Putting shoppers first should be the focus of the upcoming Scottish Government Budget according to the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC).
In its Scottish Budget submission, ‘A Scottish Budget for Shoppers’, sent earlier this week to Finance Secretary Jenny Gilruth MSP, the leading business group says retail is a brilliant industry which makes an immense economic and social contribution to Scotland. However, the industry is under significant pressure due to the twin pressures of tepid consumer spending and rising outgoings.
Retail is Scotland’s largest private sector employer providing 228,000 jobs directly with thousands more in the supply chain.
The SRC’s 12-page submission contains 21 recommendations aimed at making government more affordable, encouraging retail investment in Scotland, keeping costs down for consumers, and making high streets and retail destinations safer. It comes ahead of the unveiling on 3 December of the devolved administration’s near £70 billion Budget for 2027-28.
Specifically, the SRC is suggesting government should deliver a Budget which:
- Helps retailers keep down prices for customers by avoiding new costs. The focus should be on spending restraint and cutting the cost of government to plug the gap in devolved finances, an unequivocal commitment to no new taxes on retail including on retail warehouses, and avoiding new regulatory burdens including scrapping the food price cap.
- Helps rejuvenate shopping destinations by introducing a timetabled plan to ensure retailers of all sizes benefit from a business rate at least as competitive as England’s.
- Ensures shoppers have more money in their pockets through a plan to narrow the divergence between Scottish and UK income tax rates for intermediate, higher, advanced, and top rate taxpayers.
- Makes the shopping experience safer by enhancing funding for Police Scotland’s Retail Crime Taskforce and resourcing Trading Standards to tackle unscrupulous illicit traders.
The parliamentary arithmetic suggests that more than one political party will have to support the Scottish Budget for it to pass.
David Lonsdale, Director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said:
“Scotland’s retailers are weathering an economic storm as the costs of international instability and domestic public policy impact on their supply chains and their own operations. In the face of these challenges the industry is looking for an unabashed Budget for shoppers which supports businesses who are doing everything in their power to keep costs down for Scottish households.
“That requires new Finance Secretary Jenny Gilruth to grapple with the legacy of the last Parliament which has left Scottish shops with a less generous rates discount than England at every level, with a complicated income tax system which impacts recruitment, and with a public sector which needs to cut its cloth in the same manner as industry. It also means Ministers need to focus on what measures can make the most tangible improvements to people’s lives, for example enhancing the successful Retail Crime Taskforce and ditching the ill-conceived and incoherent statutory food price cap.
“Despite these difficulties the industry is keen to work with the government to deliver our shared ambition to make Scotland the best place in the UK to grow a retail business. With the Holyrood election behind us now is the time to take the tough decisions to balance the books, support shoppers and retail businesses, and kickstart economic growth. If the Government can do that we’d urge MSPs from across Parliament to work collegiately to pass a pro-growth Budget. The first Budget of this session has the chance to set a new pro-growth tone. We hope the new Finance Secretary will seize the moment.”
