Programme for Government 2026 to 2031

2. Growing the Economy

To deliver for Scotland we have:

• Supported nearly 1,000 homes, over 3,000 jobs in the last year, and over £400m in Scottish supply chain spend through the work of the Scottish National Investment Bank
• Maintained and strengthened Scotland’s position as the most attractive place in the UK for inward investment outside London and the South East
• We have and will always invest in our farming and crofting communities – having already delivered a generous package, investing over £660 million in support to agriculture
• Since 2007, GDP per person has grown by 10.2% compared to 7.8% in the UK
• A long-term funding settlement for the arts of an additional £100 million annually for culture by 2028-29
• There were 91 million passenger journeys on ScotRail services in 2025-26 Peak rail fares were removed from the Scotrail network on 1 September 2025
• Scottish Enterprise-supported projects over the five years to March 2025 are projected to create or safeguard around 90,000 jobs and bring nearly £4.6 billion of capital investment to Scotland

Scotland’s economy is resilient despite challenging global circumstances and the structural weakness of the Westminster economic system. Since 2007, under this Scottish Government, GDP per person has grown faster than the UK as a whole and productivity growth has been more than double the UK average. That is a genuine achievement, but it is only a starting point. Our vision is bolder: to make Scotland one of the most successful economies in the world for nations of our size – increasing economic growth by ensuring that Scotland is open for business and building on our historic and contemporary strengths in innovation, clean energy, entrepreneurship, research, food, drink and tourism, and global connectivity.

We want Scotland to be recognised not only for the quality of its people, institutions, ideas and assets, but also for our ability to turn them into investment, opportunity and prosperity felt in every part of the country. A Scotland where growth is not just measured in statistics, but in wages, opportunities, and confidence. Growth is not an end in itself. It means more good jobs and successful businesses and stronger communities. It generates funding to deliver public services and underpins our broader social aims, such as tackling women’s inequality, eradicating child poverty, and addressing the climate emergency.

Guided by the National Council for Economic Growth, established in our first 100 days, we will make Scotland the best place to invest and do business and take bold, sustained action to back the businesses and markets with the greatest potential to grow. Our plans build on the progress made under the National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET) updated and evolved to reflect the very different global and economic context Scotland now faces.

We will combine the proven drivers of growth across the economy with targeted support for Scotland’s four innovation priorities: Energy Transition, Health and Life Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing, and Data and Digital Technologies. We will work closely and collaboratively with key partners, including the National Council for Economic Growth, to deliver on six priorities for growth:

• Making Scotland a better place to invest and do business.
• Helping more businesses to start, scale, and innovate.
• Connecting people to better work.
• Building the right infrastructure.
• Enhancing Scotland’s global offer.
• Backing growth in every region.

We will accelerate action across these areas, creating the necessary conditions for growth and investment and targeting the areas where Scotland can be a genuine world-leader – attracting investment, increasing exports, creating good jobs, and raising productivity.

Ambitious for Scotland: Promoting and Securing home grown growth and international investment

Scotland is among the most attractive places in the UK to invest, create jobs and build a more sustainable future. For the eleventh consecutive year, Scotland has been the UK’s leading destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) projects outside London and Scotland’s financial services sector remains the largest financial hub to London.

Across this Parliament, we will build on that foundation and deliver the investment needed to achieve Scotland’s economic growth ambitions across the country, built on investor confidence and opportunity in home-grown innovation: attracting private capital, supporting businesses to export, reducing barriers to trade, and building partnerships with investors, including:

• Advancing the £1.5 billion Scottish Government Bond Programme to help attract new investment into Scotland, diversify capital funding sources and support long-term infrastructure investment.
• Increasing private capital investment by accelerating and coordinating strategic projects, engaging with investors, including pension funds, championing Scotland’s strengths on the global stage and fostering a fair, transparent financial system that delivers sustainable economic prosperity for Scotland.
• Promoting strategic alignment across public and private institutions and investment behind a shared mission to support innovation, high-growth businesses, scale-up activity and strategic infrastructure investment.
• Building on strong relationships with key investors and Scotland’s global reputation to secure more private investment in strategic sectors including housing and energy.
• Further developing the national project pipeline and the Invest Scotland portal to present opportunities clearly and tangibly.
• Delivering a more joined up offer for trading and exporting businesses aligned with business needs, addressing trade barriers and strengthening export support for priority growth sectors and targetting export support through overseas and Global Scots networks.

