The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-11340, on “Even it up: Time to end extreme inequality”, Oxfam’s report and campaign. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes Oxfam’s latest report, Even it up: Time to end extreme inequality; notes that the report highlights that, in 2013, seven out of 10 people lived in countries where economic inequality is worse than 30 years ago; further notes that the report states that extreme inequality is a barrier to poverty reduction, that economic inequality hurts everyone, including people in East Renfrewshire, and drives inequalities in health, education and life chances while compounding inequality between women and men; recognises that poverty and inequality are not inevitable but the result of policy choices; understands that a diverse range of people and organisations, from Pope Francis to the International Monetary Fund, are speaking out on the issue of inequality; welcomes the call from Oxfam that, with the right political and economic choices that redistribute money and power, people can help reduce economic inequality; notes the recommendations in the report, which include calls to close tax loopholes, introduce progressive taxes, pay workers a living wage, establish pay ratios, achieve universal free public services for all by 2020, implement a universal social protection floor and promote women’s economic equality and women’s rights, and wishes Oxfam continued success with its campaign.
17:03
Like many members in the Parliament, I have always thought of myself as a progressive politician. I was brought up in the expectation that progress—economic, social and political—was not just desirable but almost inevitable and that, with our advances in science and technology, our society would advance in mutual prosperity, understanding and tolerance.
I have not lost my optimism that we can make it so, but the evidence from the past 30 or 40 years has provided a salutary reminder that we have to choose to make it so. Yes, we are a far wealthier nation and, if we measure wealth in material goods—televisions, mobile phones, cars—it is clear that we have prospered. However, on so many other measurements, the gap between rich and poor, between the haves and have-nots, has increased.
Audit Scotland has pointed out that, while our overall life expectancy has increased over the past decade, the better-off have benefited most. The difference in average life expectancy between women living in the least deprived areas in comparison with women living in the most deprived areas has risen from approximately 6.5 years to approximately 7.5 years. Similarly, the overall death rate from cancer fell by 12 per cent between 2001 and 2011, but the gap between the most and least deprived areas has again widened.
It is not just on health that we have failed to make progress on tackling inequality. We are proud to have one of the most equitable education systems in the developed world, yet the findings of the 2007 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report on the issue still hold true—in Scotland, who you are is far more important than what school you attend, so far as achievement is concerned.
The new campaign from Oxfam and the report “Even it up: Time to end extreme inequality” are a powerful and welcome reminder of the task that is before us. In fact, the report offers some consolation, in that we are clearly not alone in Scotland, but it is not the consolation that we might want to hear. As the report points out, seven out of 10 people on the planet now live in countries where economic inequality is worse than it was 30 years ago.
The report is full of evidence and research that fascinates and horrifies but which I hope potentially inspires us to action, too. To give just one example, members might be familiar with the line, “We’re all in this together.” It turns out that, as a statement of fact, those words are wider of the mark than even I suspected. Oxfam highlights that, since the start of the financial crisis, the number of billionaires in the world has more than doubled. Here we are, knee-deep in austerity and trying to do what we can to mitigate the impact of the welfare cuts and yet, with every day, the obscenely rich are getting obscenely richer. As a sobering contrast, how many members read the report from the Trussell Trust earlier this week that revealed that the number of Scots turning to food banks in the last year has also more than doubled?
I cannot do justice to the many juxtapositions between rich and poor that are illuminated in the report. However, the key point is not simply that such inequality is offensive and morally repugnant but that it is damaging to us all. It is damaging to poverty reduction, it stifles social mobility, it undermines economic growth, it holds us back in the fight against climate change and it compounds one of the most long-standing and deep-seated inequalities: that between men and women. Many of us have taken encouragement from the new First Minister’s implementation of a 50:50 approach to gender balance at Cabinet level but, as I reminded members last week, just as we slap each other on the back for our commitment to progressivism, the pay gap between men and women in this country is widening again. If we are not constantly aware of the hill that we are trying to climb, we will slip backwards.
Extreme inequality reveals itself in many destructive ways, from poor health and illiteracy to levels of violence, but I want to return, as the Oxfam report does, to the central issue of economic inequality. The global scale of the problem suggests that we need to take action at global level. Earlier this year, Oxfam and others reported that the combined wealth of the 85 richest people in the world is the same as the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population, which is approximately 3.5 billion people. One answer that has been suggested by economists such as Thomas Picketty is a wealth tax. Oxfam has calculated that a tax of 1.5 per cent, for example, on the wealth of the world’s billionaires would raise £74 billion, which would be enough to get every child into school and deliver health services in the poorest 49 countries.
