 The next item of business is a debate on motion 116.1, in the name of Neil Gray, on fair work in a well-being economy. I invite members wishing to participate in the debate to press the request-to-speak buttons, and I call on the cabinet secretary to speak to and move the motion for around 12 minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move the motion in my name and that of my colleagues. Our vision is for a well-being economy, which supports fair and green economic growth and which benefits people and communities across Scotland, providing opportunities for all. This Government has been clear that economic activity should serve a purpose to provide good jobs and promote fair work, to reduce poverty and increase living standards, and to boost tax revenues and sustain high-quality public services. We want to build an economy where our businesses and industries thrive and where economic success works for all. A successful well-being economy is underpinned by our ambition to be a leading fair work nation in 2025, an ambition we share with the fair work convention, to be a country where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society as a whole. I welcomed the convention's recent fair work nation 2025 research report, which is a significant and welcome step in measuring progress against our shared ambition. We are making progress. Figures released just this last week. On earnings show that annual growth in median weekly earnings for full-time employees in Scotland between April 2022 and April 2023 was up 9.7 per cent compared to a 6.2 per cent increase for the UK as a whole. In 2023, the gender pay gap for all employees in Scotland was 8.7 per cent, which is lower than the comparable figure for the UK at 14.3 per cent. The gender pay gap for full-time employees in Scotland is 1.7 per cent, also lower than the comparable figure for the UK at 7.7 per cent and continues the long-term downward trend. In April 2022, the proportion of employees in Scotland paid the real living wage or more was 91 per cent. Scotland leads the rest of the UK in paying employees the real living wage. I give way to Mr Johnson. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for doing so. The Fair Work convention's report also highlighted a number of areas where the Scottish Government could go further. Which of those do you think is the most important in terms of the Scottish Government's next steps? As I said, I welcomed the report of the Fair Work convention, which was a very helpful measure of where we are in terms of the progress that we are making, but also challenging in terms of us needing to go further. We continue to work with the Fair Work convention. I meet with them regularly and support the measures that they have come forward to suggest to us that we need to do more work on, which is within the areas that we are already considering around our Fair Work action plans, ensuring that we are responding not just to the needs that they are identifying, but also the trade union organisations that the Labour Party and its amendment appears to ignore around the devolution of employment law. A report by the Living Wage Foundation published in August indicates in addition to Scotland having the lowest levels of pay in the UK. It also has the lowest levels of insecure work and low-paid insecure work in the UK. That same report specifically recognised the positive impact that our Fair Work approach is having on Scotland's labour market. Fair Work is about promoting a more ambitious and positive agenda for Scotland's workplaces and wider economy. Putting fair work at the heart of Scotland's workplaces makes economic sense. The workplace is where we apply people's skills and talents to create value, drive innovation, raise productivity, fund our public services and, ultimately, improve living standards for all. Brian Whittle I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving me what the Scottish Government is going to do to tackle the higher levels of economically inactive people in Scotland, especially those through ill health. Levels of economic connectivity are too high in Scotland, as they are across the whole of the UK. We obviously need to be looking at what can be done to address that. I met Michael Matheson, the health secretary, this week around what more can be done to ensure that we are using the health service and using all the levers that we have at our disposal to support those who have long-term health conditions or disabilities to go to work, if they can, and continue to support the work of the voluntary employability services that we are investing £108 million in to support just that. A fair work approach is proven to boost recruitment, retention and performance and to generate benefits for individuals, organisations and wider society. The evidence is mounting. Fair Work balances the rights and responsibilities of workers and employers, and the Government's deliberate and sustained approach to promoting fair work across Scotland's labour market is making a difference. On pay, supporting diverse workplaces, our devolved employability offer, applying fair work principles and conditionality to public sector spend and exploring fair work agreements. Let me share some of the successes today. The Government recently welcomed the new real living wage rate of £12 an hour and has resolutely supported the real living wage movement in Scotland since becoming the first UK Government to accredit as a living wage employer in 2015. Some 64,000 workers in Scotland have had a pay rise as a result of living wage employer accreditation. The movement is making a real difference for people in the lowest-paid areas. Earlier this week, the Scottish Government announced its living hours accreditation, making it the first national administration in the UK to accredit as a living hours employer. That accreditation recognises the importance of sufficient, reliable working hours to achieve financial security for workers. I have been able to hear more about that success that has brought to employers, both private and third sector, in the visits that I have done as part of 21 ministerial engagements for living wage week this week. I understand that, in a UK cost crisis, making the choice to invest in a business's greatest asset, its people, is harder, but it is even more of an imperative in such a difficult trading environment. Indeed, I am looking forward to celebrating the achievements of accredited employers across Scotland later this evening at the annual living wage Scotland award ceremony in Dundee. I will give way for a final time. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. We are six minutes into his speech. He has not mentioned the wording of his motion, which is a very specific wording and a very specific call on the devolution of employment law. Now, we hear a lot about the new deal for business and the minister's cabinet secretary's engagement with business. What percentage of the businesses he is engaging with have supported the call for devolution of employment law? I appreciate that. I note from Murdo Fraser's amendment that it has little more than a passing mention to fair work, which gives the hesitation that the Conservative Party wishes to engage on the fair work agenda within that context. I will be more than happy to address the point that he raises. Of course, the new deal for business discussions around ensuring the wellbeing economy subgroup of those elements is a sign-up and an understanding of the need for fair work conditionality and fair work within workplaces. There is a pretty well-recognised acceptance across Scotland, including from the members of the business community, of the advantages that could come from the devolution of employment law, including the advantages that can come from businesses themselves. Scotland's employability service is underpinned by our no-one-left-behind approach. It delivers person-centred responsive services that meet the needs of individuals, employers and local labour markets. We are investing up to 108 million this year in the delivery of all-age employment employability support. On my recent visit to all in Dundee, I heard about the positive impact our distinctly Scottish approach to employability is having and supporting disabled people into employment. Our distinctive approach to key relationships in Scotland is working for us. The new deal for business is heralding effective partnership working with business in the economy. The Verity House agreement is resetting how we work with local government to deliver key public services and recognise the contribution of workforces at a local level. The Government understands the importance of a fair work approach to unlock the full potential of our workforce and achieve a thriving fair and green-growing economy. Our actions show our determination to be a successful, leading fair work nation in spite of the inaction from the UK Government. However, inequalities remain, and insecure work persists. Although Scotland has one of the lowest levels of insecure work in the UK, it remains a concerning feature within our economy. The evidence is clear that comparator nations, the Nordics, Austria, Belgium, for instance, outperformed the UK across a range of economic and social indicators. Better labour market outcomes are achieved alongside higher GDP per capita, higher productivity, higher business investment and higher innovation. The UK's deregulated labour market has not supported higher productivity, growth or higher wages, but it has led to relatively high prevalence of low and very high wages, resulting in higher income inequality. The type of labour market that we support has a bearing on the overall functioning of our society with full control of our employment law. The Scottish Government could choose to balance the rights and responsibilities of workers and employers, creating a labour market where fair work is the norm. The changing nature of work and the growth in atypical work in the past 20 years—for example, self-employed part-time, agency, temporary zero-hours contracts, multi-job gig economy and platform work—means that there is a gap in worker protections. That was highlighted in the UK Government's very own Taylor review of modern working practices in 2017. I understand that it is challenging in those areas to bring forward the reforms that are required, but workers in non-standard working patterns often have no entitlement to statutory sick pay, paternity leave, maternity leave or other paid leave. They are also likely to have reduced opportunity to train and progress in work. Therefore, raising minimum standards for all our workers, not just those in standard full-time jobs, requires deliberate, corrective action. Recent Westminster Government labour market policies seem to be moving in the opposite direction. They include an adequate enforcement of minimum employment standards, including the national minimum wage. The introduction of the trade union act 2016, making it more difficult for trade unions to take industrial action and to organise in the workplace, plans to introduce fees for employment tribunals and the strikes act of this year. Members of this Government have completely voiced their opposition to the UK Government's retained EU law act and anti-trade union legislation. The recent strikes act is unnecessary, unwanted and ineffective. It undermines legitimate trade union activity and does not respect the Scottish Government's fair work principles and the devolution settlement. The Scottish Trade Union's congress agrees, as does the UKTUC, which backed a motion calling for the devolution of employment law to Scotland, as the STUC reiterates in its briefing for this debate. The devolution of employment law offers an opportunity to redesign the system to better meet the needs of both workers and employers. Further measures could draw on the recommendations of recent commissions such as the Taylor review that I previously mentioned, the Institute for Public Policy Research Commission on Economic Justice as well. In building a new Scotland, a stronger economy with independence, we proposed several measures that could also be implemented with the devolution of employment law or through independence. For example, a fair mandatory national minimum wage that reflects the cost of living, improved access to flexible working, repealed the trade union act 2016, gender pay gap reporting for companies with fewer than 250 employers and we also continue to call for the devolution of access to work to ensure that this programme, which supports people with a health condition or disability, is delivered in such a way that respects the needs of Scotland's labour market. We do not support the UK Government's economic model, which actively promotes a deterioration of workers' rights and deprioritises the global imperative of a green and just transition to net zero. Scotland has its own distinct needs and values, and so instead we are pursuing a green transition supported by our energy sector just transition plans and forthcoming green industrial strategy. We are pursuing fair work, good jobs, rising productivity across our workplaces and regions, and we are pursuing a wellbeing economy and social justice as key outcomes for economic growth, but we could move faster. Securing the full range of powers in relation to employment law will enable the Scottish Parliament to implement policies in favour of our ambition for a fair green growing economy and we call on members of this Parliament to support devolution of employment powers as a clear next step in this agenda. I can advise the chamber that we have a little bit of time in hand, so any interventions will certainly have the time back. I call on Murdo Fraser to speak to and move amendment 161.2 for around eight minutes. This has been a rather bizarre debate so far, because so far we have had one long speech from the cabinet secretary in various interventions, but despite being entitled fair work and a wellbeing economy, there is no mention in the cabinet secretary's motion of the wellbeing economy at all that the motion is entirely focused on the constitutional question on the devolution of employment powers to the Scottish Parliament. The cabinet secretary seemed remarkably coy about that subject, because I did not mean from my intervention that he was nine minutes into a 12-minute speech before he even mentioned that question of devolution of employment law, so maybe he is a little bit embarrassed about taking