Meeting of the Parliament 06 September 2023
Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of the three critical missions for this Government, alongside our focus on growing the economy and strengthening public services. Those interconnected missions are front and centre of this year’s programme for government, which is unapologetically anti-poverty and focused on delivering high-quality public services. It shows that we can alleviate inequality and poverty by ensuring that we have a fair, green and growing wellbeing economy that provides job opportunities and capitalises on a just transition.
This Government will continue to use our fixed budget to reduce poverty, improve opportunities and reduce health inequalities, protecting people as far as is possible from the harm inflicted by the United Kingdom Government’s austerity-driven policies and the on-going cost of the union crisis. However, only with the full economic powers of an independent nation can we truly eradicate inequality and poverty here, in Scotland.
Delivering fair work and fair pay for all is critical to our missions and a top priority for the Scottish Government. The national health service is the largest employer in Scotland and, through our agenda for change pay offer, we have ensured that NHS employees in the lowest bands have the biggest increases in pay. Building on that, we are committing to providing the necessary funding in the next budget to increase the pay of adult social care workers in the private, third and independent sectors in a direct care role and of those working to deliver funded early learning and childcare to at least £12 per hour—an increase that could be worth up to £2,000 per year for those on full-time contracts. There are more than 200,000 registered workers in the social care sector, and four out of five of them are women. We know that women’s poverty and child poverty are inextricably linked, so not only will this policy help to recruit and retain our workforce in social care and early learning and childcare; it will also be a key step in tackling poverty among women and children.