Calmer domestic politics presents opportunities for business
Business leaders have been on tenterhooks since half the world went to the polls through 2024, waiting to see how election results will translate into actual policy and how their organisations’ interests may be impacted.
For UK businesses, some policy indicators have started to filter through, while others have landed, fully formed, on the doormat with a thud – most pointedly Labour’s surprise drop in the secondary threshold for National Insurance Contributions (NICs).
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Hide AdThis year will serve to resolve more known unknowns, not least those emanating from the US. With the 45th and 47th President having lived rent-free in the heads of business leaders for many months, a great deal has been said on hugely impactful policy areas such as tariffs, commitment (or lack thereof) to Nato and Ukraine, and climate regulation. We are now finally beginning to witness what will actually be done.


While significant focus must be afforded to the many challenges emerging from our new era of heightened geopolitical uncertainty, it would be a mistake for organisations to miss the opportunity for smart engagement at a more local level.
Setting the NICs surprise to one side, Scotland and the wider UK start the year with domestic political winds actually blowing in favour of business for once.
This is for two key reasons. First, we have entered a period of political stability, at least temporarily. At UK level, Labour enjoys a huge parliamentary majority and – despite early turbulence – will remain in power for four more years, unless the Prime Minister himself opts to trigger an early election.
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Hide AdNorth of the Border, while a Holyrood election is fixed for next Spring, in the interim the SNP has ensured its 2025-26 Budget will pass in five weeks’ time, thus averting the prospect of an early trip to the polls. This is in keeping with an air of general calming and de-escalation which has characterised the arrival of John Swinney and Kate Forbes to their respective offices of First and Deputy First Minister.


Second, and reflecting the urgent and critical need to address the dire condition of public finances, for the first time in a long time almost all parties are united in consensus that growth must be a, if not the, core focus for policymaking.
So far, so good. But rather than trust parliamentarians to capitalise on the opportunities which this stability and growth consensus affords (and so risk stability giving way to stasis), businesses should relentlessly agitate for policies which create a favourable, sustainable business environment – and inspire the confidence to invest – not just now in “peacetime”, but into the future, weathering electoral cycles.
In Scotland, no party is projected to win an outright majority in 2026 – as was the intent of the architects of devolution. Businesses should therefore target their policy asks across the political spectrum, to ensure that the enablers of sustainable growth are understood not just by the major parties at Holyrood, but also by its growing band of smaller potential kingmakers.
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Hide AdInternational events will continue to dominate public attention for the near term, but businesses which invest time to influence during this period of rare – and potentially fleeting – domestic political calm, may reap considerable dividends.
Andrew Henderson, Director of Public Policy, Pinsent Masons
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