 Cwyllwch, ddych chi i ni a chydoch chi arall i gael ddatgu ben perchersu yn gilydd ystod yn yr Gyllid комrefennus? The next item of business today is a member business debate on motion number 11325 in the name of John Mason on equal pay. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put and I'd be grateful if those members who wished to speak in the debate could press the request to speak buttons now. I call on John Mason to open the debate. In 7 mins please Mr Mason. Kiw fawr, mae rydynull yn gwybod, wrth gwrs, yn ymdeg, i gael eich bwysig thatations yn ei ddweud gyda niol Finlay, John Finlay, Whos Notwell i Gwyn Irkart.wydd yn nolg, mae'r ddweud hynny yn gwybod fel bod yr hynny'n eu ddechrau a'u ddweud stagion yn 7.65 am gennymodd yn ér moto. I want to make three main points today. My first one is that that voluntary living wage is good. First I've become familiar with the concept of the living wage while I was in London, where a very active campaign is being expanded. The gap between the 마�nity wage and the statue minimum wage is even wider and the cost of the living wage in London is 9 pound annually. The Living Wage Foundation tells us that there are over 1,000 employers throughout the UK signed up to the living wage, with 70 of those being in Scotland. I am sure that there are other employers, including myself, who are paying the living wage but have not formally signed up to the campaign. However, they also tell us that in the UK, 5.28 million workers are being paid less than the living wage, of which some 400,000 of those are in Scotland, and of those, 150,000 in Scotland, are actually on the minimum wage. Many of those employees are in the retail sector, catering and the care sector. Alex Salmond. As the member knows, the support of the Scottish Government in 2011 for the public sector and the living wage was crucially important, something that was not managed in the previous years of Labour administration. Also, large companies in Scotland such as SSE and Abil are signing up for the living wage is crucial. However, would he particularly welcome this morning, the latest signature to the living wage, a small company in rural Aberdeenshire keen on recycling the new deer, who signed up this morning to the living wage campaign? Is it not particularly important when smaller employers in Scotland sign up to this incredibly crucial campaign? John Mason. Yes, I think it absolutely. I do welcome that. I was going to say later on, but I will say it now that there is a huge benefit for a company. It says a lot about the company. It says a lot about their social responsibility that they have a conscience. Let me finish what I was going to say. They have a conscience. Obviously, there are economic factors that have got to be able to pay it, but it is very positive if a company makes that commitment. Neil Findlay. I mentioned the care sector, which is one of the sectors where there are real problems with low pay. Does he agree with me that one of the main issues there is the way in which local authority budgets have been driven down and that contracts externalised end up being based on competition, on price, rather than on the quality of service being paid? Therefore, the only place largely to take the money from to get that price down is the workers who deliver the service, which is increasingly a poor service. John Mason, I will reimburse your time for the interventions. That is right, generous. I broadly agree on the point that has been made. I certainly am not happy with the outsourcing that has been going on in councils like Glasgow. That has been a way of getting round proper pay and conditions, which a lot of councils seek to adhere to. The key factor is that employers should be paying their employees enough to live on. There is something very far wrong that someone is working full-time and cannot actually live on that. That wage or salary has to be topped up with tax credits or other benefits. I very much welcome that system of tax credits, which tops up those wages to a level that folk can live on. That is good for the individual, good for the family, obviously. However, they are effectively a subsidy by the state to employers who, for whatever reason, do not pay a proper wage. Of course, it also holds good that, if employers pay a living wage, the state would save the money that is currently used for tax credits, and that could be used for other purposes. There are also, as I said, business benefits to paying the living wage, including a higher retention of employees and better productivity. My first point was that the voluntary living wage is good, but my second point is what is wrong with the voluntary living wage. The main problem is that it is voluntary. We as a Parliament, Government and individual MSPs can all make sure that we pay it, and other parts of the public sector very often pay it, the voluntary sector, and we can encourage other employers to pay it as well. At this stage, I would like to mention James Kelly's amendment to my motion, which seeks to help workers on public sector contracts. Government advice is that that is not within our legal powers, and