 Rechyddiol ac mae gallwn ddweud o ddysgu ond iawn ni angen i'r ddweud, fel gyda'r ddeithas o'i gadoschawd. Ysgolwyr gan hyn oes, mae mynd i'r ddweud o'i lleiwn i'r oedd y Lord, ac mae'n gweithio i'r ddweud o'i frech o meddwl hynny i ddim yn ein cyd. Rydyn ni fy modd fel debyg rhagorol i ddedebygol. Felly, mae cyfaint yn y ddybyg hyn oedden nhw電 oedd gallwch angen i'r ddweud sy'n ddweud o'i ddweud o'r ddweud. I call on Roseanna Cunningham to speak to and move the motion in the name of Alex Neil, Cabinet Secretary, 14 minutes. As members will know, over the last six years, we have seen many changes to Scotland's labour market. There has been a marked increase in part-time work and an increase in self-employment. Many employers have taken the opportunity to introduce new ways of contracting with employees, hence the rise in zero-hours and fixed-term contracts. At the same time, and probably as a direct consequence of those changes, under-employment is now widespread and real wages have fallen. Those new ways of working are gradually eroding the employment protections built up over many decades. As bad as it is when any business goes under, it is even worse when many people, dependent on that business for their livelihoods, find that they have no recourse to any of the legal protections that might once have been available. Real wages, as I said, have fallen. There is now a substantial and measurable problem of in-work poverty and it is getting worse. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just published a report on this subject and this morning the Scottish Government published evidence on the extent of in-work poverty in Scotland. Those most likely to receive low pay are women, young people, older workers, people without qualifications, some ethnic minorities, lone parents and disabled people. Women are more likely to work in low paying sectors and more likely to be employed part-time, which has a substantial overlap with low pay. That means that even though employment levels have grown significantly since 2008 for a growing proportion of those in employment, job quality, measured in terms of remuneration, job security, fair contractual terms, opportunities for progression and engagement, is poor. There is an increased sense of disconnection between business success and a share of the benefits of that success accruing to employees. The Government is absolutely of the view that those changes are bad for the economy. Inequality is holding back the life chances of the lowest earners in Scotland's population and acts as a significant break on productivity and growth. The latest evidence from the OECD suggests that income inequality has a significant negative impact on growth. Inequality should be pursued not only to improve social outcomes but also to sustain long-term growth. We published our revised child poverty strategy in March, with outcomes focused on what we call the three P's, pockets, prospects and places. We aim to maximise household incomes, improve children's life chances and provide sustainable places. The strategy includes actions across a variety of areas, and the approach was reflected in the commitments that the First Minister made in the programme for government. That programme sets out a range of cross-portfolio policies aimed at reducing inequality. It includes actions around fair work, part of the focus for this debate. That includes our commitments to pay the living wage and increased funding to the poverty aligns to grow the number of accredited living wage employers. It also sets out a focus on school attainment and university access for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is being taken forward by my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, and commitments to support increased childcare and free school meals, which has been the subject of a more recent discussion. Those policies are designed to help to reduce intergenerational poverty and tackle inequality. Neil Findlay Can I ask which of those policies, or any other policies, takes money from those who are the most wealthy in our society and puts into the pockets of those who are least wealthy, and that is under the control of the Scottish Government? The last phrase is the key, of course, because what would help us to do something about that is precisely what the Labour Party does not want us to have, powers over tax, benefits and employment law. The programme for government also emphasises our commitment to empower communities by handing over decisions on key issues to them and to make government open and accessible through public participation in the decisions that we make that affect them. We have committed to poverty-proofing all of our new policies and legislation through the use of poverty impact assessments whenever we make a change. We will appoint an independent adviser on poverty and inequality to hold public events with the First Minister to raise awareness of the reality of living in poverty, make recommendations to the Government on how collectively we should respond and hold the Government to account on its performance. However, we know that poverty levels are increasing in Scotland because of UK Government policies. Scottish Government analysis estimates that the price that Scotland has had to pay as a result of the UK Government's cuts and changes to the welfare system could total around £6 billion in the six years to 2015-16. One of the depressing outcomes has been the massive rise in the numbers of people using food banks. It is clearly unacceptable that so many people in Scotland are living in food poverty. We continue to make this point to UK ministers as we press them on the impacts that their decisions on welfare are having in Scotland. In my opening comments, I mentioned the rise in in-work poverty. It is an absolute scandal that the majority of working-age adults in poverty in Scotland, indeed throughout the UK, are living in households where at least one adult is in employment. For children, the figure is 59 per cent. We have made various commitments to what we call the social wage that extends certain core universal services, rights and benefits to deliver the social and economic circumstances for everyone to benefit. I will not rehearse them all here. The chamber is very well aware of them. I want to focus more specifically on some of the areas that fall within my portfolio at the first of being the living wage. All the policies that I have talked about with reference to the social wage and some of them, for example, free school meals that I have specifically referred to, are designed to help hard-pressed families and individuals, as indeed are our commitments on the living wage. Despite sharp reductions imposed on the Scottish budget by the UK Government, we have managed to incorporate a number of distinct measures within our pay policy to actively protect the pay of our lowest-earning public sector workers. That includes a commitment to support the Scottish living wage for the duration of this Parliament to 2015-16. As I said earlier, we have provided further funding to the poverty alliance to promote take-up of the living wage accreditation scheme. We have set a target for at least 150 accredited employers by the end of 2015, and some members may have picked up that yesterday, the First Minister visited the 100 such employer to be signed up. That will help to increase the number of employers paying the living wage in all sectors in Scotland to make decent pay the standard in our country. Can I welcome the minister's comments? As well as tackling pay at the bottom, does the minister have any views about tackling excess pay at the top? The minister has a great many views about tackling excess pay at the top. It is just a pity that the party to which the member belongs does not appear to have very much to say about that either, and it is a great pity that the party opposite is not interested in giving this Parliament powers to do something in a statutory sense about all the issues that we are raising today. We are going to help to increase the number of employers paying the living wage in all sectors in Scotland to make decent pay the standard in our country. EU law prevents the payment of the living wage being mandated as part of a public procurement exercise. Despite other claims to the contrary, the position under EU law has been made clear in a number of rulings of the European Court of Justice and in correspondence between the Scottish Government and the European Commission. Making the living wage mandatory through contracts is not possible under EU law, where the statutory national minimum wage has been set at a lower level. Of course, that is why the SNP Government asked the Smith Commission to recommend devolving responsibility for the national minimum wage to the Scottish Parliament, something that the Labour Party chose not to support. Labour members refused to support the devolution of responsibility for that to Scotland. That is a move that would have allowed the Scottish Parliament to determine what level it should be set at. We have consistently explained that, while we cannot make the living wage mandatory, we can strongly encourage it, and that is what the Procurement Reform Scotland Act 2014 seeks to do in providing for the issue of statutory guidance on workforce matters in procurement. My colleague Keith Brown, Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, is currently consulting key stakeholders, including the ICI Committee, STUC, Trade Unions and the Poverty Alliance, on draft guidelines for purchasers on how to tackle workforce matters in procurement. We are, of course, also leading by example with the Scottish Government successfully encouraging bidders to offer bids that were placed based on paying their staff the living wage when we recently tendered our catering contract. In addition, we have worked with our existing cleaning contractor to ensure that its staff, who work in our core premises, will also receive at least the living wage. We continue to encourage all public bodies and businesses to follow our lead on this important matter. If I could expand some of the issues that have to do on the broader question of fair work, I am glad that this Parliament showed overwhelming support for the working-together review and its recommendations when first debated on 13 November last year. We are always focused on securing the best outcomes for Scotland. We believe, and the working-together review confirmed, that progressive workplace policies can help to improve a firm's productivity, innovation and sustainable growth. Well-rewarded and sustained employment is the best route out of poverty and the best way to tackle inequality. That is why there will be a fair work convention and that is why it will prioritise the promotion of the living wage to highlight the fact that business productivity goes hand in hand with decent, fair and equal pay. In support of our approach that fairness supports and underpins long-term prosperity, we will develop a Scottish business pledge. That will invite companies to commit, for example, to extending the living wage, involving their local communities and investing in youth training and employment. In return, they will be offered a package of tailored support on skills, innovation and exports to help them to grow and prosper. Against the background of recession and continued Westminster austerity, our strategy for developing Scotland's young workforce is delivering. Recent employment statistics for Scotland have been encouraging and we have record numbers of people in work. Youth unemployment in Scotland is at a five-year low and I would expect people to welcome that. Scotland is outperforming the United Kingdom as a whole in youth unemployment, unemployment and youth inactivity rates. We still have more to do. We want to tackle long-term issues in the labour market and barriers to young women and men getting into jobs. Last year, we said that we would be able to increase the annual number of new modern apprenticeship starts, taking the number to 30,000 a year by 2020. We have set ambitious targets for our young workforce. The Parliament will recall in December that I brought forward the developing the young workforce Scotland's youth employment strategy to the chamber, setting out an ambitious seven-year programme on which we will report on a regular basis. The key performance indicators there covered a range of measures and have a particular focus on addressing inequality. They look to increase the minority gender share in the largest and most imbalanced college superclasses, increase employment rate for young disabled people to the population average and increase the number of modern apprenticeship starts from minority ethnic communities. We will be reporting each year on those ambitions. In implementing that programme, it will put us where we belong among the best-performing countries in Europe. Above all, our seven-year programme will be a collaborative effort. Government cannot do that on its own, which is why our programme has been developed in conjunction with our partners in local government and with Scotland's employers and trade unions. In concluding, we all have a part to play in developing a fairer and more equal Scotland, and we are going to have to work together, frankly, to do so. I am sure that those present today would agree that those are issues that motivate us all and that this Parliament, like the Scottish Government, must continue to make strong commitments to tackle them. We need to work together here, as well as out in the country, if we are going to achieve what we want to do, and the achievement is set out in the motion before you, which I now move. I now call on Ken Macintosh to speak to you under move amendment 12095.4, 10 minutes please. I would like to congratulate the minister for bringing forward today's motion on tackling inequalities, particularly on her timing. Many of us will have heard the news this week from Oxfam that the richest 1 per cent of the world's population is on the brink of owning more wealth than the rest of us put together—1 per cent on half of all global wealth. That is obscene and immoral. What is worse is that it is damaging to our economy, our society and the values that should bind us together. What I find particularly worrying is not just the levels of extreme inequality but the fact that the problem is getting worse, the inequality gap is continuing to widen. As most families have struggled through the past half dozen years of recession, frozen wages and rising prices, the number of billionaires has doubled. I believe that that is positively dangerous. It is so unfair that it is difficult to imagine that it will not breed resentment. However, simply in terms of our responsibilities and our record as members of the Scottish Parliament, it is a poor reflection on our political structures, our public policies and our democratic accountability that we have allowed such inequality to develop. The good news is that there are strong signs that the world has woken up to inequality. I know that many here in this chamber, for example, have quoted from that seminal book The Spirit Level. Oxfam is just one of the many organisations leading the way in challenging the threat to our way of life with their campaign to even it up, and they in turn quote from supporters as diverse as Pope Francis and the International Monetary Fund. Yes, the Scottish Government has woken up too. I am pleased that the Government has brought forward today's motion. I am also slightly anxious. I am worried that the minister believes that such a complex problem can simply be blamed on the UK Government while everything that we do here in Scotland is beneficial. I share her belief that Tory policies of austerity and welfare reform are making matters worse not better, but we and I mean all of us here in the Scottish Parliament have to accept responsibility for the decisions that we take too. Educational attainment is widening, the gap is widening, yet responsibility for our schools, colleges and universities has been entirely devolved to this Parliament for the last 16 years. Progress in narrowing health inequalities has stagnated and in some cases is getting worse, yet health has been entirely devolved to this Parliament for the last 16 years. I accept the points that the member raises, but is the member not also aware that much of the evidence that has been received on those issues suggests that, at the point at which a child arrives at the school gate or an individual arrives at their GP, often the inequalities that affect their health or their educational attainment have already taken hold and, by that point, it is managing a situation rather than tackling it? Yes, the member makes a good point about the impact of the socio-economic background, which I will come on to. If he was to follow the logic of his own argument, it is a logic of despair. What he is suggesting is that we cannot tackle health inequalities using health policies. I simply do not agree with that. I simply do not agree that we make no difference through our educational and health policies that we decide here in the Scottish Parliament in the Minister for Health and Sport, Donald. The Scottish Government has had Labour support and will continue to have our support in pursuing policies that are fair, but too often SNP ministers confuse the pursuit of equity with the goal of tackling inequality. Free university tuition is just one example. It is a policy that Scottish Labour supports because it is equitable, but unless it is accompanied by action to widen access to Scots from all backgrounds, it does little to reduce inequality. Unfortunately, the SNP's record on widening access is worse than that of the Tory Government in England, despite its horrendous fees. In one minute. In fact, the evidence clearly reveals that Scots from less well-off backgrounds are more likely to go to college in the university, so not only are we not opening the door to higher education, ministers here in Edinburgh have actually slammed the door shut to further education from more than 140,000 Scots. We all know that education, skills and training provide one of the best routes out of poverty, one of the best ways to tackle social mobility and one of the best ways to overcome inequality. However, if in Scotland you have to be middle-class to access higher education in the first place, we are not reducing inequality, we are actually preserving it. I wonder if Mr Mackintosh would accept that statistics show that there is a 40 per cent increase in young people from disadvantaged backgrounds going into higher education. I wonder if he would accept