Make Covid funding for businesses contingent on better pay for workers, Scottish think tank says

Researchers say ongoing grants should ‘drive up job quality’, Lamiat Sabin writes

Hospitality is one of the sectors hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic due to successive lockdowns and restrictions (Getty)

Ongoing support funds paid out to businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic should be contingent on the firms offering their workers better wages and benefits, a think tank has said.

In Scotland, grants paid to business since March 2020 have amounted to more than £1.9bn, plus more than £900m in business rates relief, according to the Scottish Government’s data.

But many jobs are not providing workers with enough money to “make a decent life for themselves and their families,” research from IPPR Scotland found.