The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-12073, in the name of Neil Findlay, on encouraging good employment practices in Wales. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I remind members that, for the purposes of the standing order rule on sub judice, no mention should be made of any live cases during the debate.
I call Neil Findlay to open the debate. You have seven minutes.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament congratulates the Welsh Government on its publication of the policy advice notes, Blacklisting in the construction industry and Employment practices on publicly funded projects; understands that these provide clear guidance to contractors on what is expected of them if they are to be engaged on publicly-funded projects; considers this to be a welcome and proactive approach, and notes the calls for the Scottish Government to follow what it sees as this example of good practice and to stop awarding public contracts to companies that engage in poor employment practices in Lothian and across Scotland.
17:09
This members’ business debate is linked to a number of issues around public procurement and the use of procurement to advance fairer employment practices, on which the Labour-led Welsh Assembly has often led the way across the United Kingdom. On tackling abuses of agency working, bogus self-employment and blacklisting, public procurement in Wales has been a vehicle for improving the rights of people at work and building a mutually respectful partnership between employers and employees.
The Welsh Government has sought to extend good practice wherever it is found. The memorandum of understanding on direct employment at the Olympic games, the Hinkley Point agreement and industrywide agreements such as the Scottish joint industry board are cited in Welsh policy advice notes as exemplars of good practice, and procurement bodies are strongly encouraged to follow suit.
At the pre-contract stage, employers have to set out how transparency in employment practices will be ensured throughout any contract. That is reported on for the duration of the contract. Contracting authorities are expected to monitor and audit the employment practices adopted throughout the supply chain, with collective agreements respected. Dodgy practices, such as of the exploitation of agency workers and the use of bogus self-employment and umbrella companies, are being proactively tackled.
In a previous members’ business debate, I went through the history of blacklisting and the impact on construction workers and their families. Some of the victims are in the middle of legal proceedings, so as you say, Presiding Officer, those cases are sub judice. I do not intend to rehearse all of that again. What I will address is what has happened since that members’ business debate and what actions we need to take here in Scotland, while learning from elsewhere.
The Welsh Assembly was the first legislature in the UK to act on blacklisting, when 111 Welsh workers’ names were found on the Consulting Association database. When that came to light, the Welsh finance minister, Jane Hutt, moved to ensure that the Assembly took proactive steps to prevent any further blacklisting from taking place. In doing so, she sent a clear message to the companies involved that they would not secure publicly funded contracts unless they put their house in order.
The Scottish Government followed the Welsh lead with its November 2013 procurement advice note.
Would Neil Findlay acknowledge what Jane Hutt has said, which is that the Welsh Government started looking at the issue only in June 2013, a month after the Scottish Government had shared its draft of blacklisting guidance with the Scottish trade unions? The Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians has said that
“the Scottish Government published a Scottish Procurement Policy Note that goes beyond the general advice given by the Welsh Government”.
I do not think that this is a competition, Mr Brown. I will raise some of those issues as I go on because there are still problems throughout the UK on a range of issues.
I welcome the Scottish Government’s publication of its advice note. However, when we passed the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill, Parliament was advised that the accompanying guidance would be backed by secondary legislation. That was, it was said, to make it more flexible than primary legislation and mean that it could be amended to meet changing circumstances if that was deemed necessary. While I disagreed with that approach and pushed my amendment for legislation, I accepted that the then Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities—now the First Minister—acted in good faith.
It is now clear that the Scottish procurement policy note is not being adhered to and that many public authorities—perhaps out of fear of legal reprisals from the companies that they might exclude from competing for public works—are still awarding contracts to companies that were complicit in blacklisting. The Scottish policy note, as it currently stands, is clearly not working because, since its introduction, the national health service’s Common Services Agency has awarded a £660 million contract to a consortium of contractors, including Balfour Beatty, Kier Construction and Laing O’Rourke.
Mr Findlay, because of the sub judice element, I would be grateful if you did not mention names and confined yourself to allegations rather than assertions of fact.
Presiding Officer, none of what I have said relates to any issues in court. This is publicly available contract information from the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament information centre. You may be conflating two issues, if you do not mind me saying so.
