Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am delighted to be able to join you for this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am usually away up the road as well, so I am very glad to be here for this very important debate on this very important report. I pay tribute to the wonderful members of the Committee, not least the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), for putting the report together, and pursuing the issues and the evidence we need to ensure that action is taken.

The Scottish Parliament Equalities and Human Rights Committee, under the chairmanship of Christina McKelvie, produced a similar report, published in July, on prejudice-based bullying and the harassment of children and young people in schools. It is, I suppose, not remarkable that the report addressed a lot of similar issues. What I took from both reports was the issue of the prevention of misogynistic behaviour, which is not just a matter for girls or for boys. The whole school community should be involved in considering the issues that drive sexism in society. As many Members have said, this is about not just schools, but how universities and society as a whole deal with these issues.

It is important that sex education is available to everybody and is consistent across all schools, so that everybody can receive the same message and has a proper space in which to learn. I pay tribute to the Time for Inclusive Education—TIE—campaign in Scotland, which is pushing very hard to get LGBTI+ education into schools. As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) mentioned, this area can be a huge source of bullying. We need to ensure that everyone feels safe and protected, and is able to conduct their education without fear of bullying and harassment.

Rape Crisis Scotland, in its evidence to the Scottish Committee, talked about the focus schools often have on girls’ behaviour—how girls are supposed to dress or act in a particular way, and how they should not feel pressurised to engage in sexting and so on—when it should be the other way around. They should not be pressured or made to feel that what they wear has anything to do with other people’s behaviour towards them.

It might be useful for this Parliament if I highlight the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016, which came into force in July. It makes it a criminal offence, with a sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment, to disclose, or threaten to disclose, an intimate photograph or film. That is quite a deterrent. There has been a huge public information campaign in Scotland around it, under the banner of “Not yours to share”, highlighting the fact that such images are not yours to share. They are intimate images and should not be shared, and people should not be pressured to have them taken in the first place if they do not want to.

As there is for many of the other issues raised in this debate, there is a gap in the data on this problem. Engender, the wonderful women’s organisation in Scotland, has highlighted the data gaps in reporting and where the problem is. There is almost certainly under-reporting of sexual harassment in schools as in life, because it is normalised—it becomes a joke, part of the banter. If this week has taught us anything, and I hope it has, it is that we must believe women and we must not trivialise this sort of behaviour, because that is the start of a dangerous slope.

In Scotland, teachers have been at the forefront of campaigning. I commend the report by the Educational Institute of Scotland “Get it Right for Girls”, which challenges misogynistic behaviour in schools—everything from physical attacks down to the language used in schools. Saying things are “girly” or telling people to “man up” perpetuates stereotypes. The EIS also challenges objectification of women and the roles of women in society. We have an awful lot of work to do on that.

I think about that sort of thing quite a lot, because I have a seven-year-old and a wee girl who turns four next week. I am very conscious of what they learn in school and nursery. When my son was in nursery, all the kids were asked to think about what job they wanted to do when they grew up, and they made a video. The boys wanted to be ambulance drivers and soldiers—very active roles. All the wee girls in that class—all of them—wanted to be a dancer or a singer. There is nothing wrong with being a dancer or a singer, but why were they choosing those at the age of three, rather than to be an ambulance driver or anything else? Why were they so stereotyped into those roles at the age of three? We need to think about that.

Consent also starts at a very young age—we can think about that with children too using something as simple as tickling. If you are tickling a child and they say, “Stop,” you stop. That is teaching consent to very young children. They understand that. We can build in resilience from a young age and teach children that if they want something to stop, they tell the person doing it to stop, and that happens.

I could say many, many more things, but I am happy to conclude at that. I encourage the Government to look at other places and to act, because as all hon. Members have said this afternoon, we cannot wait any longer for action. Every day that every child goes to school in this country, they face this problem. That is not acceptable anymore. We need to act.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

This Government are determined to make this a country that works for everyone, and education is at of the heart of that ambition. I have already had the opportunity to see some of the excellent work being carried out in our classrooms. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools has said, there are now 1.4 million more children in good or outstanding schools than there were in 2010. The Department for Education has an expanded role, taking in higher education, further education and skills. That was reflected in my first announcement as Secretary of State of the six opportunity areas where we are going to trial a new approach to boosting attainment and outcomes in social mobility coldspots that have been identified by the Social Mobility Commission. We will work inside schools and outside them, with communities and businesses, to make sure that we can turbo charge those children’s opportunities.

[Mr Speaker]

The Secretary of State clearly does not wish to be outdone by her hon. Friend the Minister of State. That much is clear.

