Scottish building industry in 'crisis'

There is a crisis in the Scottish construction industry.

That is according to the country's Labour leader Iain Gray, who has urged the Scottish government to address the issue.

Mr Gray has claimed that there has been a drop in public investment in the sector since the Scottish National Party won the election in the country.

"We are talking about 20,000 jobs that have been unnecessarily lost and 900 apprentices facing an uncertain future," he said.

"We need urgent action to address the crisis in the construction industry and get Scotland back to work."

However, finance secretary John Swinney has hit out at the figures, claiming them to be "misleading nonsense".

He asserted that projects such as the completion of the M74 were not included in the table which Mr Gray used to make his conclusions.

Last week the Scottish Building Federation suggested that there were 900 construction trainees made redundant in the past year.