Meeting of the Parliament 29 February 2024
As Jackie Baillie identifies, the committee has been asking for that information for a while, and I am glad that it came out before the debate. To be fair, the Government’s commitment was that it would come out in advance of the debate, but we would obviously have liked more time for scrutiny, and I will come on to that as I continue my remarks.
I look forward to the Scottish Government providing stage 2 amendments by 29 March, as was asked for by the committee. That will enable the committee to undertake extended stage 2 scrutiny in order to meet the timetable that has been laid out. I am glad that the minister confirmed during the debate that the amendments will be lodged by that date.
I know that the Government takes the bill very seriously as a priority, and I understand that the team that is working on it now numbers 160 civil servants. We have been given assurances by civil servants that there is no lack of resource being deployed on developing those amendments and taking forward proposals to thrash out the details of the bill as amended.
I would like to focus briefly on the finance proposals in the operating model, which I have looked through over the past couple of days, and on the fact sheet that was provided and the minister’s responses. There is a commitment to have a clearer funding model with greater transparency, and there is a provision for ministers and the board to fund specific local activities directly in certain circumstances, but I would like clarity from the minister on that. That seems to suggest that the bulk of the funding—around £5 billion in total, I think—will continue to flow, as it does presently, either through health boards or through local authorities. Some clarity on that—on what is meant by the suggestion of greater transparency in the funding flows—would be helpful.
A key priority that is critical to get right for the whole sector is its pay rates. The commitment to, and delivery of, a minimum of £12 per hour is welcome, as it takes everyone to at least the real living wage and shows that the mechanism was already in place to deliver that in advance of the bill. That increase and future increases towards £15 per hour will help to tackle the sector’s major challenges in recruitment and retention, notwithstanding the impact of Brexit, immigration restrictions and the lack of devolution of immigration to Scotland, which have significantly hampered the sector.
We all recognise that that pay rate and the taking forward of the wider fair work agenda are absolutely critical. However, I make the point that that is not only to the benefit of the staff and those who are served in the social care sector. Because of the scale of that sector, any additional pay increases that are delivered to its workers have a wider economic benefit not just in how that money is spent, but in driving the labour market in the private sector to increase wages across other sectors that, unfortunately, still suffer from low wages. I suggest that that is one of the most cost-effective ways in which the Government can tackle poverty across society more generally.
In conclusion, I hope that the debate can now move on to issues of substance in the Government’s proposals and to amendments to the format of the delivery of the national care service. I look forward to the details of the Government’s main amendments—as do stakeholders, so that they can take their positions on those—and I look forward to the further evidence that we will take at stage 2 and our engagement with stakeholders on that. I welcome the Government’s commitment to supporting the committee and others in that work, because, as I said at the outset, it is critically important that we get this right, to deliver for generations now and into the future.
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