my colleague Nigel Don will touch on that later when he speaks. Obviously, if we can expand the use of the living wage, I absolutely welcome that, but the underlying problem is still that the living wage is voluntary. It only helps workers in the public sector or in public sector contracts. Are we just going to give up on all the other workers? What about the workers in the private sector and the voluntary sector? Do we not care about them? Problems are also created if one employer pays the living wage and another does not. The unethical employer will be able to undercut the ethical one, which I think was one of the points that Mr Finlay was making. It can make the public sector look artificially expensive when compared to much of the private sector. The living wage, I would argue, is only a halfway house—a stepping stone to something better. My third point is the real answer, which is the statutory minimum wage. To give credit where it is due, Labour did do well to introduce the statutory minimum wage for the whole of the UK at Westminster. I remember before that security staff in the east end of Glasgow, certainly, were paid £1 an hour, and even allowing for inflation, that was totally exploitation. However, while that statutory minimum wage was a good start, it always needed to be increased by more than just wage inflation. In order to get to a decent level, i.e. the living wage, sadly successive Labour and Conservative Governments at Westminster failed to do this. At the time that it was introduced, I accept that there was a lot of scaremongering from some employers that it would lead to huge loss of jobs, and that has not proved to be the case. Therefore, the argument for that low introductory rate for the statutory minimum wage is no longer there. The thing that disappoints me most about James Kelly's amendment is that it drops the statement from my original motion, quote, the UK national minimum wage of £6.50 per hour is too low, unquote. I would be delighted to hear from any of Mr Kelly's colleagues, as I think he is not here today, that a future Labour Government at Westminster would bring the statutory minimum wage up to the full £7.85 as quickly as possible. I guess to be fair, I would also like to hear from the Scottish Government that if the SNP was ever to support a minority UK Government, then increasing the statutory minimum wage would be a priority. I have to say that I was very disappointed that the Smith commission report at paragraph 59 said that the national minimum wage should remain reserved, so my hope would still be that that power could be devolved, as I believe that there would be an appetite from at least two of the parties to take it higher than a Westminster Government might do. Presiding officer, a range of other issues around this, which we could touch on, younger workers should be getting the same wage for the same job, should the level of the living wage be the same all around the country. I will not go into those today, but I hope that I have made my fundamental point clear. The voluntary living wage is a good thing, but it is always going to be second best, and the real answer has to be a proper statutory minimum wage. Thank you very much. I now call Neil Findlay to be followed by Gavin Brown. Thanks very much, Presiding Officer. I thank John Mason and congratulating for bringing forward this motion. It is a very important economic and social issue because poverty and low pay eats away at people. It puts strains on family relationships, impacts on children's education, on nutrition, on wellbeing, happiness and has a huge impact on the health of individuals. Indeed, whole communities. Dr Jerry McCartney, a public health expert, said recently that the policy that would most impact on health inequalities is the living wage, putting money into the pockets of the lowest paid is the best way to reduce health inequality and it also stimulates the local economy. I agree with John Mason that the statutory minimum wage is far too low in my own county of West Lothian. 16,000 people are earning less than the 785 living wage. 427,000 people across Scotland are in the same position. We have witnessed the gap between the top earners and those at the bottom of the earnings scale. Under the coalition government, we see tax cuts for the rich and pay-and-benefit cuts for the low paid and the poor. We should not be surprised by that, because that is central to the political ideology and ethos of Mr Brown and Mr Fraser's party. We still see the gender pay gap evident with women workers in Scotland earning around 17 per cent less than male colleagues. Only today we see the UK Government naming it and shaming it. I am surprised that it did it, but it did it and I congratulate it for it. 37 employers, including some in Scotland, have failed to pay the minimum wage, including multinational fashion chain H&M, which claims to be an ethical retailer, yet it will not pay the minimum wage to some of its staff. This is a company that in 2012 earned $400 billion in one quarter of profit. Across the Scottish body politic, we have all got responsibility for policy in this area. The