Meeting of the Parliament 07 May 2014
I think that it is far more important than more or less anything else we spend money on to ensure that human dignity is protected and that all people are able to live with dignity.
I welcome the Labour amendment, because I want the Scottish Government to be bullish on the question of how procurement law can be used to address the living wage and a host of other issues, and to be willing, if necessary, to test the boundaries of European Union law. It has rightly shown that bullishness about alcohol pricing, and it should show the same on this issue.
I was not really surprised that the Conservatives lodged an amendment that I did not agree with very much, but let me pick apart a few aspects of it. It refers, for example, to “making work pay”. That prompts the question of whose work we are actually talking about and how much it should pay. We should remember that the Tory-led UK Government actually opposed the cap on bankers’ bonuses at the EU level. The idea that poor people must be made to work harder by paying them less and rich people must be made to work harder by paying them more still seems to hold sway in the UK Government.
Furthermore, what about those who cannot work because of disability, because work is not available or because work of a decent sort does not fit in with other commitments such as caring for children or relatives? It all comes back to that divisive rhetoric about “hard-working families”. We should be committed to building an economy that provides for every single one of us to live with dignity.
The Tory amendment also mentions the changes to tax allowances. Let us be clear: those changes have been regressive. The greatest percentage net change in household incomes has gone to the wealthiest, while 3 million of the poorest households have gained nothing. Gavin Brown and I—and indeed all members in the chamber—are on very high incomes, and we are paying less tax as a result of that policy. In fact, David Cameron has even bragged that people on incomes as high as £100,000 a year are paying less.
In his amendment, Gavin Brown also refers to the increase to minimum wage levels. I wish that minimum wage levels had been increased to as much as the living wage. Let us recognise that £6.50, which is what the minimum wage for over-20s is being increased to, is more than £1 an hour below the living wage. Furthermore, the minimum wage for 18 to 20-year-olds is £5.13; for 16 and 17-year-olds, it is £3.79; and for apprentices, it is a meagre £2.73. Let us recognise that the increase is pretty paltry.
I will not support the Government amendment, partly because it deletes our proposal merely “to investigate” the idea of wage ratios.
There is more that we can do now to tackle wealth and income inequality in the devolved context. It is arguable that we can only do so properly with powers over tax and benefits. I have made it clear that this debate remains relevant whatever the outcome of the referendum. It is the wider question—the question of political direction, not just constitutional choices—that we seek to raise today.
Underneath all of that is a question of values. I have a degree of optimism that the obsession with superwealth is giving way to a wider cultural acceptance that sustainable quality of life should be the aspiration for individuals in a modern society. Whatever we can do to promote and push forward that transition to a society that does not fetishise vast wealth, we should do. I hope that the motion helps to do that.
I move,
That the Parliament is deeply concerned at the current and predicted level of wealth and income inequality and identifies tackling this inequality as key to creating a fair and successful society; understands that achieving greater equality will require closing the gap between the highest and lowest incomes, as well as progressive and redistributive wealth and income taxes; believes that everyone deserves a fair and decent wage for work that provides for them to live with dignity and that employers should not rely on the benefit system to subsidise poverty pay; condemns examples of unfair and excessive pay, such as the attempt by the Royal Bank of Scotland to pay bonuses worth 200% of salaries to its executives; welcomes the EU cap on bonuses, first proposed by the Greens-European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament, which came into force in 2014, and calls on the Scottish Government to investigate the option of establishing maximum wage ratios that would limit the difference between the lowest and highest pay.
16:26