Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 17 September 2020
I welcome the opportunity to discuss the support that is needed to help employers retain jobs across the UK and, where that is not possible, to help people who find themselves unemployed to get a job. The figures are stark—on a scale hitherto unseen—and will worsen substantially when the job retention scheme comes to an end in October.
Without the option of furlough, millions of workers across the UK would have found themselves immediately unemployed with no income and no idea of when, or if, they would be able to find work again. That includes more than 800,000 workers in Scotland who are on the furlough scheme. Estimates suggest that, when furlough unwinds, as many as 350,000 people in Scotland could find themselves out of work.
According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, 34 per cent of young people will lose their jobs when furlough ends—that is 100,000 young people. That will be the highest level of youth unemployment ever seen in this country. That is truly catastrophic. We need radical action if we are not to condemn a generation of young people to the dole queue. Anything that we do must be about providing real hope and opportunity—and we have to do that quickly; we cannot afford to wait.
The past few weeks have shown that the virus is far from over, which in turn means that the problems that Covid-19 has created for business and industry are not over either. It therefore makes almost no sense to end the job retention scheme next month. Employers need continuing support.
We need the job retention scheme to continue in some form. I have argued before for sector-specific deals, which means support for those industries that have been worst hit by the pandemic and where there is no certainty for their employees. That support must be tailored to the needs, strengths and weaknesses of the Scottish economy.
Our economy has a greater reliance on sectors such as tourism and hospitality, aviation—as we debated yesterday—and oil and gas than economies elsewhere in the UK. A sector-specific approach would be a sensible one to take. Equally, I want both Governments to invest in growing particular sectors such as the financial services and information technology sectors, to drive forward increased employment opportunities. Waiting until businesses fail is not an option, and we should be working with the Confederation of British Industry Scotland, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and others to identify those areas at risk and invest. Let us have interventions that address the issues that are being faced by those in work who might be made redundant, in order to prevent job losses.
We also need to focus quickly on implementing the Scottish Government’s proposals to tackle the widespread unemployment that we are already experiencing. This is without doubt the biggest economic issue of our times and we cannot afford to sit around and wait for the UK Government to act. The situation requires the Scottish and UK Governments to work together.
I fully support the Alliance for Full Employment that Gordon Brown has initiated with the Welsh Government and metro mayors of cities and regions across England. It is hugely important to come together and act together on the employment crisis, mobilising all the resources across the UK to end the recession and create good-quality jobs. The AFE is a great initiative—it is exactly what is needed. Will the Scottish Government join in? Will it co-operate with others across the UK to focus on jobs? I will be happy to take an intervention from the minister if he wants to tell us. Yes or no?