Yesterday, at a hustings organised by the Scottish Women's Convention, for the Holyrood Elections on 5th May 2016, I spoke about the key issues to support a Fairer Scotland for Women - Education, Jobs, Funding of
public services, Local Democracy and Tackling Climate Change.
Scottish Greens
recognise the importance of
women accessing a wide range of educational opportunities and challenge the barriers
for girls/women in taking up Modern Apprenticeships. The Scottish
Government’s Modern Apprenticeship programme is continuing to
reflect outdated male-female job stereotypes, drawing young women
into poorer paid work. Analysis
by the Scottish Greens shows the severe gender imbalance in different
sectors has hardly changed in the last two years, with the proportion
of young women doing construction apprenticeships falling from just 2
per cent in 2013 to an even lower 1.7 per cent in 2015.
Scottish Greens will push for a plan of action including specific efforts to help
women access non-traditional courses like engineering and support for
experienced women in these sectors to act as ambassadors. Construction
and engineering careers can be incredibly satisfying and are vital if
Scotland is to create the jobs our society needs in housing, oil and
gas decommissioning and renewables. Scottish Greens will continue to
push for training and employment that delivers good wages for young
women, not just men.
Scottish
Greens are seeking action to reduce class sizes, protect additional
support needs and address teacher workload. We are share the concerns
about national testing, of many parents, teachers and education
experts. Scotland can close the attainment gap but what’s needed is
investment in teacher recruitment and training, and investment in
Additional Support Needs which disproportionately affects children
from lower income backgrounds.
It’s
clear that we need more Green voices at Holyrood for bolder action on
the educational improvements that will make a real difference.
Scottish
Greens will support the Educational Institute of Scotland’s (EIS)
action to resist the pay award imposed by Colleges Scotland.
Following a national bargaining process with all parties involved is
crucial to supporting college lecturers and rebuilding trust between
management and staff after years of cuts in the Further Education
sector. Lecturers, who are the backbone of
our further education system, have been stretched incredibly thin in
recent years, and we must give them our support.
The
Scottish Greens believe that for our colleges to keep providing high
quality education, staff have to be properly supported to do their
jobs. With the mounting pressure on wages and crumbling trust between
workers and management, disregarding the national bargaining process
is simply unacceptable. We support efforts ensure
that college leadership gets back around the table and a fairer pay
deal is agreed on by all parties involved.
In
terms of UK Government’s Trade Union Bill, Scottish Greens oppose
and condemn the this Bill and believe that it restricts the
fundamental rights of workers to organise, bargain collectively. We
believe that it will both undermine the effective engagement of trade
unions across Scottish workplaces. Scottish Green MSPs have given
support
for trade unions taking necessary industrial action in defiance of
it. We must resist the
UK Tory government attack on workers’ rights.
With
draconian measures such as fines of up to £20,000 for picket
supervisors not wearing armbands, we will need the determination to
defy this law if it’s passed. Scottish ministers have said
everything possible would be done to oppose the Bill, but we need a
firm commitment from them that the public sector and trade unions in
Scotland will be supported by the Scottish Government in refusing to
implement the UK government’s attack on working people’s basic
rights.
In
terms of Equal Pay, Scottish Green MSPs praise the Law Society of
Scotland for publishing research showing a 42 per cent gender pay gap
among its members. This
research underlines the need for action, and shows that governments
and employers have been paying lip service to equal pay law. We know
that across our economy women earn 13 per cent less than men in
full-time private sector jobs, and almost 34 per cent less in
part-time jobs. At
the moment only public sector employers are required to take steps to
ensure pay equality. Voluntary measures have not worked and the time
has come to require large private sector employers to ensure pay
equality.
Scottish
Greens are supporting restoration of our local democracy and giving
communities greater say in how funds are raised. Local authorities
should have a choice of progressive measures such as land, wealth and
visitor taxes, as is commonplace in other European countries.
From
2008-09 to 2015-16 the local government budget has fallen by 6 per
cent compared to 3 per cent for the Scottish Government. Central
control of funding has exacerbated the flaws in the council tax,
which is based on property values from 24 years ago. This broken
system has unquestionably harmed vital public services.
The
Scottish Government knows that reform is needed, and set up a local
tax commission, which my colleague Andy Wightman from the Scottish
Greens took part in. We can improve our democracy and our public
services by giving councils the kind of income-raising powers
councils in other countries take for granted.
Labour
are right to say that public services can only be protected if we
raise the revenue that’s needed. This is a case we’ve been making
for several years now, but Labour’s proposal on Income Tax would
place a greater burden on income when it is the huge wealth
inequality in our society we should be tackling. Their proposal would
also increase local reliance on central government funding when we
should be devolving power within Scotland.
In
years to come, increased powers over rates and bands of Income Tax
will give Holyrood real flexibility to target the wealthiest in our
society, while today we must focus on giving local authorities the
ability to raise funds including from vacant land and under-taxed
luxury properties.
The
Finance Secretary should not penalise councils who exercise
democratic decisions. Scottish
Greens have shown we can raise hundreds of millions of pounds in
extra revenue from derelict land, and we’ve also made the case for
ending the Council Tax freeze and ensuring the owners of luxury
properties pay more. These tax policies would protect services,
they’d be progressive, but they’d also empower local communities
and address wealth inequality.
On
housing, Scottish Greens believe Scotland can provide good homes for
all but we need to see ministers match their commitment to energy
efficient housing with a funding increase rather than a cut, and a
specific budget line to demonstrate it really is a National
Infrastructure Priority. A clear timescale is needed for bringing all
residential buildings up to modern standards, so we can end the
scandal of Scotland’s cold and expensive-to-heat homes.
The
Scottish Greens have welcomed the decision of Land Reform Minister to investigate the options for bringing Scotland’s
11,000 hectares of vacant and derelict land into the valuation
system. Analysis
by the Scottish Greens suggests that taxing such land could raise
around £300 million a year for house-building. The progress
made shows how important it is to have Green voices at Holyrood
pushing the Scottish Government to be bold.
Scottish Greens have
consistently pushed for community and public ownership of energy
assets so the profits can be used to fund the transition our local
economies and communities need. Locally owned capacity now operational in Scotland represents
only three per cent of renewable ownership in Scotland and includes
small private ownership. By contrast Germany has 65 per cent in local
or community hands. We
could be copying Germany’s programme of switching to renewables
and reducing demand through widespread local ownership. Giving
communities and public bodies control not only creates jobs and cuts
bills but provides revenue to invest in other priorities.
On Monday, 8th February, Scottish Greens are launching the campaign for Holyrood. Tune into Periscope on greens.scot
which goes live on the morning and follow tweets on #GreenLaunch16