that, but also in the spirit of unity accept that there is, of course, a need for much more to be done. That is why a main feature of the programme for government was to set up the commission for widening access, which will be announced in a few weeks' time. Ken Mackintosh. Again, I do not doubt that the minister has good intentions nor her desire to tackle this area, but the worrying fact is that one of the biggest victims of the Scottish Government's decision-making were the most vulnerable people in our society. Those who have supported places at College University were the ones who suffered the biggest cuts when the education reforms went through in the last few years. Unfortunately, that is a sad reflection. I will make some progress. Even if we are to put education and health to one side for a moment and follow Mr Mackintosh's point that we have taken an entirely economic determinist view of inequality, there is still so much that we can do here in the Scottish Parliament. The minister, for example, rightly highlights the importance of wages, but the Scottish Government only seems to want to go halfway with its support for the living wage. Much as we are delighted that she has partly adopted yet another Labour Party policy, I am glad that SNP is coming around to our way of thinking on this and so many other issues. Perhaps the minister can explain why it does not insist that any company enjoying a public sector contract should not have an obligation to pay staff the minimum wage. Why? I asked the minister this and she was slightly touched about it. I asked the minister straightforwardly why does the minister not support wage deferentials. The living wage will lift people out of poverty and it will help to make work pay. However, if top salaries increase faster than they have done, the inequality gap will actually widen and it will not narrow. The minister may believe that this is solely a question for FTSE top 100 companies, but, as it happened, the equality trust has worked out that none of the largest companies bidding for public sector contracts in the UK pay the chief executive less than 59 times UK median earnings. Those are public sector contracts that they are getting. Even more directly, we are rightly proud of our universities. However, they are one of the worst offenders in employing people in zero-hours contracts. They are also guilty of paying university principals salaries of £1,500,000 or more. This is taxpayers' money. We are talking about that. Does the minister not see the contradiction in voting through a series of consecutive wage freezes or capped 1 per cent rises on those lower down the public sector while allowing those increases for those at the top? Once more, we are not saying that everything the SNP does is wrong. Far from it, we have common ground in so many areas, but we cannot blind ourselves to the difference that we could make here in the Scottish Parliament. There are so many contributions that we can make. Just return to education. Investment in the early years is most likely to pay dividends, yet, despite the Scottish Parliament's tremendous expansion of nurse education in the first years of this Parliament, we have been overtaken by England under the tories of all people where more places are available for vulnerable two years than here in Scotland. We do not have to look very far in Scotland to see how entrenched inequality has become. Fewer than 500 people now own half the private land in Scotland. In fact, 10 per cent of all land in Scotland is owned by 16 people. One of our first achievements in the Scottish Parliament was to finally abolish feudal ownership and introduce the right for community buyouts, but the drive for land reform has made little progress. The First Minister has made encouraging noises—I hope that when she can translate those words into actions, we certainly in Scottish Labour will offer our support. There are many other areas of agreement that we should be exploring. If we agree, for example, that Scotland suffers that our society and our economy is damaged by unacceptable levels of inequality, I think that we have the right to know where the SNP stands on the redistribution of wealth. This is the basic Scottish Labour Party principle and one reflected in our policy choices. We are promising the people of Scotland that we will restore the top level of 50 per cent tax on all incomes over £150,000, we will introduce a mansion tax on houses worth more than £2 million, and we will tax the multi million-pound bonuses that are still received by bankers to rescue by the taxpayer in one second. Why will the SNP not match us on those promises? In fact, I challenge the minister right now and the cabinet secretary in this debate to commit the SNP to supporting Scottish Labour's pledge to introduce a 50-pence metre of tax. I wonder if the member would care to outline precisely what powers the Government would use to impose those tax changes that he is talking about. That would need tax powers that his party has no intention of ever devolving to this Parliament. Ken Macintosh, could you start to come to a conclusion? I can give you a little bit of extra time for your interventions, but please start to conclude. Apart from the fact that we are about to gain powers over this very area, we have a general election coming up on the top rate of income tax. We have got a general election a few months. I am asking the cabinet secretary and the minister now in the summit up, cabinet secretary, will you commit the SNP to reintroducing the top rate of income? I do not understand what is so difficult about it. Why will you not actually... Why is it that the only tax that you are willing to talk about is tax cuts for corporations, and you will not talk about the basic principle of redistribution of wealth? Presiding Officer, I wanted to make some points about the poverty and the inequality experienced by disabled people in Scotland, but I have run out of time. I can give you around another 30 seconds for the interventions that you took. The point that I want to make is that, with the inequalities that divide our society, there are challenges facing us all in the here and now. They will not solely be solved by getting rid of the tories no matter how beneficial and desirable that will be. We need to start looking at our own decision making, our own powers, our own Scottish Parliament, and start to work on building the good society that people of Scotland want and need. Reducing inequality would be a great place to start. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move amendment to my name. Many thanks. I now call on Alex Johnson to speak to and to move amendment 12095.2 in around six minutes. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I begin by moving the amendment that stands in my name, lest I forget to do that at the end? The issue of tackling inequalities is something that is fundamental to a Parliament of this nature. People out there are, by and large, aspirational. They want to better themselves. They want to get themselves into a better position and find a better position still for their children. I and my party have always talked about equality, but, as is the case in many discussions, we have perhaps talked of it in a slightly different tone. I can remember many of my contemporaries as I made my way up through politics talking about equality of opportunity. That does not mean that everyone will have the same treatment, it does not mean that everyone will have the same income or the same possessions, but it does mean that young people starting out in life will have the same chances that anyone else has of achieving their aspirations during their lifetime. That is why it is extremely important to me to be able to put the conservative angle on this debate. Of course, equality means different things to different people, but I think that we all have an understanding today that what we are talking about are those who find themselves in a disadvantaged position in Scotland today and how we might elevate them. We have heard a fair bit from the Labour Party already about the issue of the redistribution of wealth, and I think that the redistribution of wealth through taxation will always be part of the Scottish political agenda, in spite of the fact that I may be less keen on it than some others, but the redistribution of wealth itself is in irrelevance unless we first apply ourselves at least as equally to the creation of that wealth. That is where our current UK Government have done so well. We have seen 160,000 extra jobs created in Scotland since 2010, and although many people will talk of the quality of those jobs, three quarters of them are full-time. I am afraid that I cannot take an intervention at this point. Three quarters of those jobs are full-time. Other concerns are that Scotland has been successful in attracting a great many immigrants, particularly from Eastern Europe, in that time. I will put down the marker that I always do. I am one of the few Conservatives that will never object to Eastern European immigration because they believe that they make a vital contribution to the Scottish economy. What does concern me is that we have failed to get our own unemployed into those jobs when they were created. The Government complains that it does not have power over tax, but, of course, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government have power over tax since 1999. It could vary it by 3 per cent either way of the base rate. Next year it will have more powers and, with the publication of the white paper this week, we will hear about the extra powers that we will get to vary income tax more or less as we see fit. The protest of the minister appeared to indicate that she was not talking about income tax at all. It makes me worry that she is perhaps talking about wealth and inheritance tax that she will not have under the current proposals. Welfare reform will produce an important part of the change that we need to achieve. The universal credit when it comes along will give flexibility for the first time to allow people to get back into work while not losing the advantage of all their benefits. That flexibility will also lead to responsibility. Opportunities to take responsibility for dealing with their own resources, including paying their rent, will be a vital part of that change. That is why the budget for welfare in Scotland is actually going up, not down, as is pointed out in the amendment in the name of Willie Rennie, a textbook amendment that I have ever saw. In fact, I think that he has copied the textbook out. There is a £2 billion rise in welfare coming in the next two years. The minister complains that there have been £6 billion worth of cuts in the current five-year spending period. That is to measure the cuts without measuring the pluses. The fact is that many of the reductions that are within her £6 billion are in fact the removal of tax credits, which have been replaced with a massive increase in tax thresholds that will, by April this year, deliver over £800 to every working individual. I am afraid that I am just coming to the end of my remarks. The problem is the one that I addressed at the beginning, equality of opportunity. Although wealth is being created in Scotland, jobs are being created in Scotland and jobs are being taken up in Scotland, we are not delivering the opportunity for our young people to get into those jobs in sufficient numbers. Our schools and our colleges, as well as our universities, are failing to deliver the correct qualifications and aspirations to those in certain areas. That is not a failure of the UK Government, but a failure of the Scottish Government and a failure that has continued over time. That is not to mention the health inequalities that are obviously requiring cycles to be broken. We also need to take seriously the issue of the living wage. My concern has been expressed in this Parliament before. My concern is that the living wage, while it is an aspiration that we should all pursue, does not take account of the many small businesses who will struggle to pay it and many of them are the proprietors of those businesses who will never be able to achieve that level of income. That is particularly poignant when you consider that many of our ethnic and immigrant communities have many of those small businesses in them. This is an important debate and one that I think we need to take very seriously, and we all need to understand each other's position, which will be different, but has the same objective only a different route to achieve it. I want to start where Alex Johnson finished off. There is no monopoly of virtue on tackling inequality or poverty in this chamber. We all just have different routes for trying to achieve that, and I think that respecting each other for what we are trying to do in this area is something that we could all learn from. Any kind of, even one child living in poverty, I regard as unacceptable, and too many children born in this country into poverty die in poverty, and their life expectancy is so much shorter than many other people who are not suffering from poverty. Inequality is something that divides our society and something that I want to try and tackle as a liberal. I believe that the best way of trying to achieve that is combining the great benefits of building a stronger economy but also a fairer society so that everyone gets an opportunity, regardless of their background, no matter where they come from, no matter what position they are born into and no matter what their race, colour or creed are. That is a very strong liberal principle on something that I will always adhere to. Without fairness, it is difficult to create a truly strong economy, and without a strong economy, fairness. One is not possible without the other. That is why the UK Government, since 2010—Alex Johnson is quite right—has created more than 160,000 jobs since 2010. Despite what the SNP Government claims, the vast bulk of those are full-time jobs and skilled jobs. We have in the United Kingdom one of the fastest-growing economies in the G7. That means that we have 168,000 more wage packets going into households and 168,000 households that have a better opportunity in life. In tandem with economic growth, we have introduced the biggest ever change to our income tax system ever introduced. Raising the tax threshold to £10,600 means that 260,000 people of the lowest-paid households, the lowest-income earners in Scotland, are now paying no-income tax whatsoever. That is very progressive. Those on low and middle incomes are benefiting too. Over 2 million taxpayers in Scotland have had their tax cut by over £800, no matter how loud he shouts that he does not get taken. I will give the minister— Listening with care to Willie Rennie's expounding of how much better things are getting, I wonder if he has actually seen the in-work poverty stats that were published this morning. If he has seen them, could he explain how we see such a rise against the backdrop of the wonderful picture that he is painting? The reality is that we are facing a very difficult economic circumstance. The SNP minister's scoff is that the UK Government has made the biggest change to our tax system, which has lifted a lot of people out of income tax altogether. If we had listened to the SNP Government, it would not have received any of that benefit. We remember from the white paper that it did not support the Liberal Democrat proposal to go even further and lift the tax threshold up to £12,500. It just wanted to increase it with inflation. That would not have benefited low and middle income earners. I will take no lectures from the SNP Government on trying to incentivise people into work and make it fairer in work too. We want to go further up to £12,500. That will again mean that people who are on minimum wage will be taken out of income tax altogether. That is a significant benefit to people on low incomes and on those in low income households. By increasing the minimum wage, we are making a big difference to those on low pay. That is why Vince Cable has been advocating to the local pay commission an acceleration of the increase in the national minimum wage. That started last October. For the first time now, we are saying that wages are rising faster than inflation, the first time for many, many years. Again, that is good prospects to improve the conditions for people who are working. That is one half of the equation to try and tackle this inequality gap, to try and make a stronger economy. The second part is what the Government can do to increase opportunity. Despite the SNP's fine words on improving childcare, we are still lagging behind England on childcare. We have only got 27 per cent of the poorest children in Scotland benefiting from nursery education for two-year-olds, whereas in England we are at 40 per cent, so much more. You would think from the rhetoric from the SNP benches that in Scotland it was far superior, but the reality is that we are lagging behind. I have only got 30 seconds. I would have loved to perhaps summing up what we can cover. On childcare, it is important that the Scottish Government gets its act together. Perhaps listen to the fine words of Bob Dorison, who has made some great speeches in this regard. I think that it is important that we move even further on childcare. On mental health, mental health is another area of public life where the Scottish Government needs to lift its efforts so that more people can get back into work because so many are blighted by poor quality service within the NHS on providing and tackling mental illness. Creating a stronger economy and a fairer society is necessary in order to reduce inequality, and that is something that Liberal Democrats will always adhere to. Thank you very much. We now turn to the open debate speeches of six minutes, please. There is a little bit of time in hand at the moment for interventions. Gordon MacDonald to be followed by Rhoda Grant. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The poverty alliance highlighted in her briefing the extent of inward poverty in Scotland. There are currently 820,000 people living in poverty in Scotland. Of those, 180,000 are children. Overall, 19 per cent of children are living in poverty, and almost two thirds of those are in households where someone works. Low benefit levels and poor labour market conditions mean that people are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet, while work was once thought to be a route out of poverty, more than half of adults living in poverty today live in households where someone works. Governments across the world have the ability to put in place policies to tackle poverty in society by setting a minimum wage, or designing a welfare system to support families struggling to make ends meet, but not in Scotland. The Scottish Government has no control of either the minimum wage or the welfare system as they are reserved to Westminster. Since 2008, successive Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem Governments have failed to ensure that the minimum wage has kept pace with inflation. The resolution foundation calculates that this leaves the minimum wage £1,010 lower a year than it was in 2008. Last year, following the referendum, there were calls to devolve the minimum wage to Holyrood so that we could set the rate here, but, once again, Westminster parties failed families in Scotland by not supporting the SNP proposals. When it comes to the changes to the welfare system introduced by the Conservative and Lib Dem coalition, the Scottish Government is left trying to mitigate against the worst aspects rather than being in a position to create a welfare system that is simple, makes work pay and lifts people out of poverty. Over the last year, the Scottish Government has maintained funding for the Scottish welfare fund, has offset the cost of the bedroom tax to families and has mitigated the cut in funding for council tax benefit. The difficulty is that the Tories, as part of their austerity measures, are planning to slice billions of working-age benefits by freezing child benefit, tax credits and other measures, resulting in a low-wage family with one child losing over £350 a year. As the motion states, the work of the Scottish Government's fair work convention to promote and sustain a fair employment framework for Scotland is at risk of being undermined by the £6 billion of cuts being made by the UK Government. The fair work convention is about bringing together unions, employers, public sector bodies and government to promote good industrial relations, highlight the fact that business productivity increases with the payment of fair wages and the promotion of the living wage to employers. The procurement bill made it clear that one of the factors that authorities will require to evaluate is a contractor's approach to pay and the living wage. Public authorities will be required to set out in their procurement strategies what their policy is in relation to ensuring that the companies that they contract with pay the living wage. Since April 2014, there are now 100 employers in Scotland registered with the living wage accreditation scheme. They range from builders to universities and from tour companies to local authorities. We need to encourage all those companies and organisations who currently pay the living wage to register. Currently, only one local authority out of 32 is listed as an accredited living wage employer. One distillery out of 90. Only one bank is registered, two housing associations, one university and two colleges. There are really no others in those sectors who pay the living wage. We have 18 per cent of the workforce who are paid below the living wage, and the majority of those are in the private sector and are women. They mainly work either in retail, hospitality or the social sector. Yet we have no supermarkets, hotels or restaurants listed as accredited employers and only a handful of care organisations. The living wage commission in the report work that pays looked at a business case for introducing the living wage. They established that the living wage can open the door to productivity increases for businesses. This is the result of living wage employees contributing higher levels of effort and an openness to changing job roles. Other business benefits include cost-saving opportunities from increasing staff retention and the stability of the workforce, as well as reduced absenteeism. The evidence points to improved levels of morale, motivation and commitment from staff across the paid distribution in living wage workplaces. The commission also examined the public policy case for introducing living wage and referred to an analysis provided by Landman Economics that shows that across the UK, the Exchequer could gain up to £4.2 billion in increased tax revenues and reduced expenditure on tax credits and other in-work benefits from an increase in coverage of the living wage. They go on to state that there could be further multiplier effects arising from putting a modest amount of disposable income into the pockets of the UK's lowest-paid staff with demand subsequently increasing in the economy. The Scottish Government has led the way as a living wage employer and some organisations across Edinburgh have stepped up to the mark, including Chai, based in my constituency. We need other employers to recognise the benefit to their business, the wider community and society of paying the living wage and lead by example. The health committee recently held an inquiry into health inequalities. What was clear from that inquiry was that health inequalities are a symptom of an unequal society rather than the cause. The cause is income inequality. That, in turn, leads to inadequate housing, meaning that people are living in cold, damp properties because they cannot afford any better. They eat inadequate diets. We all know that pie, beans and chips are much cheaper than a hearty beef, stew and potatoes. People do not choose to feed themselves or their families on unhealthy food. They have to or else they go hungry. It is quite sad that we have seen rickets come back into young people in our society, something that past generations thought they had totally eradicated from this country. If you are cold and hungry and in poverty, it impacts your physical health, the ability to fight infection and indeed the ability to concentrate. Education is impacted due to the difficulty of studying in a cold home in an empty stomach. A parent's priority becomes keeping the roof over their heads and the heads of their families and trying to feed their children as best as possible. Things like homework become less of a priority when basic survival is difficult. Therefore, children brought up in poverty seldom reach their full potential. We also know that, if you are born in poverty, you are more likely to live in poverty. A mother's income influences our child's future income and therefore we start a vicious cycle of poverty with little hope of changing your life chances. The gender pay gap keeps women's incomes low and, if that equates to their children receiving lower pay in future, we start a cycle of poverty by paying women less. There is no easy fix and that is why fighting poverty should be cross-department, cross-committee and indeed, if we are really committed to it, it should be an issue for every organisation, business and individual in the country. We all lose if a child does not grow up to reach their full potential. That is a loss to the whole of society and diminishes what we would have received if they had been able to contribute at their full potential. It also means that society in future will have to intervene to deal with health problems caused by their poverty. Taxpayers must also supplement their income because people in poverty will never reach their full earning potential. However, had we tackled that in childhood, they would have been contributing to society rather than taking from it. Accessing exercise and recreation is also important to health, but those facilities are often missing from our most needy communities, deprived areas are beset with social problems, drug-taking and the like, which makes parents reluctant with their children out to play and neither can they afford after-school clubs that many of us take for granted. Even if the facilities were there, is there spare money in the home for a football strip and boots or dance shoes or the like? Money is also required to travel to clubs and sporting facilities and, depending on the age of the child, the parent may need to go with them. All of those things have barriers to accessing exercise and children miss out more than exercise because they miss out on the ability to socialise and interact and build skills that are very necessary in later life and building relationships, both personally and professionally. Living in poverty and hopelessness also impacts on people's mental health, hence the increase in drug-taking and alcohol misuse in poorer communities as people self-medicate to deal with their circumstances and this in turn impacts on their general health and their ability to nurture their children. How can you instill hope and ambition in your children if you have none in yourself? However, it does not end there. We know that poverty leads to poorer health and lower life expectancy, so we need to invest more resources in health and social care for those who suffer in this way. The RCN initiative nursing at the edge shows what community nursing intervention can do to help to change people's circumstances and support them. The DPNGPs also report on the complex issues that they need to deal with on a daily basis, not only a person's health but the social circumstances that impact on their health. That means that they require more input from professionals and also closer working between professionals in order to deal with the complex problems that they find. However, it is less likely that poorer areas enjoy better services based on need. The inverse care law tends to suggest that those in greatest need tend to receive fewer services. That can be for a number of reasons. People are less likely to seek medical help because they do not have a sense of entitlement that we have to good health. Services are often some distance away, inaccessible or comparatively expensive to access through public transport. Daily pressures such as fighting for survival often leave little time for taking care of yourself. If we are to encourage people to access healthcare sooner, we need to provide that care in a way that is accessible to them and that fits with the pressures and circumstances that they face. I think that we have some way to go before we achieve that. As a minimum, we need to allow health professionals time to work with people in order that they can signpost them to services that deal with their other problems. In deciding office on health inequalities can only be tackled by creating a fairer society where wealth is shared and opportunity is open to all. Until that happens, we all need to food the bill for dealing with the consequences of inequality. We need to ensure that resources are placed where they meet the greatest need. That requires targeting of funding if there is not enough to go around. We all like universal services. However, when there is an inbuilt inequality in our society, we need to target service to those who are most in need first. The alternative is that we all pay more to meet that need. If we are not willing to acknowledge that, we are basically acknowledging that we live in an unfair and selfish society. Inequality is cyclical and so is self-perpetuating. Start off with low performance in the economy, low pay, children and poverty, people in work needing food banks. Already you have set the pattern for health inequalities, reduced school performance, fewer opportunities, progress into decent employment and the cycle comes full circle, starting the same depressing journey all over again. Carol Craig in her book The Tears That Made Declide likened this to the Glasgow effect, but it was not just restricted to Glasgow. However, it really does not need to be like this. Westminster has failed Scotland with the exception of the already very wealthy and the country of states and grand houses who do rather well under the current government. People are watching their prosperity, their opportunities, dwindle and alarming speed. Increasing levels of poverty and inequality are a clear sign that the economic and social policies of the UK Government are failing Scotland. Why spend £100 billion on weapons of mass destruction and not spend £100 billion on the opportunities for our young people? I wonder if she would advocate something like increasing the stamp duty for those people in those grand houses. Mr Finlay should take lessons from his colleague who he backed in the recent leadership battle, Katie Clarke, and not vote for £30 billion worth of austerity cuts. Therefore, he would not have to be looking at the people in the grand mansions because he would be focused on the people who are having to pay and struggling to pay their rent every single day. A few years ago, most food bank visitors were homeless folk living on the street. The larger number of clients and families have a parent working. What does that tell us about inequality? In the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the western world, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening dramatically. The Scottish Government has made advances but is effectively powerless to make any big changes without further devolved powers. I would really love to have the same crystal ball that Ken Macintosh has got, because he knows that it is in the Smith report. That has to change. On Thursday, we will see the Smith report. Maybe he is going to tell us where he got his crystal ball. The minister seems to be suggesting that tax powers are not coming to this Parliament. Does Mr McElvie believe that that is the case? Ms McElvie will not be putting any focus on any Smith commission unless it actually delivers the vow, which I very much doubt it will. This is the UK Government's chance to live up to their word. This is a Labour Party's chance to live up to their vow, to deliver on the powers that were promised in the final days of the referendum and translate those proposals into real action. In this Scottish Government, we believe that equality and cohesion are good for growth, as well as good for individuals. The Scottish Government will do all it can in its power to tackle that inequality, and we heard some of those measures today. Of course, inequality is about a great deal more than the money in people's pockets. Health, education, gender, race, skills training, job choices and access to services are all significant issues in this crucial balancing act. Seeking an equal fair and prosperous economy demands, I think, two fundamentals. One, recognition that a strong economy is both the driver of and the follower of a fair and equal society. Two, the Government has the power, the vision and the commitment to build genuine equality for all. This Government has everything except enough power to bring about structural change. We pay the living wage to all of our public service staff and we need to control the minimum wage. We need to end zero hours contracts and we need to end unfair umbrella scams in our construction industry. Unlike Westminster, we have given our NHS staff all but a modest pair eyes. Scotland has a highest employment rate, the lowest unemployment and connectivity rates of all four UK nations, but we have a London Government backed and full last week by the Labour Party, bringing about another £6 billion of cuts on top of those already in place. We do not create a more prosperous economy and a fairer society by ensuring that the most vulnerable and the needy are the ones who are pushed further away. If you hold young mothers back from returning to work because childcare costs are too high, you do not improve the economy, you hold it back and you hold back that woman's own prosperity and you hold back that result on her family too. Female employment in Scotland has reached its highest level in record, rising to £1.3 million, up to £46,000 in the last year. Provide, as is the Scottish Government, that does in doing in a decent free childcare facility and you bring women back into the workforce, that in turn creates more wealth, better tax revenues and a healthier economy. Building equality won't be an overnight job, we all need to be engaged, not just to Government. This is a crucial role for all of the organisations that we have heard of, such as NHS Scotland, Oxfam, SCVO, CRER and all the civil society as well. I would love to be able to be a part in doing just what Oxfam have asked for in even a global report. I know full well that many of my colleagues across this chamber and the Scottish Government would love to do the same too, but we are denied the powers in this place to allow us to move forward substantially with our ideals and vision. What we can do within our powers and what we are granted to do within our powers. Last week, the Scottish Government, the STUC, committed to closer working to achieve their shared vision on a welfare and more equal society for Scotland. The establishment of a fair work convention will further enhance the way that Government employers, trade unions, employees engage to embed progressive workplace practices. I would ask the ministers to take a close look at the umbrella scam issue. Charles Ford Dispatches last night did a piece on it and cut out some of it, but hopefully we can gather some of that evidence in the process. That is something that Graham Smith and the SCUC General Secretary has welcomed, saying, and I quote, that this stands in sharp contrast, sharp contrast to the outdated approach from the Government at Westminster, which does not recognise the positive contribution that trade unions bring to society and the importance of fair work in achieving key and economic social objectives. I would say again to Mr Finlay what any trade union legislation that Tony Blair overturned in his time in Government none. We share the desire for a better Scotland, and we will make it happen. Since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, I believe that we have proven collectively that we are at our very best when tackling head-on the inequalities that scar our nation from breaking new ground with land reform to confronting old prejudices like homophobia and bigotry, challenging the stigma around mental health, speaking out against female genital mutilation, standing up to traffickers and those who exploit migrants, exposing the conditions in which too many Gypsy travellers are forced to live, and giving a platform to carers, to young people, to pensioners, to the disadvantaged and the underrepresented. This young Parliament can mature and has matured by addressing inequalities that afflict Scotland no matter how challenging, by fostering genuine equality and diversity, and by championing the human rights written into our foundation statute. We have challenged some of the most pernicious, the most complex and often the most sensitive of social inequalities. Where necessary, many of us will even have challenged ourselves and our