this to the chamber. I think that the question that many people outside the chamber are looking in will be asking themselves. Having heard everything that he had to say is what happened to the new deal for business, the new deal for business that we have heard so much about, because there was nothing in the cabinet secretary's speech that gave any comfort to those in the business community who are looking for a new approach from this Government. The rhetoric that we have heard from the Government over the past few weeks has been encouraging. We have heard from the cabinet secretary and his colleagues that this is a Government that wants to reset its relationship with the business community. We have heard that this is a Government that now believes in economic growth, something that was absent for many years previously, but it is now a very welcome development. When the First Minister delivered his programme for government speech a few months back, he said that when businesses succeed, Scotland succeeds. It is on the back of the successes of businesses, large and small, that we will deliver a wellbeing economy where good, well-paid, sustainable jobs are created and innovation forages. That is a tremendous sentiment, cabinet secretary. The pity we did not hear very much of that in his speech. I hope that when we were going to have a debate on the wellbeing economy, we were going to hear from the Government more about how they were going to take forward their new deal for business that they were actually listening to what business was telling them. As I am sure they are telling them what they are telling us, they want to see issues around taxation, excessive regulation and the need to properly consult before bringing in new laws. Those are the issues that need to be addressed. What do we get instead from the cabinet secretary the same tired old message on the constitution? Oh, yes, I will give way to Mr McKee. If there is more to the phrase, I will not recognise the international data that clearly shows that countries and economies that prioritise fair work and have high standards of protection and high wages for employees are also economies that have high levels of productivity where business thrives. I know that Mr McKee has a record in business and needs to be listening to what the voices of businesses are saying that the Scottish Government needs to be focusing on right now. What we should be talking about is how we help to grow the economy and what the role of businesses is in that. Instead, what we are talking about is yet another SNP demand for more powers to be passed down from Westminster to this place, including ignoring the fact that this Government has made a total mess of the powers that it already holds. Let me just, for the sake of the debate, and yes, of course. I wonder if Mr Fraser expects us to take seriously the notion of a Conservative member of the Scottish Parliament standing up talking about the need for economic growth when it is his party through the disaster zone of the Liz Truss quasi-quarting mini-budget that has crashed the economy? I do not know if the ministers actually look at what has happened in the economy elsewhere in the world in terms of the G7. The UK economy is performing better than many of the countries performing much better than Germany expected to perform better than France and Italy. This is the Scottish Government. Let us just look. Even if the UK economy, according to the minister, is not performing well, let us look at how the Scottish economy is doing in relative terms. Since 2014, the Scottish economy has grown on average under the watch of the minister and his colleagues at half the rate of the UK economy. I cannot ignore that simple fact. Let me go back to what I was trying to say. I was trying to unpick exactly what this motion is about and what the Government is trying to achieve beyond just weary constitutional points that they are so keen to make. Perhaps this is all about laying a trap for the Labour Party, which I suspect really is what this debate is about this afternoon. There is no point in devolving employment law to the Scottish Parliament if the Government's intention is to just leave it as it is. They are either going to make them more liberal or more restrictive. From what we have heard, there is not much of an intention to make them more liberal. Let us assume that they are going to be more restrictive than in other parts of the United Kingdom. That therefore flies in the face of everything that we have heard from the business community over the past few weeks and months. Already it is a major concern of the business community that we see a divergence between Scotland and the rest of the UK in terms of tax, a divergence that is having a real impact on business. It is a point made in budget submissions currently being published by the likes of the Scottish Retail Consortium and the CBI in Scotland, amongst others. Every time I meet business, one of their major asks is that the Scottish Government tackles that tax differential, a tax differential, which is now an active barrier to encouraging people to come and move and take jobs in Scotland. If the cabinet secretary has not heard that message loud and clear from the business community, then he has not been listening. I will give way to Mr Mason. John Mason. I thank my order for giving way. Would he at least accept that there is quite a lot of variety in the business community, whereas some of them need more support? Others are making huge profits and could pay and should pay more tax. I think that Mr Mason needs to go and engage with major figures in the business community, particularly in sectors such as finance, which have a very fluid and flexible workforce of people who can work in Edinburgh, Glasgow or Newcastle or Leeds or London and find out what they are saying about the impact of differential tax rates. No, look, I have given way about four or five times. I really need to make some progress. So rather than learn that message, learn the lesson from that experience, this Government wants to go further and create a different employment law regime here in Scotland. That is not going to attract investment here in Scotland compared to other parts of the UK. I can only imagine that there are people in charge of economic development in cities like Bristol or Manchester or Newcastle rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of—I have already taken a number of interventions, Mr Swinney, I need to make some progress. That would cause real practical issues for large cross-border employers. A member of staff in Scotland would have different employment rights to one elsewhere in the UK. A member of staff who moved, for example, from Manchester to Glasgow would potentially benefit from greater employment rights, and one moving in the other direction, the opposite would be the case. It would be an administrative nightmare. All that tells us is what the true priority of the SNP Green Government would be when it comes to the economy. It is not about delivering faster growth, it is not about helping businesses to expand, it is not about improving the woeful start-up rate we have or increasing the number of secure well-paid jobs. What is this debate about, Presiding Officer? It is about creating a constitutional fight with Westminster, because that is what this Government is obsessed with to the exclusion of everything else. There are real issues with the Scottish economy today that this Government needs to be addressing. That is why this afternoon we should be looking at the real problems in the Scottish economy and what we can do to address them. This week, I read the CBI Scotland's budget submission, making excellent suggestions around realising Scotland's net zero opportunities, developing infrastructure, improving transport, enhancing skills and fostering a competitive business environment. Other business organisations' submissions are available, but they all have a very similar theme. They want to see this Government creating an environment where businesses can grow, where they can expand their workforce and therefore can pay better wages. They will do that with the right framework of support, not with further regulations and additional burdens, which is the direction that this Government is going in. Already, in contrast to what the cabinet secretary had to say, the UK Government has delivered significant progress in supporting workers. If the UK Government introduced the national living wage, it is now at £10.42 per hour. In addition, the rise in income tax thresholds means that many lower-paid workers pay next to no income tax on what they are. What the Scottish Government needs to be doing is focusing on delivering faster growth here. If we could at least match UK economic growth over a 10-year period that would give us an extra £7 billion in tax revenues, we could spend, which would go a long way to addressing many of the budgetary challenges facing the Scottish Government today. Rather than focusing on that objective of delivering economic growth, what we have here is a Government obsessed over the constitution, picking fights with Westminster, playing silly political games in this chamber, businesses looking in, hoping for a change in direction from this Government, hoping that the new deal for business will mean something other than empty words will be sorely disappointed. I move the amendment in my name. Mr Fraser, as I said, there is a bit of time in hand. Members will get the time back if they take interventions. That should underscore the fact that people should not be making sedentary interventions. If you want to say something, get on your feet and ask for intervention. I now call on Daniel Johnson to speak to and move the amendment 6161.3 up to around six minutes. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I move the amendment in my name. Let me begin with the declaration. When it comes to fair work, I think that deeds matter much more than posture. In my record, I am very clear. As a person who ran my own business, my business was the first independent retailer in Edinburgh to become an accredited living wage employer, and I stand by that. I stand by the deeds of past Labour Governments, and I think that there is much that we can agree with the Government's motion this afternoon, but ultimately it comes down to deeds rather than simply stated intent. Let's also be very clear. The UK Conservative Party has a wretched record on workers' rights. It has presided over an explosion in insecure work and the longest pay squeeze in history, just in a moment. Working people are facing the largest fall in living standards in a generation. Despite what Mr Fraser says, there is a ticking time bomb of mortgage payments because of the disastrous consequences of the mini-budget that he so eagerly seeks to dismiss. I am happy to give way. I thank Daniel Johnson for giving way. He sets out that there is much that he can agree with in the Government's motion, but he seeks to edit out the critical element, which is the call for the devolution of employment law. He says that we should just be thinking about it. We might do it. In the meantime, he asked us to trust the Labour Government to deliver after a summer of flip-flops that has seen the new deal for workers absolutely torn to shreds. How on earth can we trust Labour to deliver upon its promises? The cabinet secretary must learn patience, because I was just coming to that very, very point. Look is really very straightforward. We support the devolution of employment law. We agree with the statement that was made by the STUC, and we agree with them when they said that it must be done within the framework of a UK floor, unless, quote Rose Foyer. This is what she said when that motion passed to the TUC. A guaranteed minimum floor of workers' rights across the UK is a prudent first step so that every worker in every workplace has a guaranteed standard of rights from day one of any future UK Labour Government. That is the full position that the STUC has set out. That is the full position that the Labour Party supports. It is just a shame that the SNP is so eager to edit out that full position. If I could just make a little bit of progress, and what is absolutely critical is perhaps summed up in Mr Fraser's comments, because he invited us to entertain what full devolution of employment law might mean. Could we have improved work centres or more liberal? That is exactly the point. What we must have is an absolute guarantee for all workers across the UK, because we cannot predict as much as maybe we might like to control what future Scottish administrations may look like. We cannot afford a race to the bottom. Having unqualified devolution of employment would do just that, which is why the STUC takes the position that you have to have that prudent first step of a floor, which is what Ross Boyer said. I wonder then if the Labour Party's position that they support the STU position, why have they removed any reference to the Scottish Trade Union Congress's position as we have laid out in our motion, and why is it instead of saying that they support the devolution of employment law, it merely says that the UK Government should explore how those rights could be devolved? If there is any ambiguity, I hope I have cleared it up and I hope that I have made myself clear in my statements. Let us see what happens in the votes this afternoon. Let us be very clear about this Government's record on the fair work agenda, because despite the Government committing to making Scotland a leading fair work nation by 2025, the fair work convention last month described the Scottish Government's performance as mixed. Out of the 45 indicators considered, 19 have approved, 10 have worsened, and 14 have fluctuated or remained broadly stable. Indeed, the international comparisons are even worse. Scotland ranks fifth out of nine compared to small countries. Our disability employment gap is 31 percentage points second from bottom, 29 per cent of workers are in non-permanent work and not there by choice. That figure is 4 per cent in Austria, 7 in Iceland, and most shockingly of all, 32 per cent of Scottish workers are, say, the over-qualified for the role they perform, higher than every other competitor nation. The Government will say that this is the fault of the UK Government, but look, the lesson is clear. Yes, you need enhanced employment standards, but it must be enmeshed within a system of enhanced skills and enhanced