Alex Salmond is promoting two women to the Scottish Cabinet, including one minister who will take charge of implementing Sir Ian Wood’s commission on youth employment.
The first minister’s proposals, announced in his closing speech at the SNP party conference in Aberdeen, will bring the quota of female members to 40%.
Minister for Youth Employment in Europe, Angela Constance MSP, will be given “full policy responsibility” for the adoption of Sir Ian’s recommendations for improving the transition from education into the workplace. The retired Wood Group entrepreneur chairs the commission, tasked by the Scottish Government with bringing forward a range of options.
Aberdeenshire East MSP Mr Salmond, speaking on Saturday at the last formal SNP gathering before September’s independence referendum, said his party wanted to build “an equal Scotland”.
He said: “Youth unemployment, and unemployment, is the single biggest challenge we face in meeting that goal. The Scottish Government is working hard to tackle this blight of joblessness among the young. We have 25,000 modern apprenticeships, we are working with the voluntary sector, and have a guarantee of work or a training place for every 16 to 19-year-old.
“Sir Ian Wood’s commission is producing exciting proposals which will align our education and training systems ever closer to the workplace.
“That work has been overseen by Angela Constance as the only minister for youth unemployment in Europe. Today, I have also asked Angela to become a full member of the Scottish Cabinet and to take full policy responsibility for work training and the implementation of the Wood Commission.”
Shona Robison MSP has also been asked to join the Cabinet as a full member to take on a specific brief on pensioners’ rights.
The appointments bring the total number of senior ministers up to 10.
The first minister said that, in an independent Scotland, companies would be expected to aspire to at least 40% female participation on their boards to boost equality, and the SNP government intended to “practise what we preach”.
The move, plus a pledge for “high-quality universal childcare” for all, is aimed at appealing to more female voters, who polling suggests are less receptive to the idea of independence than Scottish men.
In his keynote speech to a packed main hall at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre, he also took the Better Together campaign to task, describing the movement as the “most miserable, negative, depressing and thoroughly boring campaign in modern political history”.
In contrast, the SNP leader said the Yes campaign was “positive, uplifting and hopeful” and urged delegates to ensure it stayed that way.
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