own assumptions about equality, and we will have challenged our Scottish Government too in pursuit of a fairer Scotland. That is fair. That is what the Parliament of a compassionate, socially progressive country must do. Where we find injustice, we have to confront it. In a briefing to members, Oxfam has shone a light on some of those injustices. Site in the Scottish Government, it says that the richest 10 per cent of the households that says before Scotland have 900 times the accumulated wealth of the poorest. Odd at Scotland say that the average health life expectancy of people living in the least deprived areas in Scotland is around 18 years higher than people living in the most deprived areas. More than half of the lowest achieving S4P in Scotland's secondary schools came from the three most deprived income declines. I would appeal for all of us to confront those economic inequalities, health inequalities, educational inequalities and the issues of social justice. We are debating today with the same rigor that we have applied to our equal opportunities in social affairs. We cannot pull our punches in the fight against inequality and it is for that reason that I intend to support the Labour amendment. We must do all that we can using every means at our disposal to narrow the gap and fashion a fairer, more equal society. Like the Scottish Government, I believe that the coalition's economic and social policies are failing after the slow recovery in 100 years. Scotland and the UK are still struggling with a cost-of-living crisis and rising inequality. There is an alternative. We can build a higher-wage, better-skilled economy that is supported by good public services and rich with opportunities, not just for some but for all. We all have to play our part when this Parliament is not just bystanders. We have a duty to find solutions, not just excuses. Most of us across the chamber agree that the national minimal wage successfully set a floor below which wages were not allowed to fall, tackling the worst poverty pay and reducing wage inequality. Most of us agree that the living wage would reduce in-work poverty, improve employee retention and wellbeing and could even improve productivity in the workplaces of the living wage employers. The Scottish Government has previously explained its hesitancy to legislate as a way of guaranteeing that the public sector uses its purchase and power to secure the living wage from contractors. However, it has not given a good reason as to why it refused to accept constructive, non-legislative proposals from my Labour colleagues last year for a national living wage strategy and a Scottish living wage unit. We must do more to promote the living wage for the sake of those struggling to get by. I also want to highlight the case for early intervention and preventative spending. Many of us will know about the work of experts in this field, the violence reduction unit, Suzanne Zidick and the Sahari Burns. We could close the life expectancy gap and the attainment gap by addressing the social detriments of inequalities, intensifying our focus on the early years, tackling insecurity in people's lives, building a sense of coherence and community. Their spending review in 2011's Scottish Government committed itself to a decisive shift towards preventative spending. I was a member of the finance committee at that time. Yet, in the latest report in the draft budget, the finance committee says that there is little evidence of the essential shift in resources taking place to support a preventative approach. It is a view that is also endorsed by Audit Scotland. To address inequalities that hold Scotland back, the Scottish Government must embrace the practice and not simply the theory of preventative spending. Finally, as I have said, this Parliament is at its best when unashamedly confronting the inequalities that hold Scotland back. We should be offended by injustice and we should be frustrated with inaction. It is for that reason that I would call on the Scottish Government to strengthen its commitment to both the living wage and early intervention. I thank you and I now call Bob Doris to be followed by Christine Grahame. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to begin by giving reference to the recent Health and Sport Committee report on health inequalities. A key thread running through that report is the link to economic inequalities. Whether it is poor quality, low-paid or temporary work, the committee was clear that income inequality and poverty directly link to significant health inequalities going through life. I am pleased therefore that the motion on tackling inequalities gets to the root causes of the fundamental health inequalities that our country suffers from. That debate therefore is not just about the money in the pockets of Scotland's workers and families—that is important. It is not just about the patterns of work that can affect the quality of our lives and disempower some of our most vulnerable communities. It is also about ensuring that our poorest in society live longer than they are right now, that they are healthier, that they are happier and that they feel more secure and empowered than they are right now, and that, hopefully, the longevity of their lives increases beyond what it currently is. That is a huge obligation on everyone in this Parliament. That is the challenge in the motion before us, if that was to be successful. It does not mention health in that motion, but every successful action in that motion will have positive health consequences for the most vulnerable society that we all represent. On that front, I am very pleased to see that an independent adviser on poverty and inequality is to be appointed by the Scottish Government and that there is to be a poverty impact assessment on future Scottish Government legislation. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary could give cognisance of health inequalities as part of the remit of that independent adviser, although I do accept by the nature of its independence. You want to be careful about how prescriptive you are within that remit. In terms of the impact assessments given cognisance in relation to health, it would be very useful to hear more information on that. We heard earlier in the debate the statistic that 59 per cent of children in poverty stay in a household where only one adult is in employment. In 2009-2010, it was 43 per cent. The fact that things are getting dramatically worse is an absolute disgrace. It needs to be challenged. Two of the most obvious actions—I accept that there are others, but two of the most obvious actions to tackle this disgrace are actions around the minimum living wage and actions around the tax credit system. I note in relation to the tax credit system that recent reforms have put 100,000 households further into poverty—88 per cent of those households containing children. The Parliament has no control over the minimum wage. We have no control over the tax credit system. In the parts of the living wage where we do have control over all the Scottish Government's pay policies, we implement a living wage as standard. I do not want to get into the debate with Labour on whether it is legal—excuse me, one second. Let me develop my point, please. I just do not want to get into the debate with Labour about Labour saying, well, you have the power now to enforce the minimum wage—sorry, the living wage elsewhere. That is not a bunfight. If the Scottish Government thought they could do it, they would do it. They have made that clear. Let us not do petty political points going over that. Let us work together to improve the income of our most vulnerable people within society. In terms of what we can do together, I have to say that it would be for Labour to justify by some of the powers that I would like to see improve and enhance those who are blighted by poverty not coming to this place. In terms of the powers that we do have in this place, how can we promote a living wage? Of course, we have heard about the poverty alliances, a living wage accreditation scheme and the Scottish business—sorry, Duncan, I should relate. Margaret McAllish. Do you not think that if the Government backed and supported the Scottish living wage unit and gave it its support, it would encourage employers to introduce a living wage? I do not see how you can do any more than encouraging employers to deliver on the living wage by empowering the poverty alliance to go about the business who have recently just signed up the 100th employer to deliver on a living wage. I think that there is a little bit of the party politics coming in there. If it was a good thing, we would do it. We do not care who's idea it was, can I say to Labour? We would do it. It is the right thing to do. Here are a couple of ideas. I am very proud of the small business bonus scheme that we have in Scotland to support many small businesses. Not all of them, of course, will pay the living wage. I would like to think that we can use the small business bonus scheme where possible to incentivise them towards paying a living wage. It is a blunt instrument. There could be unintended consequences, but I see Labour cheering at that. It is a blunt instrument. There could be unintended consequences with it, but it is worth exploring again where we can, likewise, the use of apprenticeships within Scotland. I do not think that every employer can just pay the living wage overnight, but I think that most of our employers where they can should have a strategy to move towards paying the living wage, and there is where we have got a route of travel where we can all be in that together. Let me finish off by saying that another key part of the health and sport committee report was in relation to the health consequences of the £6 billion welfare reform that is befalling Scotland. I have to finish as I started by saying that we will do all we can in this Parliament to mitigate the worst aspects of inequalities, but the root powers and the root causes to deal with that sit in another place. That is not to let the Scottish Government off the hook. We must work together in partnership, but let us not kid ourselves on the real layers of power that sit elsewhere. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Building a fairer Scotland and tackling inequalities, of course, we can all sign up to that and absolutely support a living wage. Together with the importance of work, not only because of the financial security and worth it brings an individual, but for a healthy, physical, mental and indeed social life. I want to quote, however, from Scottish justice matters of June 2014. It touches on some of the issues raised by Bob Doris and others in this Parliament. I am looking at Duncan McNeill over a very long period of time. People who have come to the attention of the criminal justice system in Scotland are drawn predominantly from communities that experience poor physical and mental health, often associated with a lifetime of social exclusion, lack of employment, hope, purpose and their consequences. I say to Bob Doris one of the depressing things about being in here 15 years is that we have been talking about the inequalities and health for a very, very long time no matter who is in government. I recall when chairing health and sport committee, Harry Burns, the former chief medical officer for Scotland, telling us inequality in fact begins in the womb. The mother may have a poor diet, she may be a smoker, an alcoholic or addict. Tragically, babies have been born with fetal alcohol syndrome and with withdrawal, other withdrawal symptoms. I remember a long campaign with Duncan McNeill about the drug dependency of families and tackling that because of the impact on the children. Regrettably, sometimes getting societal change through politics is almost like turning round that proverbial oil tanker. There are inequalities that begin and birth continue till death. We know that, in the poorest areas of Glasgow, death is premature compared to the national average. I want to focus on that area that I have touched on where ironically inequality is a plus and that is if you want a criminal career and become a guest or from Majesty's prison. We take the contribution of addictions to being incarcerated. Many prisoners across from the young offenders through the women's institutions and across to the adult prisons have a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. Many, too, as a consequence or indeed separately from that, have mental health problems, often which have led them directly to committing offences. Those are sad circumstances for individuals, but even more depressing, those problems permeate through the families, sometimes through generations, sometimes through the extended family and community beyond. Those families and communities, as referred to in this article, are very often in very deprived areas of no or low employment or indeed no expectation of employment. Once in prison, though we have long since moved from prisons being merely places of punishment with turnkeys, more places where freedom is deprived but we hope to rehabilitate and prison officers play a substantial role in that rehabilitation process, nevertheless recidivism, the revolving door, continues. Big moves have now been made to ensure that throughcare starts in the prison and continues outside it, because sometimes the worst time for a prisoner is the sixth, maybe the day they come out of the prison, but sometimes 68 weeks, sometimes a few years afterwards, if they are not supported, particularly in the community, which may in fact be drawing them back into a lifestyle that took them into prison in the first place. Now, though the SPS is endeavouring to turn these lives around, you've got to realise that some 60 per cent of prisoners have difficulties with literacy, a very basic thing of reading and writing and some with numeracy as well. The challenge to society across all portfolios, across all politics, is really momentous. In prison they are discharged and despite improvements in throughcare, as I said, they are back into communities where they carry these huge inequalities of their childhood, of their health, of their education of basic skills, back with them as a burden and back into a challenging situation that we would find difficult to face. It's a tough call to sort these inequalities out. As for employment, there are a few good employers who proactively take on ex-prisoners to give them a chance, but many, many will not take that, so that's a further inequality. I take you back to where that inequality started. I was glad that this debate has expanded beyond a living wage to look at really the root causes that take us right back. That's important, but the root causes of inequality and how it crosses from health to justice to education and perhaps that all crashes together in the catastrophe of some people being in prison. We need to deal with those fundamental inequalities and the only thing that I would say to the chamber is this, because I know that some people have only been here three years, some have been eight. Please, please, let's not just be discussing these another four or five years down the line, because there are solutions out there, they are not party political, but we have to grasp, perhaps for a start, getting the public at large to see that some people that we have in prison are victims. Of course they may have earned and lost the right to have the freedom of movement, but they have come there for a reason, and some of that reason is why our society has let them down. Thank you very much, and I now call Duncan McNeill to be followed by Kevin Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and yet again another Tuesday and I find myself in speaking today in the chamber on a topic where there is probably more to unite us than there is to divide us, although, as usual, it's set up and anybody who was passing or anybody who's sitting in these galleries wouldn't think there was any agreement at all at times here today. But we're dealing with an issue that does engender frustration and anger. As an MSP representing a constituency, we're nearly a fifth of people that are income deprived when mortality rates from all causes are higher than the national average they have every right to be angry and frustrated. But we owe those people more than anger. We need to be honest and accept, as others have said and Christians have said, that we're dealing with a wide issue that cuts right across government and society, which is complex, difficult, requires commitment and, of course, hard political decisions. That is not just an issue that divides us super-rich from the super-poor, but it also divides us on no-pay and low-pay male, female, old, young, able, disabled. Moreover, it's not just an issue that can be attributed to any one moment in history, or one Government, or one party, or even in this moment of crisis austerity. We should do well to remember the words of Campbell Christie when he was asked to look at this and refer to him last week's debate. Alongside had decades of growth and public spending inequalities grew too, so even when we had the money did we spend it wisely. Despite significant investment, we've seen inward poverty rising, educational attainment falling and a widening healthcare gap between different parts of the country. Of course, the allegation of finance is important in tackling inequalities, but money on its own can't solve the problem. We have to ensure that we have the right policies in place and a determination to see them through. While we focus on that growing number of people who now find themselves in work, on benefits and in poverty, do we really believe that cuts in the bus operators grant with pushed-up fares didn't affect that working poor? Do we really appreciate the decisions that we took on cutting the housing budget that wouldn't put up the rents of the working poor? Do we think that cutting local government spending wouldn't push up the cost of childcare? All those actions that we bear responsibility for have impacted negatively and disproportionately on the working poor, so we need to be clear about the objectives that we're trying to achieve. We've got to do better. The left hand needs to know what the right hand is doing, and we need to, if we really want to, tackle this. The other thing that I want to touch on here today is that we need to be honest and not to pretend that this argument is one, that all we need is more money and new pillars. Harry Burns has been mentioned a couple of times today, and he said that part of the challenge is not just about pulling a set of policy levers but creating a sense of community and compassion. He listened to Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize-winning economist giving a lecture at the time about poverty. He said that poverty and the tolerance of the intolerable, his analysis as to why societies such as India tolerate extremes of poverty, is not that there is nothing that they can do about it, there is plenty that they can do about it, nor not that they do not care about it, but the middle classes don't understand how destructive poverty is. They think that we live with people, we know they're poor, but they get free schools, they get free meals, they get free health services. That kind of thing can't all be bad. He also quoted Jerry Hassan in his new book, where he argued that the problem is lack of empathy and connectedness. Indeed, the Glasgow centre for population of health comparative analysis of Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester shows that although the three cities are the same in terms of inequality and average income, they differ significantly in the causes of premature death and that the set of indicators that are completely different between the three cities are related to empathy and connectedness. We haven't won the argument. When I see the type of language and aspiration presented in manifestos at the elections that we stand at and we win the argument for that, then we can get onward high horse in these chambers and say, this is what we need to deliver. As well as our aspiration in these chambers, we need to win the argument. The argument has not been won. There is no clear commitment to empathy and connectedness in our society. When we win that, it will be up to us politicians to deliver a fairer Scotland that our society deserves. Annalysis by the Equality Trust shows that the United Kingdom is the fourth most unequal country in the OECD. Overall, the number of people living in relative poverty in our country rose to 1 million in 2012-13. We know that many of the families that are struggling to get by have family members in work. 59 per cent of children who live in poverty live in households with at least one adult in employment. 