It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for securing and opening the debate.
It is fitting that we should be having this debate today of all days, when the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) has just been appointed Prime Minister, not least because, if the rumours are to be believed, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) will be her Chancellor. Even more worryingly, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) is set to be Secretary of State for Business—if it was 1 April, most of us probably would not take that seriously.
Part of the reason I think it is appropriate to have this debate today is that our new Prime Minister and our new Chancellor authored a book in 2012 called “Britannia Unchained”. I do not know if the Minister has read the book; unfortunately I have read all of it, and it is pretty grim reading. It asserts that the UK has a
“bloated state, high taxes and excessive regulation”.
It then says:
“The British are among the worst idlers in the world. We work among the lowest hours, we retire early and our productivity is poor. Whereas Indian children aspire to be doctors or businessmen, the British are more interested in football and pop music.”
That is the view of our current Prime Minister and our soon-to-be Chancellor, in writing about employment legislation and regulations. That highlights why it is so important that employment legislation is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The idea that we would have Conservatives continuing to be in control of employment legislation really is akin to leaving a lion in charge of an abattoir.
Let us look at the Conservative party’s record on employment legislation. Take, for example, the Trade Union Act 2016—the anti-trade union Act. The irony will not have been lost on most of us that that Act requires a certain threshold to be met in order for
workers to withdraw their labour, yet the Prime Minister did not achieve that very threshold yesterday as she was elected leader of the Conservative party. There is a case here that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
My hon. Friends the Members for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan) and for Lanark and Hamilton East have already touched on the fact that there has been no employment Bill. The reason that we were promised an employment Bill was that, after the Brexit referendum, we were told that Brexit was about improving workers’ rights and environmental standards. The only thing that has happened in connection to any of that is that we are now pumping raw sewage out to sea. That gives us a fairly clear indication of where the Government plan to go if they bring forward an employment Bill: it will not be to strengthen workers’ rights.
My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) has done a ton of campaigning on fire and rehire legislation; shamefully, the Government talked out the private Member’s Bill that was introduced. We have seen little action on P&O Ferries and the shocking treatment of its staff, including one of my own constituents. My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East has been doggedly pursuing the Government in her campaign for paid miscarriage leave, something that anybody with an ounce of compassion in their hearts—and the Conservative party like to talk about being compassionate conservatives—should support. That has not been legislated for. I would love to know the Government’s objection to paid miscarriage leave, which my hon. Friend has fought so valiantly to get on the statute book.
All of that stands in contrast to the efforts of the Scottish Government, even though they are very limited in what they can do in terms of employment. For example, the Scottish Government see trade unions very much as partners, not opponents. We see them as rightly there to stand up for workers’ rights. I myself am very proud to be a member of the Unite trade union. The Scottish Government have the view that trade unions should not be seen as the enemy, but the UK Government constantly see trade unions as some sort of opportunity to play political football. The right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) was revelling in every single moment of his dispute with the RMT just recently. He saw it as an opportunity to advance his career—by all accounts, that will probably not do him much good today.
The Scottish Government already have policies that give a clear indication of the direction of travel on supporting workers. We have a clear opposition to zero-hours contracts, which I would call exploitative zero-hours contracts. We have the Scottish Government’s business pledge, which has been refreshed. We have a commitment to the living wage—not the pretend living wage that the UK Government talk about, but the living wage that is actually in line with the Living Wage Foundation and the real cost of living. We fund the Scottish Trades Union Congress with Scottish Union Learning cash.
The devolution of employment law is supported by the Scottish Trades Union Congress. I will wait with great interest to hear from the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) about why the Scottish Labour party opposes the Scottish Trades Union Congress in
its call for the devolution of employment law. The Labour party, I understand, considers itself to be the party of devolution, so why on earth does it oppose both the people of Scotland and the Scottish Trades Union Congress on the devolution of employment law?
There is a lot more that I would like to see done if we could devolve employment law. It is quite clear that the UK Government will not bring forward an employment Bill that will adequately improve workers’ rights, but there are a couple of things that I would like us to look at. For example, we must have a very honest conversation, particularly in this place, about the use of unpaid internships. They are absolutely rife in this place: far too many people, presumably even some in my own party, exploit young people from working-class communities by asking them to come down here and do unpaid internships. All of us collectively have to grapple with that. I would like to see a complete ban on unpaid internships and unpaid trial shifts.
I would like us to look at things such as the four-day week. We have just gone through a global pandemic in which the whole nature and world of work have changed enormously. There are a number of things that we could do by learning from the pandemic, and a four-day week is just one. I also want us to deliver proper enforcement of national minimum wage legislation. We have had national minimum wage legislation in statute since 1997, but there have been some years since when the number of prosecutions has been in single figures—if there have been any at all.
There is so much more that we could do with the devolution of employment powers, but in rounding off my speech, I want to go back to the theme I started with, which is the book that our current Prime Minister’s entire political philosophy is based on: “Britannia Unchained”. The reality is that for so long as Scotland remains chained to this failing Union, and this disgusting Conservative Government, I am afraid that we will see more policies like this. By all means, we can call for the devolution of employment law, but we could do something much better: unchain ourselves from this place with the powers of independence.
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