Community Wealth Building – Delivering Transformation in Local and Regional Economies – 25 May 2022

the next item of business is the debate on motion 4580 in the name of tom arthur on community wealth building delivering transformation in scotland's local and regional economies i'd be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate or to press the request to speak buttons now and i call on tom arthur to speak to and move the motion up to 13 minutes minister thank you providing officer i'm delighted to begin the first debate on community wealth building held in the scottish parliament last week i had the pleasure of meeting ted howard at an event hosted by the economic development association scotland in edinburgh ted is the co-founder and president of the democracy collaborative an economic think tank based in the united states the democracy collaborative created the community wealth building approach with much of the model's early application and learning in the city of cleveland ohio that city's challenge with the impact of de-industrialization warranted radical and creative thinking in developing community wealth building away was devised to harness the power of public spend and assets to grow new cooperative businesses and create new jobs and turn this help to empower and revitalize people and communities let me be clear community wealth building is not just for city cities it is an integrated approach to local and regional economic development suitable for implementation across scotland scotland is at the forefront of advancing the model with interest growing rapidly across the world in fact last week ted howard said i quote your country is fast becoming a global leader in the movement of community wealth building i have noted its origins i want to go on to set out how the model works and why the scottish government and a growing number of scotland's local authorities and their partners have adopted it before i do that it is worth reflecting that our new national strategy for economic transformation highlights scotland's extraordinary economic potential crucially nsaid also recognises the challenges we face as a society by setting up a decade-long plan to develop a well-being economy where prosperity and equality share equal filling they're happy to really ready i mean i've sat in this chamber for about 10 years now and i've heard speeches like this being repeatedly delivered and you know i live as a liberal discussing all this kind of stuff but at some point we need to deliver and if you look back over the last 15 years the record's pretty awful surely we should be discussing actually making things work rather than these lofty kind of debates minister anymore i suggest willie when he buckles up and listens to the rest of his speech we need to take a broader view of what a prosperous economy society and country are moving beyond traditional measures of growth and avoiding the pitfalls associated with reliance on trickle-down economic benefits reaching communities collectively and as consensually as possible we all need to ensure that our economy functions to help businesses thrive with the ultimate aim of enabling a society that puts people and the environment at the heart of its highest ambitions our 2021 programme for government commits the scottish government to introduction of a community wealth building bill during this session of parliament i want to work with colleagues from across the chamber to ensure legislative change can help simplify the economic development landscape and enable community wealth building to advance certainly daniel johnson i'm very grateful for to the minister for giving way but i i i i'm grateful for his commitment to this but he would have to acknowledge that despite the seven references in inset to community wealth building there's little there about what is actually meant or the resources that will be applied will actually establishing meanings and identifying resources be a core part of the work that he's discussing here minister i'm going to come on to some of that as my remarks progress as the word spreads about community wealth building some partners have expressed the view that scotland is good at this sort of activity many successful programs and initiatives in for example regeneration and procurement have enabled and continue to enable revitalization of communities creation of new jobs and land and property assets being placed in the hands of communities community wealth building is not intended as a replacement of for current efforts to grow or regenerate a local and regional economies what it is is a refinement of current practice that can that can help the public private third and community sectors to act in concert on the economy of a place by taking a full system approach combine the resources of all anchor powers i'm sorry i need to make some progress what community wealth building can do is combine the resources of all anchor partners be that project resources or mainstream budgets and it can provide a joined up and streamlined prison for jointly coordinating economic planning and delivery the model represents a practical focus on economic development and real communities with potential to deliver a progressive well-being economy for scotland more and better fair work opportunities business growth and the emergence of new cooperative and employee owned models more community-owned assets more stable local populations enabled by new economic opportunities and shorter supply chains supporting net zero ambitions the scottish government wants to use community wealth building as a means of rewiring how we foster local and regional economies the model is a relatively new one but it is not a re-branding of previous approaches or a high-level mission statement community wealth building is a new organising principle that is also a hard-headed practical and operable economic development model it relies on five pillars of activity the first is spending this is about how the public sector procures with the private and third sectors and uses its wider investment power the workforce pillar is all about ensuring that conditions attached to current and future jobs adhere to what in scotland is called fair work first principles with inclusive ownership pillar the model seeks to grow employee owned and cooperative businesses offering employees a deep stake in the place that they work with the land and property pillar the objective here is to identify new opportunities for community ownership of assets of at least a clear focus on providing local communities with a material economic benefit from the use of land finally the model has a pillar focused on flows of finance or borrowing with the emphasis on attracting more ethical lending to help local and regional businesses grow i'd like to turn now to some examples of progress made with the model and doing that i'll embark on a postal stop tour from the northeast united states via the northwest of england before returning home to scotland in cleveland six anchor institutions including case western university and the cleveland clinic with the support of the city government helped incubate a network of free employee owned co-operatives employing residents from low-income communities these evergreen co-ops grow food are engaged in community energy projects and provide laundry services to a range of anchor organizations employees benefit from a living wage and a profit share scheme inspired by what they have seen in the us preston in england took up the mantle creating 1600 additional jobs an additional 70 million pounds of net investment for the city economy by anchor institutions and 200 million pounds for the regional economy these examples have inspired local authorities and their partners in scotland over the past few years to advance community wealth building we are supporting the work of five pilot areas in click manager south of scotland western iowa's t-cities fife and the glasgow city region all of which have developed and began implementing their community wealth building action plans a covered recovery strategy commits the scottish government to working with all local authorities to develop action plans through the ayrshire growth deal we are investing 3 million pounds in community wealth building to support businesses and communities across the region to enhance local supply chains ensure fair work and maximise local assets the region has benefited from north firster council's trailblazing work as the first council in scotland to adopt community wealth building during a recent visit to the western islands i spoke with people in the village of north tulsa who explained how the revenue from a community wind turbine was being used to support a number of local jobs and important community organizations within the village i met with the glasgow city region to hear about progress and vacant endeavor land and procurement practices and i was heartened to hear individual local authorities are driving community wealth building in their localities as well as through a collaborative regional approach by establishing a pipeline of planned construction work the glasgow city region has been able to generate employment opportunities including quality apprenticeships for local people the south of scotland enterprise agency recently updated me and their work with local registered social landlords to develop a local supply chain for green better fitting of housing stock in meetings with manager council and fifth council i've heard about rare respective work focusing on employability in developing supply chains which will create more local employment opportunities finally i recently attended a community land scotland parliamentary reception which highlighted the fantastic wonder work underway across scotland to promote community ownership of land and the benefits that can be derived for local economies and communities very briefly smith can i thank the minister for giving way and he's quite right about some of the really good things that are happening across some of the areas that he's just mentioned does he accept however that audit scotland has made some very strong points recently about the importance of the transparency of where that money is being spent and the extent of the delivery of these projects that has to be very clearly measured so that the public can actually see what benefits have been accruing to it minister i take a point that liz smith makes i think as well with community wealth building our commitments around developing a well-being economy metrics is going to be important because this community well-building is a model which can deliver on the aspirations and ideals of the well-being economy i just wanted to touch as i move towards closing my remarks presiding officer on the work of the scottish land commission which has launched community wealth building guidance setting out practical actions that public bodies can take to use and manage land productively and in the public interest our local authorities are driving the agenda but we're also seeing different sectors and anchor public bodies look to embed this approach into their practice and engagement with local partners including nhs scotland police and fire service as well as our further and higher education institutions president officer my proposition is that there is little to disagree with on this exciting new approach it is basically about making our existing spend work harder to create fairer and more resilient local and regional economies community wealth building is about making all of the money work for local communities the principles underpinning the model will increasingly influence the way in which the scottish government itself invests coming to the development of legislation during my discussion with the pilot areas and other key stakeholders a number of potential barriers and impediments to advancement of community wealth building have been discussed i chaired the first meeting of a new community wealth building bill steering group earlier this month a broad cross section of public private and for sector partners have been invited to help develop and refine our legislative proposition i also want to work with colleagues in the chamber and we are relevant the uk government and as consensual away as possible to ensure the continued success of community wealth building and clean the development of the legislation is influenced by those with experience on the ground building on that knowledge and enthusiasm that extends to ensuring we measure progress the model's operation results in outputs such as business growth new job creation and more land and community ownership we also need to focus on gathering evidence about the beneficial long-term impacts of community wealth building community wealth building can help transform local and regional economies across scotland it can protect and create good jobs it can revive underutilized assets in our town centres and rural island economies unleashing the dynamism of community ownership and ensuring local communities have a greater stake in their local economy as ted howard says scotland is becoming a global leader in this field and we must be ambitious bold and innovative in developing legislation to ensure that we realize this opportunity to unlock the potential of businesses and communities across scotland creating a stronger fairer and greener economy it was an event recently i was struck with a quote that was uh referenced uh i think the originator was albert einstein it was that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them and rethinking our economy over the next decade i think community wealth building can make a pivotal contribution now perhaps not as erudite as an einstein quote but i was informed recently that an album released by the american band rem one year after i was born there was a song called koya hoga the song's themes include repairing a damaged environment and the importance of community the first line goes let's put our heads together and start a new country up i like the radical sentiment the interesting connection is is that the koyahoga river runs right through the centre of cleveland ohio the home of community wealth building creating scotland's future economy needs all of this to be radical and creative and i think that community wealth building has a key role to play in creating that future and i move the motion in my name thank you and i'll call on douglas swanston to speak to and move amendment 4580 up to nine minutes thank you president officer and i start by moving the amendment in my name this is a hugely important debate for communities right across scotland community wealth building provides opportunity opportunities for delivering a prosperous society for all our citizens and i'm pleased to be opening on behalf of the scottish conservatives today reaffirming our support as a party and the ambitions that community wealth building seeks to achieve whilst these ambitions are laudable the government government must ensure that where public money is to be allocated it represents value to the public purse and substantial outcomes for our people resign officer the scottish conservative amendment before us today recognizes the importance of community wealth building and seeks to ensure that constitutional differences are put aside our focus is given to working collaboratively collaboratively with the uk government to ensure our collective ambitions are realized for the whole of scotland i do find it strange however that this developed government has brought this debate