Chamber and committees

Finally, I highlight to Mr Dornan that the programme for government committed us to piloting a four-day working week in the public sector. It is not necessarily a policy commitment—it is not about whether that is the right or wrong area to pursue, but it is important that we pilot that and get information as to how supportive or otherwise that is for people and how it works practically. We will come forward in due course with more detail on how that will operate.

I think that that question is for me. We have a challenge in that because, as I said previously, employment law is a reserved area of responsibility. We welcome the fact that the UK Government came forward with the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023, which helps to ensure greater consistency in working conditions. Before the legislation, the Scottish Government had been pushing for that for some time through conditionality in our contracts, whereby we were looking for people to offer fair work and flexible working from day 1 of employment. That is now a requestable right under the act.

However, we want that to go further, and we continue to impress on the UK Government the need to do that, not least because of the change in working practices that has accelerated since Covid. For example, Mr Dornan is able to join us remotely, which is really good, because we are able to hear from him when, in other circumstances, we might not have been able to. It is the same for other people who have challenging personal situations that mean that they might not be able to attend work in person but are able to contribute remotely. For instance, they might have childcare or other caring responsibilities that mean that they need or would like to work compressed or more flexible hours.

Therefore, we very much understand the need for greater flexibility in working arrangements. Since I came into post, and through the summer, as was the case under previous ministers, we have been working with employers on how we can do more to encourage that flexibility. However, ultimately, the responsibility to legislate on that lies with the UK Government and not us. We are very committed to ensuring that we have as flexible a working environment as possible across Scotland.

We have already brought forward conditionality in public procurement; I spoke in response to Katy Clark about some of the practical aspects of that, such as paying the real living wage and offering workers a greater voice. We keep our conditionality regime under review to ensure that we are being as proportionate as possible while driving the strongest possible outcomes.

We have provided significant funding to the likes of Flexibility Works and others to help to ensure that businesses are aware of not only the benefits of providing flexible workplaces but the practical things that they can do to support their employees in that process. I am happy to bring in Aidan Grisewood to add anything further or anything that I have missed.

My only comment is on Mr Doris’s question about where the funding has gone. It has been redeployed to ensure that the First Minister’s commitment to not just double but treble the fuel insecurity fund can be realised this year. That is where some of this year’s budget allocation went.

It is an important commitment. Shirley-Anne Somerville touched on the heavy lifting that has already been done on the social security side, and through various measures that we have taken across Government, to reduce child poverty. We are pleased that 90,000 children in Scotland have been taken out of poverty. That has been done in large part through the Scottish child payment, but it has also been done through other measures, including our work on employability and our work to drive up fair work practices. We constantly evaluate our employability programmes to ensure that they are tailored as effectively as possible, and the transition from the previous to the new is about ensuring that we can respond to local need.

With regard to the 12,000 target, the SPICe briefing sets out the number of people who have already been taken through and supported; I think that approaching 11,000 people have been supported across the two programmes and, as I have already said, a quarter are moving into employment, with a further quarter moving to positive destinations, including further education or training.

That said, how we tailor our approach for those with long-term health conditions and disabilities and, indeed, parents is an important consideration for us. After all, they are target groups for reaching our child poverty targets, so we want to ensure that our approach is as effective as possible. We are also ensuring that the data that we collect is as wide ranging as possible so that we can monitor the programmes’ effectiveness.

All of that demonstrates that addressing child poverty is not just a matter for the social security system alone and that we must look at wider interventions, which is why we have come forward with these programmes. It also shows how incumbent it is on us to scrutinise other drivers of poverty that come from outwith Scotland and decisions that are taken on our behalf at UK Government level. We have already heard about the incredible impact on families across Scotland of the social security cap and the two-child limit, and we are trying to mitigate the difficulties that are posed by those measures. It would be much better for us to have responsibility at source for such decisions and changes so that we could meet our targets.

Yes, we are working with parents to ensure that they get access to further skills or training that will take them further into the labour market, but Katy Clark is right to point to our other policies for bringing up people’s incomes. Compared with everywhere else in the UK, we in Scotland have the highest percentage of workers being paid at least the real living wage—the figure is currently 91 per cent—but we are not resting on those laurels. We are working with the living wage campaign, the Poverty Alliance and others to ensure that that continues to ramp up, and we are also working with our public sector partners to ensure that, as we did on 1 July, we introduce conditionality to our public sector procurement funding so that the real living wage is paid and there is access to greater worker voice.

Alongside our employability programmes, we are taking other actions to ensure that, where we can under the devolved settlement—because, obviously, we do not have full responsibility for or powers over employment law—we drive up people’s pay.

It is certainly not possible, without the devolution of those powers, to take away the potential for a public inquiry that adds a year to the process. That is an important aspect of ensuring that people can have their say on projects. However, you are right that, for us to be able to make full and meaningful progress, there is a need for interaction with the UK Government. Particularly on onshore wind, it would be an understatement to say that we are on different pages as to the importance of that particular element of renewable energy. As we saw from allocation round 5—AR5—just this week, the same applies to offshore wind.

We will continue to interact and engage as best we can with the UK Government and try to ensure that there is as much alignment as possible and that it is doing its share to provide as much certainty as possible, because that is an ask not just of the Scottish Government on consenting but of the UK Government on the areas for which it has responsibility.

No. We have had no information other than what you have seen to be publicly available, Mr Lumsden.

As I have said, that money will be available when we have the information about the emitters that will be included and when the process will be concluded. At this stage, we do not have that information, so we cannot spend that money. When we have that information, we will spend that money. I cannot be any clearer than that.

Absolutely. I want those ferries to be delivered as quickly as possible. I was born in an island community, and I continue to have family living in an island community, so I know how critical ferries and lifeline operations are to people living in those communities and for the businesses that operate in those communities. I fully understand and appreciate that. That is why we have been pushing as hard as possible for them to be built as quickly as possible. To be fair, the MCA is a regulator and it would be inappropriate for me to try to intervene in the MCA’s decision making. Those discussions are for Ferguson Marine and the MCA to carry out so that mitigations in the design of the ferries can be brought up to what the MCA now expects. I hope that that can be completed as quickly as possible, for all the reasons that I have set out.