Get Scotland working for the sake of the people as well as the economy

A recent Scottish Government paper stated: “Compared with 1998, younger workers (in their twenties) are now more likely to be economically inactive due to ill-health than workers in their forties. Older workers are now actually less likely to be economically inactive due to ill health than they were in 1998”.

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That is a massive warning sign for what lies ahead unless the syndrome is broken. The reasons behind these statistics are complex and have been exacerbated by the Covid aftermath. But most OECD states have returned to normality far more quickly than our own.

Anyway, as the same Scottish Government paper pointed out, the trend was well under way in advance of Covid. It stated: “Between 2012 and 2019, two-thirds of those young people were economically inactive due to a mental health condition”. Covid certainly compounded that dimension but it did not create it.

The implications of economic inactivity on this scale are pretty obvious: labour shortages, soaring Social Security bills and economic stagnation. At least, these are the implications which concern economists and frustrate the ambitions of government for growth. But they are not the only, or indeed the most important, ones.

Statistics like these conceal individual human tragedies and frustrated potential on an industrial scale. They feed poverty, fuel every form of social problem and foster inter-generational disengagement and despair. We see it around us. There is no bigger challenge for an incoming Labour government than to turn this inheritance around and also no more difficult one. But it must be attempted.

Back in the 1980s, when unemployment topped three million, the trick introduced by Mrs Thatcher’s government was to encourage people to be classified as sick rather than unemployed and available for work. That kept numbers down in the short term but created a culture which, once established, became difficult to break. That legacy persists.

Any demand for change immediately runs into charges that sick people will be forced back to work or that the real intent, behind a façade of concern, is to cut benefits. Trying to navigate that minefield, while driving beneficial reforms that must be made, is challenging and I am glad the Starmer government is facing up to it at this early stage.

The idea that “getting Britain back to work” is about doing something to people rather than for them has to be broken. That is best done at a personal level. Every individual has a story and a hinterland. Many of those classified as inactive would love to work and contribute if opportunities existed. When tackled at a personal level, the barriers to employment may be less than first appear.

There is a lot in the agenda announced this week to be welcomed, as has been widely recognised by organisations which represent the disadvantaged and disabled. Linkages between health, education and training are essential. There should be no binary division between those who can and cannot work. Identifying interim stages requires empathy and support for individuals.

In Scotland, recent statistics suggest almost a quarter of working age people are economically inactive (Image: Getty) In that spirit, I particularly welcome plans to revamp the JobCentre network to establish a personalised approach which involves working closely with other agencies and employers, to meet individual needs. I know it sounds detailed and daunting but it is also the only way to turn statistics into the flesh and blood of people who need help to turn their lives around.

Much of what was announced this week applies directly to England and Wales but there should be a clear expectation that the same priorities and methods must be adopted in Scotland. A test of this will come in next week’s Scottish Budget.

The line about politics being the language of priorities is more than a clever aphorism. It is the absolute truth. And there has been a chasm of difference over the years between the Scottish Government’s virtuous stated priorities and those which they have actually pursued.

One of the clearest examples has been in education where our further education colleges are among the most seriously wounded victims of misguided priorities. Yet they are, and always have been, crucial to any serious commitment towards providing skills which society needs and opportunities which provide lifelong employment for those who acquire them.

On any rational scale, this is far, far more important than the “free university tuition for all” mantra which subsidises the better off. Yet the latter has, from its inception, been at the expense of the former to the point where FE colleges are paying off staff by the thousand and facing another round of cuts. That will not help get anyone back into work.

Looking back again to the 1980s and '90s, a turning point was when people reacted against the Thatcherite fallacy that “there is no such thing as society”. Whether we like it or not, it is impossible to divorce ourselves or our children or our grandchildren from the consequences of an environment in which more than a third of young people are written off as idle.

I do not doubt there are contradictions between this mission for government and specific Budget measures necessitated by its fiscal inheritance. That, however, does not invalidate or detract from the overall aim.

Get Britain Working or Get Scotland Working, whichever you prefer. The symptoms are the same and so too is the need to prioritise the search for solutions, even if it means sacrifices on other fronts.

Brian Wilson is a former Labour Party politician. He was MP for Cunninghame North from 1987 until 2005 and served as a Minister of State from 1997 to 2003