Questions and answers

Question reference: S4O-03246

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 May 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many women with children under the age of 5 are seeking employment.

Question reference: S4W-20864

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 13 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many of the estimated 64,000 economically inactive women in Scotland with young children would like to work.

Boosting childcare has the potential to transform the labour market in Scotland and to greatly increase the choices and opportunities available to current and future parents. While the immediate benefit of the policy will accrue to economically inactive parents, especially women, who currently have young children, the long-term policy impacts are not limited to this group. I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-20863 on 12 May 2014 for further detail. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Annual Population Survey provides the preferred measure for detailed labour market information for subsets of the population in Scotland. Summary results from the Annual Population Survey 2013 are available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/05/4201

Question reference: S4W-20866

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 13 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how much additional tax revenue would be raised in an independent Scotland if (a) 14,000 and (b) 64,000 economically inactive women with young children entered the workforce.

The Scottish Government publication ‘Childcare and Labour Market Participation – Economic Analysis’ estimated the impact on tax revenues of increases in female participation under three different scenarios:

An increase in two percentage points in female activity, equivalent to 35,000 of women becoming active in the labour market is estimated to increase annual tax revenues by £200 million in the long-term.

Matching Norwegian female participation rate would be equivalent to 68,000 more economically active women. It is estimated that this could increase annual tax revenues by approximately £400 million in the long run.

Matching the Swedish female participation rate, equivalent to an additional 104,000 economically active women, is estimated to raise £700 million in annual revenues in the long-term.

The full report is available from

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0044/00441783.pdf

Question reference: S4W-20863

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 12 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4O-03099 by Angela Constance on 2 April 2014, as its paper, Childcare and female labour market participation, states that, to match Swedish participation rates, an additional 104,000 women would need to enter the workforce, how long it would take its proposed childcare policy to get this amount of additional women into employment, and, as only 64,000 women with young children are considered economically inactive, what further action would be required.

Boosting childcare has the potential to transform the labour market in Scotland and to greatly increase the choices and opportunities available to current and future parents. While the immediate benefit of the policy will accrue to economically inactive parents, especially women, who currently have young children, the long-term policy impacts are not limited to this group.

The difference in male and female economic activity rates persists for parents whose children are over the age of five. There is a gender gap of over eight percentage points in the activity rates for parents with children aged 12 to 18. This is a consequence, in part, of the time that many women take out of the labour market due to childcare responsibilities and the widely acknowledged difficulties and lack of choice they often face in returning to work. By improving participation rates for women with children aged one to five, a transformational childcare policy could therefore over time increase participation rates among women with children of all ages.

Question reference: S4W-20862

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 9 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how much it estimates its proposal to provide 1,140 hours of childcare per year to all pre-school children in an independent Scotland would cost, and when it last calculated this figure.

Question reference: S4W-20868

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 9 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4O-03099 by Angela Constance on 2 April 2014, whether it has carried out economic modelling on providing 1,140 hours of childcare for (a) half of two-year-olds and all three and four-year-olds and (b) all children aged one to four, and, if so, whether it will publish this.

By the end of the first Parliament, vulnerable two years olds and all three and four years olds will be entitled to 1,140 hours of childcare a year. In the longer term, the Scottish Government plans to provide 1,140 hours of childcare a year to all children from age one until they start school. Once fully operational, the Scottish Government estimates that around 240,000 children and 212,000 families will benefit.

Question reference: S4W-20861

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 9 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) briefing 14/26, Early Learning and Childcare, that its proposal to provide 1,140 hours of childcare per year to all pre-school children in an independent Scotland would cost approximately £1.2 billion.

Question reference: S4W-20860

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 9 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the modelling for its childcare policy in an independent Scotland does not differentiate between gender and, in light of women having both lower average pay and working fewer hours per week, whether if it will carry out further modelling based solely on the impact on women.

The Scottish Government modelled the impacts of increased female participation using a detailed Computable General Equilibrium model of the Scottish economy. CGE models are widely used for dynamic policy modelling by many national governments and international organisations.

Many women work less hours and earn less than men precisely because of current or previous childcare commitments. This only reinforces the argument for the transformational change in the provision of childcare proposed in Scotland’s Future. When fully implemented, universal childcare entitlement would represent a fundamental change in the choices and opportunities women with young children face in the labour market, providing clear social and economic benefits.

Changes in the labour market have the potential to happen relatively quickly. The latest available breakdown of the employment figures by the working pattern shows that over the year between October to December 2013, the number of women in full-time employment rose by 48,000 whilst part-time employment increased by 17,000.

Question reference: S4W-20379

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 3 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government who formed the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning’s delegation to the OECD education summit in New Zealand.

The parameters of the delegation were set by OECD and Education International, the organisers of the International Summit on the Teaching Profession. The UK delegation comprised the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning; Ken Muir, Chief Executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland; Larry Flanagan, the General Secretary of the EIS; Darren Northcott, National Official for Education at NASUWT and Ian Mitchell, Scottish Government.

Question reference: S4O-03088

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how widely it estimates zero hours contracts are used.

Chamber and committees