New scheme will force workers onto benefits
After much speculation, the Chancellor announced the replacement of the furlough scheme.
This scheme has managed the twin feat of being inferior to its predecessor while squandering the opportunity to fix the serious flaws that have left millions of workers to fall through the cracks of a system that was meant to support them.
Now we have a system that seems custom designed to push workers onto benefits, rather than provide them with protection.
Under this meek scheme, we now face a winter of redundancy, causing both individual hardship and a devastating impact on the wider economy, when what we need is stability for the short and longer term.
The self-employed and contractors – despite months of being given assurances they would not be forgotten – are being given a pittance, left to fall through the net and causing yet more financial distress.
For the Chancellor to stand up in Parliament and announce measures that leave us light years behind our European neighbours will leave those who desperately need the support feeling let down by a UK Government that promised to leave no one behind.
In Germany, their equivalent of furlough was recent extended for a further two years, while the French scheme will last for the next three.
Meanwhile, we have no idea what happens beyond next spring – but we know coronavirus is with us and our economy for the foreseeable.
At the same time, the Chancellor continues his track record of letting our aviation industry – a key employer in Renfrewshire – down time after time.
The latest blow comes as the UK Government announced that tax- free shopping for visitors outside the EU, and VAT free shopping for passengers at UK airports, will cease at the end of the year.
This scheme supports thousands of jobs across the country, both directly at the airports and their shops, and in high streets the length and breadth of Scotland.
Scrapping it at a time when aviation faces huge obstacles to recovery is yet another hammer blow that puts jobs and livelihoods at risk.
If the UK Government won’t use its financial powers to support workers and protect employment at a time of international crisis, it’s time they passed those powers to Scotland, where we want to do something rather than sit on our hands.
TSB’s announcement of yet more branch closures was more bad news for our town centres and local communities.
With branches at Renfrew and Johnstone now scheduled to shut, the bank that used to like to say yes is now saying no to businesses and customers across Renfrewshire.
In Renfrew alone, Santander, RBS and Clydesdale banks have been shut over recent years, with the Bank of Scotland – now set to be the only bank branch left in town – being downgraded.
Local businesses need local banking if they’re to rebuild for the future, but, if big banks continue to attack their own networks, that rebuilding becomes even more difficult.
With access to cash and pay- to- use ATMs a major issue across Renfrewshire – and, in particular, in more deprived areas – removing branch options from more and more people will increase their dependence on these costly machines and cost customers more simply to access their own money.
It’s long past time the UK Government, which is responsible for banking regulation, stepped in and brought the big banks to heel.
Businesses, like anyone else, have a responsibility to local communities and society and, as we collectively try to meet the biggest economic challenge since the war, it’s vital we have every tool possible at our disposal.
As we meet the economic challenges of covid- 19, we have to also make sure we’re helping stop the virus in its tracks.
The update given yesterday to the Scottish Parliament by the First Minister may feel like a backwards step, but it is vital that we all follow the guidance.
Additional restrictions for hospitality and the continuation on restrictions on mixing with households indoors is tough, but it is a decision based on clinical advice and contact tracing information coming out of Test and Protect.
By taking tough, but necessary action now we hope to avoid even tougher action in the future.
If we can all follow the guidance and advice, we can achieve this.
It won’t be easy – but collectively we can do what we have done before and stop this deadly disease in its track, buying more time as the development of a vaccine continues.