 I must to send anton and alert to everyone. It is a debate on motion 11160 in the name of Jamie Hepburn on building greater fairness in the workplace. I invite all members who wish to speak in this debate to press their requests to the speaker now. I call Jamie Hepburn to speak to and move the motion. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Let me move the motion in my name at the I'm very pleased to be able to bring this debate on fair work to the chamber today, as it helps to underline the importance that this government places on building greater fairness in the workplace and indeed across society. It provides an opportunity to highlight the key role that fair work can play in our economy as a new way of creating value. Scotland's economy remains resilient and our labour market is strong with high employment and low unemployment. However, we know that for too many, their experience of work is not always positive. Unfair work does not negatively impact just on the individuals affected. It impacts negatively on our productivity and our ability to deliver sustainable economic growth at a national level. In Scotland, we have prioritised inclusive growth as a pillar of our economic strategy. We will have an even more productive and competitive economy if we have a fairer society underpinned by a more inclusive labour market. Dean Lockhart mentioned inclusive growth, which is a central plank of the Government's economic strategy. Does he have a definition of inclusive growth that he could share with the chamber? The first element of growth is ensuring that the economy is self-growing. Thereafter, it is about how that growth is shared among the wider population. By ensuring that, for example, more people are paid the living wage—the real living wage, not the Tory contract—it would be one obvious measurement. It is about ensuring that we have greater diversity of participation in our labour market. That is what I mean by inclusive economic growth. Indeed, our labour market strategy sets out actions to ensure that every person, regardless of background, has the opportunity to access quality education training and support into employment. However, it does not finish there. For some, having a job does not provide a route to out of poverty. Low pay, precarious employment, with fewer rights and less security, result in workers being unable to plan for the future with confidence, even in basic necessities such as meeting housing costs, paying their bills or clothing their children. I wonder if the minister would then look at the Scottish Government's definition of positive destinations for young people and that those should not include things such as zero-hours contracts? Ms Smith would be able to speak to her colleague Joanna Lamont, who made that point to me from the Education Skills Committee. Last week, I have committed to looking at that matter. She asked me in a very reasonable fashion to say that she did herself concede and asked me that question. It may not be possible, but we are looking at it and we will see if it is possible to see how we measure outcomes. We are looking at that matter and are now happy to report back to the chamber on that work. We have also established the Fair Work Convention. We share that convention vision about 2025. People in Scotland will have a world-leading working life. Those are aims that I believe will surely unite us all in this chamber. In many ways, I believe that it presents for Scotland as a head of the curve in terms of fair work, a key indicator of any employer's fair work commitments payment of the real living wage. We were the first Government in the UK to become an accredited living wage employer. Scotland is the best performing of all four UK countries in terms of both the proportion of the workforce paid at least the living wage and also in terms of the number of accredited living wage employers we have here in Scotland. Fair Work practice has helped to deliver real and sustainable business success. Evidence shows that adopting fair work practice is good for business, increasing competitiveness, enhancing reputation with customers and reducing absenteeism, improving retention and fostering productivity. I am just going to test how much time I have to contribute. Not a lot, because we started late and you only had 10 minutes. No, I am afraid not to, minister. I do apologise. It was referring to the Scottish Business Pledge, which celebrates companies that commit to fair work values and those who recognise the benefits of doing so. Numbers are growing steadily. I am very pleased to be able to tell the chamber that we now have 450 businesses who have adopted the pledge with M-squared, a laser technology company based in Glasgow, the 450th signatory. I do believe that there is cross-party support for the elements of the business pledge and I have shared ambition in this chamber to significantly increase the number of businesses that actively champion fair work and inclusive growth, but I also believe that with the business pledge we can do more. Today, I am announcing a short review of the business pledge, focused on securing greater business buy-in and impact. Over the summer, we will work with the current pledge companies, the main business organisations or business support partners and the wider business community to explore barriers to making commitment to the business pledge and indeed ways the pledge might evolve. We want to boost buy-in and impact but let me be very clear that fair work is at the heart of the business pledge and that will not change. Fair work is to mean anything, and it must mean that everyone in society has the equality of opportunity when it comes to earning a living and pursuing their preferred career. For many people, achieving that ambition remains elusive. We are taking steps to address workforce inequalities. We have launched the Workplace Equality Fund in February. It is worth £500,000 to deliver employer-led innovative solutions to overcome workforce inequality. The Minister for Social Security launched a fairer Scotland for disabled people last year. Disabled people make up around 20 per cent of the working-age population but are half as likely to be in work as those who do not have a disability. We are therefore committed to reducing the disability employment gap by at least half. The plan's implementation is under way with achievements already including the creation of a new independent living fund scheme for young disabled people aged between 16 and 21. We are launching a second phase of the NHS Disabled Graduate Interim programme and enhancing modern apprenticeship training contribution rates for disabled people and those with experience of care up to the age of 29. However, we know that we must do more if we are to half the disability employment gap and in April the First Minister will set a further step towards our target at a major congress in disability employment and the workplace. We also cannot allow completely outdated and false perceptions and practices on race to continue to impact negatively on the opportunities of Scotland's minority ethnic population. The race equality action plan, published in December, details key actions to drive a positive change, including working with key stakeholders to agree baselines, measures and targets for ethnic minority communities who face disadvantage in the labour market. Just as we have shown our determination to tackle racism, we are equally determined to reduce gender inequality and improve the position of women in the workplace. While our full-time gender pay gap remains below the UK, we cannot afford anything other than the acceleration of progress in terms of how we approach gender in the workplace. Working with the Quality and Human Rights Commission to tackle workplace pregnancy and maternity discrimination, we have established the pregnancy and maternity discrimination working group. Amongst its work has been to strengthen the availability of guidance to pregnant women, new mothers and employers about rights and responsibilities within the workplace. We are investing in the returners programme, which is assisting women to re-enter the workforce, allowing a career break, as it addresses the underrepresentation of women in the STEM, finance and manufacturing sectors. We are working with close the gap in others to consider how we can further tackle the gender pay gap. There is significant progress in the number of fronts, but there are challenges still ahead of us. The use of exploitative zero hours contracts and precarious work that we have in nearly one-fifth of workers in Scotland is still paid below the real living wage and a UK Government that pays lip service to the protection of worker rights and attacks trade unions. We believe that every worker should have the right to an effective voice in the workplace and to union representation. We see trade unions as social partners and a huge asset for our country. That is why we opposed the UK Government's trade union act. In 2016, we introduced the trade union fair work and modernisation fund to promote better working practices and offset the burden of the trade union act. I am delighted to announce that we will provide third-year funding of £250,000 in 2018-19 to support the trade unions work to extend the concept and understanding of fair working sectors where precarious work is prevalent. We will also provide £100,000 to the STUC's fair work leadership and equality programme to develop leadership capacity within trade unions where we will have training to those from underrepresented groups. We must build on the significant progress that we are making to deliver greater fairness in the workplace. The cabinet secretary will therefore develop and publish a fair work action plan before the end of the year. The plan will set out how the Scottish Government will utilise all its strategic levers to promote and embed fair working practices, realising greater inclusive growth. Delivering a fair work nation is not just a challenge for government, it is a challenge to businesses, trade unions, the public sector, employers, workers and politicians to work together to lead culture of change necessary to achieve this progressive vision. As part of the development of the Scottish Government action plan, we are looking at public funding and how it can better support businesses that demonstrate fair work practices. I am clear that the Scottish Government must show leadership, but I am also clear that each of us elected department must play his or her role too. We will also host a fair work summit with a view to ensuring that we draw in the widest range of expertise. That invitation will be extended to each party represented in this chamber to develop the collaborative delivery of the fair work vision. We may not agree on every step that we must take, but let us agree to take this journey together. In that note, I commend the motion in my name to Parliament. Dean Lockhart will be full by Jackie Baillie. The debate gives us a good opportunity to recognise the importance of fair work in society and to look at how we can achieve greater fairness in the workplace. The Taylor review and the fair work convention have each emphasised the increasing importance of fair work for individuals, for businesses and for society as a whole. They have also emphasised that quality of work sometimes is more important than the quantity of work, although it was nonetheless encouraging to see figures released yesterday showing that employment levels across the UK are at the highest levels for 40 years. As the minister indicated in his opening statement, there is broad consensus across the chamber on the importance of fair work, as indicated in the motion lodged today. Probably less so on how we deliver fair work. Our view is that the promotion of greater fairness in the workplace needs to be underpinned by legislation protecting workers rights, but it needs more than that. As the Taylor review states, for most people, the benefits of work go well beyond the minimum established in law. National policy cannot mandate best practice. We agree with that. Let me deal first with the role of legislation and then the role of best practice in promoting fair work. In terms of legislation, the UK Government has introduced some of the most significant improvements in workers rights in decades, and in doing so has greatly increased fairness in the workplace. The trade union bill has enhanced workers rights. The trade union bill was designed to bring the relationship in the workplace up to reflect the modern day workplace and the new dynamics in the workplace. The single most important dynamic is that we are close to full employment, and economic growth and high wages across the economy is the way to deal with some of the real issues that trade unions are concerned about. I would like to make a bit of progress, but I will invite the minister in later on. Two years ago, the UK Government introduced the national living wage, giving a pay rise and a fairer wage to millions of workers and ensuring that full-time workers on that wage now earn more than £1,000 more a year. Just yesterday, the UK Government announced a 6.5 per cent increase in the pay for over 1 million NHS workers in other parts of the UK, and I look forward to the minister explaining whether or not the Scottish Government will match that pay increase. Since 2010, we have seen more than 4 million of the lowest-paid workers across the UK receiving a higher share, a fairer share of their take-home pay by being lifted out of tax altogether, giving those workers the right to keep more of their hard-earned wages. Fairness in the workplace has also been increased by the introduction of new rights for workers in a number of different areas, including increased annual leave, shared parental leave and maternity pay, with rights in those areas in the UK going far beyond the EU. As our motion today highlights, it is clear from the strong track record of the UK Government in this area in advancing workers' rights that leaving the EU will not diminish those protections. Finally, the UK Government has extended the most important, the most fundamental of all employment rights, the right to work, with the creation of more than 3 million new jobs across the UK in the past eight years. On that note, I will hand over to the minister for his