NICOLA Sturgeon has said that the Treasury's unwillingness to budge on furlough cash could push Scotland into a Level 4 lockdown in days.
The First Minister criticised the UK Government, saying that it wasn’t fair that the Tories only offered the devolved administrations financial support when the “south of England needs to go into a lockdown”.
Speaking at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing following a meeting of COBRA, the First Minister said that if financial support was time limited, then she might need to “put the brakes on”.
“I've tried throughout the pandemic to be as open about the difficult choices we face and the factors we have to weigh up in making those difficult choices,” she said.
And while there are “encouraging signs” that the restrictions that have been in place since September were having an impact, the position remained “fragile”.
“It'd be wrong to say that we have no concerns about the next few weeks, clearly, that would not be correct, we still face a lot of uncertainty," she said.
“That's why I made clear last week when I set out the levels that would apply initially that we might yet have to go further and that we can't rule out and shouldn't rule out a move to Level 4 for all or parts of the country.
“While that decision would never be easy, there is no doubt that the availability of a more extensive furlough scheme of the kind the Prime Minister announced on Saturday would make it slightly less difficult because workers would have more of their wages paid.”
She said that over the next few days, the government would have to make a decision between taking the “opportunity of more generous financial support to step harder on the brakes now to drive infection rates down faster and more firmly” or taking “more time to assess the situation and so not take decisions too quickly that would involve more restrictions on people”.
The First Minister said the potential benefit of the first option “would be suppressing the virus further and faster at a time when financial support is available and, possibly, I don't want to overstate this, but possibly opening up a bit more breathing space over the Christmas period.”
She said: “Now, we continue to press the case that it should be available to devolved administrations whenever it is needed and I think most reasonable people would think that is the fair position, and I with colleagues in the Welsh and Northern Irish governments have pressed that point very firmly at the Cobra meeting which has just concluded.
“But we can't put off vital decisions while we have a debate with the Treasury because the virus doesn’t stop spreading while we do that.
“And that's why I hope we get absolute clarity on that point from the Treasury today because it matters to our decision-making here in Scotland.
“If we know furlough is available without limit of time, we might still ultimately have to act and but we could give ourselves a bit more time to assess the situation and so not take decisions too quickly that would involve more restrictions on people before we've had the opportunity to assess the current situation.
“However, if the furlough extension remains time limited we will face having to take that decision more quickly because we will be faced with the risk of not acting now meaning that we might have to act later but at a time when the final support is not available.
“Covid in my view is complicated enough and dealing with it is hard enough without these unnecessary additional complications. “
Asked about the timing of any decision, the First Minister said she would continue to asses the situation every day.
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