Responding to the latest concerning news from the financial sector in Scotland, the Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to convene urgently a high level taskforce of the sector, government, unions, training bodies and local authorities to work proactively to plan a contingency if there are major job losses.

Commenting after challenging the First Minister at Question Time, Liberal Democrat Finance spokesperson Jeremy Purvis MSP said:

“We need a contingency plan in case of major jobs losses across the financial sector.

“The First Minister said its Financial Services Advisory Board (FiSAB) is the right body to do this, but we revealed today that its most recent meeting was as far back as 2 September.

“The Scottish Government needs to convene an urgent meeting of FiSAB and create a new financial sector jobs taskforce. A four month gap since the Government's group last met is wholly inadequate."