forward at this time yes it's important but this is only one part of our growing economy and without a proper coherent strategy and economic growth then this debate i'm afraid is not going to bring the changes required and we will look at the snp's report card on the economy it makes for some grim reading we have alex simon's green job promise at 28 000 jobs by 2020 failed miserably another broken promise by this snp government with much public money pumped into bifab for example with little or nothing to show for it when communities have been failed and we have the smelter at lake harbour millions of pounds of taxpayers cash put at risk maybe illegally thousands of jobs promised but once again very little to show for it once again communities have been failed and then we have the ferry fiasco millions of pounds pumping to purchase two ferries with no guarantee no design no windows no ending no lpg storage and no proper procurement trail and years late once again communities have been failed and now we have the snp's latest pet project scott rail so when we discuss transforming local and regional economies let's think about the damage being caused by having no transport system at certain times of the day the real dispute is causing havoc right across scotland and having a huge impact on the events and hospitality industry just at the time that they're trying to recover from over two years of disruption this will cause businesses to fail and jobs to be lost and how will that help our local communities the scottish hospitality group have today called for an urgent review of the temporary timetable and i say temporary but nobody in the government can seem to define what temporary actually means the groups say that there is a threat to public safety as customers and staff struggle to get home at night presiding officer there is little use in creating good well-paid jobs if people can't get to those jobs because of poor or now depending on the time of the day non-existent public transport to those jobs we're now in a society that people are being forced to drive to work and if you can't drive or can't afford a car then i'm not sure what people are meant to do this real dispute is costing jobs and this developed government need to act and how ironic that we now have greens in government at a time when rail fares are increasing and services are being slashed no wonder the green msps don't want to comment on the mess that they are complicit in and of course in my area we have oil and gas industry once seen as the cornerstone of the independence argument but now being thrown under the bus by this snp green coalition how will this attitude help those communities in the northeast of scotland who are seeing their opportunities being swept away by the hostility demonstrated by this devolved government so maybe the minister will focus on this list of economic failures when he's summing up because this list is damaging our communities but no doubt this will be glossed over as they try and congratulate themselves they need to get their heads out of the sand and see the damage they are making to the economy as a whole besides nursery the principles of community wealth building have the potential potential to be transformational for many communities up and down the country it's strange however that the government motion has no mention of huge element elephant in the room and that is funding of local government the briefing note from the improvement service states that local government have a huge role to play as an anchor institution themselves as a strategic partner of other anchor institutions who may already be a part of local community planning structures as a partner of scottish government developing policies and enabling measures so as we can see local authorities have a huge role to play when it comes to economic growth and community wealth building but they are the ones closest to our communities and they're the ones who understand the local needs best of all and this year's local government had a real terms cut at 251 million to its core budget and of course economic development is not a statutory service for for councils so as the statutory services are protected it is vital functions like economic development that have to shoulder the bulk of the cuts but this seems to be the way of this centralized and devolved government short-sightedness that will have a detrimental effect on all our communities and will have a negative impact on our long-term economic prosperity the scottish government talk about partnership with local government but it's not a partnership it's a dictatorship of course the member taking an intervention in my area um of carrick and jin valley you will recognize the airstrike was definitely not afforded a just transition over the years and would the member welcome the fact that the scottish government has committed three million pounds as part of the usual growth deal to a community wealth building and fund in that area that's actually going to build on the work that's being done if you look at east territory council over a decade they've actually um project put all of their money into making sure that local producers are supported in terms of the procurement for school meals of course i absolutely agree that's one of the reasons why local government needs to be funded correctly and without that funding then it's harder for for local government to play their the vital role that they can they can play and the duval government dictate to local authorities what they want and local government just to have to fall in line this is why the scottish government are so against the leveling up funds these funds allow local government to bid indirectly without the controlling centralizing hand of the scottish government our citizens don't care where the money is coming from to provide investment and jobs into our communities they just want the investment to happen and as we've seen the truly ambitious plans and historic funding from the uk government throughout the pandemic but more importantly as we move from our response into recovery the importance of ensuring communities can rebuild following the economic and social devastation left behind by the pandemic is vital this investment from the uk government is leveling up communities right across the whole of the uk as set out in the 4.8 billion levelling up fund while the focus on this additional investment has been strategically significant projects the uk government has rightly recognised that more targeted funding that empowers local communities is also required and the community ownership fund unveiled by the uk government provides an additional 150 million for communities across the uk allowing them to own and manage community assets that face risk of closure this investment will place significant decision-making powers at the very heart of our communities in summary presiding officer we are not miles apart on this vital issue today indeed as i acknowledge my opening remarks we are agreed on the ambitions of securing long-term economic security and prosperity across our communities we agreed that we want to implement policies that improve outcomes for individuals and families but where we seem to disagree with the government is we want the scottish government and the uk government to work collaboratively collaboratively and constructively in achieving these results president officer we all know the smp like nothing better than spin and grievance but they cannot cover up the economic incompetence and recklessness that they have demonstrated all our indicators are shown that we're falling behind the rest of the uk but this devolved government tries to take no responsibility we've seen them pass the back so many times often to local government we have to recognize that local government have a huge role to play in this agenda and to play a full role in this local government need to be funded correctly the way this developed government treat our local government partners is a disgrace let's get behind our local government colleagues and give them the tools and autonomy that they require to do their jobs this will benefit our communities right across scotland thank you thank you i now call on daniel johnson to speak to and move amendment 4580.1 up to seven minutes please thank you presiding officer i think if we're being frank and honest if we went round the room and asked everyone to think what they meant by community wealth building i think we'd probably find a lot of very different answers i think if we went outside this room to the street i think we might find people didn't know what we were talking about at all and i think perhaps the biggest challenge is to establish that consensus and that common understanding because without that we certainly can't make community wealth building successful and but let's be clear in the coming years we face huge economic challenges we still don't understand the full costs of covert let alone have begun to address recovery we're in the midst of a cost of living emergency with many scots facing spiraling costs for both their heating travel and to feed themselves and before these new unexpected challenges we have the the challenge of meeting our climate change targets which creates an imperative to overhaul our economy and that need is urgent and quite frankly i am not clear that either the investment nor the plans are in place to meet our 2030 target so we need big ideas and community wealth building could be one of those big ideas because let's be clear beyond these challenges i've set out there are communities up and down scotland that have never recovered from the loss of one's proud industries such as steel shipbuilding mining and manufacturing and so we need answers that can address both the more recent issues but also those enduring ones that we know only too well in scotland we need big and bold ideas to rebuild and remake our economy so community wealth building can and should be at the heart of that of this change but that's also why we need greater clarity from the scottish government both in terms of what its intentions are but also the resources that it will bring to bear because as i mentioned in my intervention there are seven mentions in the national uh transformation economic transformation plan but very little clarity about what is meant and i think that is what we need if we were going to make progress and i was listening carefully to the minister's speech we didn't hear any uh detail about how community wealth building will uh proceed what it means in a scottish context as opposed to those broader examples and indeed what the first steps will truly be beyond the discussion i'd be very grateful for for more detail minister i'm very grateful to mr johnston um for giving way i think the key approach is to recognize that this is bottom up is local communities are the driver local authorities are clearly a key anchor institutions it's through our health boards fe nhc we have the established five pillar model we have the work that is going on in airstrikes starting in north face we're now involving all the local authorities there plus the health board the tsi and the college as well we have the pilot areas we have other local authorities pursuing their own areas the action we're taking is in the short term is to support local authorities to develop all local authorities to develop community wealth building action plans we are understandably focusing on different pillars in different areas but from that learning and through consultation the objective will be that the legislation that we introduce in parliament later on this session will seek to remove barriers and impediments that those on the front line have themselves identified and to consolidate gains so i hope that helps to clarify some of the points but the key aspect of the model is the five pillar model that has been in place in north face and the wider airship region for some time now daniel johnson great i'm grateful for that lengthy uh intervention it does provide some clarity but i think we need to go uh further i think if we look at both the examples both here in scotland and north asia and elsewhere i think a firm commitment that actually needs investment as well as intent i think it goes more beyond simply removing barriers but actually also looks at changing the institutional frameworks because community wealth building done properly does have the capacity change but but but it has to have that focus and we have good good examples even closer to him that perhaps we don't consider as community wealth building currently such as the edinburgh solar cooperative even lothian buses a great example of municipal ownership so we must learn the lessons both recent and in the past and i would just take small uh issue with saying that community wealth building is a brand new concept because i firmly believe that the values at the heart of this of ensuring that assets and economic means serve and are accountable to those who depend upon them is absolutely vital those are enduring labor values ensuring that the means of production are as widely held as possible for the benefit of the many not the few so we will support the government motion tonight but our amendment is as and i'll move the amendment in my name seeks to ensure that it has meaning and purpose we will not be supporting the conservative amendment however because for two reasons first of all i think its focus on local authority uh uh uh funding is uh somewhat dangerous this cannot be viewed as a substitute for local authority funding it is actually it must be a a a additional to it and what's more i do not think that the leveling up funding which is a poor substitute for the funding that a replacement is really something worth supporting at all and ultimately it does ring somewhat hollow to hear arguments about local authority funding from a party who have cut funding to local authorities by half in england but we we must uh go further so we have a cluttered landscape of agencies and disconnected initiatives when it comes to regional economic development and to be truly successful it must be embedded at that scale at the moment city reaching those deals are have little accountability and little joined up action with local authorities that are with them and so we if we're going to be successful we must have that regional lens because scotland's regional economic inequalities are gross and in just and they're just a short distance of 30 miles between dundee and edinburgh we see huge inequalities as much as 30 percent in terms of the hourly output per worker that may be a narrow cold economic uh uh measure but it results in real differences in wages life opportunities and the ability of people to feed themselves and their families but going further we must also look towards infrastructure and transport and i'm disappointed in some ways the liberal democrat amendment was not taken because ultimately we can do all of these things we can create these jobs but if people do not have the ability to travel to those jobs that have been created they will serve little point at all infrastructure and transport are absolutely key and i believe there's a point that my colleague paulie mcneil will elaborate on further because the track record from this current scottish government is not a good one we see a current public transport crisis and meltdown because of their failure to plan their failure to invest and it's not just about the two ferries they can't build it's that many other ferries they should have been