Secretary of State's Blog

Part of my day involved being in Glasgow as a Reading Champion for World Book Day – I went to the Holy Cross Primary School in Govanhill where I read to a primary class from a Horrid Henry book which seemed to go down pretty well. I had a good time and the kids had a real and infective enthusiasm for the written word and the sheer fun of hearing stories read aloud. I do a lot of official reading as a minister (not all of the material is quite as spellbinding as an Inspector Rebus mystery or a Harry Potter book it has to be said) but wish I could read more widely and regularly.

World Book Day has a serious point too – literacy skills are hugely important in setting up children for success in the future. While education is devolved in Scotland, politicians of all colours agree encouraging literacy and good skills at an early age is a hugely important issue.

Something surprising has happened in the last two days – the heads of two of Britain’s biggest banks have given up their multi-million pound bonuses. Stephen Hester and Eric Daniels are in charge of RBS and Lloyds respectively and it was always going to be difficult to justify taking multi-million pound bonus payments – even more so given that the banks are heavily owned by the British taxpayer.

The two top men at Barclays have also decided not to take their bonuses, even though they did not receive direct help from the taxpayer – I hope this signals a change for good in the culture of the banking sector culture.

This situation would have been unthinkable a few years ago and I welcome the news – but I am still convinced that more can be done. The whole sector needs to take a look at how it governs itself, especially since billions of taxpayers money has been poured into the system to keep the banks afloat. They owe it to the British public to change their behaviour and, as I said earlier in the week, they also have a moral responsibility to the unemployed. Only time will tell if this is a serious review of the bonus culture or a short-term response. I hope it is the former.

Yesterday I visited Inverness to address the CBI where I talked about the opportunities for Scotland in the global economy, what the British Government is doing to tackle the global recession and to stop Britain going into depression, and why Scotland is better as part of the United Kingdom.

On the way I stopped off at Cairngorm Mountain to talk to Chief Executive Ian Whitaker and heard that this was shaping up to be the best season for the last ten years. The attendance on the slopes have seen a 50 per cent rise compared to this time last year and it looks like being a bumper year for winter sports – big news with an estimation that every £1 spent on the slopes equating to £3 to the local economy.

If is a fantastic place to visit, with spectacular views and facilities – although my performance is unlikely to catch the eye of the Winter Olympic selection team.

I visited The Bambury Centre today. This centre is a fantastic community run centre, they help people who where involved with gangs and help them into work – many for the first time. These former gang members are here training, learning, working and earning a wage and not claiming benefit and they have said how it has helped turn their lives around.

The labour market figures also came out today and it’s tough news for Scottish families. Even though economists are saying that Scotland has come out of recession, for many the recession has just started with people having just lost their jobs. Whilst it was great to meet people who have just got jobs there are still more people losing jobs and the British Government is determined to do all it can to stop these people from becoming long-term unemployed and to help them back into work to earn a living, provide for their families and to have a sense of pride rather than being on benefits and losing self belief.

The British Government today announced 1,300 more jobs through the Future Jobs Fund – 250 in Glasgow, over 400 in East Ayrshire and 34 in Angus (and many more with other organisations). When you put it into perspective that is 1,300 families and live being changed for the better.

On a day of difficult news for jobs it was great to announce that we have created 1,300 new jobs through the Future Jobs Fund.

It was great to read that the First Group is the preferred bidder for a multi-million pound contract to provide buses and coaches for the London 2012 Olympic Games. I have always said that Scottish businesses will benefit from the London Olympics and this is a massive contract for one of our best companies. They have the responsibility to ferry spectators during the London 2012 games.

There are currently eighteen Scottish companies or organisations who have won contracts from the Olympic Delivery Authority, and many more have won work supplying the contractor’s through the supply chain.

This is a great example of how Scotland’s businesses are benefitting from being part of the United Kingdom.

The opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics will take place tonight with 16 Scots walking behind the Union Flag. They have trained hard since the last Winter Olympics in 2006 and I am hopeful that team GB will perform to its full potential.

Scotland’s curling team have always played to a very high level and I am confident they will sweep aside the opposition in Vancouver, and with the Kerr brother & sister figure skaters tipped for success in their competition there is a very real chance that the Scots athletes can help team GB set a new record for medals at the Winter Olympics.

After all the training, all the coaching and preparation, I am sure they will do our country proud.

Today sees the twentieth anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison – I wrote a short article for the Herald today. The full text of the article is below for anyone who would like to read it.

The film Invictus, which deals with the tumultuous social and political background to South Africa’s rugby team winning the 1995 World Cup on home ground, evoked strong memories for me, as does today’s date.

February 11 is the twentieth anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela.

I first arrived in South Africa when I was 12. My family emigrated there from Glasgow. I lived under apartheid for all of my teenage years before coming home to avoid conscription into the South African army and for family reasons.
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A couple of interesting economic stories today. The new Retail Sales Index for Scotland showed some buoyancy in terms of consumer confidence as sales increased in the last quarter of 2009. It shows the value of sales up 3.6 per cent last year and up 0.9 per cent on the last quarter. It is good to see some signs that consumers feel bolstered and that the retail economy – much affected by the financial downturn – is on the road to recovery.

The Bank of England governor Mervyn King said he expected a gradual recovery in the UK economy over the coming year with a few caveats about inflation and that quantitative easing had helped the economy get back on track.

That the draw for the European Championships comes before the World Cup begins gives those of us who follow Scotland (or Wales, or Northern Ireland) something to anticipate over the summer months.

It was great to hear Craig Levein’s reaction to the draw on the BBC earlier – relishing a tough couple of games with Spain as an exciting opportunity, rather than bemoaning our luck, as the groups were announced in Warsaw. Not having qualified for recent tournaments and the FIFA seeding system always meant we were likely to get a tough looking group. But performances against France and Italy in the last few years suggest we wont be daunted by the top seed – even when Spain have such an enviable record in recent qualifying tournaments – and might just surprise them.

Drawing the Czech Republic means the friendly at Hampden early next month will now have some added interest for players and fans alike. We always seem to get drawn against Lithuania, but at least that means we know what we are up against. Having a talent pool of 20,000 males to draw from suggests that Lichtenstein are not going to be too testing opposition, but it has been the smaller sides we seem to have struggled against – and the fact that they were not in the bottom group of seeds suggests there is a bit more to Lichtenstein than you might first think.

So – all in all – a tough draw, but an exciting one too. And while others may look to the World Cup, we can anticipate Craig Levein’s new-look backroom team pitting themselves in a qualifying competition we might just surprise a few people in….

I welcome the news the wave energy developer Aquamarine Power has received some major funding from the UK Government today to help support the manufacture of its second generation wave energy device Oyster 2.

I recently saw this kind of technology in action when I visited EMEC in Orkney.

The grant came from the Marine Renewables Proving Fund which is a £22m initiative from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is designed to help boost the development of marine energy technology and help bolster our journey into cleaner greener energy and the jobs which come with it. Scotland’s seas are very well suited to harvesting tidal energy and the UK Government is supporting this new revolution.