An attractive, competitive place to do business

Scientific and technological advances are changing the way we live, with new markets and industries emerging. Across this Parliament we will build on and accelerate that opportunity, ensuring that Scotland has a clear reputation as a reliable trading partner and competitive place to do business. We will reform the planning and regulatory landscape to make it easier to do business, nurturing domestic growth, and attracting international investment. International trade and investment will be strengthened through the expansion of the Scotland House network, targeted support for high-growth sectors, encouraging graduates to stay and work in Scotland, and boosting planning system capacity across the country.

Starting now and across 2026-27, we will:

• Begin operating a new Major Projects Office, to accelerate progress on nationally and strategically significant investment and private capital projects, unblocking barriers to project delivery and unlocking private investment across strategic sectors including housing and energy.
• Strengthen Scotland’s inward investment capability to secure land and grow mobile investment, supporting strategic projects, reinvestment and job creation across Scotland.
• Receive and consider the recommendations of an independent review on the valuation methodology applied to non-domestic property in the hospitality sector, commissioned in our first 100 days.
• Begin consultation on various reforms to simplify our planning and consenting systems to speed up processes, giving greater confidence to those looking to invest while providing local people with confidence and understanding, with implementation from 2027-28.
• Develop legislation to reform and modernise Scotland’s compulsory purchase system, to support more effective delivery of development, regeneration and infrastructure projects.
• Reduce business bureaucracy and ensure regulation is designed in accordance with our Better Regulation principles – where we regulate last, regulate simply, and regulate flexibly.
• Promote Scotland as a great place to invest, developing our Invest Scotland portal and working with partners to deliver a programme of investor events and summits, including Scotland’s 2027 Scale-Up Summit.
• Implement the recommendations of the five-year review of the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) and align public finance institutions in Scotland behind a shared mission to support innovation, high-growth businesses, scale-up activity and strategic infrastructure investment.
• Take forward actions to grow trade in relation to priority sectors, markets and businesses, building towards securing over £12 billion of planned export sales over the lifetime of this Parliament.

Supporting businesses to start, scale, and innovate

Scotland has a proud and enviable history of invention. As the global economy accelerates towards a net zero future and navigates the complex opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence, Scotland must chart a distinct course based on what we have, what we are good at, and what we want our future to be. Our natural capital, environment, university research and entrepreneurial spirit provide the basis of competitive advantage within distinct areas of ever-changing global markets; from renewables to creative industries, space to the life sciences.

Since the publication of the Logan Review in 2020, we have prioritised the creation of a world-class entrepreneurial economy and the evidence suggests that is working – with growth in Scotland’s tech ecosystem in the five years since outpacing the UK and equivalent EU nations. Across this Parliament we will increase the number of new businesses starting and scaling and build entrepreneurial mindsets across the economy. We will help Universities to commercialise their research more successfully, providing access to spin-out funding and wrap around support. We will promote Scotland’s entrepreneurial culture with action to ensure that everybody, whatever their gender, background or region has an equal opportunity to start a business. We will use the power of public sector procurement and its drive for innovation to provide new business opportunities for Scottish companies. And we will work with businesses that have the greatest potential to ensure that they have access to the capital, skills and infrastructure required to enable them to grow, without being tempted to seek success elsewhere in the world.