question. I've heard back to the rationale, which, to be fair, Mr Lockhart was struggling to provide for the trade union act. Would he consider the fact that, through working with trade unions as partners here in Scotland, we saw a 71 per cent reduction in industrial dispute between 2007 and 2016 to suggest and inform that working with trade unions is positive practice rather than passing legislation, which is punitive and doesn't allow them to organise in the workplace? I think that the minister's description of the legislation, I wouldn't agree with it. I don't think that it's punitive at all. I think that trade unions and their individual members play a critical role in Scotland's economy, and I think that a number of the concerns that trade unions have raised have been dealt with in the Taylor review. The UK Government is taking forward 52 of the 53 recommendations of the Taylor review, and I think that a number of the concerns that you have raised will be dealt with that being taken forward. To build on the success and further advance fairness in the workplace, the UK Government has announced a good work programme, and, as I've just mentioned, has committed to act on all but one of the 53 recommendations of the Taylor review. The good work plan will position the UK at the forefront internationally in addressing the challenges and the opportunities of modern working practice. In addition to legislative and regulatory protections to build greater fairness in the workplace, the Taylor report highlights the importance of best practice. The economy committee in the gender pay gap report highlighted when it looked at the importance of returning programmes where some companies have been able to retain a high percentage, sometimes above 95 per cent, of senior female workers after a career break, showing the positive impact of best practice. We need more. Building greater fairness in the workplace needs more than legislation and best practice. That is recognised by the Scottish Government's own labour market strategy, which acknowledges the following. For Scotland to be a more successful country with opportunities for all to flourish, we need a strong economy. We need a skilled population capable of meeting the needs of employers, and we need growing competitive businesses. We agree with all of this, but the unfortunate reality is that the Scottish Government is delivering none of this. It's not good enough to set out ambitions and for the Scottish Government to talk a good game on building greater fairness in the workplace. If the Scottish Government is serious about delivering fairness, it needs to start addressing some of the hard economic realities. We have a stagnant economy, an increasing skills gap, declining education standards, inadequate training with 160,000 college places cut and not replaced. We have increasing failure rates for small businesses, and workers in Scotland have the lowest wage growth in the UK and the lowest disposable incomes, but they are paying the highest levels of income tax in the UK. Those are the hard issues that the Scottish Government needs to address if you really want to deliver fairness to the hard working people of Scotland. I move the amendment in my name. I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate, and I support the Scottish Government's aspiration to deliver fairness in the workplace. It would, of course, be even better if it practised what it preached, because it all sounds good, but in this case, the SNP rhetoric does not match reality. The issue of fair employment practice on public sector projects was something that Labour raised with the Scottish Government just last week. It would be useful to know what the Scottish Government has done since then to tackle it. The chamber will recall that I described the situation where workers on former carillion contracts at the Edinburgh Waverley extension and the Shorts, Clareland electrification projects were on bogus self-employment contracts. They had to pay employers and employees' national insurance. They were charged £100 by umbrella companies to receive their wages. They had no certainty over their employment from one week to the next. Projects funded by the Scottish Government, decisions taken by Transport Scotland, it's your money, it's your money and you can disembol all you like, but we know the truth and that's why we need a procurement review. Then there was the situation on the Aberdeen-Western peripheral route, which was rehearsed a few minutes ago, allegations of bullying and harassment, ignoring agency worker regulations. Let me ask what action has the Scottish Government taken about that? I know that you've spoken to Transport Scotland, so what action has actually been taken on these allegations? You just cannot claim to be in favour of fairness in the workplace and then do little to deliver it. Then there is the Scottish Government itself, using agency workers in some cases for five continuous years on lesser terms and conditions than civil servants doing exactly the same job. The majority of low-paid, temporary agency staff are young people and women. What have you done to stop that exploitation? It is just breathtaking hypocrisy for the SNP Government to pretend to champion fair work while engaging in some of the practices that they rightly condemn. Ms Bailey would recognise that, under the employment law set by the UK Government, agency workers can be paid less than employees in permanent contracts. She will understand and recognise that we have committed to paying all those employees as agency workers. Just a wee minute, Ms Bailey. I have to call you. You cannot just stand up. Please sit down just now. You've finished. I am always very pleased to be guided by you. Let me just say to the minister that it is his Government's decision to employ agency staff. They are temporary. For five years does not constitute temporary. It is a means of avoiding paying them the same rate and on the same terms and conditions as a civil servant. That is breathtaking hypocrisy. At the heart of the fair work convention is a recognition of the importance of employees having a voice. Excuse me a minute. You cannot have a wee debate off-camera, as it were. Just be quite while the member is speaking unless you are doing another intervention. You will get your time back by this. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It sounded just like a lot of hot air to me coming from a sedentary position. At the heart of the fair work convention is a recognition of the importance of employees having a voice and the value of trade unions. I certainly agree with that. I believe that the First Minister, on the very day that the First Minister was meeting the STUC to discuss fair work, SNP councillors at West Dunbartonshire Council launched a direct attack on trade unions by cutting facility time. The Tories talking about workers' rights is actually quite laughable after their introduction of the trade union act, but it looks like the SNP in West Dunbartonshire are trying to out-tory the Tories. They are making a joke of the minister's warm words on trade unions. I can't implore the First Minister any of them to intervene because surely this disgraceful attack on trade unionists and disrespect for workplace democracy should be stopped in its tracks. Let me make a brief mention of the university lecturer's strike. Pensions should be a basic right. Reducing people's pensions that they have contributed to all their working lives is a disgrace. It would be, I think, enormously helpful and welcome for the Scottish Government to try and bring some sense to the debate and intervene on behalf of the staff. Fair work is central to achieving inclusive growth. We know that insecure work has a negative impact. It puts stress on families and pressure on family finances. That flows through to the economy and holds back growth. The scale of the problem is significant. An estimated 274,000 Scots are in some form of insecure work. 160,000 in low-paid self-employment, 43,000 in temporary work and 71,000 still on zero-hours contracts. The majority of them are women. Little wonder, then, that the gender pay gap persists. When it comes to employment for disabled people, the gap is widening. From 2010, when the Tories came to power to now, the gap between disabled and non-disabled people in work has gone from 31 to 37 points. That demonstrates a failure to develop an inclusive economy. I would urge the SNP to take steps to cut the gap. I have already taken an intervention and I am running out of time. There are suggestions that Labour is making such as the use of inclusive employment conditions to procurement rules and taxpayer-funded grants that would help to drive a different set of employment behaviours. As I come to a conclusion, there is the Scottish Business Pledge launched by Nicola Sturgeon in 2015 that requires private sector firms to pay the living wage, avoid using exploitative zero-hours contracts and make progress on diversity and gender balance. Who could disagree with that? We certainly don't, but the revelation that only 15 per cent of Government suppliers have signed the pledge is a disgrace. I very much welcome the review that is being undertaken. 11 billion pounds of public sector money is spent each year on procurement of goods and services. Surely we should be using that to deliver fair work, not just in the public sector but to drive change across the private sector too. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I hope that this debate does not turn into one where Labour and SNP members howled each other about how wrong the other side is. Other than the Conservative Party within this Parliament, I think that most of us are trying to get to the same place. Inevitably, whichever parties in government will be more cautious, will have civil servants and lawyers leaning over their shoulders saying, This is very difficult, Minister. You can't go this far, Minister. No, thank you. Opposition parties have a responsibility to push the Government beyond its comfort zone, push them to go further and faster and to be more ambitious. Other than the Conservative Party, we are all trying to move in that direction. I think that the Scottish Government is due at a guess six out of ten for its efforts. It is a pass mark, but it certainly needs to go a lot further. I will vote for the Labour amendment tonight. I think that it is regrettable that its language is a bit hyperbolic and does not quite recognise the efforts that have been made, because there have been efforts that have been progressed but it is not enough and it needs to go further. The attitude that I have brought to this debate, not just in the current session but in the last session, where I sat on the committee that undertook an inquiry into the whole agenda, recognised that there is a two-pronged approach. We can pave the high road, make it easier for companies and businesses to do the right thing and we can block the low road. That is harder to do. It is harder to do within existing devolved constraints and those who opposed the devolution of employment law should be asked to reflect on the misjudgment and the missed opportunity that that represents. We could be doing a lot more if we had a lot of these levers, but the fact that it is difficult, the fact that it is challenging is not a reason not to try. The Scottish Government has on other issues to its credit been willing to risk a court case here or there for a good policy, like minimum alcohol pricing. They need to be willing to push at the boundaries of what is legally possible here as well. The last time we debated this, I think, in May last year, the Greens moved an amendment to the Government motion, which said that Parliament agrees that access to government support and funding should be dependent on clear, ethical and environmentally responsible business practices. Most of that debate has been under the heading of workers rights. Clearly, we expect an implementation plan to ensure that business support, taxpayer funded, controlled by the Scottish Government, is contingent. Let's start blocking the low road. It's not enough. It's good to pave the high road. It's good to give encouragement and maybe a bit of extra resources where a business needs some support to find good employment practices possible and viable and achievable, but we need to start blocking the low road as well. We need to start saying no to applications for support from the Government that come from businesses that don't meet these standards. I've got the application form. This is the initial inquiry form for the regional selective assistance grant. What is there about quality of employment? What is there about workers rights? What is there about the living wage, about zero-hour contracts and about the other exploitative practices that we've heard of? There's nothing. There's one question about whether Scottish Enterprise encourages and supports applicants to develop and invest in youth policy. There's nothing to suggest that that means not paying younger workers less, not getting away with exploiting younger workers because of the lower bands on the minimum wage. There's nothing about that. There's nothing to prohibit that kind of sharp exploitative practice. That's just the initial inquiry form. I've got the full application form here as well. A very long form that asks for a great deal of information, not just about the work that is going to be funded by a grant if it's given, but about the whole business model and the organisation's structure. The only thing that gets close to the kind of information that we should be asking for is an average basic salary for each job title. There's nothing to say that those paying poverty wages, which is to say that the minimum wage will be excluded. We should be requiring people, businesses and organisations who want to get taxpayer-funded support to develop and to expand their businesses. We should be requiring them to be participants in the business pledge and in other aspects of government initiatives in this area. It's time to say that paving the high road is fine. It's fair enough. It helps, but it's not enough. We need to start blocking the low road as well. I want to hear from the Government when the minister closes a clear commitment to implement the decision that the SNP's members voted for in endorsing