71,428 people, including 22,387 children, received a three-day supply of emergency food from Trussell Trust food banks in Scotland between April 2013 and March 2014. The figures, which have just been released for December, show that 10,489 folk were helped by Trussell Trust in Scotland, the highest number on record and one-third of those were children. I think that that is absolutely shocking. Those things show clearly that the austerity policies of the Tory Liberal government, which have also been adopted by Labour, are failing Scotland and are failing the people of Scotland. What we hear from certain folks is that we have done this all well. We heard it from Mr Rennie today in terms of personal allowances. Mr Rennie would be wise to listen to some of the experts and what they think the raising of personal tax allowances has actually done, because they think that it has benefited the rich more than it has the poor. Julia Unwin, chief executive of the Joseph Rennie Foundation, has said that raising the personal tax allowance is an expensive way of helping the working poor. Most of the additional money will go to better off families, while poorer families only keep a third of the tax cut. The IPPR states that the poorest households gain less from this change and households in almost all sections of the income distribution will see a greater amount taken away through the 1 per cent cap on benefits upgrading that is handed to them via personal tax reforms. It goes on. The IFS states that the people that will gain most from rises in the personal allowance are those in the upper middle of the overall income distribution. Those are the facts. That is not redistribution, that is not progressive, as Mr Rennie would have said. It is a case of Mr Rennie getting in his excuses for backing the austerity policies of the Tories. I will take Mr Johnson so that he can defend Mr Rennie or not, as the case may be. Is the member aware that the increase in the basic rate tax threshold was entirely financed by reducing the upper rate tax threshold? As a consequence, the total amount of tax stayed the same. It is just that the poor paid less of it. That is not what Joseph Rennie or what the IPPR or the IFS are saying. What I would say to Mr Johnson in response to him is that what we have seen is a form of regressive taxation in terms of the cut from 50 per cent to 45 per cent for the richer in society. Something that he obviously wants to see, something that I do not think was right. We hear from the Labour Party about taxing richer folk in society. What they forget is that, for most of their time in government, the highest tax ban was 40 per cent. Not even the 45 per cent it is now, but 40 per cent. In my opinion, that is not progressive taxation. I would want to see Mr Finlay rise to defend that, if he possibly will. Mr Stewart, I wonder whether you could advise us whether you support the 50p tax rate that Labour is going to impose, or what level of taxation would you set? I can tell you now, Mr Finlay. If I had been in the House of Commons at the time of that vote on the reduction of 50 to 45 per cent, I would have voted to retain 50 per cent. I tell you something else that I would not have done. I would not have entered the lobbies with the Labour party last week joining the Tories to vote for more austerity. The thing is that Mr Finlay and Mr Finlay's running mate in the leadership elections, Katie Clark, at least she had the sense to vote with the SNP and Plaid Cymru and the Greens, the more progressive parties, against austerity. She asked during the course of the campaign which side are you on, an end to austerity versus no clear plan to tackle rising inequality, which was obviously an attack on the Blairite Murphy, because we have seen her go again everything that that Blairite has done since. It is about time that the Labour party was truly honest with the people of this country about what they are about, because no longer are they socialists. They never have been for a long while. You are led by a Blairite here in Scotland and you will gladly walk through the lobbies with the Tories to vote for more austerity and are likely to vote for trident renewal today. Be honest with the Scottish public. I start from the position that inequalities actually affect us all. I also start from the position that I feel as though we discussed most of this last week at John Mason's Members' debate, and apart from Neil Findlay, I think I was the only one here who contributed to that debate, so I think we could largely rerun it and I'll be asking the Labour party a couple of questions which they weren't able to answer at the time. I note that the spirit level has already been mentioned and I'm delighted that it was. I note that it even made it into some of my other reading, because I do like to make sure that I know that the other parties are thinking occasionally—this is, of course, the red paper on Scotland. We'll see where that takes the Labour party, but they do seem to have registered that inequalities affect us all, they're bad for us all and they affect every area of life. Now, what I'd like to do is to take Macintosh in particular back to a debate that we had last November, because, again, he's also mentioned the Oxfam report on extreme inequalities around the world. It does seem to me that if you think about the extremes, even if we don't actually have them here, then you may learn something about what's going on. I'll be able to derive something from it. Now, one of the fundamental lessons that I think Oxfam alluded was that extreme inequalities actually generate their own barriers. If you are sufficiently poor, there is no prospect that you will actually put together the wherewithal to give you or your family the education that gives you the opportunity to get out of poverty. So there is a level at which, below which, there is simply no escape. I recognise part of what you're saying, certainly that economic deprivation creates extreme barriers. Can I just question the first assertion that he made that extreme inequalities do not exist in Scotland? Can I ask him just for example, what is his view about the fact that less than 500 people own more than half of the land in Scotland? Can I job done? Forgive me. Let me go back. I was talking about extreme poverty. I may not have put it correctly. That's an issue. Sorry, the land is an issue. We'll come back to another day. Otherwise, we'll never make any progress, but I'm with you. I think the point is that the levels of poverty that you would see in some of the third world countries are manifestly worse than anything you will actually see in Scotland. Now, let's not fool ourselves. Now, what I'd like to go from that point towards is where Alex Johnson came in, because he told me, I think I was brought up with this idea, that Tory approach is that everybody should have an equal opportunity, and I think he missed the point which others have made, that actually that opportunity is defined in the womb. That actually your opportunity depends on the family in which you are going to be brought up, to some extent the genetics with which you are going to be brought up. And the same opportunity outside is irrelevant if you've actually had inbuilt in opportunities created for you. Now, that I think is where I and Tories are going to disagree, because what the Tories will tell me, and it's a thought, it's a thought process, that if everybody's given the same theoretical opportunities out here, then they're all equally available. And the reality is that poverty is its own barrier, which is why I started there. And whilst we're not talking about some of the enormous inequalities that we might see, then extreme poverty we might see elsewhere, we can find down our street, and I can in my constituency and about everybody else can in their constituency, find people whose lack of income completely prevents them from taking some of the opportunities that Tories and others will insist on telling them are there. Now, that is the point that I really think we should be starting from. We need to understand that until we address the circumstances on which a child is born, then we're not going to make any serious inroads into reducing the inequalities which are then a manifest in our society. Now, I'm saying that because I think it's important that we say it. Government knows that. I'm looking at Alex Neil as I say it, and he knows fine well that's the situation, and I know the government is working on that. But I've come back again, my script is going to be completely ignored here because Ken McIntosh at one point said that he was concerned that health policy wouldn't address health inequalities. That's roughly what you were talking about. But of course you won't address health inequalities by health policy if that child has started in such poverty that those health inequalities, those health problems are actually inbuilt, and they're not going to be addressed in the early years of life because of the parental situation and the poverty in which the child is being brought up. So actually we could do nothing about the genetics of course of childbirth. We're only going to get anywhere near this if we get back to the absolute fundamental, which is pretty much the day the child is born, or come to think of it the day the mother expects to be bringing the child into the world because one of the first things that we know is that the child should be breastfed. We actually have to go back to time before the time is born to get this right. Thank you, the member. Again, that's not entirely true. In the recent years, and this is the trouble about widening inequality, the life expectancy of the most prosperous women in Scotland has expanded, and the least prosperous women in Scotland are now dying sooner than they are the most prosperous. That is in the last few years alone, in the last 10 years. In your remaining 20 seconds, please, Mr Doe. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I wasn't even expecting 30 seconds. I will stick to my fundamental point, which is that a child's expectations and prospects in life are defined firstly by where and when they are born and who too, but secondly to the educational position and social status of their parents. Unless we do everything to improve that, we're not actually going to crack this. I know on Margaret MacDougall to be followed by George Adam. Tackling inequalities is a huge topic, including health barriers to work, childcare, digital exclusion, education, housing and welfare, to my name, but a few. I'm going to focus my speech on health inequalities across Scotland, and because it is a particular issue in North Ayrshire, which I represent and where I live. Health inequality in Scotland is a complex and growing issue. For example, life expectancy in the most deprived areas in Scotland is 70.1 years for men, while in the most affluent areas, the figure stands at 8.24 for men and 84.8 for women. In North Ayrshire, the difference between the most deprived areas, Foulerton and Irvine, and the most affluent areas, Whitehurst Park and Cowinning, is stark at 24.7 years. The geographic difference between Whitehurst Park and Foulerton is roughly five miles, yet the difference in life expectancy is almost 25 years. I'm sure everyone in the chamber will agree that this is shocking and that the situation is totally unacceptable. The reasons for this difference are, of course, down to many factors such as levels of poverty, unemployment and individuals' socioeconomic status. In terms of socioeconomic status, Labour MPs voted for a welfare cap just last week that locked in the Tory cuts that we know will push 100,000 children into poverty by 2020. How do you think that that will affect health inequalities? You keep talking about what Labour did last week and we are talking about what's happening today here in Scotland, the inequalities, and what Labour did down in Westminster. We're talking about what we are doing in Scotland. According to the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland briefing, those who live in deprived areas have higher rates of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and problems with drugs and alcohol abuse. It's clear that health inequalities do not stand alone. They are caused, in part, by the socioeconomic inequalities that exist within our society. In my view, it is our job as elected representatives to eradicate the inequalities that exist within Scotland. That is an issue of human rights and human dignity. To do that, we need better collaboration between services in the public and third sectors, promotion of early years intervention and preventing measures, as well as adopting evidence-based decision making. Health professionals, councils, community planning partnerships, the third sector and both the Scottish and UK Governments must work together to effectively tackle those issues. An integrated approach is vital to success. In that respect, I welcome the early years collaborative, which is a coalition of community planning partners aiming to deliver tangible improvement in outcomes and reduce inequalities for Scotland's vulnerable children and shift the public services towards early intervention and prevention by 2016. Can the cabinet secretary, in his summing up today, update Parliament on the progress of this initiative and the difference that it is making at grass-root levels? Adopting early years approaches and taking preventative measures can, according to NHS Scotland, be a cost-effective way of tackling the economic, social and environmental causes of health inequalities. It is better at reducing those inequalities than downstream measures such as treating illness. Adopting holistic person-centred approaches is key to changing behaviours, which in turn reduces health inequalities. Finally, we need an evidence-based policy, for example the recent NHS Scotland report informing investment to reduce health inequalities in Scotland, which found that the introduction of the living wage, which the Scottish Government blocked from being delivered through the procurement reform bill, generated the largest beneficial impact on health, as well as the most modest reduction in health inequalities. To conclude, we cannot treat health inequalities as a standalone issue. It is complex, as we have heard from many speakers today, and ties into employment, poverty levels and social economic background, as well as other individual factors. To tackle it, we need collaboration between all services, a focus on early intervention prevention and changing behaviours. We need to ensure that the most deprived areas in our societies get the support that they need through a commitment to the living wage to start closing the gap between the richest and the poorest in Scotland. The Scottish Government could do so much more with the powers that it already has, not to mention the ones that it is going to get with the Smith agreement. It is time to step up to the plate and be serious about eradicating inequality in Scotland. I am only too aware of the inequality that is there. Like many, I believe that the equality and cohesion are good for growth, as well as good for the individuals and their families. It is there for welcome that the Scottish Government's programme for government focuses strongly on a stronger economy and a fairer society. That has been welcomed by most of civic Scotland and business organisations, and it is important that we keep that balance. It is also to ensure that we have a stronger, fairer economy and society, but, as many of my colleagues have already mentioned, we do not live in that fair society. As it has already been mentioned, the wealthiest 1 per cent will soon own more than the rest of the world's population, according to a study by anti-poverty charity Oxfam. As it has already been mentioned, Oxfam say that it expects the wealthiest 1 per cent to own 50 per cent of the world's wealth by 2016. In fact, Kevin Stewart and Mr Macintosh mentioned Oxfam's seven-point plan on inequality. If you look at that seven-point plan, there is actually only one of which of the seven points that the Scottish Government currently has power to do anything over. If you look at the rest of them, the other six are entirely at the behest of Westminster, and that is the issue that we are dealing with at the moment here as well. Prodig, yes, no problem, Mr Macintosh. Can I just ask Mr Adam, because it is a question that Mr MacDonald and Mr Don also read. Are there any actions that the Scottish Government