A NATIONAL emergency intervention plan to stop the repossession of company property is being put forward as part of radical coronavirus crisis action to save Scottish firms at risk.

A respected think tank has said it wants a body set up by the Scottish Government and funded by the Scottish National Investment Bank to rescue business properties under threat due to a downturn in the economy.

The state-run National Asset Co-operative's only public subsidy would involve borrowing costs for the period until a Covid-19 vaccine is fully employed in Scotland, says Common Weal.

At the end of the crisis all of these businesses would have all assets from offices and venues to kitchen equipment and computers protected and ready for immediate reopening.

It said the alternative possibility was "massive collapse in small businesses" in Scotland early in 2021.

It comes as unions launched a "Save our Shops" campaign as it emerged one in 12 retail jobs in what is the Scotland's largest private sector employer expected to been lost by the end of this coronavirus crisis-hit year.

The Centre for Retail Research which has tracked how Covid-19 has hit Britain's high streets - found that as of the start of November, 140,437 jobs had been lost in 2020 with 15,103 store closures.

READ MORE: Coronavirus Scotland: Scottish businesses are fighting back to boost rural economies

Tens of thousands more jobs are also at risk - with chain stores facing financial collapse.

It comes after the collapse of Sir Philip Green's Arcadia TopShop empire and the potential liquidation of department store chain Debenhams revealed yesterday is putting 25,000 jobs at risk alone.

The CRR's latest analysis forecasts that this year, job losses will rise to 235,704 with 20,520 store closures in a sector which currently employs 2.9m and generates over £260bn in sales a year.

The think tank says that its "radical" scheme would involve effectively mothballing companies so that when normality returns they are able to re-open.

"It's an innovative approach, but that is what is needed here," Common Weal said.

The Herald:

"This would not save every business – such as businesses with debts but no real assets. But it could prevent a massacre of small hospitality and tourism businesses and other that Scotland can't afford to lose.

"Politicians are reporting that one of the main things they are doing just now is answering distressed calls from small businesses in their constituency which are now on the edge of not surviving. It will be much, much worse if we are sitting here this time next year saying 'I wish Scotland had been more radical about this' than it will be to explore this idea or a similar one right now," Common Weal said.

Under the scheme, if a viable business was at risk because of rent or mounting debt and was at risk of losing property such as offices or factories as a result it would be able to group with other businesses and with public support retain those assets.

"The co-operative could finance this through the Scottish National Investment Bank or could see direct investment - pension funds would be very comfortable with a government-backed low-risk scheme like this," the think tank said. "It would not require public subsidy and would actually become a major public asset. The only public subsidy that would be necessary would be to service this debt for the duration of the Covid crisis. This would not be an enormous sum.

Hospitality bosses warned that 11 Scottish councils being moved into Level 4 lockdown restrictions from the middle of November for three weeks would lead traders to "seriously consider if their businesses have a future at all”.

The Level 4 rules saw the closure of 'non-essential' shops, pubs, restaurants, hairdressers and gyms.

The Scottish government said the restrictions are necessary to drive down stubbornly high rates of the virus.

Common Weal, which previously advocated a regional 'traffic light' system for coronavirus management to prevent larger scale lockdowns before ministers brought in a multiple-tier restrictions system aimed at local authority areas, has put forward their asset co-operative scheme to ministers.

"As it stands if the default on rent or debts it is likely their assets will be repossessed making reopening very difficult or more likely non-viable," the think tank said.

"But businesses which are not at risk of losing assets over that timescale (because they own the assets or have large reserves) have more chance of weathering the storm. These are often multinational chains, and so they will rapidly eat into and force out independent Scottish businesses when restrictions end.

"This will seriously damage Scotland’s domestic business base and it may not be possible to repair this damage. Scotland already has perhaps the most foreign owned economy in the developed world. We cannot afford for that to get worse.

"The end result from the scheme would be very positive – commercial property rents are almost certain to come down in value anyway and are currently too high. This would reset the market and would therefore actually increase the viability of these businesses in the longer term."