 The next item of business is a debate on motion 2511, in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville, on how Scotland's innovation centre programme is driving innovation in Scotland. Can I invite those members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak buttons now? I call on Shirley-Anne Somerville Minister to speak to and move the motion. As the American economist Theodore Levitt stated, creativity is thinking up new things, but innovation is doing new things. Here in Scotland, I think that we can lay claim over the years to having done both quite well. We can have a proud history in many historic achievements from penicillin to the telephone to the bicycle to the ATM, but we cannot nor should we live in the past. To become a more successful country, we need to drive greater innovation and create opportunities for our businesses and Scotland to flourish. This Government is doing what it can to grow a sustainable economy that is both resilient and inclusive, and encouraging innovation is key to that. Innovation is critical to our ambition to shift a dial on Scotland's economic performance, which is why it features heavily in the four pillars of the Government's economic strategy. It is why we have published a can-do statement of intent for Scotland to become a world-leading nation in innovation and entrepreneurship. It is why the Innovation Centre programme was established in 2013 to drive greater collaboration between industry and academia and to build on our research strengths. The programme has been developed and is being delivered through the Scottish Funding Council in partnership with Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, supported by Government funding of up to £120 million between 2013 and 2019. The eight innovation centres sit within some of our key sectors, construction, oil and gas, satisfied medicine, digital health, industrial biotechnology, sensors and imaging, big data and aquaculture. A real strength of the current approach has been to ensure that an industry-demand-led focus sits at the very heart of innovation centre's activity, bringing people, businesses, academics and agencies together, physically and conceptually, so that ideas are sparked and co-developed. Those collaborations seek to address challenges identified by industry by exploiting the strength and quality of research in Scotland's world-leading universities. Our higher education sector was exactly the right place in which to establish the innovation centre programme, with universities able to provide the right governance and support structure, as well as a strong research base, the right mix of graduate and academic skills and a project-focused ability to generate new ideas, products and processes. However, it is appropriate today to acknowledge the exciting progress that has been achieved to date, with impact already being made both in Scotland and internationally. NHS Scotland, Thermo Fisher, HydroSun, Marine Harvest Scotland, Cascade Technologies, AstraZeneca and, in Gensar, are just a few examples of the global players working alongside our small medium enterprises in innovation centres across a range of sectors. For example, Censys, which is a centre for excellence for sensor and imaging system, recently announced its £6 million Mirage project. A collaboration with four companies and the University of Glasgow to produce materials for goods that use sensors, ranging from Asmenhalers to infrared cameras. Placing Scotland at the forefront of the £7 billion global sensors and imaging systems market, the project is expected to deliver £56 million to the Scottish economy over the next 10 years and will give the companies involved a critical competitive edge in the global centres market. The Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre, working with Marine Harvest Scotland, Scottish Sea Farms, Biomarr and the University of Stirling, is co-ordinating a £4 million project to help to address a key challenge facing salmon aquaculture, on-site control of sea lice, through cultivation and use of cleaner fish as biological alternatives to medicinal control. Aquaculture is one of the real success stories in our economy, if grown sustainably, and is on track to contribute over £2 billion annually to the Scottish economy by 2020, supporting 10,000 jobs and with significant potential thereafter. Some of those collaborations are also helping to deliver benefits for the health and wellbeing of people in Scotland. The digital health and care institute, for example, has been involved in the development of My Little One, a technology that makes it possible for parents to keep in touch with their babies while they are in neonatal care. In October, Stratified Medicine Scotland, representing NHS Scotland, Scottish universities and industry partners, and AstraZeneca, announced a new partnership. That will offer new opportunities for researchers to develop innovative new treatments and target the right patients to the right medicines using patients' genetic information. That will see Scotland being an active partner in AstraZeneca's global genomics initiative, further demonstrating Scotland's ability to attract major industry projects. By working to meet the needs of industry and graduates, innovation centres are also adding to our skills mix and encouraging the development of exciting and new skills. Recognising that, for example, Scotland is a global centre of excellence for data science. DataLab is partnering with MVN Solutions, one of Europe's leading data scientists and big data recruiters, to help to place MSc graduates in organisations seeking to make the most of their talent. The industrial biotechnology innovation centre has been working with Forth Valley and Glasgow Kelvin colleges to develop bespoke HNC and HND courses in industrial biotechnology. Those qualifications aim to produce graduates with key skills for employment in this sector, meeting crucial industry demand. There is no doubt that a great deal has been achieved in these early years. However, at this halfway point in the programme, it is right to commission a review of progress to date. I want to thank Professor Graham Reid for chairing this work and for the review's thoughtful and in-depth reflections. It is reassuring that Professor Reid concluded from the evidence that his review gathered that the programme is on the right track for delivering long-term economic benefits to Scotland. The recommendations also chart a useful course for the way forward, building on the strengths and identifying quite rightly the challenges of the next stage of development for the programme. I want to assure Professor Reid and indeed everyone in the chamber that we are considering the recommendations fully and what needs to happen next to allow the centre to realise their full potential. I want to respond to several of the key recommendations today. The first recommendation calls for the periodological assessment of whether additional innovation centres should be created, subject to the availability of resources. The Government is happy to accept the recommendation and the timescales that it sets out. It is right and proper that we ensure that our focus is in the right spheres and sectors and that it is frankly keeping up. There is nothing innovative about developing solutions for past priorities rather than future ones. Recommendation 6 goes on to advise that every university and each innovation centre should make renewed efforts to involve as much of Scotland's excellent research base as possible within the programme. I agree wholeheartedly with that and the innovation centres, the Scottish Funding Council and I am sure that the university sector will work to the timescales that Professor Reid suggests. Professor Reid also recommends that the Scottish Funding Council explore further education and college participation in innovation centres. While a number of colleges are already active in those areas and enhancing the work of the innovation centres, colleges can and should do more to capitalise on their local connections and their proven ability to engage with business. I was interested to hear, for example, the work of the Construction Scotland innovation centre about how it explores how it can work more closely with the colleges network. I know from the many visits that I have undertaken to college campuses since becoming minister that there are already great examples of innovation happening in our colleges, but we need to expand on that and encourage it throughout the college sector so that it views the innovation agenda just to be as much their space as it is in our universities. There is absolutely a bigger role for the college sector to play in the programme and we will explore with the funding council how best to take forward the actions that Professor Reid has suggested, as well as considering what more might need to be done to enable the further education sector to play its part. Another key recommendation is for the enterprise agencies to identify and assess opportunities for new approaches to their funding support for innovation centres and to increase business engagement and enhance the innovation centre's programme. Professor Reid also recommends that the Scottish Government should simplify the outward appearance of arrangements for business support and better define and explain its specific benefits to individual businesses and that support for the business community be articulated consistently in business-friendly language rather than the language of the public sector. Both of those recommendations align strongly with the conclusions of phase 1 of our enterprise and skills review and will very much be considered in phase 2 of that work. In recognising the value of those and other recommendations, I hope that that demonstrates that this Government is open to addressing the opportunities and challenges ahead and intends to stay focused on the future needs of our economy. It is also, I hope, demonstrates agreement across the chamber in many of the key areas. In that spirit, we welcome all the Opposition Amendments and their shared focus on the key points arising from the review. Paul Wheelhouse and I look forward to a robust debate, and we will be listening very carefully to what others have to say. After all, there is no monopoly on wisdom on this or many other issues. That is a shared endeavour. It is important that we get the message across for all the agencies, businesses, universities, colleges and students, graduates and academics to hear. It is important that they hear that the Scottish Parliament shares a belief in the role that innovation is playing and should continue to play in helping to create sustainable economic growth and prosperity. It should acknowledge and value the contribution that Scotland's innovation centre programmes can make to driving forward our innovation, both now and in the future. I move the motion in my name. Thank you very much, minister. I now call indeed Lockhart to speak to and move amendment 251.3. Mr Lockhart, eight minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. We very much welcome this debate on innovation, the role of the innovation centre programme and the recommendations of Professor Reid. Let me begin by agreeing with the minister on how important innovation is for our economic wellbeing. Innovation is the basis for economic and social development. According to the ACBI, innovation drives productivity. It attracts international investment, raises living standards and supports inclusive growth, something that we can all agree with. In Scotland, we are quite rightly proud of our strong history of innovation on world-class universities. From James Watt and the steam engine over two centuries ago to Dolly the sheep, we have been at the forefront of innovation for centuries. The unfortunate reality now, however, is that we have been overtaken by other countries on innovation and productivity performance. In 2007, Scotland's productivity ranked in the second quartile of OECD countries, but the latest data places Scotland in the third quartile, with productivity levels some 25 per cent below neighbouring countries such as Ireland and Denmark. The target for Scotland to be in the first quartile by 2017 has unfortunately not been met. Let me be clear that this is not about league tables, it is about our economic wellbeing and, ultimately, the amount of money that is available for public spending. According to Scottish Enterprise, failure to meet innovation and productivity targets has cost the Scottish economy around £45 billion. The Scottish Enterprise has said that the failure to meet the productivity targets has cost the Scottish economy around £45 billion. That is the equivalent of an annual average increase in wages of £6,500. The member accepts that perhaps the reason that a small independent country such as Ireland and Denmark overtaken Scotland is because they control more of the levers to enable economic growth than we currently do. Before you answer, is your microphone on? Oh, well, we must point out seven words, Mr McGee. Yes, please continue. Thank you. Give me a bit of time to think. I genuinely think that most of the policy levers here are devolved to education skills, enterprise training, which are in the hands of the Scottish Government, including related productivity areas such as transport. I think that we can work together to have the powers to improve the levels of productivity. As I said, there is a clear policy challenge here for all of us. How can we address the innovation and productivity gap? The innovation centre programme is definitely a welcome step in the right direction. Private sector research and development spending in Scotland needs to increase, and that programme brings together industry and universities to address the innovation needs of businesses across the eight different sectors that are mentioned by the minister. The centres are industry-led, meaning that business in the sector can