education. That is the lesson from Austria. That is the lesson from the Nordic countries. Indeed, but these are points that the Scottish Government seeks to dismiss to make the constitutional points that it prefers to make. Let me be clear about what the Government could do today to affect the situation. Firstly, an education and skills policy, which the recent review conducted by Jim Smith concluded that the approach from the Scottish Government lacked leadership and direction. There is no more important resource than our people, and this Government urgently needs to bring forward recommendations on how it can put flexibility and responsiveness at the heart of the skills system. Secondly, in terms of helping families with children, it is vital that we support parents and caregivers in the workplace. The Government can and should do much more to provide flexible all-age, all-year wraparound affordable early years care. The STUC agrees that there are a number of areas where the Scottish Government could go further to support fair work, but instead of finding practical ways—practical actions within devolution settlement—to further and improve the lives of working people, the Scottish Government is intent on furthering constitutional grievance. That is why we need a UK Labour Government to enact Labour's new deal for working people, which will ban zero-hours contracts, give workers predictable contracts, outlaw, fire and rehire, give everyone rights to every worker, and give workers the right to switch off. That is the difference that we need. That is why the TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak says that this would be the biggest upgrade in workers' rights and ageduration, and that is why we need a Labour Government. I call Willie Rennie around six minutes, Mr Rennie. According to the latest CBI, Scottish Productivity Index, productivity grew in the UK in 2021 by 1.2 per cent, but it remained unchanged in Scotland. According to the latest ONS figures, productivity in Scotland was 2.4 per cent lower in 2021 compared with 2019. The second worst-performing part of the UK on this measure. Again, according to the CBI, Scottish Productivity Index, business investment was lower in Scotland in 2021 than in the UK by 8 per cent versus 9 per cent. Even though UK productivity levels are low compared with other countries, Scotland is even further behind. For GDP, the most recent figures for 2023, quarter two, show GDP growth in the UK at 0.2 per cent, but negative 0.3 per cent in Scotland. Growth over the last five years was 1.6 per cent in Scotland, but 2.6 per cent across the UK. Over the last 10 years, there is an even larger gap, 9.8 per cent in Scotland, compared with 15.5 per cent across the UK. The minister knows that it is not a convincing argument that his Government should get more powers over employment law and the economy when its track record is so poor. I will take an intervention. John Swinney. I am very grateful to Mr Rennie for giving way. I think that it is typical of the contribution that Mr Rennie makes to this debate that he does not give a broad range of indicators. He admitted the fact that the Scottish economy has outclassed every other part of the United Kingdom, apart from London and the South East, for inward investment for as many years as I can remember. Why does Mr Rennie have to come byw of such a depressing tone for this debate? Will he, Rennie, give you the tone back? Because Mr Swinney is making a naive, optimistic presentation of an equally narrow set of figures as well. He makes no reference to the figures that I mentioned. He only chose his own narrow perspective. We need to have a broad perspective. I am going to come on to the wellbeing monitor in a while, and it is important that we look at—no, not just now—we are going to look at the wellbeing monitor, which has a broader view of those issues. However, Mr Swinney does himself no favours by focusing on a narrow set of indicators. The minister knows that he cannot dwell on the productivity issues that we have talked about in the debate, because he does not even mention Scottish productivity in his own motion. He refers to other Governments in other parts of the world, because the productivity levels in Scotland are so lamentable. Despite that lamentable performance in Scotland, I am not going to make the case today that there should be a transfer of powers from this Parliament to Westminster. I am not going to do that. I am not going to argue that suddenly we should get ferries built by the UK Government just because this Government cannot build any ferries on the Clyde, or because the Government seems incapable of delivering the adult disability payment even at the levels of the personal independence payments at a UK level. I am not going to argue that there should be a transfer back of powers to the Westminster Government, because the Government is so incompetent on those things. That would be wrong. What is right is that we get the powers in the right place that is best served for Scotland and the United Kingdom for the people who live here. The performance, for instance, on the NHS is shocking. Of course, no-one is going to argue about the transfer back of powers to Westminster on that, or the Crown Estate, because this Government bungled the Scotland contract. I am not going to make any of those arguments today. Equally so, I am not going to make the argument that we should have a transfer of employment and economic powers to this Parliament just because we have a UK Government that is, admittedly, utterly hopeless temporarily—no, not just that—I have got to get through a big part of this speech here. I am not going to argue for that transfer back of powers because we have had several Prime Ministers who seem incompetent. I am arguing for change across the UK, so that we can get the right Government in the right places. That applies equally here, as it does in Westminster. I am not going to argue for all those measures. I want employment law and economic powers to be part of the single market of the United Kingdom because I want businesses who work here to be able to trade freely across the United Kingdom with as little barriers as possible. I want to make sure that people who live and work here can equally live and work in other parts of the United Kingdom. That single market is the strength of the United Kingdom. It is what Lord Campbell of Pittenweam sent out in his home rule report back in 2012 for a modern Scottish Parliament in a federal United Kingdom, making sure that we build in to the new constitutional structure a compulsion for the two Governments to work in partnership together, rather than, as we have just now, which is in competition with each other. I talked about the wellbeing monitor. The wellbeing monitor is something that the Government is, I think, rightly proud of. I have challenged the Government before that it should stop marking its own homework on that monitor. For instance, it claims that it is making progress on educational attainment, but the attainment gap—the poverty-related attainment gap—is as wide as it has ever been. At best, it is stagnant in some areas, but it is definitely wider at S3, but it claims in the wellbeing monitor that somehow it is making progress in this area. Equally so, on GDP and business investment, it has fallen back since 2017. We need an independent assessment of the wellbeing monitor. It is important that people live in a good, healthy environment with a good NHS and a good environment that is not filled with sewage when they go out for a walk. We have schools that they can be proud to send their children to. All of those things are important, but for those things to be measured, they need to be measured in an authentic way, and the current system is clearly not working. In conclusion, Murdo Fraser had a point earlier on that this is quite a striking contrast with the contributions that I have heard from the minister before. It was supposed to be a new deal for business. I am not sure that businesses will gain an awful lot of confidence today, because it is about a balance. It is about wellbeing, and it is about a strong economy. If we do not have the strong economy, we will not have the jobs for people, and we will not have the opportunities for people. We need to have a stronger economy and a fairer society. This Government is well off track, and it needs to get back on track. Thank you, Mr Rennie. We now move to the open debate. I call first Ivan McKee to be followed by Liz Smith in six minutes. I would like to speak to the debate that the Government has brought forward on the fair work agenda and the importance of those powers being transferred to the Scottish Parliament. Clearly, the fair work agenda is broad, covering work conditions, protections, recognitions and many critical aspects. I want to focus my remarks primarily on the setting of the minimum wage and the importance of that being transferred to the Scottish Parliament. It is an error that has been confused by the UK Government by taking the minimum wage that was in place and responding to the real living wage by creating what they called the living wage, which is not the real living wage and is or is not the same as the minimum wage, just to confuse the whole picture. What we need is the Scottish Parliament to be in control of that Scottish minimum wage and setting that at a level that meets the needs and aspirations not just of Scotland's workers but of our economy. I will come on to address some remarks as to how we might take that forward as I go through my contribution this afternoon. First of all, some of my mentions have been made of data. If you look specifically at, and the cabinet secretary has spoken about, several of the areas where Scotland's economy has been performing well. If you look at the minimum wage or the real living wage performance in Scotland, the percentage of employees not earning that level of the real living wage has been thankfully trending down. It is still too high in the kind of mid-teens but significantly lower than it has been and those employees typically concentrated in some specific sectors that do other challenges where that needs to be addressed. However, it is worth recognising that vast swathes of the economy by far the vast majority of employees are already above or significantly above that level, so we are pushing an open door in many sectors as a consequence of that. It is a key economic leaver setting of that minimum wage. It is absolutely critical to addressing the Government's priority on the poverty agenda. Well, for social security payments it can only do so much. The heavy lifting on that needs to be carried by the broader economy and having control over that leaver is absolutely critical. As I have already highlighted in my interventions and as the Government has highlighted, the correlation between employment standards and a higher minimum wage correlates very closely with levels of productivity across a whole range of international economies, particularly as we focus on those growth sectors of the future. What we want to see in Scotland is a high wage, high productivity, high innovation, high growth economy, and all of those are closely interrelated in terms of what the data shows and the links between that productivity and the wellbeing measures that are absolutely borne out by the facts. It is worth mentioning the impact on businesses. If you look at this from a business perspective, businesses that are trying to do the right thing at the moment, seeking accreditation on the real living wage, looking to pay a fair wage to their employees, are faced with a dilemma, frankly, in many cases, where they are competing against other businesses that are not doing so. The creation of that level playing field would be hugely welcomed by businesses that are trying to do the right thing to know that the opportunity for us to undercut them by not paying the real living wage is legally removed. It also creates a situation where Scotland can continue to attract more employees to come and live and work here from the rest of the UK, which outstrips a number that move on an annual basis in the opposite direction, something that is often forgotten in this conversation. Brian Whittle, I am very grateful for having me here for giving me a general question. He has always perplexed me in terms of how we deal with the international trade where we are importing goods from countries where they are paying much less than what we pay in this country. Therefore, their goods are much cheaper. How do we deal with that? Since the introduction of the minimum wage to UK level, which I must pay 25 years or more ago, back in the day, that was one of the things that raised that issue. It has clearly proved to be absolutely not borne out by the evidence and by the performance of a situation in the UK economy. In Scotland's economy, in particular, where we have very low unemployment levels and a demand for workers, which puts a lie to the claim that some have been damaged international competitors, and its actual fact is that it is borne out by the evidence that economies that pay their workers more are more productive, have higher standards of living, have higher innovation and have higher technology as a consequence of that. Having those powers means that to set that minimum wage in Scotland means that we do not need to use inefficient and indirect levers like we have to do at the moment, tiptoeing round what are reserved powers, seeking to find routes through use of conditionality and other mechanisms to help to try to drive employers to do the right thing and pay the real living wage as a minimum, and to be able to do that directly by the setting of those rates. What that would do is help to drive up wage rates right across the rest of the UK. Not a race to the bottom is labour and accurate claims, but in fact a claim to the top. I would like to address Labour's position on that with regard to that. I think that the interpretation of that is absolutely incorrect. Clearly, what they are seeking to do is to big up the prospect of a Labour Government and give them something that they can announce if and whenever they take power at a UK level and they want to prevent Scotland from having those powers because they want to claim that it is all down to their work. The reality is that there is absolutely no reason why a floor cannot be set at a UK level and, in parallel with that, the Scottish Parliament could have the powers from day one to take forward the measures of setting of standards at a higher level within the Scottish context. I think that that would put the lie to Labour's claim that there is perhaps some risk of a race to the bottom. I am interested to get Labour's perspective on that and to demand devolution of those powers now to the Scottish Parliament. If the future UK Labour Government wants to put a floor in place below which Scottish powers cannot stand or fall, I think that the Scottish Government would be absolutely comfortable with that as a consequence. My ask of the Scottish Government is to do some more work to define what the process would be to calculate the Scottish minimum wage. When we have those powers, we have to calculate what its value would be in present economic circumstances. It would be on the mind of course that that would increase over time and do the analysis on the economic benefits of that and then publicise that rate, so that people understand the benefits of the devolution of those powers and also that is a stepping stone towards full independence for Scotland. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr McKee. I now call Liz Smith to be followed by John Mason around six minutes. Thank you, and it's a pleasure to follow Mr McKee. My colleague Myrdo Fraser described him as the Government in Exile, but I think that the journalists are saying that he's actually the Government in waiting, along with his two colleagues, Michelle Thompson and Kate Forbes. I raised this because I want to complement the paper that the trio wrote earlier this year, because I think that that was with the intention of breathing some new life into SNP policy making after the bruising battle of a leadership election. It talked very sensibly about developing a wellbeing economy, but also recognising that this would never come about unless there is a strong focus on growth and on widening the tax base. That's something that each of them have returned to in this chamber in recent months. They also said, and I quote, that steering the economy requires clarity on destination alongside an approach built on the understanding of all parts of a complex mechanism and how they work best together. How much the Finance Committee, Audit Scotland and the Scottish Fiscal Commission agree. So do I, even if our politics on the Constitution are profoundly different? Here's why. Because the pursuit of wellbeing is dependent upon the delivery of economic growth in its most traditional form. I understand very well when people talk about the development of the wellbeing economy about the feel-good factor, because that should be at the forefront of people's minds. Indeed, common sense tells us that delivering better opportunities for everyone results in better social and economic outcomes. We know that the feel-good factor matters, but we also know that it's very subjective and it's quite hard to measure as the Scottish Government has found out. The 100 or so leaders from civic society and faith groups who signed the letter in 2022 to the Scottish Government about the importance of wellbeing recognised that very point, and they made clear that they thought that the current national economic performance framework does not do nearly enough to put in place the basic building blocks on which Scotland can improve societal and environmental outcomes. That's a view that is shared by the Finance Committee of this Parliament, but they were also critical of too much of a central focus on GDP as a measure of economic success, just as we know is the case for several members in this chamber. The trouble is not about the aspiration but the means to achieve it. Well-being depends on our success in creating growth, on improving productivity and on widening the tax base. Exactly what Kate Forbes said should be the urgent priority of the Scottish Government. It's a point that was echoed at the time when she said it by the chambers of commerce and several other economic bodies. She was also absolutely correct to say that the status quo just won't cut it. She recognises only too well that the focus of the Scottish Government over a long period of time now has been elsewhere. She also knows that being tied to the Bute House agreement, where the Greens wholly reject the concept of economic growth, is a major problem for the SNP and it's a major problem more importantly for Scotland. Myrdo Fraser in his opening remarks set out exactly why economic growth is important and he provided the evidence that backs up that point. Back in April 2017 and in June 2019, we debated this importance in this chamber via Conservative motions about how we should deliver that economic growth. How we wish that the Scottish Government had been listening on these occasions because it might have saved them. Yes, of course. Presiding Officer, this is a debate about the contribution that fair work makes towards a wellbeing economy. I wholeheartedly agree with the points that I made that I have a McKee mix around the contribution towards economic growth that can be made. The examples are there. Internationally, our comparator countries in Europe are welfare fairer, have higher productivity but also have better results in terms of lower poverty, higher social mobility, higher smaller gender pay gap and higher spending R&D. The business investment is higher but critically they have higher average wages, lower proportion of low wage workers and fewer people at risk of poverty in work. Why is it that those countries can focus in on the fair work elements and still be more economic successful whereas the UK is lagging so far behind? They are not mutually exclusive. We are starting from a position in Scotland in which the Scottish Fiscal Commission has spelt out in very stark detail about why it is so important to get to the fair work and the wellbeing agenda and why we need to improve our economy in Scotland. What the minister should be doing is asking why is it that, just as Mr Rennie did, why is it that, even when the UK has relatively poor growth in relation to some of these other countries, Scotland is doing even less well? That is the point. That is something that we must address. I will not go into all the detail about what the Scottish Fiscal Commission has said because we have rehearsed this many times, as did John Swinney to be fair to him when he attended the Finance Committee before he had been admitted office. However, it is also this debate about preventative spend. That is something that is challenging the Finance Committee just now about how we can make decisions that will improve our financial contributions in the future by ensuring that we are doing the right things to improve economic and social benefit just now. Finally, can I just sum up on the point of the importance of why we must concentrate on sorting this problem for the Scottish economy? We are not going to be able to deliver what we want to in terms of wellbeing and improving our societal and environmental outcomes unless we do. It should be that focus, cabinet secretary, not the constitutional warmongering that was always going on with the SNP. That is the focus that we should have because, if we do not do that, we are not going to provide for the generations in the future. John Mason, to be followed by Pan Duncan-Glancy, is around six minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to take part in today's debate. The title of the debate, as we saw as fair work in a wellbeing economy, and I wanted to start by reminding ourselves of some of the key principles of a wellbeing economy and where we are trying to get to. After all, devolution of employment law and powers is not an end in itself. The purpose is to build a better society. The wellbeing economy alliance and others would suggest key principles include social equity, reducing income and wealth inequality, promoting social inclusion and ensuring that the benefits of economic activities are distributed more equitably. Inclusivity, encouraging citizens' participation in decision making and the design of economic policies to ensure that diverse perspectives and needs are considered. Long-term thinking, a shift away from short-term profit maximisation and toward long-term planning and resilience. Measuring success differently, using alternative indicators of progress beyond GDP, such as the genuine progress indicator or the human development index to gauge the wellbeing and sustainability of an economy. Public and private sector co-operation, encouraging collaboration between government businesses, civil society and communities to achieve shared wellbeing objectives. Ethical business practices, promoting ethical and socially responsible business practices which take into account the impact of business activities on people and the planet. If we take social equity to start with, how is the UK doing? We have the ninth most unequal incomes of the 38 OECD countries and we are above average in terms of wealth inequality. While the top fifth of the UK has 36 per cent of the country's income and 63 per cent of the country's wealth, the bottom fifth has only 8 per cent of the income and 0.5 per cent of the wealth. In 2022, the incomes of the poorest 14 million people fell by 7.5 per cent, in comparison to the richest fifth, gaining 7.8 per cent. Clearly, the UK is not in a good place in a whole range of ways around employment. For myself, income inequality is probably the biggest issue, but restrictions on the right to strike, longer working hours, job insecurity, flexible working and lower sick pay are key issues as well. I understand that Labour might like to improve employment law right across the UK and, obviously, that is a good aim. However, I was intrigued by the wording of their amendment that talks about improving workers' rights across the UK before exploring how those rights can be entrenched through devolution of employment powers and so on. That kind of implies that, at a UK level, those improved workers' rights will not be entrenched. Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but I wonder how solid those UK rights would be under Labour. However, that still leaves the question that, if Scotland wants to go further and achieve something better than Labour's UK-wide floor, why is that such a bad idea? If Labour in England wants to settle for something less down south, why should ordinary working people here be held back? The motion calls for devolution of employment powers, and I fully support that. To start with, we should be able to make the real living wage a statutory requirement, as Ivan McKee suggested, rather than the UK's lower level of national living wage. Labour's Ian Murray said that the Scottish Government needs to use the power that it has. On minimum wages, that means that we can only encourage and cajole employers to pay a proper living wage. We do not have the powers to make it happen across the board. What does it mean to say that we should use the powers that we have? If we do control employment law in the future, we still need to be aware of what is happening across the border. Both employers and workers will have freedom of movement, and, as we have found with partial devolution of income tax, we have to be wary of not being too divergent from England. However, what we can and should be doing is creating an overall environment where employment conditions, education, health services and the whole package and offer is more attractive here than elsewhere. I suggest that this should include taxation around employment, which in particular means full control of income tax and devolution of national insurance. It is hard to talk about having fair work in a wellbeing economy without considering the interaction between income tax and national insurance. National insurance is such a regressive system starting at 12 per cent for those earning over £12,576, but falling to 2 per cent for those over £49,368. The gender pay gap is another area where we could do more if we had the powers to do so, and I fully accept that even a comparable independent country such as Sweden still has a significant gender pay gap. No-one is saying that transferring the powers means that problems are solved overnight, but perhaps it is more of a question of what direction we are going in and how fast we might hope to get there. It seems to me that there is more of a desire in Scotland, possibly across all parties, to tackle something like the gender pay gap. On the subject of a wellbeing economy, it is worth mentioning the cross-party group on international development, which took place on Tuesday. Part of the focus there was a report by Oxfam and Action Aid, and a range of interesting and relevant points were made, including that a wellbeing economy must not be about Scotland or the UK exporting their problems to the developing world. Again, there was criticism of GDP as a measure of growth or success when 65 per cent of the work of women is excluded from GDP, and there were calls for more feminist wellbeing economy. In particular, care is not included in national outcomes, and there are pretty strong arguments that it should be. I urge members to support the simple, straightforward Government motion. We do know what the Tories want to go and where they want to go, and we reject that, but we do not know where Labour is going, we do not know what Labour believes in or if they have any principles, so I suggest that we reject their amendment. We are getting close to exhausting the time that we had available earlier on in the debate. I will try and grab some latitude for interventions, but I would be grateful if members could stick to their speaking time allocation. I call Pam Duncan-Glancy to be followed by Claire Hockey up to six minutes. The Labour Party is and always has been the party on the side of work, workers and opportunity for all. The principles of fair work are ones that we not only embrace, we will always stand up for and have legislated for, they are in our DNA. That is why I am pleased to speak for Scottish Labour on this today. I want to use my time to draw attention to an ongoing situation in my region in Glasgow, where the principles of fair work are on the line, where workers face job losses, uncertainty and their voices drowned out, and their left feeling disrespected and disempowered. Next Tuesday we will see the beginning of a further 20 days of strike action at the city of Glasgow College, following 11 weeks of industrial action by EIS Fila. The dispute has been rumbling on since February this year, when the