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I will then set out more detailed policies to the chamber in the first week after the Easter recess. I will be very proud to build on the record of the Government that was led by Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney: the Scottish child payment, the expansion of childcare, Scotland’s international leadership on the transition to net zero and their championing o...
This has been a difficult time, and if we as politicians think that, on the last business day before recess, we want a rest, those guys have to carry on working through.
The risk with things such as the Scottish child payment is not so much modelling the eligibility for those benefits but cyclicality—how these things go up and down in recessions and booms—and take-up. What will the take-up rate be and how will it vary as you change the generosity of benefits?
They have been left in an information vacuum since early April, until, as far as I can see, the committee raised the matter with you during the summer recess to kick start the process again.
Perhaps Rhoda Grant has had discussions with the company, on which she can bring us up to date, but I am not aware that the company is being deterred by the EPS.
I suggest that it would come from the UK Government— Well, we would agree with that. Personally, I think that the date by which the UK aims to have a balanced budget should be pushed back a bit.
On 25 April this year, the UK went back into recession—into a double-dip recession. The UK economy contracted by 0.2 per cent, and goodness knows what will happen to it with the current activities in Greece, Italy and, indeed, France on the euro.