THIS week’s Autumn Budget must help businesses attract, train and retain staff, entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter has said.

“One of the consequences of Brexit is that 364,000 European Union nationals have left the UK workforce, and that’s why we’re seeing shortages in various industries,” Sir Tom said on the Go Radio Business Show with Hunter & Haughey.

“And Boris [Johnson, Prime Minister] is telling us we’ve got to grow our own. Fair enough.

“This is a long-term strategy, and therefore anything that can help businesses, train, retrain, attract and retain talent in the Budget [is my big ask] – incentivise the correct behaviour for business.

“And the correct behaviour is to train, to retrain talent so that they come into your company, they make a positive contribution and you retain them. That’s so important.”

Sir Tom was replying to Donald Martin, editor of The Herald and The Herald on Sunday, who asked what the key things were that Chancellor Rishi Sunak should and shouldn’t do in the Budget.

Businessman Lord Willie Haughey called on the UK government to scrap the apprenticeship levy, a tax on employers used to fund apprenticeship training.

“Scrap the apprenticeship levy and that would sort everything that Tom has just spoken about,” he said.

“Let’s get young people back into work, because, trust me, when all the dust settles, they’re going to be the group affected the most.

“We’ve got to get young people into training.

“That would certainly get me back employing lots more apprenticeships,” he said.