college first announced that it would be increasing lecturers' workloads, reducing face-to-face contact time for students, reducing the number of learning support lecturers and imposing two rounds of redundancy, one of which is compulsory. Decisions that have left many baffled, because, let me remind colleagues, that, since reclassification in 2011, colleges have been considered as public sector bodies, and this Government talks proudly of its commitment to no compulsory redundancies in the public sector, so the decision by the college seems entirely at odds. Even if we accept the claim from the city of Glasgow College that it had no other option, and I am far from convinced of that, the way in which this situation has been handled is still deeply concerning. There are two unfolding crises here, one of governance and one of unfair work. Let me be clear, I understand the considerable financial strains facing the colleges across the country. They have faced years of real terms cuts from this Government. Colleges have watched as this Parliament agreed to a budget that gave them additional resource, and then were helpless when that resource was whipped away by the Scottish Government mere months later. They have struggled to make ends meet within the limited flexibility that they have to generate income. However, let me also be clear, colleges need their staff and their jobs matter. The protection of jobs in these unprecedented times is vital, and decisions that put any of them at risk must only be taken as a last resort and be well informed and based on the best available evidence. I am deeply concerned that neither is the case here and that this action has been taken before exhausting all other avenues. I know that EISvilla have worked tirelessly to try to avert this crisis for their members, and I commend them for that. They presented an alternative business case, but it was rejected by the principal with very little scrutiny from the college board. They have also said that they feel that trade union members have been targets, threatened and ridiculed, and that attempts to rebuild industrial relations have been undermined. One example was when the union tried to meet with the board separately from the principal, a reasonable request given what is going on there, and it was blocked. Another example of the disrespect for workers and industrial relations is seen in the language used in the staff update of 3 November, which was entitled, Cuts Done Moving On. This is people's jobs and their livelihoods. They cannot simply move on, talking so flippantly about job losses and course cuts, especially when some staff selected for redundancy are still at work there, either because they have not yet served their notice or because they have lodged appeals, or because they have not yet served their notice or because they have lodged appeals, flies in the face of the principles of the fair work that we are talking about today, leaves people feeling that there is now no going back and that they have no opportunity to save their jobs. The Scottish Government's own vision for employment in Scotland says that it must embody a culture of fair work and rewards workers with the security that they need to develop and plan for their future and the family's future. The failures of the college to meaningfully engage and consider all other options openly and then to disrespect employees the way they have has led to fair work practice being thrown out the window and is indicative of poor governance. Earlier in the year, the Minister for Further and Higher Education confirmed to me that the Scottish Funding Council could intervene in the decision to pursue compulsory redundancies. I have since wrote to them and the Scottish Government asking for this to happen and it is yet to happen. The principal also refused a request to instigate this action himself. So far, the Government has behaved largely like bystanders, not the people where the buck stops. Presiding Officer, someone has to step in. As elected representatives of many of these workers, I will give way. The debate is obviously about fair work and we need to make sure that in corporate governance terms that public bodies in Scotland, including the city of Glasgow College, have proper transparent mechanisms in place to secure that fair work agenda. I am not quite sure that they are all robust and in place and I am a bit concerned at the relationship between the funding council, the regional board and the city of Glasgow College. Is that a concern that you would also share, Ms Glancy? I thank the member for that intervention. It absolutely is a concern that I share and the member will be aware that we are looking to work together to write to all of those parties to ask them to intervene, because, Presiding Officer, a colleague someone really does have to. As an elected representative of many of these workers and the students, I am doing all that I can to bring transparency and openness to the situation, protect the principles of fair work and good governance and I acknowledge that colleagues on other benches, such as the colleague who has just spoken, have been doing the same. But we are exhausting all options and workers could be out of their job in a matter of days. So I ask the cabinet secretary today to reflect on what is happening in Scotland's biggest college and consider whether he is satisfied that it is upholding the standards he himself today has said he believes in and this Parliament expects and to step in. I ask that his Government investigate whether there has been mismanagement at the college and if it concludes that duties have not been discharged properly, then it should give strong consideration to exercising its powers to intervene under section 24 of the Further and Higher Education Scotland Act 1994. If nothing is done, there is a real risk of setting a poor precedent that has the potential to ripple through the sector, which could result in a failure to meet fair work principles elsewhere, too. The fact that the Government has brought this debate today highlights that it recognises how important those principles are and I welcome that, but staff at the college need deeds not words. Jobs and livelihoods are on the line. Those people need their Government to step in and I hope that the cabinet secretary can see how serious this is. I invite him to take the opportunity in closing today to set out what he and his Government will do because staff and students at Scotland's largest college are watching and they are running out of time. Fair work is a Scottish Government commitment to ensuring everyone benefits from opportunity, security, fulfilment and respect in the workplace. Fair work and fair pay make sense for workers and employers across all sectors, helping to improve staff retention and productivity, reduce recruitment costs and contribute to a skilled and motivated workforce. Embedding it into Scottish policymaking is also central to economic growth, and it means that we can better tackle social inequalities, poverty and the cost of living. Although employment powers are reserved to the UK Government, the Scottish Government is using and promoting fair work principles to make workplaces fairer and more inclusive, and one such way is through promoting the employer accreditation schemes including payment of the real living wage. In Scotland, 91 per cent of all jobs pay at least the real living wage higher than any other UK nation, and more than 3,400 employers in Scotland have real living wage accreditation. I am proud to be one of those employers myself, and I would also like to mention a number of businesses across my Rutherglen constituency that have had the pleasure of visiting who are real living wage accredited. Those include, but are not limited to, ACE Place, Nursery and Out of School Care, Bard Dikes, Farm Nursery School, Evolution Fastners and Thistle Credit Union. Despite the challenges of the UK economy with rampant inflation, those employers know the value of investing in their workforce, helping to improve staff morale, reduce absenteeism and support their efforts to retain and attract staff. There have been considerable challenges impacting on Scotland's fair work ambitions in recent years. In my first parliamentary speech in 2016, I criticised the Tory Government's ill-thought-out and unnecessary trade union act, which attacks workers' fundamental rights to organise, to bargain collectively and withdraw their labour. Seven years on, the Tories continue to attack trade unions through their minimum service-level legislation. I welcome the comments earlier this week from the Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, who said that the Scottish Government will continue to do all that it can to oppose this legislation and will not co-operate with establishing any minimum service orders here. However, it is not only Westminster's anti-worker policies that impact on Scotland's fair work agenda. The UK's hard Brexit, which let's not forget Labour has fully signed up to, has long threatened a race to the bottom in workers' rights, and it has driven low growth, stagnant wages and the highest inequality out of neighbouring countries. Additionally, the Westminster cost of living crisis has seen energy bills skyrocket, food prices soar and mortgage rates have ballooned, all hitting workers' take-home pay. It is abundantly clear that workers in Scotland will only get the employment protections that they need when the levers of change are placed in the hands of the Scottish people. An independent Scotland could go much further in improving pay and workers' conditions. The Scottish Government has already set out that independence will allow us to deliver higher minimum standards for statutory sick pay and parental leave, stronger access to flexible working, a repeal of the UK's draconian anti-trade union laws, the banning of cruel fire and rehire practices, the provision of full employment rights from day 1 of employment, as well as enshrining workers' rights into constitutional law. I know that not everyone in this chamber shares our ambition for Scotland to be an independent country, but they should all back their calls for Scotland to have full powers of employment law. Of course, it is not only the SNP that is asking for this, but some of the biggest trade unions in the country. I remind members that I am a member of unison. Recently, and we have heard that Rosfoyr quoted earlier on today the general secretary of the STUC. She wrote in The Herald that the STUC welcomed the TUC's now shared policy between their organisations on devolving employment law. The SNP has long campaigned for the devolution of employment powers to Scotland, but the Labour Party worked hand in glove with the Tories to block this during the Smith commission in 2014. More recently, Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner and the shadow secretary for Scotland ruled out devolving employment law. Only last month, Labour MPs, including the new member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, dodged a vote on an SNP bill to devolve employment law. Labour's newest MP failed to stand up for his Rutherglen constituents at the very first hurdle, instead falling in line behind his London bosses by abstaining and proving that he really is Stammer's Man in Scotland. Labour would rather leave Scotland under Westminster control and at the mercy of Tory attacks on workers' rights than give Scotland's national parliament powers. I am deeply disappointed that, despite Anna Sarwar's protestations only this week, he would love for Holyrood to have control over workers' rights in the first term of a Labour Government. There is no mention of that in the Labour amendment. Could it be that the UK Labour bosses down in Westminster have pulled the branch office back into line? With Labour failing to join us, not only us in the SNP but the trade union movement itself in calling for this much-needed devolution in the face of the Tory cost of living crisis and draconian anti-strike legislation, we once again find ourselves asking what is the point of Scottish Labour. I am a proud trade unionist. I have been a trade union member all of my working life. Before entering Parliament, I was a divisional convener for unison, protecting workers' rights against the pay and exploitative contracts, supporting their democratic right to industrial action. Championing safe workplaces have long been priorities of mine—priorities that are fundamental components of Scotland's fair work ambition. Although the Scottish Parliament does not support the legislative powers over employment law, I know that this Government will work with us. I am proud, like others before me, to refer colleagues to my entry in the register of members' interests as a member of Unite the Union. I am also pleased to be a member of the living wage accreditation scheme, a member of no zero employment employer, a disability confident employer and care positive employer, and I would encourage colleagues to find out more about these important schemes if they do not already know about them. We are accustomed to UK Governments that want to curtail human rights to limit them, to restrict them, but the current occupants of the Westminster merry-go-round, it seems, will not be content until fundamental rights are dismantled altogether, including the right to protest, the right to escape persecution, children's right to life and workers' right to strike. The Overton window of acceptable views is, with every week, vanishing further rightwards, with Sir Keir Starmer rushing after it as fast as his legs will carry him, it seems. However, we have a different perspective in Scotland—a different tradition that we share as trade unionists, whether or not we are unionists of other kinds. Fair work is essential to that vision of Scotland as a fair work nation, sustained by a wellbeing economy. The Fair Work Convention's recent report highlights some key aspects in relation to the essential dimensions of fair work. On opportunity, the report is clear. The Tory obsession with an exclusionary and marginalising Brexit has constrained our labour market. Powers on employment would help ease this, if only just a bit, and allow us to make Scotland a more desirable and attractive place to live and work. The report has important reflections on respect, security and fulfilment, too. There are clear messages about needing to value more than just the financial metrics of work, of needing a step change to address