Meeting of the Parliament 02 December 2025
In relation to business engagement and what can be done to maximise the business opportunities from the summer of sport, it is important that we recognise that the lead-in to the Commonwealth games will be dominated by the success of Scotland’s men’s team at the football world cup. There will be significant business opportunities, particularly for hospitality businesses, as we touched on during the urgent question the other week. We are engaging with businesses on what we can do to maximise the opportunities from the world cup and the Commonwealth games.
In my statement, I touched on the investment that we are making with partners through business engagement via Scotland house, which is a huge opportunity for those Glasgow-based businesses that export and have links with Gujarat or wider Indian business networks to ensure that those trade links are strong, and I am very much looking forward to that on-going success.
What the public transport regime is going to look like is for the organising company to decide. We are engaging with that company on what plans they have in place.
I look forward to the discussions on the sport budget and Labour’s asks that we will have in the build-up to the budget. We are looking to make sure that we can continue to invest in sport to realise the preventative benefit of participation, but also to support team Scotland as it prepares for major events such as the Commonwealth games and other events like it.