Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 01 September 2020
I thank Ruth Davidson for her comments. I absolutely understand the importance of small businesses to our economy and, indeed, to our society and our wellbeing as a country. That is why I am so very proud to be the leader of the Government that, in a previous session of Parliament, introduced the small business bonus, such is the importance of the small business community to everything that we do in our country.
So much of what the programme for government covers will help businesses of all shapes and sizes, including small and medium-sized enterprises, whether through the on-going emergency support or, in the longer term, our commitments to digital infrastructure, to helping businesses to fill the skills gaps that they have and to retraining the workforce to ensure that small businesses have access to a skilled population in the future.
We will consider all suggestions, but I make the point that I will always make when pleas for more funding are made, for understandable reasons. The budget of the Scottish Government is largely finite, because we do not have access to the borrowing powers that the UK Government has access to. If we want more money to flow through into help for businesses, the UK Government must make such decisions or give us the borrowing powers to make them ourselves.
In relation to Aberdeen, we made money available for a hardship fund there, and we will continue to look at every way in which we can support businesses. Of course, the biggest and most important thing that we can do to support business is to keep Covid suppressed so that we do not have further restrictions on businesses’ ability to trade, and to take early action when there are increases in the transmission of the virus so that we keep our economy and, of course, our schools open.
The biggest threat that faces businesses of all sizes in the immediate term is the withdrawal of the furlough scheme, and I hope that members across the chamber will join me in calling on the UK Government not to withdraw that support prematurely so that the benefit of the support that we can give, building on that foundation, is not taken away by the disaster that will befall businesses if the furlough scheme is withdrawn, as is currently planned.