We have witnessed the Scottish Prison Service award a £2.5 million project to Carillion. Network Rail has awarded a £245 million contract to Costain. Transport Scotland has awarded Balfour Beatty a £10 million contract. Kier, BAM Nuttall, Skanska and Costain have all won bids for public works. Councils in Moray, East Ayrshire, Fife, North Lanarkshire and East Ayrshire, and NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Scottish Hydro, Robert Gordon University, Scotland Excel, Lerwick Port Authority and others have all awarded contracts to companies involved in the blacklisting conspiracy.
I appreciate that Mr Findlay may have suspicions that those companies are involved in that kind of activity but, in these matters, mere suspicions are not good enough. Can he assure the chamber that he has exact knowledge that each and every one of the companies that he has mentioned has been legally convicted of the offences that he alleges?
Dear, dear. No one has been legally convicted because the cases are on-going at the moment, but the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster investigated the matter and the companies were brought before it to give evidence. I suggest that Mr MacKenzie read the two reports that have been provided by the Scottish Affairs Committee and look at the legal proceedings that are on-going. If he wants to defend companies that have been involved in a human rights abuse, he can just carry on.
Not a single company has self-cleansed. Not one has owned up or apologised, and not a penny of compensation has been paid. The public procurement note advises that no company that has been involved in blacklisting should get a contract unless it has taken remedial action, but no remedial action has been taken and still the contracts are being given. A blacklisted worker who spoke to me this week expressed his disgust that that is happening despite all that we now know of what went on.
I ask the Scottish Government whether, when the subordinate legislation and the full guidance is introduced later this year, it will prevent companies that have been involved in this practice, such as those that I have listed, from getting a public contract until they have taken remedial action by accepting their guilt, apologising and providing justice and satisfactory compensation to their victims.
The Scottish Government said that it would wait for the publication of the Scottish Affairs Committee’s report before deciding what to do. That committee has now reported twice, and with the election of a Tory Government it is highly unlikely that there will be any UK inquiry. Scottish workers were blacklisted in disproportionately high numbers—more than were blacklisted anywhere else in the UK—so I call on the Scottish Government to recognise that and initiate a Scottish inquiry into the scandal. Only through such an inquiry will we find out why so many Scots had their lives ruined by this illegal practice.
I acknowledge that we probably both very much regret the election of a Tory Government. Given that, does he now regret that his party argued so strongly against the devolution of employment law, which would have allowed us to take action on such things much more effectively?
The Scottish Government does not need any further powers to hold an inquiry on the issue in Scotland now. I am more than willing to take another intervention from Mr Brown if he wants to tell us that the Scottish Government will hold such an inquiry.
I will answer that question in my response to the debate. I ask Neil Findlay to answer my question: does he now regret arguing for employment law to stay at Westminster?
So there is no inquiry, no commitment—
Mr Findlay, you must draw to a close, please. You have gone over 9 minutes.
The Welsh Assembly has led the way on a number of positive developments, using legislation where it can but also using its influence and spending power to address workforce matters and labour market abuses. It is now for the Scottish Government to use its power and influence to make its guidance more robust.
The current policy note is not working. The Scottish Government must ensure that the subordinate legislation that is to come prevents the awarding of yet more contracts to the guilty and leads to the self-cleansing of the construction industry that we all want to see. Crucially, it must deliver the long-awaited justice that the brickies, joiners, sparks, plumbers, engineers and others are looking to this Parliament to deliver for them.
Before I call Johann Lamont, I remind members that they should avoid discussing on-going litigation, mentioning companies that are involved and suggesting any appropriate or inappropriate levels of compensation. Please confine your remarks within those parameters.
17:19
I welcome the opportunity to support the debate. I congratulate Neil Findlay on securing it and on how he has pursued the issue. I recognise the work of the unions and, as has been mentioned, the Scottish Affairs Committee’s important work, too. I hope that, whatever its new make-up, that House of Commons committee pursues these important issues for workers in Scotland and across the whole of the United Kingdom with the same energy.