identify and drive the nature of the innovation that is required. The centres typically target projects in technology readiness levels in the range of four to seven out of 10. Those are projects in that challenging middle ground between the early stage of academic research on the one hand and projects that are close and market ready on the other. Historically, this area between academic research and commercialisation has been a difficult one to bridge. Anything that helps to improve this transition is welcome. While the centres are funded by the SFC, each centre very importantly tries to obtain private sector investment on a project-by-project basis. A good example of that has been the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre, based in Stirling, which I understand has been able to leverage an average of £270 from industry for every £100 of its investment. I would also add my congratulations to all the other innovation centres that are mentioned by the minister. The review undertaken by Professor Reid and the supporting analysis by ECOS indicates that the programme is on the right track, but there are a number of important recommendations that have been made on how it can be taken to the next level. I would also like to thank Professor Reid for his excellent review. First of all, the absence of performance targets for the programme was recognised as a gap. That should be addressed so that overall performance can be assessed against expectations. There is also need to clarify what the programme is trying to achieve overall. What is the optimal balance between generating income in the short term and delivering a long-term benefit for the Scottish economy? Clarity is also required on Government policy. As the co-chair of innovation Scotland forum said in his feedback, the Scottish Government is very focused on innovation without articulating what is meant. I agree that innovation is a central part of the Scottish Government economic strategy. The Government needs to clarify precisely what it is trying to achieve and what success will look like and how it will be measured. I am travelling with the member on the thrust of his argument. I wonder if he would agree with me that one of the important things is that there is space for projects and thinking that does not lead to a successful outcome. In other words, one of the tests of whether you have really got space to think is whether only a proportion of the ideas ultimately succeed. Sorry, Mr Lockhart. I call you. You are desperate to get your— You may do it now. There you are. You do not need time to think in that one. My short answer is yes, I do agree. Moving on to the other recommendations, I agree with the minister. I think that the engagement of Scotland's colleges in the programme should be encouraged. We would go further and reinstate a number of the full and part-time college places that have been cut, which we believe have resulted in a growing skills shortage. There is also recognition that the innovation centres are operating in a crowded landscape. The review recommends that the Scottish Government should simplify the innovation and business support that is available. That is something that we have called for, and we look forward to the Government addressing that in phase 2 of the enterprise and skills review. The review also calls for increasing private sector investment, which we agree with, and periodic assessment of new additional innovation centres. We have called for a renewables energy centre to be created and also to promote cases highlighting successful outcomes to help to promote Scotland internationally as a business friendly environment. The innovation programme has already achieved success in terms of new products, both in Scotland and overseas. New services and close to £5 million revenue are attributable to those new products and services. Those achievements are significant and we are confident that there will be many more to come. However—this is not a criticism—those outcomes and achievements do not quite yet meet the optimistic targets announced by Mr Russell, who told the chamber in 2014 that, based on the business plans for the individual centres, the cumulative boost to the Scottish economy could reach a massive £1.5 billion and up to 5,000 jobs could be created. I look forward to hearing today from the Government whether those forecasts remain your central forecast for the programme. I look forward to the Scottish Government announcing new innovation and productivity targets for 2017 and beyond. If the Government wants to reach the first quartile, then we suggest that it should follow the recommendations of Professor Reid and our policy advice in the following areas. We need to address the skills gap through reinstating college places. We need to simplify the cluttered landscape for enterprise and business support. We need to address the shortage of STEM teachers in school and STEM subjects in further education. We need to take steps to increase productivity in the public sector, including the NHS, and we need to use the enterprise review to help Scottish business to scale up and to access the growing export markets. Let me conclude. We welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has already followed our policy ideas on a South of Scotland enterprise agency and on expanding the SDI network. We look forward to the Scottish Government adopting more of our policy ideas in order to make Scotland a more innovative and productive country. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you very much, Mr Lockhart. I will give members a little extra time to take interventions. They do not need to look so anxiously at the clock this time. I now call on Iain Gray to speak to and move amendment 2511.1. There can be no doubt that the space in which the innovation centres are designed to operate, the interface between business, enterprise and academic research, is critical to our future economic prosperity. In or out of the European Union, the single market, EFTA or the EEA, globalisation means that our future cannot lie in low-skill, low-wage jobs, but it must be in high-skilled, high-value, highly innovative, knowledge-rich enterprise. While we congratulate ourselves, as we often do in this chamber, on the quality and volume of academic research that Scotland produces, whether it is measured by peer-reviewed papers or the winning of more than our fair share of research funding, we also know that in the private sector, research and development investment and activity remain low compared to many of our competitors or even other parts of the United Kingdom. The Government is right to intervene and invest in this area, both ensuring that close-to-market research is undertaken by academics and equally helping business, especially SMEs, to understand the importance of innovation and connect them with the partners who can drive that innovation through their businesses. It is a difficult area, though, and this is not the first attempt. The Intermediate Technology Institute was launched many years ago to achieve similar ends with a bigger budget initiative in which I had some small part, but, where I have to admit, it did not achieve what it set out to do. Hindsight suggests that it did not deliver on research close enough to market. It is too linear a concept of the innovation pipeline, perhaps outdated, and that its funding model of controlling intellectual property generated hampered its commercialisation. The innovation-centred programme is critical, but there are pitfalls that we must avoid falling into again. Shirley-Anne Somerville talks about academic research. When Albert Einstein published his paper on the special theory of relativity, there was not a single reference in that paper. It would not have even got beyond the tutor if he had had one in the modern climate. One of the issues is that we have to create a breakdown of the barriers around some of the academic research, so that there is true blue sky thinking, not simply looking for other people's ideas and recycling them. Mr Gray? We certainly have to ensure blue sky research in our academic institutions, but what we are saying is that we also have to encourage those academics to do research that is perhaps closer to real-world problems than Einstein's paper did at the time. I will say something more about that towards the end of my remarks. The programme is critical, but there are things that we must avoid. It is surprising that, as far as I can see, this is just about the first time that we have debated the innovation centre programme. It has merited mentions in the First Minister's programme for government and economic strategy, but not really much more. Professor Reid's review is indeed very welcome and timious, although, in some respects, it begs more questions than it really answers. It does not really measure the success of the centres against some of the core objectives that Mr Lockhart referred to—the leveraging of private finance or the generation of gross value added in the economy. Above all, there is no evidence of the creation of 5,000 jobs that is promised from the programme. Professor Reid also raises the question whether the centres are operating in the right sectors or not, but he does not provide any view as to whether that is or is not the case. It is fair to say that the review is a review of the programme, rather than the centres. It seems reasonable to imagine that some might be more successful than others. My colleague or comrade, as he usually prefers, Richard Leonard, will later say something about a positive visit that he had to the centre for sensor and imaging systems, but other innovation centres seem to have had a more checkered beginning. The Digital Health Institute, for example, has seen a sudden shift from being hosted by Edinburgh to Strathclyde University. It has lost a chief executive, and I think more recently the chief finance officer as well. Their public statements provide little explanation of the change, although they provide quite a lot about their recruitment of Andy Murray as an ambassador for digital health. I am his big and Andy Murray fan as anybody here, but I would like to see more evidence of that centre's substantial outputs. Reid's review, as the minister acknowledged, does recommend further evaluation of the programme and soon. It is important that that happens, and that the evaluation assesses success in specific outcomes such as jobs and private investment, which is why we have tabled the amendment that we have today and which I now move. We are also suggesting that, when that happens, we debate the programme again. I repeat that we see this policy intervention as critical in a critical area of the economy. We support it, but we need to give it more and more detailed attention here in this chamber and elsewhere in Parliament. We also need some indication of the security of the programme from the Government. That is not a new initiative. It was launched in 2012, and its initial five-year run was 2013-18. I know that the minister said 19, but initially it was certainly 2013-18. We are more than half way through. Professor Reid suggests committing to 10 years. In principle, that long-term commitment makes sense, but only if we have some detailed evidence of early interimmeasurable success. The Royal Society for Edinburgh briefing for today raises another uncertainty for the programme. Those centres are overseen by the Scottish Funding Council Board around which rumours of imminent demise are swirling. It may well be that the innovation centres could benefit from oversight, which involves input where the balance shifts a bit more to the enterprise agencies. A case could perhaps be made for that, but that cannot be in any way a wedge towards subsuming the funding of higher education generally under an overarching enterprise and skills board, especially when chaired by a minister. Universities are key to our economic growth, and the innovation centre is important to that. However, as Mr Stevenson indicated to us earlier, universities and research are about much more than that utilitarian objective, too. To compromise their wider role, or even their autonomy and independence from government, would be an unforgivable act of folly. Thank you very much, Mr Gray. I call on Tavish Scott to speak to and move amendment 2511.2. Thank you very much, Mr Scott. Seven minutes, please. I wanted to start, too, with the context that other members have raised. We have a president-elect of the United States who is, by any standards, uttering protectionist views about trade policies. For the future, we are potentially leaving the European trading block, which in that context must be even more utterly mad than the proposition is at the moment. What are Scotland's advantages against, at best, the most uncertain period that most of us have known in our adult lives? Certainly, we have been a nation of innovators, and can we be that again? That does depend not just on innovation centres but on many more fundamentals to our education system and to other aspects of that. I want to also start by recognising that Governments across the piece have looked into this and looked at different ways to address this. As Ian Gray rightly mentioned, the intermediary technology institutes that were part of a previous plan had much merit. They did get bogged down and did not ultimately work, and they got hangtied by quite a lot of difficult work that became too much for them in the sense that they got subsumed into Scottish Enterprise, if I remember correctly. That, in itself, may be a lesson that current ministers may want to consider very carefully. However, there was one other lesson that I took from that whole ITI examination. It was actually a piece of research done by some entrepreneurial researchers from universities across Scotland that was published in January 2015. They were critical of the intellectual property points that Ian Gray rightly mentioned earlier on, but they