SNP demand a 'Biden boost' of £98 billion to get UK over covid economic slump

Ian Blackford has demanded a massive “Biden boost” to help the UK economy recover from the covid lockdown.

The SNP Westminster leader called for a government investment package of five per cent of GDP, about £98 billion, to help the country rebalance from covid after what he described as “a decade of Tory austerity”.

At Prime Minister’s Questions Blackford confronted Johnson with the demand for next week’s Westminster budget to focus on growing the economy.

He said: “After a decade of Tory cuts millions of families are in poverty and UK unemployment is soaring. In contrast, and the United States President Biden understands what is needed. He has proposed a $1.9 trillion stimulus package to restart and renew the American economy."

“Prime Minister, will your government follow the example of the US and boost the economy like Biden, or is the Tory plan to return to type and impose another decade of Tory austerity?”

Johnson responded that there was massive investment £640 billion infrastructure investment across the UK which included, he claimed, £13 billion for Scotland.

The Prime Minister added: “I must say I wish that the Scottish nationalist government would would spend that money better, because it’s very sad to see some of the failures in education policy in Scotland, the failures in the criminal justice policy in fighting crime. I think what the people of the whole UK would like to see, and I believe the people of Scotland would like to see is less talk about a referendum, which is his agenda, and more talk about the real issues facing our country.”

Blackford said the “hard reality” was that the UK was facing the worst slump of any major economy with 120,000 people have lost their lives on Johnson’s watch.

He said: “Under your guidance, Prime Minister, coronavirus has exposed the deep inequalities under this broken Westminster system.”

Johnson scoffed: “Talk about our broken politics, all they want to do is break up Britain with another referendum. I think that is the last thing this country needs at the moment.”