been building over the last decade which quite frankly they failed to do so so in summary uh presiding officer we are a welcoming cautiously welcoming of the government's enthusiasm for community wealth building but there has to be a huge amount more detail there must be commitment to both resource but also long-term commitment rather than just being just another fad another tick box exercise but ultimately we must embed community wealth building at local regional and national levels because quite simply community wealth building is not ambitious enough we need to have ambition for national wealth building thank you thank you and i'll call on willie ready thank you for saying offset i'm trying not to be grumpy but snp ministers i have to say they do love these kind of debates they craftily entice us to daydream about the future to think big out of the box look at the stars think about other things other than really what's going on in our country right now all in a desperate attempt to distract us but today we get the promise of pilots of action plans and now all we need i think is a working group and another consultation and we'll have the full set but if you look at that reality take lock abba we were promised yes i'll take an intervention minister just in case mr rennie misheard me it's not promises of pilots these pilots are already in existence this is happening it's been happening for years three million pounds of investment in territory for the airstrike growth deal so i just want to reassure the member and distribute them with any notion that this is simply a mission statement or rhetoric it's heartening it's happening on the ground and we're deepening and accelerating that work willie rennie well that excites me greatly i am ecstatic that he's now got these pilots actually working what about doing stuff what about doing stuff up in lockhart we were promised 2 000 jobs on the back of the 586 million pound financial guarantee provided to gfg alliance for the aluminium filter well we got a handful of jobs nowhere near the 2000 that were promised also the first minister went to fort william and she promised there would be a community land transaction exactly what the minister was talking about today and it's known as the jamha jahama highland estate and it was supposed to be to benefit the people who live on or near the estate tell me what we've got so far is the transfer of a quarter of an acre car park a quarter of an acre car park that's not community wealth building take offshore renewables the scottish government have sold scotland on the cheap the value of the successful bids in scotland are far below what we're managing to get elsewhere in the united kingdom in this country a hundred thousand pounds per square kilometer round four in england and wales achieved 879 million pounds which is 361 000 per square kilometer just let me finish this point that's almost four times as much as what we've got here sold off on the cheap and i'll take an intervention daniel johnson i think willie where are you for taking the intervention my understanding is that the value is just we sold off for just five percent of the total revenues that we generated and would you agree with me that we've had little more than platitudes in terms of securing a supply chain isn't that a failure of national wealth building right there really right absolutely and what's worse is that they've lumped all the contracts together in a massive big license round and what does that do it means the work's going to go abroad because we're not going to be able to ramp up the capacity or the workforce to be able to meet that demand there's going to be a massive glot of work all at the same time that's hardly community wealth building we can't even build the 54 jackets for the nng wind farm off the fourth we're not even managing to do that we're getting eight jackets you know what's even worse as well as those jackets getting shipped in from the other side of the planet we're actually having a ship in workers from portugal to build those eight jackets here in faith that's a disgrace and it's not community wealth building well workers in methyl and leaving are paying for these wind farms to be built through their electricity bills the what's getting shipped in from abroad and so are the workers that's not community wealth building look at what reform scotland said this week about the big grand promise for it felt like decades of the scottish national investment bank he says this ross brown from san andreas university he says the government's going to have to make up its mind whether it's a green infrastructure development bank or whether it's going to be investing in communities and small businesses in communities the two are very different objectives and using the same instrument to achieve both is at best ill-advised and at worst foolhardy that's not investing in our communities and it's definitely not community wealth building and tell you also what's not community wealth building is depriving our island communities of the first chance of a decent summer tourism season because of the calamity of the ferry services there will be bookings that are cancelled because people can't be sure to get out to our islands just when they wanted some kind of opportunity to build some wealth in their community it snatched away from him by this incompetent government who can't build two ferries can't build two ferries and as a result people are losing out in the islands and then if you look at the rail services across scotland 700 rail services canceled by this government within weeks of taking control of the train service communities right across scotland will have community wealth building opportunities snatched away from them because this government can't even run a train service now this all sounds negative but this is the reality for people in our communities and while we have these lofty debates and look to the stars about community wealth building with a great grand plan and wonderful pilots people are suffering and this parliament needs to keep its feet on the ground and understand what's happening in our communities because if it doesn't it will quickly get out of touch and i'm afraid this government is already out of touch if it thinks this debate is a substitute for the delivery of services in our communities so let's get real let's have a proper debate about real things thank you we now move to the open debate and i call fiona hislop to be followed by brian whittle presiding officer i will speak to the government's motion on uh community wealth building which is very real for many people who will be absolutely insulted by what we've just heard there from mr rennie community wealth building is an idea whose time has come as part of developing a new economic growth model of well-being where we take a more rounded approach to what success looks like it embraces the strength the ingenuity the enterprise and creativity of local people to shape and develop locally sustainable economies and must be a way forward the snp government has been supporting the development of that wellbeing approach as founding members of the wellbeing economy governments and by piloting those six community wealth building projects and we must rethink our models of growth and delivery the pandemic and the recognition of the role local people play in our communities the importance of local secure supply chains economic growth which is raising and spending wealth locally all provides further impetus to the agenda the apsc report into new entrepreneurial municipalism is a real challenge and an opportunity for local councils and sits well with community wealth building and the pioneering creative and community-led approach of snp-run east asia council is an example of this and the government motion agrees with shorter supply chains supporting net zero ambitions the west louisiana and wesleyan council the scottish government's place-based investment fund has supported western college to develop a local skills supply chain for net zero with a passive house and a retrofit house to help in the expansion of locally sourced trained skilled workers in this field with almost half a million pounds to construct that training center the benefits of sustainability and resilience are critical to this agenda and if the minister has not done so i suggest that he and other msps read the economy committee's report into sustainability and reliance of supply chains and our commitments on measuring carbon miles in public procurement anchor public institutions can support sustainable and resilient local sources of wealth from food to importantly energy and it is the asset ownership of community focused buildings and energy sources which already are and can lend themselves to further community wealth building development and the minister has invited us to consider what elements we can consider in developing policy and law my first advice is only legislate if you need to smart nimble and enthusiastic policy making by inspired local leadership can often produce quicker faster results on procurement this is an area where legislation may be required to give confidence to local partners to procure locally where value for money has often led to now globally vulnerable supply chain choices not well suited to community wealth building and we need leader i'm going to proceed i want to address the emotion unlike the main spokesperson for the conservative we need leadership uh with partnership the community wealth building model involves local authorities and their community planning partners ensuring collective investment decisions focusing on how local economies can be helped to grow and flourish but that means genuine partnership and not a centralized council command and control model repackaged or indeed from government it has to be local and community and we have to share risk equitably and we need to think differently about risk martin avila the chief executive of community enterprise scotland told the economy committee last week some of the previous scottish government rental guarantee schemes were there for developers to be able to take risks in order to develop new housing stock but they were not necessarily open to community owners we were therefore telling the private sector that its risk could be underwritten by the state because the rental income guarantee scheme guaranteed it would receive an income but that was not open to socially focused organizations often as a state he went on to say we say that we understand that private enterprise is risky so we will incentivize and de-risk it and we will get to privatize the value and they will get to privatize the value that is captured however when it comes to community organizations that want to socialize the economic value that they create we say that we are not really sure that they can carry their plan out without failing so we have to end that false equivalence end quote on funding we warned and be warned of place funding spread thinly across individual projects councils already wanted to support rather than generate growth and leverage partners and private funding and build a local customer base and challenges anchor projects and district heating and energy including solar generation and electric vehicle charging are being developed and local energy companies are an example of asset building is the way forward but that comes back to what is statutory and what is not and what the capacity and capability of local councils are to resource them with people and expertise and town centers matter but each and every one is different and the leadership and skills may be found in different places if the government as explicitly said as explicitly said business improvement districts need to be consulted on place-based funding and their evidence that they haven't been then he should be concerned so presiding officer i have said in this chamber when we discussed our immediate recovery from the early part of the pandemic in the summer of 2020 that we needed a revolution in our economic thinking not just evolution and i think community wealth building as part of the well-being economy drive is a revolution which is happening in plain sight but not often herded as such so i hope this debate can act as a clearing call to herald in this new era for scotland the difference is this government and this party trust the people of scotland we trust our communities we put faith in them and we respect them by driving forward this agenda which respects mr rennie the communities of our country thank you president often thank you i call brian whittle to be followed by colette stevenson thank you presiding officer and i'm delighted to get the opportunity to speak in today's debate and as the chamber is aware it's my belief and the belief in my party that the development of community is essential for the prosperity of scotland and we can call it community wealth building but i think it's important to define what we mean by that to me it's creating an environment where people want to live work and play for the essence of community and community interaction that intangible feeling of belonging can grow and in doing so our community well-being and therefore wealth is developed in recent decades as i've said many times it is my belief that the heart of so many communities has been ripped out as a policy of centralization from the scottish government has been pursued to the detriment of said communities what we're talking about here is the ability of communities to come together in a shared interest and i've said before this can be sport art music drama i think i've mentioned it so many times and i think but it's been paid lip service it's the ability for communities to all turn up to watch their children participate on saturday morning for parents and friends to be part of that be that in an official capacity although otherwise however the presenting officer community assets have been systematically ripped out and allowed to fall into disrepair the ability of communities to engage has been eroded too often these days for people to participate in any kind of activity they must come home from work or school and then go somewhere else this of course impacts the less well-off to a much greater degree presenting officer we must look to schools and their facilities much more these days to become the community hub open up the school estate and use it for community activity that surely is more important now than ever open spaces to play and learn should all be in our community it's not something that my colleague led smith has long championed these opportunities are becoming rarer and rarer connecting communities is another issue that has been allowed to drift which has such an impact on our community's ability to grow and prosper ever since i've entered this place we in these benches have been crying out for an investment in transport infrastructure especially in the southwest in my case speak to the communities along the a77 and a75 not to mention the 76 the 72 is 71 the 70 and ask how easy it is to get to work and to access basic service amenities how on earth the scottish government expect to be taken seriously discussing community wealth building when huge sways of the country remain ignored with infrastructure that has been invested in for decades yet presenting officer we have a scottish government so insular that they will not engage with the uk government on their desire for extra investment into our community infrastructure a point that was made by my colleague douglas lumson then there is