Scottish Economy

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 19 September 2013.

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Photo of Willie Rennie Willie Rennie Liberal Democrat

Not just now.

Iain Gray is right that, instead of obsessing about independence, the Scottish Government should look at what it can do in Scotland right now. For a start, it could reverse the cuts to Scotland’s colleges. We have asked repeatedly for that and we have raised it repeatedly with John Swinney in budget discussions. I hope that we can make a bit more progress this year. The £25 million cut had a detrimental effect on our colleges—80,000-plus part-time courses were lost. That is having a big impact on skills, which affects our economy.

The Scottish Government could also embrace a new initiative from the UK Government—the £2,000 national insurance contribution employment allowance. We could use that fund in Scotland for several thousand companies that would benefit; many small companies could benefit significantly and even more would be taken out of NICs altogether.

We need to make an effort on apprentices, because the comparison between the percentage of companies that take on apprentices in Scotland and the percentage that do so in England does not bear well for Scotland—the figure is only 12 per cent in Scotland but 14 per cent in England. We therefore need to do much more. That is why the NIC employment allowance could make a contribution. We in the Parliament and the Government should encourage companies to take on an apprentice so that we can get the rates up to the levels that are being achieved in England.

Those are two actions that the Scottish Government could take to contribute to the improvement in the economy across the UK.