UK Government has responsibility for the national minimum wage, Scottish Government responsibility for a whole host of policies, including spending of £10 billion of a procurement budget, local government and many public agencies have responsibility for pay policy and contracting. All of those bodies can take decisions to increase the level of pay if they have the political will to do so. Can I say that Mr Mason is wrong about Glasgow City Council and Cordia, because they do pay the living wage to their care staff? I think that it would be good for him to correct that on the record. For me it was unforgivable that when we had the opportunity in this Parliament to use the powers that we had to ensure that, in public sector contracts, all contractors paid the living wage, the Government failed to do so. What a missed opportunity to improve the lives of people in Shettleston or in West Lothian and all across Scotland? Under the Scottish Government's watch, we also see currently a dispute at the National Museum, where the lowest paid workers yesterday paid the living wage, but who, with the removal of weekend allowances, will lose £3,000 from their pay packet? That is a dispute that has gone on for a year. I hope that Mr Mason agrees with me that the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Culture and External Affairs needs to resolve that dispute immediately. The member will then be calling on his colleagues at North Lanarkshire Council further to the ruling of the tribunal yesterday on the very long-standing equal pay debacle, not to proceed with an appeal, so that those people who are entitled to the pay that they should have received years ago will now get it. Equal pay claims should be settled as quickly as possible. That is a long-standing issue and we should get them settled as quickly as possible. It does not get us away from the fact that, under the Scottish Government's watch, the lowest-paid people in the museum's service are going to lose £3,000 unless the Cabinet Secretary for Culture gets her act together. In this Parliament next week, we will be only too aware of the issues of pay policy when staff in this very building go on strike as part of a rolling programme of action by the Scottish Government staff protesting against pay policy. We all have a role to play in addressing issues of low-pay. No one and no party has a monopoly of compassion or interest in this issue, and I know that Mr Mason is genuine in his concern. Low-paying poverty is not inevitable. It is up to all of us to work to eradicate it, but it takes political will and commitment to do so. John Mason on securing this debate and on noting his consistency and being persistent in pursuing the issue. There are elements of his motion and elements of his speech with which it is easy to agree, and there are elements where I disagree and take a different view. We are right to welcome the progress that has been made over the past couple of years. I am prepared to acknowledge the efforts of the Scottish Government in this regard. Government at other levels has been made and will continue to be made. We should also acknowledge improvements that were made by business. He gave the statistics of 1,000 employers across the UK and a percentage, I cannot remember if he said 70 or 80, within Scotland, but we welcome that too. We support any initiatives to encourage improvement in pay conditions and driving the living wage forward. We prefer, on this side of the chamber, more carrot than stick. We think that the voluntary approach is preferred to us over any kind of statutory approach. I am also interested in hearing what the Government has to say to the question that he posed in closing, where he said that the Scottish Government demanded a statutory living wage in any negotiations or discussions. Obviously, in the white paper, there was no commitment to a statutory living wage. There was a commitment to increase the national minimum wage in line with inflation, but there was nothing in terms of a statutory commitment towards a living wage. I am interested in hearing whether that position remains the same or whether it has changed since the publication of the white paper and the referendum. Where my party takes a different view from Mr Mason is in making the living wage mandatory and statutory. I look carefully at the reports that are laid by the local pay commission each year with the UK. I think very carefully about what they have to say. First, all that commission has to look at the effect that it will have on low-paid workers but also to attempt to work out what it will do to their employment prospects. There is a balancing act to be performed by then. It is not just about trying to improve their standard of living in terms of what they are paid. It is also looking at what the effect might be on jobs and the effect on employment prospects for those two. There is a balancing act to perform, which I think that the low-pay commission can do pretty effectively. It is important to look at the make-up of the low-pay commission. It is not an employer's forum where only one side of the argument is put forward. I