inequalities across our labour force, and to ensure that workers are supported to develop their skills, expertise and knowledge, while in work, as John Mason and others have already highlighted. On effective voice, the report is very clear. Things have not yet got significantly worse, but, despite Scotland's best and on-going efforts to push the envelope in terms of worker representation, Tory suppression of collective bargaining pans out in real life. The essential dimensions of fair work—effect of voice, opportunity, security, fulfilment and respect—all require workers to have agency, choice, dignity and the right to act collectively, including by taking industrial action. We cannot do that by aspiration alone. We need the right tools to create, shape and hone the structures that support fair work and wellbeing. We can do a little with encouragement and guidance, with conditionality in contracts and investment, but without access to reserved powers and legislative levers, our ability to act upon our principles is so much more difficult. Scottish trade unions recognise that reality, so why among political actors is there suddenly so much resistance? I have been around long enough to have heard it before as a member of the Smith commission, and again here just a few weeks ago during Keith Brown's debate. That inexplicable no in response to the ask for employment law to be devolved is expressed in two different ways. The Tories talk about the convenience of employers and labour about the need for that so-called flaw, somehow failing to see that the flaw is already crumbling away beneath our feet. Neither story really makes that much sense. It is quite literally the height of insularity to imagine that people right across the world don't routinely live in one jurisdiction and work in another. Within the UK, we already have substantially different employment law in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. Meanwhile, more and more people are employed by multinational corporations, which don't just cope with two employment law jurisdictions but with very many. Yes, no doubt it would be handy for some employers who don't yet recognise the shared benefits of their work to keep Scotland tied down by Westminster's anti-worker legislation, but that's only because the Westminster laws are aggressive, not because of corporate systems that thrive on jurisdictional complexity or somehow collapse if things are slightly different in Dundee and Derby. The way to avoid a race to the bottom is to turn around and start racing, or at least climbing towards the top. To give up resisting at all, clinging to the biggest bully as he drags you down really doesn't help. You might squeal, this wasn't my idea as you fall, but the bottom is still where you end up. That is not where the Scottish people want to be. Whether they vote green or Labour, SNP or Lib Dem, they want robust and realised workers' rights, even the Scottish Tories, and I mean this as a compliment, are refreshingly wet in comparison to their Westminster counterparts on this issue. We want fair work, we want a wellbeing economy, we have a remarkable degree of consensus about the kind of country we want to be, and it isn't a hollowed-out, homogenous land of silent streets and silenced unions. To create something different is to challenge the inevitability of that future, to show both what is possible and how we can reach it. We won't refuse the tools to create it on the off chance that Sir Keir discovers his conscience after winning an election, but we need those tools now, and we need to use them now. I apologise to the chamber and the cabinet secretary for missing a chunk of his speech on late arrival to the chamber. I was facilitating a meeting with the minister for public health and mothers of premature babies who were putting forward powerful contributions towards her, and I felt that I couldn't curtail that discussion, and I hope that the chamber understands that. Earlier today, as well, the social justice and social security committee started taking evidence on my bill that would establish Scotland's employment injuries advisory council. That would put workers at the heart of our new injury benefit, and that council could be an expert panel for those who know their workplaces and the dangers they face best. It's key to embedding fair work principles in our social security system. It's key that it's something that we should be doing with our powers that this Parliament already has. Delivering on that shared ambition, too, as the Government motion says, makes Scotland a fair work nation but has not yet happened. The fair work convention and its support of the bill agrees that it would ensure that the principles of fair work, including effective voice, are underpinned in the delivery of this new benefit. Although the DWP is still delivering the benefit and it hasn't kept pace with the world that we now live in, the convention went on to say that, at its most basic, the benefit recognises the health, safety and wellbeing of others in the workplaces and aligns with the fair work principle of respect. Given workers their effective voice, given them that role in the new benefit, it's why the bill is backed by the STUC, 16 trade unions, as well as a range of organisations, including Close the Gap, Action on Asbestos, Scottish Hazards and Long Covid Scotland. The key workers with long Covid are care workers who are wrestling with back and joint problems, fire fighters who are more likely to get cancer from toxic contaminants and women workers who are outright ignored by the current UK benefit. They all want answers about how Scotland's new industrial injuries benefit can help them but I have no voice in the current process, no seat at the table in what government says it's setting up. It's one area where this government could be using powers now to extend our ambitions to be a fair work nation. It's one of the final pieces of the jigsaw that is required to fully establish Scotland's new social security system. Earlier in the week, the social justice cabinet secretary confirmed that not enough progress has been made on delivering that system. The committee had asked for a timescale but didn't get it. Timing appears and the need for yet more consultation is the key reason that the Government says it will vote down a bill that would secure effective voice for Scotland's workers. Truth be told, though, current stock responses contemplating asking whether a council is needed at all, I don't think for a second the cabinet secretary or the Government would try and create a workers' benefit without giving them a seat at that table nor do I believe that the Government would contemplate that it would possibly be the right solution to leave that task to a UK council with no Scottish voices and which this Government is now not allowed to ask information from. I think that the fact is that the Government has left to last the benefit it considers the most complex. The promises of consultations have been in gone and still workers are no wiser of when they will get their effective voice, when they will get their seat at the table. The Government is short of an opinion of whether there should be a council at all, but Government organisations, Government-established organisations, the fair work convention, the disability and carers benefits expert advisory group, my consultation, the committee's call for view, all concluded that there absolutely should be one. The Government's own consultation, which led to the recently introduced social security amendment Bill, said that there was a preference for splitting off advice and scrutiny, and its own independent review of Scots said that it is very clear that it would not be appropriate for them to have an advisory role. I want to say that there is a risk that this Government runs out of time to include workers, given workers their effective voice, giving them their place round a table in this benefit from the very outset. In its own legal agreement with the UK Government, the Scottish Government has agreed that it will deliver both a business transition and case transfer plan a year ahead of the contract running out, a year ahead of the agency agreements coming to an end. Given that ministers now have just short of 17 months to set out something that they have in five years failed to do, the Government should absolutely urgently set out to workers how they will be embedded in the design, the advice and scrutiny of the new injury benefit to embed their voice. Industrial injuries benefit was built on the backs of workers lost, injured and disabled before us. This Parliament absolutely owes it to them that workers injured or made ill at work can continue to turn to a no-blame social security scheme and have an effective voice in shaping its future. I am pleased for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, and I will support the amendment in the name of my colleague Murdo Fraser. Today's Government motion speaks about how the UK Government's approach to workers' works against ambitions to make Scotland a fair work nation. In its opening comments, the cabinet secretary tried to paint a picture of a UK Government that could not care less about fair work. That is not the first time that SNP Government has used valuable debate time to create constitutional grievance, but the truth of the matter is somewhat different. Not only is fair work a priority for the UK Government, but it is fair to say that the UK has one of the best records on workers' rights in the world. The UK already has a minimum wage higher. I would like to make some progress, thank you. The UK already has a minimum wage higher than in most EU member states, with this having increased to £10.42 in April, and those aged over 23. Now that the chancellor has announced that, from next April, the minimum wage will be increased to two thirds of the average earnings. That is in line with recommendations from the low-pay commission and is a move that will see a pay increase of over £1,000 per year for over 2 million low-paid workers, including over 180,000 workers in Scotland. I find it interesting that, despite the Scottish Government's willingness to talk about fair work, it cannot at least bring themselves to welcome that increase. I would like to make some progress, thank you. Nor should we forget that the UK has 52 weeks of statutory maternity leave, or which up to 39 weeks can be taken as paid leave. That is nearly three times the EU equivalent. Fair work is not a finished project, and the UK Government is continuing to do more in that area. The maximum fine for employers who mistreat workers has been quadrupled. The recommendations from the Taylor review of modern working practices are continuing to be implemented. Far from working against the Scottish Government's ambitions in this area, Scotland's place in the UK provides a fantastic starting point for Scotland as a fair work nation. However, as our amendments set out, progress on fair work depends on the Scottish Government's changing direction on the issue and on the effect of pro-market policies to improve job prospects across Scotland. Our amendments highlight that the Scottish Government's record in this area is one of a sluggish growth and a lack of competitiveness. For example, the Scottish wage growth has fallen compared to the rest of the UK. The Scottish businesses are also struggling with just 9 per cent of companies in Scotland believing that the SNP understands business. One in six shops in Scotland is lying empty, which is a higher rate than the UK average. What all shows is that there is plenty more that the Scottish Government could be doing on the issue. The SNP's strategy of repeatedly attacking the UK Government on workers' rights and the economy is nothing more than a deflection tactic. Instead of deflection, it is time for action from the SNP Government. As we speak about it in our grasping the thistle paper, this action should include measures such as developing new-skill strategy with an emphasis on colleges, apprenticeships and lifelong learning. That would allow the Government to deliver a national workforce plan to ensure that our labour market has the skills that businesses and employers will need in the coming years. However, that also must mean for the SNP Government putting some of its recent talk into action and ensuring that the long-term growth is a key economic priority of this Government. I am quite happy to share the report in grasping the thistle paper that provides real economic growth and real actions that will make a difference out there in Scotland. I am quite happy to share the report with the SNP Government. The UK already has one of the best packages of workers' rights in the world. The UK Government is continuing to do its part to ensure that the principle of fair work can go alongside a competitive, flexible labour market. Meanwhile, the SNP Government is failing to acknowledge its own failures in that area. Instead, it is once again trying to fight constitutional battles with today's debate. The onus now sits with the Scottish Government to use the powers at their disposal to improve productivity and employment levels in Scotland and work constructively with the UK Government to achieve an effective fair work approach for both employees and the economy, to allow Scotland to continue to be one of the best places in the world to live and work. I refer members to my register of interests. I am a member of unison. I welcome the opportunity to once again discuss fair work in a wellbeing economy in this place. I will start off by saying that the picture that Ms Gossel has just painted is not what workers and trade unions in Scotland in the UK see from the Tory UK Government. There is no improvement in fair work here. In fact, Tory crackdowns on worker protections and the rights of unions have seen the UK's global rating on workers' rights fall and fall dramatically over the peace. With draconian legislation, such as the EU retained law bill and the anti-strike bill passed through the UK Parliament earlier this year, it is very clear that protecting workers' rights is not on the Tory agenda and that it is more important than ever that we fight them on this issue. I will take Mr Johnson. I will sneak in while we can still rescue some consensus. I am guessing that something might be coming down line, but would you equally condemn the minimum service levels that have just been introduced, which are in effect depriving people of their ability