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June 16, 2020
Ideas for recovery
We’ve all done it. Criticising from the touchline without suggesting practical answers. And with so many voices now calling for the post-pandemic recovery to be all things to all people, it’s easy to have some sympathy for those who are charged with the job of getting on and actually fixing it. Which is why it made a refreshing change to read the first of three papers to be published by Common Weal with concrete proposals for what should come next. How realistic these ideas are, others will judge. Nonetheless, there’s plenty of food for thought in this.
THE OUTLINE STRATEGY FOR A RESILIENT SCOTLAND
This is the first part of Common Weal’s economic recovery plan, showing how Scotland can become a productive, high-wage society without government bailouts by letting Scottish businesses unlock Scotland’s underdeveloped potential. It explains how by focussing on re-profiling public procurement and using public stimulus in housing, energy, land, food, advanced materials and light manufacturing to achieve green reindustrialisation we can replace low-pay service sector jobs that are being lost because of the pandemic with high-pay manufacturing jobs. The report has been launched with the endorsement and support of a wide range of senior politicians.
This is the first of three parts of the overall plan which sets out the strategy and then the actions which can be taken between now and the Holyrood elections in 2021. Part two will cover the four-year period of that Parliament and part three will cover the longer-term shift into a Green New Deal.