Chamber and committees

The Minister for Transport and the Islands most recently met with STUC and a number of transport unions, including the RMT, on Thursday 10 November 2016, where the issue was discussed. Work is being taken forward to try and resolve the current situation.

We have published statutory guidance “Addressing Fair Work Practices, including the Living Wage, in Procurement” which sets out how public bodies should encourage contractors to adopt fair work practices, including the Living Wage for workers engaged on delivering public contracts. Individual public bodies are responsible for their own procurement activity and effective contract management and monitoring should be undertaken to ensure that fair work practices, including the Living Wage, continue to be applied throughout the duration of contracts.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 requires public bodies with an annual regulated procurement spend of £5m or more to produce a procurement strategy setting out, amongst other things, a statement of their general policy on the payment of a living wage to people involved in delivering public contracts. These bodies will be required to produce a report at the end of their financial year 2017-18 outlining whether their procurement activities complied with the strategy, and where they did not, how they intend to ensure compliance in the future.

The Minister for Transport and the Islands recently met with the CEO of Seatruck to discuss the issues around staff pay on the freight vessels currently operating on the Northern Isles ferry service. Following a constructive meeting, further work will be undertaken by Seatruck and Transport Scotland to try and resolve the current situation.

The Minister has also written to the UK Government to ask them to take action on the National Minimum Wage and seafarers. Scottish Ministers are currently considering all available options and legal implications to promote fair work practices, including collective bargaining and payment of the National Minimum Wage and, where possible, the Scottish Living Wage in their contracts.

Operational delivery of SDI is provided by Scottish Enterprise, with a contribution from Highlands & Islands Enterprise. Scottish Government staff are also embedded across SDI in a range of functions and provide operational trade and investment support working alongside SE and HIE staff

SDI’s workforce across the globe, including the EU, in each year since 2011-12 is provided in the following table:

* Calculated as full time equivalent posts and rounded up to the nearest full post.

The following table shows the SDI posts in the EU (outwith the UK)

Scottish Development International (SDI) is a tripartite arrangement between Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. SDI provides support for companies to establish and grow their businesses in Scotland and help companies to expand their international trade.

A breakdown of SDI’s budget in each year since 2011-12 is provided in the following table:

SDI Operational Budget

* Figures rounded to nearest hundred thousand

The impact on each Scottish Airport will be determined by how airlines and passengers respond to increased capacity being available. Potentially, airports with no service or limited services to London Heathrow could benefit, with wider benefits for Scotland from improved connectivity for business and new opportunities for inbound tourism.

Expansion at Heathrow Airport offers the potential for the establishment of a new supply chain hub at Glasgow Prestwick Airport to support the building of the third runway. Heathrow Airport will work with the Scottish Government to investigate this opportunity.

The Scottish Government announced its support for a third runway at Heathrow after securing a number of other key commitments for Scotland, including the creation of up to 16,000 new jobs and a minimum of £200 million worth of construction-related spend during planning and construction. There will also be a significant marketing campaign at Heathrow Airport worth £1.5m and beginning in 2017 to promote all that Scotland has to offer. To support existing services and incentivise new ones, from January 2017 there will be a reduction of £10 per passenger on charges paid by airlines operating services from Heathrow to Scotland. There will also be a £10 million route development fund to further help support new domestic routes.

By the end of the last financial year (31st March 2016) the Scottish Government had invested £20.8 million in loan support in Glasgow Prestwick Airport. The breakdown of this investment by year is £4.5 million invested in 2013-14, £6.3 million invested in 2014-15, and £10.0 million invested in 2015-16.

We expect all loan funding will be repaid, plus interest.

Scotland has lower female inactivity and unemployment rates and a higher female employment rate than the UK as a whole. However, we recognise more can be done.

Through our Labour Market Strategy we are continuing to support and encourage people into the labour market, to reduce unemployment and increase employment. Our approach is to create an economy that supports a sustainable working population and that can retain and attract new talent, to meet our wider economic and social ambitions.

Alongside this, the Scottish Government has set out new commitments to; establish a Council for Women and Girls, deliver a programme for women returning to work following a career break and supporting the newly created working group to look at pregnancy and maternity discrimination in the workplace. On top of this we have announced a funding package of £200,000 which will enable organisations like Women’s Enterprise Scotland, Investing Women and the Scottish Chambers of Commerce to tackle the gender gap within enterprise growth. This is very much in line with The Scottish Government’s committed to promoting a can do culture of entrepreneurship across all of society.

The Scottish Government is exploring all options and will table specific proposals in the coming weeks to protect Scotland’s interests and keep us in the Single Market, even if the rest of the UK decides to leave.

The Ernst & Young (EY) Attractiveness Surveys provide data on the number of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects and associated planned jobs, note that the investment value is not reported. Table 1 provides the FDI projects and planned jobs figures for 2011 to 2015. The latest published figures are for the 2015 calendar year.

Table 1: Number of FDI projects and planned jobs, Scotland, 2011 to 2015

Source: Ernst & Young Attractiveness Surveys