that motion last year and implementation plan to make Government-funded support contingent on meeting these high standards that we should all be able to do. That's what we're expecting in our economy. The voluntary nature of the fair work agenda has its attractions, as it does create an encouraging environment for business, but it does only work if it raises the game, if it makes businesses change to perform better, to lift up to those standards. If they fall below that standard, how do we make that change so that they can buy into the fair work agenda? I'm pleased that hundreds have signed up to the business pledge, but we don't really know what impact that is making on the ongoing change within those businesses. It would be remis of me to not mention Amazon in a debate about fair work, because Amazon hasn't signed up to the business pledge. It wouldn't be allowed to sign up to the business pledge. I noticed that when Keith Brown, the economy minister, met with Amazon a year past after I raised concerns about working practices at the plant, there was a minute that came out from the meeting that said that Amazon explained that it was not a decision that they could take locally and would have to be subject of a national agreement by their senior management. I would like to know from the minister that he is summing up whether they did ever hear back from Amazon, whether they believe that they have a pathway to joining and signing up to the business pledge and the fair work convention, because they are a major employer, a significant employer in Fife, and it would be good to know whether they are going to change their practices to meet with the fair work agenda. Stuart McDorold, I have to praise him, the member of the SNP, who is bringing forward a private member's bill at Westminster about unpaid trial shifts. I commend him for the private member's bill that he has brought forward. I would like to know whether there are any companies that operate unpaid trial shifts who have signed up to the business pledge, because it would seem to be incompatible with the broader fair work agenda for them to do so. I wonder if Willie Rennie would agree with me that, even with some Conservative MPs supporting Stuart McDorold's bill, the fact that the UK Government allowed it to be talked out and subsequently fall was utterly despicable. I have been subject to that practice before when I was at Westminster. My private member's bill, which was a very progressive bill, was talked out by some errant backbench Conservative MPs who did not believe in superfluous legislation, as they described it. I think that it would be wrong for that to happen, but it is not too uncommon, unfortunately, in Westminster for that exact thing to happen. I would suggest that it would be wrong for any company that does not sign up to the business pledge or the real living wage that they should be beneficiaries of Government financial support. Amazon received millions of pounds in Government support, but it continues to pay below the real living wage for many of its employees. I have looked through the fair work convention, many of its eminently sensible, the effective voice opportunities, security, fulfilment and respect. I want to see—we have set a target for 2025 for this world-leading status for a working environment to be achieved. I really want to know how we know whether we have achieved that golden achievement of a world-leading working environment. Are the measurements smart? Are we able to measure them effectively so that we know whether we have achieved that ambition by 2025? I would like to turn to the gender pay gap. There is a 18.4 percentage point gender pay gap across the United Kingdom. It is slightly better in Scotland at 16.1 per cent, but that is not anything to be particularly satisfied with. Thanks to the ferret news site, we know that 28 Scottish public bodies have a gender pay gap that is greater than the national average. That cannot be something that we are particularly satisfied with. Joe Swinson plays the work that she did when she was a minister for equalities in Government. She introduced the requirement for companies employing over 250 employees to report on their gender pay gap. By 4 April, 9,000 different companies will report on that basis. From the figures published so far, we find that three quarters of the businesses pay men more than women on average, and 77 per cent of men's medium pay is higher than that of their female colleagues. Only 9 per cent of businesses have closed the pay gap between the sexes and 14 per cent pay women more than men. That is, I think, unacceptable, and that is why I believe that the transparency that we have achieved through this new requirement will assist us in trying to make the change and close that gender pay gap. I am thankful to the engender for providing a briefing for today's debate, where they have highlighted some of the weaknesses in the fair work convention, which I hope the minister will take into account when he sums up. They say that the fair work convention briefly mentions issues that are familiar to gender advocates, including work-life reconciliation and the impact of women's prosperity to adopt caring roles. They say that, in its 76 pages, it does not engage with key, economy-wide gendered issues such as the undervaluation of work. I hope that the minister will summarise those issues and how he will respond to those important factors when he sums up at the end of the debate. Open debate, speeches of a type 5 minutes. I call Clare Hockie, to be followed by Gordon Lindhurst. It is not an unreasonable aspiration to want work that is fair and for such work to be available to everyone, no matter their background or circumstance. Fair opportunities can break down labour market inequality, it improves people's life chances, creates opportunities for social mobility and helps create a more equitable, inclusive and cohesive society. Although the Scottish Government has placed fair work and inclusive growth at the heart of its economic strategy, true fairness in the workplace is yet to be realised. Prior to becoming an MSP, I was a divisional convener for unison, and it was my responsibility and indeed my pleasure to stand up against injustice and inequality in the workplace. At this point, I would like to refer members to my register of interests as I mean a member of that trade union. Since my election, I have continued to champion workers' rights. However, it is incredibly frustrating that the bulk of those powers are at the behest of a Tory Government. This is the party of employment tribunal fees, the party of the pernicious trade union act and the party of Brexit, and there are few areas in which Brexit has more potential to impact upon than that of workers' rights. Such protections, such as the outlawing of discrimination for part-time and fixed-term workers, the right to rest breaks and paid holidays and leave for working parents all derived from EU directives. The Fair Work Convention defines fair work through five different dimensions, effective voice, opportunity, security, fulfilment and respect, and each of those aspects are essential, not only for the employee but for society and for the employer themselves. However, too often the opportunity and respect of minority and underrepresented groups is disregarded. For women it means an outrage that in the UK for every pound a man earns a woman takes home 81 pence. For our ethnic minority population it is scandalous that last year's employment rate in Scotland was 74 per cent for white people but only 58 for BAME people. Also for our younger population it is shameful that by the end of this month workers' age 25 or over will be entitled to £7.83 per hour, while for under-18s it is £4.20 and for apprentices a pitiful £3.70. If we are serious about treating people fairly at work then we must ensure that they are paid fairly for that work too. Over the last few months, both the Parliament and in the media, we have heard of outrageous practices undertaken by unscrupulous employers. Indeed, as we debated in January, my SNP colleague Stuart MacDonald MP sought to introduce a bill to the UK Parliament to outlaw unpaid trial shifts. The UK Government had the opportunity to show fairness and allowed the bill to proceed on Friday but sadly it was talked out. If Stuart MacDonald's bill were to have become law it would have ensured that firms like Mooboo would no longer legally be permitted to ask Chinese to work a full 40 hours for no pay and no guarantee of a job at the end of their trial period. Other exploitative practices' evidence recently occurred over the period of extreme weather earlier this month. Companies like William Hill forced my constituent to travel to work despite the red weather warnings being in place or to face losing a day's pay. It is absolutely disgraceful that employers can compel people to work at times when the weather is deemed to be a threat to life solely to put profits before people. I welcome the agreement between the Scottish Government and the STUC who have announced that they will develop a fair work charter focusing on the treatment of workers affected by such emergencies. The charter will include a recognition that workers need an effective voice through a union to develop appropriate, flexible and fair approaches. It will highlight examples of employers and unions working flexibly and constructively. Through the Government's continual work with our trade union partners and the actions that the Government has taken, it is clear that they are committed to ensuring that people are valued, rewarded and safe at their work with equal opportunity to progress and succeed. Indeed, through the fair work convention and fair work framework, the promotion of the Scottish living wage accreditation initiative and the creation of the Scottish business pledge, the Scottish Government is taking steps where possible to progress its fair work strategy. However, it is only by having full powers over business tax, employment law, the minimum wage, health and safety and welfare that we will be better placed to create good quality jobs, grow the economy and lift people out of poverty. Labour's amendment spoke of the hypocrisy of the Scottish Government. However, the hypocrites here today are the Labour Party. If they truly think that they are the party of the workers, then they should back SNP calls for employment law to be devolved to this Parliament. In order to make Scotland's fair work an ambition a reality. As the motion put to us today recognises, fair work should benefit all of us as individuals and also create, sustain and nurture successful businesses in the thriving economy and society. Fair work is therefore not simply an end in itself but hopefully a means towards a happier and more prosperous country. The Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee that I convene recently looked at an aspect of fairness around the issue of the gender pay gap. One aspect of that particular issue is the need to create a fair working environment in which the underlying often hidden causes of imbalances are addressed. To ensure that those who want to enter the workplace and go as high as they have the ability, commitment and determination to also have the opportunity to do so. One aspect of that is a lack of flexibility within the workplace, which can often get in the way of people fully utilising their skills or opting for jobs that might be thought to underutilise skills but actually meet the need for flexibility. Indeed, in evidence to the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee this very Tuesday, Ewan MacDonald Russell of the Scottish Retail Consortium said that within his sector, flexibility can too often be prioritised or not prioritised but rather progression. Businesses are now trying to encourage people into more senior positions which allow flexibility and allow them to balance other commitments. This is to be welcomed particularly from the point of women in that part of the business community. Our committee also heard from witnesses that benefits such as flexible working carry the equivalent of 5 per cent of a salary. People can of course keep more of their hard-earned cash if they don't have to pay for childcare, again to be welcomed. I would say that in our society there is room in our digital mechanised age to build flexibility into how we live our lives. Shared paternity leave, for example, introduced by the Conservative UK Government in 2015, adds in flexibility for parents to design childcare as they see fit. It allows for the possibility that fathers can play a greater role in raising their children while mothers do not have to take long career breaks, which may not work for them or indeed their families. That added flexibility and the benefits that it can provide were also highlighted in the economy committee evidence by Megan Horsbrough from Sodexo. She said this. We know that flexibility is good not only for working women but for men. It fits incredibly well with our overall approach to gender balance, which is that a number of such initiatives benefit the whole organisation. Those are modern and pragmatic ways of working, which can make work not just fairer but make it actually work for families. Of course, at the end of a career, people want to be able to look back and know that the hard work that they have put in during their lives has been rewarding. The auto-enrolment scheme, introduced by the Conservative UK Government to encourage saving for retirement, which was particularly among young people and women declining, has resulted in workplace pension participation for women in the private sector to rise from 73 per cent in 2016 from a low of 40 per cent in 2012. The rate has almost doubled. That is another example of where the UK Conservative Government has increased fairness at work and incentivised participation in the labour market. To go back briefly to comments about howling across the chamber, perhaps I might agree with Patrick Harvie on one point that we need to have detailed and firm commitments on specific things from the Scottish Government to show how they are going to progress the measures and, indeed, aims that probably all of us would agree on. I have set out particular measures taken by the UK Conservative Government that have helped to do that, so I look forward to