While supporting those global initiatives, we should look closer to home. In Scotland, three families have more wealth than the poorest 20 per cent of Scots put together. Another statistic that is also quoted by ministers is that fewer than 500 people own more than half the land in Scotland. A land reform bill will come before the Parliament in this session. Do we not need to ask ourselves how we can use that piece of legislation to tackle that particular inequality?
Poverty wages are clearly central to the issue. I doubt that I have to convince anyone in the debate about the importance of implementing the living wage, but what are we doing about wage differentials? We cannot address extreme inequality if we simply help those at the bottom—we need to look at the gap between what those at the top earn and what those same people pay their employees. When I proposed using the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill to minimise wage ratios between the highest and lowest paid, the then Deputy First Minister spoke warmly about such an approach and then promptly asked colleagues to vote against it. I will not pretend that there are easy answers to any of these complex issues, but the point is that we could take a different approach.
Here in Scotland for example, the finance secretary has imposed a wage freeze or a 1 per cent cap on public sector workers for each of the past four years, yet our university principals have enjoyed a median increase of more than 4 per cent on salaries that were already approaching or exceeding a quarter of a million pounds. Need I point out that our universities are the same publicly funded institutions that are currently employing staff on zero-hours contracts?
The Equality Trust has estimated that none of the large companies that bid for public service contracts pays its chief executives less than 59 times United Kingdom median earnings. We are using public money not to reduce inequality but to increase it. Is it really the case that we want one rule for the rich and another for the rest of us?
This is not about envy. It is not about suppressing ambition or capping aspiration. It is not even about blame. It is about balance and reasonableness. It is about ending exploitation. It is about recognising that our communal and individual wellbeing and prosperity depend on our taking action to reduce inequality.
We like to portray ourselves as a progressive country, but if we are truly to become the progressive beacon that we want to be, we need more than warm words and good intentions.
I could not wish for a more timely occasion to hold this members’ business debate than the day when the Government outlines its programme for government, because Oxfam has highlighted a programme to which we can all sign up. Here is a vision for Scotland that has the potential to unite us across party lines and that can unite civic Scotland, businesses, trade unions, churches and voluntary organisations. Now is the time to end extreme inequality in Scotland.
17:11
I welcome Ken Macintosh’s contribution in securing the debate. In the time that is available to us, we can hardly do more than scratch the surface of the issue.
I commend Ken Macintosh for the way in which he put his motion together. It is a wonderful example of how to write an essay, in that he laid out the information in such a way that the reader knows where they are going. He made it clear that poverty itself is a barrier to poverty reduction, that poverty hurts everyone, and that the solutions include closing tax loopholes, progressive taxation, implementation of the living wage, universal free public services, universal social protection and recognition of the importance of women’s rights—one might add children’s rights to that.
Let me address those points in turn. I recognise that economic growth, by its nature, tends to favour those who have put their own money into it. It is the richest who have the capital and it is usually the capital that is first to derive the benefit. Because the benefits of economic growth go to people who are already socially advantaged—because they put themselves in such a position—they tend to go to men in societies around the world, including the UK, and to the better off, who are in a better position to put themselves in the right place. Poverty is its own barrier.
We have had a demonstration of that in the past week or two. A calculation was done that demonstrates that people who are poor and who do not have credit or bank account facilities pay an extra £1,200 a year for the services that they receive, simply because they are unable to pay by credit or direct debit. That is another example of poverty generating itself. It is enormously difficult to get out of that cycle.
Poverty generates poor health, low self-esteem and low ambition, and it is a self-fulfilling failure, but we also now know that inequality hurts everyone. This feels a bit like a rerun of a debate that we had about three weeks ago, when I pointed members in the direction of the wonderful book “The Spirit Level”—I do not have my copy with me. I encourage all members to read it, because it demonstrates how everyone benefits in a more equal society. For example, a more equal society will have a lower crime rate, which means that those who are wealthy and who pay taxes will have to pay less into the justice system. Not only is the amount that taxpayers have to pay reduced, but prevention is better—and cheaper—than cure.
