Chamber and committees

Will the minister give way?

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, and I congratulate the committee on its report, which is, as the convener said, technical in nature. I agree with the committee’s assessment that fundamental concerns in respect of how devolution works outside the European Union need to be addressed by the Scottish Parliament.

As Sarah Boyack and Willie Rennie said, Brexit’s negative impact has been considerable, especially on the economy. The Institute for Government has argued that Brexit has opened up a new space for disagreement in many important policy areas that were previously subject to EU law.

However, I have to say to Oliver Mundell that, given that his party put a referendum on European Union membership to the people, it should have had a plan for Brexit. Its failure to take responsibility for the position that we are in, or for the tens of billions of pounds that it has cost the economy, is why we are having today’s debate.

The approach of the UK Government following Brexit could not be said to be supportive of the devolution settlement. Although many of the most controversial aspects of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 were defeated at Westminster, the act was an audacious attempt at a land grab, as Alasdair Allan said. There are now concerns that the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill could give UK ministers unprecedented powers to scrap European laws, including in devolved areas, and that this Parliament will be unable to have sufficient input or scrutiny.

I hope that I will be able to go on to address that point later in my contribution, but Gillian Martin is correct—we need frameworks that require co-operation, which Sarah Boyack talked about earlier, to address those issues. Whether or not we are a member of the European Union, we have to work with Europe. Whether or not Gillian Martin gets her way and we leave the United Kingdom, we will have to work with other UK nations, and we will need co-operation agreements. We need to get those agreements in place, because the current situation is not tenable or acceptable.

In the short time that is available to me, I will focus on one area, which is the policy relating to procurement. The approach that the Scottish Government is taking is quite unlike the approach of, for example, the Welsh Government to the Procurement Bill that is currently going through the Westminster Parliament. The overall approach of the Scottish Government, as outlined in the committee report, seems to be that the default position will be to align with European Union law. However, £1 out of every £3 of public money that is spent is spent on public procurement. Public contracts represent a significant part of the economy, and there are significant issues in terms of labour, environmental standards, direct awards, state aid and the ability of public bodies to set their own procurement policies—for example, to buy locally or to insist on trade union recognition or good terms and conditions for the workforce in the organisations with which they are contracting. The Trades Union Congress report “Levelling up the UK: the role of state aid” outlines the choices that Governments in the UK now have on state aid and procurement policy, and it says whether those choices will be ones that support industrial policy, industrial strategy, local jobs and businesses, and the promotion of high employment and environmental standards.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 is stronger than the regulations that are in force in England and Wales, and it is clear from the committee report that divergence is a live issue with regard to the discussions that are taking place. In the past, the European Union cabotage regulations were used as a reason for the tendering of CalMac Ferries services. I presume that the tendering process that led to the award of the ferry contracts to Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd took place because the Scottish Government felt unable to make a direct award.

The debate highlights the very technical aspect of many of the issues that we are discussing, which is clearly highlighted in the report that we are debating. However, it also highlights the huge potential for us to look at wider issues that impact on people’s lives and the decisions that this Parliament makes day in, day out.

Yes, there needs to be improved intergovernmental co-operation. The Scottish Government needs to set high standards through public procurement, food procurement, labour and environmental standards and a wide range of other areas that the Scottish Government has responsibility for.

I believe that this debate is an important one, and it is important that we get the frameworks and issues right. However, the reason why it is important has to do with what we can deliver as a Parliament. I very much hope that we are able to flesh out some of the real challenges that we face to ensure that we deliver for working people and the people who put us in Parliament, as we go forward.

It is a pleasure to speak to this motion on the higher education workers dispute, and I thank all the members who gave the motion cross-party support.

As the motion notes, several universities have already had strike action in recent months, and many more staff across the country are currently being balloted. The most recent Unison strike took place on 4 October, when Unison members—mainly cleaners, administrators and library, catering, security and other support staff—took part in action. Further action is due to take place on dates later this month at Edinburgh Napier University, Glasgow Caledonian University and Robert Gordon University.

Those workers will be joined by members of the Educational Institute of Scotland-University Lecturers Association and of the University and College Union, who all have strike dates in November. The UCU action will be at every single one of the 17 Scottish institutions, on three dates later this month, and will involve up to 8,000 members.

Further ballots are on-going at many other institutions, including the University of the West of Scotland, in the region that I represent. Unite the union, too, is balloting its 2,000 members across 11 institutions. We therefore face disruption at universities across Scotland, with staff—many of whom are on low pay—taking action despite the loss of income that that will involve for them. In addition, of course, students are being impacted.

University of Glasgow members were also on strike but, earlier this month, they accepted a breakthrough pay deal, which will involve overall pay rises of between 6 and 12.9 per cent this year, and a pay increase of £2,332 for the lowest paid.

However, the Universities and Colleges Employers Association says that it has made its final offer to staff, of a below-inflation pay award of 3 per cent for most higher education workers, and a 3 to 9 per cent award for some of the lowest paid. Given the rate of inflation, those are pay decreases in real terms.