the trail with the train link in the south west which i was going to suggest needs significant investment to bring it up to the standard required along with investment in train services generally opening up stations and rail links encouraging public transport usage but i was seeing a bit of a mute point at the moment getting there so few trains now running there's two trains a day from stronghold to glasgow and in some places the last trains to busy airship stations will be cut by hours with some final journeys leaving glasgow as early as 20 past six instead of community wealth building communities are being cut off yeah so when the scottish government had the audacity to mention net zero in its motion we are left with wondering how far out of touch from communities they really are the only way for communities to reach out now is by car and it won't be electric cars as rural communities are the very last places to get electric charging points i also want to mention public procurement i recognize that was an element in daniel johnson's motion i agree with him uh completely invest monies in local economy wherever possible surely that goes without saying but again a presenting officer not for this government for as long as i've been in this parliament we have been debating with encouraging cajuling and the scottish government to revise public procurement policy but to no avail specifically in public food procurement we must that surely must be an easy one support our local food producers our rural economy and the health of our children in schools patients and hospitals and all of public office staff and i listened to funeral histolog mentioned east asia and that to me is the frustration because the east there's a council have shown us for years that this can be done and the way to do it and yet the rest of the country is not following suit what a frustration but no here we are still importing the majority of our food often at the standards far lower than that of local produce i will take an invention jim clearly thank you very much for taking the intervention uh does the member not recognize that that's exactly what the good food nation bill is all about and already we have 90 percent of the beef or the or the red meat that's going into schools is already from scottish food suppliers brian whittle to thank jim phillips for intervention what would we have a disagreement that's what the good food nation should be about it is an absolute shell and the fact of the matter if you look at the excel public procurement policy it's something like 16 percent of the food that we use in schools comes from scotland i think that's an absolute shame shame on the scottish government presenting officer community wealth building is about so much more than pounds and pens it's about engendering a sense of community pride creating that environment where people want to live work and play of allowing communities the opportunity to come together as a community and connecting them to other like-minded communities do that and the financial wealth will follow sadly presiding officer the scottish government has shown it is unable to grasp the meaning of community wealth building presenting officer thank you i call colette stevenson to be followed by richard leonard thank you president officer community wales building will help build resilience in local economies to create a fairer and more secure economic future it will also support the development of land for community benefit and as has been said it relies on five pillars progressive procurement and i'll speak about a bit about that later shared ownership of the local economy socially just use of land and property making financial power work for local places and fair employment and just labor markets in terms of the last point the scottish government's fair work first approach is very welcome and there's many real living wage accredited employers across the country scotland has been described as a global leader in the community wealth building movement and bias presiding officer but i believe escobride is doing well too we have good foundations in place to push forward and make the most of new opportunities including the many enterprises that follow the community wealth building pillars for example escobride credit union offers a very ethical and safe way to save and they exist to serve the local community we have fantastic social enterprises as well such as the furnishing service led by randall wilson they have won many awards from scotland excel over the years have created many employment opportunities for young and disabled people and have diverted more than a thousand tonnes of product from landfill there are many other companies in the town who are committed to employee well-being and fair employment practices and there are also several employee-owned businesses including novograph grozar associates and clansmen dynamics we are also lucky to have some excellent public species such as langlin's moss calder glenn country park and the james hamilton heritage lock in escobride as well as the glen esque pocket park instant leonards and the newly designated local nature reserve in most nuke between them these areas offer amazing benefits to locals including great walking routes bike trails water sports outdoor classrooms sports facilities and cafes and i understand a variety of flora and fauna enjoys those areas too there are many community groups helping to protect and enhance these species including the friends of langland's moss and the escobride development trust as well as community-minded organisations like them the role of the public sector will be crucial going forward from local authorities to the nhs the large budgets available to the public sector can be used to unlock wider benefits this includes pension funds when i sat on the pension board for the strathclyde pension fund we were very keen working alongside trade unions to make sure that the direct investment portfolio was used at a local level to boost local economies and support ethical businesses so we followed many of the principles of community wealth building another way these public sector organizations can affect change is through procurement i believe there is a big opportunity by applying progressive procurement practices to create local well-paid jobs and maximize community benefit supply chain visibility is an important part of this when large companies win contracts we should be able to see where their subcontract goes these processes should be open and transparent so that we can easily identify the community benefit of big contracts i've spoken before about the supplier development programme they do great work with small businesses to help them understand procurement processes and highlight the opportunities available in subcontracting this shortening of the supply chain by using local enterprises delivers a clear benefit in local communities through employment opportunities and business growth but it also supports us in terms of reaching our climate targets by reducing the carbon footprint of our products the proposed community wealth building bill could help here by developing procurement practices to support local economies including small businesses and encouraging school canteens no i'd like to make progress thanks and encouraging school canteens and hospitals to use more locally produced food in conclusion president officer community wealth building offers us great opportunities to improve our local communities support fair employment take a place-based approach to the economy and to deliver on our climate targets one of the big things for me is the use of progressive procurement in the public sector so that big contracts support local and ethical businesses and create a protect good quality jobs if we take anything from the experience of the pandemic it should be the belief that we could effect real change that we should protect and enhance our local species and that we must build a fairer and more secure economic future by putting the emphasis on local community wealth building is key to that thank you thank you i call richard leonard to be followed by aleister allen thank you presiding officer there is a climate emergency people are working for the economy but the economy is not working for the people we've got massive inequalities of income of wealth of power that are growing ever wider in one of the wealthiest nations in the history of the world life expectancy is not going up it's going down one in four of all children in scotland are living in grinding poverty and yet two out of three of those children are being brought up in households where at least one adult is in work what a shocking indictment of our low pay economy what a shocking indictment of capitalism and what a shocking indictment of the snp green government minister for just transition employment and fair work who on 98 000 pounds a year takes to the bbc at the weekend to lecture working people of scotland to be sensible and to exercise pay restraint shame on you i've long argued that building an economic strategy around foreign direct investment is a catastrophic error according to the scottish government's own latest annual business statistics 82 of all large businesses in scotland accounting for 65 percent of employment and three-quarters of all turnover now have their ultimate base their headquarters their ownership outside scotland this is not a mark of economic strength but a sign of powerless economic weakness we have a branch plan economy with far too much of the wealth that is generated extracted and then exported and this is precisely why a community wealth building approach to economic development is now more critical than ever it's why it needs to move from the fringe to the mainstream it is not a refinement as the minister said we need it is a revolution and why simply trying to create a cruel pro-growth pro-business post-brexit environment is to fundamentally misunderstand the both the scale of the challenge we face and the direction the economy now needs to go in let me be as plain to government ministers as i can be yes i'll take an intervention jim fairley i'm so confused by what you just said are you actually against business richard leonard no i'm in favor of business building from the bottom up the problem with your party's government policy is that for too long it's been reliant on foreign direct investment as the only engine of growth we should be looking to the people we should be looking to local businesses and we should be looking to the wealth that's in our communities as the basis for economic development because traditional solutions will not work we need an economic plan a jobs first industrial strategy which is investment-led people-centred net zero and manufacturing driven and we need a new economic strategy of state intervention to secure popular control rather than simply popular intervention to secure state control let me give a practical example of community wealth building for nearly two decades we've had a land reform act giving communities a statutory right to buy the land they live on so the time is long overdue for an industrial reform act giving working people a statutory right to buy the business the enterprise that they work in because why shouldn't the people who create the wealth own the wealth that they create and it's my intention to bring a bill to parliament which will seek to deliver this in due course because i firmly believe that the time has come where we need to be radical in our thinking transformative in our vision and resolute in our action and that means using the financial firepower that we've already got like our pension funds the strathclyde local government pension fund is the second biggest local government fund in the uk with assets worth 26 billion pounds and yet it could undertake so much more primary investment activity locally instead of relying so much on secondary investment activity the buying and selling of stocks and shares which benefit economies on the other side of the world and we should use the financial firepower of public procurement where we spend 13 billion pounds a year in scotland but we know again that far too much of it ends up in the hands of large global corporations too many of them registered in tax havens so we need a new path based on the principles of economic social and environmental justice because we know and the people we represent know that the rigged way our economy is run and the unequal share out of the fruits of their labor is not the natural order we know and they know that there is an alternative way of organizing the economic system and we've caught a glimpse of the possibilities of community wealth building in north asia we know what has worked in preston we have seen the benefits internationally in cleveland ohio so let's make community and worker ownership climate and social justice equality and democracy decentralization and diversity central to the kind of economy that we want to build after the pandemic so that every job is a green job the whole economy is a social economy and let's not just merely debate it let's go out there and do it thank you i call aleister allen to be followed by maggie chapman thank you presiding officer this afternoon's debate is a very timely one for many decades wage stagnation low productivity sometimes and huge wealth inequalities have often seemed like entrenched features of the scottish economy and as we emerge from the covered 19 pandemic there has never been a more important time to examine our approaches to local economic development but contrary to some of what we've heard this afternoon what's been outlined by the minister around community wealth building is a people-centred approach to local economic development which redirects wealth back into the local economy and places control and benefits into the hands of local people the scottish government is working with five areas including my constituency of new healing and near to produce bespoke community wealth building action plans community wealth building is underpinned by five central principles progressive procurement fair employment and just labor markets shared ownership of the local economy socially just use of land and property and making financial power work for local places in many ways it's difficult to think of a part of the country more fitted to the ideas behind community wealth building than my own part of the world the western isles has the highest rate of living wage employers anywhere in scotland its strong tradition of crafting encourages durable links between communities and land and it is a place which has been a trailblazer for community land ownership with a significant 70 percent of people now living on community-owned states and community land ownership has to be an essential aspect of any community wealth building strategy that we want to talk about there are people perhaps even some members in this place who would argue that the way in which land is used is far more important than how it is owned however community wealth building recognizes the intertwined nature of land ownership and land use different forms of ownership come with different forms of management which in turn determine how land is used and i can think of countless examples in my own constituency which illustrate that if we look at west harris the west harris trust has done some fantastic work since the community bought the land from the scottish government in 2010 at this time the population of the area was unsustainable with a very low proportion of