Meeting of the Parliament 23 April 2014
I welcome to the gallery members of staff from the national museum of Scotland. I am not going to use them as a political football. However, it will be of interest to Parliament to hear that, following discussions between the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs and the chair and director of National Museums Scotland, the organisation is preparing proposals to introduce the Scottish living wage for employees of its trading company. [Applause.]
I thank James Kelly for giving the Government yet another opportunity to record our active support for the living wage and to state our commitment to doing as much as possible to tackle pay inequality, both with the powers that we have now and even more so with the additional powers that we will secure with a yes vote in the referendum later this year.
The Government’s commitment to the living wage goes beyond rhetoric, and is evidenced by the clear and decisive action that we have taken. We are, after all, the first Scottish Government ever to pay the living wage to our own employees and to everyone who works in the national health service, and we are committed to doing so for the entire duration of the Parliament. That is a decisive, long-term commitment to those who are on the lowest incomes.
James Kelly talked about “rank hypocrisy”. That would be an apt term to apply to the speech that he has just made. Let us not forget that Labour was in government in Scotland for eight years and that at no point during those eight years did it come close to adopting the living wage for its own staff or for staff in the NHS. As they say, Presiding Officer, actions speak much louder than words.
Although the Government does not set pay levels for staff in the private sector or, indeed, for staff in those parts of the public sector that are not covered by our pay policies, we nevertheless strongly and actively encourage all public, private and third sector organisations to pay the living wage. We fully support the principles of the wider living wage campaign. That support is illustrated not just through our own pay policy, but through our funding of the Poverty Alliance to pilot a living wage accreditation scheme to increase the number of private sector employers that pay the living wage in Scotland—a campaign that will be rolled out over the course of this year. No one should doubt the Government’s commitment to payment of the living wage.
Labour’s motion covers an issue that we have debated before: whether the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill can impose the living wage on contractors. The Government has given serious and careful consideration to how we use the bill to advance the living wage. It has never been a question of doing nothing; instead, the question is how to do as much as we can while staying within the confines of European law.
We sought advice from the European commissioner who is responsible for public procurement. The clear response, which reflects European Union case law, is that we cannot make the living wage a mandatory condition of contract. Glasgow City Council agrees with that. It said, as Chic Brodie mentioned, that EU regulations do not allow a mandatory requirement to pay the living wage in its contracts.
James Kelly mentioned Professor McCrudden’s legal opinion, which in effect says that we should amend regulations in order to set a higher minimum wage, thereby ignoring the fact that this Parliament does not have power over the minimum wage. Professor McCrudden’s legal opinion—I am citing paragraph 16, should James Kelly want to find it—says:
“I have not been instructed to consider whether such an amendment would be ... within the powers of the Scottish Parliament, and have not done so.”
Islington Council was also mentioned; its website says that, where EU law applies, the requirement for the living wage should not be made a precondition at the tender stage. The law is clear. We will continue to lobby for a change in EU law—