hearing from the minister as well on behalf of the Scottish Government. There is much to be done, Deputy Presiding Officer, but in the UK we can continue to work towards trying to create fair and rewarding work for everyone. I believe that fairness in the workplace is something that should be our right, not a benefit or advantage to working for a particular company or public body. Sadly, even in 2018, we know that this is not the case. Thanks to the Tory Trade Union Act 2016, which drove a coach in horses through trade union rights, which Dean Lockhart seemed unable to defend, we are going backwards when it comes to basic employment rights. Of course, we know that this chipping away of union rights goes back to the Thatcher era and is just one of the horrible legacies that she left. We are now a society battling against the unfairness of zero-hour contracts, taking us back to Victorian times, unpaid work trials, instant dismissals and pension and terms and conditions being slashed for public and private sector workers. In January, I held a member's debate on unpaid work trials to highlight my colleague Stuart Macdonald MP's member's bill calling for a ban on this exploitative practice. However, as we have heard today, despite reassurances from Tory whips that filibustering would not happen, his bill was talked out by the Tories. Our cake practice is an outrage to democracy and is symptomatic of a close defensive system that is not geared towards anything other than protecting the establishment. I agree absolutely with my colleague in what she said about what happened with that bill. However, if she would reflect on whether she would agree with the Scottish Government using the powers that it has to exclude organisations that would do that kind of exploitation, exclude them from accessing public monies. I am going on to say that I look forward to hearing how we can use the powers that we have to prevent that. Anything that we can do should most certainly be done. I think that this practice is disgraceful. It tells us a lot about Tory values and attitude towards fair working practices. It is another powerful example of why employment powers should be devolved to this Parliament so that we can make Scotland a fairer, more equal society in which to work. Forcing young people to work unpaid amounts to £1.2 billion of missing wages money, which is going straight into the employer's pockets, is simply not acceptable. I look forward to hearing what powers we have to crack down on that. Of course, it is widely known that the hospitality industry is a terrible offender when it comes to fairness in the workplace. The United Nations is working very hard to eradicate the exploitative way that workers are treated. They are educating young people about how to stand up for themselves and what rights they have in this often exploitative environment. Worker's rights are under attack like never before. In my own local authority, Easton-Bartonshire, the Tory and Lib Dem Administration have slashed council workers' pension terms and conditions, imposing the worst kind of austerity. The irony is that it will make no savings so that it is entirely doctrinal not about making the budget balance. The logic of actions such as this baffle me, workers who have spent decades in public service being cheated of a fair pension, which is of course not a benefit but a right. Despite its Scottish Government fair work initiatives, Brexit casts an extremely dark shadow over employment rights. We know what happens when Tory Governments are left unfettered and it never benefits ordinary working people. Presiding Officer, like Clare Haughey, I believe that it is incredible that in this day and age equal pay for women is still an issue that we are fighting for and historic pay claims are not settled. There is simply no justification for women not being paid the same as men while doing the same job. I believe that times up on this issue and women who are historically owed money must be paid now. Of course, times up on me too are powerful slogans of the bid to end disgraceful sexual harassment, which has come to light happening in workplaces pretty much everywhere. The incredible movement gives me hope that my granddaughters won't have to endure what generations of women before them have. Presiding Officer, the stand-out word for me in today's Government motion is respect. Until there's mutual respect between employers and their employees, the battle for a fair workplace has a long way to go. The Poverty Alliance states that, when people with experience of living in a low income were asked their views on employment, they said, a good job is something that you have a passion for. It gives you more than money, it gives you qualifications and training, it builds confidence and self-esteem. Those are the kinds of jobs we need. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, I believe that as a Parliament, despite having limited or no power over workers' rights, we have to stand up for them wherever we can and reassure people that Scotland will be a fairer place to work once we are free of Tory control. The fair work convention has been welcomed by Labour as it provides a framework for an approach to the labour market, which respects the workforce and sets out high aspirations for the future. As such, we will support the Government motion but not without criticism. Decent work, security of employment and investment in the workforce of the future are all prerequisites to tackling poverty and inequality. However, the effectiveness of the fair work framework needs constant scrutiny and if progress is not being made, then the Scottish Government must be held to account. Scottish Labour believes that a values-led public procurement strategy, which ensures that contracts are only awarded to companies that have acceptable minimum standards, would help to eradicate many bad employment practices. Ensuring that all members of a workforce have equal access to the fair work convention principles of opportunity, respect, security, fulfilment and an effective voice also means acknowledging the diversity of the workforce and respect in the workplace must include a complete approach. The great rejection of sexual and racial harassment is challenging a culture that belittles or humiliates other workers. Ensuring an effective voice for all workers should see trade union membership being encouraged and adequate facility time for trade union representatives provided. I welcome the Government's announcement today in that regard. However, we have just seen the SNP council in Weston-Batonshire reducing trade union facility time and that is a decision that goes against the principles of the framework and we do need some comment on that. We must see evidence, Presiding Officer, that all partners in the fair work convention are encouraging trade union membership, particularly in sectors that traditionally have had low levels of representation like social care, childcare catering and cleaning. That is important as trade union recognition leads to improvements in pay, in terms of conditions, in health and safety and in workforce retention. As the Scottish Government rolls out the expansion of the early years and childcare workforce, we all have an interest in ensuring that the sector complies fully with the fair work framework. The University of Scotland independent report identifies growing pressures on early years workers, who are mainly female, as services are adjusted and expanded to meet the current childcare offer of the 600 hours. It also highlights the importance of maintaining high standards of care to meet the new targets. A stable workforce, well qualified, well paid and with good terms and conditions is essential, but concerns are already being raised about the difficulties of staff retention in the private day nursery sector and the voluntary sector. Poorer terms and conditions in a sector with low trade union recognition will undoubtedly affect service delivery and, as such, unison and the STUC have argued for greater investment in local authority provision to allow for longer term planning and job security. The fair work convention must look at sectors such as childcare in more detail, actively promoting trade union membership as a key component in ensuring that low paid, often isolated women workers have access to representation and effective voice. I look forward to hearing the minister's assurances on that specific point. Oxfam Scotland, as we know, has circulated a helpful briefing for members prior to this debate and pointed out that having a decent job should be a universal right. I agree and I also endorse their call for more attention to be paid to the gender differences in the workplace and recognising multiple discrimination. The minister's commitment on gender's welcome, particularly since 24 per cent of working women in Scotland earn less than the living wage, is compared to 15 per cent of working men. That is nearly a quarter of all women in employment in Scotland and that is unacceptable poverty pay. It highlights the need for specific focus to improve the quality of work for women. Although the commitment from all partners in the fair work convention is bringing change to the workplace, the Scottish Government has a specific role to play in leading by example and in enforcing the fair work commitments in all public contracts. No more public money. I do not think that I do have time. Cabinet Secretary. I thank Elaine Smith for taking intervention on the very point that she was making. Would she not agree that having the ability to insist upon the payment of a proper real living wage would be a very important tool in our army and will she support that power coming to the Scottish Parliament? I feel that we have got extensive powers already and I am just going to come to that minister when I say that no more public money should be spent on contracts to employers who do not treat workers with respect. No more public money should be spent on contracts to employers who blatantly disregard the Scottish Government's guidance on the living wage and no more public money should be spent on contracts to employers who do not recognise trade unions or who lack less workers for trade union activity. Could I just finish on this point, please, Presiding Officer? 1888 was an interesting year. Celtic Football Club played their first match, the Scottish Labour Party was founded and it was the year that the match girls were on strike. Brian and Mae were far from a fair work employer to their mainly female workforce, including docking their pay for going to the toilet. 130 years later, the Oxfam report tells us that women working in call centres are questioned and humiliated for going to the toilet. Surely that is not the kind of 21st century Scotland that any of us wants. We need decent work as a protection from poverty, we need action in bad employers and we need an assurance from the Scottish Government that fair work is not just fine words. Ruth Maguire, followed by Michelle Ballantyne, please. Building greater fairness in the workplace is good for society and it's good for the economy. Assuring that everyone is treated with fairness, respect and support in the workplace is the right thing to do and allows individuals to fulfil their potential. Staff who feel valued, respected and fulfilled means lower staff turnover, fewer absences from work and higher overall productivity. Good for society and good for the economy. Building fairer workplaces also ties in with our efforts to tackle wider systematic inequalities. For example, flexible working practices contribute to tackling gender inequality. Unfortunately, the current lack of flexible working opportunities mean that a significant number of well-qualified people become trapped in low-paid and part-time work because they need the flexibility but can't find a quality part-time or flexible job. That has a particular impact on women. We can address some of the issues and challenges that are faced by carers by better supporting them to balance work with their caring responsibilities. The Carer Positive Employer Initiative, funded by the Scottish Government, which has been developed with the support of the private, public and voluntary sector organisations, is an excellent resource for that. It is proving hugely successful in raising awareness of what being carer positive means, as well as the benefits of doing so for business, such as avoiding recruitment costs, retaining experienced staff and reducing staff absences. Another important group when it comes to building fairer workplaces is young people. At the very beginning of their working life, it is crucial that young people who are ready and willing to work are treated with respect and encouragement and not left disillusioned and demotivated. That means paying them a fair wage for a fair day's work, including for any trial or probationary periods. I share colleagues' contempt at the disgraceful behaviour that the UK Tory Government showed in blocking the efforts of my SNP colleague Stuart MacDonald to ban the exploitative practice of unpaid trial shifts. However, we will all, I am sure, in this chamber, while most of us, anyway, continue to make the case for this, as well as arguing for young people's rights to be paid the real living wage and their right to have a range of opportunities available to them, whether that is widening access to higher education or expanding the provision of high quality apprenticeship pathways. Elaine Smith, I thank the member very much for taking an intervention, and I wonder if the member would agree that it is important, as the minister outlined, to look into the definition of positive destinations for young people. Ruth Maguire. Absolutely, absolutely, I agree with that. Building fairer workplaces is clearly good for employees and their families and our communities. It is also good for employers and for business. Recruiting from a wider pool of talent is also good for young people. Retaining healthy, motivated staff who feel supported will make for more successful organisations. I was pleased to read in the 2017 progress report on the Fairer Scotland action plan that many of those points are being addressed, and for that the Scottish Government does deserve to be commended. In October 2017, the target of 1,000 accredited living wage employers was met. The