Boris Johnson “will never be forgiven” in if he does not extend the furlough scheme for workers laid off during the covid lockdown, Ian Blackford has claimed.
At Prime Minister’s Questions the SNP leader said Johnson faced the choice of extending the full furlough scheme or to “inflict a tsunami of unemployment on our people this winter”.
Blackford told the Commons: “Half-measures don’t cover it. Thousands have already lost their jobs. The ONS has confirmed the highest rate of redundancies since 2009.
"We’re heading towards a Tory winter of mass unemployment, created by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.”
The nationalist’s Westmisnter leader taunted the Tory leader over his own job prospects because of the mishandling of the covid crisis.
He said: “We know what the Prime Minister’s Tory colleagues are saying – the Prime Minister’s next job could be on the backbenches, he just doesn’t know it yet.
“If the Prime Minister won’t U-turn on his plans to scrap furlough, does he realise he will never, not ever, be forgiven for the damage he is just about to cause to people up and down Scotland?”
Boris Johnson responded that his Government is continuing to support people across the whole of the UK with “at least £5 billion in Barnett consequentials for Scotland alone”.
The Prime Minister noted that an extended job support system scheme would continue for those whose jobs are affected by lockdowns
He added: “For those on low incomes they will also have the additional benefit of Universal Credit, which again is going through in its uplifted form, a thousand extra per year, through to next April at least.”
Johnson also used the exchanges with the SNP leader to take another dig at the Labour leader Keir Starmer who has demanded a two-week circuit breaker lockdown across England instead of the three-tier alert system unveiled on Monday.
Johnson said to Blackford: “But one thing I will congratulate him on is the Scottish nationalist party’s support for the tiered approach, which I think is still their policy, unlike the party opposite. At least they’re showing some vestige of consistency in their normal gelatinous behaviour.”
Earlier Starmer and Jonhson each accused the other of “opportunism” as the Labour leader called for a circuit-break in the “national interest”.
Starmer told the Commons: “We are at a tipping point, time is running out, maybe he can seize the moment and answer a question – this morning the Telegraph quotes senior Government sources saying the chances of the Prime Minister backing a circuit-break in the next two weeks are about 80 per cent.
“Is that right? And if it is, why doesn’t he do it now, save lives, fix testing and protect the NHS?”
Johnson replied: “He claims to be supporting the Government one day, and then performs a dramatic U-turn the next.”
The Prime Minister added: “Everybody can see what he’s doing. Labour have said it themselves, they see this as a good crisis for the Labour Party and one they wish to exploit – we see this as a national crisis that we are going to turn around.”
Johnson added: “I rule out nothing, of course, in combating the virus but we’re going to do it with the local, regional approach that can drive down and will drive down the virus if it is properly implemented.”