[Alison Thewliss]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. The reputation of Scotland’s higher education sector is of huge significance at home and in the wider world. What assessment has she made of the damage that could be caused to that reputation by the marketisation of the HE sector opening it up to unknown and disreputable new providers?

[Justine Greening]

That is not at all what the Higher Education and Research Bill seeks to do. It is about opening up the higher education sector, so that we have the next wave of institutions that can provide fantastic degrees, and about making sure that there is teaching excellence. It is a strong Bill that will move the sector forward for the first time in 25 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is right. I know that he will be playing a vital role in shepherding through Parliament the Bill that will require all schools to allow other providers of opportunity post-16, whether FE colleges or apprenticeship employers, to come into the school to talk to young people during school hours, so that they are aware of the full range of opportunities out there, including apprenticeships.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

One of the ways in which skills gaps in the economy have been filled is with EU nationals. That opportunity could now be lost to Scotland, especially in particular sectors and in rural areas. Can the Minister give an assurance to EU nationals currently filling skills gaps in the Scottish economy that their skills are valued and that they will be able to stay?

[Nick Boles]

I am very happy to do that and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to do so, not just in relation to Scotland but elsewhere in our country. In my Lincolnshire constituency there are certain industries, such as food growing and processing, and the NHS, which would find it very hard to operate without the skills brought in by highly valued migrant workers, not just from the European Union, though importantly also from the European Union. The Prime Minister was very clear yesterday that those people’s position in our country is secure, their working rights are secure, and we remain a member of the European Union. Not only are they secure, but they are valued. We welcome them and we want them to stay here and help us make our society great.

Age Discrimination: National Living Wage

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is great to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on securing this important debate, which is significant to many young people across these islands.

It is my gran’s birthday today. She has seen many forms of discrimination removed during her 96 years on the planet, on race, religion and sexuality. There has been so much progress, particularly for women, but there remains a persistent issue of inequality, endorsed by the state, when it comes to age. The differing rates of the minimum wage reflect a situation whereby young people are actively discriminated against because of their age.

In the Scottish National party, the equalisation of the minimum wage has been our policy for many years. While I was convener of the SNP’s youth wing, Young Scots for Independence, a resolution was moved at the SNP conference in 2006. It stated:

“Conference notes that the minimum wage is pegged at different levels dependent on age. Conference believes the current system to be grossly unfair and discriminatory and resolves, in an independent Scotland, to equalise the minimum wage levels.”

Much to my regret, we have not managed to achieve that independent Scotland yet. Nor have we achieved devolution of employment law so that the Scottish Parliament might make that change for itself. I still believe, though, that there is no justification for this grossly unfair and discriminatory practice. YSI renewed the fight on that issue at conference in 2013, giving the SNP’s backing to the Scottish Youth Parliament’s excellent “One Fair Wage” campaign.

I wish to dispel a few myths on the reasons behind the staggering of the minimum wage rate. The Low Pay Commission said in its 2013 report that

“we do not want the level of the minimum wage to jeopardise their”—

young people’s—

“employment or training opportunities.”

I just do not buy that. Young people have a range of options in front of them: work, study, apprenticeships. All that the staggering of the minimum wage ensures is that, whichever choice young people take up, whether it is employment on its own or in support of their studies, they are not legally entitled to the same wage as an older colleague in the same job. That is patently unfair.

Apprentices are faced with a rate of only £3.30 an hour. In many places that would not even cover their bus fare to get to the job, which is an absolute scandal. Do the Government believe that apprentices do not need to eat and do not have bills to pay? That rate compounds existing disparities. Analysis in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills research paper on the evaluation of apprenticeships shows that apprentices are far more likely to come from a lower socioeconomic background. If the Government actually believe that work and training are means of getting out of poverty, apprentices should be much better supported than the current national minimum wage rates suggest. Decent employers offer comparable rates to their apprentices, but they are not legally obliged to do so.

Going further, under-25s have no discount on their bills, on their purchases in shops or on their rent. There must be recognition that an equal day’s work deserves an equal day’s pay. Those in the 16 to 17-year-old bracket at £3.87 an hour may well do the same work as someone in the 18 to 20 bracket at £5.30 an hour or someone aged 21 to 24 earning £6.70 an hour. None of them is entitled to the holy grail of the pretend living wage at £7.20 an hour, and of course none of them is a true living wage, as determined by the Living Wage Foundation, of £8.25 an hour. Research by the Scottish Parliament’s information centre shows that workers under the age of 18 will earn roughly £6,500 a year less than someone over 25. It further highlights that 18 to 20-year-olds will find themselves £3,705 worse off and apprentices will be £7,605 worse off than workers aged 25 or over.

