 The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 1852, in the name of Gillian Martin on celebrating flexible working practices. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Could I ask those who are leaving in the public gallery please to do so quietly? Would those members who wish to speak in the debate please press the request-to-speak buttons now? I call on Gillian Martin to open this debate. The reason I put together a motion for a member's debate on flexible working was to highlight how it can not only improve the lives of many workers, but it can improve productivity of businesses and organisations. Everyone is entitled to ask for flexible working arrangements, and by law every organisation must consider such requests, but they can do more than that. In recent research carried out by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, 66 per cent of Scottish women felt unable to ask for flexible working arrangements for fear of a negative response, and 29 per cent of that number said that it was because they were afraid of their colleagues' reaction. Others cited fear of employment discrimination, like having responsibilities taken off them or not being considered for promotion, as if asking for flexible working would mark them out as not having the same work ethic or commitment to the job as their colleagues. I reckon that it is even harder for a man to ask for flexible working, and they probably worry even more about facing those attitudes because of traditional, old-fashioned expectations on them. I strongly want to make the point that flexible working is not just for mums. If we want a truly equal society, then a change in attitude to the needs that fathers have to have flexible work to fully share in their parenting responsibilities is absolutely key. More than that, you should not have to be a parent or have caring responsibilities to make a case for flexible working, as it has benefits for everyone and not just the employees, the businesses, too. Nearly 20 years ago, I worked in a company that was undergoing their investors and people assessment. Quite a few of us employees decided that we would ask the managing director if he would consider implementing flexible working practices. All we wanted was a flexible start and end time to the working day. Core office hours were 9am to 5.30pm, but you could opt to start your day anytime between 7am and 10am and end it between 4am and 6.30pm. As long as you worked your monthly hours and did not miss any schedules, appointments or meetings, you had that flexibility. The MD was very sceptical. He was convinced that it would be abused, that folk would swing the lead, that it would adversely affect productivity of the company. In absolute fairness to him, he said that he would allow a six-month pilot. At the end of the pilot, he called an all-staff meeting and announced his thoughts after he and his management team had done an analysis. His top line was this. I thought I'd lose out, but you're all actually working harder for me, and you all seem happier. Here's what happened in that six months. The productivity of staff actually rose. It seemed that staff managed their time better. People did not swing the lead. No one did less than their contracted hours. In fact, many actually did more. There was a drop in the amount of staff taking time out of the day for appointments, like doctors or dentist appointments, and it turns out that they were using their flexi time for that. Sick leave had halft. People were less stressed. For one thing, they were not battling through the rush hour traffic every day or spending as long in their cars if they could choose to journey in at a time when the traffic wasn't as heavy. All the work didn't just get done. It got done faster. If you had come in at 7am, you'd be delivering work ahead of schedule. It turned out that the earlier start was the preferred option of most of the staff. That was just the short-term effects. Studies have shown that employees are less likely to leave a job with flexible working hours to find alternative employment. Employees feel more trusted and, as a result, more valued, so they stick around. Those studies also show that flexible workers are less likely to call in sick. In the world of work, one of the major overheads is recruitment and retention. Another is time loss due to sick leave. Flexibility isn't just about start time. It can also be about working from home. If the work's of a nature that it matters not where it's done, then what is the harm of working from home? What might that mean in terms of opening up the world of work to people with mobility issues or caring responsibilities? How might their productivity be increased as a result of the availability of this time and location flexibility? I want businesses to think of this. Do you advertise your vacant positions as being flexible? If not, do you realise how many more people would apply? What a larger pool of talent you'd have to choose from? Highly qualified people who might be finding it hard to find a job that fits in with their caring responsibilities might prioritise a flexible working schedule over some of the more costly perks that you might otherwise offer to entice the best of the skills market to your door. I'd like to encourage businesses and organisations who already have flexible working in place to shout about it more and tell the world how it's benefited your