Budgets demonstrate influence of the Chamber network

While the recent Budgets from the UK and Scottish Governments did not address all the gaps in business support that have emerged since businesses first went into lockdown a year ago, many of the demands from teams British Chambers of Commerce and the Scottish Chambers of Commerce were actioned by the two Governments. These included the extension of Furlough and the Self Employed Income Support Scheme, further business cash grants, another 600000 self employed people becoming eligible for support and the extension of business rates relief, which in Scotland has been extended until the end of March 2022 because of forceful lobbying from SCC. The Chancellor also announced the new ‘Super Deduction’ investment incentive, something that had been a big priority for the BCC.

Commenting on these successes, Alan Mitchell, Chief Executive of Fife Chamber of Commerce, said: “Fife Chamber is an active member of the BCC and the SCC for one simple reason. The influence that we can extert over the Scottish and UK Governments on behalf of our members is magnified many times over because we are part of these much bigger networks that have much greater reach into the centres of political decision making. The voice of Fife Chamber’s hundreds of members is amplified when it is part of the 12000-strong SCC voice or the 70000 businesses that make up the BCC. We see the benefit of that stronger voice in the recent Budgets, where our lobbying will get extra support to businesses across Fife. Of course the Budgets didn’t address all of the funding gaps but we and our partners at the BCC and the SCC will keep on pushing to get them filled, and we have more chance of succeeding because we are a unified partnership of chambers of commerce with huge collective strength.”

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