The Election: Will businesses be given more consideration?

[stugster]

It looks increasingly likely that SNP are going to have a majority in the latest elections. Assuming they do, and they get put in again for 5 years, do you think they'll spend more time focussing on economical strategies like small business support?

Do you think they'll continue silly services like "free prescriptions for all", or will they be "cleverererer" about what they spend their budgets on and where?

I'm just dismayed that there's so much potential for Government to support small businesses with such huge ROI possibilities. Give a feasible small business a £2k grant and a £10k loan and they'll make that back in 3-4 years with considerable profit.

Thoughts? Debate?

 

[kmbookkeeping]

I think a lot will depend on how they manage to negotiate the Scotland bill. However there are things, like the free prescription which has been so popular that they really need to keep it.

 

[stugster]

The prescription one is a funny one. I'm a high prescription user (I have asthma, bad skin, need lots of antihistamines to name just a few),and I think what they've done on this case is absolutely mental.

I don't think it's fair to have the entire country pay for individuals prescriptions as such - yes, I know there's a case for NHS etc. but in my case, I was paying less than £50 a year (i think) for an annual certificate. That got me all my medicine. Why change this? I thought that was pretty good...

Where is that money coming from now? (I know they've balanced the budget every year since they've been in, but that must make some sort of dent!)

And why have we scrapped that bridge toll (not sure it was definitely SNP). Why not introduce a £50 a year charge for regular users, and £1 a cross for the odd trip. That must go some way to pay its upkeep. Why are people who are never going to cross that bridge in their lives having to stump up for the full amount. What happened to the jobs of the people working the tolls?

Don't get me wrong, I voted SNP. They've done a lot of good for this country and Salmond comes across well as the man that knows what he's doing. But they've made some daft decisions too.


Also... they need to get a hold on the Edinburgh Council shambles that is the trams. This is something that the government should have stepped in on two years ago and forcefully removed them from their posts and stopped the project. The worst is yet to come with the trams by the way. We've not seen the bad stuff yet....

 

[kmbookkeeping]

I understand what you are saying about prescriptions and tolls, but if I have no kids why should I pay towards education? If I pay for private healthcare why should I pay for the NHS? I should because thats how our society works, there are a number of things we all pay to but may never use.

I do agree with the trams, but lets not forget how Labour, and more specifically Iain Gray bulldozed the SNP into continuing with the Labour/Lib Dem plans they had already put in place for trams in Edinburgh prior to the 200 elections. Had they had their way we'd be paying for a rail link too. All public projects run over time, and over budget. I don't know why they thought the trams would be any different.

 

[stugster]

I understand what you are saying about prescriptions and tolls, but if I have no kids why should I pay towards education? If I pay for private healthcare why should I pay for the NHS? I should because thats how our society works, there are a number of things we all pay to but may never use.

Brilliant point, well made

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

I really do hope that the SNP give small business support alot of attention given they now have the majority and a mandate to run the country. I mentioned in another post that the amount of money spent on business rates seems astronomical and doesn't actually benefit every business. Then there's the whole Business Gateway and Scottish Enterprise system which to me seems farcical.

What small businesses need are access to affordable funding and a system of acquiring skills to help them move their business forward. Always looking to save a few pennies here and there is counter productive, surely investing a bit of money to acquire new skills which will ultimately help your business serve your customers better and should lead to more sales and more profit. I think it's time to radically overall how we support businesses in Scotland. You'll have the big headline news like proposals to reduce corporation tax etc and make Scotland an enterprise zone but for me you need to start at the root level by giving new start businesses a foundation and support network that encourage them to frow and take on further staff etc.

 

[Adventurelife]

Guys we need to face reality. The SNP who I voted for is left of center, I am not. They will never introduce strategies that are focused on small business because Scotland is hooked on public spending and services and so are the SNP because they are pandering to a large amount of the Scottish voters who do not understand economics.

They are by far the best of a bad lot and do have Scotland's interests at heart but I very much doubt they will ever be able to lead Scotland into being a dynamic small business driven economy that it could be. I do not think they have the will or the balls to make the cuts and redress that balance of our economy that needs to happen.

I hope I am wrong but nothing they are doing or saying tells me I am. As mentioned by far the best of the available options but they now have a huge task which they will not address in the way it should be because that will ensure they will lose massive support for separation. Politics is going to get in the way of economic sense even more than it always does for the next 5 years.

 

[DickW]

Hmmm.. I'm a member of Alex Salmond's energy advisory board and believe me you're very wrong about the SNP's attitude to business - small or large!

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi DickW,

Would you care to expand on what you've said above? What is the SNP's attitude towards small businesses in particular? What's it doing to engage and take on the views of small businesses?

 

[DickW]

It's very simple . The SNP recognise that in order to properly rebalance the Scottish economy and indeed to begin growing and expanding our industrial/manufacturing capability which will lead to higher exports and so on and so forth then all that can only really come by paying attention to the needs of smaller businesses. So their attitude towards small businesses is very positive.

Now I can only comment on the energy sector where there is a lot of "engagement" going on between Holyrood and both small and large businesses but I would assume they have similar plans for other sectors.

All that said we all know that the fiscal and other levers Holyrood has to manipulate are fairly limited. But of course I hope that could change with the devolving of further tax powers. Wouldn't it be great if we could develop our own corporate tax policies here!