went on to say in particular that innovation policy makers need to be less focused on generating the supply of new IP and more focused on increasing the ability of Scottish SMEs to undertake innovative activities. A critical mass of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises will provide more of a seedbed for new start-ups than policies to stimulate and protect new IP. I think that there is something in that. I have just mentioned it in the context of Scottish Enterprise because I am not the only member who, over the years, has had representations from small and medium-sized businesses about the account-managed system of our enterprise agencies that concentrates on the medium and large, but not necessarily on the small. I hope that ministers will reflect on that in the context of work that is going on here on the innovation centres. Professor Reid's recommendations were rightly mentioned by the minister and have been commented on by others. I am not going to go through all of them, but I thought that all of them have merit, of course, but I thought that they did have particular merit. That is about exploring the role of the further education sector's relationship with innovation centres. No FE colleges claim that they contributed to the review, and that must be of some concern. The Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre, which has already been mentioned, is doing some of its work with further education colleges, not least of which is the North Atlantic Fisheries College in Scalloway, in my constituency, where, under a three-year project, work is going on into a core pilot scale hatchery for the muscle industry. Many of you may sit in Edinburgh's finest restaurants and eat muscles. I am pleased to say that 80 per cent of Scottish production comes from Shetland, but there is a very significant commercial issue with SPAT. I am not going to bore the chamber with five minutes on SPAT. Stuart Stevenson will do that later. Nevertheless, it is an important matter. The fact that an innovation centre, a college and a multiple point industry is working on the solutions to that particular problem is exactly the kind of progress and work that must be taken forward in that area. My amendment to the debate, and Ian Gray's kindly touched on it, seeks to ask the Government for clarity around the skills review, not because that is just important in itself but because our consideration of big structural changes to our organisations in Scotland over a number of years are littered with the eye being well and truly taken off the ball when people's jobs and their organisations are at best being questioned. That is currently the situation, not just for the funding council that Mr Gray mentioned but also for the three other bodies that are part of that skills review. Of course, Government has got every right to undertake a review, but it is of the essence that they now bring that to a conclusion. The funding council alone has an acting chief executive, Alice Brown, the chair leaves at the end of the year. There is no certainty around the board. Highlands Islands Enterprise has an acting chief executive and there is no certainty there either. None of that helps in the on-going process of making sure that there is a real focus around those innovation centres and that all the recommendations that have been made in the review that has been mentioned this afternoon can be taken forward in a way in which there is focus on that, as opposed to the inevitable focus that is currently on in those organisations about their own future. That is the danger of reviews that go on and on and on. I would be very grateful if the ministerial team, when they are winding up this afternoon, could clarify the nature of the timescale of that review. They could absolutely make clear what the position is with the individual boards of these four organisations. They could say when temporary appointments and temporary chief executives are either going to become full-time chief executives or not. Let, therefore, underneath that, those innovation centres move forward with the very significant all-party and government support that they very clearly and correctly have. I wanted to finish with just one point about the recommendation that the read report makes into the future of ICs. That is the one that the minister mentioned and, indeed, the Government are accepting on additional centres. The renewables industry has, as Dean Lockhart rightly said, made the case for a renewables innovation centre. Although our Conservative friends could spend a bit of time down at Westminster changing Conservative renewables policy, we would all get on a lot better in Scotland in terms of the future. Nevertheless, that is an important development of policy. It is without a doubt an area of the future, where Scotland can play and is already playing a very significant role. It surely is part of that innovation for the future that we need for our economy, and it is one that I suggest that the Government should take forward. Could you move the amendment, please? When I move to the open debate, I call Kate Forbes. We follow by Jamie Greene, Ms Forbes. The million-pound question for Scotland's economy is what will drive sustainable growth in our economy, or maybe it is the £100 million question, because that is roughly what the Scottish Funding Council is investing in innovation centres over the next five years. Each of us knows that in our constituencies and across Scotland, there are bright entrepreneurs, innovative ideas and business opportunities, but one of the greatest hurdles is connecting the individual with the idea and with the finance. If we get that right, we get collaboration and we get growth. We are not short on great ideas, entrepreneurs and opportunities to innovate in the Highlands, and with growing sectors such as energy, food and drink, tourism and life sciences, as well as a new university in the Highlands, we have unprecedented opportunities to innovate, create jobs and raise income levels. I want to take a moment to welcome Fortrose Academy, whose pupils I believe have just entered the visitor's gallery—I hope that I got that right—and who I am sure will play a key role in the future of the Highland economy if they are given the opportunity to contribute to research and business opportunities wherever they find themselves, both now and throughout the rest of their lives. They will drive growth, because it is growth intangible until it hits our wallets or opens up job opportunities, which, yes, is required across Scotland, but I think that it is such a huge opportunity for our Highland economy right now, and that is why innovation centres can play a key role in our Highland future economy. The minister and others have already outlined the recommendations of their review, so I would like to take a moment to identify the opportunities for innovation through the innovation centres model and to reaffirm the importance of sectoral and geographical spread, and to make the opportunity to contribute to innovation as excessively as possible so that it does not get ever bogged down in bureaucracy and ticking boxes. Several projects have already had a positive impact. Recently, the University of the Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Scotland's rural university installed 50 long-range wireless sensors to Lochran, a learning lab shared by the three institutions. The technology, among many other things, will monitor temperature, humidity and noise in hopes that it will make the building more efficient in terms of energy and work quality. The project is being conducted by the Centre for Sensor and Imaging Systems and will make it possible to generate a new way for technologies such as those sensors to be implemented elsewhere in the Highlands, and that is what we want to see more of. As for the oil and gas sector, which is operating in particularly challenging circumstances and which arguably has had a disproportionate impact on employment prospects for Highlanders, the oil and gas innovation centre is matching innovators with research and development opportunities in Scotland's universities. I was particularly pleased to hear and read the words of Ian Phillips, the chief executive of the innovation centre, who said that literally no innovation is off limits. I think, and again, as has already been said by people like Tavish Scott, that there is scope to expand the projects and programmes, and I would like to see continued research into sustainable renewable energy because that is a huge area of potential for the Highlands. It is a sector that is vitally important to the future of Scotland's energy resources, arguably even broader potential across the world if we manage to get the technology right. It is critical to our ambition of being 100 per cent dependent on renewable energy. I would welcome the creation of a sustainable energy innovation centre, and I would hope that we could harness the benefits for Highland jobs and Highland income levels. We have unrivaled resources in the Highlands. We have people with creativity and ideas. We have natural assets from wind to tides, and we have a history of requiring to constantly innovate and find new ideas. It may well be why we performed better during the most recent recession, but, through digital opportunities, building on growth sectors and enabling our population to connect with ideas and finance, both nationally and internationally, we could really see our local economy flourish. I want to see innovation centres providing new opportunities in the Highlands, because growth is absolutely critical to our economy at the moment, but it is utterly dependent on collaboration and connections between individuals' ideas and finance, and that is what innovation centres must continue to do across all sectors and geographies. I call Jamie Greene to be followed by Ivan McKee. My colleague has already emphasised the importance of innovation on the productivity of our economy, and I am sure that we all broadly agree in this chamber that innovation centres have been a very positive addition to Scotland's innovation ecosystem. They have really become a focal point for collaboration between universities, industries and business. In my view, they are a great meeting of minds between academia-driven research and development and the needs of business. Clearly, public innovation support is something that we must continually seek to improve. I welcome the report by Professor Graham Reid, which puts forward some very constructive recommendations. From what I can see in the report, there are three areas that I think should be priorities when we talk about improving the innovation centre programme. The first is that, whilst we should ensure that public money is spent wisely on innovation centres, we should avoid putting too much emphasis on project outcomes. In other words, we should expect value for money, but that expectation should be balanced by the understanding that innovation will not always succeed in time for an end-of-year review or mid-term report. Therefore, I agree with the idea that a strategic time span for innovation centres should be extended to 10 years, which I think would give a much more realistic period of time for R&D itself to take place, but it would also give the resulting partnerships and business models a better chance to mature and become more self-sustaining. My second point that I have taken from reading this report is the need to reduce the administrative burden on innovation centres. As is often the case with publicly funded ventures, Professor Reid's report points out the need to simplify and reduce the administrative burden on the centres. Every time a scientist or researcher is stuck behind their desk filling out paperwork justifying their existence, that is an important time away from the lab where they could be innovating and collaborating. Therefore, there is almost the need for the public sector itself to engage in some internal innovation. My third point is that, to understand and evaluate the benefits of the centres to the Scottish economy in the long term, I think that clearer objectives must be set, monitored and regularly revisited. I stood in this chamber just a few weeks ago in another debate saying exactly the same thing about the Scottish Government's enterprise and skills review. A common theme in the debate seems to be a lack of strategy on how to assess and measure the effect on the economy. I think that setting clear objectives and evaluating them does not mean dictating from the top down what or how innovation centres should go about their business. It means to me that we should provide them with clear problems to solve, based on evidence and foresight on where the global economy is headed and on which new technologies and industries are on the horizon. In other words, where do the opportunities lie for Scotland? It also means establishing ways to effectively measure failure as well as success. It means effectively establishing ways to look at the impact on productivity so that those best practices can be replicated in other centres. It also means that ensuring that all that information feeds into a very clear decision-making process about whether we open up new innovation centres in the future. As innovation centres move from their start-up phase, we have the opportunity now to take on board what we have learned thus far. I hope that the Scottish Government and its agencies take the points that we have raised today on board and those highlighted in this report. The independent review provides a good overview of where we can improve, but clearly the Government needs to take this as a cue to look into greater detail of what is working and be honest about what is not. I think that we have to work towards a culture within public innovation support that embraces calculated risk. We must spend public money wisely, but investing in research and innovation is not the same as building a bridge or a new