Scottish Chambers of Commerce has written to Chancellor John Healey ahead of the UK Budget on Wednesday 28 October, setting out a 10-point plan to restore business confidence, unlock private investment and support economic growth. The letter, published on Sunday 25 October, represents more than 12,000 businesses across Scotland.

What the chambers want

Chief executive Charandeep Singh BEM says employers face growing pressures from rising labour costs and taxation, alongside barriers to investment and skills shortages. The chambers call on the government to take bold action to reduce the cost of doing business and create the conditions for Scottish businesses to invest, recruit and grow. While recognising the challenges facing the public finances, the letter argues that Scotland has no shortage of opportunities — in energy, technology, tourism and food and drink — but that those opportunities will remain unrealised without the right conditions.

Why it matters now

The intervention lands days before Healey's first Budget, which is already expected to include new funding for English mayors and more money for social and affordable housing. Business groups across the UK have warned in the run-up to the Budget that high taxation is squeezing high streets and small firms, and the Scottish chambers' letter adds a specifically Scottish voice to that pressure: growth, it argues, will come from private investment, not from public spending alone.

What to watch on Wednesday

The test for the Budget will be whether it answers the chambers' central complaint — that doing business has become too expensive — with measures that change investment decisions, rather than with announcements that sound supportive but leave costs untouched. Scotland's firms, like those elsewhere in the UK, will be reading the detail for tax, skills and investment signals, not just for headline spending figures.