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Rural MP Tackles Chancellor on Labour Shortage
SNP MP for Gordon Constituency Richard Thomson tackled Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak during the Budget debate yesterday (Wednesday) on the lack of measures to deal with the labour shortage and to support the pig sector.
Speaking during the Budget debate, Richard Thomson MP said:
“The Chancellor or the Government could have announced measures, and not necessarily even fiscal or economic measures; simply allowing more workers to come into the country to fill the shortages we are seeing in certain sectors would have been hugely beneficial in counteracting the adverse impacts that we are seeing in our supply crisis.
“Of particular concern to me, as a Member representing a rural constituency, is the fact that an animal and potentially human welfare crisis is looming in the pig industry because there are not enough butchers and abattoir workers to deal with the capacity issues.
“These are jobs which are in particularly high demand at present, and it is in no-one’s interest for critical sectors supporting the rural economy to be understaffed.
“As supply chains continue to be stretched to breaking point, this is a crisis that can only worsen and lead us into a self-inflicted winter of discontent for the UK Government.”
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