Solving the cost-of-living crisis will require leadership and long-term thinking, a business leader has said, as he urged the First Minister and Prime Minister to form an “economic coalition” with firms.

Stephen Leckie, president of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, told representatives of businesses across the country on Thursday that Nicola Sturgeon and Rishi Sunak should work together with companies to make Scotland “one of the best places in the world to do business”.

Speaking at the chambers’ annual Scottish business address in Glasgow alongside Sturgeon, Leckie said the cost-of-living crisis has “switched to a cost-of-doing-business crisis”.

He said: “For months now, businesses have been experiencing huge increases in input costs and our request to government is that businesses cannot reach for the ambition which I know they so passionately believe in without government’s intervention north and south of the border.

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