look at the current commissioners or at least those who were involved in the most recent report. There is a strong balance of employers, of members of trade unions, from local government, from academics, to all parts of the matrix that are put into play. They collectively agree what they think would be an increase in the national minimum wage that can help people but at the same time does not damage the economy and employment prospects. There are issues to consider. At some point, and there will be disagreements within the chamber about where that point is, there will be a damaging effect on the economy if pay is increased by too much too quickly. The low-pay commission reaches its view on where that ought to be and the Government follows that recommendation, but I accept that others will have a different view. I think that we have to think carefully about the impact on smaller companies. I think that everyone would welcome the comments made by Alex Salmond about the employer presumably within his constituency, but for many other smaller businesses it is more troubling, it is more difficult and, for some sectors in particular, John Mason mentioned. Some of them are just tighter margins within those companies, within those businesses and, again, it is a far more difficult objective to achieve. We welcome the debate, as I said, and congratulate John Mason again, but we part company from him about making it statutory. Before I call Nigel Dawn, Mr Dawn, your request seems to have gone off. Can I just confirm that you still want to speak? Thank you, Nigel Dawn. Thank you very much. I think I just moved some heavy paperwork and it did the rest for me. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak and I'm very grateful to John Mason for bringing this debate before us today. I'm also very grateful to Neil Findlay for representing the Labour Party, who otherwise didn't seem to want to even debate their own amendment. I'm going to address the issues that were in it and explain why they probably didn't want to. I'd like to start, Presiding Officer, by considering where Gavin Brown got to, because I listened very carefully to every word he said. He felt that the living wage should be a voluntary code because he felt that if we increased wages too quickly, then there would be other effects. Undoubtedly, that's an economic fact. However, I would ask myself why on earth we have a minimum wage in the first place, because nobody seems to dispute that we need one. The answer is that it sets the norm and, as John Mason has already pointed out, if it's too low, then Government actually has to top it up with benefits of one sort or another. That means that the Government is then subsidising the very inefficient employers who apparently have such poor margins that they can't pay the appropriate minimum wage, which is actually going to be the living wage. I think that Gavin Brown might like to consider the economics of his argument. Quite frankly, Presiding Officer, we would not be having this debate if the minimum wage was set at something that was recognisably the living wage. It's the fact that it's fallen behind, which is why we're here. The Labour Party has argued many times that we missed an opportunity in the Procurement Reform Act of 2014. I'd like to take the opportunity of just putting it very clearly on the record, in the context of today's debate, that we did not have an opportunity in the Procurement Reform Act to demand that contractors and businesses pay the living wage. That's quite simply because all the legal advice that we got said that they shouldn't. Time does not allow, Presiding Officer, for me to refer to the response that we got from the European Union. I note that the Local Government and the Regeneration Committee second report in 2012 on the very issue noted that East Renfrewshire Council, which I think Hugh Henry mentioned in a debate not so very long ago, itself advised it had no preconditions on its tenders and contractors to pay the living wage and added that it would have some unease about such a rule, including concerns over its legality. Even the local councils, which the Labour Party praised in aid of the missed opportunity, recognised that we couldn't do it. I, for one, would be extremely grateful if the Labour Party stopped suggesting that we should. Mr Don will be aware that it all depends on who you ask for that legal opinion and what legal opinion you get back. The legal opinion that you get back is couched in terms that it's unlikely that the rules that his party wanted were consistent with European law. When you are advised that something is inconsistent with law, you don't do it. If I've got half a moment, I would suggest that Mr Finlay goes and looks up. No, just a moment. Please listen for a while. Clay Cross Urban District Council. I can't, unfortunately, give him my old administrative law casebook. I have thrown it out. You never should. If he looks to go and looks up, he will discover that councillors have a fiduciary duty and that the wise ones remember that. They don't do things where the legal advisers tell them that they shouldn't. Neil Finlay. If