7. To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated to support businesses in areas that have been affected by localised lockdowns. (S5O-04647)

When it came to the localised lockdown in Aberdeen city, we allocated £1 million to provide grants to businesses that were required to close due to local restrictions. That included discretionary support for sectors that were not required to close as well as support for those that were. As of 23 September, 257 grants have been made. We will continue to consider the needs of businesses to reflect the circumstances of local outbreaks and we are pressing the United Kingdom Government for clarity on the funding implications of its equivalent scheme, which is the local restriction support grant.

Yesterday, the First Minister flippantly dismissed the genuine concerns from Aberdeen, showing that the Scottish National Party Government dismisses concerns about the impact of shutting down businesses for three weeks. Those concerns are not patent nonsense. People’s livelihoods are at risk. There are inconsistencies in the SNP approach to Aberdeen and Glasgow, and that sets an unfair precedent and creates anxiety about potential future lockdowns. With Covid cases on the rise again, and my constituents rightly worried, in the event of an SNP-inflicted lockdown, will the Scottish Government commit to publishing supporting evidence to back up its decisions and tell us when a financial lockdown support package will be created and will be available to cushion the blow to the Scottish economy?

What is absolutely patent nonsense is assuming that we base decisions on localised lockdowns on anything other than cold, hard evidence. When it comes to local restrictions and business support, perhaps the member could join me in pleading with the UK Government to provide the clarity that I have asked for on the consequentials coming from its local restrictions support grant. When it came to the Aberdeen lockdown, we moved ahead of the UK Government to put in place the £1 million of support. Rachael Hamilton knows full well that, with a fixed budget, and without any fiscal flexibility, the only source of funding that we have is consequentials. As soon as those are available, we will be able to develop our equivalent scheme.

We all know how important the furlough scheme has been in supporting businesses that were affected by coronavirus. With many sectors still unable to reopen and others being required to close, it is the wrong time to bring the scheme to an end. Does the Cabinet secretary share my concern that the job protection measures that were set up by the UK Government last week do not go far enough, given that our economy has not yet fully reopened?

In Scotland, 217,000 people remain on furlough and the Chancellor has said that the scheme is designed to support viable jobs, but it is still unclear how those in what he would classify as unviable jobs will be supported. It is disappointing that the scheme makes no provision for local lockdowns, the needs of sectors that are dealing with on-going restrictions, or those that have not yet reopened. I share David Torrance’s concerns, which were also reflected in comments from the Scottish Tourism Alliance and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The Cabinet secretary will be aware of the significant concerns of the self-catering industry about the changes in guidance on household composition; 60 per cent of businesses have already experienced cancellations, and 42 per cent expect significant financial losses. What action will the cabinet secretary take to minimise the impact on the sector of the revised guidance coming from the Scottish Government?

Jackie Baillie will know that I have many self-catering properties in my Constituency, so I also get the casework.

First, Fergus Ewing has spoken as recently as yesterday to the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers to understand its concerns and see what more we can do. Secondly, Jackie Baillie will know that there was financial support for self-catering businesses during the first lockdown

. I am keen to ensure that we provide what support we can to those businesses, but the big issue is that the replacement for the job retention scheme will not do so, and we do not have the funding that would allow us to tailor our response to Scotland. We will use every penny that is at our disposal to provide support but, at this point, we do not have the funding to develop new schemes for financial support.

To ask the Cabinet secretary whether guarantees will be offered to ensure that, whether it is Barnett consequentials or not, newly announced funding will be directed to cash-strapped councils and we will not see a repeat of the situation that occurred during the summer when councillors were crying out for funding to be delivered.

The member will know that we have already passed on more funding to local authorities than we have received in consequentials. I will make three other points. Recently, we agreed additional funding of £49 million for local authorities; we are developing a lost income scheme to help councils that have lost out on income, fees and charging; and, thirdly, I have written to the Chancellor with a package of fiscal flexibilities for local authorities that the leader of my local council, Highland Council, who is not an SNP member, called a game changer. I hope that that package will provide the support that local authorities need.