The issue goes back a long time. I can remember Maria Fyfe pursuing the blacklisting question many years ago, when lists were being provided to companies so that they knew which folk were in unions and who they should not take on. That highlighted what some companies were willing to do in order to exclude those who they regarded as a problem.
It is appalling that blacklisting was used to deal with those who were doing that most decent of things: keeping people safe at work. We know that the construction industry’s record in health and safety is still a scandal. We know that the issue is a greater problem in Scotland than elsewhere. The very idea that when someone raises a question about safety the instinct is not to make the workplace safe but to get rid of the person who is raising those questions is almost beyond belief. Over many years, this Parliament has, for example, pursued the asbestos scandal and the implications that that has had for people’s health. We know that this country has been scarred by silence over those issues. Therefore, I am sure that everyone across the chamber understands how important the exposure of blacklisting is.
We must fear a culture in which a person loses their job because they open their mouths. People would keep quiet and, by doing so, they would be put at risk not just in that workplace but elsewhere when doing similar work. I am sure that no one in here wants to defend blacklisting. The only question is how we ensure that we underline its unacceptability. Dancing on the head of a pin as Mike MacKenzie appears to be doing does not assist in that regard.
It is important to have an inquiry, if simply to have an act of justice for those who have suffered, and for people to confront how much being blacklisted has meant to people and what the consequences of that were. This was not just about an employer being unkind to their workforce; rather, the abuse was unacceptable and systematic, and people have had to live with the consequences for a long time.
An inquiry would be a good way to create standards in the workplace and to give voice to those who have suffered. We want companies to own up, clean up and pay up. That would not be difficult. I am sure that there are many companies that did not involve themselves in blacklisting, but they, too, must agree to an inquiry, because they are tarnished and damaged by that activity.
I urge the Government, and the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities in particular, to recognise the importance of looking at how power should be used in order to challenge those who practised blacklisting and to ensure that it never happens again.
I recognise the steps that the Scottish Government has taken. I simply say that it should be confident enough to see whether we can learn from where other measures are being taken. I am not saying that because any other group of politicians is better than those in this Government. I am simply asking the Government to draw on the practice, to see whether we can strengthen our protections in this country.
We have the power of the public purse, which we should use to drive up standards. Those who are not willing to drive up or commit to those standards should not benefit from the public purse. That is a general truth in this area in particular, but also in relation to wages and so on.
The Opposition can raise questions, we can pursue such scandals alongside the unions, and we can stand with those who have suffered, but the cabinet secretary has the privilege of power. All I ask is that he exercises it, where he can, to stop such unacceptable practices and to press for the change that we are agreed on right across the chamber. We are not in dispute with the cabinet secretary; we simply urge him to look again at what else he can do to ensure that those who acted in that way are exposed for what they have done, and that they are forced to own up, clean up and pay up. Our workforce across Scotland, particularly in the construction industry, would be a great deal the better for that.
17:24
I am pleased to speak in the debate as someone who has run a construction business for more than 30 years. I say at the outset that I am sympathetic to Mr Findlay’s concerns about blacklisting, the use of umbrella companies and payment of the living wage. Some of the companies that he named may indeed be guilty as charged, but some of them may not be, and I can never agree to Mr Findlay being judge, jury and executioner on this or, indeed, any other matter.
Will the member take an intervention?
No, I do not have time. [Interruption.] All right, then.
We will not have any naming of companies from now on; any member who does so will have to sit down.
I am not acting as judge, jury and executioner. The information on all the cases that I mentioned has been put on the public record by individuals who have been associated with the organisations in question. All I ask is that Mr MacKenzie research and look into the matter. It is not me who is acting in the way that he suggests.
If Mr Findlay had listened properly to the point that I made, he would not have intervened to say what he said.
I put on record the fact that I am not yet an accredited living wage employer, although I pay at least the living wage, and in my many years of business I always paid above the industry’s recommended rates. I did so not so that I could put a plaque on the wall; the reward that I received and which I continue to receive was the pleasure and the privilege of working with a team of people who were, and are, committed, conscientious and capable. I say to those businesses whose only concern is profit that that investment in people has paid for itself many times over over the years.
