Rishi Sunak, Member of Parliament for the Yorkshire constituency of Richmond and Chancellor of the Exchequer, visited Scotland this week to highlight how the UK Government is supporting businesses and jobs throughout the whole of the UK.
As part of his visit, Sunak visited the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult Turbine in Fife which was developed as a world-leading innovation and research centre for offshore renewable energy. At this visit, he emphasised Scotland’s role in the UK reaching its climate targets ahead of the COP26 conference due to be held in Glasgow later this year.
The chancellor emphasised the importance of the UK’s role in supporting Scotland as well, expressing his delight that the UK government was able to provide an additional £14.5 billion in additional funding to support Scottish people throughout the pandemic as well as having directly protected one in three Scottish jobs.
Rishi Sunak also raised awareness of new UK Government schemes designed to rebuild the country’s economy and level up the UK. One such scheme is the “kickstart” scheme which provides employers with funding to hire 16–24-year-olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of losing their jobs. The Chancellor said the scheme is “a great example of us using … the might of the Government to help particularly young people find new work”.
It is a refreshing change having a Chancellor committed to Scottish jobs and businesses, as opposed to the SNP’s usual turmoil of record numbers of teachers leaving their professions and drug deaths reaching the highest since records began. Proving again that the Scottish Conservatives are the only party that can help Scotland build back better.