Business as usual across the Border is good for Scotland

Kilgour’s group ensures we can continue to fight for the economic benefits of the Union, says Brian Monteith

Scotland’s win-win with the UK goes beyond just economics Thank goodness for Robert Kilgour. By establishing Scottish Business UK, the serial entrepreneur has ensured that business leaders no longer feel intimidated by independence campaigners into keeping their counsel when the country’s economic future is at stake.

In the 2014 referendum, instances of Scottish-based businesses speaking out about what was in their interests to ensure success – and thus create jobs and spread prosperity – were noticeably few. Kilgour often found himself a lonely figure as the only businessman willing to openly challenge the economics of the Scottish Government’s White Paper, or debate on television and radio when he knew many that privately agreed with him.

The reasons for this were many; some business organisations, be they national or representing individual sectors, felt unable to take a position for or against breaking up the UK, so chose to say nothing. Some individual businesses felt they might become targeted for boycotts or subject to negative publicity that would lose them customers and that, commercially, saying nothing made more sense. Some businesses relied on government contracts and had no wish to put themselves at risk.

After the referendum delivered its resounding defeat of independence, Robert Kilgour resolved that never again should the country’s businesses be put in such a marginal position. He decided there had to be a vehicle for business leaders with something to say, that had some useful insight to share with their employees, their customers and the wider society that benefits from the tax revenues their enterprises generate. Scottish Business UK was soon established and a board of Scots successful in their respective fields pulled together.

Now Scottish Business UK is to publish tomorrow, on the fourth anniversary of the referendum that rejected independence, its first paper on why Scotland remaining in the UK is good for business. Entitled Win-win, it argues Scotland profits in two ways, firstly through gaining significant economic benefits that could not be improved upon but would be hugely diminished were Scotland to be outside the UK; and secondly our locally-tailored public services can be more responsive to our particular needs while being underwritten through the “union dividend”.

The economic pluses might be obvious to many but still benefit from being repeated so they are never taken for granted. There is the tariff and regulatory free access to the UK single market for our goods, services and people, worth four times as much as the EU to our exporters. We are able to use the pound sterling at no cost to our businesses or citizens. And there is the “union dividend” where beneficial fiscal transfers can ensure vital public services are maintained even when Scotland’s own tax revenues are lower than the costs of running them. Rather than deliver Westminster austerity, the union dividend from the UK has helped us to avoid it. That dividend was worth £11.1 billion last year – but the fact it exists rather than its amount is the most important benefit.

We also know that £45.8bn or 65 per cent of all Scottish exports go to the rest of the UK, compared to