Starting now and across 2026-27, we will:

• Develop AI Scotland as a flagship international programme that builds public trust and confidence in AI and provides a distinct national voice on the economic and societal questions that AI raises.
• Establish Scotland’s High Growth Unit, working with senior industry leaders from the outset to accelerate support for high-potential businesses to scale, anchor and grow in Scotland.
• Publish a strategic approach to attracting and securing responsible green data centre investment in Scotland, with clear expectations around environmental sustainability, resource use, community benefit and the economic and strategic value these developments should deliver.
• Work with the Scottish National Investment Bank to launch a Scottish Innovation Fund with a focus on university spinouts, collaborating with leading universities to leverage private capital and working across the public sector to ensure strong wrap-around support.
• Support young entrepreneurs engaged in the First Minister’s Start-Up Challenge and extend our Pathways programme to enable more female founders to develop their businesses.
• Lay the foundations for new ‘regulatory sandboxes’ where new innovations and technology in healthcare and life sciences can be introduced, tested and implemented at pace.
• Work with universities to deliver new Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), connecting businesses with academic institutions to drive innovation and growth across the country.
• Establish a responsible defence industrial growth programme to maximise the economic benefits to Scotland from increased UK and allied defence spending.
• Drive innovation in health and care through a partnership between industry, NHS Scotland and other care providers through innovative procurement and support for an industry led Life Sciences cluster and our £35 million Life Sciences Accommodation programme. Over the course of this Parliament, we will grow Scotland’s clinical trials capacity to attract more clinical research and investment for the benefit of all.
• Harness the power of the Cluster Development Programme to grow and strengthen Scotland’s advanced technology clusters, ensuring future leadership in critical technologies such as space, robotics, quantum and photonics, Life Sciences, Offshore Wind, FinTech and Built Environment.

Empowering Scottish culture and identity

Scotland is internationally recognised for the outstanding quality of its creative offer and cultural heritage. It is a core part of our society and underpins our economy, helping bring people and communities together, speaks to the very soul of our nation, and positions Scotland as a leading place to visit, invest in, and attract global talent. Over the course of the last Parliament, we bolstered our culture and creative sector with 262 cultural organisations now benefitting from the stability of multi-year funding. Thanks to Scottish Government investment we also expanded support for 55 arts festivals across Scotland to develop ambitious collaborations and commissions, launched our flagship programme of innovation to support our non-national museums, and increased support for our Youth Music Initiative Sistema and for our Performing Companies.

Building on that record, across this Parliament, we will protect and enhance our internationally recognised culture sector for the benefit of residents and visitors alike. This will be underpinned by a long-term funding settlement of an additional £100 million annually for culture by 2028-29.

By end of this Parliament, we will add a further £50 million, whilst expanding opportunities for cultural participation, introducing a Youth Culture Pass, and creative career paths. We are working with the sector to design and deliver a National Performing Company for Traditional Music, ensuring traditional music has the same status as our other, highly respected, performing companies. We will also pilot a Scottish Artists Minimum Income alongside delivering all our other commitments to the sector. And we will ensure Scotland has a stronger offer to, and is recognised as a leading destination by, investors, exporters, visitors, workers, and global partners, backed by £110 million in a pipeline of events up to 2030 which will position Scotland as a world-leading events and tourism destination.

Starting now and across 2026-27, we will:

