Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 16 September 2020
I declare an interest as a proud member of a trade union.
Last week’s decision to slam on the brakes, and in some cases to move into reverse, on the easing of lockdown is a sobering reminder to us all that Covid-19 has not gone away. Bold talk of eradication has been replaced by a realisation that, until we have better treatments and vaccination, restrictions on our everyday lives will be with us for some time to come.
In everything that we do, our thoughts should never stray from the 4,236 lives lost to coronavirus in Scotland—a terrible toll contributing to one of the worst death rates from Covid-19 in the world. The challenge for us all, which we will face for many months to come, is how to battle this pandemic while also dealing with the impact of the actions that we take to do so.
Although Covid-19 is an appalling health crisis, it is, sadly, also becoming an economic crisis and there are few sectors where that is more profound than aviation. It was one of the first to feel the effects of Covid-19 and it is on track to be one of the last to recover. Without intervention, it is at real risk of collapse. It is difficult to overstate the damage that that would do, given the loss of employment, the impact on communities and the cost to Scotland’s wider economy.
Scottish aviation supports more than 20,000 jobs and contributes more than £837 million to the Scottish economy in gross value added. On top of that, aerospace provides close to 8,000 jobs, many of which are in jeopardy as a result of the pandemic and our response to it. Analysis by the Fraser of Allander institute for Unite the union found that the knock-on impact of the 2,700 job losses already proposed in the aviation and aerospace sector in Scotland would mean a total loss of almost 5,000 jobs—5,000 livelihoods—and £320 million to our economy.
The direct loss of jobs alone is devastating enough for the families involved, but the consequences go further. Scotland’s aviation is key to our economy, supporting sectors such as tourism and attracting inward investment across the country. It connects Scotland to the rest of the world and provides vital transport links within the country, particularly for our island communities.
Covid-19 may have halted business as usual, with air traffic down by around 90 per cent, but even during the pandemic aviation has kept going, keeping communities connected, delivering vital medical supplies, personal protective equipment and testing equipment, helping to keep the shelves in our shops full, and bringing people home as lockdown took hold. It will also have a key role to play in rebuilding Scotland’s economy, but without a sustainable sector that rebuilding will take longer and will be more difficult.
There is a view that helping aviation through this pandemic is somehow at odds with our climate change ambitions. Transport continues to be Scotland’s most polluting sector with pollution levels now higher than they were in 1990. Although aviation contributes around 18 per cent of Scotland’s transport emissions, compared with almost 70 per cent from road transport, I agree that there is an urgent need to reduce emissions from aviation, just as there is an urgent need to enforce the use of greener buses, to phase out—not bring in—40-year-old diesel trains and to make electric vehicles affordable for people who have no alternative to using the car.
Reducing emissions across all forms of transport, including public transport, is essential. That requires targeted investment and enforcement and meaningful long-term change in the way that we travel. Singling out aviation in that debate may provide a convenient scapegoat, but whatever size people believe the sector should be in the long term and however much they believe that it should be smaller, allowing a global pandemic to destroy aviation and wipe out thousands of jobs of ordinary workers right now, in the middle of an economic crisis, is not a just transition to a green economy.