Herculean effort to turn round economy

The economic shock visited upon Scotland by the Covid-19 crisis is like no other in modern times. In fact, the financial crash of 2008 which led to a decade of austerity in the UK will be dwarfed if eye-watering predictions of a fall of a third in Scotland’s economic output during lockdown prove accurate.

It is against such a stark backdrop that banker Benny Higgins was asked by the Scottish Government to deliver a blueprint for Scotland’s future economic wellbeing.

What is immediately obvious from the Higgins’ report is that achieving that goal will require a Herculean effort.

Burdened with structurally low productivity, a narrow export base, an ageing population and dramatic differences in health and wealth across the population, the truth is that Scotland did not have its problems to seek.

But Covid has hugely exaggerated the issues faced, while Brexit will continue to exacerbate them for potentially years to come as Scotland and the wider UK carves out its new place on the international stage.

The Higgins report acknowledges the myriad factors at play and has taken a new and bold approach based on the four pillars of capital and what to do with them.

Radical ideas such as a state guarantee to provide young people with two years of work are mixed in with more regular solutions such as looking anew at the country’s investment landscape and how Scotland uses the economic levers at its disposal to provide the greatest bang for the taxpayer’s buck.

Higgins’ is right to stress the need for innovation and to urge further exploration of the opportunities offered by digitisation, the renewables sector and carbon capture and storage, a technology whose early development in Scotland was brought to a sudden halt some years ago.

If nothing else, the Higgins’ report will certainly provide Nicola Sturgeon and politicians across the divide something to think about.

But this is not a report which should gather dust on a shelf. Higgins makes it clear that if Scotland is to not only survive this crisis but thrive in the long term there must be a swift transition from words to deeds. Coronavirus has weakened Scotland’s economic heart. Lives and livelihoods depend on providing the right medicine to coax it back to health We must set to work.