The Scottish Government

Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism

Friday, November 30, 2007

This Government's purpose and ambition of increased sustainable growth is the 'North Star' to which we should all be steering a constant course.

Our objective of matching the UK growth rate by 2011 is important but it is only a step on the way to building a stronger economy able to match and exceed our competitors.

We need to face the fact that Scotland's growth record over the last three decades has been mediocre. But the current situation is a great opportunity to catch up and converge with the arc of prosperity that surrounds our country - Ireland to the west, Iceland to the north, Norway to the east.

These countries are amongst the wealthiest in the world and they illustrate Scotland's potential for sustained economic growth.

As a nationalist, I don't think we can fully release Scotland's boundless potential without independence. However that doesn't mean we cannot begin to move in the right direction with the effective exploitation of microeconomic levers currently at our disposal and an agenda to de-clutter and increase confidence in Scotland.

I believe strongly that the best way to make progress - and the only way to achieve our fullest potential - is independence.

We operate in a global economy where competition is fierce and getting fiercer, where the pace of change is accelerating all the time. But that situation is tailor-made for a small flexible asset-rich nation of able talented people - with an international reputation for integrity and reliability - and the full power to compete.

I have absolutely no doubt that we have the capacity within us as a Government and as a nation to achieve a real, positive and beneficial change in our economic prospects in the years ahead.

This blog is now closed to further comments.

Comments

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• 1. John Newman - AT HOME

  Thursday, September 13, 2007 15:51

  Whatis the parliament doing regarding
  young people learning a trade,My grandson wants to be a Plumber but the local Plumber says it costs too much for him to take on an apprentice

• 2. Anna Kucharska - St Andrews

  Thursday, September 13, 2007 16:52

  I couldn't agree more - go for it!

• 3. Bill McFury - Wick

  Thursday, September 13, 2007 22:59

  "As a nationalist, I don't think we can fully release Scotland's boundless potential without independence."
  
  Why am I paying my taxes so you can make ideological, party political statements on this website?
  
  I think it stinks. Have no senior Scottish civil servants voiced concerns about this?
  
  If this is really a conversation, please address my point. What kind of conversation is it where you don't reply to the points made. What evidence is there that you are listening at all - by your own admission you have already made your mind up!

• 4. Jan Morrison - Aberdeen

  Friday, September 14, 2007 11:01

  Come on Jim, you are as entitled to post here as anyone else. Please answer Bill McFury's point - why are we paying your wages for you to tell us what we should think?
  
  Are you telling us that no arguments made in this "conversation" can change your stance?" If not, what's the point?

• 5. Kev - Edinburgh

  Friday, September 14, 2007 12:02

  
  Bill (3) the clue is in the minister's post "We need to face the fact that Scotland's growth record over the last three decades has been mediocre"
  
  And whats the point of your little rant Jan/Bill (4) were has anyone said on this site that you cannot change your stance? well?
  Its not like people are telling you to change your football team, the people of Scotland can vote for who they like and can and do change there vote.
  

• 6. Willie Taylor - Inverurie

  Friday, September 14, 2007 13:15

  3 & 4
  This is a conversation; no matter that you don't like the fact.
  Jim & the other Secretaries who are giving a chat here are inviting you to give your opinions on our future. Your purile rant is a cry of desperation, as you see that most of the comments are talking up the new mood of optimism about Scotland's future. Whether that future is under enhance devolution or as a normal independent state, it will surely be a better place than we've lived in at any time in the last 300 years. We now have a government who are interested in improving our health, wealth & living condition, without having to look over their shoulders, wondering if someone in London is thinking they are acting above their station.
  Jim, stick to your vision of Scotland's future & work to make it come to pass. I'd rather live with the hope in Jim's vision than all the doom & fear spread by the British state and its backers.

• 7. Ed Gray - Aberdeen

  Friday, September 14, 2007 16:47

  There should undoubtedly be an Independence Referendum, regardless of Parliamentary arithmetic, if the people desire it. Those in the London-led ‘unionist rump’ at Holyrood are reminiscent of the self-serving rogues in the original, undemocratic Parliament, who merrily took a bung to vote themselves out of collective existence, and sold us out to London rule in the first place (1707).
  
  Whatever our 21st Century national status, it should be by the will of the people – not by the authority of a handful of self-interested politicians.
  
  As I understand it, this National Conversation is intended to allow open contribution and thorough, illuminating debate on the relevant factors for and against Scotland’s potential to regain fully independent national status. The SNP have facilitated this by laying out their open philosophy, strategies and aspirations for full independence, but are equally bound by the will of the people, should they decide, in the full light of the facts, that Scotland’s resurgence as an independent nation be put on the back burner for the foreseeable future.
  
  Perhaps those who are bizarrely critical of the SNP’s right or motives – as the elected Scottish Government, to encourage wide-ranging discussion, and disseminate vital information through a public forum, and to offer empowering choices which the London-led parties seek to deny them – would prefer the Scottish people to be kept ‘in the dark’ on constitutional issues, so that, in our tethered ignorance, informed by the familiar stream of media propaganda from ‘mother London’, we might vote to re-embrace our status as a region of dwindling influence within Greater England?
  
  Perhaps those who quibble over the supposed ‘costs’ of the debate could actually try to contribute something to its value – as the case made against independence to date seems to be typically characterised by scaremongering, failed unionist dogma, lack of aspiration, and a perverse adherence to the culture of dependency.
  
  Or perhaps the curmudgeonly gripes and doom-laden rants expressed by these people so far speak volumes in themselves!

• 8. Gordon Murray - Livingston

  Friday, September 14, 2007 21:15

  #3. Bill McFury - Wick
  Thursday, September 13, 2007 22:59
  
  Scotland's chief civil servant has already gone on record as saying this conversation is no more pass remarkable than any of the previous Scottish administrations' policy initiatives.
  
  But deary me, asking the prols for their opininions and then printing them for goodness sake, where is this all going to end?
  
  We could finish up by having government of the people, for the people, by the people - of Scotland, then who knows where that'd lead us?
  
  Perhaps if you can come up with a good enough reason to keep the Union you might just convince some of the undecided.
  As it is: 'if they're for it, I'm against it so just shut them up' is not likely to win you many converts.
  
  Just because it's never been tried in this country is no reason to fear it.
  
  So if you have something worthwhile to contribute I'd suggest you get on with it, opportunities like this in the past have only ever come along....well never, actually.
  

• 9. DARE - Glasgow

  Friday, September 14, 2007 21:48

  Jim, many people in Scotland would accept the points you have made and agree with your view about the way forward. However, a national conversation should encourage conversation. The way you present your view dose not seem to create a sense of debate, it's a bit closed end. Many nationalist want the debate opened up so let hear you encourage those who don't agree with you to put their view forward.

• 10. Mandy - Glasgow

  Saturday, September 15, 2007 11:52

  The goal and aim are fixed, no conversation can take place. I'm not sure that voting SNP was a good idea as all they have to offer is a distant independence referendum and every excuse as to why they can't deliver.

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