Murphy says he’d set up a fund to help protect people from falls in oil prices

Yesterday, Jim Murphy got into a spat with several of Labour’s potential Mayoral candidates by saying that the Mansion Tax would fund 1,000 nurses in Scotland.

In this speech, he also called for establishing fund that will support people in Aberdeen who could be put into money trouble with the drop in oil prices.

He dubbed this an emergency “resilience fund”, which would also be in place to help people hurt financially by global changes in the economy.

As part of this announcement, said he was willing to lead a cross-party delegation from Holyrood and Westminster, which would look to protect peoples’ jobs after the fall in oil prices. He explained:

“If I was first minister I would set up a resilience fund. Put briefly it’s the idea that there would be a specific Scottish government pot of money set aside for economic shocks that affect a town, a city or a local authority. It would be a central pot of money held by the Scottish government.

“There’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen right now. The money is available through the Barnett consequentials of the autumn statement.”