Many people are waiting for announcements to be made by the Chancellor today that will answer the questions about jobs, young people and what the Government will do to put things right now that the Country is waking up to the economic disaster that is beginning to unfold.
They will be disappointed.
Instead of taking a proper look and at least trying to understand what is really going on at the cutting edge of the current UK economy, the Chancellor and the Johnson Government are yet again digging into the public purse with their fallacious strategy that money cures all ills.
In the forlorn hope that they can keep the plates spinning for another 6 months, they are now offering a splurge of cash for employers to take on young people at no cost to the businesses. All under the pretence that the employers will offer training and hopefully keep the employees on once this further giveaway is done.
That big companies like BT and Sainsburys are already ‘signed up’ should tell us all that we need to know.
Sainsburys rely on a flow of cheap low-paid and low-skilled labour to literally keep the tills running and the shelves filled. No company of their size and profile could exist today without an induction and instruction on processes that can be sold as ‘training’ in any form.
Meanwhile BT by their very nature will continue to run an ongoing training or apprenticeship programme for young people which will continue every year, come what may.
The reality of this latest scheme that the Government and its advisors have cooked up is that the only people it will ultimately help will be its own.
This is yet again free money being pumped as subsidies towards big business and those who are already rich, whilst the people who need genuine help will either be failed by not receiving the support and real vocational training that they need or will receive what they would have got from the company anyway whilst we the taxpayer instead pick up the bill.
Few of the small and medium sized enterprises that have been condemned by the Lockdown that the Government wilfully imposed on us have the resources or the facilities to indulge the existence of either training or low-skilled roles that outside big business genuinely exist.
Where the opportunities within SMEs to exploit this scheme in places like independent coffee shops and pubs, the upshot is likely to be that older and established employees will be displaced, made redundant or lose hours so that this cash giveaway can be indulged.
It seems that the madness of this Government knows no end. There is no basis of logic nor understanding of the real world at the basis of any of the decisions that are being made.
Boris, Sunak, Cummings and the advisors and politicians behind them are responsible for the mess that has been created. Yet instead of trying to take even baby steps to at least begin putting some of the destruction to lives they have created right, they are instead taking giant leaps to make the whole thing worse.
Adam Tugwell 