I come on to tax loopholes. Ken Macintosh was right to suggest that some things can be dealt with locally and some require international action. The Oxfam report suggests that the international community is losing $156 billion per year because people are putting their money into tax havens. That is an enormous sum of money, but it is not going to be moved out of tax havens until we decide globally to do something about it. That is totally outwith the powers of any national Government; it requires collective judgment around the world and it is, unfortunately, extremely unlikely to happen. However, who knows? If we do not ask for it and work towards it, it is certainly never going to happen.
Progressive taxation is also mentioned in the motion, and that has to be a good thing. However, there is already research suggesting that progressive taxation is not, of itself, the whole answer and that how the wealth is redistributed within a society may be a better discriminator. We therefore need to be slightly careful on that.
Comment was made on the living wage in this afternoon’s debate on the Government’s legislative programme. We have got the message and understand that, because it defines the minimum standard of a sensible life, the living wage must be what we should try to pay. I still despair when people tell me that we can already do it. That message tends to come, unfortunately, from members of the Labour Party who seem to ignore the fact that Labour-run Glasgow City Council has been told by its lawyers that it cannot be done in law. I wish that we could get past that and have a sensible debate.
Perhaps Nigel Don can explain how Renfrewshire Council manages to ensure that people are paid the living wage.
That would be interesting, but Hugh Henry should ask Renfrewshire Council why it thinks that it is lawful when others plainly do not. I am not a lawyer and cannot say that it cannot happen, but I am aware of the fact that a lot of sensible lawyers have said that the living wage cannot be imposed. Who is to judge?
Why do universal free public services matter? Ruth Davidson went over that subject again this afternoon. Why do the Tories not yet understand that, if we do not go down that route, we force people to make judgments that they do not want to make and they make bad judgments?
I am being asked to wind up, so I will do so.
This is a timely debate. Some of what the motion asks for can be done locally, and what we have heard this afternoon encourages us to believe that the Government wants to go in that direction. However, we must recognise that some of it requires action on a global scale—I am not even complaining about our lack of independence at this point—and effort right across the globe, which will happen only when people around the globe are galvanised to make that effort.
17:17
I congratulate Ken Macintosh on securing time for the debate and on his speech this evening. I very much welcome Oxfam’s report “Even it up: Time to end extreme inequality”.
It is clear to everyone in the chamber that inequality is, as Barack Obama has called it,
“the defining challenge of our time”.
Global inequality has been on the rise for decades. Even in developed countries with high levels of wealth redistribution such as the UK, the level of income inequality is persistently high.
It is also clear that politicians at every level of government have a part to play in the elimination of poverty and inequality, and in that context I turn to the Scottish Government, which I believe already has the powers to take substantial action. In childcare, housing, education and healthcare, all the powers are available now. As has been much commented on today, we are suddenly able to bring about the transformational childcare change that we were told could be delivered only in an independent Scotland. I welcome that, but I think that we can deliver such change across a range of other policy areas and I believe that we should work together to do so.
In her inaugural speech as leader, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon declared that it would be her “personal mission” to tackle poverty and inequality. I believe that all members share that view, so let us all work together to deliver that. The Scottish Government will be judged on its actions, not its words, so let me review some of its actions since 2007.
There are 6,000 fewer beds in Scotland’s hospitals, 4,000 fewer teachers and 140,000 fewer college places. All those things contribute to poverty and inequality. Since 2008, 70,000 public sector jobs have been lost, and since 2007 the Scottish Government has stripped £1 billion away from local anti-poverty work. We know that the council tax freeze is underfunded, leaving local government to bear the brunt of public spending cuts and forcing it to cut services.
Meanwhile, the cost of living, particularly the cost of childcare, is rapidly on the rise. Since 2008, the cost of a basket of essential goods has risen by 28 per cent; and, since 2010 alone, childcare costs have risen by 27 per cent. At the same time, wages are not keeping pace with inflation, and the minimum wage is more than £1 behind the living wage of £7.85. Nearly 300,000 people in poverty are working and half of poor children have a parent in work. In-work poverty is a persistent and growing problem that we need to address.
Committing to a living wage; expanding educational opportunities; increasing childcare provision and making it affordable and flexible; and tackling in-work poverty and inequality—those are all matters that are well within the Scottish Government’s powers to tackle.
I said in the previous debate that we had five opportunities in this year alone to support the living wage and the Government said no five times. We have the power to do something about the living wage now. Therefore, I welcome very much the proposals set out today by the First Minister. However, we had the opportunity to legislate and to help 400,000 low-paid workers, 64 per cent of who are women. I remember the debate on the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill. We talked about equal pay audits and zero-hours contracts. The proposals on those issues were all dismissed by the Government; all were voted down. Talk is cheap; it is action that counts.