that's the case, then why press ahead? I make no comment on the validity of it, but why press ahead with minimum unit pricing then? Nigel Don. I think that we are very clear that there is a very different legal basis for that and it's somewhat of a stretch from where we are now. Presiding Officer, I'm conscious that my time is gone and this is a very interesting debate and there are numerous other things that I might have said. I want to be in bushy, Mr Don, for your interventions. Well, thank you very much. In which case the last point that I want to make is simply to remind anybody watching, anybody listening, that the spirit level, a book, a very recent book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, ought to be compulsory reading for anybody who can read. Because quite simply it discusses the economic justification for doing everything that we can to remove inequalities, financial inequalities from a society. And curious though it may seem and the Tories manifestly do not believe it, it is actually even better for those at the top of the pile as well as those at the bottom of the economic pile. And I would encourage everybody to be familiar with what's in there and we'll have much better debates as a result. Thank you. Thank you very much. That now brings us to the end of the open part of the debate and I now invite Annabelle Ewing to respond to it. Minister, if you could do so in around seven minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. And I too would congratulate my colleague John Mason on securing this debate this afternoon and I know that he has a very strong track record of working to tackle poverty and low pay for his constituents in Glasgow, Shettleston. And I would like to stress at the outset, Presiding Officer, that the Scottish Government takes the issue of low pay very seriously indeed and moreover addressing low pay features prominently in the Scottish Government's programme for government where we do recognise the real difference the living wage makes to the people of Scotland and the real difference to deal with Mr Brown's points that progressive employment and social policies make to the long-term success of business and the wider community. And I did, Alex Salmond, helpfully advised us this morning about a small business in his constituency in New Deer who has just become a living wage accredited employer. So I think it shows the desire on the part of employers across Scotland, small, medium, sized, large to recognise that progressive employment policies are the future for sustainable long-term success in business. As the chamber will be aware, Presiding Officer, the Scottish Government is leading the way by doing all that we can within the powers that we have to ensure that as many people as possible benefit from the living wage. For example, despite very sharp reductions imposed on the Scottish budget by the UK Government that we heard today, the First Minister talking about and First Minister's questions, we have nonetheless been able to incorporate a number of distinct measures within our pay policy to protect the pay of our lowest-earning public sector workers, including a commitment to support the Scottish living wage for the duration of this Parliament. The first Scottish Government, in fact, to do so, Presiding Officer. Of course, absence statutory powers for Scotland over pay and employment law. This commitment of the Scottish Government can only, by definition, cover those workers actually covered by our own pay policy and not the wider public sector or private sector. At the same time, we are absolutely determined to do what we can to ensure the inequalities of low pay are tackled in Scotland. So, for example, we have provided certainty. Alex Salmond. I don't know that the minister is aware of just how serious the situation is with regard to the minimum wage not keeping pace of inflation. I got some figures from Spice which show us that in two out of the four years from 2007 the minimum wage didn't keep pace of either rate of inflation and in two years it kept in three years after, that's 2011, 2012 and 2013, it didn't keep pace of either the CPI or the RPI. Isn't it astonishing that over all of these years the minimum wage, the statutory minimum wage didn't even keep pace with inflation? Minister. I thank the member for his intervention. I agree, I think that it's an absolute disgrace and it's a real kick in the teeth to workers across Scotland and indeed UK and indeed in my research for today's debate. Presiding Officer, I did note a comment from Michael Meacher on the minimum wage taken from his website on 5 November 2012 where he said, Blare appointed a low pay commission headed by a CPI bigwig in order to ensure that it started at far too low a level, £3.60 and it has never been increased at a rate slightly above the rise in average wages as was intended so that it would grow slowly but steadily towards the two thirds target. I think that in this instance Michael Meacher sums up the situation very well in terms of Westminster's failure to reflect in the interests of the workers. Neil Findlay. She quoted Michael Meacher there, but at least Michael Meacher and Tony Blair turned up to vote for the minimum wage unlike some people. I would also say gently to Mr Findlay that I am looking at a voting record here and I would helpfully suggest that he might go and look at it himself. It is enhanced for the time and I believe that Tony Blair missed all four common votes. Jim Murphy missed the vote in second reading. 