can take that will have an impact on reducing inequality? Are there any at all? That is a really question, Mr Macintosh. The Government has already got a whole host of initiatives that are taking going. The problem is the limitations within the devolved settlement. That is the problem. As we look at what comes from the Smith commission, we have to ensure that the Government gets the powers that it needs to make that full difference. However, as I have already said, out of the seven points that Oxfam mentioned, only one is within the power of this Government here in Scotland. However, how can we continue this to happen? It is no coincidence that the UK cabinet is full of millionaires. We have a Prime Minister and a Chancellor, both with personal fortunes of around £4 million, however they are driving forward policies that are targeting the worst off in society. I would challenge any one of the UK Government to live in my constituency receiving only hardship payments after they have been sanctioned and relying on food banks. I wonder how long they would think about their current reforms in welfare. They would be looking at it from an entirely different scenario. However, most people are not in benefits or living in poverty through choice, just as Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne were not born into privilege by choice. In Scotland, we believe in a gerffec principle getting it right for every child no matter where they are born. In Scotland, you should have the same chances to succeed in life. That brings up to what my colleague Mr Donne was bringing up earlier on as well, and it provides support and opportunities throughout that life to ensure that they can achieve all that they can. However, the Scottish Government has currently achieved so much. The opportunities for all initiative will continue to guarantee young people between the ages of 16 and 19 a training or education opportunity. The SNP Government was first in Scotland to take that action. The Scottish Government will continue to deliver 25,000 modern apprenticeships per year. The fee-free higher education for Scottish students ensures that access to university education is not based on the ability to pay, but on the ability to learn. Meanwhile, students in England pay fees of up to £9,000 per year. We are protecting education maintenance allowance for 16 to 19-year-olds, and the Scottish Government is providing record funding to support paid to college students. We are working towards a minimum income of £7,000 for most vulnerable university students, so that shows that the Scottish Government has done what it can to help on the outside of education. However, Westminster austerity is making things worse in Scotland, according to the analysis of the quality trust. The UK is the most fourth, most unequal country in the OECD. The child poverty action group has estimated that Scotland's poverty rate will increase by 100,000 by 2020 as a direct result of UK Government's tax and benefit policies. Those are the issues that we have to deal with, because those are the issues that our constituents expect us to deal with. However, one of the other things is that families who have access to benefits are only too aware that the dark austerity clouds that the Westminster establishment are there. Only last week, the Labour Party backed their friends in the Conservative Party on austerity. People in Scotland are now aware of the political games that Labour and Conservatives play while they are in Westminster. However, families in Scotland will be hit by a £6 billion benefit cut in five years to 2015-16, with nearly 70 per cent of welfare cuts to Scotland. It is still expected to come, so we have not had the end of it yet. The Scottish Government can mitigate and does mitigate when it can, but why should we be in a situation in which the Scottish Government has to fix the problems that are created by Westminster? We should be working together to ensure that we can deliver for all of our constituents. However, as the Labour MPs backed their Tory colleagues in austerity, they left Scotland behind. They left behind 105,000 disabled people who will lose at least £1,120 per year due to Westminster's welfare cuts. The left behind individuals who are moved from DLA to PIP, and the fact that the benefit expenditure of Scotland will be cut by around £310 million, left all those individuals behind, Presiding Officer. When we are discussing this, we have to ensure that we are looking to the future for our people, for people in Scotland to provide for them, not to sit here and continue to play the typical games that Westminster has played for far too long. Thankfully, the public in Scotland have seen why to this, and they are beginning to see that neither of the UK parties have any idea what they will do in the future. Ken Macintosh and George Adam have referred to the Oxfam publication on inequality in the world, which coincided with the economic summit in that model of equality Davos Switzerland, but nobody should underestimate the extent of the task in tackling inequality and, indeed, the difficulties that lie in building a more equal society. Nor, as the Health and Sports Committee report makes clear, should we forget the fact that inequalities in one area of life are likely to be closely connected with inequalities elsewhere. Christine Graham has talked quite interestingly, I thought, about the impact of inequality on the prison system, and, similarly, we must recognise that changes in the approach to public spending may exacerbate the problem of inequality. Whilst accepting it may be simplistic to suggest, for example, that the increasing use of food banks is directly connected to welfare reform and the use of sanctions of the welfare system, the very growth of food banks, in my view, at the very least reflects the increasing numbers of people who are simply falling through the net. We have heard much about the growing number of Scottish households either suffering from changes to benefits or benefit sanctions or on low incomes requiring assistance from the Trussell Trust and, indeed, other food banks. For the almost 10,500 people who received assistance from the Trussell Trust in December, the phrase, we are all in this together, will have a very hollow ring. Returning to the Health and Sport Committee report, may I commend the committee for its clarity? It begins, of course, by referring to the well-known contrast between life expectancy in Lindsay and Calton in Glasgow's East End, and it also reminds us that, despite devolution, health inequalities remain persistently wide. Like many today, I make reference to the comments of Harry Burns, in particular his very stark comments that a large part of the population had failed to improve its health at the same rate as the more affluent part of the population. In addition, what I found particularly revealing was the fact that public health campaigns in relation to alcohol, tobacco, diet and exercise had little or no impact on health inequalities. That fact is reinforced by the briefing from Ash Scotland, where it considers the Scottish Household Survey, which indicates that the smoking rate in Scotland's poorest areas was 36 per cent compared to 10 per cent in the wealthiest communities. While the rate had dropped generally, the gap between rich and poor had not closed significantly. What that means is that there were disproportionately more deaths from smoking in poorer areas, and, of course, it cuts the amount of money available to low-income families. As smoking rates were reduced accordingly, spending power on other items would increase. What this information suggests to me is that public health campaigns need to be better focused and we should be prepared to make a disproportionate effort in seeking to reduce that differential. In 2014, it was estimated that 427,000 people earned less than the living wage. That is 18.4 per cent of the workforce. It is particularly prevalent for women, with over one in five women earning less than the living wage in 2014, as against 14 per cent of men. That is why the promotion and the continued promotion of the living wage must remain a priority for this Government. Health inequalities are complex, according to Sir Harry Burns. Although there seems to be a general consensus that having a job is preferable than having a good income and being well educated will all help, and that being poor, unemployed and in bad housing do not. When we look at the picture in relation to jobs, however, I was struck by the national statistics publication of July 2014 on poverty and income inequality in Scotland for 2012-2013. In particular, by the conclusion that many people have referred to already, that 52 per cent of working-age adults on low income were living in households where at least one adult was in employment, as were 99 per cent of children. That indicates that having a job in itself will not cure poverty. As the commentary on page 7 suggests, relative poverty increased in 2012-2013, reflecting a number of changes, such as changes in the labour market and employment patterns, continued welfare reforms such as tightening of eligibility for tax credits, for couples in employment and freezing of some elements of benefits and tax credits, increases in the personal tax allowance and decreases in the averaged income in the latest year. Those factors have a varying impact on the rate of poverty, with some such as increasing the personal tax allowance mitigating the impact of others. The net effect, however, is an increase in relative poverty. So there we have it. Increasing personal allowance is not quite the big leap forward, as suggested by the Lib Dems. It is simply something that lessens the damage. Indeed, as Kevin Stewart has already referred to, many commentators have queried the benefits of the policy. Indeed, in addition, the report makes clear that, over the last decade, relative poverty decreased from 20 per cent to 14 per cent in 2011-2012 before rising again. Importantly, the decreases in 2010-11 and 2011-12 were largely attributed to falling median incomes rather than any material improvement in people's lives. For children, the picture of a fall in child poverty has been reversed. The number of households with children in employment and in receipt of working tax credits has fallen as a result of tightened eligibility and conditions under welfare reform. So we are now going backwards. For pensioners, because basic state pension income has increased faster than earnings for working-age households, and at a faster rate than other benefits and tax credit income, their income has been protected. However, overall, their position is largely one of not doing as badly as some. For the disabled, as Inclusion Scotland's briefing makes clear, welfare cuts have had a disproportionate effect on the disabled people in our community. In the midst of all this, median household income is declining, so, for a small court of individuals at the top, things have been getting better, for most others, austerity rules. Dearly, it is better to make progress on inequality when the economy is growing, and in spite of comments to the contrary made by the Government, the UK's national debt is growing, with public borrowing growing year on year and successive years of triple-digit billion-pound deficits. Even the Prime Minister is warning of a legacy of debt. I am certain that that will be one of the many epithets about his time in office. The solution cannot be simply to cut more public spending. Although the Tories and now Labour appear to believe so, we must not embrace austerity. In Scotland and across the world, inequality is on the up as the gap between rich and poor continues to rise. Oxfam Scotland calculates that the richest three families in Scotland have the same wealth as the poorest 20 per cent combined. It also says that the richest 10 per cent of families have 900 times more wealth than the poorest 10 per cent. The pay gap is so vast that it would take the average worker 158 years to earn what a footsie 100 chief executive officer makes in just one year. Yet will those at the top have seen their income and wealth spiral in recent years? The average Scotland is working harder than before, but it is still struggling to make ends meet. The minister referred to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report that has just come out, which reveals that across the UK, 8.1 million parents and children are living and incomes below what is needed to cover a minimum household budget. Some of those workers are Scottish Government staff, and I would highlight a PCS survey that has been emailed to us today that reveals that 40 per cent of PCS members in Scotland do not have enough money to provide for their families. Many Scots are working in two or even three jobs. Thousands of them are forced to get by on just a minimum wage—often no choice but to accept zero hours or short-hour contracts. With hours in pay changing from week to week, flexibility dictated by the interests of the employer very rarely and the needs of the employee, little of any job security, families in both low and average incomes struggling due to pay freezes, Tory cuts to tax credits and welfare, at a time when the cost of living continues to rise, mums forced to turn to payday lenders ending up in a cycle of debt from which there is no escape. Every day, too many families in Scotland and across the UK are making the choice between keeping warm and putting food in the table. I saved the children's survey and found that 61 per cent of parents in poverty have cut back on food for the poorest children, missing out on things that other children take for granted, such as a warm winter coat and going on school trips with their classmates. That is despite the UK being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet one in five of our children grow up in poverty, and many more children live in families that struggle to get by week to week, with savoury children forecasting that by 2020 a staggering one in three could be in poverty. The real scandal is that two thirds of those children in poverty are mums, dads or carers who are in work, in work but in poverty pay. Hardworking families have been pushed further and further into financial difficulty, unable to make ends meet because they are not being paid a living wage. Tackling in-work poverty has got to be an absolute priority. The Scottish Government is doing a lot on that, but they need to do more. That is why the Scottish Labour amendment calls for more concerted action to ensure that every single worker in Scotland on a public contract is paid a living wage. It is disappointing that in many areas where the Scottish Parliament has got responsibility, inequality is widening, not closing. One of the key factors in continuing inequality is our education system, which too often entrenches disadvantage and inequality. I know that across the chamber we share concerns that too many children's life chances continue to be determined by the lottery of birth, where they are born and who their parents are, rather than a child's efforts at school or their talents. The gap in attainment levels of children between the richest and poorest households in Scotland begins early on in a child's life, and it continues and widens throughout the school years. It is a gap that persists when our children leave school and move on to the labour market into college or university, impacting too on earning potential and opportunities in adulthoods. By the age of three years old, children from deprived backgrounds are already nine months behind in average development and readiness for school. By the age of six, low-achieving children for better off homes start to outperform those initially highery achieving children from poorer families. By age 11, one in five children from poorer families are not reading well compared to one in 10 of all children and to just one in 20 children from the least deprived areas. So growing up in poverty shapes and impacts on every aspect of a child's life. We all know that no child can achieve their full potential when they turn up at school hungry, when they are living in cold, damp, overcrowded housing, when they are stressed and anxious, and when their parents see little escape from the situation. Education should be a root out of poverty. It should enable every single child to reach their potential, but the reality is that for thousands of children in our communities right across Scotland, they continue to be caught up in a cycle of disadvantage from which there is little prospect of escape. The gap between rich and poor means that, rather than unlocking potential, our education system often simply reinforces and reproduces inequality. Our education system simply does not work well enough for the most vulnerable children in Scotland, and our attainment gap continues to be wider than in similar countries across the world. I know that the education committee is looking at this area and this is welcome, but it is time for the Scottish Government to do more now with the powers that the Government already has to tackle the deep-rooted inequality in our schools and ensure that no child is left behind. It is time to spend less time talking about creating an equal society and more time working to deliver one. The Scottish Parliament already has the power to tackle inequality, and I hope that across political divide we can work to get it right for Scotland's children, because that is far more important than scoring political points. There is plenty of good practice out there, and I encourage the Government to look at the steps that local authorities, such as Fife, are taking to tackle the cycle of disadvantage. One of the most important ways in which we can address educational inequality is by ensuring that every single child is reading well, and it would commend the excellent read-on, get-on initiative, aimed at ensuring that every child in Scotland is reading well by age 11. I hope that this is a campaign that we can all get behind. Ensuring that all children are reading well would be a huge step towards a fairer more equal Scotland in which no child is left behind, in which every child has the opportunity to support, to fulfil their potential, ensuring that Scotland really is the best place to grow up for every child. Nelson Mandela said that education is the most powerful weapon that she can use to change the world. Those are wise words, but unless we address inequalities in our education system for too many children and too many of our communities in Scotland, education will continue to close doors rather than open them. Colin Beattie, after which we will