{"id":985938,"date":"2026-05-26T13:19:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T13:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/985938\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T13:19:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T13:19:19","slug":"cbi-scotland-calls-for-new-scottish-government-to-go-full-throttle-on-growth-wiredgov-newswire-news-from-other-organisations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/985938\/","title":{"rendered":"CBI Scotland calls for new Scottish Government to go full throttle on growth | WiredGov Newswire (news from other organisations)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Ahead of its annual business lunch in Edinburgh on May 22, CBI Scotland has urged the new Scottish Government to work tirelessly across party lines \u2013 and with the business community \u2013 to make economic growth the defining priority of this parliament.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With experts agreed that the Scottish Government faces a challenging fiscal shortfall in the years to come, the CBI argues that the country has entered a race against time to deliver a meaningful step-change in economic growth and ease growing pressure on the public purse.<\/p>\n<p>To fire-up Scotland\u2019s economy and put it firmly back on a path to prosperity, CBI Scotland has provided the incoming Scottish Government with a five-point plan to boost growth:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-right:84.7969px\">\n<li><strong>Business rates reform: <\/strong>fix a broken system that impacts businesses of all shapes and sizes and is currently penalising, rather than rewarding, investment and growth.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Planning reform: <\/strong>give confidence to investors by fixing a cumbersome system that has become one of the biggest brakes on economic growth and has left too many strategically \u2013 and economically \u2013 important, shovel-ready projects waiting in the wings.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Upskill for the future: <\/strong>deliver a national skills strategy and reform of the Apprenticeship Levy system to make Scotland\u2019s skills system more transparent, more suited to current and future demand, and better geared towards lifelong learning \u2013 instead of year-to-year firefighting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Focus on competitiveness: <\/strong>close<strong> <\/strong>the tax and regulatory gap with the rest of the UK and avoid unnecessary policy divergence to make Scotland more attractive to talent and investment and ensure Scottish firms can compete on a level playing field with rivals elsewhere in the UK.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Get Scotland moving:<\/strong> commit to transformative infrastructure projects, like full rail electrification and the Clyde Metro, that will get people and goods moving around Scotland and unlock\u202flabour\u202fmarkets, investment\u202fzones,\u202fand supply chains.\u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keynote speakers at the event, sponsored by CMS, include:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-right:84.7969px\">\n<li>First Minister, John Swinney MSP.<\/li>\n<li>Leading entrepreneur and founder of The Hunter Foundation,<\/li>\n<li>SSE Chief Executive and CBI Scotland Chair,<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Michelle Ferguson\u202fOBE, CBI Scotland Director, recently said:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cOur message to the new Scottish Government, and to new and returning MSPs, is a simple one: against a backdrop of rising costs and global volatility, growth\u202freally\u202fis the\u202f\u2018only game in town\u2019 \u2013 so it\u2019s\u202ftime\u202fto\u202froll up our sleeves and\u202fget on with\u202fit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat means using every lever available to boost productivity and unlock vital investment.\u202fBusiness stands ready to play its part, but urgency is key. We can\u2019t afford to sit on our hands, or we risk a worsening fiscal position and the potential for great commercial opportunities to slip through our fingers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYet, for\u202fall of\u202fthe\u202fchallenges that\u202fScotland faces,\u202fthe country\u202fstands\u202fon edge of huge opportunity\u202f\u2013 there\u202faren\u2019t\u202fmany\u202fsmall economies that\u202fcan boast\u202four talent,\u202finnovation\u202fand knowhow.\u202fBy backing our\u202fpeople\u202fand businesses, we can\u202fturn\u202fthat\u202feconomic\u202fpromise into\u202fthe kind of\u202ftangible, on the ground,\u202fdelivery that can\u202ftransform\u202flives and communities\u202facross the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRealising\u202fthat potential\u202fdoesn\u2019t\u202fjust\u202fmean doubling down on\u202flegacy\u202fstrengths. It means\u202fbeing clear eyed about the opportunities of the future\u202fand staking our claim\u202fin\u202fthe innovative, high\u202fvalue\u202findustries that\u202fare\u202fpowering\u202fglobal growth\u202f\u2013 areas like AI,\u202flife\u202fsciences\u202fand the energy transition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of its annual business lunch in Edinburgh on May 22, CBI Scotland has urged the new Scottish&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5009],"tags":[16431,323,58432,748,51,135375,29243,34451,101611,7006,34444,1102,5491,7253,4923,27110,89520,1234,4884,712,15465,16,15],"class_list":["post-985938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scotland","tag-ahead","tag-ai","tag-apprenticeship","tag-britain","tag-business","tag-cbi","tag-chair","tag-chief","tag-clyde","tag-cms","tag-director","tag-edinburgh","tag-executive","tag-ferguson","tag-first","tag-focus","tag-foundation","tag-government","tag-great-britain","tag-scotland","tag-scottish","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116641082196982148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}