Meeting of the Parliament 07 May 2025
I am very supportive of the sector and, indeed, have had the great pleasure of visiting West Fraser and seeing the expansion in which it has invested. It is one of our finest examples of a brilliant-quality Scottish resource, which, through supporting the manufacturing sector and, ultimately, building houses, has a triple impact on the economy. I am happy to continue to engage with the sector, and the First Minister just told me that he had bumped into and had a very constructive conversation with sector representatives today.
Economic growth is like turning the distillery’s water on. It lets fresh energy, jobs and innovation flow into the heart of our communities. However, growth alone is not enough, because running a distillery is not only about letting the water flow—it is about care, concentration and co-ordination to ensure that all parts of the process work together. As we grow our economy, we must do it in a way that ensures that every business, community, individual, family and child have the chance to contribute to and benefit from that growth.
Our aim is simple: we want to build a fair and inclusive economy, increase employment and raise wages. One example thereof is the expansion of the fairer futures partnerships, which enable partners to help more families to access the support that they need, where and when they need it, and to maximise incomes and access to sustained employment or education opportunities. That is why we are investing more than £40 million in parental employability support in every local authority area, to tailor employability services to parents.
We want to improve inclusive recruitment practices, including flexible working and support for disabled employees. Although the Government will continue to create opportunities and roll out support for disabled people, such as our recent national roll-out of the pension age disability payment, we continue to call on the UK Government to immediately drop its cruel benefit cuts, which target the most vulnerable in our communities. The Scottish Government is unashamedly investing in the communities that the Labour Government seeks to penalise. That is why we have committed to supporting disabled people to move into sustainable employment through specialist employability support from summer 2025, across all 32 local authority areas, supporting closer working between employability provision and employers.