motorway. There is not always an immediate well moment at the end of it. The added value of public sector involvement is that our innovators should be given time and space to explore their fields, to experiment and even dare say to fail. The very nature of innovation is that sometimes you need to fail fast in order to find the best solution to your problem, a point that Stuart Stevenson rightfully mentioned. In countries where R&D is so vital to their economy and industry, for example, in Israel, the Government there understands that innovation and failure come hand-in-hand sometimes, and I think that that is reflected in the way that it funds and supports innovation centres in that country. In my view, the continued success of those centres rests on two specific things. First, giving them time, resource and clear vision on what they should be doing, but secondly, giving them freedom and flexibility to revisit their goals as the industries and markets evolved. Much more than that, they can also give us foresight on where the trends are emerging, be it big data, artificial intelligence or micro robotics, to name a few. There is clearly consensus today on the importance of those centres, but we must also be thinking about what research and development in Scotland will look like in 2030, not just in 2020, regardless of which party is sitting in those middle benches at that time. Ivan McKee, to be followed by Claudia Beamish. Innovation is key to our economic success. It drives the gains and productivity that we need to see as a nation, making us competitive internationally and creating jobs in the process. That is particularly critical at this point in time. The economic challenges that we face are significant, with forecast after forecast showing the severe impact that Brexit will have on our economic fortunes. Regardless of the eventual constitutional outcome, Brexit makes it even more imperative that Scotland learns how to excel in inclusive growth and export. Innovation is also particularly critical for the success of small and medium-sized countries, as the work of David Skilling has shown. More reliant on early-stage companies making the leap to become successful exporters early to maintain their growth trajectories. It is imperative that we leverage all our talents in academia, business and the public sector in the most effective way to drive our economy forward. The Scottish Government's programme for innovation, including the creation of innovation centres, is welcome, giving focus and impetus to this imperative. Professor Graham Reid's review of the innovation centres is timely, giving much food for thought. By its nature, innovation is iterative, learning from what works and adjusting and adapting to make further progress. It is therefore right that, on our efforts to drive forward our innovation programme, we are open to the processes of continuous improvement in the programme itself. The culture of innovation treats change as a constant and contains improvement as a way of life. The innovation centre programme is established to drive a change of culture towards innovation and ambition in business and to simultaneously help universities to become more flexible and responsive to business, in particular to ensure co-operation between the higher education sector and business to deliver industry-led, collaborative innovation and industry-led being key to that, to support and enable business to increase competitiveness, create economic impact through increased revenue and jobs and with a focus on transformational innovation opportunities. The innovation centres bring together industry and universities to address the innovation needs of businesses in eight different sectors, each focused on a specific industrial segment and each potential and anchor for the growth of new sectors. They are also hosted within universities but industry-led and this is important as the innovation programme is there to enable business to deliver growth. Academia's role is to support business in that endeavour. In fact, one of the most striking of Professor Reid's recommendations is the call for support for business community to be articulated consistently in business-friendly language rather than that of the public sector. Indeed, and so to the review itself and its key recommendations, which have been welcomed by the Scottish Government. Firstly, to consider whether additional innovation centres should be created and if so, in which sectors. I hope that that will become clearer over time. Secondly, to balance stability and dynamism, attempting to bring together different cultures, that of small business where the focus is on landing the next order and making payroll at the end of the month and academic research where no concept is too big and no timescale too long and ensuring that government is effective in bringing the two together. Renewing efforts to involve as much as possible of Scotland's excellent research base and exploring further education, college participation and innovation programme, bringing to play their ambitions and ideas. Being open to proposals for changes in ownership and governance of innovation centres where that makes sense. Creating and promoting a centralised body of data and case studies about individual businesses and the successes that they deliver, critically important in showing the way forward and learning from what has gone before. Recognising that innovation is about more than just technology, the productivity uplift that delivers from innovation and management processes can be transformative as the impact of technology. Indeed, although innovation is traditionally discussed in the context of developing businesses, we should not limit our concept of innovation to the private sector. The public sector in Scotland accounts for a significant element of the economy. Smarter service delivery, more efficiency delivery and more or less is an essential gradient of our future prosperity. A culture change to embrace innovative ways of working in the public services is essential and we should use the knowledge of academia and the experience of industry to power that. In addition, promoting the attractions of Scotland's location for innovative business and, through the enterprise and skills review, simplifying the arrangements for business support and defining better and explaining its benefits specifically to individual businesses. Finally, removing administrative clutter around allowing for a sharper focus on action, reviewing streamlined innovation, products and policies and reducing the number of public sector forums involved in innovation. The Government's innovation action plan will be published in the coming weeks, based on investing in ambition, building the right culture and creating connections. Similarly, the manufacturing action plan is designed to encourage Scotland's manufacturers to innovate and expand. Through all this, the Scottish Government is building on the excellence of our universities and the drive of our innovative businesses, supporting the commercialisation of world-class research in Scotland as a much-needed engine of economic growth. Thank you very much. I call Claudia Beamish to follow by Richard Lyon, Ms Beamish. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Innovation centres provide an opportunity for collaboration, invention and progression, and these principles must be championed. I welcome the review by Professor Reid as an opportunity to nurture and improve centres that are and could be even more transformational. My colleague Ian Gray has highlighted the need for concrete results in the measuring of progress for each centre. The recommendation for 10-yearly reviews seems lengthy in some ways. While I take the point of Jamie Greene about a plea for freedom and space for innovation, it is important that we have a real assurance of the centre's success. I echo Ian Gray's call for the 2017 review to report on the core objectives of job creation and private sector funding. I recognise the present contribution of the Oil and Gas Innovation Centre, but earlier this year I wrote to Professor Reid to add my endorsement from Scottish Labour to the suggestion of a new sustainable energy innovation centre. In the face of a changing climate, it is vital that we have inclusive transitional steps towards a low-carbon economy. In my opinion, that is an area in which an innovation centre could have a monumental impact. Scotland is committed to a number of ambitious targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions, as we all know, and the global temperature rise. Soon, the Parliament will consider the Scottish Government's energy strategy and the climate action plan. It is evident that some sectors, including transport and heat, that progress has been more challenging and much more must be done. It has been suggested that some technologies that will be required in the low-carbon economy have not even yet been invented for the near future. In terms of both the economy and the environment, the future of Scottish industry relies on highly skilled and highly technical jobs. An innovation centre could provide cross-sector synergy and integration of energy systems that is so vital and fundamental for the green shift. Scottish renewables highlighted that beyond the carbon savings, engaging businesses with higher education institutions could have considerable economic effects. De-carbonising innovation in renewables and energy storage holds the potential for consumer savings of £8 billion a year, and that can also make a contribution to fuel poverty. Furthermore, stimulating industry demand could foster employment opportunities in a flourishing sector that will already provide 21,000 jobs. However, the review notes on a quote that there is no systematic process for deciding whether new innovation centres should be created. Can the minister give the chamber an update on whether such a process will be developed and what consideration he or she, depending on who's closing, has given to the proposal for such a sustainable energy innovation centre, which it might appear from today has considerable cross-party support? The University of Scotland stated that the value of graduates cannot be overemphasised. Young people will benefit greatly from embedding the spirit of enterprise into academia and the opportunity to make contact across various sectors. Expanding opportunity and setting young people up for success can only drive Scotland and our economy forward. However, Scottish Labour would like to see greater involvement of further education in the innovation centre network, so I am relieved that the minister has acknowledged the value of that in the recommendation today. I have been frankly blown away by the progressive trajectory of colleges in my region. Ayrshire College works with local businesses to upskill in smart metering and new energy systems, and South Lanarkshire College, which many of my constituents attend, has won awards for business to college knowledge transfer and sustainable innovation, and further education institutions have a valuable contribution to make, and I hope that the skills partnership will form part of the innovation equation as well. Tavish Scott has highlighted the innovation in relation to colleges and the agriculture industry. I want to end by highlighting the agriculture innovation centre, not least because I was heavily involved as was the minister in the agriculture act. It is one of the most important contributors to the Scottish economy, and supporting the sector in the context of sustainable development is vital for the longevity of the industry. As MSP for South Scotland, I welcome the Scottish agriculture innovation centre projections of delivering 1,197 jobs to rural and coastal areas, and I note the ambitious target for growth by 2030. The centre lists stock improvement and breeding as one of the areas of interest, which is vital against the backdrop of the Scottish Government's salmon export ambitions, not least. The agriculture innovation centre is a fantastic opportunity to pioneer advancement of sustainable technologies such as the non-chemical tackling of sea lice mentioned by the minister in her opening remarks. However, this morning I read that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency is intervening in the agriculture industry to reduce its polluting impact. The number of fish farms rated poor rose from 42 in 2014 to 58 in 2015, and I would be interested to know what the innovation centre is doing to help businesses to address this worsening environmental pollution issue. Innovation centres hold the potential for symbartic relationships between academia and industry that will drive Scotland forward, if done in the right way. To ensure that we seize this opportunity, I add my support to the call for further parliamentary scrutiny of this very important programme. Thank you very much, Ms Mimish. I call Richard Lyle to be followed by Edward Mountain. Mr Lyle, please. Can I begin my remarks this afternoon by saying how great it is to be speaking in a debate on innovation in this Parliament at the heart of a country that is filled, I believe, to bring with innovation and, importantly, innovators. I often speak in the chamber about how privileged I feel to be the constituency MSP for Urringston and Bellsill, and today, with no exception, because where better is there than in this chamber to reflect on some of the innovators that I have been working with, some of whom are based, they work in my area. One such group of innovators is NVT Group. Formed in September 1988, the company provided consultancy and design in looking at developing software and on customer services in the ICT arena. The headquarters is based in my constituency, and they are an example of an outward-looking innovation that we cherish here in Scotland. From their recognition as investors and people, gold standard employer 2, their reliability is so abily demonstrated in the winning of contracts