The umbrella company was undoubtedly dreamed up by the same tax lawyers who advise the UK Government on taxation policy from time to time and then go back and advise clients on how to circumvent it. It must be borne in mind, however, that the umbrella company is not illegal and is one response of an industry that has to deal with the difficult problem of an intermittent and fluctuating workload, and a complex and, at times, incomprehensible tax and employment regime.
As usual, the victims of blacklisting and umbrella companies are the workers. To that extent, as I have said, I very much sympathise with at least part of Neil Findlay’s motion. Unfortunately, though, Mr Findlay lives in the black and white world of oversimplification. What he fails to recognise is that the Scottish Government has to abide by UK and European Union legislation without having any real say over either. The legislation is complex, overlapping and, in some cases, obscure. If the Scottish Government fails to abide by it, any legislation that it produces or any actions that it takes in awarding contracts will most surely be challenged in the courts.
Could Mike MacKenzie tell us what is oversimplified about someone losing their job and not being told why they have lost it? What is so complex that an inquiry could not establish exactly what was done so that we could be clear about who was responsible and who was not responsible? An inquiry would make it possible to separate those companies that have an honourable record from those that do not.
I am sure that Johann Lamont will know that employment legislation is a reserved matter—it is reserved to the UK Government. If those powers were devolved to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, we could undoubtedly simplify the legislation.
Legal actions can be costly and the losers in such actions are often the public, who suffer the loss of best value and inordinate delays in the provision of necessary infrastructure, and construction firms, which face uncertainty. The victims are often workers, who suffer the loss of meaningful and secure work. That is the reality in the increasingly litigious world that we live in.
The Scottish Government has issued guidance on blacklisting and umbrella companies; in fact, in some respects, it has gone further than the Welsh Government. It has encouraged the payment of the living wage, and it is doing what it can do with the powers currently available.
There is, of course, a simple solution and that, as I have said—
You might wish to draw to a close, please.
I will do, Presiding Officer.
The simple solution is for full powers over employment law and taxation to be devolved to this Parliament. We have been promised a powerhouse Parliament, not the palliative care Parliament that we have, which is unable to do anything more than mitigate a little bit of the pain inflicted on us by the UK Government. If Mr Findlay really cares about these issues—
Mr MacKenzie, I am afraid that you must close now. You have had six minutes.
—he should support our calls for those powers to be devolved to this Parliament.
17:30
It is customary to be very reasonable in members’ business debates, but I think that we have been provoked unduly by Mr MacKenzie into being not quite so reasonable this evening.
Nevertheless, I will try, and I will start by congratulating Neil Findlay on securing the time for the debate and on the passion in his speech. However, I say to Mr MacKenzie that the issue really is simple: this Parliament has powers that it can use to have an inquiry, and not to use them is a dereliction of duty to the people whom I believe the cabinet secretary actually cares about.
With regard to that comment from Jackie Baillie and Johann Lamont’s remark about the privilege of power, when did the Labour Party in its eight years in government here or its 13 years in government south of the border use that privilege of power to hold an inquiry?
The scandal first came to light in 2009, which means that we in this Parliament were not in a position to do what the cabinet secretary has suggested. However, his Government was.
In any case, the issue is not about who carries out an inquiry. We will support the Government in taking such action because, irrespective of who has the power and which Government is carrying out the inquiry, bad employment practices should not be tolerated. The cabinet secretary and his Government says that inequality and unfairness are bad for the economy. Guess what? I agree, but there is nothing more unequal or unfair than the bad employment practices that we have witnessed.
As my colleagues know well, I often quote Richard Leonard from the GMB, and this debate will be no exception. Mr Leonard was absolutely right to say:
“The construction industry blacklisting scandal is not a tale of a few bad apples but an entirely rotten system which operated in a supposedly advanced democratic state”
Blacklisting has flourished for far too long, but when one heard the denials at the time and saw the innocent faces of the businesses engaged in the practice, one could have been forgiven for thinking that somehow it had all been imagined.
Will the member give way?
I am not going to take any interventions from Mr MacKenzie—I have heard quite enough from him this evening.
