SCOTLAND must act to address low prod-uctivity, a poor business birth rate and its lack of success with scale-ups, according to a group of business leaders.

The group of more than two dozen – including Andrew Wilson, who chaired the Sustainable Growth Commission and Scottish Chambers of Commerce chief executive Liz Cameron – were responding in an open letter to Sir Tom Hunter’s Raising Scotland’s Economic Growth Rate report.

That said Scotland’s GDP was being hit by the failures, and it was not realistic “to think that the current economic policies of either the UK or Scottish governments will produce a transformation of Scotland’s economic performance”.

The signatories said the report underscored the need for inclusive debate across political parties, government, unions, business, the third sector and the media, to establish a new economic strategy for Scotland.

They said: “Achieving significant growth in our GDP is not just in every single persons’ interest, it’s an imperative if we are to maintain and indeed enhance our public services and drive the jobs that are so desperately needed post-pandemic.

“We owe it to our young people that we create a vibrant economy for them to inherit and we need to be exceptional custodians of Scotland’s future for their sakes.”

They said we could not do this by simply “tinkering” at the edges, but had to think big and fast.

“Our opportunity is our size, we are a speed boat compared to the super tanker economies and we are a nation that has historically invented the modern world, it’s not beyond our ken to do that again.

“We implore a rational, national debate on our economic future to then deliver a strategy and an operational implementation plan for Scotland’s growth.”

However, political economist Professor Richard Murphy said the Hunter report “quite spectacularly misses the point”. Writing in The National Extra, he said the demand was that Scotland cut taxes in the future to encourage the expansion of business.

He said: “This fails to note that even the current UK Government is now admitting that its tax cuts did not deliver any significant new investment.

“They’re also failing to note that the US is also calling for a 21% minimum global corporation tax rate, which removes almost all scope for manoeuvre on this issue in Scotland.

“So all they are really suggesting is a plan to cut the taxes of the wealthiest that will just increase inequality in Scotland, whilst requiring government austerity, which is an outcome no sane person wants.

“The political right is bankrupt of ideas then.”

Murphy said the Tories under Margaret Thatcher, coupled with cheap Chinese labour had largely killed off manufacturing in Scotland, but now he said green energy had replaced wage rates as the key issue.

“Most in Scotland will not be thinking of manufacturing as its green future, but that may be wrong,” he said.

“We will still need many energy-intensive products, from steel onwards. And available renewable electricity will determine where such industries are located in the future, and where the jobs that they create are also located.”

Murphy said Scotland needed an industrial strategy that explored its unique advantages, generated jobs and created exports, and added: “Sustainable manufacturing, and intensive IT could do that in Scotland in the future.

“And companies will have no choice but to go where the green power is. Carbon regulation will require that.

“Scotland has no plan to exploit this now that I know of. But if it had it would really have a sustainable industrial strategy.

“Very few countries will be able to claim that soon.

“Scotland has a chance to stand out. And it should.”