The Scottish National Party have released their full manifesto ahead of the 2015 General Election on 7th May, pledging to make employment fairer for workers and to increase funding for small businesses.
The SNP have pledged to increase the minimum wage to £8.70 per hour by 2020, making a quarter of a million people in Scotland better off by up to £4,000 a year. They also back an increase in the minimum wage rate for 18 to 21 year olds to £6.86 by 2020, applying the same rate to apprentices; and will increase the wage rate for 16 to 18 year olds to £5.07 per hour.
In their manifesto, the party support a phased increase in the Employment Allowance from £2,000 per business per year to £6,000 per business per year by 2019-20. This will provide a boost to employment growth by reducing the cost of creating and maintaining jobs. They claim this proposal will particularly benefit smaller businesses as over 95% of the support will go to smaller firms.
The Scottish party will seek seed-fund capitalisation of the Scottish Business Development Bank, enabling new investment in Scottish business growth and innovation, which they say will help create thousands of new jobs. They will also continue the Small Business Bonus and back reduced Employers’ NI contributions to support job creation.
The full SNP manifesto can be viewed here: http://votesnp.com/docs/manifesto.pdf