to withdraw their labour? I could condemn every single aspect of this that the Tory Government has put forward, and that is why I think that it is very bizarre that any Conservative member would stand here today and say that the UK was a fair work nation because it certainly is not and it is moving backwards. Many things have been discussed today. I want to discuss an important issue that has been overlooked, and it is not in the Labour amendment that covers a lot of all of this. That is about young workers. Labour quotes the TUC in its amendment, but in the TUC's words, young workers are most likely to be in insecure work in low-paid jobs and without opportunities to progress at work than any other age group. That is backed by Unison, who says that young people experience age discrimination by being belittled, passed over for jobs or being paid poor wages just because they are young. It is not just the trade unions. According to a report in the London School of Economics business review, younger employees can be perceived as lazy, less reliable, less conscientious, less organised, selfish and poorly motivated simply because of their age, none of which is true. As a result, young people can be overlooked for training opportunities, increases in responsibility and promotions. That results in younger workers receiving lower pay and benefits relative to similarly experienced older workers, and they are more at risk of being laid off during a downturn. Of course, where one discrimination starts, others follow soon after. The discrimination of marginalised groups starts as soon as young people join the workforce. Two thirds of young women have experienced sexual harassment at work, and nearly six in 10 ethnic minority young workers have experienced racism at work. With employment law in the control of this Parliament, we can strengthen protections against discrimination to ensure that young workers are treated fairly in the workplace. I hope that Labour supports the view of equal pay for equal work, but British employment law enshrines the exact opposite, and the Labour amendment does not bother mentioning it. The national minimum wage is tapered against young workers, while it is £10.42 at the moment for the over-23s. It goes down to £10.18 for 21-year-olds, £7.49 for 18-year-olds and £5.28 for 17-year-olds. It is often argued that young people deserve poorer wages as they get training on the job, but there is nothing to ensure that that happens. The reality is that many young workers are employed to do work that requires little or no additional training and experience, and British employment law is used as an excuse to pay them less simply because they are young. With the powers in the hands of this Parliament, we can ensure that young workers receive either the full living wage of quality career-improving on the job training to make the difference that is required. Today's young workers are tomorrow's entrepreneurs, they are tomorrow's industry leaders and they are the backbone of Scotland's future prosperity. By helping to facilitate their future growth and development by improving on the job vocational training programmes to provide young workers with valuable skills and experience, increasing their employability and earning potential, making it easier for young workers to take time off for training and education without fear of being penalised. We can do that all if employment law is devolved to this Parliament. We have heard great things in this debate and others from Labour about what they intend to do in government, but we have seen a lot of Labour flit-flopping of late. We have seen the Labour Party in a guddle because of the flit-flopping that there has been. The reason why Labour has a problem with employment law being devolved to Scotland is becoming clearer by the day. Quite simply, if Scotland were to improve workers' rights and deliver fair work for all, Labour and London would have to follow suit, and that would require Keir Starmer to find a socialist soul, and it is getting clearer by the day. We move to winding up speeches, and I call on Daniel Johnson up to six minutes, please. Let's begin with a bit of a reflection. Fair work is a really important topic, but let's not pretend that it's simple to deliver. It's not just a moment, cabinet secretary, and, if you want to intervene, you'll have plenty of opportunities to do it, but let's not pretend that it's simple or that employment law is a single magic bullet to deliver it. Let's be very clear that there's a broad range of macro and microeconomic policies that you need to deliver, but unfortunately we've not really heard much about that. We've not heard much about employability, not much about education and skills, not much about removing zero-hours contracts as a definition of a positive destination. There are lots of things that we could have done, but what we've focused on is devolution of employment law, because it seems to me, and listening to many of the speakers, indeed the last one, the SNP are much more interested in attacking the Labour Party than they are about making progress on this important matter. Let's be very clear about what our amendment does and does not do. The operative words are leave out, not leave out to end. We don't remove devolution of employment law, we simply insert what we propose to do within 100 working days to bring forward legislation to enhance employment law, because, as Maggie Chapman rightly pointed out, we have seen a crumbling floor under the Conservatives, and what the new deal for working people was to repair that floor and set out a framework within which devolution of employment law can occur. I believe that there was someone wanting to intervene. I hear what you're saying about the various subjects that haven't been discussed in this debate today, but is he not the thing that his arguments might carry a bit more weight if there were more Labour members here actually to discuss fair work and workers rights, rather than the three that have been in the chamber this afternoon? They're all listening intently online, and, as every member knows, this is a hybrid chamber. I look very critically at what we have heard as acknowledgement that a floor would be useful for Ivan McKee. If John Mason said that we would need to be careful of divergence, that is precisely why you need to be very careful. You said that you can't just do it instantaneously. You would want to create a framework, which is exactly what I would ask SNP members if they think that devolution is important of employment law. If they think that we would need to take care of it, why would you vote against our amendment? Why would you vote against our amendment that would improve workers rights, not just here in Scotland, but across the UK? I think that, when it's with us first, it's just a moment. Critically, I would ask this. Ivan McKee begged the question of why we thought a Labour Government might be able to take power. I know that we can't rely on opinion polls, but there's at least a suggestion that it's possible. If it's not going to be the Labour Party that legislates to devolve employment law, who would it be? I don't see the Tories doing it any time soon. There is a very simple choice. Do you want to vote for a Labour Government that will bring this forward in 100 working days to improve workers' rights or vote for another Conservative Government? That's the choice facing people at the next election. I'm happy to give way to Liz Smith. John Mason, who is usually very assiduous in his analysis of what business wants, has he done any analysis whatsoever on how many businesses in Scotland actually want the devolution of those employment laws, because I can't find very many. What I would say to Liz Smith is this, and a reflection on another point of the debate, is that we need to actually understand that improving employment practice, improving fair work is something that you need to do in conjunction with business. Absolutely, bringing forward those proposals would require that sort of interrogation, because I think that we had a very interesting dialogue between the SNP and the Conservative Front Benches, between Neil Gray and Murdo Fraser, where we seem to have a very artificial binary choice presented, whether it was between fair work or a new deal for business. I genuinely reflect that as a former—I'm not offering this—a genuine reflection. As somebody who's been through the steps of introducing the real living wage, it is not straightforward. It took us three years in our business to deliver it and implement it. It took careful planning. It's not a question of brow-beating or telling people to do it. Actually, if the Scottish Government was really serious about it, it would look about how it could provide the assistance to enable businesses to go down this. I don't think that it's either or. I'll just come to the cabinet secretary in a moment. I would also say to the Conservatives that most businesses want to do the right thing. They want to do right by their people. They want to ensure that they're paid well for the valuable work that they do. I think that the reality is that somewhere in the middle, we need assistance towards fair work and recognising that businesses want to do it. I challenge Daniel Johnson's assertion that I suggested in any way that you either get economic growth or social progress, because the two have to happen in tandem when you're a good society and a good economy. The two are mutually dependent. In response to that and to agree with him around the challenge that there is, particularly in the UK cost crisis around businesses choosing to invest in their people, I asked him to applaud the efforts that have been made by the Scottish Government investing in the poverty alliance, the real living wage campaign that has seen five times the proportion of employers in Scotland paying the real living wage because of the work that we have done. Ninety-one per cent of employees over the age of 18 receiving the real living wage is a success, is it not? In conclusion, Mr Johnson. Of course I applaud that because I was one of those employers before I entered this place. But look, there is a very simple choice. The last Labour Government introduced the minimum wage, enhanced trade union recognition rights, introduced the equality act. The next Labour Government will get rid of zero hours contracts, will ban fire and rehire, give day one rights of employment, and that is the choice facing the Government between more of the same or a Labour Government that will actually make a difference for fair work and workers rights. Thank you very much. Thank you, and I call on Brian Whittle. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I rise to close this debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. A debate that was first muted filled me with so much hope. Hope that we would finally see a Scottish Government who are prepared to accept the poor record of supporting Scottish business and begin to repair that relationship. A Scottish Government finally prepared to accept that economic growth was, in fact, important in delivering a capital to support our public services, especially in the light of the fact that, since 2014, economic growth has lagged behind the rest of the UK. As highlighted by my colleague Murdo Fraser, had Scotland's economy just matched the rest of the UK, the Scottish budget would have benefited to the tune of £7 billion. That hope was dashed on the rocks of the Scottish Government grievance, and we will get a wee bit of progress. Murdo Fraser went on to say that this Scottish Government debate has followed every other Scottish Government debate, and there is no subject that the SNP are willing to take any responsibility for. There is no subject that the SNP are not prepared to twist into a constitutional grievance. In the obsessive drive for divergence from any UK policy, it seems that the SNP care not about the impact on the ground for our businesses and our workforce, be that higher taxation or different, more restrictive employment law. As Murdo Fraser pointed out, the SNP have gone along lending a deaf ear to major Scottish industry bodies such as the retail consortium or the CBI when they were warned by the Scottish Government about the harm such divergence places on Scottish business. No, Presiding Officer, there is no price the Scottish Government will pay, no Scottish business, no amount of potential Scottish revenue, they won't sacrifice at the feet of the constitutional altar. Of course, I will, Cabinet Secretary. I have two of Brian Whittle's assertions that he challenged. The first is by very opening paragraph said, our vision for a wellbeing economy is one which supports fair green economic growth. The very first line that I talked about, I spoke about the importance of economic growth. The second is somehow that business does not want to see fair work progress when we have in Scotland five times the number of employers proportionately paying the real living wage. They want to see fair work and they are implementing it. Why can't he accept that? Brian Whittle. I thank the cabinet secretary for that intervention because it allows me once again to highlight to him how many of those businesses want devolment of the long walk. Exactly. Exactly. Because there is no recognition from the cabinet secretary that the higher inequality and lower productivity in Scotland's economy that the cabinet secretary talks about in the Government motion rests squarely at the feet of a tired one-trick pony of an SNP-green government that has no understanding of the real world of business. Sixteen years of the SNP with their delusions of adequacy has left Scotland's business community in no doubt that their needs have been a distant afterthought in the SNP world of constitutional grievance. I would like to highlight what I thought was an excellent speech from my colleague Liz Smith, where she took the opportunity of examining where we should be going when we discuss fair work linked to the wellbeing economy. If we had followed that suit, we could be discussing what we could be discussing is the drag on the economy that is the result of economic inactivity, especially with the greater proportion of Scotland's inactivity being a tribute tool to a persistent poor health record. Can I just finish this point? I'll give way. A health record that now sees the cost of obesity to Scotland's economy rising to £5 billion, poor mental health now stands at £4.5 billion and diabetes