Over the last seven days, we’ve seen the lightning rod debate over the Cambo development, and both the Scottish and UK Governments toughening up their positions around the pandemic.
On these crucial issues for the North-east economy, you can rest assured that the Chamber team has been relentlessly fighting for the voice of our business community to be front and centre.
The week still has plenty in store though. Foremost in our minds is the Scottish Budget, due to be unveiled later this afternoon.
The Scottish Government needs to seize this chance to provide badly needed certainty to the thousands of firms across our region who are rising to the challenge of rebuilding our economy and creating the high-skilled jobs of the future.
In short, for the North-east we need to see concrete action on rates, retraining, and regeneration.
Here are some key steps that the finance secretary, Kate Forbes MSP, could take to boost business confidence as we head into 2022:
1) Maintain the existing business rates relief for our beleaguered retail, hospitality and aviation sectors. At minimum, this should match the 50% relief announced by the Chancellor at the UK Budget.
2) Extend and refresh the existing transitional rates relief for Aberdeen City & Shire businesses, reflecting that the next rates revaluation has been delayed to 2023 and similar decisions made by the Chancellor to extend transitional relief schemes in England.
3) Give us some of the detail around the £500m Just Transition Fund for the North-east and Moray. With skills shortages highlighted as a major issue in our latest Oil and Gas Transition Survey, we need to ramp up funding for retraining and give businesses the targeted help they need to reskill their workforce and make our net zero ambitions a reality. Government must do their part to build the bridge to the fair and managed transition that we all want to see.
4) Publish the recommendations of the City Centre Recovery Taskforce, previously committed to as being published in the ‘Autumn’ and back this up with significant additional funding to support cities to adapt to a post-CV19 economy.
Boosting funding and setting the right tax environment is essential, but government also need to recognise the weight that their words carry as businesses look for clarity during an extremely challenging moment in our recovery.
We continue to urge all in government to ensure that their messaging around crucial issues for the North-east, such as the future of oil and gas and the return of workers to offices, doesn’t undermine the all-important consumer and business confidence which drives investment, spending, and creates a prosperous economy for all of us.