organisation and encourage others to adopt your successful practices. The entries for the Scottish top employers for working family award closed this week. I'm told that there's a record number of entries this year, and I'll be watching closely to see which organisation wins the best for innovation in family-friendly and flexible working category. Here's betting that their staff turnover figures are the stuff dreams are made of. I'm proud to say that now, as an MSP who, like everyone else in this chamber, is an employer to staff that I offer flexible work. My wonderful parliamentary assistant Judith works flexibly around her university teaching commitments. You offer flexible work, you get smart people. My two office managers job share and can work from home if they wish. Don't tell them this, but I reckon that I get more out of them by having arrangements that fit in with their busy lives. Clare and Gwyneth work tremendously hard for me. As does Duncan, who doesn't feel the need to work flexibly but might one day. By offering flexible working, I get the best out of my staff and so could other employers if they took the leap, just like my cynical old MD all those years ago. Thank you very much. I'm sure that your staff have enjoyed this. Compliments may look for wage rises now that you've said they're so good. I now call on open debate, so it's Liam Kerr to be followed by Rona Mackay. Mr Kerr, four minutes please. I come at this motion firstly as a Scottish Conservative, so core to my personal philosophy is productivity, a healthy economy, retention of talent and promotion of the family, however individuals choose to compose and formalise it. I'm pleased that this motion talks of encouraging a more productive workforce and suggests that family friendly workplaces can help Scotland reach its full economic potential. It is not news to groups like Family Friendly Working Scotland, which promote flexible working practices, that many studies show that good work-life balance is one of the most important aspects of work to British workforce. Others show that flexible working environments attract, motivate and retain employees, increase employee satisfaction and maintain employee productivity, so I'm comfortable that to promote flexible working and prioritise employee wellbeing is to promote productivity and realisation of economic potential. Secondly, I come at this from the other aspect of this motion to, quote, help Scotland reach its full economic potential by allowing women to stay active in the economy. True, but let's not restrict it to women. I think that Gillian Martin made it exactly that point and I endorse her comments on that entirely. However, I'd like to tell a story. A few years ago, a constituent approached his employer, a law firm for whom he'd worked for a number of years at a senior level, delivering considerable value, winning internal and external awards, consistently exceeding billing targets and client wins. He had a small child and felt that it was important that his child got as much time with both parents as possible, that his wife had as much right to resume her professional career and that there was no compelling reason that his wife should be required to play the greater role in childcare, not choices everyone would or indeed could make but right for his family. Now, he requested a simple change in work pattern, start half an hour later to allow the nursery drop-off, finish an hour earlier to allow the nursery pick-up, work from home in the evenings to make up the time and work from home on the Friday when the child was not at nursery. The employer shut down the conversation. You are not getting flexible working. This discussion is not going further and it didn't. That day, the firm lost that lawyer. Now, fortunately and perhaps unusually, as what follows is not an option for so many, our lawyer was sufficiently skilled, experienced and confident to resign and set up on his own, delivering the same services to clients but under the pattern he'd suggested. The new company was extraordinarily successful. Clients preferred it. Response times were quicker, more 24-hour. Technology meant that he could work anywhere, at any time. Productivity rocketed. The wife was able to commit fully to her own career again, re-entring the labour market. Family life was happier, healthier and accorded with their values and all for the sake of an hour and a half's flexibility and trusting an employee enough to work from home. For that, the firm lost talent it had invested a lot of money in. That employer had failed to appreciate that facing a choice between work and family, not everyone will be forced to choose work. It is my view that flexible, family-friendly practices are good for productivity, the economy, the promotion of family values and allowing everyone to remain more active in the economy. Any group that promotes such practices is to be commended, as Gillian Martin's motion calls on the Parliament to do. I think that the question on all our lips was that, was that you? That's even better answer. I now call on Rona Mackay to be followed by Richard Leonard. