2nd September 2026
John Swinney has made economic growth one of the central themes of his new programme for government.
That is hardly surprising.
Scotland needs growth. It needs better productivity, more private investment, more successful businesses and more jobs that allow people to build decent lives without having to leave the country to find opportunities.
The difficulty is that economic growth is not created by announcing it.
It happens when somebody decides to risk their money.
That somebody might be a multinational company building a factory, a farmer buying new machinery, a shopkeeper opening another premises or a small engineering firm deciding that it is finally time to take on three more employees.
All of them are making the same basic calculation.
Is the future sufficiently predictable for me to take the risk?
That is why business confidence matters so much.
The latest British Chambers of Commerce outlook has been slightly more optimistic about UK growth in 2026, but the improvement remains modest and businesses continue to be cautious about investment. That should concern governments because investment is what turns today's economy into tomorrow's economy.
Scotland has no shortage of ambitions.
The Scottish Government wants public services reformed. It wants economic growth. It wants investment. It wants to improve infrastructure and create a more prosperous country.
The problem is that a business does not experience government ambition.
It experiences the planning system.
It experiences business rates.
It experiences employment costs.
It experiences regulation.
It experiences the availability of skilled workers.
It experiences the road network.
It experiences the cost of electricity.
And it experiences how long it takes to get a decision from the public sector.
For a large company, these things can be irritating.
For a small business, they can determine whether an investment goes ahead.
Imagine a small manufacturer in the Highlands considering an expansion. The owner may need a new building, additional machinery and perhaps five or six new employees. The business might have a strong order book and every reason to expand.
But then the calculations begin.
How much will the building cost?
What will borrowing cost?
What will business rates be?
How long will planning take?
Can the company find the skilled workers?
How much will energy cost?
What happens if taxes or employment costs change?
Will the investment still make sense five years from now?
None of these questions can be answered by a government slogan about growth.
They require confidence.
This is why the Scottish Government's relationship with business is so important.
There is sometimes a tendency in politics to divide the world into public services on one side and businesses on the other, as though helping one necessarily comes at the expense of the other.
That is a mistake.
A successful private sector creates employment and tax revenue. A successful public sector provides the education, health, infrastructure and services that allow businesses to operate. Each depends on the other.
The question is whether Scotland's public sector is currently making it easier or harder for businesses to grow.
That is where some of the criticism from business organisations becomes significant.
Planning is an obvious example.
A business cannot employ someone in a building that it cannot get permission to construct. It cannot install new machinery in premises that are still waiting for planning approval. And it cannot recover the time lost while waiting for decisions.
Time is an economic cost.
It does not appear neatly on a government balance sheet, but businesses pay for it.
The same applies to business rates.
The system is supposed to raise money for public services, but rates also influence decisions about where businesses locate and whether they expand. A business deciding whether to take on another premises will include the rates bill in its calculations.
Again, the issue is not whether business should contribute to society.
Of course it should.
The issue is whether the tax system encourages the investment that politicians say they want.
There is another area where Scotland could potentially do much more: public procurement.
Government, councils, NHS organisations and other public bodies spend enormous amounts of money every year.
That money is already going to be spent.
The interesting question is where it goes.
If a public contract is awarded to a huge company headquartered hundreds of miles away, much of the economic benefit can leave the local area.
If the same contract can be delivered by a group of Scottish or Highland businesses, the money can circulate through local wages, suppliers, apprenticeships and other businesses.
This does not mean abandoning competition or simply handing contracts to local companies regardless of value.
It means thinking more seriously about the wider economic return from public spending.
That could be particularly important in places such as Caithness.
The far north does not need another promise that the Highlands are important.
It needs investment that actually reaches the Highlands.
A new project can mean construction jobs, apprenticeships, local contracts and eventually permanent employment. But only if the economic opportunities are structured so that local businesses can participate.
That brings us back to Swinney's growth agenda.
The Scottish Government can create the conditions for investment, but it cannot order businesses to invest.
The final decision always belongs to the person putting their money at risk.
And businesses are becoming increasingly sophisticated about these decisions.
They can compare Scotland with England.
They can compare Britain with Ireland.
They can compare the UK with continental Europe.
They can look at electricity prices, taxation, regulation, access to labour and infrastructure.
Investment is mobile.
That is why Scotland cannot assume that companies will stay simply because they like Scotland.
They will invest where the numbers work.
This does not mean Scotland should enter some race to the bottom.
Lower taxes alone do not create a successful economy.
Scotland has enormous strengths. It has universities, renewable energy, food and drink, tourism, engineering, life sciences, technology and a substantial natural-resource base.
The challenge is turning those advantages into businesses that grow.
And that requires something rather less exciting than another major government announcement.
It requires consistency.
A business owner needs to know what the rules will be.
They need decisions made within reasonable times.
They need infrastructure that works.
They need access to workers.
They need a tax system they can understand.
They need energy at a price they can afford.
And above all they need to believe that if they invest today, the economic environment will not be turned upside down tomorrow.
This is perhaps the biggest challenge facing Swinney.
His Government can promise reform, but businesses will judge it by what happens in the real economy.
The test will be whether more companies expand.
Whether more young people find apprenticeships.
Whether more firms invest in machinery.
Whether more factories open.
Whether more businesses survive their first few years.
Whether companies already in Scotland decide to stay and grow.
And whether companies outside Scotland decide that this is somewhere they want to invest.
There is a particular danger in taking too long.
A government can quite reasonably say that major reform takes years.
That is true.
But a business cannot necessarily wait years.
The owner of a small firm has a mortgage, wages, rent, energy bills and suppliers to pay now.
If expansion does not make sense this year, the decision may simply be postponed.
If it remains difficult next year, the opportunity may disappear altogether.
That is why the question facing Scotland is not whether John Swinney's economic ambitions are worthwhile.
Many of them clearly are.
The question is whether the Government can turn those ambitions into changes that businesses can feel quickly enough to alter their behaviour.
Because economic growth is ultimately about behaviour.
Someone deciding to invest.
Someone deciding to employ.
Someone deciding to start a business.
Someone deciding to expand rather than retire.
Someone deciding to bring an investment project to Scotland rather than somewhere else.
Government can influence those decisions.
It cannot make them.
Swinney has set out the ambition.
Now comes the difficult part.
Convincing the people who actually put money at risk that Scotland is worth betting on.
And they are unlikely to be persuaded by another speech.
They will be persuaded when the system starts working better.