The motion mentions progressive taxation. If we are to believe the press reports on the Smith commission it looks as though income tax will be devolved. Will the Scottish National Party support progressive taxation? Will it support a 50p top rate of income tax for the richest people to help the poorest? I ask the minister to respond on that issue.
I will finish with one of my favourite quotes from Professor Joe Stiglitz:
“inequality is not inevitable. It is not ... like the weather, something that just happens to us. It is not the result of the laws of nature or the laws of economics. Rather, it is something that we create, by our policies, by what we do.”
I could not agree more. There is no greater ambition for Government than delivering social justice and ending inequality. I challenge the Government to work with us to do so.
17:22
I am not entirely sure that Jackie Baillie did not just miss the point of the debate. I know that the message that she delivered is consistent with the view that she has expressed regularly, but to take the debate in the context of Scotland or Britain alone is to misunderstand the objective that we are discussing. We need to look at the matter internationally and see where we are as a nation in relation to what is going on in the rest of the world.
First, there are many people in this Parliament who assume that equality is a key element of what we want to achieve. However, I have equal respect for those who put their family, their community or perhaps their country first. As a consequence, the idea of equality is perhaps something that individuals, particularly in the more impoverished countries in the world, cannot afford to consider when their priority is to look after their own and to make their own way in difficult circumstances.
If we are to achieve our objective of cutting the extreme difference in incomes that exists in the wealthiest and in the most impoverished countries, we must consider what the impact of that is likely to be in this country. It is undeniable that we have spent generations striving to increase the quality of our lives as individuals, and to increase average incomes in our country, and that for every part of our share of the world’s resources we have consumed over and above the average. Consequently, someone, somewhere, has had to have less so that we could have more. The impact that that has had in places including sub-Saharan Africa is massive. We must accept that if we are determined to maintain our high standards of living, someone else will have to carry the can.
As a result of those pressures—but not only those pressures—we have in government at Westminster a party that, prior to its election, made the key commitment that when it took office it would exceed the requirement that 0.7 per cent of gross national income be put into international aid. The latest figures that we have show that 0.72 per cent of Britain’s GNI—£11.4 billion a year—goes to international aid, which makes Britain the second highest contributor to international aid in the world in absolute terms, and the fifth highest in terms of share of GNI.
However, if we look at the reaction to that here in our own country, we find that there are many people who criticise the Westminster Government for having taken that decisive step. When by-elections take place in which parties such as the UK Independence Party compete to win seats in Parliament, we hear our Government being attacked and criticised for having set that target and stuck to it during its time in government.
I am very grateful to Alex Johnstone for taking part in the debate and for flagging up the issue of global inequality, but I ask him to reflect on what the report says. It talks about not only global inequality—that is, the inequality between nations—but extreme inequality within nations. Indeed, that is its main focus. In other words, it addresses not just the difference between the wealth of Britain and that of sub-Saharan Africa, but the differences between the wealthiest people in Britain and the poorest people in Britain, and between the wealthiest people in sub-Saharan Africa and the poorest people in sub-Saharan Africa.
I have 35 seconds to cover that.
I accept that there are key issues that we need to address even within our own country, but under the Westminster Government, a situation has arisen in which the top 1 per cent of earners pay 30 per cent of all income tax and the top 5 per cent of earners pay 50 per cent of all income tax.
On looking through the report’s recommendations, I identified a key difference in understanding that I must address, which relates to the demands that are made for taxes to be imposed on wealth. I have said previously in the chamber that I am a good old-fashioned capitalist. I think that we should tax growth in wealth and that we should tax income, but taxing wealth is a dangerous place to go. The purpose of wealth is to enable proper investment to take place so that we can have economic growth and fair trade around the world; we can use our wealth to invest and create jobs in countries to the benefit of the people of those countries as well as of the people in this country. The appropriate use of wealth is to invest it. To consume wealth by taxing it to pay costs on the current account is to shrink wealth, to shrink economies and to shrink ambition.
I understand the objectives of Oxfam’s report, but members will understand it if I take a slightly different view of how some of those objectives might be achieved.
17:28
I congratulate Ken Macintosh on his eloquent and passionate statement about why we need to do something to tackle the obvious inequality that exists in this country and throughout the world.
