Jobless figure rising – ahead of new push to break up Britain

this worrying trend in Scotland’s employment – the SNP’s failure to grow Scotland’s economy is an obvious contributor to the increase in economically inactive people.

‘It’s time for the SNP to stop its constitutional obsession and get back to the day job.’

The unemployment figures were released by the Scottish Government in its Regional Employment Patterns in Scotland report.

It shows that last year there were 299,700 people in Scotland, aged 16 and over, who had never worked. This marks an increase of 19,600 over the year.

Excluding 16 to 24-year-olds in full-time education, there were 152,000 people who had never worked – up 1,300 over the year and a rise of 21,000, or 16 per cent, since the 130,900 figure in 2007, when the SNP came to power.

But tomorrow the Nationalists will claim that independence will allow Scotland to improve its economic performance by catching up with the 12 best-performing ‘small advanced economies’, which include Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Finland and Denmark. The SNP will list 12 key lessons from these nations, such as how taxation can be used to boost economic development, higher immigration and more flexible labour markets. The report will say that, after a generation, output per person could grow by £4,100.

Opponents are challenging these figures, with Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard saying: ‘The people of Scotland will rightly be wary of fantasy numbers plucked from thin air by the SNP and promised to every man, woman and child in the country in the event of Scotland leaving the UK.’

The Scottish Conservatives highlighted that the SNP has managed to create only 16 jobs per 1,000 people – against 33 per 1,000 people in Wales over the same period, 36 in Northern Ireland and 63 in England.

The Tories also said that if employment growth in Scotland had matched the UK average, there would be 268,000 more jobs.

James Price, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘The best welfare programme in the world is a job, which gives people a sense of purpose as well as the ability to survive in the world.

‘Of course, those who can’t work should be supported as best we can, but it’s sad so many Scots have never worked before.

‘Not only does that mean more people that taxpayers have to support, but also that so many have never known the sense of worth from a day’s hard work.’

The area with the largest increase in people who have never worked since 2007 is Edinburgh, up 16,000. South Lanarkshire saw a rise f 7,600, and in Aberdeen the figure rose by 7,100.

Over the past year, 2,618,100 people were in work, with the employment rate at 74.3 per cent – the highest on record.

Employability Minister Jamie Hepburn said: ‘This is a historic record for employment in Scotland, demonstrating both the strength of our economy and labour market and that the actions we are taking to grow Scotland’s economy are delivering results.

‘I am committed to reducing the disability employment gap by more than half. The latest figures are encouraging.’

THE SNP’s Growth Commission has looked at the 12 best-performing small advanced economies, cherry-picking ideas that could transform Scotland.

Perhaps they chose the low personal taxation of Hong Kong, the healthcare of Denmark, the social care of Finland, the productivity of Austria…

Ahead of tomorrow’s launch of its full report, the SNP has released a list of key lessons taken from the world’s little economic superstars.

It has all the wide-eyed sincerity of a second-year economics student asked to design an ideal-case country from a blanksheet starting point.

Keys to success, we are told, include quality of governance and disciplined public finances, innovation, a highly skilled workforce with transferable expertise and export-orientation.

Hard for anyone to argue this laudable pick ’n’ mix of best-practice is anything other than first class. Yet outlining lofty ambition is one thing – delivering meaningful, affordable change is another.

The reality is that our economy lags behind the rest of the UK and we report today that 152,000 Scots – equivalent to a city the size of Dundee – have never worked a day in their lives.

The Growth Commission talks of good governance and fiscal rectitude – can the SNP look at more than ten years in power and say it has reached this goal?

Police Scotland serves as a useful example of how the SNP operates. The single force was created with indecent haste, ingraining systemic problems, and the bungled £46million i6 computer project was a bonfire for public money.

Similarly, can a government unable to smoothly administer EU farm payments be expected to ‘innovate’ successfully? Innovative renewable energy projects turned out to be money pits.

When standards are slipping in schools, when the pivotal science, technology, engineering and maths sector is struggling, when the subject choices of pupils are being limited, where does that highly skilled workforce come from?

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard calls the list ‘fantasy’ and it looks more wish-list than serious economic blueprint.

This was the same issue that reduced the 2014 Scotland’s Future document to a laughing stock – long on hope and ambition but woefully short of facts.

The SNP’s biggest economic mistake is to think hard-nosed businesses are fooled by woolly talk of ‘progressive workplace and active employment policies’.

What matters is the bottom line – is the taxation and regulatory system businessfriendly? If there’s a better deal elsewhere, that is where the money men will go.

So we await the full report, more in hope than expectation that it will show how Scotland can be a land of milk and honey.

However, it seems unlikely it will answer the central dichotomy the SNP faces: If Brexit is such an existential threat to Scotland, how does ripping the country out of its key market – the UK – help?