IAN Blackford has said that the last thing Scots at risk of losing their jobs due to the furlough scheme ending want is a hug from Boris Johnson.
The SNP's Westminster leader told PMQs that the country faces other “major threats” beyond the prediction of a surge in Covid-19 cases, as he pressed the Westminster Government to save jobs.
He said: “Yesterday, the only reassurance the Prime Minister gave those Scottish workers [was] saying that he would throw his arms around them. Prime Minister, I can tell you the last thing those 61,000 Scots are looking for is a hug from you.
“They need the security of knowing that they can hold onto their jobs and incomes, for themselves and their families. Time is running out. Workers are facing the dole today. Will the Government instruct the Chancellor to extend the furlough scheme and stop one million workers being sold onto the scrap heap by this Government?”
Johnson defended the Government’s support packages, later telling MPs that further measures will be brought forward.
But he also argued it would not be sensible to extend the existing furlough scheme in its present form beyond October.
READ MORE: Ian Blackford urges Boris Johnson to 'show leadership' and extend furlough scheme
Johnson responded: “I can imagine that [Blackford] doesn’t want a hug from me, but that was a metaphor and what we’re … perhaps it’s physically incarnated by the £12.7 billion of Barnett Consequentials that we’re seeing come from the UK Exchequer to support people across the whole of our country.”
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