as the technology services integrator for the 20th Commonwealth Games hosted by the great city of Glasgow. Their work has not stopped there, though, and they have already been recognised with two employer of the year awards for their modern apprenticeship programme, and indeed have shown their investment in young people through being awarded recognition as part of the investors in young people certification. Another example of innovative thinking that I have come across is that of a company called Own Energy UK, which has an innovative idea to bring forward lamp posts mounted wind turbines that will deliver electricity into the national grid. They are now piloting along with the NVT Group, wi-fi provision in towns, villages and glens, all coming through a smart wi-fi system working device. Local authorities and other agencies should give their consideration to looking into those innovations, as they are definitely the future of our renewable energy and indeed connectivity in Scotland. Those are just two local examples of the success that we enjoy in the innovation. There is much work to be done across the country by this Government to encourage an environment where innovation is encouraged to create more vibrant communities. One example of that work by Government more broadly is indeed the subject of today's debate, and that is the innovation centre, the IC programme, which we have heard this afternoon was established to drive a change of culture towards innovation and the ambition in business, all while working to help universities in particular to move to becoming more flexible and more responsive to business. As I outlined at the beginning of my remarks this afternoon, innovation is vital to the long-term growth of individual businesses, and it is crucial to this Government's ambition to shift the dial on Scotland's economic performance. I cited in my speech today two examples of what innovation is basically all about, realising the real opportunity and indeed benefits from increased creativity and knowledge and the potential that it has to boost Scotland's economic growth. The programme in particular has been ambitious from the outset with funding of up to £120 million over the period 2013-2019. Of course, as with anything, it will require time to fulfil its original vision and, indeed, I believe potential. That said, already over £93 million has been committed up to 2019, and that is something that we should welcome. We have centres of innovation, and there are two influence chains, grow networks and, importantly, and I argue crucially to encourage and foster that innovation thinking. One of the key standouts for me is the news that the Scottish Government is investing an additional £2 million to support around 200 postgraduate places in innovation centres, developing bespoke skills to support Scotland's economy. That is indeed a good news story. This Government is one that has a plan for Scotland and its economy. Already we can see Scotland's economic strategy is building around improving productivity through innovation and making Scotland more internationally competitive. We recognise that raising business innovation and use of research is critical. The SNP Government is committing more than £345 million in 2016-17 to support research and innovation from enterprise agencies and the Scottish Funding Council. A substantial amount of that funding, £232 million in 2016-17, supports research in our universities, which has been recognised as internationally excellent or world-leading. The work has not stopped here, as the SNP continues to support workplace innovation through support for our fair work convention and initiatives such as Scottish Enterprise Workplace Innovation Service. Now that the Scottish Government is implementing Scotland can do scale. An education programme aimed at developing entrepreneurial skills and innovative ideas. I think that those few examples articulate well the level of innovation that this Government is taking when it comes to encouraging and promoting the growth in the innovation sector. To conclude, it is clear that the SNP Government remains committed to delivering our ambitions for Scotland to become a nation of even more innovation. We are, as I have already said, a country filled to the brim with ideas and passion. I hope that work done by this Government and others, and indeed through programmes like innovation centres, we can continue to build on that and deliver for the people of Scotland. We do have some time in hand in this debate, so I call Edward Mountain, followed by Stuart Stevenson. I guess that we should eat into some of that over the next two speeches. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I, too, would like to welcome, as everyone else has done this afternoon, the review by Professor Reid. I would like to just say that, in my time as a businessman, I have discovered quite a few things, but there is one in particular that I keep reminding myself why, because it is a self-evident truth. That is, to solve a problem, you need to invest not only money but time, and you need to nurture that investment so that it has the best chance to succeed. Probably the best literal example of that would be scattering seed corn on concrete. Initially, it would grow, and you would see a sea of green, but it could quickly wither and die, and it probably would not produce a crop. In 2007, when the Scottish Government published its economic strategy, it rightly concluded that Scotland's productivity would be enhanced by stimulating growth innovation. That was reaffirmed in 2015, and to date, the Government, as we know, has invested £120 million in Scotland's innovation centres—more than just seed corn, indeed a significant amount. We should already be able to reach some of the harvest, but I do not believe that we are reaping as much of the harvest as we should be. If you do not believe me, all you have to do is look at the OECD rankings in productivity. In 2007, we were ranked 17th, and today we have dropped to 19th—not an impressive result. I do not just want to stand here and simply say that the Government could do better. It would be true, but it would be unhelpful. What I would like to see is where they have succeeded and some areas where they have failed, so in future steps can build towards success and not just failure. Firstly, I think that the independent review makes a clear case for innovation centres, and we as a party support that. Indeed, it is a great step in the right direction. However, as Jamie Greene has said, you cannot run a programme without targets. It is just too easy for those who run programmes to show optimism bias. That is a new term that I have learnt in this Parliament. It was used to describe what happened in the cap IT problems. Apparently, it describes how, if you oversee a problem, you cannot see the potential problems as they arrive. Targets would indeed prevent that. Secondly, in terms of performance that has been measured by the monitoring and evaluation framework, there is welcome progress in some areas, but there should be a more consistent approach across the board, and the application of MEPHIC is required. This would enable an increase in the number of outcomes and impacts that are reported. A closer eye could then be kept on performance, and this in turn would allow greater collaboration or indeed intervention as required. Part of this, of course, could be to allow innovation centres to have a much more focused industry-defined measures of success. Sometimes it has to be said that to focus in terms of performance is more heavily weighted towards actual individual company success rather than the industry as a whole. A consequence of this to me is that the benefits are in favour of private companies opposed to the public benefits, which to me is unacceptable given that part of the initial investment has been made from the public first through government funding. Thirdly, there is a disparity between the initial forecast from the amount of income that would come into innovation centres and the actual income that they have received. Whether this is from industry or enterprise agency, it just has not quite been as good as we hoped. I understand as a consequence of this that most of the innovation centres are making revised budgets. Surely one way to increase the income is for innovation centres to be allowed greater flexibility in terms of the projects that they undertake. That would allow them to adapt to everyday variables such as market conditions, staff turnover, just to name but two. There are also plenty of opportunities that should be taken advantage of for our innovation centres to develop long-term partnership across the whole of the Scottish economy. Lastly, in terms of governance of innovation centres, although the majority of issues that have been highlighted have been addressed, it is worth mentioning that, as outlined in the review in the long term, some innovation centres should change the model of governance that they are using to achieve better outcomes. It is my belief that, in such cases, government procedures were improved by a variety of means that there would be a better balance between the autonomy and accountability of those innovation centres. Much more needs to be achieved in relation to effective communications and referrals across the board. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, the idea of innovation centres is one that we welcome and we believe should be encouraged. Our efforts in making them a success has to be better than it is at the moment. In some cases, assessments need to be made and a sharp refocus is made where required. At the end of the day, I am glad to say that we agree, I believe, across the chamber that innovation centres are good for Scotland and we would like to work together to make sure that they succeed in the future. I call Stuart Stevenson as we are followed by Gordon Lindhurst. We still have a little time in hand. Thank you very much. I shall try and squeeze it in under half an hour, Presiding Officer. I am doing the usual innovative thing in relation to my speech. I have random things written on bits of paper here. It is quite illustrative to think of how public key cryptography, which I referred to last week in the debate, came into being. One of the authors of the original public key cryptography was a guy called Ron Rivest. He was the mathematician on the team. He had a very restless night when he did not really sleep very much, because he was trying to find a one-way mathematical algorithm that only worked forwards but not backwards. Do not bother to understand and just take it from me. He was actually walking downstairs to make his breakfast in the morning and he got down to the bottom and he thought that he had the answer. He had to go back upstairs and walk down again. Then he remembered what the idea was, which was a matrix transformation, if you really want to know. He sat down at the breakfast table and he wrote the answer down. He wrote the paper and it took him 30 minutes to come up with this problem that he has been wrestling with for a year. However, it is illustrative of the innovation process. Although it took him 30 minutes to write the answer down from springing into his mind to completing the paper, it took a lifetime of preparation for all the intellectual detritus that was floating around in his brain to coalesce in a way that produced something new, innovative and required. I thought that we probably all have favourite books, because I think to myself that Edward Mountain would be Sons U, The Art of War. When we look at what Sons U has to say about The Art of War, on ground where he postulates nine territories for military engagement, and number three is contentious ground, which is the ground where the first of the battalions to occupy the ground is the one who will command the outcome. In innovation, that is exactly the ground that we are debating today. Of course, Sons U dates a very, very long way back. For me, my favourite inspirational book is Fred P Books, The Mythical Man Month. It is much more modern and it is published in 1974. I think that it is worth thinking about the character of innovators. The best innovation, first of all, is disruptive and very often unwelcome, because it challenges and changes the status quo. Innovators are, by nature, anarchists. Innovation is something that does not always go the way that the innovator thought. When Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone in 1876, it then came a matter where politicians got engaged, because communication was the purview of royal mail. The postmaster general of the time, in reaction to the invention of the telephone, said that there is no need for the telephone, because we have a superfluity of telegram boys. Communication works well enough. The other side of it, of course, was that Alexander Graham Bell did not actually think that he had invented the telephone. He thought that he was inventing a broadcast device. That is often the way with innovation. In modern times, we have all got mobile phones and they have text facilities on them. It is worth remembering that the text facility that is part of the group system Mondale standard that underpinned the first digital telephones was actually put in there to allow the communications company to send messages to the telephone users about conditions in the network. We hardly ever see it. Yes, I will. I thank Stephen Sin for taking invention. Do you agree that much of the innovation and changes in technology that we see today have been driven through means of military research? A lot of what we use in our daily lives today originated from military use that was then converted into everyday use. What would your views on that be? I think that the member is almost certainly right. For example, when in 1963 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration put out its contract for various bits of what would become the Moonlander programme, the