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm very pleased to be able to speak in this debate today, and I thank my colleague Gillian Martin for bringing it to the chamber. As Gillian Martin has so articulately outlined, flexible working is fundamental to the economy of Scotland and is the key to helping our society flourish at every level. It's also the key to establishing a healthy work-life balance for families. That's why I'm delighted that the Scottish Government's transformative changes to childcare, which are due to be trailed in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and the Scottish borders early next year, recognises that a free, high-quality, flexible childcare system helps children, parents and families to lengthen breadth of the country. Of course, flexible childcare ties in with flexible working. For parents, it means more ease to juggle the time between working and looking after the children, and it means that they no longer have to turn down a job offer because they can't meet the 95-time table. We've certainly come a long way from the days of my mother's generation when women had to give up work when they had a baby. We only have to look to our Scandinavian neighbours. Sweden, like Denmark and the Netherlands, has adopted a policy to improve the work-life balance for its citizens. The Scottish Government has taken the initiative to reduce the work-life conflict to experience mostly by women by promoting men's participation in housework and the upbringing of children. Parental leave is structured so that it encourages men to stay at home more with their newborn babies, as Gillian and Liam have mentioned in their speeches. It's no coincidence that the Danes have just been voted the happiest nation on the planet due to their progressive work-life balance employment structure. Who doesn't envy the wonderful Spanish tradition of Cesta time? Those are examples of flexible working practices at their best. The Scottish economy is one that is adapting to a modern world, as Gillian Martin outlined. The advance in technology has made it possible for us to work anywhere at any time. With a laptop, tablet or phone, we can access the files at work and pick up from where we left off. It's been proved beyond all doubt that giving employees the option of flexible hours is hugely beneficial both to employees and to employers. For employers, it means a happier staff who can work in the hours that they feel most motivated instead of sitting in front of a desk when they are tired and cannot focus. For businesses, it means a more efficient workforce that increases overall productivity. I recently spoke at a chamber of commerce meetings and was asked by one member what financial help he would get from the Scottish Government to enable him to pay the living wage about which I had just been talking. I had to be diplomatic in my answer and explain about the expansion of small business, bonus scheme and so on, but I really wanted to ask him why he thought it was acceptable to call himself a businessman and pay less than the living wage to his employees. Like the living wage, flexible working is about respecting employees and trusting them to give 100 per cent to the job without having to compromise their family life. In short, flexible working motivates a happier workforce and has the result of benefiting everyone in society. Thank you very much. I call Richard Leonard, followed by Ruth Maguire. Can I begin by thanking Gillian Martin for putting this motion down for debate? It's good to hear of employers who set a good example in this area, but I have to point out just how far behind we are and just how much further forward we would be in my view if we had greater democracy at work. Too many people swipe into work and swipe away many of the rights and freedoms that outside work take for granted. Employment law in this country is still framed in a master-servant relationship, and until we tackle that, we will be relying on the benevolence of a few enlightened employers, so we need greater industrial democracy. One of the trade unions that has among the highest number of lower-paid part-time women members is Usdor. Usdor produces some excellent information for their members on maternity rights, paternity rights and flexible working. If you look at their website, you will read that anyone who has worked in the same job for 26 weeks or more can ask their employer for a change in their working hours, and the employer is obliged to carefully consider the request. It is an important right, but it is not a right to flexible working. In the end, it is merely a right to request flexible working, and it does not apply to agency workers. Anyone who has worked in industry or had the privilege, as I have had the privilege, of representing working men and women, know that many of those requests are turned down for, I quote, business reasons. Even when they are hard-won, there is often compromise, so we need to take a fresh look at those rights, and in my view tilt the balance more in favour of the worker selling their labour and less in favour of the employer buying their labour. There should be much greater self-organisation of working time so that people can collectively come up with shift patterns and a work-life balance that suits them, as well as the business or service that they are providing. Part of the answer, in my view, lies not in weakening trade unions, but in strengthening them, because I will tell you that, in my opinion, we can have all the laws around flexibility in the world, but if we do not have a trade union to enforce those laws to give life to those rights, they will only exist on paper. That is why I am determined that whenever we talk in this