I do not disagree with Nigel Don—I think that global action is required by large companies and by Governments. Oxfam has outlined the sobering and shocking fact that in 2013, seven out of 10 people lived in countries in which economic inequality was worse than it was 30 years ago.
Let us think about the technological advances that have been made in the world in the past 30 years. My children and grandchildren laugh at me when I reflect on how the world has changed, even in my working life. When I left IBM to commence a teaching career, I went into a school that was the same as schools throughout the country. Computers did not exist, and mobile phones were not on anyone’s horizon. The human race has progressed so much, but when we cast our eyes around the world we still see the sheer extremes of inequality, poverty and deprivation.
We very rarely take the time to reflect on the fact that many of the things that we in this country take for granted in the run-up to Christmas—the commercial and consumer goods that we will want to exchange with each other as we remind everyone to have a happy Christmas or, for those who are of a religious nature, to reflect on the religious significance of the event—are produced by child labour in squalid conditions and on poverty wages. We very easily forget the hundreds of women and child workers who died in the clothing factories in Bangladesh, and we forget the squalor that many people in factories throughout the world are working in to give us something that we simply take for granted. When we compare country with country and society with society, we see that inequality has deepened and become worse.
Even within countries, there is shocking inequality. In a debate last week that was led by John Wilson, I said that as a welfare rights officer I worked in communities where the stark consequences of Government action were all too obvious. One of the things that we neglect at our peril is that much of what happens is the result of conscious decisions by individuals and politicians to make things happen as they do.
Another shocking fact is that in 21st century Scotland one of the councils in my constituency, Renfrewshire Council, has had to set up a commission on tackling poverty. With all the material wealth that surrounds us, why should any council in this country have to consider something like that? However—in this, I am no different from anyone else in this Parliament—when I look at my constituency, I see communities just a few miles from each other, such as Brookfield and Linwood, where all the statistics on poverty and deprivation stand in sharp contrast. In fact, in some parts of Scotland, the contrast is even worse than it is in those two communities.
As a result, the subject becomes a matter of political will. I say to Nigel Don that politicians are all too keen to hide behind the advice of lawyers when it suits them. What Renfrewshire Council did was a matter of political will. It used its scarce resources to make it clear that it wants its contractors to pay the living wage. The consequence was that the council had to compensate the contractors through their contracts. The Scottish Government could do the same thing with its contractors, if it had the political will.
Let us not hide behind lawyers or weasel words. Instead, let us make it clear that there are issues that we can resolve if we have the will to do so.
17:33
I, too, thank Ken Macintosh for securing debating time on this important issue. In such a debate, we need to consider the many deeply upsetting facts that surround the global issue of extreme income inequality, which greatly hinders the aim of reducing and ending world poverty on a global scale, as set out in Oxfam’s report, “Even it up: Time to end extreme inequality”.
Poverty is a condition that is defined in terms of income. According to thresholds set by the World Bank, about half the world’s population lives in a state of poverty. Extreme poverty is defined as an income level of $1.25, or 80p, a day and according to recent studies, roughly 1.3 billion people fall into that category. Of that staggering number, three quarters are children.
Extreme poverty is a blanket term that involves a lack of decent, dependable access to basic amenities, such as food, clean water, shelter, healthcare and education.
It is estimated that every year 2 million children die from preventable diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia because they lack access to basic medical treatment. Since Oxfam published its report on battling poverty by addressing extreme inequality just under a month ago, more than half a million people have died of hunger or hunger-related causes alone. Malnutrition—and its associated effects—is the number 1 cause of death in the developing world, killing more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Studies by the Pew Research Center found that deepening income inequality is considered to be the main threat to economic and social progress. Tackling it is therefore a top priority when working towards poverty reduction.
The trends show that not only is nations’ wealth increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few, and therefore away from the wider public, but a great majority of the income and wealth is held by just the top 0.1 per cent of the population.
As Ken Macintosh said, while poverty impacts the lives of half the global population, the number of billionaires in the world has grown to more than 1,600—an increase of 200 since last year, according to Forbes.
The effects of income inequality on a population are well known. Countries with large and widening income inequality have a higher incidence of drug use, crime, mental illness and infant mortality and a lower life expectancy overall.
Extreme wealth inequality is also linked to a limiting of women’s ability to succeed economically and the repression of their social rights—those are already major problems in countries with high poverty rates.