computer for navigating the Moonlander could only provide 1.4 watts of electricity. That was a quasi-military requirement that could only be met by Rockwell, who were the successful bidders for that, producing the first integrated chip. There had been integrated circuits in the 1940s, but the first integrated chip is why we have computers in the sense that we have them today. The member is absolutely correct, but I do not think that we should discount that civilians can have some pretty good ideas and come up with them as well. Yes, I will. Would the member agree that using military spending as a way of publicly funding innovation programmes is an extremely expensive way of doing it? I think that the member is absolutely correct, but nonetheless, in my previous response, we have to acknowledge that innovation in war is a very important thing. I want to just talk about another one that came from war. That is a gentleman called Tommy Flowers, who was a post office engineer at the Dollarshill research lab in northern London. He got posted to what now is GCHQ, which was the base that was trying to break the enigma codes that the Germans used for their military communications. I will develop it a wee bit, if I may. There is one. It depends how much time the Presiding Officer is choosing to give it, but thank you. There was an even more horrendously difficult machine that was used only by Adam Hitler and the Navy, which was the Lorenz machine, which was far more difficult than the enigma machine. Alan Turing came up with the thoughts of how that could be dealt with, but Tommy Flowers, who was a relatively small cog in the big machine, said that, actually, I have used fermionic valves to build circuits that will do switching. I can build your computer, because I would have wanted to be using things called bombs with an E after the last B, which were mechanical devices that the Poles had developed in the run-up to the war for breaking enigma. He said that I can do it, and he was forbidden to do it, but he was a natural anarchist, and he went away at his own expense and got 1,500 electronic valves in wartime—a terrific thing to find them—and built Colossus 1, which was the first real electronic computer. It was quite good, but he built another one, Colossus 2, and he delivered that on 1 June 1944. He broke the first Lorenz messages in the 24 hours after that first machine by this anarchist innovator. The message that was given to Eisenhower on 4 June said that the Germans are not moving troops into Normandy. It would be safe to land there, but there is one place that is a concentration, and they moved one of the landing points. If he had not done that, it is thought that the landings at Normandy would not have been successful because they would have encountered severe resistance. Tommy Flowers' story goes on. We knew nothing about Tommy Flowers until many decades later, because it was covered by official secrets. Not only that, having paid for the development of the computer himself, the Government did not pay him—they refused to pay him. Eventually, he gave him £1,000, by which time it no longer mattered, and he shared it with the rest of the team. I will say 10 words. A couple of seconds, Mr Stevenson. I am certainly loath to do so, but what I am going to suggest is that it may now be time to come back round to the motion. I will say 10 words. The important thing about innovation is that innovators have time to think, space to think and, more importantly still, people of different minds—not the same mind with whom they can think collaboratively. If innovative centres do anything, they have to do all those things. I now move to the last of the closing speeches, which I am sure will be just as interesting as Mr Stevenson's Gordon Lindhurst. Deputy Presiding Officer, I am delighted and indebted to you for allowing me this chance to speak and also to Stuart Stevenson for having not spoken for an entire half hour. I almost felt when he was describing the code-breaking that he had been personally present, and I am also indebted to him, I must say, for his explanation in the parliamentary lifts to myself and others today about the Otis safety clip. So I am afraid that I am unlikely to be able to rival his innovative approach to speechmaking. Today's debate on innovation in Scotland to return to the subject that we are tasked with is a particularly relevant one for our country, not only of storytellers of which Stuart Stevenson is one but also of innovators. James Watt has been mentioned, one of the ones that is critical to the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. At the same time, our present day worldwide reputation for excellence in research under universities exceeds itself. I was pleased to be able to recognise in a parliamentary motion recently the success of Edinburgh University in the QS World University rankings in the 2016-17 rankings where it was ranked 24th in the world for research. It is, however, disappointing to read some of the figures associated with Scotland's prevailing performance under measures such as entrepreneurship, innovation and productivity. My colleagues have already mentioned some of those, the most staggering of which may be the entrepreneurial rate of 5.5 per cent, which is 3.1 per cent below the UK rate. I am not sure how that statistic is calculated but an interesting one in any event. This reflects other figures recently announced by the Scottish Government that indicates that Scottish entrepreneurship is lagging behind. Scotland now has the lowest business density rate of any part of the UK, and there are fewer small businesses per head in Scotland compared to UK-wide. Those businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and often key to driving innovation. The disappointing figures do an injustice to our historic successes. We have listened to a lot of scaremongering in this chamber over the past few months about the economic outlook for Scotland said to be as a result of political developments. Much of those factors are, in my opinion, overplayed. However, I agree that it is more important than ever that Scotland can stand on its own two feet, ensuring that its people are equipped with skills and its businesses with ideas. Above all, as we heard in evidence at the economy committee this week, we need to encourage our innovators, entrepreneurs and businesses in their enthusiasm and in their ambition. That is where innovation centres, which have already been discussed, bringing together established universities with businesses across different fields can play a vital part in the Scottish economy. Like my colleagues, I welcome that step and some of the innovation that has been achieved so far. An example is the Oil and Gas Innovation Centre, operating in a lower for longer price environment where innovation provides a lifeline to under-pressure businesses. One such project is the partnership between Hydroson and Harriet Watt University in the Lothian region, where the low-frequency multi-beam wideband sonar was developed and which delivers new sub-bottom imaging for the industry. Deputy Presiding Officer, support for innovation centres is welcomed. That is but one aspect of the debate. As identified by the review that has been referred to, there is much more that can be done if our people and our economy are to make full use of their innovative skills and the outputs. I would repeat what I have already said. Let us all encourage the enthusiasm and motivation of Scotland's innovators. I now move to the closing speeches. I call on Tavish Scott. Around seven minutes, please, Mr Scott. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Well, this debate has, as it were, ambled through the ups and downs of innovation in a pretty consensual manner. Gordon Lindhurst, I just thought there, said that I guess he was implying this, but those of us who have been somewhat concerned by what is going on in the world around us at the moment may be overplaying the arguments. Well, I think that we will find out a bit about that in the autumn statement next week, because, if what is being said about the state of the public finances is as dire as even the Chancellor of the Exchequer is expressing it, we are looking at £100 billion deficit, and the consequences for spending across the country, and by which I mean all the nations of the United Kingdom, are very significant indeed. I hope that those who are saying that, as we really don't have many things to worry about, will consider carefully their own Chancellor's remarks when he makes them next Wednesday in the House of Commons. I want to start with Claudia Beamish, because she made an observation in that broad sense about the opportunity of innovation because of climate change. She reminded me not thankfully of the President-elect of the United States, who, worryingly enough, said that he would dump the Paris climate change accord during the course of the campaign, but of President Clinton, who was in Glasgow some years ago. I think that he and Gray were there, I can't remember, but he was in Glasgow some time back when some of us had some responsibilities or wanted to things. In the question, not so much the speech, but in the question and answer session afterwards, he was asked by the compare, I can't now remember who was comparing the event, where he would see the greatest business opportunities in the future. His whole answer, which being Clinton has to be said somewhat brilliant, was in the area of climate change, was in the area of how business was going to respond to that and come up with the solutions that were self-doubtably needed, not just in our part of the world, but right across the globe. I thought that there was something in that. Therefore, the arguments that have been made by a number of members across the chamber this afternoon for an innovation centre in the broad area of energy, but more specifically in renewables, appear to me strong. Again, it is not for government and politicians in some ways to be, if I may say so, doctrinal about that. I would rather see that being developed by the very spirit and manner in which innovation centres have grown in other areas themselves. Nevertheless, there is a lot in that. I also want to commend others who have mentioned the agriculture innovation centre as a much longer title than it all has, but it is Heather Jones's organisation through Installing, not least of which she produced the best brief for the whole debate. In that, those who are saying, where are the testimonials that illustrate the business involvement, and Claudia Beamish is making this argument about salmon farming in a wider context, need loop no further than that, because Jim McAllacher, the boss of Scottish Seafarms, is on the back of exactly that briefing, making exactly the point that Claudia Beamish was rightly drawing attention to earlier on. A couple of points I wanted just to briefly pick up from the minister's opening. She challenged, if I paraphrase her and get this wrong, I'm sure I'll be correct her, but she challenged colleges to do and could and should do more. I broadly take that point, but the point there is the link to business in the economy. I'm going to offer probably a far too radical a thought for this stage in a Thursday evening, but I think that one of the strongest ways to do that would be to very much decentralise skills development in Scotland. If you want to make one big change on skills, it is to disaggregate that organisation, is to take the data. They've got a vast amount of data, I'm not sure it ever gets down to a business level, to take the empirical evidence that that organisation does nothing but build up and to ensure it is absolutely wedded at the regional college level. I know a fair bit about the setup in the Highlands and Islands, and there is so much more that could be done there if that organisation was much more decentralised. It's a point that the Grampian Chamber made to the Education Committee in evidence last week. It's a point that a number of others have made over a lengthy period of time. I just ask, I don't expect ministers to make policy up on who for anything, but I certainly do think that there is a very strong case if you look at what happens on skills and what you happen on business and the tired innovation centres for looking at that in the context of skills development in Scotland and taking that organisation down to where it logically should be. I also may just observe that last week we learnt that it has a £208 million annual budget of which it spends £65 million on staff. That by any standards, if you look at the balance of organisations across spending in Scotland, is pretty darned significant. Other members, Ivan McKee and one or two others mentioned the read review recommendations in relation to explaining innovation centres more clearly to business, which is a very fair observation. I suggest that this idea would at least have some ability to make that case as well. The other read recommendation that I do think is important is the 10-year horizon. Ian Gray made a couple of observations about that in his opening remarks and he had a broad point there, but we do short-termism too much in politics. We have too much Government by initiative and that is all Governments over every period of this Scottish Parliament. There is a lot to be said if a model that can be adaptable and appropriate is working to making that continue and to giving it some depth in terms of policy, support and indeed of budget as well. Although the colleagues who have made the argument about a proper assessment of how those organisations are doing, and that is the reflection on ITIs, is a fair one, the table that is in the read review on research and development in Scotland is pretty sobering all but the figures are from 2012 and they may have changed if the Government can update those. I am sure that that would be helpful to a number of parliamentary committees, but it shows that Scotland is in terms of