move to closing speeches. In whatever guise that rears its head, inequality is one of the most pressing issues that faces our society today. A report just released yesterday by Oxfam indicates that, by 2016, 1 per cent of the world's population will own more wealth than the other 99 per cent. The situation is not only entirely undesirable but also, frankly, quite unsustainable. I am sure that we would all agree that strong economies are underpinned by fair equitable societies, and yet, in a global context, we are seeing a continuation of the exact reverse. Oxfam studies show that 3.5 billion people own the same wealth as just 80 people. As recently as 2010, the comparative figure was 388 people. In a UK context, research by the Equality Trust shows that the richest 100 families have increased their wealth by at least £15 billion since 2008. In the same time frame, the average income rose by a mere £1,233. In fact, this research shows that the current richest 100 families own the same wealth as 30 per cent of UK households. A sure indicator, if any, was required that Westminster's austerity measures are not doing nothing but make the rich richer and poorer. Of course, one of the concerns with such inequality is that the rich continue to strengthen their grasp on power while ordinary people are left with a diminished voice. As just one example of methods by which wealth becomes unfairly distributed, the Oxfam report highlights tax avoidance as a major cause for concern. Anders Dahlbeck, a tax policy adviser at Action Aid, estimates that poor nations lose around three times as much to tax havens as they receive in aid. We in the UK are no strangers to tax avoidance schemes, given the recent headline-grabbing stories featuring pop stars, comedians and huge multinational corporations. Today's debate allows us to highlight the issues surrounding inequality in a Scottish context. For all its talk of improving the lives of the average hard-working person, Westminster is doing the opposite. Indeed, last week's vote to implement £30 billion of cuts clearly displays that the situation is not going to improve anytime soon. What has become a feature of our times is the rise of the food banks. The trust estimates that 13 million people live below the poverty line, a scandalous figure in a country like the UK. In 2013-14, food banks fed 913,138 people across the nation of which 330,205 were children. I recently took the opportunity to visit the east Lothian food bank and see their work first hand. I applaud the volunteers who staff food banks up and down the country. I am sure that all of us in the chamber sincerely appreciate the great work that they do, but in this day and age I believe that there should be no need for food banks in the first place. In these trying circumstances, we can see the positive measures that the Scottish Government is taking to combat inequality. As we start paying the living wage as part of its pay policy, it shows a clear sign that the Government is fighting the scourge of poverty from the ground up. Better way can there be to help people than by ensuring that they have the money to live a decent quality of life. I sincerely hope that many organisations follow the Government's footsteps here, especially given our support to living wage accreditation. In future, we will see every relevant Government contract stipulate payment of the living wage as a priority. However, let us not forget that the Scottish Government will ensure that NHS staff continue to receive at least a modest pay rise. Compared us to England, where NHS staff have been badly let down by Westminster and nursing staff in Scotland could be up to £714 better off annually than staff south of the border. I leave it also necessary to examine where the Scottish Government is providing support in an educational context. We know how important education is in providing our young people with a head start in life and ensuring that, whatever their background, they have the same opportunity to make the most of their lives as anyone else. I need not remind the chamber that this Government is committed to fee-free higher education in comparison to those who study south of the border with fees of up to £9,000. Surely we would all agree that by placing a price in education only those who can afford it will benefit, thus perpetuating the cycle of inequality. Does Mr Beattie not share my concern that, despite the different fee arrangements north and south of the border, more people from an underprivileged background are able to access higher education in England than they are in Scotland? I haven't seen figures that actually validate that and I would challenge that statement. In separate measures, the Government aims to provide a minimum income of £7,000 to our most vulnerable university students. Westminster has chosen to scrap the education maintenance allowance that provides funding to 16 to 19-year-olds, whereas we in Scotland have kept this vital source of support. Access to universities has been widened under its Government through the access agreements introduced as part of the post-16 education bill. The results speak for themselves. Our unemployment rate is the lowest of the four UK nations, while our employment rate is the highest. Our female employment rate is now at the highest level ever recorded. The council tax freeze alone will save the average Bandy taxpayer around £1,682 by 2016-17. Our abolition of prescription charges ensures that more money stays in the pockets of ordinary people compared to those south of the border, and we are committed to providing free personal and nursing care for our old people. Let's not forget our recent implementation of free school meals for all children and primaries 1 to 3. By the end of this year, the UK economy has predicted to be 4 per cent smaller than it was in 2010. If ever there was a sign that austerity measures are not working, then this is it. Borrowing in 2015 is expected to be £50 billion higher than was anticipated back in 2010, and this is largely due to real wages being subdued. I would like to conclude by supporting the SNP Government's strong commitment to reducing societal inequality despite the strength of the opposition that we face. It is true that we will receive new welfare powers as part of the Smith commission, and I warmly welcome them, but let's be in no doubt about that. Those powers are only going to amount to 15 per cent of the welfare powers available, leaving the vast majority in the hands of Westminster. It appears to me—and I hope to the Scottish people too—that the only solution that we have to end the constant undermining of our efforts to reduce inequality and to finally rid ourselves of the damaging austerity agenda is an SNP vote in the coming general election. I want to start off with a bit of praise for two of what I might gently call the old stageers who have been here since 1999. Duncan MacNeill and Christine Grahame, who I thought made an excellent contribution—both made excellent contributions—thoughtful, quite self-critical of the Parliament and the two Governments of which they and we represented. Reflective of the huge challenge that we face in trying to tackle inequality—the fact that it's long-standing, embedded and has blighted many communities for generations. I thought that their speeches were great contributions to the debate today. I also thought that Nigel Don and Rhoda Grant's contributions were very good, reflecting on the interconnected nature of poverty and inequality, the connection that Christine Grahame made between poverty, drink, drugs and prison, and the vicious cycle that is very difficult to break. I've only got one slight criticism for Nigel Don. I thought that he was a little bit tending to the pessimistic. I like to believe that we can overcome the huge challenges that, even if there have been long-standing problems, I think that we can overcome them. I've always talked about breastfeeding and so on, but I thought that he was tending towards the pessimism. I'm quite happy if Nigel Don wants to intervene to perhaps correct my interpretation. I'm grateful for the mention in dispatch. I am completely optimistic about this, because I think that we know what we need to do. We need a political will to do it. I'm glad, because I think that it is important that we have an optimistic view in this Parliament that we can overcome the huge challenges. I know that we've all got different views about how we can achieve those important challenges, but it is one of the biggest tests for this Parliament. To be frank, so far, the Parliament has not really succeeded in making a sufficient enough dent in those challenges. I was also delighted that Margaret McCulloch talked about Suzanne Zidac, who I think has got one of the answers. She talks about communities, families and attachment theory, the fact that too often, because of the direction of child protection in society, we push children even further away rather than bring them closer to us to give them the support and the encouragement, that emotional intelligence that they require. She doesn't just believe that it's about improving the quantity of childcare, which she does believe should be increased, but she also believes that it's the quality of the childcare that we provide as well is essential to make a big difference and break that vicious cycle that Duncan McNeill and Christine Grahame talked about. However, there are other contrasts in this debate, and, like a stuck record, we go back to the old arguments about that we can only achieve more things by having more powers in this Parliament. Duncan McNeill was right again when we can't just simply solve this problem by more money and more powers, but some seem to be stuck in that area. Members will remember that I have pointed out in previous debates that, despite the rhetoric from the SNP, they were not promising one extra penny to be spent on welfare. In their white paper, they were very clear that they would spend exactly the same as Ian Duncan-Smith was planning to spend on welfare in 2016-17—not one extra penny. Those things are difficult choices. We all understand that they are difficult choices, but the rhetoric needs to match the actions if their words are to be believed. On austerity, we have heard a lot of lambasting of the UK Government today and of the Labour Party about austerity. However, if you look at the fiscal commission, they are very clear that they recommend in order to create the oil fund that the SNP was wanting to create that they were in support of a downward trajectory on spending, on deficit reduction. That means austerity to everybody else in the chamber. The reality is on austerity as well. The rhetoric is strong, but the reality is somewhere different. We have heard six billion cuts on welfare, not one penny more. We have heard condemnation of austerity, but nothing more. Then we have the criticism of the SNP. Apart from Colin Beattie, who at the end said that he warmly welcomed the new powers on welfare, which was a great refreshing contribution to the debate, because so many others have derided the Smith commission before even the legislation has been published later on this week. However, we are going to create for the first time a £2.5 billion—in fact, a £3 billion Scottish welfare system for the first time ever. Will we be able to test the rhetoric and the actions to see if we get the changes in the policy that this side has said that they want to deliver and find the money in order to pay for it, because those things all cost? We had the contrast in the debate. We had the contrast of the great thoughtful contributions of the members that I have already talked about, and then the rather depressing contributions on welfare, austerity and more powers. Let us return to the central point. I have Kevin Stewart to thank for that. We have now got clarity that the SNP is opposed to the £800 tax cut that the UK Government has introduced, because it condemned it. In fact, Rod Campbell condemned it as well, so we can only conclude from that that they were opposed that they would not have introduced the cut to tax that this Government has introduced, which has helped low and middle-income earners by £800 a year. That is a significant benefit to people who are struggling to make ends meet. On childcare, we also need to see a greater contribution, a greater effort from this Government to increase childcare in the same way that the UK Government has done down south national minimum wage. It has been increased, so there is an extra £355 in the pocket of a full-time worker on minimum wage. 168,000 jobs have been created since this Government came to power. Those are all significant benefits, none of which were praised by the members on the SNP benches, because, in order to create that fairness that we are trying to generate within society, we need that stronger economy and that fairer society. I want to finish where Ken Macintosh started off. He talked about the international challenge that we have got. It is worth reflecting that this country is managing to meet the UN obligation, the 0.7 per cent of GDP. That is something that every person in this chamber should be proud of, the fact that we are contributing to challenging poverty right across the globe. Annabelle Gould is up to seven minutes, please. This has been a contrasting debate of many shades of opinion, some predictable and yet some unexpected and perhaps some unexpected parts of the chamber. I want to just set the backdrop. We are emerging stronger from one of the most significant economic downturns of modern times, the most challenging financial period in 60 years. There are still huge challenges, but today we have a growing economy delivering growing employment, created from skilled good quality full-time jobs. As the minister herself said, youth employment is at a five-year low. We have rising wages and controlled inflation. I think that that is a very solid basis on which to approach the testing and perplexing issue of inequalities. People are keeping more of their earnings with the increased income tax personal allowance. That is a tax cut for 2.3 million people in Scotland, and it takes 242,000 low-paid workers out of paying income tax altogether. I want to see those numbers increase, as they will for April this year, and hopefully go beyond that. Those policies of aspiration and opportunity, I think, are how we address inequality. The are-and-sharp contrasts with the Scottish Government's relentless focus on a paradox that Willie Rennie has quite rightly identified. On the one hand, the Scottish Government indicates in word that it wants a higher, unquantified and apparently uncontrolled spend in welfare, but, as Willie Rennie says, that is never actually borne out by specific spend commitment anywhere, either in its pre-referendum documentation or their welfare commission report. To say, and I quote, that there has been very little change in income inequality since 1998, would jar with the contributions of many members today, particularly from the Government benches, but that is a direct quote from the Scottish Government's most recent poverty and income inequality in Scotland publication. I have to say that I thought Christine Grahame and Duncan McNeill thoughtfully reflected on the long-standing, enduring nature of inequalities, their diverse form and their complexity. I felt that there was an honesty in doing that, recognising that there is no single bullet, because economic inequality trends are increasingly global. Scotland has clearly seen less of an increase in economic inequality than other countries. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has acknowledged that most industrialised countries saw increases in inequality between the mid-1980s and the late 2000s. The Government's motion also refers to a £6 billion welfare cuts figure, a figure produced, perhaps inevitably and predictably, by the Scottish Government's own analysis, after the last budget in July 2014. However, its own welfare paper from where this figure originates admits that, by a considerable margin, the biggest saving was made by the changing of benefits uprating from the retail price index to the consumer price index, so the Scottish Government's motion is particularly bizarre. Given that the Scottish Government's pre-referendum welfare report supported the use of the consumer price index rather than the retail price index, another large saving that was identified by the Scottish Government's analysis was in changes to child benefit entitlement. That was a tapered reduction for families where one person has an income of over £50,000, reducing to zero child benefit for earners over £60,000. I do not recall the SNP campaigning on a platform of restoring child benefit for some of the top earners in our country, and I would be interested to hear what they believe the impact of this cut has been on inequality. In combination, those two areas account for more than half of the £6 billion figure. Savings at the SNP hasn't lifted a finger to oppose, and this is true of a number of other changes that fall under the umbrella of welfare reform. My colleague Mr Johnson amendment also touches on the conclusions of the finance committee's report last week. £500 million was voted by this Parliament to make a real shift towards preventative spend, which is a good thing in order to support a transition across public services away from dealing with the symptoms of disadvantage and inequality towards tackling the root causes, something that we all approve of. Despite that, the committee has concluded that this project, across the three trade change funds, has produced a lack of measurable outcomes and has expressed concerns over a lack of progress. Where the Scottish Government has real powers to end inequalities in education to which Christina McKelvie, or rather health to which she referred, we see a great deal of top but little achievement. Mr Macintosh rightly referred to education. We have lost 140,000 college places in Scotland, and yet further education colleges are a vital component of building vocational skills, allowing people to return to education to prepare them for the workplace. In access to university, in Scotland, the most disadvantaged are now the most excluded. England is doing better than we are in Scotland. In health, we have seen not only the problems with the change fund, but a real terms cut to the health budget while that same budget is growing in Scotland. That is just a reality check, Deputy Presiding Officer. I know from the murmurs that it does not suit the Government benches to hear those observations. I do welcome the Scottish Government's conclusion