Scottish Government has also increased funding for the Scottish living wage accreditation initiative. On flexible working, the Scottish Government continues to fund Family Friendly Working Scotland, an organisation that I have worked closely with in my constituency. It is this afternoon in Glasgow celebrating Scotland's top employers for working families, and I congratulate all the winners of that and wish them a very successful afternoon. In September, a key commitment of the Fairer Scotland action plan was delivered with the launch of the Flexible Jobs Index Scotland. That was based on research undertaken by TimeWise, which analysed the flexible jobs market in Scotland for the first time and showed that demand for flexible working outstrips supply, meaning that there was a significant opportunity to grow the flexible jobs market with, as mentioned before, benefits for employers and workers alike. I was pleased to lead a member's debate on this topic back in September of last year and commit to continue to raise awareness of this issue, both here in the Parliament and at home in Irvine, Coeining and Stevenson. I call Michelle Ballantyne, who is followed by Bob Doris. May I first refer members to my register of interests as I am a business owner? In the short time that I have today, I want to highlight a debate that has been going on for many years, one that I took an interest in quite a long time ago and one that I think has a role to play in building greater fairness in the workplace. It is slightly technical, so I hope that you will bear with me. It is human capital. Human capital is the skills, knowledge or experience possessed by an individual or group, viewed in terms of their value. When coupled with effective human resource management, it is, in my opinion, a vital tool for achieving fairness in the workplace and for achieving inclusive growth. I speak from a position of relative experience here, having owned and run businesses for over 30 years. I have seen first-hand the ways that human capital and human capital accounting could create rewarding equitable opportunities for workers, employers and businesses. Currently, the value of human capital is not recorded anywhere in the financial statements of an organisation, nor can it be created as an intangible asset. In fact, human capital is not owned by an organisation at all, but rather by its employees. That is why investments in human capital are charged as an expense on the period incurred. No quantifiable asset is created. That leads to the irony that investment in training and better conditions of employment can actually weaken a company's balance sheet, particularly in the short term. By accounting for human capital, companies would potentially become much more transparent. By incorporating employees as assets, there is greater impetus for a company to invest in their staff by providing family-friendly policies, flexible working and opportunities for personal development. Factors such as staff retention and development would impact on a company's value, encouraging employers to invest in their staff and build organisational loyalty at all levels. We know that SMEs constitute over 99.4 per cent of private businesses in Scotland, providing 1.2 million jobs and accounting for 55 per cent of private sector employees. SMEs are the backbone of our economy, and the vision of the Fair Work Convention refers to a world-leading working life for all people in Scotland, including smaller employers. We must create a positive environment for employers in Scotland, one that encourages and supports entrepreneurial spirit and rewards success. These are often people who have taken the greatest amount of risk investing their money, creating jobs and often providing their homes with security for the business. By utilising human capital and effective HR practices in SMEs, employers can also feel the benefits by reaping the rewards of enhanced productivity with engaged staff who are more likely to remain in the business sector. I think that we are doing something with the company. As long as it is quick, because I do not want to run out of time, I will give you your time back. I thank the member for taking intervention. She has mentioned both productivity and staff retention, and I agree with her on those points. Would she recognise the link that many people have made between being paid a proper living wage and staff retention and productivity, if she would go hand-in-hand? Would she agree with that? Michelle Ballantyne? Yes, I would agree that there is a link in many people because if they can't earn enough in the job they're in to survive and pay their bills, then the impetus is on them to look for something else, so retention is linked. In a recent study by HR magazine, Gil Crowther, HR director to British SME, called Nominet, said, I would encourage SMEs to think about people earlier rather than later because once it's gone wrong and you've got 150 disengaged people, it's very hard to put right. While at Daisy Group, a communications service provider, which recently evolved from an SME into a major firm employing 1,500 people, they have seen the value of this approach first hand. Steve Smith, the firm's finance director, notes that HR used to be an administrative function. We used to have to recruit senior people externally because we didn't have them ready. Now we want to grow them internally. Where we used to think about recruitment, now we think about retention. Deputy Presiding Officer, not only does this approach help a company grow, it can increase job security for employers and employees alike. Although many SMEs are shy of these approaches, viewing them as bureaucratic, once implemented they can really help these companies. Alongside this, I would like to see an anonymous application system introduced where the candidates' name, race and gender are not made available and therefore only the best suited candidates are shortlisted. This way, employees are selected on merit in a fair and transparent process. This is an approach that Deloitte has recently recommended, noting that the Australian State of Victoria is leading the way in removing all personal details from job applicants, thus assessing each person on their human capital. Deloitte also suggests that organisation would also benefit from expanding the definition of diversity beyond demographic and social identities to cover the full range of human capital. Research shows that one of the biggest sources of bias at companies is lack of diversity of thought, and I feel that by taking a more objective approach some of the bias around this can be resolved. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, human capital and its associated systems should be a major step towards preparing our economy and workplaces for what I see as the fourth industrial revolution. We need to assess how people can be best deployed and how they can be helped to grow as part of a system that values and recognises their contributions. Whatever the future may hold, it is clear that our current methods for evaluating and valuing our workforces are unfit for purpose. You must stop interventionally to 15 seconds. I timed it precisely. Thank you, you must sit down. I call now Bob Doris to follow by Johann Lamont, please. Thanks very much, Presiding Officer. I welcome this debate and commend the intention of the Scottish Government to seek to bring our Parliament together on the fair work agenda. Indeed, I believe that the Government's motion is worded that way to maximise support across political parties and to seek to drive a political consensus. I suspect that something the STUC would support as well as all fair-minded employers out there. The Labour amendment, however, does appear to be specifically designed to divide and to shatter any kind of consensus. That is deliberate. It bears no relation to reality and it is overtly tribal. However, let me not take that approach. As I did last week in a similar debate, let me not do positive SNP initiatives. In Glasgow, low-paid female care workers are now to be brought back into council control from Cordia in a SNP administration at a cost of £2.5 million. That is because the SNP council will pay those female workers appropriately, unlike the previous Labour administration. That was appalling. In Glasgow, it is taking an SNP administration to engage seriously to seek to address Labour's equal pay scandal. Women were discriminated for many, many years. To use the word hypocrisy in a Labour amendment here today, yet again, twice in the space of week, shows absolutely no self-awareness. I can smell the hypocrisy from the Labour benches. It's just yes. Johann Lamont. I'm very relieved that you've chosen not to be tribal about these issues. Can I ask what your review is of the SNP council's decision to double childcare costs and what impact you think on families who are trying to organise their working lives? Bob Doris. I had a look at the relatively small increase per hour childcare costs in Glasgow, but I see that there is a motion going to the SNP council to give additional three hours to the poorest families in relation to that. I don't hear Labour talking about that when they mention that. Much has been made on the role of trade unions in this debate and rightly so. The STU sits at the heart of the fair work convention and the development of a fair work framework. Indeed, we've got the Scottish business pledge in that commitment to the living wage and in that commitment to end abusive zero-hour contracts. I share frustrations that more businesses have not signed up to that. Of course I do. We want more businesses to sign up to that, but that's positive work by the Scottish Government. Those businesses are a positive, proactive and collegiate partner and are a vital part of our social fabric. I apologise, Jackie Baillie, for the time constraints. Via the UK trade union act that they are under attack, trade unions are under attack. It's hard that trade union act had two specific things that it wanted to do. It wanted to make it unfairly difficult and constraining for workers to withdraw their labour if they chose to. That's an attack on people's human rights. It also placed unreasonable restrictions on union rights but were able to represent fellow employees. I get that. I apologise, Elaine Smith, I just don't have time. The Scottish Government has no power to strike down the UK trade union act. Despite the fact that we have refused to pass an LCM here to sign up to that, we have no power to strike it down. What we did have the power to do, and I'm getting sick of hearing this word quite frankly, is to mitigate the impact of it. 2.2 million pounds from the Scottish Government to trade unions to access skills, lifelong training and learning opportunities to boost fairness and equality, and 250 million pounds for trade union modernisation fund real, active help to support trade unions. The last thing that I want to say is in relation to when industrial action does happen. Not long ago, we had the colleges dispute. I have to say that the reason we got to collective bargaining in relation to Scotland's colleges is that it took an SNP Government to foster the stage where collective bargaining happened in the colleges sector. Unpromoted lecturers in Scotland today are on around £40,000 per year if at the top of a pay scale. Because of the strength of trade unions, collective bargaining with their employers gave political problems for the Scottish Government along the way, but we knew that it was the right thing to do. I think that the track record of this Government is to make sure that we capacity build, we respect and we value workers and their representatives. The college sector is a perfect example of that. I think that the Scottish Government is doing all within its powers to promote and foster the fair work agenda. Thank you very much, Mr Doris. I call Johann Lamont, to be followed by Jenny Goldruth. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Members may be aware that I have spoken in the Parliament before about precarious work, its impact on all too many people across our communities and its disproportionate impact on young people with no guarantee of hours being brought into work and then sent home without pay, tips not being distributed, a change in shifts at short notice and no guarantees in training or access to their rights at all. We often hear the word choice, we often hear the word flexibility, but the reality is that the choice and flexibility is almost invariably on the employer's side and very, very little choice or flexibility on the side of the employee. We ought not to pretend that zero hours contracts allow people somehow to have the kind of flexibility in working lives to allow them to do other things, they are very rare indeed and very often people in these precarious situations have little or no choice but to accept whatever is given to them. I hear what the minister has said about the living wage and I welcome that, it is not sufficient in itself, it is important, but it is one part of a broader picture. We need to understand the lived reality of all too many of our fellow citizens and we need to think about how we give effect to the statements in the motion that we commend the good and condemn the bad. Saying it is the easy bit and we need to think about how we actually deliver that so that people in the real world understand that things are better for them. I congratulate better than zero on uniting the union, particularly in the work that they have done, particularly in the hospitality field to address precarious work where it is often exceptionally difficult to recruit members, because people are anxious about even admitting their member of a trade union who the idea that they could bargain and debate their rights is a shimmer away in the distance that is not their lived experience. It is important that we listen to these organisations as they expose unacceptable work practices that are faced by all too many, particularly our young people. When the snow fell, our awareness of the lack of rights of all too many workers became evident by losing wages under phenomenal pressure to get to work, but that is what the pressures are like all the year round. Our commitment to tackle this injustice should not melt away along with the snow. It is clear that work has to be