R&D spend as a percentage of GDP below the European Union 27 average and below such countries as Finland, Sweden and Denmark. We know all that, but it is pretty stark in this particular table. If there is a strategic point that a number of members have made this afternoon about recognising that and having a clear approach to changing that, then that table alone should provide the evidence to do it. I want to also pick up the point about the RSE submission. The Royal Society of Edinburgh submission in relation to the skills review, which I briefly mentioned in my opening remarks, and in particular the importance of the separation of responsibilities and strategic decision making between the Scottish Funding Council and the other enterprise agencies. I think that that is fundamentally important for many of the reasons that have been given by others in this debate, but can I commend paragraph 13 of that submission to ministers in that regard? Two final points. Firstly, Kate Forbes made the right observations about the oil and gas innovation centre for this reason. That is an organisation that actually was, as far as I remember, set up at the time that oil was $110 a barrel. It is now, sadly, rather less than that, and yet that organisation has managed to ensure, despite the massive loss of jobs and the continuing loss of the supply chain, not just in the north-east of Scotland, but actually right across the UK, relating to oil and gas, has managed to continue to invest 27 approved projects and another 46 in a pipeline, so it proves that an organisation can adapt and change. You are giving me that benign smile, Presiding Officer, so I am guessing that you want me to shut up. It is not so benign, really. With that final observation that if change is happening in our economy, innovation certainly needs to continue to happen. Possibly the example of the oil and gas innovation centre is one that illustrates that. That can be good for the Scottish economy. Deputy Presiding Officer, I am pleased to be closing the debate for the Labour Party this afternoon. I am pleased that we are debating innovation, as well as innovation centres, because innovation formed the key part of the Government's manufacturing plan launched back in February of this year. For example, the plan claimed that the Government would, and I quote, establish a new joint centre for manufacturing excellence and skills academy to act as a hub for continuous innovation in manufacturing that can sustain globally competitive businesses in Scotland. That was supposed to be under way by quarter to 2016. We heard from the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work this morning that the location at least for this has yet to be found. I would ask the minister to, perhaps in his closing remarks, address where lies the establishment of this joint centre. There was also a proposal in that plan for manufacturing to increase the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises with the quote network of innovation centres, which, according to the action plan, was to be under way again by the second quarter of 2016. I hope that we will hear in the minister's winding up remarks a little bit more about what is being done to tackle this. The Government's manufacturing action plan also spoke and Richard Lyle mentioned this in his contribution. It spoke of a workplace innovation service to be implemented by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Isles Enterprise in the third quarter of 2016 aimed at workforce engagement. Again, the cabinet secretary, in an answer to a question that I put in this chamber this morning, confirmed that work on this is under way, but how far from fruition we know not, so more detail on that would be welcome in the closing speech of the minister too. I visited the innovation centre for sensor and imaging systems in Glasgow yesterday morning and was suitably impressed by much of what I saw. There was engagement with some big companies operating in the Scottish economy from talus optronics to first bus, but much of those who were innovating were and are small businesses, sometimes micro businesses, and the markets that they were supplying into were public transport, renewable energy, social housing and health, among others. Precisely the activities that we on the Labour benches want to see differential growth in. However, to the supporters of the free market and to those who favour neoliberal economics, it is worth noting that they are all activities, all activities to which we can add defence, which in their own way, one way or another, are reliant on significant public subsidy. It was clear to me that the links in those supply chains that I saw yesterday would not have been formed without the presence of the innovation centres. What was less clear were the number of jobs that this had so far created, and I think that we need to put in place some better monitoring of that point that we make in the Labour amendment. Moving on to Tavish Scott's opening remarks, let me say that we share some of his concerns about the creation of a statutory single supervisory board for Scottish Enterprise Skills Development Scotland, the Scottish Funding Council and not least Highlands and Islands Enterprise. In fact, I visited in Venice just last Monday and met with high officials and Highland Council representatives face-to-face. I have to say that when I was there, the leader of Highland Council, Margaret Davidson, handed me over a motion that was supported unanimously by the Labour group, the independence, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party's own councillors, and the motion said that they were, and I quote, very concerned at the proposals, and they regarded the loss of an autonomous local board in the Highlands as, and I quote, a serious mistake. I would ask the minister to reflect on that view unanimously expressed in the Highlands. It was a Labour Government, of course, which established the Highlands and Islands Development Board, and we have consistently supported a distinctive approach to economic and social development in the Highlands and Islands and a distinctive remit and structure, and we will continue to do so. To those in the debate who have argued, like Edward Mountain and Ivan McKee, that we have lagging productivity in Scotland, they are right to put this down in part to a failure of innovation, but I would suggest to them that they need to consider whether there is not also a deeper seated structural problem of a failure of investment, a failure of research and development, and new figures for 2014-15 were released just this morning, showing that Scotland is falling further behind on this measure, and I would argue in addition a failure to build a broader industrial strategy. Deputy Presiding Officer, can I turn to the read report? There was some telling evidence and opinions in it. Dean Lockhart reflected on a quotation that caught my eye too, which was the instance of somebody saying that the Scottish Government policy was very focused on innovation without articulating what is meant by innovation in the eyes of the Government, so it would be useful again to hear from the minister what is meant by innovation in the Government's eyes. I was worried too when I read the Scottish Government's deputy director for higher education reported as saying, and I quote, we cannot assume that the state will continue to fund innovation centres forever and at the same level. I would ask the minister to clarify that thinking too and to answer the question whether or not that represents the current thinking of the Government. We have moved our amendment this afternoon to try to provide some targets, some objectives, some performance measures, some deadlines and some accountability of the innovation centres, but also some accountability of the Government. We need especially to ensure that with innovation centres there is a job's dividend and we think that we need to ensure that we boost socially useful work through them too. It is the job of this Parliament to hold Government to account and we hope that is a role which every party in this Parliament this afternoon in this most important debate is willing to bear. Investing in innovation is critical to raising long-term economic growth. In this current economic climate, uncovering new sources of growth and leveraging the opportunities raised by global innovation are priorities for all stakeholders. Not my words, but the words of World Intellectual Property Organization director-general Francis Goody. He was speaking in August at the announcement of the Global Index of Innovation 2016, an index that saw the United Kingdom as third in the world in terms of innovation behind only Sweden and Switzerland. We completely agree. Innovation is at the heart of economic and social development. It drives productivity. It attracts international investment and gives us a chance to raise living standards across Scotland. We on this side have always supported the role that innovation can play in boosting economic growth to capitalise in areas where Scotland has a competitive advantage. Our amendment, which I am certain that everyone agrees with in this Parliament, urges the Scottish Government to introduce clearer, industry-defined success measures in order to assess the overall performance of innovation centres and encourages it to take further action to boost productivity levels in the Scottish economy. Innovation is vital, a vital cog in a vibrant and flourishing economy. In supporting the first part of the motion, we recognise the importance of innovation centres, vital collaborations between academia and business, encouraging and supporting innovation across Scotland's key economic sectors. As such, we welcome the independent review into the centres. Whilst the motion simply states the review's recommendations set out a helpful course, we call on the Government to heed and implement the recommendations of the report. For whilst the innovation centres are important and do much to foster the growth of business and innovation, there are some serious issues out there. In a powerful contribution, Dean Lockhart talked about how relative productivity has declined in Scotland, and a number of contributors made the point. In 2007, Scottish productivity ranked in the second quartile of the OECD countries, while the latest data places it in the third quartile, 25 per cent lower than Ireland and Denmark. Scotland is in the fourth quartile of innovation-driven countries, below any others in the much-vaunted arc of prosperity. Whilst we heard Gordon Lindhurst talk about an entrepreneurial activity rate is barely 5.5 per cent, a full 3 per cent below the UK's 8.6 per cent and an incredible 19 per cent drop on the previous year. Scotland can and must do better. As Richard Lyle made crystal clear, ours is a proud history of innovation, invention and pioneering thought in engineering, science, design and architecture to name but a few areas. As Gordon Lindhurst said so eloquently, it is now more important than ever that Scotland stands on its own two feet, more important than ever that this Government takes action to support economic growth and productivity in Scotland. Under this Government, jobs growth has been stalling for a decade. In fact, it lags behind every other UK region on job creation rates. Only yesterday came the shocking news that the inactivity rate north of the border is now 37.9 per cent. That is higher than regions across the UK, and the 2.2 per cent increase since May 2007 is the worst across Britain. It means, let's put that in real terms, 176,000 extra Scots have become economically inactive in that time frame. We also echo University Scotland's calls for a long-term plan and strategy for innovation centres. The Scottish Government must ensure that long-term investment is in place, which will give the business community the confidence that it needs to encourage business investment. Much of what we are discussing today echoes many of the themes of the debate three weeks ago on the review into enterprise agencies. I am pleased to hear Shirley-Anne Somerville agreeing that the Scottish Government will look at how we build on and improve our innovation centres and the review into the enterprise agencies in the round. Tavish Scott was clear that there may be too great a concentration on medium and large businesses and welcomed the moves in that regard. We further agree with Tavish Scott that clarity on the Scotland-wide governing board proposals and impact on innovation centres would be welcome. Thus, we will be supporting the amendment in Tavish Scott's name. Only by doing that in developing a coherent and linked-up economic and industrial strategy will we be able to combat the serious issues facing the economy today, with targets, as Edward Mountain said. I must quickly turn myself into an innovation centre, as I have eight minutes that I did not expect. I must reference the contribution by Stuart Stevenson. We had his usual interventions involving Einstein and innovation through failure, but he failed, despite everything else, to take up Tavish Scott's invitation to discuss SPATs—probably wisely, given what else we heard. Ivan McKee made a persuasive argument about innovation being about more than technology and includes the public sector and management intervention innovation. We believe that innovation centres are a step in the right direction. I am grateful again to Tavish Scott for pointing out the vital work of the oil and gas innovation centre in Aberdeen, which, in incredibly uncertain times for the industry, is doing important work in asset integrity and life extension, decommissioning, ROV research, shale gas exploration and production optimisation, to name but a few. We support the Government's motion before us today and the amendments, but innovation centres do not provide the full answer. As Jamie Greene said, there has to be an agreed framework by which to measure their performance on an