Chamber and committees

Will the member take an intervention?

The past 18 months have been unimaginably difficult for businesses and workers. People have been tested to their limits. Now more than ever, we are looking at how we work and at our financial security.

We have some good news: the United Kingdom economy is recovering more quickly than was expected. As many others were, I was pleased to hear the announcement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the national living wage is set to increase by 6.6 per cent, to £9.50 an hour, in 2022. That will give millions of people on low incomes a pay rise of more than £1,000 per year.

However, difficult challenges remain. As world leaders gather in Glasgow for the United Nations 26th climate conference of the parties—COP26—the implications of climate change loom large for decision makers. For thousands of energy sector workers in North East Scotland, ensuring a fair and managed transition to an integrated energy sector is critical. Yesterday, I met Oil & Gas UK to discuss that further.

As we seek to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, there is an opportunity for lawmakers and businesses to look at the current landscape and to take stock. What conditions will help to facilitate growth, to remove barriers to employment so that everyone who wants to can work, and to close the persistent gender pay gap, which has widened over the past year? How can we make business practices more sustainable across the whole supply chain? How can we support local economies across Scotland as they reboot, post public health measures?

The Scottish National Party Government has significant powers at its disposal to address those questions, including full powers over education and skills, oversight of business support agencies including Scottish Enterprise, and control of public spending powers through procurement. Global management consultancy McKinsey & Company highlights that

“two-thirds of the average company’s environmental, social, and governance footprint lies with suppliers.”

There is great potential through procurement to address environmental, social and governance issues. In the speeches that will follow, my Conservative colleagues will look at the procurement system in Scotland and at how it can be harnessed effectively to meet some of the challenges. Our approach is underpinned by openness and transparency.

After working at senior level in human resources for 30 years, I often talk about the importance of collaborative working in order to avoid silos. Consultation and engagement on the questions that I have raised are key, but I fear that the voices of businesses are not being heard by the SNP-Green coalition.

Take the hospitality sector. Workers in the sector tend to be younger, and the sector’s workforce has one of the highest proportions of women. The Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland suggests that the hospitality sector will need “ongoing support” to rebuild, following the pandemic. The Scottish hospitality group has repeatedly warned the Scottish Government about Covid-19’s devastating impact on the sector.

Will the minister please explain how the SNP Government believes that it can manage work when it—disastrously—cannot manage its ferries, reduce the attainment gap or improve its drug deaths record?

I have one minute left, so I will not take an intervention.

The Scottish National Party refused to give hospitality and leisure businesses a full year of non-domestic rates relief to provide some financial headroom, until the Scottish Conservatives secured a U-turn earlier this year.

Despite already being in a fragile state, the hospitality sector is also dealing with the fall-out from the vaccination passport shambles. The vice-chairman of the Night Time Industries Association Scotland, whose hospitality group owns a number of venues in the north-east, said last week:

“It is utterly bewildering the Scottish Government have completely ignored the warnings from sectoral experts … It has taken just one week for our concerns around market distortion, unfair competition, discrimination and the severe economic impact to be proven true”.

I have made those points because the Scottish Government’s decisions affect the operating environment for the sector. It follows that the decisions affect hospitality workers, who face losing up to £200 a week in wages because of that poorly executed scheme.

The SNP claims that it does not have sufficient levers to promote fair work, but the problem is in the engine room. In the programme for government, the First Minister reiterated her party’s support for a four-day working week as part of a wellbeing economy. That would be a monumental shift in working patterns that would require careful and detailed planning, which is a worrying prospect for many businesses that are already stretched thin and are trying to make ends meet.

When I asked the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy about the £10 million pilot, no detail was forthcoming; the matter was kicked into the long grass. That is the problem; the SNP seems to be paying lip service to policy ideas without delivering on the detail. It is full of promises, but it does not follow through.

That is not just my view. Earlier this year, the Carnegie UK Trust identified an implementation gap between the Scottish Government’s rhetoric and its delivery on fair work policies. The left-wing Jimmy Reid Foundation has, similarly, criticised the SNP Government of 2016 to 2021 for not matching its rhetoric with its actions, and has highlighted the devolved powers that are already at the Scottish Government’s disposal in the area.

As we learn to live with Covid-19 and recover from the pandemic, we have the opportunity not just to revive our economy but to reset it. We are building back fairer and greener, but during this period of change, we must be mindful as politicians to take people and businesses with us. We need to restore confidence as well as trust.

I am concerned about one area, which relates to the order placing an obligation on the returning officer to send an official poll card or notification to a detained prisoner, or a prisoner held on remand, at the place where they are being detained rather than the address at which they are registered to vote. Can you give us some background on why you felt that there was a need to make that change, bearing in mind that it affects such a small number of people?

I am just saying that it is an area of concern. I recommend that we leave things as they are now rather than change anything. Will you consider doing that, minister?

It is a change and there is a concern. If there have been no complaints and nobody has found any difficulties, why make the tweak?

So it is not that important to you. It is just a tweak.

Engagement is how you will measure success. Do you have any engagement indicator or will you take a general view at the end of the year?

So your focus is on keeping women out of prison.