Whoever wins the General Election on July 4 will wake up the next day with the keys to Number 10 and the biggest headache imaginable.

Not because of the champagne intake the previous evening, but because of the fact there is not enough money to meet all our public services demands.  

Every area of our public services is looking for more money – the NHS, education, police, DWP and last but not least the Ministry Of Defence.

The Tories have already declared that they will increase our military spend to 2.5% of GDP. Labour or any other party will find it difficult not to match this pledge – especially in these difficult times. 

If this commitment is fulfilled it will put a further squeeze on all other department budgets.
Local authorities across the UK have had to cut services because of budget cuts from central government, with some declaring bankruptcy. Unfortunately more will follow, I fear.

I have said it before – the number one priority for the new Prime Minister is to find imaginative ways of growing the economy, to find policies that encourage entrepreneurship and to accelerate initiatives that help create more start-up businesses. And on top of this, let’s introduce national scale-up hubs to help businesses grow to their full potential. 

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Establish tax incentives that will create meaningful apprenticeships.

We have to be bold and think big, let’s introduce Enterprise Zones that have tax advantages and re-introduce Enterprise Investment Schemes on an even greater scale than before as well as giving rates relief for start-ups.

The housing shortage and skills shortage are two massive problems, so let’s get some clever joined up thinking to turn this into one great positive.

We are also very short on tradesmen in the building industry and this is creating unsustainable cost increases. So let us allow the construction industry to apply the first three years of an apprenticeship against tax. We need these skilled workers. This will pay huge dividends through taxable income in the long run.

There are other sectors that have major skill shortages. We must work closer with our colleges and universities to ensure we are teaching the right subjects that will match the job opportunities that are there in abundance. For example, there seems to be a severe shortage of town planners and building control officers so let’s attack this shortfall immediately.

We can also learn from the largest economy in the world. In the US, the government listens very closely to what business has to say. The President has a political cabinet but he also has a business group that he works with very closely.  

I hope we can adopt the same approach in the UK.

Whether we like it or not, central and local authorities are going to have to explore every avenue to raise cash. 

Unfortunately, the only ideas we have seen so far has been raising taxes and reducing services – asking us to pay more for reduced services is a recipe for disaster.

Driving enterprise should start with local councils, with support from central government. Maybe we should reintroduce local enterprise companies overseen by Scottish Enterprise? If we do not do something quickly, conversations will begin on the economies of scale in reducing the amount of local authorities. Each council should designate one person as a Business Development Manager.

Let’s try a pilot in Glasgow and if it is successful roll it out across the country.

Time and time again when you ask people who are willing to invest in Scotland what their biggest frustration is, they will tell you it’s planning – this is across the country and something has to be done about it immediately.  

We have to start here, and as mentioned earlier, we need more planners and building control officers. If we do not resolve this issue, everything else we try in relation to economic growth will be hampered. 

I know for a fact that people will pay more for a speedier response to a planning application. If Manchester can give an answer to an application in 16 weeks why is it sometimes 16 months in Scotland?  

We are in a race to become the first country in the world to have 100% clean energy, yet I read yesterday it took eight years to get planning for a wind farm. This is absolutely ridiculous. We can do much better than that.

Since my last article I am delighted to see that housing is the main topic across all political parties in Scotland. The shortage of affordable housing is totally unacceptable and something must be done to address this issue immediately. This problem is so severe it needs a cross-party approach to solve it.  

If we can do one thing for the people of Scotland it’s “Let’s do this”. n