The harsh reality is that blacklisting is very real and is being used as a secret tool to keep out workers whom people do not like. When the scandal first came to light in 2009, it was revealed as something that was neither isolated nor rare. For 16 years, people had been compiling a secret database of thousands of construction workers that contained extremely detailed and personal information such as names, addresses, national insurance numbers and even comments by managers. More than 500 workers in Scotland and more than 3,000 across the UK were affected.
Let me be very clear in condemning this shameful practice. Blacklisting is nothing short of a gross abuse of human rights. As Johann Lamont has pointed out, many of the workers affected were union members who had raised health and safety concerns, and their files contained phrases such as “will cause trouble, strong trade union” or “ex-shop steward, definite problems”. The effect on those people’s careers, their lives and the lives of their families was devastating.
We must therefore ensure that blacklisting is outlawed. For a start, we should learn from our neighbours. Wales, which has been held up as an example this evening, is committed to an ethical and responsible procurement policy that facilitates better employment practices. I am sure that the cabinet secretary agrees that we should ensure that procurement is used to achieve better employment practices in Scotland, too.
We have witnessed the increasing casualisation of the workforce, zero-hours contracts, changes to terms and conditions, and reductions in hours so that many workers are now underemployed. We could have done more in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, but I echo Johann Lamont’s comments. Let us agree that blacklisting is bad—I do not think that anybody in the chamber thinks otherwise—but the challenge for the Government is in what more can be done to protect the workers whom we have a common interest in protecting.
Of course I welcome the Scottish Government procurement policy notes—anything that helps is to be welcomed—but we need to remember that they are simply guidelines for public authorities. They are not legally binding. The Government’s ambition was to introduce secondary legislation, but that ambition has not yet been met. We would like to see that happen, and I hope that the cabinet secretary wants to see it happen, too. Let us work together to make it happen. Let us put the secondary legislation in place, because we share a common agenda to protect workers in Scotland who are engaged in public contracts and more widely.
I say to the cabinet secretary that having an inquiry here would also help to shed light on some of the bad practices to ensure that they do not happen again. I hope that he can find it in himself to take forward the ambition of the Parliament across the entirety of the chamber to do exactly that.
You should draw to a close, please.
After all, the services that are delivered—I will finish on this point—are public services. We should expect the same ethos, consideration and approach to the delivery of services, irrespective of whether that is in the public sector or the private sector. The cabinet secretary has an opportunity to do something good. I hope that he will seize it.
17:36
I, too, applaud Neil Findlay for securing the debate and call for support for his call for the Scottish Government to once and for all hold an inquiry into blacklisting and review the current guidelines to consider whether they are fit for purpose.
The minister has responded to that call in some sense. I was disappointed when he decided to blame someone else before we have heard his speech. A previous Scottish Government cannot be blamed for not holding an inquiry, given that the exact extent of blacklisting was not known then. It was in 2009 that the names of 3,300 people, including more than 500 workers from Scotland, were discovered on a blacklist in the offices of a consultancy agency. That is why the Government and the Parliament would be right to hold an inquiry and why we must hold one.
It strikes me that the advances that have been made in health and safety and in workers’ terms and conditions and rights in my lifetime did not happen by accident; they happened because men and women shop stewards and trade union members throughout the country fought for better terms and conditions and better health and safety arrangements. Many of those people who are no longer with us will be turning in their graves at seeing their fellow trade unionists being treated in such an appalling way.
I have listened carefully to what Mr Rowley has said. Does he agree with me or with the Scottish Trades Union Congress that trade union and employment law should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, particularly in light of the anti-trade union proposals in last week’s Queen’s speech?
The minister seemed to want to divert us from the question by blaming Labour, and Mr MacKenzie seems to want to do so by looking at powers that we do not have. However, we have the power to hold an inquiry. That is the whole point. We have the power here to hold an inquiry, so we should not be blaming anybody else for not doing so.
I return to trade unionists. Men and women were dedicated to fighting not for themselves but for the rights of workers and for health and safety so that, when workers went out in the morning, their families knew that they would come back at night. They made advances.