done at every level of government. I was very supportive of Stuart MacDonald's built and unpaid trials and deeply disappointed that a Tory Government chose to talk it out without reflecting on what it said about the employment market that young people can be brought in to work without expecting even decent remuneration for that. However, there is work to be done here too. We are not going to agree on where employment law is best laid in terms of powers. My view is, as a trade union movement across the United Kingdom believed, that power should remain at a UK level because I am concerned with the rights of workers right across the United Kingdom, but I do not think that people who disagree with me on that are hypocritical. They just take a different view on that particular issue. I want to talk about positive destination. I had not realised that I had been kind to the minister. I must—it is uncharacteristic of me, so it took me rather aback. It is essential that we do not follow the approach taken by the UK Government of a simple equation that high levels of employment equals a strong economy. It cannot be so if it is built on carious work and exploitation, uncertainty and stress. I heard what the minister said, if I will let you in in a moment, about the rights of people with disabilities. I genuinely welcomed his comments on that and people with learning disabilities' right to work. I want to undermine how central this should be to the work of the minister and his colleagues. Earlier today I led a debate on Down syndrome awareness day. In particular, I highlighted the focus of this year's awareness week, which is inclusion employment, with one parent reflecting that nobody is aiming high for our kids. I wonder whether he has met Down syndrome Scotland, whether he would consider meeting with them and other organisations that work to ensure that people with disabilities, people with Down syndrome, have proper access to employment opportunities. I am sure that they would welcome the opportunity to expand on the points that were made in that debate. They have talked about the importance of better data on positive destinations. Down syndrome Scotland knows young people who spend years at college without work and without employment. We know that employment for people with learning disabilities is something between 7 and 25 per cent. That is utterly unacceptable. That is why the issue about positive destinations matters. Unless we are honest and ask certain questions about what has been defined as a positive destination, we are missing the truth about far too many young people who are stuck in certain places and are not getting the opportunities they deserve. In conclusion, I simply want to say that the challenge that all of us is to lift the words off the page in the motion and into the lives of people across Scotland. I call Jenny Goruth to be followed by Jeremy Balfour. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Fair work is essential in any democratic society. If you are paid fairly, if you are treated fairly, if you feel valued, then you are always more likely to recognise the importance of meaningful employment. You are also much more likely to enjoy doing your job. The Fair Work Convention considers that fair work is essential to achieving inclusive growth. Today's motion asks us all to share the convention's vision that by 2025 people in Scotland will have a world-leading working life in which fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. Glenorthys has suffered disproportionately in recent years from the effects of a lack of prosperity. In 2014, VLUX Windows announced 180 job losses. The town's famous landmark paper mill, Tullus Russell, which provided jobs for generations of men and women, closed its doors in 2015. FTV Proclad announced 70 jobs were to go in 2016. In January, the kitchen's manufacturer Murray & Murray went into liquidation with a loss of 40 jobs and just last month Dunstores, who occupied the largest unit in the Kingdom Shopping Centre, announced its decision to close too. Compound recent job losses with the poverty statistics in the biggest town in my constituency, nearly one in three children living in poverty, precarious employment opportunities, and from the 2016 SIMD data, Okmutey, Duffcott and the Town Centre were classed as the third highest in Fife in terms of recorded crimes. Take a drive further north to the town I went to school in and you will see the two tales of Fife, St Andrews, Home of Golf, Home of the third oldest university in the English-speaking world, Home of money, investment and, crucially, jobs. In Glennothys 20 years ago, we had a town centre that was bustling. We had shops, we had employment opportunities, but today our town centre, which is owned by private individuals in the form of Mars pensions trustees, is all bit empty. I don't believe we'll be able to realise the ambition in today's motion for Glennothys until we get answers from these people. Mars pensions trustees have six active officers listed on the company's house website, but only one organisation is described as an active person with significant control. That's another company called Simply Food Manufacturers, of which their only active person with significant control is FM Holdings Ltd, another company. FM Holdings is set on the company's house website that they have no active persons with significant control. The one consistent individual associated with all three of these companies is Ian James Langer. Last year, following payment to all shareholders, FM Holdings made a profit of nearly £2.3 million. That is just one of Mr Langer's appointments. Listed on company's house, he has 103 appointments in total. Today's debate is about creating the necessary conditions for fair work to prosper, but in Glennothys we have an all but absent landlord and an absent landlord found wanting. That creates a feeling of worthlessness for businesses and for staff who feel that the town is locked in a downward cycle. The reverse is also true. If folk could see the fruits of their labour being invested in the fabric of the town, rather than in the pockets of an elusive businessman, then perhaps they might feel more motivated. I want to reiterate to my invite to the individuals who own the Kingdom Shopping Centre today to come to the town that they own on our 70th anniversary year to play a part in helping to create those fairly paid jobs that we need to tackle inequality. The Fair Work Convention note that voice at task level, followed by participation in decision making, impact most on job satisfaction and political wellbeing. That is Fife Council's education service proposal on an admin and clerical review that it is carrying out currently. Secretaries are some of the poorest paid and hardest working people in our schools. Those proposals, as they currently stand, however, require staff to either jump up the pay scale, or to jump down the pay scale, or to study for a formal qualification and jump up it. They have to either take this pay cut or jump right up the pay scale. They need to re-apply for their jobs additionally. I find it difficult to believe that removing the support or reducing it in schools will help in any way to close the attainment gap. There is a real fear at the moment in Fife that teachers' workflows will be impacted upon additionally. I have written to the head of education to raise this issue directly, but the impact of this predominantly female workforce has been hugely detrimental already. One will be bursting into tears at her work, another about how her head teacher doesn't want her to go, another about how a potential £3,000 cut to her wages could be a result from those proposals. Because Fife Council has taken away that participation in decision making, they have directly impacted upon their employee's psychological wellbeing via a process which appears to have had absolutely no consultation. Can you imagine if those secretaries were teachers? If teachers were being told that they would have to take a £3,000 pay cut or jump up the salary and forcibly complete additional training? Some of those women and the workforce predominantly female have been working in Fife schools for the best part of 30 years. It is a truly shameful way for any organisation to treat its employees. Never mind a local authority which should know better. In summing up, I have highlighted today the lack of fair work options in my constituency. Pro-employment practices in the form of Fife Council's proposed cuts to school secretaries and I will now close. I call Jeremy Balfour to be followed by Ben Macpherson. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As the Scottish Conservatives spokesperson on disability and the convener of the CPG on disability, I regularly meet with disabled people with disability charities. One thing all of them have identified is the critical issue of employment. There are 1 million disabled people in Scotland. Despite the employment rate improving and the advent of the Equality Act, there is still a significant difference in the number of disabled people in employment, 42 per cent compared to the overall figure, 73.4 per cent. The statistics are even worse if you have a learning disability. According to research undertaken by the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability, the employment rate for people with learning disability sits between 7 and 25 per cent. As Johann Lamont has pointed out, the persistent lack of employment opportunities for people with learning disability has been highlighted as part of Down syndrome's awareness week. The theme is inclusion in employment as opportunity for paid employment remains limited and transitioning from education to the workplace continues to be a challenge. Young disabled people are often presented with few options on leaving school. Many are directed to day centres or courses at further education colleges. Down syndrome Scotland knows of some members who have spent years at college and still end up with no job and parents who agree to whatever is offered to them because of the lack of options and the fear that their child will end up with nothing else. I agree with the charity that these outcomes can hardly be described as positive destinations. I have grave concerns that many colleges see disabled people as a cash cow placing them on a conveyor belt of courses with little regard for the individual's long-term prospects. Focus group research undertaken by disability agenda Scotland identified that disabled people like most of us see the importance of work as a source of income, something to do for their own wellbeing and a way for people to feel they can contribute to society. However, there are still many barriers that prevent disabled people from finding work and progression in employment. Those include negative attitudes for employers, inaccessible workplaces and inflexible work and practices. Research by disability charity Scope revealed that one in five disabled people felt that they could not disclose their disability. I attended one of the large public service organisations disability AGM a few weeks ago and was told that some people do not go for promotion because they do not want to discuss their disability. A large employer here in Edinburgh told me that they are committed to inclusive work but only 4 per cent of their workforce are disabled. I met a number of employers who told me that they still feel amongst many employees to disclose that they have a disability. Employers tell me that disabled people are not applying for jobs whilst many disabled people tell me that they have given up applying for jobs because they simply have been unsuccessful. I think that one of the things that we need to look at across both the private and public sector is the interview process. It is still a hurdle with many hiring managers lacking basic knowledge and training on disability. To be fair to employers I have spoken to many who acknowledge that it is a problem but are scared that they simply might say the wrong thing. My discussions with employers disabled people and disability groups has identified that one size does not fit all. We need lots of schemes and lots of help but perhaps people don't understand where to get that advice and maybe there is a place as the Federation of Sport Business have suggested that the Scottish Government and the UK Government could come together for one single portal where all information on disability and employment could be brought together rather than having to search through many different web pages. As I said before disability is diverse. Many will have conflicting needs but this diversity is not an excuse to ignore disability in employment. To do so is simply unfair. With the de-releasing of employability programmes there is a real opportunity to do things differently to provide better support to disabled people into work. Disability does not mean inability. Disability people have as much to offer as the rest of society. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. I call Ben Macpherson to be followed by Tom Arthur. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Greater fairness in the workplace is about greater fairness in society. For me it's about understanding that while the social or economic value of what different people do in the workplace may differentiate the equal worth of all contributions in the workplace is the same and that's why notions of the living wage are so important that no matter what you do you are rewarded fairly and properly. I welcome this debate based on my own experience from working in a range of sectors before being elected the private sector, the public sector and the third sector from having done the extra hours unpaid whether that's in the office or cleaning up behind a bar or being underpaid below the living wage in several different roles and having done those trial shifts unpaid as a teenager that Stuart McDonald was trying to get rid of through his proposed member's bill at Westminster. I think we also in this debate have talked about potential solutions but perhaps we need to reflect a little bit as well around why the current unfairness is there. It's there because of the choices that have been made in terms of social economic policy for decades. It's there because income inequality rose during the new labour era. It's there because some working rights have been weakened during the coalition government of recent times. It's there because employment law has in some ways been weakened through the current UK Tory Government. That has not only had a negative impact in terms of unfairness in the workplace but there are so many consequences from that in terms of it creates that income unfairness which then leads to inequality in terms of being able to satisfy cost of living which adds to heightened inflated cost of living particularly when it comes to housing. It's created health implications and inequalities that's led to insecurity and overwork and fundamentally and importantly it's damaged the quality of life of many citizens and workers. The Scottish Government action on this issue is so important particularly when it comes to encouraging as many employers as possible like many of us as MSPs to be living wage employers and also around the business pledge in order to enhance as much as possible fairness when it comes to businesses and particularly in the private sector of course. Joanne Lamont. I wonder if you think it's worth exploring this issue of conditionality that people ought not to get the credit of signing the business pledge unless they pay the living wage and unless they guarantee rights around training. I think it's a whole area that we could explore in that but it's the point that Patrick Harvie made. I wonder if you have a view on that. Ben Macpherson. I'll welcome the question. I'll come on to it shortly but the issue that we need to consider here is that the business pledge is not able to be enforced in law because we don't have the proper powers over employment law in this Parliament and I think that puts it as a significant disadvantage and I know Joanne Lamont said earlier that she supports employment law remaining at Westminster but just think every day that goes past when employment law is continued to be reserved to Westminster is an absolute wasted chance to improve employment rights here in Scotland and I think that the Labour Party should really think seriously about that and get behind supporting calls for employment law to be devolved to this Parliament as soon as possible. I think that and thank you Joanne Lamont because it really leads into my next point which is that this is about fairness and increasing growth but there's not enough focus here on the fact that the private sector is where we can act in this Parliament and 29% of those who are paid under the living wage work in the private sector so we need to think seriously about if we really want to take robust action we should be uniting especially the parties on the left as much as possible to argue for those powers to come here along with company law business taxes and as much social security powers as possible and I'll finish on this one of the biggest problems at the moment particularly affecting quality of life is overwork and if we leave the EU there's already challenges at the moment to do with opt-outs around 48 hours if we leave the EU I'm seriously concerned about protections around the working time directive and I think we should think seriously about that thank you The last of the open debate contributions is Tom Arthur, a very tight 5 minutes please Mr Arthur Thank you, Presiding Officer and I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate I'd like to begin by picking up on a remark my friend and colleague Jenny Gilruth made in her speech because I think it was one of the most profound and important remarks in this entire debate and that is the link between fair work and democracy I'm sure that any student who left one of Jenny's modern studies classrooms or any history teacher's classrooms for that matter as well would be perfectly aware of the link between the lived experience of people through fair work and our economic circumstances and the link to faith with democratic institutions the lesson of the 1930s and late 20s speaks to that but in our contemporary time the wave of violent, xenophobic, nasty populism is fed across the globe beating the rise of front national alternative for Deutschland Trump and indeed Brexit itself we cannot escape the causal relationship between people's economic circumstances, the experience of work, the experience of a lack of fair work and their sense of alienation and hopelessness which led to the decision to base those particular ideologies so this debate is of profound importance I wish to just comment in a couple of remarks that have been picked up so far I want to welcome Jamie Hepburn response to Joanna Lamont's intervention regarding positive destinations specifically that we're going to look at how outcomes are measured I think that's to be welcomed in something that we'll all agree on and I also want to welcome the action to increase uptake of the Scottish business pledge because clearly schemes like that are incredibly important but there's challenges in making the requirements compulsory, Patrick Harvie spoke of the high road and a low road and certainly within that suite of high road options there are other measures as well one that I'm particularly supportive of is the carer positive scheme which my colleague Ruth Maguire referred to in her remarks I led a members debate on the carer positive scheme and I would encourage all MSPs in this Parliament to look into this scheme and to become a carer positive accredited employer is a scheme which will become more and more important carers make up 17 per cent of the adult population and there are 270,000 people combining work and care that's 10 per cent of the working population and a number of carers in Scotland expected to reach a million within the coming 20 years then it is absolutely vital that our working environment adopts and adapts to make sure that carers have a positive workplace in which to to work in another obviously very important scheme is the living wage accreditation scheme I think some of the points that have been raised in terms of how we can ensure living wage accreditation public procurement we have challenges there we have debates there but I do recognise the sincerity of members who want to see the application down to subcontractors etc but I think one of the big issues that comes from that is the fact that we do not in this Parliament have control over the national living wage and as has been described previously the national living wage is something of a Tory con and I think that what would be far better is if this Parliament had these powers then we would actually be able to deliver a real living wage for all employees and I join with colleagues who are calling for the devolution of the national living wage powers to this Parliament because one of the key issues within that of course is age discrimination as things currently stand there is a national living wage but for someone who is 16 to 17 years old that is £4.05 my very first job was as a kitchen porter 16 years ago and I judged myself just as capable of performing these onerous duties as any person of any age could be indeed more capable than some people who were older than me I was earning less than £3.50 an hour just by dint of the fact that I was 16 years old but the reality is someone under 25 will be paid less I think about one of my colleagues my constituency colleague, Mary Black MP she is 23 years old yet she is a far more capable representative when some of the superannuated lobby fodder that graces the halls of the palace of Westminster yet under the principles of the national living wage and the national minimum wage she would be deemed less able so there is much more I would wish to say in this debate but on that remark I would like to reiterate my support and take in and reiterate my calls and calls of others for devolution of employment law and devolution of the national living wage to this Parliament We now move to the closing speeches and before I call the first speaker can I remind everyone that remarks should be addressed through the chair and that applies to interventions as well and I call on Pauline McNeill if you could come in at under six minutes please that would be appreciated You can keep me right then I have a goodness in the workplace as a former trade union official for GMB Scotland is what I have done in most of my career but I actually believe that the aspirations in this Parliament to create the terms for a fairer workplace is more important than it has ever been to have good terms and conditions a real living wage a decent pension scheme a policy for older workers as well as younger workers with disability who need assistance in the workplace to have a fair workplace and workers to be represented by a trade union in their times of needs against their employer in some times where that is needed is for me some of the key elements of what would be fairness in the workplace The imbalance between the employer and employees is a balance that has to be evened out and there needs to be a radical overhaul of the status quo if we have to achieve that aspiration because we've discussed in other debates in this Parliament the workplace will probably look quite different I certainly hope that it's more diverse but because of other debates we've had about an ageing workforce automation of jobs pending and the prevalence of precarious employment almost becoming normal within our society there is a great deal of work to do as Johann Lamont and others have highlighted at zero hours contracts there are now 71,000 people that we know of on those types of contracts Deep insecurity in employment is a blight on the economy I would argue and actually it will stop the confidence of our economy if we do not bring a halt to precarious employment contracts again it was Johann Lamont that said that for most workers it isn't really a choice to give up permanent hours the right to a sick pay the right to have basic terms and holiday pay is not a choice that most people would make but that is the choice that many people precarious employment are forced into but for me the crash of 2008 is one of the underlying causes of why we are here today wage stagnation as the IFF said today was probably not going to be any higher in 2022 than it was before the crash Economist today also dubbed it that the last 10 years has been the worst growth since the second world war in that decade of post the crash you cannot underestimate the loss of quality jobs you cannot underestimate the number of high paid jobs that were lost from the economy and you cannot underestimate the power that that gave some employers over more employees searching for work in a difficult economy Indeed it was the Paul Johnson head of the IFF who said this month that the economy has broken record after record and probably is there 300 billion smaller than it might have been if we had not had the crash and sadly it is workers that have been paying the price for these last 10 years exploitation of workers has to stop and the Labour amendment for clarity what it is striking at is in government where Jamie Hepburn says yes that it is perfectly legal to use agency workers we are saying make it clear in your contracts that you should not be using agency workers unless there is a clear case for it and that in your contracts in the public sector make it clear that you will not qualify for contracts unless you pay the living wage unless you have trade unions in your workplace and unless you gave the right terms and conditions in that is the power that the Scottish Government holds in that is why we have put that in our amendment The gig economy that others have talked about unscheduled work again means that there is no there is no way to challenge unfair dismissal no rights to redundancy paid holidays or sick pay it is on the upward trend with one intent on precraised work we must act where we can and we must act now other members have talked about young people and poorer people being forced into this type of work and it is a key reason that the strengthening gap of inequality has happened because it is not just pay but it is also rights at the power of some and many large employers over those seeking work an unregulated framework in the longer term is a disaster for the economy others have talked about trade union membership it is an all time low I'm sad to say with only one in five people being in a trade union and it is expected that by 2025 that might be as low as one in six that is not a good thing for the workplace it is not good for workers and I say this to Dean Lockhart I'm not absolutely clear where you're coming from when you talk about trade union rights and about protecting EU I would like to know because the Tory party has had a history of wrecking trade union rights as not a startup for trade unions in the workplace and I make this point to Michelle Bannantine I'll think about what she said trade unions which behave in most cases reasonably and work in partnership with employers have proven that they actually contribute to the confidence of companies and businesses and can have much better outcomes as well as protecting workers I cannot believe Presiding Officer that's six minutes with that I hope to support the Labour amendment Thank you very much Mr McNeill I call Jamie Halcro Johnston You see if you can do under six minutes please I'll give it a go Firstly I advise members of my register of interests I'm a partner in a business I'm a farming partnership Today's debate has been a welcome opportunity to consider approaches from around the chamber to improving employment practices as well as looking at the changing shape there is a proud legacy to look back on the factory acts outlawing racial discrimination work to equalise pay and prevent discrimination on the basis of someone's sex and little more recently to outlaw discrimination against people with disabilities while many aspects of our employment law were developed in response to changing economic circumstances they often went further than just adapting to the times we made progress that was built on what had been achieved by generations before and enhanced it the biggest challenges technological progress has created in recent years is the expansion of the gig economy and casual work while reducing barriers to competition this has increased self-employment and created the risk of weakening protections that workers currently enjoy the tailor review on