Commenting on Sir George Mathewson’s first appearance before the Scottish Parliament’s Economy Committee, Grahame Smith, STUC General Secretary said:
“The level of ignorance displayed by Sir George is appalling. He describes UK employment law as ‘frightening’ and the associated ‘red-tape’ as ‘horrendous’. He therefore wilfully ignores the substantial body of international comparative evidence demonstrating the opposite to be true.
“The STUC hopes that this intervention does not signal that the work of the Committee of Economic Advisors (CoEA) is to be characterised by an approach favouring prejudice and ideology over authoritative academic study. What are the respected academics on the Council to make of their Chair spouting demonstrable nonsense like this? Sir George appears determined to undermine the Council’s credibility.
“The STUC warned that including business representatives on the Council was dreadfully short sighted. The Scottish Government should have stuck to its guns and established a CoEA based on the US model promoted in its manifesto.
“Scotland would then have benefited from evidence-based advice provided by an independent group of senior academic economists. The sort of arrant nonsense spouted by Sir George merely embarrasses the Council and by association the Government. We desperately need to do better than this”.
ENDS
Notes
1 Labour market statistics for October 2007 show that the employment rate in Scotland is 76.6% above that for England 74.4%, Wales 71.5% and Northern Ireland 69.6%. The figure for the United Kingdom 74.4%. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsscot1007.pdf
2 In terms of employment, Scotland is in the top quartile of comparator OECD countries. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/12/19161336/2
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