Chamber and committees

This has certainly been a brief but intense apprenticeship in the ways of legislating in the Scottish Parliament, but it has been interesting and enlightening. Although the Labour Party will support the bill, because it is essential to the functioning of the country, there are important considerations that we can take away from today’s proceedings.

Placing such an intense burden on parliamentarians has not been an effective way to legislate. Given the amount of time that we had available to us over this month, we could have spent much more time deliberating this and, indeed, expanding the scope of what I am sure will become the act to allow for greater scope for delivering better policy outcomes for Scotland, which I think we all share a common objective on.

Given the constraints, it is great that we have in large part been able to work together effectively to achieve meaningful changes, although not in the case of my amendment. However, it has been a worthwhile exercise. Jackie Baillie’s efforts to improve scrutiny and Government reporting to the Parliament in order to show it the respect that it deserves were worth while, as were Pauline McNeill’s efforts to improve how we support sectors that have been overlooked, particularly hospitality and entertainment venues. Pam Duncan-Glancy’s rather unexpected breakthrough on social care reporting was also a worthwhile exercise. Perhaps the Government will learn that accepting Opposition amendments is not such a bad thing and is perhaps a worthwhile thing to have achieved in the bill.

I know that there has been certain controversy around my proposals. I was wanting to test that effort, because it is not something that is going to go away. It is something that we are going to have to get to grips with sooner or later, which has pointed to a number of policies that we need to rise to the challenge on. Whenever this country has been confronted with a crisis, it has been used as a great opportunity to reform and to massively improve public policy. We need to rise to a similar challenge going into the autumn. I hope that the cabinet secretary will take cognisance of that point and speak to it in his closing remarks.

The evictions time bomb is just one example of something that is not going to go away. The arrears that people are facing and the pressures that housing associations and other landlords are facing are not going to go away, and we will have to have a point of correction as a country. I would like to see us move to a more socialised system of tenure, with an extension of state support for those facing arrears. We expressed those desires in the amendments that we lodged, and the Government should give the space for that to be considered in more detail, with more patience.

Similarly, we can achieve other public policy improvements. As I made clear, the Parliament has already agreed that we need greater co-ordination, integration and regulation of public transportation in this country if we are to meet our climate emergency objectives and, indeed, improve our society. That is what I was trying to probe in the amendment, which, sadly, was unsuccessful.

I feel that there are non sequiturs floating around the chamber around, for example, hammering family-owned bus companies. I have no quarrel with the bus company that was mentioned. I have a quarrel with, primarily, First Glasgow, which I put on record is an atrocious operator that is failing the people of Glasgow, and has done so for years. I do not want to see the spectacle of ministers going to that company and begging it to keep routes going when there are sufficient provisions in legislation to effect the change that we want. That is not what we send MSPs to this Parliament to do and it is not what we elect the Government to do. We elect them to govern, not to beg private companies for mercy and to deliver basic public services. We need to rise to the challenge on that front and, similarly, on the fair work agenda.

Although I am not sure that I followed the logic of it, Mr McMillan made an interesting point about Texas Instruments being an example of a company that might somehow have been stymied by trade union organisation in the efforts to save that plant from closure. If anything, as we just heard about at First Minister’s question time, and in previous campaigns such as at the Caley rail works in Springburn, trade unions are essential to ensuring that the effort is at least put into saving facilities, plants, jobs, and skills—the life-blood of the Scottish economy.

Trade unions are not an enemy of enterprise. The state should be more entrepreneurial, and we need to work together in a spirit of collaboration to achieve better public policy outcomes for Scotland. Although the bill might not be giving the scope that it needs to, that issue is not going to go away, and we need to create the space in the autumn to discuss it in more detail.

I want to appeal to Murdo Fraser’s better nature and point out that those matters were settled during the passage of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019. Therefore, we would merely be giving effect to provisions that Parliament has already debated in great detail.

Surely the member recognises that I was not afforded the opportunity to shape those prior legislative instruments. It is an important cornerstone of our constitution that the Parliament cannot be bound by decisions made in the previous session. If we are looking to deliver positive social outcomes that this Parliament has already agreed are favourable, surely we should be looking at measures to drive that forward. Indeed, if we are looking at those future opportunities and we are not going to endorse them now, surely that is a tacit agreement that the current damaging status quo is acceptable.

Will the member take an intervention?

The cabinet secretary makes a fair point, which I accept. It is essential to maintain those services, because they are critical to our communities across Scotland. My point about the allocation of funds being ad hoc is that the Government is not thinking strategically; it is a reactionary measure to maintain existing services as they are, however inadequate they might be. Other parts of the UK such as Greater Manchester have evolved that position to see how we can develop franchising as the best-practice model across public transport in the UK. That is merely a means of evolving our position in Scotland to use that extensive state support more efficiently in the interest of the public good.