The Government hide behind the myth that the staggering of the minimum wage reflects young people’s lack of experience. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury made that assertion again yesterday:

“For younger workers, the priority is to secure work and gain experience.”—[Official Report, 7 June 2016; Vol. 611, c. 1016.]

Again, that does not stack up. How can it possibly be fair that, by the letter of the law, a young person could start a job at 16 and work there for eight full years to gain the entitlement that a 25-year-old would have walking in on their first day? It is not about experience at all; it is about age discrimination sanctioned by the state.

I mentioned in a previous debate on the living wage on 18 April that I have a constituent who feels that she was dismissed due to being an older worker in a bar. She was on a zero-hours contract and was phoned on the day of her shift to be told that her services were no longer required. That coincided with the introduction of the new higher rate of the minimum wage. My constituent cannot prove it, but it smells very fishy. The response I received yesterday from the Minister for Skills was absolutely woeful. There is no action, and no changes are being made.

As the hon. Member for Halifax said, the staggering of the minimum wage rate gives unscrupulous employers perverse incentives to choose to hire younger workers, perhaps in industries such as catering, cleaning and retail that have a relatively high turnover of staff. Those workers are being exploited, too. Employers can dodge their obligations and try to manipulate the system to save cash, as younger, less experienced workers are less likely to bring a case successfully to an employment tribunal, even if they can pay the fees in the first place. Such employers are likely to get away with it.

The SNP is calling on the UK Government to raise the minimum wage for young people and apprentices or, if they will not do so, to give that power to the Scottish Government to do it for themselves. As part of the SNP’s commitment to fair work, we passionately believe that the living wage should be paid as widely as possible, including to apprentices and young workers. The Scottish Government have done a huge amount of work to persuade businesses in Scotland to take it up. We now have a very high success rate of employers paying the living wage to their employees. We fully support the living wage campaign, and we recognise that the living wage can make a real difference to the people of Scotland. Our Government are a fully accredited living wage employer, which sends out a hugely important signal that the UK Government should also take up.

If we had control over employment law in Scotland, I am certain that we would improve the pay of people in our nation, including those who happen to be under 25. My gran waited a long time to see discrimination broken down; I hope my daughter does not have to wait very long.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I call Jim Shannon to share his thoughts.

Trade Union Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

The difficulty with postal balloting—the Minister has been pressed on this before—is that the number of post boxes across the UK has reduced by 17% in the past 10 years, so it is more difficult for people to participate in a postal ballot.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Given the increase in postal charges in recent years, does my hon. Friend agree that it also costs more to do postal balloting?

[Chris Stephens]

Yes, I agree. I also take the view that postal balloting prolongs the length of a dispute because of the time it takes to conduct such a ballot. Electronic balloting allows for greater flexibility and efficiency.

Like the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), we are disappointed that the pilot will not extend to workplace balloting as a secure option, because that would increase democracy in the workplace. The TUC has previously argued that there is no evidence that workers feel intimidated into voting a particular way when ballots take place in the workplace, as has been argued by the Government.

Although the Government have accepted the need to commission an independent review on the use of e-ballots for industrial action, their amendment (a) effectively means that Ministers would only have to publish a response to the review. They would, therefore, not be obligated to introduce a strategy to roll out electronic voting. That is simply unacceptable.

Lords amendment 2 is actually very moderate. The question is whether the Government’s response is good enough or whether it weakens the intent behind the Lords amendment. Having listened carefully to the Minister, we can only conclude that Government amendment (a) does weaken the other place’s intention.

The Government propose to revise the Lords amendment in such a way that Ministers would be required only to publish a response, but they would not need to take any action. That underlines what the Government intend to do after the e-balloting review. They intend to do nothing: there will be no strategy on how to proceed and, therefore, no actual commitment to allowing electronic balloting in the future. That is absurd. If the Government were truly intent on modernising the law, they would allow for electronic balloting and secure workplace balloting. I would be interested in the Minister’s response to that. Our view is clear. Electronic balloting will modernise the law, promoting democracy and inclusion.

We have always been clear that the clause on facility time is completely unnecessary and unwanted. Having such a clause in the Bill signals intent: the Government’s intent to interfere with the facility time arrangements—the basic industrial relations arrangements—not only of devolved Administrations but of local authorities across the United Kingdom. As Lord Kerslake put it in the other place,

“The Government are saying that the costs should be transparently known and proportionate to the benefits…However, this is fully secured…through Clause 12. There is no need for the reserve powers contained in Clause 13.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2016; Vol. 769, c. 1905.]

