Tommy Sheridan: In the course of the First Minister's meeting with the Prime Minister, did the Prime Minister indicate his intention to introduce American-style workfare in Scotland? If he did, did the First Minister indicate his support for that?
Linda Fabiani: ..., I am concerned about what has been given to us on job creation. We are doing good work with colleges and on skills and training. However, although we are getting the ability through workfare to put people into jobs, we are not getting the ability to create those jobs. That is extremely important, and it ties in with the precept in the motion that we are discussing, which I absolutely...
Christina McKelvie: ...weapons from Scottish waters. Labour abstained on the vote on the debate on the Iraq war yesterday and supported the Tories in taking more money from benefit claimants in London. Need I mention workfare? I only hope that a tiny remnant of principle remains and that we will see an echo of the memory of the once-proud Labour principle of nuclear disarmament. Labour’s principles are...
Alex Salmond: ...devolved Parliament cannot manufacture finance from nowhere, as Westminster is in control of our budget, is to misunderstand the basic challenge in Scottish politics. This week, Labour abstained on workfare in the House of Commons, it abstained on Trident in this very chamber and it even abstained on the Iraq war in this very chamber. What Scotland needs is a Government that does not...
Ross Greer: ...often completely ridiculous. A man was sanctioned for missing an appointment because he was taking his wife to hospital when she went into labour prematurely. A person was unable to attend their workfare placement because the transport was too expensive—of course, in the workfare programme, people are not paid—despite that person having offered to work at a branch that was closer to...
Alex Johnstone: I am sorry, but I have limited time and want to get finished. To describe the proposals that were put forward this week as “workfare” is to give an unfair description of what is proposed. The specific concern was about the long-term unemployed, who are in a very difficult situation, especially in communities where there are large numbers of them. When a job becomes available, the chances...
Christina McKelvie: ...Government will implement in full. The plan will also include the work of the fair work convention, which I welcome. When we talk about suitable employment opportunities, do we mean discredited workfare-type models, or a model that addresses the needs of long-term and generational unemployment? One excellent model in that respect is Remploy in Hamilton, in my constituency of Hamilton,...