For me, Michael Meacher summed it up when he described blacklisting as
“arguably the worst human rights abuse against workers in the UK since the war. It is worse than imprisonment in that it is usually imposed on the victim without his being given any opportunity to defend himself and it lasts for an indefinite period—often decades.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 23 January 2013; Vol 557, c 368.]
It has had an impact on workers and their families. We know that there have been at least 500 blacklisting victims in Scotland, and we need to do something about it. I appeal to the minister to listen to the call that Neil Findlay makes for an inquiry into blacklisting to be held once and for all and for the current guidelines to be reviewed to consider whether they are fit for purpose.
17:40
I congratulate Neil Findlay not just on his powerful and emotional speech but on his forensic contribution, in which he set out the facts and figures of this scandal in our country that has come to light.
In a way, it is apposite that we are having this debate in the week when there is controversy about whether the Scottish national football team should play Qatar in a friendly match. Many people have become concerned that it is inappropriate for Scotland to play Qatar against the backdrop of the thousands of deaths among the immigrant workers in that country who are building stadia in preparation for the world cup.
When we look at the conditions that those workers operate in and at their appalling death rate, when we consider what happened in the terrible factory collapse in Bangladesh, and when we look at the scandal of Bhopal, we see a common thread running through. It is that companies—often multinational companies—can exploit workers who cannot organise in trade unions or defend themselves. Those companies will seek to exploit those poor workers right up to the point of death in order to maximise profits.
Alex Rowley paid tribute to the generations of men and women who fought in factories and workplaces in this country to make sure that ordinary working people in Scotland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom could go to work with a degree of certainty and assurance about their working conditions and safety. Now we know, tragically, from the events in Maryhill some years ago that that does not provide a 100 per cent guarantee. However, when we contrast this country’s health and safety record with the examples that I mentioned, we can see the advantage of brave men and women standing up to defend their friends, colleagues and workplaces by pressing for conditions that benefit the workers.
It is because of the track record of determination among many shop stewards and trade unionists that the multinational companies—they were not local companies—sought to blacklist those who were effective in standing up for ordinary working people’s rights. As other speakers indicated, this is a scandal that has blighted the lives of those affected, with many not able to work again and some able to work only at jobs that are less well paid than those that they previously had. What those companies had been doing has come to light only recently.
This should not be a debate about whether someone else was right or wrong or whether someone should have taken action earlier; nor should it be a debate about what further powers we need to have. By all means, let us debate the powers, but for the moment, let us look at what we can do here and now to make a difference.
Will the member take an intervention?
No, thanks—I am about to finish.
Even incrementally, we can do something now that will improve people’s lives. We have heard the calls to have an inquiry, which we could do. An inquiry would help to guide future investment decisions by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Futures Trust; if they found unacceptable practices, I hope that that would make them think twice about where investment was to go.
Equally, let us look at the procurement note, because it would be wrong to pass the buck or responsibility to local councillors without giving them assurances and guarantees about the investment decisions that they make. They need the back-up and support of the Scottish Government so that they know that the law and the guidelines will protect them when they take action against companies that refuse to face up to their responsibilities.
Yes, this is a scandal; yes, the companies are still making massive profits; yes, their shareholders are still benefiting; yes, their senior management are being awarded payments that are grotesque, given the damage that they have caused; and yes, it is surely right that we at least show some good faith to those brave men and women who tried to do something to make life tolerable for those they worked with.
17:46
This is an extremely important issue to debate and for that reason I congratulate Neil Findlay on securing the debate. However, I think it essential that I strongly refute the suggestion that the Welsh Government has taken action on the issue that the Scottish Government has not taken, and that it has been quicker or gone further than we have.
First, however, I will agree with some of the points that have been made. In fact, Hugh Henry used a word with regard to the blacklisting that I had already noted for my speech: “blighted”. The simple fact is that many people’s employment and promotion opportunities were blighted, and the welfare of their families was blighted as a result; as has been said, that often happened without them even knowing about it. That is an absolutely scandalous and abhorrent way for employers to behave.
