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Mr. Malcolm Chisholm (Edinburgh, North and Leith): When we analyse the hon. Gentleman's speech afterwards, we will regard it as one of the better speeches by an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman in favour of a Scottish Parliament. He seems to be saying that the House has signally failed over all the years of Scottish Enterprise to exercise any scrutiny. Clearly, those of us who aspire to go to the Scottish Parliament will spend much more time examining the affairs of Scottish Enterprise than we ever have here. He is wrong to assume that we shall want more money on every question. The priority will be to ensure that we get maximum value from the large resources that we will have.

Mr. Letwin: I am extraordinarily grateful to the hon. Gentleman, with his distinguished record in public service, for saying that my speech is good. I doubt that it is, but I assure him that it is not a speech in favour of, or indeed against, devolution. I am reflecting on the consequences of a fait accompli. I do not doubt that conscientious Members such as he, if they become Members of the Scottish Parliament, will seek to ensure that the things for which they are responsible are efficiently run. The question is: with what level of energy will they devote themselves to that task and to the much more politically attractive task of arguing that Westminster has not given them enough money? If the hon. Gentleman claims that the former task will be given a larger amount of energy and the latter will be given a lesser amount of energy, I would be happy outside the Chamber to take a large bet on the matter. This Parliament will continue to vote large sums via the Scottish Parliament to bodies which there is a serious threat that the House of Commons will no longer scrutinise.

We come to the second point that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Chisholm) made. Has the House of Commons already shown itself incapable of examining such matters? The answer, I regret to say, is that as a result of the lamentable record of the previous Opposition, in the case of Scottish Enterprise the House was not good at examining such matters. But at least it had the motive for so doing. It could not blame anyone else if the money was badly spent and it could not ask anyone else for more money other than the taxpayers, who are also its voters.

Despite the badinage, there is a serious issue for the House. How far will we retain the ability to raise matters of concern that may be allayed by further investigation? If we do not retain that ability, we will betray the trust that our electors have placed in us by sending us to this place.

Mr. John McAllion (Dundee, East): The hon. Gentleman seems to argue that the Scots cannot be trusted to look seriously at the way in which money is spent in Scotland and that only this Parliament can be trusted to do that. Will he reflect on the fact that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the first Scot

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to hold the position in more than 20 years, and that he, after Labour came to office, found an extra £40 billion that had been inefficiently spent by the House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not want to pin the responsibility wholly on the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion), but I suspect that the argument is spinning to the further reaches of what is permissible. I wish to hear more arguments specifically about Scottish Enterprise.

Mr. Letwin: I will certainly stick by that admonition, although it is gravely tempting to respond to the hon. Gentleman.

In the case of Scottish Enterprise and many other such cases, the House will have to develop mechanisms for examination. Notwithstanding the fact that this is the last programmed Bill on Scottish matters and the last Bill that we shall see on Scottish Enterprise, as and when further increases are made in the amounts of money that Scottish Enterprise can spend out of taxpayers' funds, and as similar Bills come forward in the Scottish Parliament in relation to bodies governed by it, those amounts must be scrutinised. Such mechanisms may not often be invoked, but it must be possible to invoke them so that any serious concerns can be dealt with. The Minister has not said anything about that, which is odd. I think that he genuinely has not spent any time worrying about whether there are any concerns about the accounts of Scottish Enterprise. That is sad, but it is remediable.

The purpose of this Second Reading debate and my speech has been to ensure that the Minister goes away with his very able officials and works at precisely the question that I have raised. I hope that by the time we have gone through the Committee stage and come back to the Floor of the House for Third Reading, the Minister will be able to make an eloquent exposition on exactly how this Parliament will deal with the problem. If he does not, he will convict himself and his Department of failing to wrestle with one of the serious issues that arises from devolution, with which we have come face to face today as a result of the need to examine Scottish Enterprise.

In summary, there is a specific concern about Scottish Enterprise. That concern does not lead the Opposition to object to the raising of the limit, but it makes us wish that the Scottish Office would look closely at the matter. It is a concern that perhaps ought to be reflected in an investigation by some Committee of the House. More macroscopically, it is a concern that brings us face to face with the need for the House to develop adequate mechanisms to ensure that when public money is voted by this Parliament to the Scottish Parliament and ends up in the hands of bodies administered by the Scottish Parliament, it is nevertheless subject to the proper scrutiny of the House.

Mr. Macdonald: I shall try to respond to the points that the hon. Gentleman has made, but may I clarify whether he is attacking the Bill or simply wants to question the devolution context? I take it that he agrees with the Bill.

