Today sees the Stage 1 reading of the Procurement Reform Bill, a proposed piece of legislation that has the potential to have a transformative effect on Scotland's economy.
Sadly, such potential is not being realised in the Bill's present form.
Public sector procurement is a huge source of Government spending, with contracts handed out for everything from the provision of pencils to care services.
The opportunity exists for this Bill to change the way we do business with public money, making sure our economy and society reaps the maximum benefits possible from public contracts awarded.
I want to build a better, fairer Scotland that strengthens our economy and protects our communities.
The best way to do both through the Procurement Bill is to promote the living wage, currently £7.65 an hour.
Labour has long understood the need to protect against working poverty, and the establishment of the national minimum wage stands out as one of the strongest achievements from the last UK Labour Government.
The scaremongering from the Tory right as to its impact on the UK economy was unfounded and it passed without the support of the SNP, absent from the vote that day.
The living wage is the next step in improving pay for workers and building a fairer, more just society and economy.
As it was with the minimum wage, it is Labour leading the way, with Labour-run councils such as Glasgow and South Lanarkshire paying the living wage to their staff. In fact, Glasgow City Council was the first local authority in Scotland to do so.
The living wage has the support across the often acrimonious constitutional divide, with the Scottish Greens and SNP joining Labour in supporting paying it to public sector employees.
And for good reason. Research carried out by the Scottish Government has shown that implementing the living wage would increase the net income of a single parent with one child by 5%, while a married couple with one child would see their income increase 11%.
Hard-working families in Scotland are facing a cost of living crisis.
It is imperative the Scottish Government uses its spending power to deliver fairer wages for them.
The Scottish public sector spends approximately £10 billion on procurement, involving many businesses that employ a higher-than-average proportion of low-paid workers.
For instance, in Scotland, sales and customer service jobs and elementary occupations such as labourers, cleaners, kitchen and catering assistants had the largest percentage of employees earning less than the living wage in 2011
At a time when taxpayer money is going to 19 quango chiefs who earn more than the First Minister, why can't available money be used to deliver fairer wages for working people?
If we are serious about cutting the pay gap between the average worker and senior executives, the Scottish Government has to set an example by leading the way.
It makes business sense, too. Barclays has been paying the London living wage since 2007. In cleaning, it retains 92% of its workers against 35% across the industry.
It keeps staff turnover, and the costs associated with it, down.
The differential between the minimum wage (£6.31 an hour) and the living wage over the average working year is more than £2200.
This is a drop in the ocean in relation to the multi-million pound public contracts being tendered but, for people up and down Scotland facing a cost of living crisis, it would make a huge difference day to day.
Scottish Labour will bring forward an amendment to the Procurement Reform Bill to promote the living wage, and we hope to have the support of the SNP and other parties in doing so.
It is the right thing to do for our economy and our communities.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article