THE second coronavirus wave, a new raft of lockdown-like restrictions, the end of the furlough scheme, and the looming Brexit deadline will create a “perfect storm” for businesses and workers, the SNP’s Alison Thewliss has warned.
The Glasgow MP, who acts as the party’s shadow chancellor in the Commons, said this winter could see “mass job losses, businesses going under, and people’s living standards being hit hard” unless the Tory Government act.
Her comments came as Boris Johnson claimed the UK was at a “critical moment” and gave notice that further measures could be taken if hospital admissions and intensive care cases keep rising.
Though he warned that these new restrictions could ultimately be “costly”.
The Prime Minister used a Downing Street press conference to urge people to follow rules and demonstrate “forbearance, common sense and a willingness to make sacrifices for the safety of others”.
The UK Government’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty warned of “a long winter ahead”.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson dismisses coronavirus furlough plea to save 61,000 Scottish jobs
The latest figures showed a further 7108 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. A further 71 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as yesterday.
Whitty said the “small number of deaths now” compared with the height of the outbreak “shouldn’t reassure us that we won’t be, in relatively short order, in quite difficult places – certainly in the regions where we are seeing significant growth at the moment, where pressure on the NHS could happen sooner rather than later if we can’t get on top of it really quite fast.”
The prospect of another lockdown over winter will be grim news for many furloughed workers. With the scheme ending in a month, many firms are looking at redundancies.
Yesterday, Greggs said staff at around half their stores will have to choose between fewer hours or losing their jobs when furlough ends.
In a letter to Chancellor Rishi Sunak – signed by all SNP MPs – Thewliss called for the Government to take action urgently to prevent “a winter of significant and entirely avoidable redundancies”.
She added: “This is particularly alarming against a backdrop of a second wave of coronavirus cases across the UK and the devastating economic impact of Brexit just around the corner – with either a bad deal or no-deal outcome delivering a body blow to Scotland’s economy. Rather than abandoning workers and employers in their time of need, the Tory Government must U-turn on its plans, move to extend the scheme into 2021, and fix the gaps in support to ensure no one is left behind.”
The MP said the “blame and responsibility for every job lost as a result of the furlough scheme being shut down” would lie with Sunak and Johnson.
In the Commons yesterday, Keir Starmer said the Job Support Scheme announced by Sunak last week as a replacement to furlough – which only supports people with “viable” jobs – meant the government had abandoned workers.
The Labour leader read out a letter from the owner of a wedding events business based in Sunak’s Yorkshire constituency, which claimed the UK Government had “closed their ears” to business concerns.
Starmer said: “These businesses are doing the right thing. Why has the Government decided that these jobs aren’t worth saving?”
Johnson said the Government was “putting our arms around the whole of the UK economy. We will do everything we can to save every job”.
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