23 MPs of 56 missed another vote, so I think that Mr Findlay would be helpful if he went to look at the Hansard record himself. The Scottish Government has further added to the funding to the Poverty Alliance to promote the take-up of the living wage accreditation initiative and have set a target for at least 150 accredited employers by the end of 2015. That will indeed help to increase the numbers of employers paying the living wage across Scotland, helping to make decent pay the standard in our country. As of 30 December 2014, the number of accredited has, I would say to John Mason, increased to, I understand, 90 employers, so a bit higher than the figure he had quoted, so we are evidently making good progress in that regard. Although the Scottish Government is not able to set pay levels in the private sector or indeed the wider public sector in Scotland, we are doing all we can to encourage all organisations to ensure all staff on lower incomes receive a fair level of pay. Indeed, we have made it clear in our programme for government that we will introduce a Scottish business pledge so that in return for support from the Scottish Government and its agencies such as Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise we will make it clear that we want companies to commit amongst other things to pay the living wage and also to fair work. As far as procurement is concerned, the key problem, as we know, is that power over pay is still held in London. Indeed, if any of the Westminster, I will take a very brief intervention. John Mason has a question that deserves an answer. A statutory living wage was rejected in the white paper. What is the Scottish Government's current position on the issue of a statutory living wage? I think that it should be noted that, of course, in the white paper what we set forth was that we would consider very carefully the recommendations of the expert group on welfare and that would be further also to the fair work convention that would be looking at issues of pay. That is certainly in terms of what we intend to do with the fair work convention, what we intend to do. I think that it is no secret, of course, that the Scottish Government has shown by its deeds that it is indeed very supportive of the living wage and we have tried to go as far as we can within the powers that we currently have to ensure that workers in Scotland get a fair pay for a fair day's work. On the issue of procurement, it is important to reply to the debate. I appreciate that I am going a wee bit beyond time, but I have taken some intervention. Yes, I can confirm that. I can confirm that. It is important to recognise the key problem here, which is that this Parliament does not have power over pay. That is still held in Westminster. In terms of the Westminster Unionist parties, that is the position that they wish to see maintained. Of course, the alternative would have been in that regard to ensure that we here in Scotland could get power over pay. Again, the Westminster Unionist parties did not seek that power in the Smith process. Indeed, the Labour Party would, it appears, rather have a Tory Government at Westminster in charge of the pay of Scottish workers rather than a Scottish Government here in Scotland. I think that as we move to the months ahead with the Westminster election looming that the voters of Scotland will find that increasingly difficult to understand, Presiding Officer. In addition to the work that we are doing around procurement in terms of statutory guidance, we will also be holding a summit with business leaders to see what we can do further to ensure that living wage becomes the norm in terms of pay policy in Scotland. I have referred also to the Fair Work convention, which we will be setting up further to the Working Together review to look at workforce matters. I had many other things to say today, Presiding Officer, including on the important issue of the pay gap in terms of female employment. I hope that there will be another opportunity. If members are listening, I am always very happy to come to the chamber to speak on important issues of fair work, fair pay and gender equality in the workplace. I conclude by thanking John Mason for bringing this important debate to the chamber today. I believe that the way forward is to ensure that we in Scotland have the pay and employment powers necessary to tackle inequality in Scotland. At the moment, we operate with our hands tied behind our back in that regard. I think that it will be something that the voters of Scotland in the months ahead will give some thought to as to where they would wish to see those powers lie. That concludes John Mason's debate on equal pay. I now suspend this meeting of Parliament until 2.30pm.