Capital Funding Acceleration

Thousands of jobs can be secured if the Scottish Government is able to bring forward capital funding into the 2010-11 financial year, First Minister Alex Salmond told senior UK Ministers yesterday.

The acceleration of almost £350 million into the Scottish Government's spending programme for 2008-09 and 2009-10 has had a major, positive impact on the construction sector during a period of severe economic downturn.

First Minister Alex Salmond used Wednesday's meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee to press the case for a capital acceleration of a similar scale in 2010-11 to ensure that the progress is not undone.

Speaking after the meeting, Alex Salmond said: "The Scottish Government is doing everything we can to deliver early and sustained recovery, and our Economic Recovery Plan is supporting 15,000 jobs across the Scottish economy.

"Despite signs that the rate of decline is slowing and forecasters suggest there may be weak growth in 2010 the impact of the recession on employment will continue to be significant. That is why we put the case for this autumn's Pre-Budget Report to include a further acceleration of the capital budget into 2010-11 from the following year, in order to ensure that none of the positive impacts we are making this year in fighting recession through enhanced capital investment is not lost next year.

"Treasury Ministers have said that this is an issue that will be considered. It needs to maintained and indeed enhanced, and we hope that the Chancellor responds positively in his autumn statement."

The Prime Minister attended for the last part of the meeting for a discussion on preparations for the G20 meeting to be held in September in Pittsburgh. The meeting discussed progress since April in implementing the London G20 conclusions and of the continuing need to ensure sustained international co-operation as the world economy moved to the next phases.

(GK/BMcC)