Parliament about the economy, jobs and fair work, trade unions are not an optional extra but are an integral and necessary part of the debate. Today is world prematurity day, and I want to finish by paying tribute to Bliss, who does a tremendous job in advocating for change and giving practical support to families who are faced at the challenge of the birth of a premature baby. Yet it still is the case that there is no legal right for a mother to split or defer maternity leave on the grounds of premature birth. Some women who have gone through the experience of prematurity would have liked the option of returning to work whilst their baby is in special care and taking the rest of their maternity leave when he or she comes home from hospital, but at the moment there is no right to do that. I hope that today, in this debate, as part of prematurity day, we can call for greater flexibility, more family-friendly policies to this group of families especially, because our failure to end injustices like this, our failure to transform the way workers are treated at work and the way women are treated at work especially and in society, does not just diminish them, it diminishes us all. If I can conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, with a short quotation that sums up the mood and tone that I think we need to adopt, it is a quotation from Robert Trestle's ragged trousers philanthropist when he said, every man or woman who is not helping to bring about a better state of affairs for the future is helping to perpetuate the present misery and is therefore the enemy of his or her own children. There is no such thing as being neutral. We must either help or hinder. I call Jeremy Balfour, who will be the last speaker in the open debate. You are quite right. I am being too flexible. I have just ditched you. I call Ruth Maguire, sorry, to be followed by Jeremy Balfour, who will be the last speaker. I am needing my calories. I congratulate my colleague Gillian Martin for bringing in the important topic of flexible working to the chamber. As we have heard, when we talk about flexible working, we can mean a number of things. It can be about a place of work, for example, home working or having a choice of locations or other arrangements such as part-time working, flexi time, job sharing or shifts. Those types of arrangements undoubtedly make an organisation and a more attractive proposition for a more diverse range of employees. When asked by Gingerbread to identify the top three features of their ideal job, one in three single parents chose the opportunity to work flexibly. Opening up more avenues of employment does not just help to level the playing field for job seekers such as single parents or those with caring responsibilities. We know, and we have heard in a number of the speeches now, that diverse workforces are more creative and more innovative. Having a wide range of skills and experience means that organisations are more likely to design products and services for a broader customer base and for business that is good for their bottom line. Organisations that have fair and flexible working practices are more productive. Happier staff who feel valued are more likely to be engaged and on top of their work. Given the opportunity to work flexibly, they can make sure that they are working at times when they are most productive. Of course, there is the matter of health and work-life balance, too. Working life does not come without its stresses and not all of them are limited to the workplace. For those with caring responsibilities, parents or grandparents, for example, simply getting to work can be a bit of a battle with maybe dropping off kids at a childminder or school or nursery run to complete before even getting to the joy of the daily commute. There are also those unscheduled joys in home life. Parents, children or partners being ill, burst pipes or dental appointments, flexible working can't take away all the worry and annoyance of life, but it can alleviate some of them quite greatly. A healthier and more relaxed workforce is good for business, as well as for society, with reduced sickness absence and healthy, motivated staff performing well. I will conclude by saying that it is perfectly feasible for organisations to offer flexible ways of working in jobs at all levels, bringing benefits for both themselves and their employees. While it is often offered as a retention tool for existing staff, flexible working is most successful when employers embed it at the heart of their organisation, designed for everyone, central to the way that they operate and with their management-leading cultural shift needed to make it work. Where organisations achieve this, as well as making the world of work more inclusive, which is good for society, there are benefits to both the individual employees, their families and the business of the organisation. It is a good reason to have flexible working at the heart of our fair work agenda. My apologies again, Ms McGuire. Your face was a picture that told me exactly where I'd gone wrong. Now it really is, Jeremy Balfour. Mr Balfour, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Again, I, like other members, thank Gillian Martin for running this debate to the Parliament and allowing us the opportunity to explore important issues that it raises. Everybody, everywhere seems to be busy. It feels like it affects a modern-day society and the matter seems to be getting worse and worse. Interesting, family-friendly working research revealed that only 12 per cent of parents in Scotland felt their work-life balance was just right. 