Chamber and committees

As part of the response to the cost crisis, the Scottish Government has engaged closely with business organisations, industry groups and individual businesses to hear their concerns during this significantly challenging time.

As noted in the Emergency Budget Statement on 2 October, this crisis is unprecedented; since the advent of devolution Scotland has not faced a situation that has combined the significant reduction in the Scottish Government's spending power with the massive impact of the cost crisis on households, businesses, public services and the third sector. We are constrained by both the limitations on our powers and on our budgets. This is why the Scottish Government has consistently called for more support from the UK Government to businesses.

Nevertheless, we committed to looking at what we do have devolved competence over, such as devolved regulation. That is why the Deputy First Minister announced that we will be establishing a Joint Regulatory Taskforce with COSLA, local authorities, regulatory agencies and businesses. This will support and drive early progress towards meeting our commitments in the National Strategy for Economic Transformation to review and improve the process of developing, implementing and reviewing regulation to meet our economic and societal aims. Reviewing regulatory burdens on business will be a critical component of this work and we will seek to balance the essential role that regulation plays on driving innovation and achieving economic, societal and environmental goals with the concerns that businesses have expressed about the impact of new regulations during the cost crisis. The intention is to bring members together as soon as possible, hopefully before the end of the year.