residents of working age and 35 percent of the housing stock was self-catering cottages or holiday homes the trust wanted to attract young families into the area and focused on creating employment and housing prospects for them now while those problems of fragility have certainly not gone away since 2010 the trust has created opportunities for small local businesses to flourish sold housing plots enabled the construction of new housing units for rented social housing and as part of a shared equity scheme created jobs within the trust itself and the further 20 jobs at the trust purpose built arts food and entertainment center now these numbers may sound small but in a community the size of west harris they do have a disproportionate impact and of course and as a major employer it provides a range of opportunities for local suppliers and ensures all income derived from their facilities crucially and this is where the relevance is is reinvested back into the community for local projects this has had a real impact with a 20 increase in population since the trust was established in contrast with this and this comes back to my point about the relevance to this debate of community ownership of estates in contrast to west harris and the another community in my constituency great bernard faces similar demographic challenges to harris and its people have no less of a sense of community and no less a wealth of talent to drop on however unlike west harris the island remains in absentee private ownership despite the best efforts of the great barnard community development trust well the community landlord in west harris is a driver of development in bernard i have heard complaints from constituents they are of demands for large sums of money before the landlord will allow legitimate transactions around tenancies to proceed raising objections as he does to planning permissions for new housing and refusing to engage with crafters seeking to exercise their legal right to buy their crafts now local residents say these actions are prohibiting the island's development and hastening its depopulation the island has already lost its local shop and school in recent years while the community have been unsuccessfully trying to persuade the absentee landlord to cooperate with their buyout efforts so presiding officer that's why land ownership matters in the context of the debate that we're having today about investing in communities the best people to decide the future of our communities across scotland are the people who live in those communities i will indeed finley carson i thank the member for taking an intervention what do you say to those communities who have strongly opposed planning applications which have subsequently been overturned by the snp scottish government and we're talking about 400 in the last a few years and that number is increasing year on year what do you say to these communities which that their voice has not heard that's dwelling well i would have thought that the voices within communities are heard through the planning application process and the planning application process has always given a role to ministers but the point i want to end on is that as an msp representing part of the highlands and islands i am heartily sick i must say of one or two people with little or no connection with the region who try to impose their notions on communities about what land should be used for with the expected growth of natural capital markets an increasing number of businesses and organizations perhaps seeking to become green layers it will be more important than ever for us to do as the minister is setting out today to guard against models of ownership that do not have local communities at their heart thank you i call maggie chapman to be hold by emma harper thank you presiding officer the uk is one of the most unequal countries in the world according to the oecd vast amounts of wealth and assets are held by a small number of people indeed the sunday times reach list shows that the number of billionaires in the uk is at an all-time high 177 billionaires people who saw their wealth rise by 9.4 percent over the last year scotland's top 10 billionaires have a combined wealth of over 23 billion pounds at a time when so many people are way beyond facing the choice between heating their homes and eating they can afford neither it is clear that our economic system is broken current models of economic development have failed to redistribute wealth to provide adequately for all people in all of our communities our economy is far from well so today's debate is welcome and it is important community wealth building won't fix all of our economy's ills but it is an attempt to roll back one of the most damaging thatcherite initiatives of the 1980s that of moving public spending from something that should benefit the public to something that benefited the big corporations invited in to tender for public services compulsory competitive tendering has resulted in the funneling of money out of our communities for too long we've heard that bundling contracts create sufficiency that the cheapest bid is the best and that the public pound should be used to increase private profits not public good enough we know that we need to be more resilient that strong resourceful and innovative communities are better able to organize and work together to look out for each other and improve improve the lives of all their members community wealth building offers a way to support this work in a meaningful way and we are not starting from scratch we can build on the social solidarity that developed in many places during the pandemic and put community organizing and wealth building at the heart of our plans for a green recovery we must do this as we continue to deal with a pandemic and of course tackle climate breakdown we must do it in a way that builds the foundations of a new economy one focused on community wealth in other words we want to re-establish a community-based way of life one that sees value in and of society one that increases economic self-reliance and local control over in over in over people's environments and their decision-making structures one that sees the connections and interdependencies between the economy our environment and our society this approach means that people and their labor must matter more than capital our local and regional economies must recognize that people matter more than corporate bottom lines we cannot let the market and capital call all the shots if we want to build community wealth thriving local and regional economies require local ownership where the control and economic advantages of that ownership are spread more broadly such as through cooperative community or employment employee ownership models this guards against the extraction of wealth on behalf of those at the top the minister earlier highlighted the importance of grassroots engagement and participation to community wealth building we need active participation in strong and robust democratic structures because despite what neoliberalism tells us communities are not isolated individuals engaged in civic life only as passive consumers and localizing investment and capital circulation matters too when goods and services are produced and purchased locally that money stays in the community longer because local businesses are more likely to spend locally this translates into greater local prosperity greater community stability stability a tighter knit network of local people and businesses all key to building community wealth imagine if we could use our collective community wealth for good rather than fueling the casino economy that does little to provide for all but building community is much more is about much more than just having money circulating locally it's about the power that comes from building lasting relationships of mutual support fostering effective collaboration between anchor organizations local government and neighborhood residents isn't just a matter of convenience or capacity it is utterly intrinsic to the project of community wealth building and place really matters but place making does not happen by accident places need coherent strategies to ensure local assets work to build local wealth and as others have mentioned they need to be coherent connections to transport and other infrastructure that are vital to community survival in closing presiding officer i'd like to record my thanks to organizations including communityland scotland the development trusts associate trusts association scotland and community enterprise in scotland for highlighting the vital work of anchor organizations and i'd like to thank them too for highlighting what we can learn from other community focused legislation this parliament has enacted and pointing out the need to now make things happen at a time scale that does not lead to drift and disinterest as pauline smith from development trusts association scotland told the economy and fair work committee just last week we are not reinventing the wheel here different terminology is used development trusts community enterprise in scotland and other agencies have supported the these organizations to create human community wealth and make things happen in their communities to be honest i think we just need to work together and we all have a part to play let's just get on with it thank you thank you mr chapman i now call on emma harper to be followed by finley carson for around six minutes thank you president officer i welcome the opportunity to speak this afternoon when i looked into the work of the democracy collaborative led by ted howard i realized the huge potential of community wealth building there is no one-size-fits-all approach but the bottom-up approach centers around democratic ownership of the economy and community self-determination and president officer i'm saying it isn't just a one-size-fits-all approach as what happens in the central bill and in glasgow will be different to what happens in rural areas like the south west of scotland having lived in california for many years i've witnessed wealth inequalities and the consequences of that what is outlined by the democracy collaborative is what i want to see in scotland it's about wealth redistribution and benefiting our communities it's also in sharp contrast to what the uk government are doing with their hard right individualist policies beside an officer by its fundamental design today's corporate capitalist system takes wealth that would otherwise reside in local communities and concentrates it at the hands of a small elite the ons reported that there are an estimated 27.8 million households in the uk and 263 000 control 45 of our country's wealth and in ted howard's model community wealth building proposes an economic model with more local good quality jobs improved access to public contracts for local businesses particularly important for our agricultural and forestry community more land should be placed in community ownership and support being offered to new businesses exploring in employee ownership cwb supports renewable energy development with the wealth generated being distributed back to the community for me this means the potential for the development of renewable offshore energy in the southwest potentially in all wee first i'd be interested in exploring this potential in the next round of scotland licenses when i visited imouth harbor last year it was evident that millions of pounds in high value jobs had and will be brought to the community through renewable energy investment when it comes to how money is spent and services commissioned by our institutions cost is often dominant it's the dominant determining factor in who gets a contract environmental credentials social value decent employment conditions tend to be weaker considerations we need to see this change with community wealth building we can create legal change in our procurement processes and others have talked about this already this can ensure that small local and medium-sized enterprises and employee-owned businesses support local jobs and have a greater tendency to recirculate wealth directly to our communities for example it can allow our agricultural community to provide local projects to our schools hospitals social care sectors prisons and other institutions something i have been pursuing locally but have faced local bureaucratic barriers and i therefore welcome the government's commitment to reform procurement processes and ask for a commitment that this will be taken forward at pace presiding officer ahead of this debate i spoke with rob davidson community wealth building manager with the south scotland enterprise agency and the minister has described some of the socie work that's already taken place with registered social landlords so they hit the ground running at the beginning of the pandemic supporting businesses practically and financially for cell practitioner to promote community wealth principles so see yes i will find the course thank you thank you for taking the intervention would the member welcome the uk government's community ownership fund which has seen 175 000 pounds being spent in new galloway town hall and 300 000 towards wigton rebuild emma harper i i do welcome some of the funding but what i don't like is the fact that the money is coming to places in areas which are devolved to the scottish government what i would respond to the member is are you happy that this place has been tramped upon in devolved areas by by the the uk government that's what i would that's what i would respond by saying that and sosi are working with stranar furniture project presiding officer as part of the community reuse shop led by project manager paul smith to support this social enterprise to grow and expand and they're also incorporating fair work practices and from a phone call this morning the stranar furniture project now has 22 employees and it's working to in to the wider benefit of the community and i would encourage members to look at the wide range of activities paul and his team are undertaking and in castle douglas presiding officer stuart recare providers of home care with almost 100 employees are beginning a democracy collaborative model of employee ownership so it's already happening out there members are saying this is looking at the stars pine in the sky it's not it's happening on the ground right now with saucy support stuart here are encouraging employees to take leadership and ownership roles in the company one final example of a dng cwb trailblazer is jasp wilson they're a forestry equipment manufacturer and distributor in diabetes and jasp wilson have donated a car to the local first responders so that they don't have to use their own car if if necessary and they've financed premises for a local play group they've supported the local birchvale players theater in their move to new premises then all of these companies demonstrate how community wealth building is already working across the freezing galloway i welcome these examples across the south of scotland and i would invite the minister to come and visit any if his diary allows president officer in closing community wealth building is a practical place-based focused model that can play a central role in growing scotland's well-being economy a community wealth building approach puts an emphasis on local people and on ownership with a view to growing the number of people that have a genuine ownership stake in the economy i want more people and local communities in scotland to have a bigger stake in our economy