Marie backs expansion of John Smith Centre's Political Conversations initiative in schools
Marie backs expansion of John Smith Centre's Political Conversations initiative in schools
Project can be “beacon of light” amid polarisation
Marie today confirmed that she has agreed to support the University of Glasgow’s John Smith Centre in developing the next phase of their “Political Conversations” initiative.
The project involves experienced figures from the world of politics taking part in debate with each other in secondary school settings in front of an audience of senior level pupils, whilst also engaging directly with the students themselves.
It is unique in its ambition of seeking to involve and enthuse young people with the political process by means of direct engagement with senior politicians.
As part of the expansion of the initiative in 2026, including visits to the Scottish Parliament and a major conference hosted at Glasgow University, Marie has agreed to provide the John Smith Centre with seed funding in order to expand the programme’s scope and reach.
Commenting, Dr Marie Macklin CBE, Co-Founder of the initiative, said:
“I am delighted to be supporting the John Smith Centre in rolling out the next phase of the Political Conversations initiative in schools.
“The project got off to a fantastic start last year, with the launch of the pilot event at my former school, Kilmarnock Academy. It saw two pupils, Carolina Sharp and Devlyn Ritchie, recognised by the John Smith Centre for their thoughtful reflections on the event, which were then published by the Centre.
“Due to the huge success of the pilot – which was in no small part thanks to the participation of former Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw MSP and former Scottish Government minister Alex Neil – it was clear there was a real appetite among young people for the kind of intelligent, engaged political discussion which this initiative brings to schools.
“It was also evident that there was scope for a wider rollout of the project, and that is why I have agreed to support the JSC as they look to expand it.
“At the start of another election year in Scotland, it is more important than ever that younger people are enthused and engaged by the political process.
“The future of our democracy depends to a significant extent on ensuring that enough young people with the talent and aptitude to lead are encouraged to put themselves forward to take part in the political process.
“In a political climate which is too often beset by tribalism, polarisation and toxicity, Political Conversations can be a beacon that lights the way forward.”
Kilmarnock Academy pupil Carolina Sharp said:
“After the John Smith Centre event I felt Alex Neil and Jackson Carlaw opened a new perspective to politics and the dynamics within it. They created a more humanised and rational impression of politics to me and others, proving that within and between different parties there is harmony, and the priority is about working together and reaching a middle ground.
“The John Smith Centre event they showed us that with commitment, integrity and respect the most successful path to being a politician is learning how to work together and compromise.”
Fellow pupil Devlyn Ritchie said:
“After the event I came out with a more in-depth understanding of politics and politicians, and how important they are to society. After hearing what both Alex Neil and Jackson Carlaw had to say, me and some of my peers came to the realisation that in fact, most politicians do want to make a difference and do try to make decisions that influence the public.
“This meeting was a real eye opener for me on how politicians can truly have an impact on day-to-day life and that they are overly disrespected by the public. After the meeting I spoke to a peer who had little background information on politics or the work of politicians but after the meeting, he told me he was extremely surprised and felt that he had left the room feeling like he had discovered a whole new side of things that was hiding in plain sight.”
Eddie Barnes, Director of the John Smith Centre, said:
“We are delighted to be expanding the Political Conversations initiative in 2026, which promises to be another pivotal year in Scottish politics, and our thanks go to Marie for her generous support and her enthusiasm for the project.
“The pilot event in Kilmarnock and the subsequent schools events have underlined how much enthusiasm there is among younger people for getting involved in political debate, given the capacity it has to impact all our daily lives.
“With Marie’s backing, we hope to make 2026 a year in which Political Conversations firmly establishes itself as a fixture in Scotland’s political and educational calendar.”
You’ll be able to follow progress with Political Conversations via Marie’s Special Project page.
Marie's Comments on the Scottish Government's Budget proposals
“Scotland’s business community was hoping for a big bang Budget to shape things up and to help shift the dial on the country’s overall economic performance, but instead we have been left with a continuation of policies which do not address many of the fundamental issues we face.
Continued investment in key public services is essential, and is welcome, as always. However, the small and medium sized businesses which are the lifeblood of Scotland’s economy are suffering.
Investment and turnover among many of those enterprises is down, and many also fear that that downward trend will continue.
At a time when businesses are feeling the impact of taxes and regulations from both the UK and Scottish Governments, it is vital that we do more to support economic growth.
My proposal for tax breaks for young entrepreneurs is just one of the ways in which government could look to take bold, imaginative steps to boost business and in turn secure more revenue for public services.”
