We know that, as well as being a public health crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic is an economic crisis. I have real sympathy for those who have had to close their businesses or who have lost their jobs, and I understand the need to carefully get our economy moving again.
Our route map sets out a phased approach to lifting lockdown measures, to give people and business time to prepare to begin the process of restarting. Today, I will provide more details on our plan for restart and our wider recovery.
Our economic response has been defined by four phases: response, reset, restart and recovery. Our initial response has been focused on protecting lives, critical services, businesses and household incomes, and our economic interventions so far have been significant.
We have set out a unique package of business support of more than £2.3 billion to reflect the specific needs of our economy. The support includes rates relief measures, hardship funds and grants for specific sectors such as small businesses, retail, hospitality and leisure, and seafood and fisheries.
Support is getting to those who need it. Under the business grants funding scheme, by 19 May—last week—local authorities had worked hard to pay out almost 65,000 grants, with more than £741 million being distributed to support Scottish businesses.
We know that recovery for some sectors, such as tourism, will be extremely challenging, and Fergus Ewing is leading Scottish Government activity to seek more financial support and to work with that sector to steer and plan for re-opening.
I announce today that we will extend eligibility for the current small business, retail, hospitality and leisure grants to businesses that occupy multiple premises with a cumulative value of more than £51,000, and to businesses that occupy premises such as shared office spaces, business incubators and shared industrial units where the landlord is the ratepayer.
We are also working with local authorities to support small businesses that are not in the rates system and were not eligible to apply to the hardship scheme solely because they did not have a business bank account. Further detail on those arrangements will be set out later this week.
Moving beyond the initial response, we have worked to reset, including working to clear the supply chain blockages that we experienced at the beginning of the crisis. That has laid the groundwork for us to restart the economy.
The sacrifices that we are all making are having an impact, but the margins for controlling the virus are tight. Our economic restart must be safe and should be built around three pillars: successful measures to suppress the virus; guidance that promotes fair and safe workplaces and sectors; and the right structures for workplace regulation.
On our measures to suppress the virus, the First Minister today announced that our test and protect approach will be rolled out across health boards. The roll-out will include the publication of guidance for those who are self-isolating and for employers.
Clear guidance and regulation are essential in providing confidence to workers, employers and customers that workplaces are safe. Guidance that was produced recently by the United Kingdom Government will be helpful, but it goes only so far, which is why we are developing sector-specific workplace guidance.
Reflecting the diverse nature of our businesses, our guidance is being developed through a number of different routes. Some industries have already published guidance, whereas that of others is still in development. Ministers across Government are working in partnership with industry, trade unions and regulators to prioritise activity based on the phasing that is set out in the route map.
We are currently working with around 14 sectors. We will publish guidance sector by sector in the coming days and weeks.
I am pleased to begin that process today with the publication of guidance on manufacturing and retail. The guidance draws on the experiences of businesses that have responded magnificently so far in providing essential equipment and the services that are needed in the crisis, while maintaining safe workplaces. Both sectors have excellent examples of business, trade unions and regulators showing collective leadership to create the right environments to protect workers and customers as we learn to live and work in the new normal.
Those publications should be considered alongside guidance on education and transport—also published today—which are critical to people being able to work. They will be followed by more sectoral guidance later this week, including for the construction sector, with which we have been working closely to agree a carefully planned approach.
On its own, guidance will not create safe working environments. We are also working closely with the key enforcement agencies—the Health and Safety Executive, local authorities and the police—to ensure that there is a joined-up approach to the enforcement and monitoring of workplace public health measures. I announce today the publication of a joint statement that sets out how those bodies will work together to ensure that workplaces operate safely and in compliance with the new regulations.
As that statement sets out, it is essential that employers carry out a Covid-19 risk assessment and that, where possible, such assessments should be developed with union health and safety representatives. Working together—employers, workers, unions and the regulatory bodies—we can create safe workplaces for all.
It is also vital that there is a public health advice service for businesses. We are collaborating with Public Health Scotland to enhance its healthy working lives service, which will provide small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, with the advice and support that they need to implement safe working arrangements.
I will continue to take the steps that are necessary to build capacity across the system, to ensure that workers and consumers have the confidence to return to safe workplaces.
As more parts of the economy restart, we will be putting our fair work principles at the heart of everything that we do, reflecting our joint statement with the Scottish Trades Union Congress, and we will review those principles throughout the recovery phases to ensure they respond and adapt accordingly. I want to continue to work with employers to ensure that workers are treated fairly if they are shielded or managing childcare as the schools transition. It is essential that we understand the impact of the crisis on equalities groups, particularly women.
Our recovery is about looking forward and preparing our economy for a post-Covid future. Our aim is not only to get back to where we were. We will need a revolution in economic thinking that stimulates and values co-operative sharing of risk and reward—a revolutionary approach that rethinks what value is, and where old thinking of battling over wealth distribution that is never properly delivered is replaced by collective endeavour. The time of a wellbeing economy has well and truly arrived—a time in which creative thinking about wage subsidies can be seen as a generator of innovation and change.
We must be brave and bold and rethink the world of work and how we can work productively. We must think differently about remote working—in geographic as well as workplace terms. We must look to a new future that accelerates a green recovery, and we will press the UK Government on transmission, carbon capture storage and other critical issues.
I want to explore ways to advance energy transition measures—for the north-east, in particular—with a major focus on domestic manufacture and supply chains by working to build resilience into all that we do to meet and manage domestic demand, and by putting innovation, technology and advanced manufacturing at the heart of our new futures industrial plan.
Our recovery will be an opportunity to renew our economy and build our resilience and future prosperity. We have seen an innovative and compassionate response from all parts of Scotland, and by harnessing the innovation, skills and strengths of our businesses and people we can ensure that Scotland can thrive and compete in the future, and that our recovery is inclusive.
I understand the impact of the crisis on those who have lost their jobs, and I know that the impact will be greater on those who have traditionally faced barriers in the labour market. We will provide continued support to those groups to ensure that no one is left behind.
We will support people to retrain and reskill into good, sustainable jobs as the economy begins to grow again, to make the most of the skills and expertise that we have—for example, in the oil and gas industry—and to lead the way towards clean energy and technologies such as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.
We will support businesses to innovate and adapt their business models, embedding the use of data and new technology to meet changing demands and to access growing global markets for more sustainable goods and services.
We will continue to seek the advice of experts, including the independent advisory group on economic recovery, as we set our path to renewal, and we will engage with, learn from and collaborate with other countries, including the group of wellbeing economy Governments, with which we share values and purpose.
Setting that clear direction to where we want to get to, and working with employers, people and places, will be key to ensuring not only that we recover from the impacts of covid, but that we build back a better economy that is more resilient and able to thrive in the future.