modern employment practices commissioned by the UK Government is a wide-reaching and commendable piece of work I'm not going to have time I'm afraid ministers have brought forward proposals to ensure that the UK Government is going further all workers will, for the first time have a right to request a more stable contract the right to a pay slip and additional rights to holiday pay and sick leave our 1.2 million agency workers will have new rights clearly to see the deductions on their pay there may be commonplace among full-time workers but they are short of security that on flexible contracts need now this more flexible economy increases competition and lowers prices for consumers but we must not lose sight of the often hard-won assurances people in work depend on fast-moving change such as automation has enormous benefits but risk making certain skills redundant it is now more essential than ever to get that fair deal for people in work involves a greater focus on training and skills development development that starts with careers guidance in school and move through a person's entire working life Government has an important role in enabling beneficial working practices there are now almost 450 signatures to the Scottish business pledge but this represents around 1% of the number of enterprises operating in Scotland there are of course as Rona Mackay touched upon earlier issues that this Parliament and MSPs have faced as employers and I welcome the role that the standards committee which I sit on has taken in helping to address them but it should serve as a reminder that this institution should be a model of good practice not an exception since the recession now a day ago there has been a substantial growth employment with more people entering work and existing workers' overall earnings growing as they take on more hours or move from part-time to full-time employment however wage growth remains a problem UK wide the national living wage created in 2015 has been welcome increasingly this is having an impact on many low paid workers growing numbers of whom have been removed from income tax by successive changes to the personal allowance reinforcements of the minimum wage is also important with increased fines as well as naming and shaming those who attempt to get around the law more widely however it is Government's role to look further into productivity growth and how best to create an economy that functions effectively many of the recent initiatives to support people in low pay have disproportionately benefitted working women who are more likely to work part-time and who are still affected by a pay gap with male workers one challenge that we confront is occupational segregation just this week skills development Scotland's Scotland's report showed only 13% of those going into foundation apprenticeships in STEM subjects were female even among those just entering the workplace for the first time this segregation clearly remains the Scottish Government's motion also mentioned the EU law on workers' rights we are affirming the UK Government's commitment after Brexit to enhance workers' rights and to ensure standards continue in domestic law we know that the United Kingdom already exceeds the minimum standards required by EU law to take just a couple of examples we have greater levels of annual leave and nearly four times the statutory maternity leave that EU law mandates it is the UK not the EU that has been and will remain the key guarantor of workers' rights my colleague Dean Lockhart also spoke about good work and the Taylor reviews role in building fair employment across the UK to ensure security, equal treatment support and good employment terms and conditions that we should embrace he also addressed the role of parental leave and maternity pay the gender pay gap, the benefits of increasing employment rates and improving industrial relations trade unions at their best are important champions both of individual workers and rights of the workplace Gordon Lindhurst spoke about some of the work of the economy jobs and fair work committee which I am also a member and its work on the economy inquiry the benefits of flexibility in the work environment the advent of shared paternity leave and the issues that surround childcare access he also spoke of the growth in participation in workplace pensions the increased participation for women in the private sector has risen from 40% in 2012 to 73% in 2016 showing more people have a greater security in their old age Michelle Ballantyne addressed some of the benefits of looking at human capital and the role that human resources can play in ensuring fairness in our workplace improving staff retention and encouraging employers to recognise their employees as assets which should be invested in and Jeremy Balfour spoke particularly on the experience of disabled people and the barriers they often find in finding work and progressing as well as encouraging employers there clearly remains scope for informing and supporting businesses who want to take on people with disabilities in my own region the Northern Isles have the highest instance of MS in the country and the MS Society contacted members ahead of this debate about the central importance of reasonable adjustments and some of the problems that still face people with certain conditions as well as the cost of losing people with the conditions from workforce Deputy Presiding Officer, today we celebrate some of the progress made in improving fairness in the workplace and making real practical changes that improve people's lives however there remains a great deal of work to be done I call on Keith Brown to wind up the debate can you take us to decision time please cabinet secretary in today's debate we have heard a great deal about the protection of workers' rights the ability of workers to access opportunities and the value of fair work to individuals businesses, employers and their economy it is quite obvious as well that fair work means different things to different people but at its core there is agreement that the principles should be based on human dignity, value and potential it must always look to balance the rights and responsibilities of workers and employers and one of the intentions behind bringing forward this debate was to try and see where there was consensus within the Parliament in terms of the principles of fair work an intention that we had which was obviously completely blown out of the water when we saw the Labour Party's amendment to the motion by the Government which I think is extremely unfortunate I think that Patrick Harvie had it right when he's completely overblown nature of the Labour amendment meant that it wouldn't be possible to have the kind of consensus which not only I think is actually here within a great number of the parties in the Parliament but also out there with their trade union colleagues and others as well I think that despite that we've had some very good debates in particular from many of the women in the chamber I think that Michelle Ballantyne's points were very well made not least in relation to human capital I'm glad that I think I don't want to put words in her mouth I think that she conceded the point about a real living wage being very important in terms of productivity and in terms of staff retention as well I think that one of the most crucial points made was that made by Rona Mackay when she was talking about again the gender gap there is a challenge for us there but she was saying the really important word is respect and I think I recently met with some representatives from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and also some women who had suffered a terrible experience not just in terms of very low wages but being treated very badly by their employer and although of course the living wage was very important to them they said it was the message it sent to be paid less than other colleagues which was the really disrespectful thing for women I think it's a very important point If I can try and quickly address some of the points that have been raised I've realised I've got less time than some of the other opposition spokesperson to speak but I'll try and address some of those if I can First of all Patrick Harvie made some points about implementation of some of the points that he and his party have made previously not least in relation to RSA he mentioned and also making sure that companies comply with the aspirations that we have when we provide support can I say that is being taken forward a piece of work in the area that he mentioned but also more generally through the Fair Work Action Plan which Jamie Hepburn mentioned as well I'm sorry I really don't have time I've only got five minutes and wish to sum up so apologies for that but I'm happy to write to the member to flesh it out more fully in relation to the points made by Willie Rennie about Amazon also known as Neil Finlay's publisher it's true to say that I had that conversation with Amazon I have a decision taken elsewhere I pointed out to them that they already paid higher wages in the south-east of England so surely the principle should be established that they can go along with and I should also say we've kept up that dialogue in the minister for employability we'll shortly meet with Amazon and we'll take up those points again I can also say that the points that Gordon Lindhurst made about auto enrolment of pensions I thought was absolutely right the rules brought in by the Conservatives on auto enrolment for pensions and it's a very important point I think it was also many of the points made by Johann Lamont I would agree with as with Elaine Smith as well but we don't have any agreement on the very important point the fundamental point which is what are the powers that the Scottish Government has to take some of these things forward and I don't agree with Johann Lamont's point that we should wait until the rest of the UK has a government that might want to take forward some of these things before we can make progress in Scotland for my adult life there've been twice as many years the Tories have been in power 26 years than the 13 years which the Labour Party was in power but when Labour were in power they did not roll back the trade union legislation brought in by the Thatcher government so we're not getting progress elsewhere and people in Scotland shouldn't have to wait to see real change by employment law being brought to this Parliament I think it's also true to say that in relation to Brexit amendment and the point put forward that they will protect Scotland or indeed the UK and the workers in Scotland in the UK post Brexit I think it's very important as well that we also speak out when we don't agree and I don't agree with those in the Labour Party like Jeremy Corbyn who talks about importing cheap agency labour or controls on immigration mugs that is not respect for the workforce that's not respect for EU nationals who are absolutely vital to our economy and I think it's important if we're going to have respect for one group of workers we should have respect for all groups of workers and the workers that we have here in the EU some of whom I met this morning there are 314 jobs over the next three years mainly women in Glasgow were EU women from Portugal in particular and they do realise when people say things like we don't want cheap imported agency labour or controls on immigration so for those things we want to continue to value the employees that we have from the rest of the EU and we need to have them not least in hospitality and leisure sectors membership of the EU has ensured the establishment of many of our employment rights and protections in Scotland our people, our Parliament and our government have made clear our commitment to Europe and we recognise the real value to Scottish workers and employers of membership we are of course pleased that the UK Government has voted in support of the social pillar however given that any legislative proposals emerging from the pillar are unlikely to be implemented prior to the UK's departure from the EU so that the UK Government will be going about adopting the principles that it sets out and I do hope despite the Labour Party amendment that we will in future try and get some consensus in terms of fair work the fair work convention to answer a point made by Elaine Smith is independent of government it decided its own programme I think the issue that she raised is going to be examined by the fair work convention although it's for them to do that and I'm happy to write confirming her but there is a great deal of consensus and I think it's really important that we send out the message where we can agree that we are all in support of fair work in the workplace throughout Scotland, thank you thank you very much and that concludes our debate on building fairness in the workplace the next item of business is consideration of Parliamentary Bureau motion double one two three six on approval of an SSI can I ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move the motion on behalf of the bureau formally moved thank you very much now we come to decision time is that amendment 11160.1 in the name of Dean Lockhart who seeks to amend motion 11160 in the name of Jamie Hepburn on building great fairness in the workplace be agreed are well agreed were not agreed we'll move to our division, members may cast their votes now the result of the vote on amendment number 11160.1 in the name of Dean Lockhart is yes 25 no 76 abstentions the amendment is therefore not agreed the next question is that amendment 11160.3 in the name of Jackie Baillie who seeks to amend the motion in the name of Jamie Hepburn be agreed are well agreed were not agreed the result of the vote on amendment number 11160.3 in the name of Jackie Baillie is yes 21 no 80 there were no abstentions the amendment is therefore not agreed the next question is that motion 11160 in the name of Jamie Hepburn on building great fairness in the workplace be agreed are well agreed were not agreed we'll move to our vote, members may cast their votes now the result of the vote on motion 11160 in the name of Jamie Hepburn is yes 76 no 25 there were no abstentions the motion is therefore agreed and the final question on approval of an SSI be agreed are well agreed we are agreed and that concludes decision time I close this meeting