During my 19 years as a trade unionist, we discussed that kind of thing regularly—the practice is not recent. Usually there was a suspicion that somebody had been passed over for promotion, or had been first to go on a list for redundancies, because of their trade union activities. We have heard different versions of when that practice started. Some members said that it is a recent thing that has been known of only since 2009, whereas Johann Lamont said that it has been going on for years. Maria Fyfe, who has been mentioned in the debate, tried in 1988 to take forward the Blacklists (Access to Information) Bill and spoke about one of her constituents who she believed had been blacklisted by the Economic League. The issue has been known about for a long time.
Mr Brown is absolutely right, and we agree on that point. The issue is that the raid got the full information—or rather, not the full information but information on individuals who could be identified and companies that were blacklisting. That is the big difference; the evidence from the raid made all the difference.
I accept Neil Findlay’s point up to a point. Of course, had Maria Fyfe’s bill proceeded, the information from the raid could have been gained far earlier and long before 2009. I appreciate that the bill was introduced when a Conservative Government was in office, and I presume that it did not succeed for that reason. However, a similar bill could have been introduced subsequently and the information that was unveiled in 2009 could have been known much earlier—that is the point that I am trying to make.
The logic of the cabinet secretary’s argument with reference to that bill leads me to say that he has the opportunity to introduce an inquiry. Let us not wait and blame someone else. He can do something now, just as the Government at the time could have supported Maria Fyfe’s bill. It chose not to. Will the cabinet secretary also choose not to?
I have two points to make in response to that, but I will come on to the issue of an inquiry later. I know that Labour members do not agree with our view that we have no control over employment law, and that they think that that is irrelevant. However, it is a very big issue that also impinges on the worth of having an inquiry; I will return to that point in a minute or two.
The guidance that we published in 2013, which was first shared in draft with the Scottish trade unions and the STUC in May 2013, is clear: firms that engage in blacklisting have committed grave misconduct and should be excluded from public procurement unless they can demonstrate appropriate remedial action. That guidance is a strong deterrent to those who might blacklist. It is having a positive effect on contractor behaviour, and encouraging contractors to take steps to put things right.
Will Mr Brown take an intervention?
No—I am trying to make progress and I do not have much time left.
Neil Findlay’s concerns seem to be that some companies that are alleged to have blacklisted have won contracts since the guidance was published.
Two points are important here. First, as I have already said, employment law is still reserved. We have taken the firmest action in the UK to use public procurement to prevent blacklisting but, until that employment law is strengthened and effectively enforced, and judgments are made against offenders, it is extremely difficult in practice for purchasers to exclude companies for blacklisting.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
No, I will not.
Secondly, and as is relevant to the debate, according to the Welsh Government’s procurement website, Sell2Wales, 13 companies that have been named by the Information Commissioner’s Office as subscribers to the Consulting Association have won public contracts in Wales since November 2013.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
No.
Seven of those contracts were awarded by the Welsh Government itself. [Interruption.] I know that that is uncomfortable for some members, but it happens to be a fact. Of course, that did not make it into Neil Findlay’s motion—[Interruption.]
Mr Findlay, please allow the cabinet secretary to make some progress. Perhaps he will take an intervention once he has done so.
Much has been made of the idea that the Labour-led Welsh Assembly has acted ahead of everyone else and has gone much further, but it has been pointed out that that is untrue, even in the words of UCATT. Neil Findlay said that it is not a competition, but he cannot have it both ways.
I highlight the points that have been made about Wales not to denigrate our colleagues in Wales, who are equally opposed to blacklisting, but to tackle the false premise of the motion lodged by Neil Findlay: that the Welsh Government is taking action that we are not.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Without control over employment law—[Interruption.] Has there been an inquiry in Wales? No, there has not been an inquiry in Wales. The Welsh Assembly does not have control over employment law, and the Welsh Government faces the same difficulties that we face. If only it had been acknowledged—perhaps in the same tone in which Johann Lamont made her speech—that perhaps we agree on the fundamentals, although there are major problems in how we deal with the matter.