share the ownership and build resilience to create a fairer and more secure economic future thank you presiding officer thank you very much uh miss harper before calling the next speaker just a gentle reminder and to all members that you should remain in the chamber for at least two speeches after your own i'm not going to name and shame but just these reminders i think periodically are useful i now call finley carson to be followed by paulie mcneill for around six minutes mr carson thank you deputy president officer and it goes without saying that anything that helps scotland's economy has to be warmly welcomed particularly if support is being provided at a local level and yes community wealth building is a step towards achieving this goal the core principles of community wealth building including procurement includes procurement whereby people are being encouraged to buy and spend locally in order to support businesses in their area and importantly protect and if possible create new employment opportunities community wealth building can bring positive moves towards improved use of land and assets to ensure our communities and businesses make better use of land and properties to support regeneration opportunities then there is plural ownership where wealth generating a specific area will remain there to support new and existing businesses including social and community enterprises cooperatives and employee ownership this is particularly important in rural areas where far too often projects maybe create a short-term employment and benefit but the wealth generated for example with wind farms and forestry soon leaves the region on this side of the chamber we welcome schemes supporting community wealth building many of which are supported through the uk government's local support schemes such as the shared prosperity fund and leveling up funds and these schemes provide local communities with a greater say in where funds should be spent and projects that need to be supported and this is of great importance on local funding compared to the snp cuts to local budgets and centralizing decisions because it effectively gives local communities the voice back and rightly so and the local community needs their voices listened to because the snp government is ignoring them by overturning nearly 400 local planning decisions since 2017 i certainly will minister for giving way he raised this point earlier on in a an intervention around the planning appeals process i have to ask you an office and seretin this is not a loaded question i i genuinely want to know does he think there should be an appeals process within the planning system billy carson absolutely do but the problem is there's a disproportionate number of local locally made decisions i've then been subsequently been overturned by the scottish government 400 since 2017 and more last year than ever before so increasingly we're witnessing this snp government ring fencing more scottish council budgets more than half a billion pounds now that's hardly local democracy local council budgets are being continually squeezed in the case of dumfries and galloway it faces an estimated 12.8 million pound funding gap for the coming year so it's little wonder that councils of all political persuasion have welcomed a variety of schemes being introduced by the uk government such as the leveling up scheme because that will provide 1.5 billion of support to city and growth deals in every part of this country including the borderlands inclusive growth deal a unique cross-border collaboration which will deliver a multi-million in pound investment into freezing galloway over the next 10 years and this aims to provide the long-term proposal that certainly will emma harper does the member not think it's a bit disproportionate when the scottish government have given 20 million more for the borderlands growth deal than the uk government has invested is do you think that's leveling up or is that just losing out friendly cars and i can give you the time back um i think the member must be confused because the scottish government spend on devolved issues and the uk government spend on resolve reserved issues so that's why there's a difference in the funding gap i thought you would maybe have known that ms harper however it provides 1.5 billion across the country and it aims to improve the long-term prosperity of our communities while enhancing the environment aspects of the deal worth 425 million sorry i've taken enough interventions i'm sorry the 425 million projects are still being developed but amongst them and i'm sure emma harper will welcome them is the stranar marina redevelopment the redevelopment of the former nuclear power station at chapel cross the creation of the dairy nexus by the scottish rural university college and the balinese college which will develop long-term innovative solutions for forage based dairy farming and money will also be spent on the seven stains network of mountain bike trails trails in addition the borderlands will improve connectivity deliver skills and innovation that will ultimately support the longer term resilience of towns and communities in my region as you can appreciate there is great excitement surrounding the potential of this growth deal and rightly so in an area repeatedly starved off any proper investment indeed it's anticipated the borderlands will deliver an additional five and five thousand five hundred jobs and attracting more than four million extra tourists unlocking investment and boosting the economies the region's economy by 1.1 billion both the uk community renewal fund and the uk community ownership funds are other prime examples of where that have worked in dumfries and galloway plans to create a 21st century village a development that promises to become a world-class visitor attraction and dumfries moved closer with securing 1.4 million funding the project will result in nearly 500 new carbon neutral and age-friendly homes being built in the corriton site and projects new gallowing what torn have been successful in bidding in the first round of the community ownership fund and i've already said 175 for new gallery town hall and 300 thousand towards uh wigton et whitehorn rebuild both projects supported uh supporting the social well-being of the communities which are vital to the fabric of my constituency through protecting facilities that would otherwise have been at risk furthermore it's estimated dumfries and gal will receive more than 6.7 million to support a range of projects from supporting adults who lack basic numerative skills helping young people into jobs and allowing residents to fulfill their potential the uk and the scottish government are working together on these projects and if there's a growth deal both the scottish and the uk government contributed equally and 103 million with we've had already three million pounds going to implement community wealth building but sadly that cooperation isn't universal and it's very disappointing that despite the funding commitment from the uk government as a result of the union connectivity review that the scottish government still has failed to meet the uk government to bring much needed funding to improve the a75 which is absolutely critical in connecting communities and businesses in the south of scotland so deputy president officer in conclusion positive steps are being taken to drive local and regional economies forward directly delivering to local communities by the uk government and this s p government should follow up their example thank you mr carson and now called paulie mcneil who will be followed by the last speaker in the open debate audrey nicholl for around six minutes thank you presiding officer community well-building risks being meaningless free so the policies linked to it do nothing to alleviate the suffering caused by the cost of living crisis currently the economy simply isn't working for a significant number of people other members have said this in this debate that it has to change i wonder what happened to the rhetoric at the beginning of the pandemic about building back better we don't hear that much about that now and i don't believe that we've even started down the path of changing the things that do need to change whilst i see the potential of tired howard's cleveland um model um i feel in all honesty to see how scotland are leading this and i mean i mean i'd make that point i just genuinely do not see it because one of the sharp reminders um that we need to radically alter the way the economy is structured is that of course it's a uk issue that we're nine percent of inflation with soaring energy bills and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight escalating energy prices disproportionately impacting lower income people as maggie chapman and richard leonard have talked about the uk with the highest levels of inflation the highest energy prices in europe and other countries in the g7 doing a lot more to protect people from these price increases so there is a context there must be a context of this debate and it's right to say so any government whether it's local or national to me a while i do acknowledge that there's pockets of success around the country and i want to acknowledge that but generally i just see a lot of failures the fact of the scottish government so easily abandoned their plans for public owned energy tells me that a community well-being building strategy as is completely lacks ambition we really haven't heard a good enough rationale for why the alternative plans um have haven't really been discussed or well developed so i think the scottish government have got to step up to the plate then if they want to match a well-building strategy with the actual problems on the ground that people face today because we're heading for another staggering so-called energy price cap this october of 2800 i know people be familiar with these figures with 12 million households and fuel poverty across the uk and the big energy companies that made profits of 1 billion in 2020 are all in denial about these profits being available even in the short term to help people who need it i believe the regulator needs to toughen up and force energy companies to spend some of their profits in directly cutting bills but i also believe in scotland we could do a lot more in the context of this debate and not enough time to talk about it today but a bigger role for energy action scotland seems to me that there are some devolved aspects we could bring into play here so the scottish government must urgently give support i believe for community-owned renewable cooperatives theoretically there is supports i don't think there's a an ideological divide on this point um but it must have this at its very heart cooperative models i believe are vital i declare my interest in this as a member of the cooperative party so the communities which host renewable energy projects must really benefit from those schemes and this is what the scottish cooperative party are calling for which i support to give preferential treatment to genuine community owned renewables for example by giving planning exemptions or tax breaks seems to me to fit with e-wealth at building a community wealth building strategy you've heard from other members the president adopted a community belt-building approach in 2011 and it appears to have been highly successful between 2012 13 and 2016-17 the amount specifically spent and preston locally tripled from 38 million to 112 million so you do see that these policies can have success and that city also managed to have its unemployment in rate and that's of interest to me and i always have interest in the minister too and i'm going to talk about glasgow and i thank him in advance for a meeting we're going to have on this and i wanted to use this opportunity to say something about that this is the kind of renewal that glasgow needs because glasgow and the motion does say this city regions are critical for economic development and for building back if we believe that's what we're doing so that's why i've been calling for an economic development agency for glasgow for some time because i think for scotland's biggest city i do not think it will recover out of the many provinces had without something overarching i'm sure do not need to spell out some of glasgow's problems and the answers are simply not there at the moment the announcement on the clyde metro is a non-existent transport project that will not likely to see for 25 years there's been huge damage done to the taxi trade which i believe is an integral part of public transport and no one is listening to taxi drivers we've lost huge numbers of jobs and hospitality and government ministers in other departments don't even seem to be interested to engage with the glasgow airport and of course without an airport that has connectivity a city region cannot be economically viable so i don't really understand why the scottish government are not joining the dots on this i wanted to conclude presiding officer by going back to the question of young people who have been at the short end of this pandemic in glasgow and across the country it's young adults probably from the ages of probably 19 and well into 34 research shows that they had lasting consequences for this group and i would ask the minister to consider carefully if this is a strategy which is central to the scottish government's overarching view of what we do in this parliament you really must link this very closely to what needs to be done to have young people to get back on track with careers that actually have quality jobs that are protected in those jobs for the work that they do thank you for sending officer thank you very much mr mcneil we now move to the final speaker and open debate audrey nickle after which we'll move to closing speeches audrey nickel for around six minutes please thank you very much president officer um i welcome the opportunity to speak in support of the government motion in today's debate and for anyone here today are watching this debate who's familiar with the northeast of scotland where my constituency of aberdeen south and north kincardine is located you're very likely to have friends or family members who have a relationship with the oil and gas sector that has been the main stay of the northeast economy for many decades now and you may also know that well in excess of 300 billion pounds in tax revenue has flowed from the north sea oil and gas sector to the uk treasury over its lifetime and counting the sector has and continues to be a lifeline for the northeast and beyond and while there were unintended consequences of the energy sector such as high house prices and of course recruitment challenges for the likes of nurses teachers and police officers the economic benefit has been vast today the sector retains a modified footprint and we await with anticipation the northeast playing its part in our just transition that will harness the skills talent and experience of the oil and gas workforce underpinning our national journey to net zero and i can hear many people asking well what does all this have to do with community wealth building and in my view quite a lot earlier this week i listened to a inspiring presentation by ted howard president of the democracy collaborative and like emma harper i was drawn to the philosophy of community wealth building at transforming local and regional economies to deliver a truly well-being economy and in his presentation ted howard spoke about the challenges of traditional strategies supporting