AFTER a period of virtually non-stop campaigning and political combat, Scotland now faces no elections and no referenda on the immediate horizon. How will we cope with this period of peace?
By getting down to business – or so we hope.
There are three and half years until the Scottish Parliamentary Election of May 2021. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce Network sees this fallow period as an opportunity to focus on the ends and purposes of politics, as opposed to its processes.
Last week SCC held a Parliamentary Reception at the Scottish Parliament. Our host Ruth Davidson MSP and guest of honour Finance Secretary Derek Mackay MSP pledged on behalf of all parliamentarians present to listen carefully to our concerns as Scotland’s leading business network.
In a rare outbreak of agreement, the opposing politicians acknowledged that promoting a stronger economy was now more of a priority than, in Ms Davidson’s phrase, “knocking lumps out of each other” in the political arena.
SCC sees this is an important and encouraging development. Nobody expects political hostilities to cease, nor should they. Each party has different ideas about how to promote business and the economy. But we welcome the increasing taste for co-operative, partnership working, and pledge to play our part.
In this emerging new era, business should not be seen as a “lobby”, to be kept at arms-length at best or penalised at worst. Business is not a supplicant or a vested interest, but an equal partner whose profits pay for public services and whose growth provides sustainable jobs.
SCC believes that the crowd-sourced intelligence of our Network’s 11,000 member businesses is the best guide to what helps and what hinders the successful conduct of business in Scotland. Politicians who respond positively to our priorities with regard to issues such as tax, to infrastructure, to skills or to our priorities over Brexit, e-commerce and export promotion in China and elsewhere, can claim credit for boosting to Scotland’s currently lacklustre economic performance.
The last thing needed is for the current cross-party auction of tax-raising rhetoric to become high-tax reality. Such promises may provide short-term political benefits in the current Scottish context, but it will always be poor economics when Scotland has to compete with the rest of the UK for investment and jobs.
Through its emerging internationalisation programme, and through successful schemes such as business mentoring, the SCC and its Network are more than ready to play our part in fulfilling the Scottish Government’s aim of making Scotland the best place in the UK to run a business.
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