Chamber and committees

Council workers have been heroic over the pandemic, and they will be again during the large events that Jamie Greene mentioned. Given that they are key workers, just as national health service staff are, will the minister lobby the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy—in the same way that the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government invited Miles Briggs to intervene and lobby his UK Government colleagues—to fund the pay deal that local government staff deserve, which should be on a par with that for NHS staff, in order to avoid potential strike action and the disruption that that would cause in our schools?

The Deputy First Minister’s previous answer has led to my question, which is about what will happen next. He has set out this morning, and previously in writing, the Government’s obligation to lay the regulations. What is the Government’s position on the proposals? Is it satisfied with all of them? What would its proposed course of action be if the Parliament chose to reject some, or all, of the Scottish statutory instruments? What would be the potential timetable for revised proposals, and would it align with a wider review of mainland local authorities?

I have a broad question on net zero for the witnesses. What are their views on the adequacy of the Scottish Government’s plan to achieve the net zero carbon emissions target?

I also have a more specific question. As we are looking at targets to remove carbon emissions from heating systems by 2025, what certainty does the sector have? Some of the sites that have been identified for purchase and development as we edge into 2022 will need to have plans for zero-emission heating systems now.

I direct that question to Nicola Barclay first.

I am sorry that I cannot be with everyone in the chamber for the debate. I fully support Michael Marra’s motion and welcome the opportunity to ensure that our footballers’ trauma does not go unheard.

Establishing a working group is a vital step. There is no body in Scotland that could consider the evidence on brain injury and make recommendations to support and protect former and current players. As the motion says, we must get together the sport’s governing bodies, consider the issues and urgently look at the growing body of research.

I am keen for us to agree that brain injury should be seen as an industrial disease. Through Social Security Scotland, we have major new powers that could be focused on providing support to those who are suffering now. As Michael Marra highlighted, Dr William Stewart’s findings of 3.5 times more chance of dying from a neurodegenerative disease and of a fivefold increase in Alzheimer’s disease among former footballers substantiate the growing link between being a former professional footballer and having a condition such as dementia.

When evidence emerges—we have heard about heartbreaking experiences, such as those of Denis Law and Billy McNeill—we should use the knowledge to act. Just yesterday, I lodged again my proposal for a Scottish employment injuries advisory council bill, which would establish an independent body to research, shape and scrutinise the benefits that are available to those who are injured through their work. No such body exists in Scotland. The funding for any such payments runs through the Scottish budget, but our powers over industrial injuries disablement benefit are in no practical sense being exploited, and the Scottish Government is not thinking about the illnesses and diseases that are acquired in modern workplaces and are affecting workers now.

Michael Marra is right in saying that the evidence is clear. The balance-of-probabilities test—when the incidence of a disease in an occupation is twice the rate in another—has clearly been met, but the Scottish Government does not seem to be prepared to classify dementia among professional footballers as an industrial injury. The current scheme is becoming increasingly outdated and out of step with modern work, modern working patterns and the harms that workers encounter, and much more can be done to support people who are injured through their work.

In December, when I asked the First Minister about prescribing long Covid as an industrial disease, the Scottish Government deferred to waiting on the view of the United Kingdom advisory council, which said, “Not yet” to the UK Government. However, the Scottish Government should have asked a Scottish advisory council that had mandated trade union members, along with scientists and legal experts who could scrutinise the evidence and advise on changes to Scotland’s benefit system. No such council has been established.

Unions including the GMB, Unite the Union and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, and academics including Professor Andrew Watterson of the University of Stirling back the proposed bill. We should assemble the experts on a powerful statutory body that is independent of the Government and has the authority and tools to secure an employment injury system that is fit for purpose.

Like key workers in the NHS, social care workers, shop workers, bus drivers or train staff with long Covid, our footballers have developed their illness simply from doing their jobs. Securing changes to the new benefit for those who have unknowingly sacrificed their health for our entertainment would be a bold sign that we are willing to support all workers who are injured through their work. We have a generational chance to provide an industrial injuries benefits system that is fit for the 21st century and that reflects the modern harms that workers face. We should take it.

The cabinet secretary knows that school catering, cleaning and janitorial staff are balloting on strike action over local government pay. Those are the heroic staff who have reopened their schools, cleaned them and fed pupils who would have gone hungry. Last week, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy stated that the Government is not the direct employer of local government staff and has no role in pay negotiations, ignoring the Government’s interventions on teachers’ pay. It is vital that the Government—

To ask the Scottish Government when it will next meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss local authority funding. (S6O-00123)

—averts strike action, so that schools and nurseries can stay open. When will the cabinet secretary get around the table and make a commitment to fund the pay award that those key workers deserve?

Thank you, cabinet secretary—I appreciate that answer.

Will you set out the level of work that is going on to develop a data set? One of the big frustrations when it comes to policy on the private rented sector in particular is about the data on things such as rent level increases and length of tenancies. What work is being done to establish a comprehensive data set that is regularly updated to inform that policy work?

Finally, on the issue of affordability, there does not seem to be an agreed definition across all sectors of housing as to what an affordable home is. What work is being done to get an agreed definition of an affordable home?

I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of interests, as I am an owner of rental property in the North Lanarkshire Council area.

Cabinet secretary, are you able to give a flavour of what might be included in the new rented sector strategy consultation and indicate a timetable for when we might see legislation in Parliament?