Mr. Letwin: That is correct. This is a probing speech in a Second Reading debate. I know of no other sufficiently serious way of raising this issue. We have no objection to the Bill and will certainly not ask colleagues to vote against it in the Lobby today.

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4.55 pm

Mr. David Marshall (Glasgow, Shettleston): The fact that the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) has not been long in this House may explain--I am being charitable--how he conveniently ignores that for 18 of the past 20 years his party was in power and operated the Scottish Office. His party set up Scottish Enterprise in 1991 when it replaced the Scottish Development Agency.

The hon. Gentleman criticises Scottish Enterprise's management. While I would be the last to say that everything in the Scottish Enterprise garden is rosy and there is no room for improvement, it is only fair to point out what we get from that management. The summary of the results of Scottish Enterprise for 1997-98 includes

"the creation of 30,000 net additional job opportunities, a net additional £600 million added to Scotland's output; 17,700 projects undertaken with Scotland's businesses, leading to over £850 million of additional sales, of which over a third are exports; 230 companies entering new export markets; 180,000 employees benefiting from training and development; 640 companies committed to or recognised by the national standard of Investors in People; 77,000 enquiries handled by local networks of Business Shops and Enterprise Trusts; 5,300 new businesses started up generating 33 million additional sales and employment opportunities for 13,500 people; 22,000 visitors to the Personal Enterprise Shows; 87 inward investment projects attracted including high-tech research and development, such as Cadence and Clintrials, creating and safeguarding 18,000 jobs and generating £1 billion private investment; over 68 per cent. of young people received skills training as employed status and over 16,000 VQs were awarded; 4 out of 10 adults in Training for Work went on to a positive outcome; 350,000 sq m of property and 540 hectares of land developed in support for industrial and commercial businesses; 55 per cent. of contaminated and derelict land cleared and taken up for development; for every £1 spent by the Network on the physical business infrastructure in Scotland, £4.85 was contributed by others."

That impressive record may explain why Scottish Enterprise and its network are the envy of many other parts of the United Kingdom and the world.

Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury): I do not wish to appear churlish, but the point that my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) was making was that, although all that may be true, it is at an enormous cost. In spite of what the hon. Gentleman has said, in the Scottish Enterprise annual report the chief executive said:

"Scotland, however, still lags behind the rest of the UK in the number of businesses emerging."

Mr. Marshall: Some people are never satisfied. If people do not speculate, they cannot accumulate. The investment return as part of the Scottish economy far outweighs Opposition Members' carping criticisms.

The Bill must command the unanimous support of the House. I was pleased to note that the Opposition will not oppose it--they know the political consequences of such a step, although there is little hope for them in the forthcoming elections in Scotland. I warmly welcome the Bill. Any Bill that updates the overall limit that Scottish Enterprise can spend from £3 billion to £4 billion is very good news. I congratulate the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Scottish Office team.

Some may say that it is one thing to uprate the spending limit, but yet another to spend any of the additional moneys. I do not believe that the Government would have introduced the Bill if they did not intend Scottish Enterprise to use this additional spending power to deliver

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some of the Government's key economic objectives. This proposal will be a massive boost to the new Scottish Parliament, especially as it will take over the running of Scottish Enterprise. The money will be even more essential to the future well-being of Scotland in an ever-increasingly competitive world.

I shall touch briefly on two of Scottish Enterprise's activities: first, its international role, and secondly, its involvement in the city of Glasgow. The Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, which I have the privilege to Chair, is currently conducting an inquiry into inward-outward investment in Scotland and tourism in Scotland. Those matters are connected, and both are vital to Scotland's economy.

Last week, the Select Committee visited the United States of America as part of that inquiry. The visit was well worth while, because it enabled us to see how Locate in Scotland, Scotland Trade International, Scotland Virginia Partnership and the British Tourist Authority in the USA promote Scotland's interests in that country. Other members of the Committee who are present may want to give their opinion of the success of the visit.

Suffice it to say that the USA is the largest market in the world, and it is also the fiercest and most competitive. City competes against city, county against county and state against state. Their problems are not vastly different from ours, and neither are their solutions. We are competing with them: we are all competing with each other in north America and in the wider world. It is to the great credit of Scottish Enterprise and the component parts of its network that Scotland has done so well out of north America. We are the envy of many other places, few of which have done better than we have, although there is the odd exception.

The Committee also saw the operation of the consul general's office in New York and the British embassy in Washington, and met Scottish business people doing business in the USA. It also met with American companies, such as IBM, that are major investors in Scotland and in the United Kingdom as a whole.

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