Below, you can watch Marie on STV’s Scotland Tonight, (Tuesday 13th January 2026) sharing her thoughts on the Scottish Government’s Budget proposals.
Scottish Budget: How a zero income tax rate for Scotland's young entrepreneurs would create thousands of jobs
Marie’s Column in The Scotsman | Monday 12th January 2026
The build up to government budgets can sometimes be more entertaining than the main event. How often do we read wild speculation about what tricks a Chancellor or Finance Secretary might have up their sleeve, only to be left underwhelmed on the day itself.
Too often, it can feel like a version of 80s and 90s TV staples like Bullseye and Blind Date – “come and see what you would have won”; “have a look at who you could have gone to dinner with”.
If the Scottish Government is to avoid a similar sense of letdown in its forthcoming Budget, it should be truly bold.
That means taking risks but also playing to our many strengths as a nation. In harsh and uncertain economic times such as these, the desire on the part of government to simply batten down the hatches might be understandable, but it is misplaced.
The economy is flatlining and if you speak to just about any of the 380,000 small and medium sized businesses across Scotland, they will tell you that the stakes are now higher than ever. Indeed, many of those SMEs – who together employ around 900,000 people, driving around £93 billion in turnover annually – are now in survival mode.
They are dealing every day with a combination of stealth taxes, cost of living increases and red tape that is curtailing economic growth.
To address that, the Scottish Government should seek to capitalise on the entrepreneurial spirit which exists within the country. It is often claimed that Scotland is by nature less entrepreneurial than other countries, but the statistics suggest otherwise.
With the exact figures vary, the latest data indicates that nearly one in five working-age Scots are entrepreneurs, with over 300,000 involved in early-stage activities and around 210,000 in established businesses, showing increasing activity, particularly among women and younger people.
What these individuals and wealth-creators need is a clear sign that Holyrood understands them and their ambitions, so that they can be helped in their endeavours which will in turn grow the economy and provide more much needed revenue for public services.
The entrepreneurial spirit among younger people is particularly encouraging. Research from the King’s Trust Youth Index shows that more than a third of younger people would like to start their own business.
That entrepreneurial spirit, however, needs to be fostered and encouraged, not dampened. To do so, there is an opportunity to be creative with the Scottish income tax rates that Holyrood has the power to change.
Those powers are limited when compared to the whole raft of personal and corporate taxation still controlled by Westminster, but those partial powers nevertheless offer a way in which we can drive opportunity, retain more of our young people and attract new talent to Scotland.
A scheme offering a zero income tax rate to young entrepreneurs for a time limited period would be one such way of driving that process. It could be restricted to new companies registered in Scotland, and limited to a maximum of 10,000 young entrepreneurs aged up to 30.
They would be requited to invest a minimum of £1,000 in capital and also to employ at least one other person in the first year, during which they would not be liable for tax, thus creating at least 10,000 jobs and seeing a minimum of £10 million invested in the Scottish economy.
Year two would similarly see a zero tax rate applied, but with a requirement of at least £5,000 investment and for at least one more person to be employed, delivering further investment of £50 million and another 10,000 new jobs.
Year three would see a further minimum of 10,000 jobs created, with a five per cent Young Entrepreneurs tax rate applied, before taxation reverted to the standard rates in year four when businesses would be well established.
Such a scheme would not only incentivise growth and job creation, it would also draw a stark contrast between a pioneering and open for business message in Scotland and a UK government approach which seems content to simply manage decline.
The UK Government’s moves to freeze personal tax thresholds will increase the amount of tax that households pay, as more people are hit by so-called fiscal drag and pulled into higher tax bands and some will also start paying tax on their earnings for the first time. The Resolution Foundation has estimated that this would be the second worst UK parliament on record for income growth, ‘beaten’” only by the 2019-24 parliament, which was disrupted by the pandemic.
For any government in Holyrood which is committed to independence, showing what can be achieved with even limited fiscal powers would go a long way to demonstrating what might be achievable with the full set of economic levers.
As we head towards the Holyrood election in May, such bold choices may be too much to hope for in the Budget. A safety-first approach, with a few pre-election sweeteners thrown in to the mix, seems more likely.
However, if we are ever to truly break out of an economic cycle which has been stuck on repeat for far too long and instead kickstart the bottom-up economic growth so many of our communities are crying out for, then this is exactly the kind of approach we should see.