economic development in urban areas that are often simply as he put it a some zero-sum game predicated on the concept that markets reigns supreme that rooting jobs locally is irrelevant in a global economy and that the benefits of economic growth will eventually trickle down he outlined how we need to move beyond economies that are shaped and driven by the needs of investors where people who are working people are simply considered a cost on a balance sheet towards an option that centres the economy around people and their needs and the communities in which they live community wealth building and as the daughter of a local green grocer i really didn't need that much persuasion i would caveat the observations made by ted howard related to the u.s economy however they started to resonate with me in the context of the northeast and listening to his perspective i started to think about the legacy of oil and gas through a different lens and i realized that as we stand in the brink of an energy transition this is also an opportunity to transform our places in a way that is putting the emphasis on local people and ownership growing the number of people that have a genuine stake in their local economy as a constituency msp i've spoken to many local organizations groups and charities that have benefited from corporate support as energy sector businesses fulfilled their social responsibility role in the region the arts and creative culture food banks apprenticeships all supported by oil and gas the oil and gas sector are all contributing to community wealth building we perhaps just didn't call it that and i i refer to daniel johnson's point that he made on this in his opening remarks last year aberdeen city benefited from a one million pound award through the scottish government place-based investment fund that supported a range of projects including in my constituency the fabulous greyhound bay visitor centre awarded 50 000 pounds offering the best views and dolphin watching over the city an off-grid cafe using hybrid energy and circular rainwater treatment technology and contemporary outdoor creative and educational programmes inch garth community centre awarded the queen's award for voluntary service and now benefiting from a four hundred thousand pound award to expand the centre living examples of a community wealth building approach that seeks to help local businesses and communities have a bigger stake and see in how their local economy functions my constituency also hosts a wide range of small to medium sized businesses that have been integral and integral part of the oil and gas supply chain including a local timber merchants making pallets for the offshore sector and a wholesaler supplying the corporate hospitality sector to maine but to both businesses that want to diversify into new markets thereby supporting local green jobs retaining wealth in the community and shortening the supply chain presiding officer the robert gordon university report making the switch published just last week states that the northeast of scotland hosting the largest energy energy skills cluster in the uk the region has a critical role to play in our energy transition however it's vital that our energy transition has at its heart a commitment to energy justice where we seek to restructure our local economies in a way that tackles social economic and environmental injustices while building wealth in the com in our communities last week last year i spoke in a members debate about plans to transform a local green space in my constituency into an energy transition zone economic growth is essential however much of the debate at this point was industry focused so there is now a need for a community orientated perspective where areas are developed in a consensual way meeting both community and industry needs so in conclusion i very much look forward to being part of the delivery of the community wealth building model being developed by the scottish government in the northeast context bringing industry local authorities and others together thinking out of the box enabling an approach to energy transition that has truly building community wealth at its heart thank you very much indeed miss nicole we now move to closing speech season i call katie clark for around six minutes this clark presiding officer and i welcome that the scottish government has brought forward this motion today and the wide-ranging debate as daniel johnson said at the beginning of the debate most people probably don't know what community wealth building is across the country and i think this debate hopefully has spread some information about what it's about and a number of speakers spoke about the core principles of community wealth building of progressive procurement fair employment shared ownership the just use of land and making financial decisions that benefit the local community this debate is not a new one in that it's fundamentally about power and wealth and how decisions are made and as a number of speakers have said these are not new issues but for community wealth building to work and to be real it is going to mean fundamental changes to how government at all level make decisions and policy and that's one of the reasons that labour has put in our amendment that we call on the scottish government to look at all public procurement policies to ensure that the community wealth building agenda is embedded at every level because much of the debate today has been about local initiatives and about local government but actually the scottish government really needs to look at its own practices as part of this agenda also and a number of speakers have spoken about that the challenges we face obviously are not all by any means within the scottish government's control and paulie mcneil is correct to point out the backdrop of a financial crisis that is going to help is going to hurt every community and most individuals in this country and the cost of living crisis and energy crisis that we face but as a number of speakers i'm now going to move on to wealth but um i'll i'll take an intervention thank the member for giving way will she join me in welcoming the uk government's leveling up funding which is delivering 100 million pounds in paisley 20 million pounds in aberdeen and 38 million pounds in glasgow and doesn't just show the strength of the union in action and investing in scotland's communities [Music] well i welcome any investment in communities that helps put money and power in the hands of ordinary people and i welcome that from whichever part of government it comes from so any initiative any part of government which is a positive policy i think all of us um should welcome but i don't think this is the place if you don't mind for those kind of party political points and the the point that i would make um to the the gentleman um is that actually many of the criticism he puts to the scottish government are also criticisms that can fairly put um to the uk government um but what i was going to move on i'd spoken a bit about the huge challenges our communities face and the challenges of poverty but as a number of speakers have pointed out um the pandemic has also been a period where we've seen the wealth of the richest um increase and a number of speakers including maggie chapman who spoke about the sunday times rich list have spoken about that and of course the reality is that the inequality in scotland has increased over the last 10 years the life expectancy according to public health scotland between the poorest areas and the richest areas is 26 years for men and 22 years for women and that is the backdrop that we need to discuss this debate in and i think we are right to say that the community wealth building agenda is an agenda that helps to address some of those issues because this is a debate about wealth and power and globalization which in many ways is the opposite of some of the principles that we've been discussing here today about um community wealth building is an agenda which sucks different life out of our economies importing all our plastic toys from china is the complete opposite of community wealth building so i think a number of speakers including fiona hislop have been right to point out some of the local initiatives audrey nichols spoke about a number of initiatives in her community we've heard a number of speakers talk about some of the energy initiatives that are about building the capacity locally whether that's municipal ownership and production of energy whether that is the edinburgh solar co-op whether that is in north asia the building of solar farms and wind turbine farms that actually are about trying to generate power locally and keep wealth local because fundamentally what this debate is about is about how we organise ourselves um as an economy and i think colette stevenson was quite correct to point out in particular the supply chain issues about transparency in procurement processes and the need for ethical procurement prioritizing local jobs we need a people-centered approach to economic development in scotland we need a people-centred approach for local economic development which redirects wealth back into local economies and places control and benefit in the hands of local people we need a local first approach to all procurement that's a local level at a scottish government level and i look forward to this debate and to the minister's response thank you very much indeed i now call on liz smith to wind up for around seven minutes uh thank you deputy presiding officer despite a handful of fairly robust exchanges this afternoon which actually i thought took the snp by surprise a little bit i think we can all agree that there are some basic principles which are required to make this policy work well firstly community engagement has to be strong it has to be based upon an inclusive approach towards the views of local people and upon establishing local mutual trust now both of these matter in tandem because how often have we seen difficulties encountered by local communities when their views have been undermined in fact i think my colleague findlay carson pointed out that when developers are putting their claim on various community aspects and we've often seen that the scottish government comes in to support the developer and overturns a lot of community projects for example since i think 2017 we know that of 824 planning applications that the scottish government has overturned 383 of them so there is a real real need to build trust in a level playing field and an appreciation of the vast wealth of local knowledge which can often go a very long way to ensuring local communities make the very best use of their potential secondly in terms of employment investment and growth the community wealth ambitions can complement those of leveling up not not substitute i think daniel johnson said it was about substitute no it's not it's about complementing them and indeed i would argue that they are the essential components together of exactly the same policy ambitions and i think it's also important to stress that the general public especially at a time of very considerable financial stringency desperately wants to see governments whether that's westminster hollywood and local government working together they are tired of the endless bickering and sniping and they just want to see that things get done to benefit their local community and they also want to know that they are getting value for money and that's a point that audit scotland has come back to many times in recent months because as yet there isn't sufficient transparency and accountability when it comes to the way that the money is being spent and uh the scrutiny of that money is of course daniel johnson i'm grateful to the smith for giving way and i totally agree with her point about transparency but one of my problems is that actually it doesn't feel like there's any money that's been committed to this at all let alone there would be the opportunity for transparency for i wonder if she'd agree with that point listen i don't entirely agree with that because i think there is some money i think various members have given examples of where there has been some commitment on money but you're right in terms of not having enough detail you mentioned that in your own introduction we do need much more detail but the point that audit scotland is making persistently is that we don't have enough ability to scrutinize exactly where that money is being spent and daniel johnson sits on the same finance committee that i do and that's that's a big point which i think the scottish government has to address and i also want to say something about some of the evidence that we've been taking in recent weeks at the finance committee with references to the national performance framework now that's very different in scope from the community wealth initiative but what the national performance framework also has at its heart is the improvement of the well-being in our local communities and herein lies a big challenge the principles of the framework are all agreed but the practice of the delivery is a very different matter and one of the most interesting points that's been mentioned by a lot of stakeholders giving evidence to our committee is this how can a national framework function effectively at the same time as ensuring there is diversity in local delivery a dilemma about how we manage state objectives alongside those of local priorities and on two occasions at the committee uh we have been told that this is more about a debate about how far the state should intervene and and not countermand local individual initiatives and i think that's a dilemma that really has to be addressed we have very senior people in local government telling us that there are already some very good lines of communication between different local authorities about sharing good practice across different local communities but also an understanding of what works well in one community might also not be very successful in another community and that's again something which i think it means that we have to have flexibility and diversity within this and that's a very strong message because if you want to drive success then you have to promote the devolution of power down to local communities get big government out the ways people who are interfering in what local communities want to do and know how to do it best and we can agree that from the providing a very supportive framework for government policy which supports the creation of jobs local investment and economic growth and yes the infrastructure which brian whittle spoke about so eloquently because if that infrastructure is not there if you don't have your sports communities you don't have your local infrastructure of getting people to specific places then you can forget your community empowerment and of course much of this is based on the increasing willingness of communities to be part of their local communities to shop locally to procure basic provisions and also to use local services and that happened out of necessity during the pandemic but we now need to ensure that that shift is permanent not only is it considerable benefit to those running local businesses but also in terms of the demographic movements because we know firsthand from the scottish fiscal commission statistics scotland has major challenges with demographic imbalance and anything we can do to help local communities become much more vibrant and to help our more deprived and remote areas is good news if local businesses flourish so