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Last week, Michelle Thomson and I went to Burntisland, which has a thriving little High Street. Burntisland is next to Kirkcaldy, and we were told that businesses in Kirkcaldy want to move to Burntisland because it provides the advantages of smaller units and the small business bonus scheme. The committee has taken evidence from Love Oor Lang Toun, and we heard that Kirkcaldy has a lot of empty units, some of which are big, and that it is a challenging environment.

Part of the issue is the rates scheme. It is great for a place such as Burntisland, which has a small and thriving High Street with diverse businesses, but it is not supporting big town centres, where there are closures, mismatched units and high streets that are finding it difficult to recover, notwithstanding all the community effort that goes into that. You have talked about engaging on non-domestic rates. Is there a timescale attached to that, or does that need to be resolved?

I cannot remember the name for it, but we have heard of situations in which the council will go in and carry out repairs to unsafe buildings. It is entitled to carry out such repairs, but it then finds it difficult to reclaim the funds, because the landlord is an absentee or because they are just not co-operating. We have heard that that could act as a disincentive to the council to take on a repair, even though the repair might be necessary. Has the Government considered that? I believe that the legislation to enable councils to do that was recently passed, but we have heard that it might not be working as effectively as it could be and that councils might be reluctant to get involved with dilapidated buildings, because of concerns that they might end up owning them or might not be able to recover their costs.

The committee will now take evidence on the draft Registers of Scotland (Information and Access, etc) Miscellaneous Amendment Order 2022.

I welcome back to the meeting Tom Arthur, Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, who is joined by Megan Stefaniak, who is a lawyer with the Scottish Government, and Harry Murray, who is policy lead at Registers of Scotland. I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Good morning and welcome to the 16th meeting in 2022 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. I have received apologies from Gordon MacDonald MSP. John Mason MSP is attending as his committee substitute.

Our first item of business is the final evidence session on our town centres and retail inquiry. I welcome Tom Arthur MSP, the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth. From the Scottish Government, I welcome Catherine Brown, who is head of the retail and cities unit, and David Cowan, who is the head of the regeneration unit.

As always, I ask members and witnesses to keep their questions and answers as concise as possible. I also ask the minister to be as specific as possible in his answers and to avoid generalisations. The committee is at the stage of considering its recommendations and we want to them to be as relevant and constructive as possible.

I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

You mentioned a number of reports in your opening statement. The committee is aware that there are a number of strategies around town centres, at the moment. In the first session in the inquiry, we heard from Professor Leigh Sparks. Although I think that there is broad support for the direction of travel from the Government, there is some concern about the way in which the documents work together, whether they complement each other, and how effectively ministers and Government are working so that the strategies are delivered collectively. Will you say a bit about that? You mentioned the retail strategy, the response to town centres and the national planning framework. There is quite a lot going on, but is it working cohesively?

I am going to ask a question about the retail workforce before I hand over to Fiona Hyslop. We heard from Close the Gap during a previous evidence session, and some questions were asked about the retail strategy and recognition of change in the workforce. The example that Close the Gap used was that there has been a reduction in front-of-shop work, which tends to be female dominated, and an increase in logistics—whether in warehouses or in other types of work—which tends to be male dominated and in which the jobs are better paid. As we see a shift in the workforce and retail is delivered in that new way, how can we ensure that the existing workforce, and women in particular, have opportunities? There is some concern that the retail strategy does not reflect those challenges.

I am sorry to interrupt, but the question was more about skills and the opportunities for skills training.

Before I bring in John Mason, I have a question on e-commerce. We had an evidence session on e-commerce and omnichannels, and Gillian Crawford was one of our witnesses. I think that she suggested that Scotland is underperforming when it comes to e-commerce businesses and that we do not collect statistics on it or invest in our workforce. She said:

“we know that if we do not have a thriving e-commerce sector in Scotland, that money will flow into the hubs in Manchester and London, where fantastic e-commerce businesses are being built around airports and transport links.”—[Official Report, Economy and Fair Work Committee, 4 May 2022; c9.]

I think that she was expressing the view that we are missing the boat on e-commerce and that we do not put enough investment into building e-commerce businesses. During that evidence session, we also heard about the digital boost programme. People welcomed that programme but felt that more resources could have been put into it. Michelle Thomson and I met representatives from a business last week that had developed a website, but they were not aware of the support that is offered through Business Gateway and the digital boost programme.

Therefore, there are two issues. One is about the digital boost programme and what kind of investment is going into that. There was a recognition that it was a good programme. Could it get some more investment? The second issue is about how we grow our e-commerce sector and recognise it as an important sector. We have heard suggestions that it is not valued enough in Scotland.

Colin Smyth is next.

The committee might return to that in the report. The issue was raised in evidence that we heard on one of our visits.