Chamber and committees

I am sorry, but I think that I am in my last minute. I would be happy to take another intervention in my closing speech.

The time for action is now. The bill represents a crucial opportunity to deliver meaningful change. I ask the Government: if not now, when?

I move,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill.

A number of speakers have opposed the introduction of the bill on the basis that it comes before the introduction of the benefit. Will Mr Doris reflect on the fact that we were both on the Social Security Committee in the previous session, and that we introduced the Scottish Commission on Social Security to do that exact job, even though no benefits had been introduced by the Scottish Government at that point? There is no chicken-and-egg situation here. There is a precedent, which everyone in the previous session of Parliament supported.

I make a voluntary declaration of interests as a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and Unite.

I am absolutely delighted to speak to the motion in my name and ask that the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill. I thank the staff in the non-Government bills unit, who have worked closely with me to introduce the bill to the Parliament, alongside members of my staff past and present.

The bill would establish an independent advisory council with permanent trade union and worker representatives. The council would scrutinise legislative proposals and the framework for our employment injury benefit in Scotland. It would have the power to investigate and review emerging industrial and employment hazards that result in disablement through disease or injury, as well as the power to conduct research independently and make recommendations for the on-going evolution of the devolved employment injuries assistance framework.

The council’s investigations might lead to the expansion of benefit eligibility to further groups of people who are injured or ill because of where they work. I appeal to every member not to turn their backs on workers who find themselves grappling with injury and disease that have been brought on as a result of their job—nurses, social care workers, teachers, footballers and shop workers who have become ill directly because of the work that they do. They deserve our support.

Sheena is a teacher in Dundee who now suffers from long Covid after—it is likely—catching the virus in the classroom that she was teaching in. She told me about her invisible disease, which has left her hard of hearing, continually fatigued and unable to return to the job that she loves.

Sam, who suffers from an asbestos-related condition, has highlighted the plight of women workers who have been exposed to chemicals, dyes and dust, but a gendered system, in effect, prevents their entitlement to the benefits that they clearly need.

If the cabinet secretary reflects and looks back at the record, she will see that, at no point did I say that that advisory group was disbanded because the Government did not agree with its recommendations. I simply made the point that advisory groups can be disbanded if the Government does not agree with their recommendations. Again, I make the point that that advisory group recommended that an advisory council was created, yet the group was disbanded before its recommendation was made good. That is a statement of fact not my opinion, and nor is it an assertion or a reflection on the work of that group, which clearly agreed with me on that point. The record will reflect that.

As I said in my opening remarks, the Scottish Government’s agency agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions states that we must have a full business case in place for how the Government will deliver the new employment injury assistance by March 2025, which is less than a year away. It seems to me to be clear that it is the right time to be talking about the introduction of an advisory council to support the work of the Government. It clearly needs that, since it has taken five years to get to the point of introducing a consultation on employment injury assistance. Rather than reinvent the wheel at a later date, it would make sense for the Government to accept the proposals that are contained in the recommendation.

Since I have until 5 o’clock, I will outline why I thought that the bill was important in the first place. I started thinking about the bill when we were in the grip of the pandemic. I was thinking about key workers: those who caught Covid during the pandemic and who had to go to work while we were able to stay safe at home. Some of those workers caught Covid in the course of their employment. Some developed long Covid and are still off work, while some have been dismissed and still cannot go back to the jobs that they love. We were on our doorsteps banging pots and pans and applauding those workers, but now we cannot give them a place at the table to advise on the benefit system that would give them the recognition for the conditions, illnesses and injuries from which they are still suffering because they bravely went out to work while we stayed safe at home.

The more that I looked at the shortcomings of the current employment injuries benefit system, the more it became apparent that the need for reform goes beyond simply recognising those who have long Covid. Men are 10 times more likely to be able to claim the existing benefit, despite women being far more likely to be working in the care-giving roles that can lead to musculoskeletal injuries. The entitlement absolutely fails half of the population. The only way that I can see to make it fairer is to have a modern, gender-balanced and representative advisory council that would take account of the workplace as it is now, rather than how it was in the last century.

I have a real fear that we are devolving an industrial injuries disablement benefit system that reflects the male-dominated workplaces of the past century, and that, as those workers and their representatives—predominantly men—who fought hard for recognition of the illnesses and injuries that affected them sadly die, the entitlement to the benefit, if unreformed, will die with them. I have a fear that we will see the entitlement being removed from the social security landscape unless we update the entitlement and eligibility criteria now. That goes to the heart of why I introduced the bill.

To update those criteria, we must have the voices of lived experience—of workers and their representatives—around the table to design the system and make recommendations to the Government on eligibility, prescription and a range of other issues. The bill represents an opportunity to put the voices and lived experience of workers at the centre of the design and delivery of the benefit. They should be entitled to it, and I will not give up until those voices are heard and acted on.

I look forward to seeing that update. Have there been any interim updates?

It is right to look for whatever sources of finance we can find when we are in a housing emergency, but I want to reflect the degree of nervousness that I am picking up from social landlords when it comes to changing the balance of funding for affordable housing, even if it is an ever-so-slight move away from grants to sources of private finance. How can we ensure that, when we potentially bring in other sources of funding, the end result is not that the burden of the return on investment, which investors rightly expect, falls on the tenant?

Good morning, minister. While we are on the subject of maintenance—in particular, the maintenance of existing flats—we have heard from witnesses that the current regime does not work well in relation to carrying out proactive maintenance to prevent long-term issues. Does the Government have any plans to review the legislation that governs the on-going maintenance and factoring of flatted developments?

We know that housing circumstances vary fairly dramatically across the country, particularly when we look at urban and rural areas. How successful do you feel the housing to 2040 strategy has been in addressing the differences between urban and rural housing needs and demands? Will there be any assessment of how well rural needs have been served by the housing to 2040 strategy?

I am Mark Griffin and am an MSP for Central Scotland.

We have skirted around the edges of net zero this morning, but Iain Gulland has honed in on the huge social and economic changes in train in the generation and consumption of heat and electricity. Those changes are about to ramp up, given the really challenging net zero ambitions and targets that we have in Scotland.

I have two questions. First, what is the role of community wealth building in achieving our challenging targets? Secondly, how do we shift away from our current economic models, with their generation and consumption of heat and power, to ones that are beneficial to communities? That is the more fundamental question.

Iain Gulland has kicked off on that subject. I will go back to him and then open up the questions to others around the table.