• Build on Scotland’s Migration Service to encourage more people to move to Scotland from elsewhere in the UK, initially focused on key target business growth sectors.
• Capitalise on the economic benefits that came with Scotland having recently hosted a successful Commonwealth Games and those that will come through our major events programme in 2027 and beyond. That includes celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Edinburgh Festivals, Edinburgh hosting the Tour De France Grand Depart, the Open returning to St Andrews, Scotland hosting further world class editions of the Genesis Scottish Open and ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open, welcoming the World Rally Championships to the North East, supporting viable bids for major events, progressing our bid to co-host the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2035 and continuing to bring work to bring the Ryder Cup to Scotland in 2035.
• Establish Screen Scotland as a distinct organisation, directly funded by the Scottish Government – giving it increased funding to support homegrown talent and to attract more and bigger projects.
• Support the refurbishment and reopening of the People’s Palace and Winter Gardens.
• Build on the successful pilot of the Expanded Festivals Fund to make this fund permanent, further supporting the ambitions of outstanding arts festivals across Scotland.
• Review the Gaelic college in Skye, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, considering its status and ensuring its future development is supported and its wide contribution to Gaelic learning is protected.
• Support local authorities in designating Gaelic areas of linguistic significance which includes a focus on areas of low population and build on our ongoing support for centres such as Cnoc Soillier in South Uist and the work of community officers and groups.
• Continue to actively engage with the BBC Charter renewal process, pressing for fair nations and regions commissioning, supporting Scotland’s domestic television production sector, and bolstering the case for equity in relation to UK minority language broadcasting, and working towards an improved outcome for Gaelic and Scots broadcasting.
• Work closely with the Glasgow School of Art and other partners to explore every opportunity for a faithful reinstatement of its iconic Mackintosh Building.
• Continue to support international air connectivity through Visit Scotland to encourage international cultural visits, support international trade and ensure access of diaspora.

Ambitious for Scotland: Capitalising on the Strengths of Local Areas

Scotland can only realise its full potential if we back growth in every region – capitalising on the unique strengths local areas bring and ensuring shared prosperity. Backed by Scottish Government investment totalling more than £1.9 billion, every region of Scotland is now benefitting from a Scottish City and Regional Growth Deal, with those expected to create billions of pounds in additional investment to the Scottish economy.

Our ambition is that people see more opportunities within reach of where they live, businesses operating in local economies with the capacity and confidence to grow, and communities experiencing growth through thriving town centres, stronger local assets, and better prospects. Across this Parliament, we will take forward a coordinated programme of work to ensure we see increased job creation and economic output in all our regions, underpinned by:

• Empowered Regional Economic Partnerships: enabling them to drive action that matches their ambitions for future growth.
• Community wealth building: harnessing the power of public sector procurement and collective budgets to strengthen local supply chains and create jobs in local communities.
• Regeneration: supporting opportunities and growth where it’s needed most.
• Improved digital and physical connectivity: to ensure communities are connected.
• More Homes Scotland: which will coordinate housing delivery and investment, strengthen regional collaboration, and unlock growth in line with economic development priorities.
• A new Social Economy Strategy: enabling the future development of social enterprises and other forms of socially oriented business models.

Backing increased growth in every region

National success cannot leave any community behind. Every part of Scotland has unique strengths, opportunities and ambitions. We want local communities and businesses to have a greater stake in, access to and benefit from the wealth our economy generates.

Across this Parliament, we will invest in digital connectivity, transport and local regeneration – including improvements to mobile and broadband coverage; supporting progress on the Clyde Metro proposals; addressing the issue of potholes; and improvements of key road links in rural areas, including work to progress proposals for medium and long-term solutions at the A83 Rest and Be Thankful. We will strengthen economic development within communities through support for more social enterprises and the wider social economy, cooperatives and employee-owned businesses; tourism initiatives; and enhancements to local bus and public services. And, ensure that our railways support economic growth and contribute to tackling the climate emergency, including by keeping costs down for customers with the permanent removal of peak fares. Regional Economic Partnerships will be empowered and enabled to drive action that matches their ambitions for future growth, and we will work intensively with partners to identify the most effective governance and structures as part of our dialogue with partners on public service reform over the next three months.