that work should be a route out of poverty, and Mr Neil and I agree on that. That is our priority. However, what the Scottish Government seems to have failed to address is opportunity. The opportunity is presented by job creation, the opportunity is provided by education and skills, the opportunity for positive intervention by the NHS such as using health visitors and improving health education. All issues controlled by this Parliament and all issues directly affecting constituents to whom, for example, Margaret McCulloch referred. I have to say that I thought that Roderick Campbell made an eloquent plea for those devolved issues, for example, health education, to have much more focused attention. Deputy Presiding Officer, the Scottish Government has become a ritual critic of the United Kingdom Government. Indeed, that is the Scottish Government's default position whenever it is confronted by any challenge. However, the reality is that an inert pass of Scottish Government is blind to opportunity and failing across a whole range of devolved issues for which it has been responsible for the last eight years. The Scottish Government should take a long, hard-clicked look in the mirror and start finding answers. I support the amendment in Alex Johnson's name. I am going to give you a recipe today, not for a nice cake or a dish, but a recipe cooked up by the world's economic gurus over the last 30 years. Here is a recipe that has created an economic system where wealth and power are transferred to, accumulated then, hoarded by a small, rich, powerful elite. At the same time, the mass of people have seen their power, wealth and influence stolen from them. That system of neoliberal economics is a theory, an ideology, some might say a religion, which exists to create inequality. That is its purpose, a system where the market is king, where competition decides everything, where global markets are opened up to so-called free trade and only the fittest survive. Of course, thatcher and Reagan, no doubt heroes of Mr Johnson, were the greatest disciples—I see him nodding in agreement, we are no surprise there—of this philosophy. True believers in the market's ability to answer every problem, irrespective of the consequences. In the UK, the Thatcher Government withdrew state subsidy from the car, in the steel, in the shipbuilding and other industries, preferring to see people part on unemployment or incapacity benefit in communities destroyed rather than see the state interfere in her beloved market. She created a narrative that said that wealth accumulation was how you measured success. Individualism and materialism was good collectivism and communitarianism bad. Unemployment became a method of social control setting worker against worker in a competition for new low-paid, deregulated, semi and unskilled service sector work. Home ownership was promoted as the barometer of personal success. Council housing sold off at discount and people encouraged to take mortgages at four, five and six times their salary, then to use credit cards and loans to finance their lifestyle move from being paid weekly to monthly left many needing a regular overdraft or exorbitant payday loans to get them to the end of the month. That, along with mass unemployment and a systematic crackdown on organised labour, ensured nothing stood in the way of this project. Low-paid homeowners up to their ears and debt, fearing for their job at a time of mass unemployment, would not go and strike to defend their jobs and conditions and those who promoted and created this system knew it. We saw our public assets flogged off to the deregulated city and people making fortunes out of their gas and electricity and telecoms industries that were once ours. All the time rich individuals, hedge funds and finance houses grew fatter on the spoils as corporate power milked this approach for all that was worth. I would say this not to give anyone history lesson, we all know the story but we have to understand today's debate against that context. I agree that having a sustainable and secure economy is vital for the wellbeing of society but what is essential in this debate is having the political will to ensure that the benefits of our economy are shared more equitably and progressively amongst all our people, not just those at the top. Mr Sheer. Mr Finlay has given us a wee history lesson there but it is a bit like 1984 in terms of the rewriting of history because he forgets the neoliberal agenda of Blairism because neoliberalism was entrenched in Blairism, was it not? Mr Finlay. I never forgot about that, Mr Sheer, because I was one of its biggest critics also and I am prepared to say that. That's the difference between you and I, Mr Sheer, because for my part to get things wrong I'm willing to say so. None of the sheep on those benches are ever willing to do so. Not one of the sheep. Look at them. Let me say this. I welcome some of the speeches today. I thought that Christine Grahame's speech was excellent and I think that many of the issues that she raised in relation to prisoners we could also raise in relation to young people leaving care. I thought that Rhoda Grant made an excellent speech on health inequalities. Duncan MacNeill's speech is one of the best speeches I've heard in this Parliament and I don't give Duncan MacNeill many compliments, I'm sure he'll agree. I'm only joking, Duncan. His speech was a challenge to each and every one of us and I think that we should hear more speeches like that in this Parliament. I also commend Cara Hylton's comments on education, but of course those were serious speeches, but we had knock-about also. We heard Christina McKelvie—I don't know if she's backing us, but she's backing her place—mentioned the last Labour Government while asking what they did for working people in trade unions. Let me tell her that we introduced the minimum wage, we introduced the social chapter, extended parental rights, increased compensation for unfair dismissal, gave a legal right to trade union representation and when elected in May we'll take action in zero in those contracts, low pay, agency workers, the quality of apprenticeships, blacklisting, bogus self-employment, pay differentials and a whole lot more that the trade unions have called for and have been part of our policy process in writing. Christina McKelvie. Maybe after that big list of stuff that the Labour Party promised the last time in their manifesto and didn't deliver, Mr Finlay can tell us which specific trade union piece of legislation brought in by Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair over time. Any of it? Ms McKelvie looks at her party's own record. She promised to overturn none of that, either, so maybe she wants to have a look at her own party rather than criticise others. Of course, Ken Macintosh was right to challenge the minister. Who appears didn't know that the Parliament is getting taxation powers to see if the SNP will implement a 50p top tax rate. Maybe Mr Neil, an ex-socialist who once believed in redistribution, he'll be able to tell us if they believe in the bankers' bonus tax to fund youth unemployment initiatives, do the support, the mansion tax to fund extra nurses in our LNHS, because I think we know the answer to that, Presiding Officer. The answer is no, so much for the progressive policies of the SNP. Mind you, it was the backbench member for Aberdeen East who said he didn't mind thatcherite economics. Three policies that we have put forward, taking money from the wealthy to create jobs and put cash into the pockets of working people and they don't support any of them. Of course, what has been the main redistributive policy of the SNP in recent years is a policy to cut corporation taxes to one of the lowest rates in the European Union. That is why we are critical and sceptical of the Scottish Government's rhetoric. Willie Rennie was right to point out that not an extra penny was promised in the white paper. Of course, this week we will see the Scottish Government's own staff in this very building and outside it going on strike over low pay. I am glad that the culture secretary is here. She has had a dispute in her own directorate for over a year, where £3,000 will be taken off the lowest-paid staff and weekend allowances, and nothing has happened for a year. Only today, as Kara Hilton mentioned, we see the PCS union highlighting whom members of the Scottish Government staff are relying on credit and food banks to get through the month. We need a change of philosophy and a change of approach across Government to tackle those issues. The cabinet secretary, Alex Neil, to wind up the debate, you have until five o'clock. First of all, I will say to Willie Rennie that Roseanna Cunningham and I are members of the 99 group, but we would not describe ourselves as old-stagers. I will also say to Mr Finlay that he says that I am an ex-socialist. Mr Finlay is just ex, as far as I am concerned. Let me begin by putting it on the record that the Government will not be accepting any of the amendments today. I think that there is a degree of unanimity in the chamber that the level of poverty in Scotland and indeed the level of poverty elsewhere in the UK and in the wider world is totally unacceptable. Some of the statistics have already been mentioned about Scotland. 19 per cent of our population, one million people in Scotland living in poverty. One figure that has not been mentioned is that out of that, 230,000 are living in severe poverty. 59 per cent of children in poverty are living in a household where somebody is in work. Of course, our disabled community has suffered the most in recent years, and many of them are particularly living in poverty. Whether the measure is educational attainment or the gap in life expectancy between the wealthier and poorer parts of our society, I hope that we would all agree that although the UK is the fifth or sixth largest economy in the OECD, it is totally unacceptable that we have the fourth ranking for the level of poverty across the United Kingdom throughout the whole of the OECD. That is totally unacceptable for an economy as rich as the UK to have the fourth largest level of poverty in the whole of the OECD. I think that there has been broad agreement across the chamber this afternoon about the problem of inequality in this country and our desire to tackle it. On that note, the Labour benches are prepared to vote for the SNP amendment. What is wrong with the Labour amendment that the SNP will not vote for it? What is the word? Cabinet Secretary. Well, a number of things are wrong with it, and I will come to that in a minute. First of all, we have got to look at why poverty has got so much worse over the past few years. I have to say to both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats that they do hold responsibility for that. There are four or five major contributing factors, but before I go into them, it is easy to band around statistics and to make points about various measures and so on. At the end of the day, what poverty is about is human misery. I suspect that, like many other MSPs in the chamber, I can reel off literally hundreds of examples of my constituents coming into my surgery to tell me about the desperate financial state that they and their families find themselves in. Quite recently, I had a visit from a single mother who had three children, all of whom had autism, and the Department of Work and Pensions had left her with £18 a week to look after her and her children. I find that totally unacceptable in 2015. We were able to get her to a food bank, we were able to get her emergency money to see her through the weekend, we were able to get her fixed up with welfare rights to see if she was getting everything that she was entitled to. However, because of various measures taken by the Department of Work and Pensions, that family was left with £18 to live on. There are too many examples of that. George Adam, for example, referred to the implications and the consequences of sanctioning by the Department of Work and Pensions. That is now a major cause of short-term poverty in Scotland—the sanctioning of people who are already down at the hill in terms of their income and their ability to make ends meet from week to week. I would hope that, when we get the transfer of additional powers over welfare, I hope that we get control over issues like that, because there are many of those issues that are causing so much hardship to our people. If you look at the benefit changes in recent years, most of those who have not been reforms have been cuts to benefits for people who are the most vulnerable members of our society. That is a major contributing factor to the increase in poverty. The fact that the minimum wage has not kept level with inflation is a major contributing factor to in-work poverty. That happened both under Labour and the coalition Government. Public spending cuts to a whole range of policy areas then passed on to Scotland has been a major contributing factor to poverty. It is utterly deplorable that, on top of the existing cuts that the Labour Party joined the Tories and the Liberals in voting for another £30 billion of cuts. When I hear lip service from Ken Macintosh and Neil Findlay saying that they care about the poor, if they care about the poor, condemn that, vote the other night in the House of Commons, I'll take Mr Johnson. Alex Johnson. It is not ironic that the cabinet secretary talks about cuts to the housing budget when his own Government sought to target the housing budget for disproportional cuts year on year. It was only the Barnett consequentials that allowed him to reverse part of that cuts. It is targeted for disproportional cuts as a block grant from your Government in Westminster to the Scottish Government. We have seen our capital budget slice to ribbons by 26 per cent over recent years and the resource budget cut in real terms by 10 per cent. If our budget is cut by 10 per cent and 26 per cent on capital, we have to live within our means. If it hadn't been for all the work of John Swinney, the Scottish Futures Trust and all the other initiatives that we have taken, we wouldn't be building the number of houses that we are building now in Scotland every year. I also want to mention this point about the income tax cuts, because the Tories and the Liberals make a big issue about the increase in the personal allowance. They forget to tell us on the day that they started cutting the personal allowance, the increased value added tax from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent. That is a regressive tax. That means that it hits the poorest more than the wealthiest, so the Liberals and the Tories have no excuse. The impact of the rise and fall on poorer people was far greater than the benefit from any cut in the personal allowance. The reality is that, over the past four or five years under the coalition and over the previous 13, Kevin Stewart was a bit inaccurate when he said just that Blair was a guru of what Mr Finlay called neoliberal economics. Blair wasn't the only Labour guru, Gordon Brown was a neoliberal, Peter Mandelson was a neoliberal and Jim Murphy was a neoliberal economist as well, so we won't be taking any lessons to only one in the Scottish Labour Party. Who isn't a neoliberal is Katie Clark, who courageously voted against the cuts the other night in the House of Commons. Unlike Mr Finlay, she has stuck to the promises she made in the leadership election for the Labour Party. The askers about what we are doing and the conclusion, let me remind the chamber what we are doing to tackle poverty. We are implementing the living wage. We are implementing the rise for NHS workers. We are going to be spending nearly £300 million on welfare mitigation. We are investing in public services. We will get free prescription, free school meals and free higher education. We have kept educational maintenance allowance. We are increasing childcare. We are extending eligibility for childcare. We are getting gift-fect modern apprenticeships and a whole range of other things that we are doing, Presiding Officer. They pay lip service. We act on poverty and inequality. Traffling inequalities, we now move to the next item of business, which is consideration of motion number 12096, in the name of Richard Lochhead on the Public Body's abolition of home, Grom Timber advisory committee order 2015, UK legislation, and I call on Richard Lochhead to move the motion, cabinet secretary. The question on this most will be put at decision time. There are five questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that amendment number 12095.4, in the name of Ken Macintosh, which seeks to amend motion number 12095, in the name of Alex Neil on tackling inequalities, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parrots not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 12095.4, in the name of Ken Macintosh, is as follows. Yes, 30. No, 80. There were no extensions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. Can I remind members that, in relation to today's debates, if the amendment in the name of Alex Johnson is agreed, the amendment in the name of Willie Rennie falls? The next question is that amendment number 12095.2, in the name of Alex Johnson, which seeks to amend motion number 12095, in the name of Alex Neil on tackling inequalities, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parrots not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 12095.2, in the name of Alex Johnson, is as follows. Yes, 14. No, 97. There were no extensions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is that amendment number 12095.1, in the name of Willie Rennie, which seeks to amend motion number 12095, in the name of Alex Neil on tackling inequalities, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parrots not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 12095.1, in the name of Willie Rennie, is as follows. Yes, 18. No, 93. There were no extensions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is that motion number 12095, in the name of Alex Neil on tackling inequalities, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parrots not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 12095, in the name of Alex Neil, is as follows. Yes, 93. No, 18. There were no extensions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is that motion number 12096, in the name of Richard Lochhead, on the public body's abolition of the homegrown timber advisory committee order 2015, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes decision time. We now move to members' business. Members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.