and related conditions costing 10 per cent of the NHS budget. Not to mention her frightening levels of drug and alcohol abuse. Liz Smith eloquently stated that the pursuit of wellbeing is dependent upon the delivery of economic growth, something that the SNP's partners in government, the Greens, do not believe in. She went on to say that the wellbeing depends on her success on creating growth, on improving productivity and on widening the tax base, hitting a very big nail with a very big hammer. We need sustained economic growth to pay for the efforts to tackle that increasing inequality of opportunity and create the reality of a wellbeing economy for Scotland. In that vein, I would reiterate the economic inactivity in Scotland and the concerning proportion of Scotland's inactivity attributable to health problems, some of which I have already mentioned. That includes an increase in flows into early retirement because of that poor health record. I'll give way to the member. Bob Doris. I thank Ryan Whittle for giving way. You mentioned economic inactivity. A lot, 40 per cent of people of universal credit are part-time workers and still claim universal credit. Do you think that it's part of the fair work agenda for the UK Government to sanction for the people who are in work? That's what the UK Government is doing right now. It's part of the fair work agenda. Do you think that sanctions for those in work on universal credit should end? I certainly do. Ryan Whittle. I'm sorry, but I don't recognise what the member has described there. I've just recently put this work with the DWP and it's doing phenomenal work around universal credit and making sure that the uptake in universal credit is correct. Also, if you're talking about part-time work, it's really important that your salary is augmented by universal credit. I don't see where the problem is in that. I have a lot of time left. I've always said that education was the solution to health and welfare. If the Scottish Government would actually tackle the crisis in our healthcare from a preventative perspective, it would allow that to decrease in the need to spend in preventable conditions to be reinvested in other areas of the healthcare that we so desperately need. The starting point for this is investment in our education system, where there are so many interventions that could be made that would directly tackle poor health and inequality outcomes, inequalities that will probably currently follow a person throughout their life. Invest in our education system, increase access to opportunity, linking education to the huge potential that the green economy can bring to Scotland, give pupils access to a much broader education that includes physical activity and sport for all, as well as music, art, drama and outdoor learning. That kind of approach fosters confidence, resilience and aspiration. The inevitable outcomes are improved attainment, which in turn feeds economic growth. Those are just a few examples of how spending on one page of a ledger means reducing the need to spend on another. Unfortunately, SNP Greens do not seem capable of joining up policy dots and cannot think beyond the one and only obsession until we have a Government that actually considers the economy outwith this extremely narrow bandwidth of constitution. Scotland's economy will continue to suffer. I wonder how long the SNP Greens' Scottish Government can go on dodging responsibility for the mess that they have created and I suspect that it is dawning too many that that time has already passed. I urge the chamber to support the amendment in the name of Murdo Fraser. Thank you and I call on Jamie Hepburn to wind up if you can take us to 5 p.m. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I begin by welcoming the fact that we have had this debate of nothing else? What it has done is offer us clarity on who stands where, on the question of where, responsibility and power for creating a fair work society through employment law should reside. I want to take each amendment in turn. I want to start with Mr Fraser's amendment, which we might have traditionally called a wrecking amendment. That is supposed to be a debate focused on how we can create a fair work nation and much in the vein of his and other Conservative members' contributions. There is only a cursory reference to fair work in his amendment. Let's look at the amendment and it also refers to grasping the thistle. We have been implored. Mr Hoy says that I should read it. I will come to that. We were implored to read grasping the thistle. I want to first of all give reassurance that no great government expense has been spent on securing the glossy copy that Pan Gosol. We have got a print out here. I have in fact read grasping the thistle. Let's turn to grasping the thistle. Let's hear the minister. The first thing I should say is that it has a very nice picture of Mr Fraser leaning casually against a fence with a countryside in the background. What I can say is that the fence takes a wonderful picture. What I would say about grasping the thistle is that there is some of it that is not objectionable in its own right. It talks about parity of esteem between apprenticeships and tertiary education. No problem with that. It talks about the need for a repopulation strategy. This government has a population task force. I have noticed that grasping the thistle is just to re-emphasise. I have in fact looked at it, Mr Hoy, and I have noticed that it talks about the need to incentivise international migration, which is why we look forward to next week's debate on the ban's paper on migration in the province of Scotland, the debate that the Conservatives do not want to happen. However, I have to say that the rest of it seems to be—I am surprised because it is Mr Fraser's document straight out of the Milton Friedman School of Thought. That was characterised by his use of the term. We are talking about how we might use employment law in the sense of being restrictive. I thought that that was telling because he really means by that that he does not want to see employment law used in a fashion to support people in the labour market. Let us look at where the labour market is currently in the righted kingdom. Right now, with its relatively deregulated labour market, we have not seen that lead to higher wages. We have not seen that lead to greater levels of worker retention. We have not seen that lead to higher levels of productivity. Rather, what it sees is a high proportion of low-wage jobs, a high level of income inequality, a high gender wage gap, although improving here in Scotland more than it is in the rest of the United Kingdom, and a high economic insecurity. I thought that John Mason was quite right to make those points. Similarly, Kevin Stewart also alluded to this. As was reported in June, the international trade union confederation's annual report on worker rights reported that the UK has dropped from a rating of three countries where it considers to be a regular violation of rights to four, where the confederation says that there are systemic violations. To put that in context, that means that the UK now ranks alongside Qatar, where we saw all those concerns expressed about the manner in which workers were treated in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup. The UK is ranked at the same as Qatar, so that is the great record that Pam Gosel speaks of, and that is the reality of the UK in 2023. I turn again to the elements that could be viewed to be reasonable on the face of it. The rest of it was talking about sacking public workers following Liz Truss and quasi-quarting, and the race to the bottom of the tax cutting agenda. However, we have seen how well that has landed in terms of where the UK economy is with inflation through it. If there is any doubt about it, let me say that we will not be supporting Mr Fraser's amendment this evening. Of course I will give way. First of all, I am delighted that the minister is taking such a close interest in grasping with this all, and I look forward to discussing that with him further. On the question of public sector workers, has he completely forgotten what Kate Forbes said when she was finance secretary, evidence that she came and gave to the finance committee and others, saying that the head count of the public sector in Scotland had to be reduced? Does he not accept that that is the case? Of course that is in the context of the reality of having to deal with austerity measures that are reducing the amount of resource available for the deployment of public funds. The difference is that Mr Fraser wants to see it as a key economic objective, as a key economic driver, as set out in grasping with this all. Let me reassure Mr Fraser that I have given it some attention, but I do not endorse grasping with this all for the launch of now. Let me turn to the other amendment that is before us in the name of Mr Johnson. I have to say that Mr Fraser, who I have never taken for a cynic before, has suggested or seems to be suggested that the purpose of this debate was to embarrass the Labour Party. I have to say that it does not take these benches to embarrass the Labour Party. If you look at the amendment that the Labour Party has laid before us today, that is the source of embarrassment for the Labour Party. We look back at the time of the Smith commission. It was an opportunity for us to secure additional powers for the Scottish Parliament. It was the opportunity to see the devolution of employment law and the Labour Party opposed it. I was delighted then when, seemingly, the Labour Party changed position and said that it wanted to see the devolution of employment law through this place. Better the sinner, repentive, Presiding Officer. However, as we head in to the United Kingdom general election, let us consider what the Labour Party is saying about the devolution of employment law. Claire Hawke already referred to the comments of Angela Rainer when she has given an indication that she does not support the devolution. We have seen Ian Murray, the man who would be Secretary of State for Scotland, asked by the daily record of who is persuaded that a Labour Government should evolve more power to Holyrood. He said, not personally, no. Those are the individuals that those benches would have us trust to deliver the devolution of employment law to this place. They are saying that they will not do it. I will give way to Mr Johnson. I am very grateful. I just know that he has done everything but to look at what our amendment actually does, which is to say that we will legislate and then seek to devolve employment law. It is really that simple. What is the problem that the minister has? I have to say that Mr Johnson is an earlier in responding to an intervention. He thought he would set the record straight. I think that he needs to listen to himself because he should read his amendment. He does not say that the Labour Party will devolve those powers. It is meager. It is tepid. It is insipid. It says that the UK Government should explore the devolution of employment law. Not that it will devolve employment law in stark contrast to the position of the Scottish Trade Union Congress that supports the devolution of employment law. In stark contrast to the position of the UK-wide Trade Union Congress that surely believes in improving employees' rights across the UK that can still support the devolution of employment law. I will give way one more time. Daniel Johnson. Amwti acknowledged that the TUC, when it did that, said that that would be subject to a UK floor. Noting that, at that debate, the United States said that the SNP could not be trusted with workers' rights. Would he acknowledge those points from the TUC debate? Let me say that I have no problem with this concern. I support independence for this country. I think that that is a way that we can guarantee people's rights in Scotland. I understand that the Labour Party does not support that, but at a minimum I would expect them to support the devolution of employment law. If that came with some floor, of course we would have to look at that and consider it. I am quite relaxed about that prospect, but, again, that is not what Mr Johnson's statement says. It says that it should be explored. That, frankly, is not good enough. There was a question raised, and I think that, to be fair, it is a legitimate question to raise in terms of what we are doing with the limited powers that we have to try and create a fair work nation. I am pleased to say that the Government is doing plenty. If you look at our promotion of the real living wage, not the Tory contract living wage, the real living wage being celebrated this living wage week, we support the accreditation scheme for the real living wage, which has seen five times the level of businesses accredited in Scotland by comparison to the rest of the UK, which sees Scotland the best performing of all four UK nations in terms of the proportion of the workforce paid the real living wage. We are supporting the living hours accreditation scheme to try to make sure that employers provide a guaranteed minimum of 16 hours a week. We are putting in place fair work first, which has seen the application of some £4 billion worth of public sector funding since 2019 to implement fair work in our labour market. That is what we can do with the powers that we have in our hands, but we are working against a system where we have a UK Government that is putting in place something pulling in the opposite direction, inadequate enforcement of minimum employment standards, the introduction of the trade union act, plans to introduce fees for employment tribunals, and most recently the Strikes minimum services levels act. We can do better than that with the devolution of employment law to this place, not just for this Government to administer but for this whole Parliament to legislate for. Surely that is something that we can get behind. We should vote to the motion in the name of Neil Gray. That concludes the debate on fair work in a wellbeing economy. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, and there are three questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is the amendment 11161.2, in the name of Murdo Fraser, which seeks to amend motion 11161 in the name of Neil Gray. On fair work in a wellbeing economy, the agreed, are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore, will move to vote, and there will be a short suspension until our members to access digital voting.