Scottish Enterprise launches GBP 1.8 billion Capital Investment Scheme (2025-2035)

Mechanism

Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Government's national economic development agency, published a decade-long (2025-2035) capital investment subsidy scheme worth GBP 1.8 billion. Unlike the sector-targeted UK industrial-policy instruments already in the register (National Semiconductor Strategy, Critical Minerals Strategy, Defence Industrial Strategy), this scheme is horizontal — open to any sector and any size of business operating in Scotland — and funds capital investment projects intended to raise business productivity. Grants are discretionary and capped at GBP 15 million per award, subject to a merits-based due-diligence appraisal, and administered under the post-Brexit UK Subsidy Control Act 2022 framework (already in the register as uk-subsidy-control-act).

Severity is set at 2 (quant, based on the disclosed GBP 1.8bn decade-long envelope and GBP 15m per-award cap) because the scheme is broad-based regional economic development rather than a targeted strategic-sector intervention — it does not itself pick winners in critical materials, semiconductors, or defence, though awards made under it could flow to firms in those sectors over its ten-year life.

Downstream implications

• A GBP 15m per-grant cap over a GBP 1.8bn decade-long pool implies capacity

for roughly 120 max-sized awards, though most awards are likely to be smaller; watch for award-level disclosures naming specific recipients and sectors as the scheme matures.

• Adds to the broader pattern of UK sub-national and national bodies (Scottish

National Investment Bank, British Business Bank, National Wealth Fund) running parallel discretionary capital-support vehicles alongside targeted industrial-policy programmes.

Open questions

• No public award-level data yet (scheme just launched); unclear how much

will flow to critical-minerals, semiconductor, or defence-adjacent firms versus general SME productivity capex.