44 per cent were unable to participate in school or nursery activities, and 40 per cent of parents said that work got in the way of them spending quality time with family, resulting in families not eating together at dinner time and presses being placed on relationships with partners. There are, of course, advantages for employers and employees where there is a flexible scheme available. Flexible working practices take away the pressure on working parents to improve their work-life balance, as we have heard already from other speakers. It is good not only for the employee but, as we again have heard from other speakers, employers. We can move not only into looking at mums and dads and those who have children, but also into other employees of companies. A couple of weeks ago, a constituent contacted me, and I was surprised when she said that she could meet me at half past two on a Wednesday afternoon. She was working full-time. She said that her employer had complete flexible hours. There was no even core time within the workplace. As long as she did the hours that were required and attended the meetings that she had to go to, she could go in anytime, go away and come back, and that gave her flexibility. That must be good for people who want to be engaged within the third sector, with involuntary organisations, to give people flexibility and to trust people in that way. I think that she should be encouraged and she should be practised by more companies to bring forward. At the same goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Research shows that employees who work for a flexible family-friendly employer are more motivated to stay with that company, are more productive in their work and, as we have heard, go the extra mile. Also, it is more likely to recommend that employers to be a good place of work when other people are looking to change jobs. I am very happy to support that motion. The groups that promote flexible working practices and the employers across Scotland embrace that change. It is clearly playing an important part in providing parents and others who want to do other things with a healthy work-life balance, which is a positive impact on family life, on work and the economy. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Not least, because of Jeremy Balfour's reference to pudding in his contribution, I will try not to delay your colour if it can take for too much longer. Can I join others in thanking Gillian Martin for bringing forward today's debate? I thank those who have taken part in the debate as well. It has been a very useful and somewhat consensual debate. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, because I think that that is an agenda that we are all signed up to. I am very pleased that Gillian Martin's motion refers to family-friendly working Scotland and commends it for the work that it undertakes. Rightly so, the Scottish Government is delighted to fund and be involved in that partnership, which was established in 2014 alongside working families painting across Scotland and Fathers Network Scotland. Indeed, the Minister for childcare in early years, and I met with family-friendly working Scotland as recently as October 27. It was a very productive discussion that focused on how it continues to support employers, families and a range of Government policies that I will try to turn to over the course of my contribution. I certainly left the meeting with my conviction and reaffirmed that supporting flexible working is the right thing to do, as everyone has made the point, for employees, for employers and for our wider economy. Gillian Martin and Liam Kerr were absolutely correct. I would entirely concur that that is not just an agenda for women. We must also support men in the flexible work agenda in relation to fathers specifically and flexible working. That is a key reason why we are working with Fathers Network Scotland. The year of the dad campaign is to support that equality agenda, not only in the workplace but at home. I do not know whether it is necessary for me to do so, but let me declare an interest as a dad myself. It is also why we have a range of measures in our fair work agenda that are focused on all in the workplace. If I can stick to the issue of flexibility for parents, which is obviously a recurrent theme in the debate, finding the right balance between responsibilities at home and work is increasingly challenging for parents last year. Family friendly work in Scotland published the Modern Families Index Scotland and that survey, 41 per cent of parents said that the work-life balance is becoming increasingly stressful, more than a quarter felt constantly torn between work and family, and over a third felt it affected family life and relationships with their parents. It is essential that we support parents to thrive. Family friendly work in Scotland makes a vital contribution by working alongside employers and their representative bodies to deliver high-quality part-time posts. Of course, a key way in which this Government is supporting parents is through early learning and childcare will be expanding provision to 1140 hours a year, which will make it easier for parents to find a solution that suits their specific