The strikes are about pay, but they are also about other terms and conditions. The UCU held two ballots: one for strikes on pay and conditions; and the other for strikes on pensions. In the pay and conditions ballot, 81.1 per cent voted yes, on a 57.8 per cent turnout. In the pensions ballot, the yes vote was higher, at 84 per cent, on a 60.2 per cent turnout.

The UCU says that, on average, the cuts to pensions are in the region of 35 per cent, and that those are going ahead despite being based on an outdated valuation of the pension fund. The UCU also estimates that, in the jobs in which it organises in the sector, pay has been cut by about 25 per cent in real terms since 2009. Unison estimates that, for its members, the cut has been about 20 per cent during the same time period.

About one third of university staff in Scotland and across the United Kingdom are on precarious, fixed-term contracts. Some of those workers have been on those contracts for upwards of 30 years.

The average working week in education is now more than 50 hours, and UCU Scotland says that, in a survey that it conducted in June 2021, 76 per cent of respondents reported an increase in workload during the pandemic. A further, more recent UCU survey, from March this year, found that two thirds were considering leaving the sector due to poor pay and conditions.

In response to debates of this nature, Scottish ministers normally say that the institutions are independent and that the terms and conditions of the staff are not the responsibility of the Scottish Government. However, the Scottish Government provided more than £1 billion in funding to Scottish universities last year. Those institutions are substantially funded by the Government.

In addition, the sector generates income. The UK university sector generated income of £14.1 billion last year.

It is estimated that vice-chancellors took pay packets of an estimated £45 million. For example, the principal of the University of Edinburgh is reported to have a salary of an estimated £363,000 a year, and the principal of the University of Glasgow is reported to have an estimated salary of £368,000 a year.

Education is fully devolved and the Scottish Government is responsible for the model in our higher education system in Scotland, which is one of endemic low pay, poor conditions, excessive executive remuneration, casualised contracts and the marketisation of the sector.

I urge the Scottish Government, as a major funder of the sector in Scotland, to get directly involved in these disputes; to urge universities and the University and Colleges Employers Association to take meaningful steps to negotiate a fair resolution to the disputes; to ensure that the fair work convention is the minimum standard for accessing funding from the Scottish Funding Council; and to look at how that convention can be strengthened and, as a priority, investigate and report to this Parliament on employment conditions in the education sector, particularly in higher education.

We have a system in which students are treated as consumers and in which many workers are on temporary contracts and paid a pittance while vice-chancellors award themselves record pay packets. It is unsurprising that workers across the country are demanding improved pay and conditions. The Scottish Government cannot claim to be a bystander in the disputes. The Government funds Scottish universities by more than £1 billion each year. It has a responsibility to ensure that staff are paid well and have proper conditions of employment and that the universities, which are provided with funds, act as good employers.

Will the minister give way?

You picked out HMP Greenock in particular and you described the conditions there as shocking. In your report last year, you said that it was in urgent need of replacement and was clearly

“ill-suited to a modern prison system.”

However, also last year, the cabinet secretary said that it was unlikely that the Scottish Prison Service would be able to commence such a replacement before 2025-26.

Our calculation is that the cuts that we are considering for the justice sector will be in the region of 20 per cent over the coming years. If the forecast was 2025-26 last year, that suggests that it could be some time before there will be any serious proposals on Greenock prison’s replacement. Is that a massive concern? What will be the implications of a lack of substantial investment, given the current condition of that prison?

That is helpful information.

You have said clearly that you believe that there is a need for radical reform of justice. Politicians have been arguing for that since the creation of the Scottish Parliament and before it. They have said that there is no need for a full women’s prison in Scotland, that that is not the right way to dispose of woman prisoners and that prison is also not the right way to deal with the offending behaviour of many male prisoners. Those debates have been going on for many years. Why has the radical justice reform that you have spoken about not happened? Why has it been impossible to drive change in the system? What are your thoughts on that?

Some of what I was going to ask about has already been covered.

Is it fair to say that the main reasons for Kilmarnock prison’s being cheaper to run are the staff terms and conditions and the staffing levels there? You said that the pay might be comparable but that some of the other terms and conditions might be less beneficial for staff at Kilmarnock than for those in the mainstream prison estate. My understanding of the staffing levels at Kilmarnock, based on what I have heard, has always been that they are poor, particularly at night. Therefore, the reason for its being cheaper to run is that it employs fewer staff in addition to those staff having poorer terms and conditions. Are those the main reasons? I ask because you obviously have a level of knowledge about the place, given your previous role there.

I have a further question about Kilmarnock prison, but perhaps you could respond to that first.

It has closed-circuit television and so on.

That is because it has technology such as CCTV in place. I understand your point.

You might know about the staff contracts for Kilmarnock, and perhaps about those for the other private prisons. We have been told—this has also been my own understanding—that guaranteed cost of living increases are built into such contracts. Given the challenges that we now face across the prison estate because of the size of the proposed budget cuts, will the private sector prisons have a level of protection from those while the mainstream estate will have to bear a greater share of them? Is that your understanding of how things are likely to operate?