interim basis, as well as on a longer term basis, as the amendment in Ian Gray's name calls for, and again which we will be supporting. I think that it is important to note that Dean Lockhart mentioned Mike Russell speaking to this chamber in 2014 predicting up to 5,000 jobs created. I have to remark on the ECOS report to the SFC just this September, which said that 53 jobs have been created in companies attributable to innovation centres. As Jamie Greene also said, we need to move out of our comfort zone, we need to be more ambitious, listen to where the innovators say our economy is headed, and in our amendment we urge the Scottish Government to introduce clearer industry-defined success measures in order to assess the overall performance of innovation centres and encourage it to take further action to boost productivity levels in the Scottish economy through innovation. That is what our amendment seeks to do, genuinely seeking to find the best way ahead. Let's move forward together. As Dean Lockhart made clear, we have solutions, we propose the solutions over and above what we find in the report, and we hope that the Government will reflect on those and take them forward. Voting for the Scottish Conservative amendment today will send a signal that we can move forward together, and I look forward to the chamber sending that signal to the Scottish people. I welcome the opportunity to close this debate on how the innovation centre programme in Scotland is driving innovation in Scotland. I also add my own thanks to Professor Reid for his valuable report. As members have said, innovation makes a vital contribution to Scotland's economy, but we need to start acting collectively to drive up business participation in innovation. There have been a number of references today to business expenditure and R&D figures, and clearly the latest figures out are confirming that we've still got a continued gap between ourselves and the UK and the European Union. However, I just want to point out something that hasn't been referred to, which I think is very significant, that Scotland is second among EU countries in terms of university graduates and is a share of our adult population, and fifth in the OECD in terms of higher education spend on research and development. We've got to see things in the round. We have a very educated workforce, we have great investment through our university sector, and it's about how we get that to convert into economic impact and to see business engagement in the issue, which is perhaps the focus of today's debate. We need more businesses that are ambitious and use innovation to drive their growth to create more and better jobs and to access international markets. We need to develop a stronger innovation culture across Scotland among businesses that supports us and drives productivity growth. Of course, that leads, as a number of members have said, through high productivity, through the ability to pay higher wages and more prosperity in our economy. Tabish Scott referred to the need for a culture change, and I certainly agree with him in that a culture where everyone understands what innovation is and how it can benefit them. I'll say more about the nature of innovation in the course of my remarks. We need to connect our support systems up so that they are easy to understand, to navigate and to use, and I'll say more on that too. Having a thriving and dynamic innovation ecosystem is essential for improved productivity, for competitiveness and growth, and colleagues can be assured that the Scottish Government continues to be clear on the importance of innovation in driving improvements in productivity, and we are determined to improve Scotland's performance in this area. The latest UK innovation survey showed that the share of innovation active enterprises in Scotland has increased by 18.8 percentage points since the 2011 survey, compared with a 17.6 percentage point increase for the UK as a whole. However, there is still a gap, but the gap has narrowed, and I think that that is significant. We have seen that 50.4 per cent of enterprises are now innovation active in Scotland, up 7.1 per cent since 2013. It has shown that the main driver for innovation among those businesses is improving the quality of goods and services, but to that I would add that innovation should be seen as a very important aspect of the process. However, we seek to improve on those trends and numbers, and I am pleased to say that spending on bird, albeit low—and we all know that it is low—is up 41 per cent of Scotland since 2007, compared with a 17 per cent increase in the UK as a whole. There has been a closing gap, but the gap still remains. It has to be closed further. Our ambition is to become a world-leading nation in innovation and entrepreneurship. To that end, in light of stubborn statistics on productivity, we need to shift the dial. Indeed, there have been references to Einstein's definition of insanity as to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Hence why we are trying to look at reshaping the innovation landscape to take that point forward. There is clearly strong links to our economic strategy. We want to continue to focus on the four key pillars of the Government's economic strategy in investment, infrastructure, innovation and internationalisation, and promoting fair work and innovation in the workplace. I will say a little bit more if I have time on workplace innovation in course of my remarks, but we are also driving innovation and trying to reach out to the world to identify where there are business challenges around the world through our innovation investment hubs in locations such as Brussels, Dublin, Berlin and London. We are trying to improve collaboration between business and academia, which is key. That is the key role that innovation centres in Scotland are providing. Ian Gray's point was an important one about the role of the ITIs. It was a reasonable attempt to challenge the issue, but there are issues around the degree to which the solutions being developed were closely developed by business rather than by academic community. That is a clear important aspect of what we need to try and achieve. We need to follow through on the recommendation that Professor Gray made in support to encourage closer links between innovation centres and the college sector, as Shirley-Anne Somerville has laid out in her remarks. To prove collaboration, the Scotland Can Do Your Innovation forum was established last year by the Deputy First Minister. Over the past year, forum members have been assisting us with identifying and setting clear objectives that will help to increase levels of innovation in businesses in Scotland, which in turn will help to drive up levels of productivity. The forum focuses on three overarching themes—investing in ambition, building a Can Do Culture and innovation culture, and creating connections. As a result of those discussions and the recommendation of the First Minister's Council of Economic Advisers, we are undertaking a review of the innovation ecosystem, which will help to define how we shift the dial on innovation. However, there are certain initial steps that we already know will help to address Scotland's innovation challenges, including innovation centres, and we will set those actions out at the end of November. In response to the points that Tavish Scott has made, I also want to say that, while business investment and research and development activity are important, innovation is a broader concept, as ties in with what Richard Leonard was saying, in terms of encompassing the development and exploitation of new processes, products, services and business models. The vast majority of business innovation is unfortunately undertaken just by large firms. Although that is not surprising, establishing a culture of innovation and, crucially, its commercialisation across business more generally is vital. An equally important for firms of all sizes is the ability to not only create innovation but to capitalise on innovative ideas and to commercialise them. The colleges role in helping to facilitate— Excuse me, minister. Could we please stop having private conversations that the session is still on going? The colleges role will help to engage in the cultural change and that they have fantastic access to a wide range of small and medium-sized enterprises, and large enterprises across the country, including those that have a role there to play. On workforce innovation, when companies benefit from innovation, so should the workforce, and creating the conditions and culture in the workplace that can stimulate and inspire innovative ideas is equally, if not more, important. Therefore, ensuring that the talents of all members of staff are used and developed is a key part of our innovation approach. We believe that it develops a win-win environment that we want to encourage. We have seen some of that in the oil and gas industry emerging, where the workforce is working with management to drive out costs, and we are supporting an SELed workplace innovation service. Not only does workplace innovation make business processes as profitable, efficient and responsible as possible by enabling staff to make full use of their skills, experience and creativity in their everyday tasks, but academic research shows that increasing employee motivation and wellbeing in the workplace plays an important role in reducing employee stress, enhancing job satisfaction and wellbeing, improving mental health and increasing retention. I want, at the time, to have left a turn to some specific points that were made by colleagues across the chamber. Stuart Stevenson was quite right to highlight that we need to have an appetite to take a bit of risk. We need to accept that, in innovating, we will have failures as well as successes. That is something that came out to the ministerial review group as a key message for the Scottish Government. Dean Lockhart, Kate Forbes and Claudia Beamish all referred to the needs, and indeed others referred to the need for a renewables innovation centre. I would point out that we have a number of key centres that are already established, albeit that I recognise not as an innovation centre at this time. EMEK and Orkney, Fife Energy Park, Offshore Wind Catapult and the Freunhofer Institute are doing work with Photonics in Glasgow. We have demonstration projects for offshore floating wind and Wave Energy Scotland. I am afraid that I am very short of time. I apologise for that. We have a number of areas in terms of where we are pining in R&D. There is a process whereby we will obviously look through the review and indeed take on board any claims or cases being put forward for new innovation centres, but those will be directed by the work that is undertaken following the phase two of the enterprise and skills review. In terms of the timescales for the review itself, a number of members have asked about that. It started, in fact phase two started in the first of November and is expected to last for six months. It is worth pointing out, Ms Somerville pointed out, that the next meeting of the SFC board in December is going to be looking at the role of colleges in the context of Professor Greed's remarks as well. Indeed, we have a number of references by Jamie Greene and others to the admin burden innovation centres and the need to minimise the burden, but there is a balance to be struck. If we want to generate the evaluation evidence, the impact evidence that we require through the monitoring and evaluation framework is input from the innovation centres. There are others who have already done a lot of work such as acro culture in taking forward assessment of the economic impact to date. In closing, I am conscious of time, we have had a good debate today, a largely consensual debate, highlighting the important work of the innovation centres, the importance of innovation to our economy and the need to target that work in specific sectors such as renewables, oil and gas and, indeed, I would also add fintech with the financial services. We will continue to work with all of our partners, including the innovation centres, to nurture a thriving and dynamic innovation ecosystem, helping to create sustainable economic growth. Importantly, we have to ensure that we take forward the recommendations in the innovation centre review to help to drive innovation in Scotland, and I urge all members to support the motion in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville. That concludes our debate on innovation. The next item of business is consideration of two parliamentary bureau motions. I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 2552 on committee membership and 2553 on substitution on committees. The question will be put at decision time, to which we now come, and there are six questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that amendment 2511.3, in the name of Dean Lockhart, which seeks to amend motion 2511 in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville on innovation, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The next question is that amendment 2511.1, in the name of Ian Gray, which seeks to amend the motion in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. The next question is that amendment 2511.2, in the name of Tavish Scott, which seeks to amend the motion, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. The next question is that the motion, in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville, on innovation, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. The next question is that motion 2552, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on committee membership, be agreed. Are we all agreed? The final question is that motion 2553, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on substitution on committees, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. That concludes decision time and today's business. I close this meeting of parliament.