needs, along with the work that we are currently engaged in ensuring that provision can be flexible to support families. It is not just parents who need support for caring responsibilities. The Modern Families Index for Scotland found that almost 30 per cent of respondents already provided care for older people, and almost 70 per cent expect to do so within the next decade, while still in the work environment. Family friendly work in Scotland has partnered with Carers Scotland to deliver a best for carers and elder care award in 2016. Western Bartonshire Council won that award, with standard life that it highly commended. As a Government, we are supporting carers alongside excellent initiatives such as carer positive in my previous role as minister for sport, health improvement and mental health. I was very pleased to see examples of that scheme in effect. I recall very clearly visiting Scottish Gas, who had wholly endorsed and got behind that initiative and the clear benefits for those who have care and responsibilities working within their organisation and who also helped to take the Carers Scotland act through. I believe the provisions that will commence on 1 April 2018 will make a meaningful difference to unpaid carers, ensuring that they can continue to care, while also having a career and personal life. It remains the case that more women than men undertake caring roles and therefore need to work flexibly. There are still inequalities between male and female employment, with women more likely to be in low-paid work and to be unemployed in their work and skills levels. That is why we are committed to tackling the pay gap and occupational segregation. That is why we are legislating for gender balance and public sector boards. That is why we are trying a women's returners programme. There are a number of commitments towards that agenda. We have asked Skills Development Scotland to look very clearly at making improvements in the modern apprenticeship frameworks, where there is a clear gender imbalance. It is a number of commitments that are made in our labour market strategy turning to the women's returners initiative that I spoke of a few moments ago. I was very delighted to announce a few weeks ago funding for Equate Scotland to take forward the first tranche of that work to support women back into the STEM sector. Earlier this week, Jackie Baillie's debate, which Gillian Martin took part in supporting women in enterprise, was highlighted. I was very happy to announce a pocket of £200,000 funding for women's enterprise Scotland and its partners to support women entrepreneurs to help to grow their business and other women to become involved in enterprise. It is also why we are tackling pregnancy and maternity discrimination following the shocking final last year that one in nine mothers in Britain reported being dismissed, made compulsory, redundant or treated so poorly they felt they had to quit. I will be chairing a working group on this issue. The group's remit will include developing guidelines for employers. The group will meet for the first time next month. I will be very happy to keep parms abreast of the work that it undertakes going forward. We have invited a range of members on to it. I am happy to say that Nicky Sloy, director of Family Friendly Working Scotland, has accepted an invitation to be a member of that working group. Our commitments are also underpinned by our labour market strategy that I mentioned earlier. It sets a clear direction on how we will tackle inequalities for women and other underrepresented groups. We will also continue to work very closely with the fair work convention to promote the fair work framework to employers with a focus on engaging directly with particular sectors and to promote the benefits of paying the living wage equally to many women. We also provide funding for the poverty alliance for the accreditation scheme for the living wage. We now have 600 or more living wage accredited employers in Scotland—some 20 per cent of the UK total—and it allows me the chance to urge all MSPs to sign up to become a living wage champion. Of course, we have the business pledge as well. We have added two explicit references to family-friendly and flexible working in the Scottish business pledge just earlier this year. Let me conclude by saying that it is clear from the tenor of this debate and from what we hear out there that employees will increasingly seek out employers who provide the flexible working options they need. In that regard, given that we do not have control over employment law, what we need to do is to reach out. I thought that it was very interesting that Richard Leonard rightly made the point. In many ways, right now, we rely on the enlightened employers to make that offering. What we need to do—a number of members have made that point—is to explain to employers why it is in their enlightened self-interest to get behind the agenda, because we know that with flexible working, it is not only good for the employer because it is good for the employer because we see more motivated staff who feel valued, with better retention rates, reduced absenteeism and increased productivity, so it is good for the employer as well and good for our economy. That is why this is an agenda that the Scottish Government takes very seriously indeed. Thank you very much, minister. That concludes this debate. I suspend the meeting until 2.30.