Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 17 September 2020
I am going to make progress.
I also respect the minister’s and the cabinet secretary’s views on the furlough scheme. If they had listened to SNP back benchers, who booed the scheme when I last mentioned it in the chamber, they would have put party politics ahead of welcoming almost a million Scottish jobs being saved.
However, the furlough scheme must end at some point, as the SNP has admitted. Even once it draws to a close, that is not the end of the story, because the job retention bonus will pay £1,000 for every furloughed employee who is kept on. The furlough scheme is just one part of the massive £16 billion support that the UK Government has deployed in Scotland.