too does the local population who will be encouraged to stay now yesterday at the finance committee we also took evidence from local government just as we had done in glasgow and d respectively a few weeks ago and the very strong message which is emanating from local government is the need to let local people decide on their own future that ring fencing should be used less so that there is more flexibility and more autonomy for local authorities to spend money in line with their own priorities and what they know works best douglas lumsden set out in his introduction why local government funding is absolutely critical to the area of policy making because if we can strain that funding then local government and its autonomy becomes a very serious issue now finally deputy obsessing officer fiona hislop seemed very surprised at willie rennie's in intervention on this uh issue and he's right there are so many important things that we really need to be spending time in this chamber debating on whether i think it was a railway mentioned bifab and ferries and i absolutely agree with them but this is important too i won't i think i'm just about to finish yes you do need to be winding up all right sorry ms hislop um i i we do need to be debating this but i think it would benefit greatly from some of the greater detail that we that the scottish government has promised that we will have we're content to support the motion but it's contingent on making sure that there is an infrastructure around it to make it work well and so that it can complement so many of the other policies whether that comes from westminster or hollywood or local government i don't think the public cares about that they just want it to work miss smith i'm now calling the minister to respond to the debate i'd be grateful if you could take us up to just before decision time thank you very much presiding officer now i want to begin by thanking colleagues across the chamber for their contributions um we have come some way and our journey in community wealth building we've got a long way to go we've got an opportunity to really accelerate and intensify that process so this debate the first debate on community wealth building we've had in the scottish parliament also offered an opportunity for a collective brainstorming session for people to bring forward their ideas about what they would potentially like to see in legislation and about what they think that community will building can do for their constituencies and regions but beyond that what it can do for scotland as a whole yeah certainly it's katie clark he'll be aware that in our amendment we're calling on the scottish government to look at all public procurement policies to ensure that community wealth building is embedded at every level is there work going on by the scottish government itself to look at its own contracts and its own procurement policies to ensure that this agenda is being fully recognized and embedded minister yes i'd be happy to confirm that i will be supporting the labour amendment at decision time i think it was katie clark touched upon the fundamental point in this debate she said that this debate is fundamentally about how we organize our economy and there were many contributions which turned you give me one moment please there were many contributions which touched on a wide array of different areas around community empowerment asset transfers land reform all related and deeply connected to the community wealth building agenda but fundamentally this is um something that's quite radical and it is fiona hislop characterized it revolutionary about how we organize our economy moving from a failed model of having to redistribute to pre-distribute now that's not going to be easy but that is a prize that is worth pursuing i'll give way to the member great mr arthur for giving me when he talks about the organization of the economy isn't a properly running rail service vital to the proper running of the economy to create employment wealth and growth and can he tell the people of dunbar how that they will build their economy when they have no scot rail services minister i recognise that this is a hugely significant issue and it has been the subject of much debate and questions in parliament i have approximately eight minutes left to go and talk about the community wealth building agenda and that's what i want to focus my remarks on not that i don't recognize the importance of my members points but i want to use the opportunity i have afforded to me in this debate to address points that members have raised on community wealth welding throughout the debate now the point that daniel johnson made around the need for clarity and further information is one i take seriously i recognise having been immersed in this agenda that it can be easy to perhaps assume a level of familiarity and knowledge with the concept um that is currently uh was work to be under undertaking to achieve that but i think what's also important is that a lot of what constitutes community wealth building is already taking place i did speak it use a term around a refinement of approach but that was in recognition of a lot of the work that is already underway and i think it's important that in having engagement and dialogue we help a lot of businesses public bodies and for sector organizations to recognize to self-identify so to speak that they are actually already participating within the community wealth building agenda and there is work that we are doing government in partnership with others to help to articulate more clearly in practical terms what community wealth building means so again i take that point very seriously that the member has raised um with regards to um mr rennie's contribution um naughty doesn't raise a lot of important issues but i was i was genuinely very disappointed when he uh suggested that we should be discussing real issues with the implication that this is not a real issue i actually came across some quite inspiring words our community focused will decentralize power build wealth help communities to be involved and decisions at an early stage and respect the choices they make for their neighborhoods we support the people-centred wealth building agenda that's from page three to the liberal democrats manifesto at the local government elections a few weeks ago i'm sorry i've i've listened to enough of mr vinnie this afternoon so he had his opportunity and he chose to pursue an agenda that was not really related to the substance of emotion um i thought the contribution from fiona hislop was excellent and it provided exactly the kind of constructive challenge that government requires on this agenda i think that key point about not legislating for the sake of legislating but to make sure what we put forward is nimble and adds genuine value and that is why we are taking such a collaborative approach to developing this legislation to have the opportunity to have a debate this afternoon the bill steering group which involves a wide range of partners direct engagement with local authorities and with kosla and eventually through a public consultation as well all before we introduce a bill into parliament so we have an opportunity to identify exactly what the key priorities and issues are that require a legislative remedy i think it was also a really important point that fiona hislop touched on and that is the need around equity around risk the risk that we have prepared a threshold for risk or tolerance for risk with private enterprise but less so with community enterprise this is something i have been reflecting upon we perhaps have a culture in scotland and where we are can be very quick to jump these that jump down each other's throat to go and point out what is perceived as failure but failure or mistakes is also a learning process and for many community organizations have taken on ownership of assets there has been a learning process they have had perhaps false starts difficulties in barriers but through that process they have accumulated knowledge expertise and wisdom which not only have allowed them to succeed but ultimately to pass that information and share it with their peer groups in their communities and that is something that we have to bear in mind we have to be tolerant that for an entrepreneurial culture a community entrepreneurial culture that we have to make sure we're giving people the space to have that vision yes perhaps to make mistakes ultimately support to continue to take things forward i'll give way to the member douglas i thank the minister for giving away if if if you're part of a government that really wants to learn from mistakes why do we have a proper inquiry over the ferry fiasco minister um the member raises important points but again i'm going to focus on the substance of the motion that we are debating here today i think aleister allen spoke very powerfully about the role of land ownership and that is certainly we have forthcoming legislative minister if you could address your remarks through your microphone we do have legislation forthcoming in this session a new land reform bill um so it will be issues that will obviously be relevant to that but clearly with land and property one of the five pillars of the community wealth building model that is something that we have to consider how we can further support and again will be that opportunity for the consultation and engagement for ideas to come forward because we consider legislation maggie chapman spoke very powerfully around our broken economic model as did richard leonard about wealth inequality about the need for community resilience and that the community wealth building model can deliver community resilience and a number of members touched upon the experience of the pandemic when we saw a level of perhaps solidarity and communitarianism that had perhaps been absent for some time and i think as we emerged from the pandemic and picking up in the point that paulie mcneill made we have to not lose track of that vision that we had at the start of the pandemic where we committed ourselves to learning from this experience and addressing the fundamental inequalities in society community wealth building is not going to be a silver builder provide all the answers in itself which can play a significant part and fundamentally by driving change at the local and regional level that can have an aggregate effect nationally and transforming the economy of scotland overall there was a sort of tangent issues raised around planning but it's an important important matter because the point that liz smith made about the need for this to be done in partnership with communities not to communities but with communities is important in the ordinary operation of the planning system the reality is that the vast number the vast majority of planning applications are considered at the local level and those where there is an appeal are considered by independent reporters now if there are ideas for reform that members want to bring forward i am happy to listen to them but where i think the ep issue is is to have a more more community engagement earlier on within the planning process in the development of local development plans for using the measures that are in place through local place plans which regulations were laid for earlier this year so that is a part of the community wealth building agenda as well audrey nichols touched very powerfully as have at the dollars on the history of their just transition and as the constituency msp for renfrewshire south which includes lynwood i know very much as my constituents do the legacy of a unjust transition so community wealth building principles are very important because ultimately for a successful just transition we have to take people with us and recognizing the points where if there is no ownership centered locally or rooted in the community then it can be very easy for that money to disappear with other incentives with more community control of assets with more community control of the economy that becomes rooted the wealth is circulated locally and it is more resilient so that is in terms of the length of what we're seeking to do around a just transition very briefly very very briefly mr little very grateful minister to take an intervention really recognise that the increasing ring fencing in council buncher is strangling council's ability to make decisions locally minister and if you could wind up now please the vast majority of money that local authorities have is under their control but on this specific issue of ring fence and that is something it's been considered as part of the resource spending review there is much that i would like to say in addition to what i have already but i just want to conclude by thanking members across the chamber for what has been a very stimulating and informative debate the first of many we're going to have on community wealth building and they're clearly members in this place they have a real passion for the model and for the ideals and principles which inform them the model so i want to just close by saying my door is open and i'm very keen to meet and discuss how we can take forward this shared agenda uh together because i believe it has the point of the potential to be absolutely transformative for the people we are elected to serve thank you thank you very much minister that concludes the debate on community welfare uh building delivering transformation in scotland's local and regional economies it's now time to move on to the next and point of order jeremy bonfire uh thank you demonstr mcpherson in his answer he stated that the facts that i had quoted were actually wrong um deputy president of the information came from social security scotland report of february of this year and how do i collect the record to show that these facts are actually correct and can you encourage ministers and cabinet secretaries to read reports rather than make up facts thank you mr balfour and i think as you and probably everyone now knows that is not a point of order there are ways for members who need to i wish to correct the record to do so but i am very grateful it's now time to move on to the next item of business it's consideration of business motion 4614 in the name of george adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business program i call on george adam to move the motion thank you president officer and moved thank you can we have a better quiet there please um the question is that nobody is asked to speak against the motion the question therefore is that motion 4614 be agreed are we all agreed thank you the motion is therefore agreed the next item of business is consideration of two parliamentary bureau motions and i ask again george adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move motions at four six one five on a pro approval of ssis and four uh six one six on parliamentary recess dates mr what you said president officer all moved thank you very much the question on these motions will be put at decision time to which we now seamlessly move there are four questions to be put as a result of today's business the first question is that amendment 4580.3 in the name of douglas lumsden which seeks to amend motion 4580 in the name of tom arthur on community wealth building delivering transformation in scotland's local and regional economies be agreed are we all agreed parliament is not agreed and we will need to move to a vote and i suspend the meeting to allow members to get onto the voting system you

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