Meeting of the Parliament 26 November 2025
If we look back at the data for the most recent full year—that is, 2024—we will see that the Scottish economy grew faster than the UK economy as a whole. The latest figures show that Scotland’s unemployment is lower than that of the UK and that Scotland’s median monthly pay is higher. Just in the past year, the Scottish National Investment Bank, which was created by this SNP Government, supported more than 3,000 jobs and £168 million of supply chain spend in Scotland. The Techscaler programme that was created by this Government supported almost 1,700 individuals, representing more than 1,200 start-up and scale-up businesses. Over £500 million of investment in net zero, which was committed by this SNP Government, will unlock infrastructure and manufacturing facilities that are critical to growing the offshore wind sector.
There is much that we can be positive about. However, despite all that, there is no doubt about the challenge and difficulty that our economy has experienced over the past few years due to a combination of Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine, with the resultant energy crisis and inflation shocks all driving up the cost of living. Labour’s damaging tax on jobs and the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions have had a deeply damaging impact on our economic prospects.
The Scottish Government is doing all that it can to support the transition to a low-carbon economy, but the UK Government’s current approach to the energy profits levy is driving an accelerated decline that places the energy transition at risk and destabilises economic growth opportunities. Industry leaders across the oil and gas and renewables sectors have united in calling for reform of the EPL, a levy that critics say is risking the loss of 1,000 direct and indirect jobs every month.
However, the chancellor confirmed today that the levy will remain in place until 2030. We are all dearly concerned that that approach will have further consequences for business confidence, jobs and investment across Scotland’s energy sector over the coming weeks, months and years. We continue to call on the UK Government to be sensible and to bring forward a sustainable fiscal regime that supports the important just transition.
Meanwhile, businesses continue to face significant challenges. Those include high energy costs, which deter investment, drive higher production costs and weaken industry. That has an impact on the growth of industry across the wider economy.