic policy which enhances productivity, economic growth and reduces the tax burden for businesses? Liz Smith and I had a very interesting discussion this morning around some of those issues. I am looking to foster a wellbeing economy in Scotland, where we recognise that there cannot be a good, strong economy without a good society. There cannot be a good society without a strong economy, and the two need to work together. We are looking alongside the work that has been published this morning on re-aligning and our relationship with business and making sure that we deliver on some of the points that have been raised there. We need to make sure that we have economic growth, but that economic growth is for a purpose, and that purpose is about making sure that we deliver on the wellbeing of our people as well as our businesses across Scotland. Can I thank the cabinet secretary for such a positive statement? I am particularly delighted to hear of the start-up initiatives for women. However, start-ups will be facing additional financial pressures, given the current challenges that our economy faces. Can the cabinet secretary provide any information as to the steps that the Scottish Government can take to mitigate those pressures? Obviously, we are acutely aware of the challenges that operate in the operating environment that businesses continue to face in the wake of Brexit, recovering from Covid, the current conflict that Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and the resulting cost impacts. The Scottish Government is well connected into the start-up ecosystem and is in constant dialogue to understand the pressures that start-ups are facing, as well as the opportunities that we must capitalise on at pace. We appreciate that start-ups are operating in a complex economic environment, but that is why our £42 million national network of tech scalers is committed to providing founders and leaders with the necessary skills on funding models, investor attraction and pitching. Alongside other initiatives, including enterprise agency support, we are committed to fostering an environment in which access to funding is seamless, despite economic pressures. The universities are at the forefront of innovation, medical sciences and renewables, but, despite that success, people working within the city of Glasgow have expressed to me concerns that their expertise is not being converted into jobs growth on the scale that it should. So, what plans are there for the Scottish Government to capitalise on the skills and innovation that is being developed in Glasgow universities? Absolutely. That speaks to what I just referred to in answer to Ivan McKee around entrepreneurial campuses, making sure that we have continued to enjoy the benefits of university spin-offs, but also the recently published innovation strategy around ensuring that we have a really strong economic performance in terms of the incredible work that has been done by our researchers and academics at universities, including those in Glasgow. Like other colleagues, I greatly welcome the statement and its relevance to the energy sector. The North East-based Zero Technology Centre's techX programme has, to date, supported almost 60 start-ups, successfully accelerated, eight technologies commercialised, over 200 employees hired and at least £80 million in start-up equity funding raised. Given the significant success of the techX accelerator programme, will the cabinet secretary support having an enhanced clean energy technology acceleration programme such as techX accelerator as part of an energy transition cluster in Scotland? I am certainly happy to meet Audrey Nicholl to discuss that potential, because I recognise the enormous economic and entrepreneurial potential of Scotland's expertise in net zero technologies, paired with the abundance of our natural resources. Supporting the growth of the sector is a priority for this Government, and businesses seeking to start-up, grow and scale in this field will be supported through our entrepreneurial ecosystem. I look forward to hearing more about Audrey Nicholl's proposals. This is an eminently sensible proposal, but the minister will understand for years that this has been as much about a cultural change as it is about a system change. I welcome the proposals, particularly for women, to make sure that we tap into that potential. Universities are going to be important to make this a success. Is he sure that we have the right balance of freeing up intellectual property? Secondly, how is he going to reverse the decline in the performance of Scottish university research compared with the rest of the UK? First of all, Willie Rennie is absolutely right in terms of the cultural change. That is what I have set out in my statement in terms of ensuring that we work with the financial centres and other agencies to ensure that there is that mindset shift and a cultural change to support a greater diversity in our start-up ecosystem. In terms of universities, I have set out in response to Pauli McNeill and I did to Ivan McKee around pointing him towards the entrepreneurial campus model, but I am more than happy to have a discussion with him further on the areas that he raises. Social enterprises are key to creating the inclusive and power communities in the fair and more equal society that we often speak of. The 2021 social enterprise census recorded a £2.63 billion contribution to the Scottish economy. Does the minister agree that social enterprises will be key to the innovation that lies at the core of solving many of Scotland's societal changes that he touched on in his statement earlier? And what role does he see the social enterprise model playing in supporting Scotland's journey to become a start-up nation? Yes, the Scottish Government's long-term vision of social enterprise is to be at the forefront of ethical and socially responsible business in Scotland, far reaching and becoming central to the way that Scotland chooses to do business. Social enterprises in Scotland are supported through a world-class system of support. That includes a pipeline of social investment into the sector from pre-start-up through to loans for growth-ready business, as well as innovative funding for those in between. Last year, through Scottish Government investment, we funded the start-up of nearly 100 social enterprises, and in addition to that, a range of business support for the social enterprise sector continues to be provided. Maggie Chapman, to be followed by Jamie Halcro Johnston. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement. He will be familiar with the need for successful start-ups to consider both scaling up and scaling deep, as we have heard from Professor Logan. Following on from the previous question, he will also be aware of the value and social good that co-operatives provide, building community cohesion and resilience, placemaking, creating and sustaining social capital, community wealth and more. They do, by their nature, like social enterprises, scale deep. Can I ask the cabinet secretary how this business model, specifically co-operatives, will be supported by this positive vision for the benefit of local people and community economies across Scotland? I thank Maggie Chapman for that question. She is absolutely right in terms of the scaling up and scaling deep. Alternative business models such as co-operatives—I declare an interest to the member of my co-operative myself—will continue to provide support to co-operatives in Scotland, and I will write to Maggie Chapman to provide more detail on the support that has been provided. My colleagues, Murdo Fraser and Liz Smith, have already highlighted that the number of start-ups in Scotland lags behind those in England, which concerns that Scotland's tax policy is one area that impacts on this. I am sure that nearly all in this chamber will agree that it is vitally important that we foster a pro-business environment in Scotland to ensure that start-ups have the best possibility of success. Can I ask the cabinet secretary how the Scottish Government will ensure that entrepreneurial interests are being considered right across all relevant policy areas? I thank Jamie Halcro Johnson for his question. I would challenge slightly his assertion around our tax policy putting off investment in Scotland, because Scotland is outperforming the rest of the UK in terms of inward investment, so that does not quite match up. I accept that we want to ensure that having the best place to do business in Scotland was part of the theme of the New Deal for Business Group and ensuring that we continue to talk about the package of support that is on offer, some of which I was talking to Liz Smith about this morning is my job. To sell Scotland as being a good place to do business, I will continue to do so and ensure that, as he suggests, I continue to listen to entrepreneurs in the work that they are doing, not least our chief entrepreneur, Mark Logan, behind which we base our plans. There is no doubting that entrepreneurship can better be driven by tapping into the most diverse talent group possible. Can the cabinet secretary advise what steps the Scottish Government is taking to break down social and economic barriers to entrepreneurship and to support diversity in start-ups and business? Yes, absolutely. As the pathways report sets out, unlocking Scotland's full entrepreneurial potential offers a significant, huge opportunity economically. As we fully develop the delivery plans to implement pathways recommendations, we will widen access to entrepreneurial support and education across all underrepresented groups and deliver accessible support where it is needed, when it is needed. There is no doubt—I have said this previously in the chamber before—that unlocking the economic potential of women and ensuring that we close the gender pay gap and close the employment gap and ensure that we close the gap on female start-ups is one of the greatest economic potentials that we can invest in. Scotland has always been an innovative and environmental—sorry—in entrepreneurial countries, including in start-ups. However, the gap lies on what happens next in that early growth. Previously, the SCIS and EIS schemes have been a vehicle in which public sector and private sector have been able to work together to invest in early-stage companies, giving them that step-up. Can I ask the Scottish Government what it will do to encourage private investment in early-stage business growth, including tax-efficient use of funding from investment houses and high-net worth investors? Yes, that is part of the challenge that we heard last night in terms of where the private investment comes from. A lot of that comes internationally rather than domestically, but I would also point to the support that we are looking to provide our entrepreneurs and our start-ups with the investment in the text scalar network and ensuring that that is married and matched to the likes of the NHS test rates to give better certainty to the projects that they are working on from an investment perspective. I am more than happy to provide more detail of that to Brian Whittle so that it gives some confidence as to the work that we are doing. Thank you very much. That concludes this item of business. The next item of business is consideration of motion 9765, in the name of Marie Todd on the online safety bill, UK legislation, and I call Jenny Mental to move the motion. Thank you. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of two parliamentary bureau motions, and I asked George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move motions 9821 on committee membership and 9822 on substitution and committees. Thank you. The question on these motions will be put at decision time. There are two questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that motion 9765, in the name of Marie Todd on online safety bill, UK legislation, be agreed? Are we all agreed? Yes. That is agreed. I propose to ask a single question on two parliamentary bureau motions. Does any member object? Thank you. The final question is that motions 9821 on committee membership, 9822 on substitution on committees, in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, be agreed? Are we all agreed? Yes. That is agreed, and that concludes decision time. We'll now move on to members' business. We'll have a brief pause, actually, to allow members to leave the chamber, but please do so as quickly and as quietly as possible.