The uncertainty around Brexit is already having a detrimental economic impact on Scotland. Instead of planning for Brexit, firms could be focusing on developing their business and working to increase productivity, which we discussed earlier today. Any form of Brexit will have a further detrimental impact on Scotland.
A no-deal Brexit will create an immediate dislocation in the economy, which has the potential to impact us in many ways, including through investment, uncertainty, logistics, trade, sterling, and regulatory, financial and fiscal channels, which will have an impact on individual businesses, sectors and communities. From analysis by the Scottish Government, alongside analyses by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England and other independent forecasters, we know that having no deal will tip the Scottish economy into recession and reverse the recent gains in the labour market, which could see unemployment rise by up to 100,000.
Although we do not want to leave the EU, we, as a responsible Government, have to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. There are things that we can plan for, but there will also be many unknown unknowns. Therefore, we have planned a range of interventions that we can deploy in the event of a no-deal Brexit. We will need to be agile in determining which to deploy and when, based on an assessment of the situation as it unfolds.
I am clear that the funding for those interventions should have come from the UK Government. The Scottish budget has been agreed by Parliament and is fully committed. If resource is not forthcoming from the UK Government, we will be faced with the choice either to cut funding for public services, or not to deploy contingency plans in the way that we would want.
We have organised our response to Brexit in three phases: resilience, recovery and restructuring. On resilience, we are engaging with business organisations across Scotland and seeking to address their concerns as best we can. That includes providing bespoke information on how businesses can prepare for Brexit in supporting access to finance for businesses of all sizes. We are doing that primarily through the prepare for Brexit website, which has now had more than 100,000 visits. We have completed 6,000 company assessments. As recently as last week, I met the chief executives of our enterprise and skills agencies to take stock of our Brexit response and to ensure that we are aligned in our approach.
In all of that, we have three lines of defence. We are working closely with the banks, encouraging them to make funding available and signposting businesses to go to the banks in the first place. I am convening a meeting of the banking and economy forum later today and I will continue to impress on the banks the important role that they have in stepping up to the plate to help Scottish business post-Brexit. The second line of defence is to look to the UK Government to step up and provide support to businesses that are suffering as a result of Brexit, primarily through the British Business Bank. Finally, businesses will be able to access the current Scottish Government and agency support. We plan a range of interventions and options that we can deploy in the event of a no-deal Brexit. We need to be agile in determining which options to deploy, based on an assessment of the situation as it unfolds.
In relation to recovery, a revised and updated version of our economic action plan will be launched later in the autumn, setting out the wide range of activities and interventions that we are undertaking to help to deliver sustainable, inclusive economic growth.
As we know, Brexit impacts real people and our future skills action plan will help to ensure that Scotland has a skilled and productive workforce that is resilient to future economic challenges. We will continue to increase investment in R and D and our export plan, which seeks to ensure that we are not just fighting back against the impact of Brexit, but are targeting key markets and industries that have real growth potential. We will build on that through the Scottish national investment bank.
We aim to combat the potential fall in population as a result of Brexit with campaigns to ensure that European Union citizens know that Scotland is their home and that they are welcome here, and with efforts to secure an immigration policy that suits Scotland’s needs.
Finally, the third phase of our approach involves longer-term restructuring, which means looking further ahead to try to understand what the economy might look like in the future and prepare for that. Obviously, that is hard to do in the current uncertain political and economic environment that we find ourselves in, but we are ready and prepared to adjust our approach to whatever may come.