Meeting of the Parliament 21 December 2016
That is not our area of responsibility, but I believe that it should be. I have already said that we will be looking very closely at the legislation that is being taken forward by Mr Reed in the UK Parliament. Of course, the devil is always in the detail, but as far as the broad direction of travel is concerned, if I was not clear enough in setting out my sympathies with that direction, I hope that Alison Johnstone’s intervention has allowed me to rectify the matter.
We have set up with a range of partners a working group on pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and I will be chairing that group as we take forward our work. To get to the nub of the issue, we do not want to bemoan the fact that we do not have power over certain areas—as we are often accused of doing—such as paid maternity leave, but we do have an agenda to embed a more flexible approach by employers, which is why we fund Family Friendly Working Scotland. As Miles Briggs rightly said, some employers are good at that, and others are not so good, so we will continue to push that agenda.
I assure members that, where we have responsibility, we will do all that we can to make improvements, and where we do not have responsibility, we will still do all that we can and will always be willing to explore such matters with the UK Government to ensure that this Parliament’s voice is heard on matters for which Westminster still has responsibility.