Dr Marie Macklin CBE is a leading Scottish businesswoman and investor.
Malcolm Offord, the Tory turned Reform candidate - a glimmer of light
Marie’s Column in The Herald | Wednesday 31st December 2025
Scotland faces a turning point as 2025 closes, with the loss of key industrial sites echoing the devastation of the 1980s – and raising urgent questions about energy policy, jobs, and the future of our economy, says Marie Macklin.
As we leave 2025 behind, it risks going down in history as the year in which the final nail was hammered into the coffin of Scotland’s industrial capacity, impacting many of the same communities which have yet to recover from the last wave of manufacturing decline in the 1980s.At the same time, rapid advances are fuelling dreams of how a brave new world of innovation can help change our lives for the better. But while developments in fields like AI hold out hope for transformational change, it is also worth considering just how much we still depend on existing technologies.
More than a generation ago, Scotland was suffering the effects of rapid deindustrialisation as huge swathes of our working infrastructure were shut down or mothballed, most of which was never again put back into productive use.That led to the mass unemployment which impacted working class communities across Scotland’s industrial heartlands.
Mining and steel manufacturing joined the nation’s shipbuilding tradition on the scrapheap of history.As someone who comes from one of those areas, no one needs to explain to me just how devastating the effects of deindustrialisation can be.
It not only leads to despair among individuals, it rips the heart out of entire communities.It is not too far a stretch to suggest that many of the deeply ingrained health and social issues which Scotland faces today, including our shocking record as the drug deaths capital of Europe, can be traced directly or indirectly to that legacy of deindustrialisation.
And it is also worth reflecting upon just how much history repeats itself. Because the last year has seen the shutting down of the Grangemouth refinery, a key piece of Scotland’s industrial infrastructure for fully a century, but which now looks set to become little more than a monument to past glories.Despite recent moves to support continued employment at the plant – as well as UK and Scottish Government plans aimed at transforming the site unto a hub for new, greener energy markets – nothing that has been proposed looks like providing the jobs and economic value at the scale needed to replace what is being lost.
More recently came the news of plans to close the Fife Ethelyne Plant at Mossmorran, another bitter blow to what remains of Scotland’s industrial base.As if all that wasn’t bad enough, the triple whammy has been completed by the continued running down of what remains of our North Seal oil and gas industry.
The failure to remove the Energy Profits Levy in the recent UK Budget makes no sense at all and is another example of a government which appears to pay lip service to the notion of fair and equal treatment for Scotland.
Until UK energy policy is fit for purpose it will not be possible to build an industrial strategy or manufacturing strategy fit for purpose. And to compete with the likes of China, India and the US, we need to look again at making the most of all types of energy at our disposal. That includes a renewed focus by Holyrood to concentrate on the issues that matter most to people – jobs and the economy – rather than other issues.That focus must include fossil fuels whilst we still have such resources to exploit, and until green energy can be produced at sufficient scale.
In the US, energy policy is being taken in that direction through a series of executive orders.Unfortunately, here in the UK politics appears to be stuck on repeat, and the ability to effect the changes we need to see is hampered by short-term political point-scoring.That includes Reform UK, who have yet to prove that any real substance lies behind the presentational glitz.
Reform hopes to make ground amid those same working-class areas left behind since the 80s, including in May’s Holyrood election. However, one thing people in these places do not take kindly to is being taken for granted,So far, Reform have not shown that they have the answers, but there is a glimmer of light for them. Step forward Malcolm Offord, the straight talking, Greenock-raised former Scotland Office minister who recently defected to the party from the Conservatives.It was Offord who delivered, as a UK Government minister, £800 million in Levelling Up funding for deprived communities across Scotland’s central belt.
It is exactly this kind of bottom-up growth and investment that is so badly needed and which all parties should aspire to.I am struck, decades on from the last wave of industrial decline through the 1970s and into the 80s, just how much those of us who were affected by it, depended on community spirit. Despite strikes, surging food prices and power blackouts which left many with no heating and which I remember left me having to do my homework by candlelight, that family and community spirit saw us through.Thankfully, those kinds of privations are, mostly, a thing of the past.
However, that same spirit, including the hugely important role played by women, is needed today in those areas impacted by industrial downturn and job losses.The last year has been a bitter one for those who can remember the last time that waves of closures and redundancy washed over Scotland. Let us hope that 2026 can be a year in which, however slowly and whatever our political differences, that tide can start to be turned.
View article on The Herald website