Starting now and across 2026-27, we will:

• Continue to take a strategic approach to regeneration, revitalising town centres and encouraging town centre living, addressing the blight of vacant and derelict land and supporting community ownership.
• Continue to explore how to use a range of levers, including Non-Domestic Rates, to stimulate regeneration of high streets across Scotland.
• Develop a Glasgow-Edinburgh Arc and an East Coast Arc between Aberdeen, Dundee and St Andrews – and consult on other opportunities to boost productivity and innovation by linking research, universities and businesses.
• Maintain our commitment to dualling the A9 and A96, concluding a new A9 Framework Agreement to deliver the remaining approximately 58 miles yet to commence procurement, award the contract to dual the section between Pitlochry and Killiecrankie and commence the delivery of advanced works on Inshes to Smithton link road and Nairn bypass section of the A96.
• Take forward the actions outlined in the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Act 2026.
• Support the future of Ferguson Marine to protect commercial shipbuilding and provide vital skilled job opportunities on the Clyde through the direct award of Government funded contracts subject to necessary legal, commercial and subsidy control requirements.
• Consult on a Procurement Bill to address further opportunities to modernise procurement, maximise economic and social impact and protect Scotland’s interests, including how to drive innovation in health and care and amplify support for community wealth building through procurement.
• Work with partners to maximise the benefits of Scotland’s Green Freeports and Investment Zones, supporting them to attract private investment and deliver their investment programmes.
• Engage on our plans to deliver Better Buses legislation within this parliament – to provide communities across Scotland with better bus services for commuting, shopping, socialising and accessing public services.

Rural Scotland at the heart of economic growth

Scotland’s rural and island communities are productive engines of economic growth – with agriculture contributing over £3 billion in output every year, the marine economy worth over £4.9 billion, and the production of our world-class food and drink. We have strongly invested in farming and crofting communities – having delivered the most generous package in the UK, with over £660 million in support to agriculture. Our support for these vital communities will continue, alongside driving excellence in Scotland’s food and drink and reinvigorating the ambition that made it our fastest growing sector for many years through a commitment to collaboration, innovation, and brand recognition in both our domestic and export supply chains.

In March, we published the Rural Support Plan to 2031, providing clarity and certainty, and delivering direct support for the next five years to give the industry reassurance and boost confidence in long-term investment. Across this Parliament, we will champion thriving and sustainable rural and island communities, to maximise their contribution to Scotland’s economic success and net zero objectives, and extend our support for local areas to attract and retain people. We have started work on the Rural Renewal Bill which will enable economic growth in rural areas, and we will implement the National Islands Plan to support population retention and sustainable growth, ensuring islander voices are heard and understood across Government. We will continue to engage with island communities to develop and deliver the £10 million Islands Resilience Fund. And we will continue the investment in vessels and ports to support the Clyde & Hebrides (CHFS) and Northern Isles (NIFS) Ferry Services as set out in the Islands Connectivity Plan.

Starting now and across 2026-27, we will:

• Continue development of a Rural Renewal Bill with stakeholders and rural communities.
• Establish a new ‘Last Provider Fund’ to support the sustainability of the last-remaining shops and pubs in rural and island communities.
• Support our fishing sector, associated supply chain companies and processing sector which are the lifeblood of coastal communities across the nation – delivering a range of measures this year including the Marine Fund Scotland and maintaining an effective quota management and licensing system to support investment and stability.
• Provide ongoing financial support to rural organisations which tackle poor mental health and youth loneliness, such as RSABI and Farmstrong. This will ensure our rural communities are attractive places for younger generations to live and work.
• Invest further in the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund to improve the daily life of communities in rural parts of Scotland, addressing visitor management issues that may be impacting on the environment and access to local services that will in turn contribute to a greater visitor experience for tourists.
• Initiate a feasibility study to identify and evaluate potential options for a new subsea cable between Shetland and mainland Scotland, with the aim of increasing network resilience and reducing vulnerability to service disruption.
• Support wild salmon and the businesses which depend upon them, continuing to implement measures identified through our Wild Salmon Strategy for 2023-28 – reporting on our progress annually and working with businesses and key stakeholders.
• Develop new career pathways in rural and island communities, including new rural midwifery apprenticeships and continue our work to refine delivery of NHS dental services within island communities, as committed to in our National Islands Plan.
• Maintain support for small producers including £1.5 million of capital investment delivered with business support and advice and continuing work on delivering small scale production opportunities which will add local food resilience, biodiversity and economic gains.