I was listening intently to Mairi Spowage’s explanation there and I was beginning to think that I was on a different planet. I understand the economics, which she explained very well, but I am smiling because a number of other conditions need to be taken into account, as she said. In particular, we have not focused on the fact that there was a lot of up-front output towards the end of 2020, particularly from manufacturing and construction. There was a lot of pre-planning, pre-stocking and increasing exporting trends during the final quarter of 2020, as businesses became nervous about the European Union exit day of 31 December. There was a lot of uploading in the final two quarters of 2020, which will skew the figures considerably. If we manage to get a 400 per cent increase in tax input in 2021, I will be delighted. I do not see that happening at all, but I am not an economist and I hope that Mairi Spowage is proved wrong.
I go back to Murdo Fraser’s question on an economic recovery plan. I know that this might not be within the committee’s remit but, obviously, health, vaccines and testing are absolute priorities, so please caveat whatever I say on that basis. The health and safety of our communities is the absolute priority. However, businesses now need an economic recovery plan. We do not want grants; we want the ability to trade, albeit in a phased and safe manner. For almost four months, we have been calling for an economic development plan that we can contribute to and design alongside our partners in the Government and the public sector generally so that we have something that is running in parallel with the health crisis plan. We need that, because we are not investing and we are seeing massive job losses, and many more are planned.
I thought that Mairi Spowage had a scoop and that we were going to have furlough for the next 12 months, but she corrected that quickly. Business is being screwed right now and we are going to be seeing massive job losses. Businesses need hope and confidence for our employees and our business owners that, if X, Y, and Z happen, we will be looking at a potential phased reopening starting in X, Y or Z. That is what we need right now.
We recognise that that might change and evolve every day, and that is fine, but we need some sort of tentative date for an economic recovery plan and an exit out of this. We need an idea of how we can focus on business survival and growth in the short term, and then in the medium term, of how we will grow our economy. All that is missing, and in its absence confidence, optimism, trade and investment are all in a disastrous position. It is important that that happens.
On the economic recovery plan, we liked the announcement about the national infrastructure plan. That has been one of the key tools in the box that the Government can use to create an environment in which business can look at a recovery.
I will add that we like the £1.5 billion to 2025-26. I know that there are constraints around the amount of money that the Government can call on in any fiscal year, but is there any possibility of bringing that forward to stimulate our economy quickly in Scotland, perhaps using funds from the Scottish National Investment Bank or the British Business Bank? Can we get a bit of that money? Perhaps we could use private sector investors. That is a firm part of it; the intention is there, but we are asking for that money to be brought forward because it will stimulate our economy very quickly. It was tried and tested when we were in a previous recession. We are no longer just in a recession; we have a national disaster on our hands. If we could look at bringing that forward and make the case for that, we would value that.
Business support is all about reducing costs. We have talked about furlough, and we want that extended, but it is not the only game in town. We want to look at the Scottish Government budget. I appreciate that it has been a difficult budget to pull together in the absence of a UK budget until the beginning of March, but scenario planning must be going on to look at what we will spend any extra money on if we get it from the UK Government?
There should be open dialogue with business to make certain that any new initiatives are designed to meet our needs. There is no reason why that should not be done for business support by asking us what we liked and what landed well with us. We liked the reduction in the poundage rate, which was welcomed because the plan had been for it to increase this year, and the short-term extension of rates relief for sectors. Can we return to that, please? The amendment to the small business bonus scheme was great, as was additional financial support to help development agencies—I think that it was 12 per cent. However, the devil is in the detail. My question is how we will spend that money to support businesses, particularly in the sectors that need it right now. The committee knows what those sectors are, so I do not need to repeat that. We would like to know a wee bit more about how that spend will be focused to support the businesses that are in real need, whether they are self-employed or employing 10, 20 or 2,000 people.
We welcomed the focus on upskilling and reskilling. We called for that in our earlier submission. If we can get that right, it will be one of the saviours for our employees as we transform into new business models, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. Reskilling is also important for individuals who have unfortunately been made unemployed. We want more funding for apprenticeships—we support the apprenticeship programme—and we would call for more focus on Skills Development Scotland, our skills agency for Scotland. Its budget seems to be staying as it is. On that basis, I am not sure where the spend will be made in that area.
The flexible workforce development fund is fantastic, “flexible” and “workforce” being two key descriptors. We like that, but it has never been independently evaluated. Again, we have been asking for that for some time. Let us make sure that we are putting our money in the funds in the right way. If it is successful, let us look at the good parts, and let us also look at where we could work more with our colleges and universities to make certain that the funding and skills training is going into the right area.
The national transitional fund, again—