I am not, although it is reasonable to expect any large business with more than 250 employees to permit trade union organisation if the workers desire that. I would not necessarily make support conditional at this point. In my revised amendment, I do not propose conditionality; I merely propose that the Government be required to consult businesses that receive support in order to encourage discussion about trade union organisation. That would be a reasonable step forward. I feel that that adjustment from yesterday might perhaps meet with greater support in the chamber today.

We all too often hear empty words from the Government on the advancement of public transport and trade union rights. When it comes to the crunch, however, it does not come up with the goods, so I would like the Government to support amendment 11 and I invite support from across the chamber. For once, I hope that the Government puts those empty sentiments into action.

Will the Government commit to making trade union recognition a precondition, for large companies of more than 250 employees, of applying for further Government support?

While Covid-19 continues to disrupt livelihoods, we must have measures in place to support people and adequately protect them from the fallout of the pandemic. Businesses have required financial support from the Government, which has been paid in millions to mitigate the adverse impacts of Covid-19. However, we could be doing more to conditionalise that business support with a view to achieving better economic and social outcomes—for example, fairer work obligations and enhancement of our public transport system.

My amendment 26 would require the Scottish ministers to lay before Parliament, as soon as reasonably practical and within two months of royal assent, a report on the implications for business support of the extension or expiry of provisions in the act. The report would have to include, in particular, consideration of further support that businesses required. The key thing would be whether business support had been adequate over the period—we know that it has often not been adequate.

The Government should be required to consider, in particular, whether those who have felt the impacts of the pandemic disproportionately—such as wedding businesses, entertainment establishments, nightlife businesses, taxi drivers and the self-employed—have been adequately supported. We should also consider whether any limitations or conditionality should be placed on the provision of further support, including whether conditions related to fair work practices should be placed on businesses of a certain size that receive support. The Welsh Government has been seeking to explore that. In particular, I would like to explore the idea of introducing an element of compulsion when it comes to the provision of further support to a large business with at least 250 employees that does not recognise a trade union. In fair work terms, all large companies should be open to trade union organisation in their workplaces.

The rise in precarious work that we have seen since the financial crisis in 2008 has been compounded by the pandemic. Some 35 per cent of Scottish workers say that they often get less than a week’s notice of shifts. Pre-pandemic, four in 10 of those who worked in retail and wholesale were paid less than the living wage, according to the Resolution Foundation. Fair work practices are even more pertinent than they were before, especially as we look towards the longer term and recovery.

I also want ministers to consider the suitability of taking equity shares in private bus companies instead of simply providing grant-based support with few strings attached. In the year of COP26, we should be investing in a green, publicly owned public transport system. Last year, the Government gave £191 million of no-strings subsidies to private bus company owners and underspent the transport budget by £343 million. Indeed, the total allocated budget for bus firms between the start of the pandemic and October this year is £288 million. We could be doing so much more with that investment to effect meaningful change and reforms in our public transport system.

As the grant terms are currently conditionalised, they only oblige bus companies to continue to deliver around 30 per cent of bus service levels for the period of the scheme, in order to maintain core services, and to continue engagement with relevant local authorities and health boards to determine what bus services should be operated when and on what routes. I would like the benefit from that money to be used to buy shares in those companies, with a long-term view to increasing public ownership. Single fares on privatised First Glasgow services are now £2.50, compared with £1.80 on Edinburgh’s publicly owned Lothian Buses services. In Glasgow, we need our regional transport authority, Strathclyde partnership for transport, to use the powers in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 to re-regulate our region’s entire bus network through franchising. That would allow us to plan routes, cap fares and ensure the same standards of accessibility, emissions, staff training, staff conditions and much more across the whole region. Everyone in Scotland is entitled to a world-class integrated public transport service.

I hope that the measures that I have proposed meet with the approval of members.

To ask the Scottish Government whether demonstrated attainment from the 2020-21 school year will be used in determining learner grades. (S6O-00058)

Teachers and pupils have been contacting me in distress and under pressure due to what one teacher called “exams by stealth”. One pupil who contacted me likened the approach of the Scottish Qualifications Authority to gaslighting. Those concerns have been compounded by the elimination of last year’s results from the historical grade boundaries.

It feels to me that the Government is about to fail the most disadvantaged pupils again in an unforgivable dereliction of duty. Most shameful of all, the Government appears to be trying to shift the blame on to teachers. There is no room for teacher judgment; estimated grades must be evidence based. Will the cabinet secretary now do what must be done to avoid the mistakes of last year and agree that we need to scrap pre-moderation, allow teachers to professionally determine grades without constraints and introduce a no-detriment appeals process?