Meeting of the Parliament 01 March 2016
There has been quite a discussion about that. I am not quite sure, because I am not up on my football, but I think that I have seen Ann Budge from Hearts making the point that she uses zero-hours contracts about half a dozen times a year to get staff in for specific events and that she would not be able to put those staff on broader contracts. We have to be a bit careful that we do not expand the definition so far as to include things that people consider to be perfectly okay. I appreciate that there is a difficulty of definition.
The committee raised the issue of zero-hours contracts in connection with the Scottish business pledge, which we had an interesting discussion on. The programme for government makes it clear that, in 2016, we will continue to raise awareness of the Scottish business pledge. More than 200 businesses have signed up to it since May last year, but I want many more to do so. I welcome the committee’s broad endorsement of the pledge, but I also acknowledge its further advice. For example, text on zero-hours contracts has been taken from the committee’s report to be added to the pledge website.
Zero-hours contracts can in some cases—I gave an example—offer people the flexibility that they want, but too often they become exploitative, such as when employers deny staff regular or sufficient working hours or unfairly penalise them for being unavailable or not accepting offers of work. The Government is taking steps to ensure that we lead by example. We do not directly employ people on zero-hours contracts.
Presiding Officer, I am going to run out of time. I wanted to say something about pregnancy and maternity discrimination issues, which—