On broader employment practices, we condemn the inappropriate use of umbrella companies, particularly where that has a detrimental effect on workers’ terms and conditions, and we congratulate the Welsh Government on following our lead in providing guidance to promote positive employment practices in public contracts. However, the Welsh guidance does not, as has been reported, ban the use of umbrella companies in public contracts. It provides details on the instances in which discrepancies between pay and the rights of workers who are not directly employed by contractors may occur.
The Scottish Government policy guidance on workforce matters and employment practices goes further and addresses workforce matters, including the living wage and zero-hours contracts.
For clarification, will the cabinet secretary explain why the Government cannot have an inquiry, given that it has held inquiries on other very serious matters? We are not debating who has done what, where, and who is better, but why can we not have an inquiry to inform us as to what we might be able to do in the future?
I do not think that what Johann Lamont has just said is true. We are debating who has done what; the debate has been littered with such references. Let us not pretend that the call for an inquiry is being made in a completely non-partisan manner, because that is not the case. We certainly agree on things, and I appreciate the way in which Johann Lamont has put forward her point.
Regarding an inquiry—Neil Findlay did not care to mention this—I have agreed to meet Neil Findlay and other representatives to discuss the issue. I want to hear from him, having looked into the matter myself, regarding what could be achieved through an inquiry. I genuinely want to know what he thinks could be achieved by that, especially in the absence of power over employment law. I am waiting to hear about that.
I will meet Neil Findlay to discuss those issues, and we will take the matter forward from there. All that I can do is bring an open mind on the subject, having done a fair bit of work myself to find out what we could possibly do.
I say with respect to the cabinet secretary that he can bring the weight of Government to testing whether an inquiry would be worth while.
I have answered the point that has been made. I am happy to continue the dialogue if it is wanted. If it is not—if it is simply about saying, as always seems to be the case with Neil Findlay, “Let’s see how we can have a go at the SNP”—there is not much point in having that dialogue.
He has got a chip on his shoulder.
I have just said that I am willing to take an open-minded approach to discussions—
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention on that point?
No, I will not.
I will bring an open-minded approach to the discussions that we are about to have—[Interruption.]
Mr Findlay, be quiet.
We will see whether what is proposed is actually a dialogue or whether it is a monologue, as is usual with Mr Findlay.
As I have said, the Scottish Government policy guidance on workforce matters and employment practices goes further. It addresses workforce matters, including the living wage and zero-hours contracts. Our guidance introduces transparent tender evaluation criteria for relevant contracts, but the Welsh Government’s guidance does not do that. I am not saying that to have a go at it, but members cannot say that the Welsh Government has gone further than the Scottish Government when the facts do not sustain that argument.
We fully support the living wage and recognise the difference that it can make to the lives of the people of Scotland. We are funding the Poverty Alliance to promote take-up of the living wage accreditation scheme in every sector across Scotland. In the past 12 months, the number of Scotland-based living wage accredited employers has increased significantly from just 30 to more than 200. This morning, the First Minister hosted a living wage summit with business leaders and representatives from sectors in which the living wage is not widely paid, and the Scottish Government has today confirmed its status as a living wage accredited employer. We have been paying all staff at least the living wage for some time now, and I am happy to say that we are among the number of officially accredited employers.
Although we cannot make the living wage mandatory in public contracts, we can strongly encourage it. It was the Labour Party’s position that we could do that and that the Government had voted against it but, of course, that was not borne out by the Labour Party’s manifesto in the recent general election. The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 allows us to provide the encouragement that I talked about by providing statutory guidance on workforce matters in procurement, including matters relating to the living wage. However, promoting the living wage through public procurement is a weak alternative to having powers over employment law, which we asked the Smith commission to deliver—of course, the Labour Party argued most forcefully against our gaining those powers.
I am grateful for the opportunity to again place on record the Scottish Government’s commitment to fair work. I am proud that we have shown the way, and that others are now following in our footsteps.
Despite some of the comments, there is agreement across the chamber—at least, those elements of the chamber that are represented here tonight—about the importance of tackling these issues. However, I cannot help reflecting on how much easier it would be to tackle them head on if this Parliament had control over employment law.
Meeting closed at 17:56.Previous
Decision Time