FREEMAN TELLS OF CO-OPERATION BREAKDOWN BETWEEN GOVERNMENTS Report warns unemployment in Britain could top four million
Politicians and activists join forces in bid to eradicate rough sleeping on streets
CO-OPERATION between the Scottish and UK governments in the Covid-19 fight is breaking down, according to Jeane Freeman, left. Scotland’s Health
Secretary said the working relationship was “not as we would wish it to be” and added there is “a vacuum in shared discussion and decision-making at ministerial level”.
At the Commons’
Scottish Affairs Committee, Freeman said there was continued co-operation between the two governments, with regular contact at official level and between health ministers and phone calls between Sturgeon and
UK ministers. But she then listed examples of how the Scottish Government and other devolved administrations are being cut out of decision-making.
She was critical that the Cobra emergency
committee – which brings leaders from devolved nations to a Downing Street meeting – had not been convened in more than a month. Freeman said: “Cobra has not met since May 10. It seems to me be an important place for four nation co-operation to be undertaken.”
Quizzed by Tory MP Andrew Bowie on the huge number of care home deaths in Scotland, Freeman said the decisions to discharge elderly patients from hospitals into care homes had been based on clinical advice. She said: “Many of the steps we took were common across the four nations of the UK in terms, for example, of discharging patients to care homes, although the majority did go home.
But Bowie, a Scottish Conservative member of the committee, said: “The SNP is entirely in control of the health service in Scotland and they bear the responsibility for the
SNP Government’s decisions throughout the Covid crisis. Ms Freeman took the decision to move untested patients from hospitals into care homes. It is a cynical ploy to try to blame hospital doctors or care home staff.”
BY BEN gLaZE UNEMPLOYMENT in Britain could be set to top four million – and hit levels last seen more than 80 years ago, a report warns.
The Learning and Work Institute said the “sharpest-ever rises are taking unemployment to historic highs”.
Its 41-page report reveals the “impact is uneven, with young people and the least prosperous areas hardest hit”.
It adds: “Our analysis suggests unemployment could rise above 10 per cent in the second half of 2020, perhaps reaching levels last seen in 1938, following the Great Depression.
“This would mean in excess of four million people out of work.
“Even if the economic recovery is rapid, experience suggests employment could take five years to recover.
“Employment took three years to recover from the 2008 financial crisis and more than five and seven years respectively after the recessions of the 80s and 90s.”
Regional inequalities are set to deepen, with more jobs shed in areas where fewer people were in work to start with, the report says.
Young people face a particularly high-risk, leading to fears of a “pandemic generation”.
Young workers are three times more likely to be in industries where jobs are most at risk, according to the Trades Union Congress.
Of 4.35million employees aged 25 and under, 890,000 work in either the accommodation and food industry, or arts, entertainment and recreation sectors.
Some 83 per cent in accommodation and food are furloughed, along with 73 per cent in arts, entertainment and recreation.
That compares with an economy-wide average of 28 per cent of workers furloughed.
The institute’s recommendations include bringing forward “large-scale investment and incentives to create jobs with shovel-ready and jobs-rich schemes”.
It also called for boosting demand for new boilers and electric cars by introducing scrappage schemes; a “Youth Guarantee” to prevent a rise in long-term youth unemployment, including maintenance support to help 18-year-olds stay in education.
Stephen Evans, the CEO of the institute, said: “The Government has taken unprecedented action to protect jobs and incomes during the crisis.
“Yet despite this, we’ve still seen the sharpest spike in joblessness on record and risk unemployment rising to levels last seen in the Great Depression.
“We need a plan for jobs whose ambition matches the scale of the challenge by driving employment growth, guaranteeing young people work or training, and providing rapid employment support to the millions of people who now find themselves unemployed.”
Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband said: “The Government needs to act on the unemployment emergency we face.
“We cannot afford to leave millions out of work. There are so many jobs that need doing.
“We need a zerocarbon army of people doing environmental jobs like insulating homes, creating the zero-emission engines of the future, planting trees and creating green spaces. The Government can and must act to save as many businesses as it can.”
The bleak employment forecasts came as the UK death toll hit 41,279, up 151.
BY MaRK McgIVERN CAMPAIGNERS are demanding that not a single homeless person is thrown on to Scottish streets once a June 28 deadline for free hotel accommodation expires.
Rough sleeping in Edinburgh and Glasgow was eradicated within days at the start of the lockdown after emergency hotel rooms were provided.
But no funding has been secured for an extension to current measures and no alternate housing has been provided.
Campaigner Sean Clerkin said the Scottish Government should immediately pledge more cash to bolster the £1million already paid to support the homeless.
He said: “Instead of putting these homeless people back on the streets at the end of this month, the Scottish Government should give more money to extend their stay in these hotels and come up with a plan and the required resources to give all of these people permanent homes.
“The Scottish Government has been given £9.2million from Westminster for the homeless and this money can be used to build new permanent homes for the homeless.
“The Scottish Government can upscale Rapid Re-Housing Transition and Housing First as well as bringing empty homes back into use. There must be no going back.”
Earlier this week, UK housing minister Luke Hall announced a £6million package for a total of 132 charities across England to provide beds for those who need them plus physical and mental health support to recover from life on the streets.
The funding is part of a £750million package of Government support for UK charities who may have been impacted by the pandemic.
About half of that is for homelessness charities. Hugh Hill, a director of both the Simon Community and Streetwatch, which have convened homeless responses in Glasgow and
Edinburgh, said meetings are taking place this week to plot a way forward for about 800 people currently in B&B or other emergency housing.
He said: “I am not anticipating that June 28 will signal the emptying of the hotels and people being thrown on the street.
“The messages I am receiving suggest, I hope, that we will at least see another month’s extension. But it is plain that hotels must go back to being hotels and people who are homeless must look to establishing proper homes, with the proper support of Government and local authorities.” Housing minister Kevin Stewart aims to reconvene the Homeless Action Group to look at the problem. He said: “We have provided more than £1million to thirdsector organisations to enable them to acquire emergency hotel accommodation for people experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, homelessness to ensure they are safe during the pandemic. “However, this is an emergency accommodation arrangement and is a temporary measure, not a sustainable, or long-term solution. “I do not want to see anyone return to unsuitable temporary accommodation or rough sleeping so it is vital we now all work together to ensure everyone is supported out of these arrangements into a settled home or other suitable accommodation.”