Meeting of the Parliament 08 September 2015
On the second point, the living wage that the Scottish Government proposes would not be legally enforceable—that is the difference. The national living wage that we will introduce will be legally enforceable for all over-25s. Everyone will get the benefit of that and the scheme will not be voluntary.
I am glad that the member raised the issue of poverty. Earlier this year, the Scottish Government’s annual report on poverty and income acknowledged that we have some of the lowest levels of poverty since records began in the first half of the 1990s. According to the Scottish Government—which Mr McDonald should pay attention to—there are 140,000 fewer individuals and 60,000 fewer children in poverty since 2010.
As the Scottish Government acknowledges in its report,
“This reflects more people moving into employment, and increases in hours worked. In particular there was a shift from part-time employment to full-time employment for those on the lowest incomes.”
The record is encouraging, but there is more work to do.
It is unfortunate that, in areas that it controls, the Scottish Government has sent a number of negative signals during its time in office. We are pleased that a number of those measures have been reversed. One example is the so-called public health levy—possibly the most thinly veiled cash grab on the retail sector that was ever conceived—which ended just this year. If it really was about public health, why did it come to an end?
The same cash grab instincts arise in the Scottish Government’s treatment of shooting and deer forests in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, which is before the Parliament. Only yesterday, I spoke to a gamekeeper who is concerned about the prospects for his job as a result of that ill-conceived measure, which gives little consideration to how business will be affected and how sectors of our economy will suffer as a result of the targeted attempts to raise revenue. That is regrettable.