The most devastating aspect of economic inequality is that it is a self-perpetuating problem. As long as those in control have the ability to influence or set policy, the poor are prevented from lifting themselves above the poverty threshold. At that point, other nations must intercede on behalf of the oppressed. I welcome the contribution of the UK Government to poverty reduction overseas.
A step that the Scottish Government can take to address the issue would be to continue to work to end severe economic inequality in Scotland and, where possible, in other nations. That must involve both wealth creation and redistributive policies. We know that there is an imbalance in earning potential, which, in the interests of fairness, our Government must work to address.
According to data collected by the Equality Trust, between 2011-12 and the following year, the annual income of the poorest 10 per cent in Scotland—more than half a million people—dropped by 8 per cent, while income of the wealthiest 10 per cent increased by 3 per cent. The poor are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer. Within the UK, the richest 10 per cent earn 27 times more than the poorest 10 per cent. As we know, tens of thousands of people in Scotland now rely on food banks. Are we to believe, unequivocally, that the wealthiest members of our society are really working 27 times harder than the poorest?
It is this Government’s responsibility to all the people of Scotland—particularly the majority—to ensure that our employment practices and the tax and economic policies over which we have control promote fairness.
As Scotland continues to increase its participation globally, working to reduce world poverty by reducing economic inequality will improve the future outlook of millions of people who are currently stuck in a state of extreme poverty.
Extreme wealth comes at the price of extreme poverty and to end one requires us to end the other. I sincerely hope that this Government will take on board the recommendations that are outlined in the Oxfam report and that it will, to the best of its ability, continue to develop policies to combat poverty both in Scotland and overseas.
17:38
It is my pleasure to speak on the Oxfam report “Even it up: Time to end extreme inequality”. I thank Ken Macintosh for securing the debate.
Oxfam estimates that the richest 85 people in the world own as much as the poorer half of the world population. That frightening figure dramatically illustrates extreme inequality in the world.
Economic inequality prevents those who live in poverty from meeting their basic needs, such as access to food, clean water, education and healthcare, and means that they lack opportunities to improve their quality of life.
The report looks at increases in inequality in countries and states that
“the poorest struggle to get by while their neighbours prosper.”
Across the world, seven out of 10 people live in countries where the gap between rich and poor is greater than it was 30 years ago. I accept that some people will earn more than others, but economic inequality means that people do not have equality of opportunity and a fair chance to have a better future. It is vital that the poorer in society have enough. The Oxfam report highlights that in 2014
“the UK top 100 executives took home 131 times as much as their average employee, yet only 15 of these companies have committed to pay their employees a living wage.”
That is quite shameful.
One way in which we could tackle economic inequality in Scotland, and specifically in Glasgow, would be to address the high unemployment rates in many ethnic minority communities. We should act to find solutions to facilitate more employment and, if necessary, more education for such citizens. The 2011 census showed that, in Scotland, the unemployment rate for Africans was 22 per cent; the rate for Caribbeans was 16 per cent; and the rate for Asians was 11 per cent. In comparison, the rate for the indigenous white community was 8 per cent. The numbers are higher in Glasgow constituencies, with an unemployment rate for the African community, for example, of 32 per cent, whereas the rate for the indigenous white population is 11 per cent. That is a difference of 21 per cent, which is a horrendous figure. We talk about what is happening overseas, but we should talk about what is happening in Scotland.
Employment inequality here is facilitated by similar factors: a lack of education and insufficient housing and healthcare. That is not the equality that the Scottish Government aspires to—or is it?
Earlier this afternoon, I asked the Minister for Housing and Welfare a question on housing and on overcrowding in particular, and she suggested that everything is reasonable and going okay. I suggested that she visit my constituency to see what poverty and overcrowding actually mean for some families—to see what it means to be in a family where the children have no opportunity to do their homework or have a social or private life. Those are the families who suffer injustice and who lack opportunities. I again invite the minister to visit some of those families to get first-hand experience of what it is really like on the ground, so that we can try to reverse the trends that people in Glasgow are facing today.
17:42
I, too, congratulate Ken Macintosh on bringing this debate to the chamber. It was either Ken Macintosh or another member who said that it was appropriate to have the debate on the day that the Scottish Government laid out its programme for government because central to that programme is reducing inequalities in Scotland.
