STEWART PATERSON

SCOTLAND can tackle inequality and increase productivity at the same time Nicola Sturgeon has told business leaders.

The First Minister said that the new economic strategy she launched this week puts social policy at the heart of economic policy.

Ms Sturgeon told an audience of business people at the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Glasgow Talks event in the city that policies like childcare were as much infrastructure projects as building roads and railways.

Creating a fairer society, she said, would benefit businesses and lead to greater productivity and prosperity.

She said: "Scotland is going to become a more productive and prosperous country if we become in the process a fairer and more equal society.

"I've been struck by research on the effects of inequality. An IMF study of 173 countries over 50 years showed the more equal a country is the more likely it is to have sustainable and durable growth.

"The UK is currently the 6th most unequal county in the OECD. That inequality reduced growth by 9% since 1990. This illustrates the gains of reducing inequality.

"Productivity, growth and equality are not competing objectives but two sides of the same coin. They are interdependent."

She said one of the main principles underpinning her first economic strategy plan since becoming First Minster was inclusive growth.

She said it was essential that the prosperity created was shared throughout the country.

Ms Sturgeon said: "It is about ensuring as we grow, the proceeds are shared as widely as possible.

"That has been at the heart of what I have sought to talk about since becoming First Minister. Social policy is an important economic policy."

She repeated her desire to double the amount of free childcare available.

Ms Sturgeon added: "Childcare is essential infrastructure in our country.

"It is as important the train or bus that takes you to work in the morning."

Ms Sturgeon took questions from the chamber members on a range of topics including improving access to education, the role of social enterprises in skills training and job creation and help for businesses to export goods.

She said reducing inequality in educational attainment was a core aim of her government.

She said: "University is not the be all and end all but it is not right if you born in a less well off area you have got less of a chance of going to university.

"A child born today should have equal chance of going to uni. That's the objective."