I WAS in Aberdeen at SNP conference last weekend to hear the First Minister make a series of policy announcements. Policies with inclusion at their heart. A £500 a year increase in Carers Allowance, investments in expanding nurseries to provide the infrastructure for universal free childcare, and increased student support for care experienced young people.
Economic growth is vital for the future, but to make a real difference to people’s lives that growth needs to be stable, sustainable and inclusive. It’s good to see this approach at the heart of the Scottish Government’s policies.
The Sustainable Growth Commission understands this too. Their report identifies three areas where we need to focus to deliver sustainable growth to match the levels of our small successful neighbours. Population, participation and productivity. Participation – making sure we include as many of our citizens as possible in our economy – is of vital importance. There is no conflict between inclusion and growth. Expanding inclusion is one of the quickest ways to deliver the growth we need, and ensures as many people as possible benefit from that growth.
The report contains 50 recommendations. Some of these can be, and are being, done under devolution. Flagship policies such as free childcare, modern apprenticeships and the Scottish Government’s new employment programmes are implemented with the intention of increasing participation in labour market for disadvantaged groups.
Other recommendations would need more devolved powers to implement, and yet others require full independence. The Danish model of “flexicurity”, for example. With a robust social security net and support in training and skills for those who are made unemployed, a flexible labour market can be achieved without the devastating insecurity promoted by the UK Government’s benefit scheme. Jobseekers in Denmark receive around £1200 a month for up to two years, with huge support to find new work, and no punitive conditionality attached.
This means that the workforce can meet the demand created by a changing labour market and is better able to cope with future trends like automation. Widespread training and free higher education has led to a highly skilled labour market that commands high wages.
Unfortunately, the long term strategies we need to implement on inclusion, increasing equality and preparing our labour market for the future are being overshadowed by the UK Government’s preoccupation with their shambolic exit from the EU. With the Tories supporting a hard Brexit which is expected to cut tax receipts in Scotland and decrease funding for public services by £3.7 billion, and with Labour’s totally ineffective opposition to this disastrous course of events, the choices facing us are becoming clearer.
The question which must be put to the Scottish people now is not whether Scotland can afford to be independent, but whether we can afford not to be. In a week when polling has shown that for the first time ever more Scots believe we would be better off under independence than in the Union the answer to that question is perhaps becoming clearer too.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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