Ken Macintosh, Hugh Henry, Kenneth Gibson and Alex Johnstone mentioned the global economic inequalities, and I concur with a lot of what was said on that. Scotland and the Scottish Government will always play their part in trying to tackle global inequalities as we see them. We know that the more developed that countries become, the wider the gap between the rich and the poor. At the moment, the UK sits at 28th among the 34 OECD countries on inequality, which is something that we should all reflect on.
Some things are improving here in Scotland. For the first time since records began, full-time weekly earnings in Scotland are now higher than those in the UK. Real earnings have risen in Scotland and we have had the first annual increase since 2008, which compares with a real-terms reduction across the UK. I am not hailing that situation, because I understand that there are inequalities across the UK. Since 1999, the Scottish gender pay gap has decreased by 7.7 percentage points, but I accept that it is still far too big.
We have heard a lot about the living wage. The number of living wage accredited employers in Scotland has tripled since April this year thanks to the Poverty Alliance’s living wage accreditation initiative, which has been funded by the Scottish Government. We fully support the living wage campaign. We advocate the living wage, and we recognise the real benefits that it can bring to the lives of lower paid workers in Scotland.
As the economy grows, more and more women are moving into work. This month’s labour market statistics show that the women’s employment rate is now 71.2 per cent, which is 10 percentage points higher than when records began in 1992. As many members said, work should be a route out of poverty, but we know that women predominate in low-paid jobs and they are more at risk than men of being in in-work poverty. Part-time working by women has increased by 97,000 since 2008 and underemployment rates for women continue to rise despite two years of economic growth. Women should be benefiting from the levels of growth that we are seeing, but it is clear that many are not.
The Scottish Government is taking action. Through the implementation of our women’s enterprise framework, more women are being supported to start up their own businesses. That can be a flexible employment solution for women who have caring responsibilities. The increase in early learning and childcare eligibility to 600 hours for three and four-year-olds and two-year-olds in workless households will also help more women to enter and sustain work, and we are growing the capacity to increase that provision to 30 hours a week should we be elected again in 2016. That falls short of what we said in the white paper that we could do with independence, but we are doing what we can with the powers that we have. We have increased eligibility to 600 hours, and that will almost double in future as we increase our capacity to cope.
In helping women to enter work, we have to address the challenges of occupational segregation and equal pay that impact on so many women. Otherwise, there is a risk that women will remain in poverty. By implementing the recommendations of the commission for developing Scotland’s young workforce, we hope to see a real shift in the gender balance in skills training and further and higher education. We want more young women to enter non-traditional roles, particularly in science, technology, engineering and maths related careers. From the next academic year, colleges and universities will be required to report on work to tackle gender imbalance in courses. However, career options and choices are often made early, so it is key that we ensure that young people receive unbiased advice from an early age. Teachers and parents have a crucial role to play in that.
Earlier today, the First Minister published the programme for government, continuing the Government’s commitment to our central purpose of sustainable economic growth and setting out three key priorities: to provide fair work, for example through our commitment to pay the living wage and increase funding to the Poverty Alliance to grow the number of accredited living wage employers; to focus on school attainment and university access for those from disadvantaged backgrounds; and to support increased childcare and free school meals. All of those priorities are designed to reduce intergenerational poverty and tackle inequality.
The programme for government emphasises our commitment to empower communities by handing decisions on key issues over to them and making government open and accessible through public participation in the decisions that we make that affect them.
We have committed to poverty proofing all our new policies and legislation through the use of poverty impact assessments whenever we make a change. In addition, as the First Minister said today, the Scottish Government will appoint an independent adviser on poverty and inequality to hold public events with the First Minister, to raise awareness of the realities of living in poverty, to make recommendations to the Government on how collectively we should respond and, importantly, to hold the Government to account for its performance.
With all of that, however, we know that poverty levels are increasing in Scotland because of UK Government policies, and we are aware that £6 billion could come out of the Scottish economy by 2015-16. Jackie Baillie commented on the Smith commission. Earlier, when she was asked a question, she said that we should wait until the commission reports, so I will give her the same answer to the question that she put to me about it.
The Smith commission will report tomorrow. The Scottish Government has made its case for full powers over tax and welfare to help us to tackle the scourge of poverty and inequality, and that case is backed by many of our stakeholders. The Scottish Government is committed to working collaboratively with people and communities throughout Scotland to bring an end to inequalities and, to use the words of Oxfam’s report, to “even it up”. That is what we intend to do through our programme for government.
Meeting closed at 17:50.Previous
Decision Time