Unemployment

Not at the moment, thank you. It has been evident in Scotland over the past year that the growth of private sector employment has outweighed falls in public sector employment. We now have the highest share of private sector employment that we have had since the advent of devolution. [Interruption.] Although unemployment has fallen across the piece in the past year, it shows that the Scottish Government's decision to boost investment in the public sector and in infrastructure as far as possible has been a way of offsetting the problems of investment that have been apparent in other parts of the UK—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) wants to make an intervention, I am happy to accept it. If not, perhaps he could stop heckling. If we are serious about tackling unemployment, we need to accept that the cuts introduced by the Government are biting very hard indeed across the whole UK, and that the announcements in the Chancellor's autumn statement do not go far enough. Crucially, they will not address the immediate challenges of high levels of unemployment and a high benefits bill. I am not sure how we will pay for that in the current circumstances.