He further stated:

“If, however, the public body is a local authority, it has its own democratic mandate and is answerable to its own electorate for the cost. Given the immense financial pressures now on local authorities, do we really think that they are incapable of making this judgment?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2016; Vol. 769, c. 1906.]

Although we acknowledge that some amendments have been made by the Government, that is simply not good enough. Any attempt by the UK Government to instruct devolved institutions on how to treat their workers should be robustly resisted. Facility time allows union representatives to spend time in the workplace improving the safety and health of their workers. Representatives also promote training opportunities and negotiate better pay, terms and conditions for employers, among many other roles and responsibilities. Limiting the ability of unions to play such a role in our public sector will have a damaging impact on public sector workers across the United Kingdom.

Trade unions are key social partners, which play an important role in sustaining effective democracy in society, particularly in the workplace. The existence of good employment practices is a key contributor to economic competitiveness and social justice. In Scotland, the SNP Government have taken a different approach. We have taken a modern and progressive approach to industrial relations and believe that trade unions are at the heart of achieving fair work. The UK Government should work with trade unions in a social partnership approach rather than launching yet more attacks against them.

Industrial relations mechanisms should be agreed at a devolved or local level. It beggars belief that the UK Government do not believe that a legislative consent motion is required for a UK Minister to dictate policy in these areas. The detail of much of the Bill is set out in regulations, and there will be no formal opportunity for the Scottish Government or the Welsh Government to influence such regulations. Today, we need a commitment from the UK Government that the rights of workers across the UK will not be restricted by the imposition of facility time.

In Committee, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) asked the Minister whether the Health Secretary would

“make regulations that affect facility time in the health services of Scotland and Wales, which are wholly devolved and under the control of Health Ministers in those countries”.

The Minister replied, “Yes,” but stressed that

“health policy and the management of the NHS in those countries will remain…in the control of the Governments” ––[Official Report, Trade Union Public Bill Committee, 22 October 2015; c. 347.]

He was referring to the Governments of the devolved Administrations. I said at the time:

“Having only just debated Evel last week, it seems that the UK Government now want to dictate to devolved administrations”.

On 2 February, the Minister said that the Government would not change the proposals on facility time and check-off provisions in the Bill. However, the infamous letter referred to earlier of 26 January—the letter was leaked by the Socialist Worker newspaper and published widely in other media outlets—contained a number of concessions that the Government proposed to make to the Bill in the House of Lords. Those concessions included giving devolved Administrations the right to maintain facility time and check-off arrangements. It would be helpful if the Minister confirmed today that devolved Administrations will maintain that control over facility time. The SNP will continue to push to derail any attempt by the UK Government to dictate to Scotland and other devolved Administrations how they should treat their public sector workers.

Teenage Pregnancy: Regional Variations

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I thank the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for securing this debate and for her very interesting speech.

When we are discussing teenage pregnancy, it is critical that we do not seek to stigmatise or hurt young women. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, every baby born should be celebrated and every mother supported. Having a baby at any age has its challenges, and we should always seek first to offer assistance rather than dole out judgment.

Since the SNP Scottish Government were elected in 2007, the rate of teenage pregnancies in Scotland has fallen every single year, and it has dropped by about 35% in six years. All the NHS board areas in Scotland have seen reductions in their rates of teenage pregnancies. In the under-20 age group, it has decreased by 34.7%; in the under-18 age group, it has decreased by 41.5%; and in the under-16 age group, it has decreased by 39.8%. All that has not happened by accident. The SNP seeks to give every young person in the country a good start in life, regardless of their circumstances. The Scottish Government and the Minister for Children and Young People, Aileen Campbell MSP, have been working to achieve the goal of making Scotland the best place in the world to grow up, and they are leading policy in early years intervention.

The hon. Member for Telford mentioned looked-after children in particular. I draw attention to the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland—CELCIS—which does great work. The Scottish Government have also worked in a number of different ways to support care leavers by giving them an entitlement to university and further training. There are lots of measures to build their self-esteem and make them feel like the valued part of society that they are.

At the weekend, the SNP pledged to give every newborn baby born in Scotland a Finnish-style baby box to ensure that families have all the things they need to start in life. That programme has been hugely successful in Finland in reducing infant mortality from one of the highest rates in the world to one of the lowest. Interestingly, infant mortality is 60% higher among babies born to teenage mothers, so the baby box has the potential to become an important intervention for this vulnerable group.

It takes time and effort to change the causes and history of teenage pregnancy, as the hon. Member for Strangford indicated. I recently visited the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Glasgow. It is doing interesting and worthwhile work to support young mums. It is piloting an intervention that was started by Yale University called “Minding the Baby”. A health visitor and a social worker work with teenage mums from around seven months into pregnancy until the child is two. That very intensive model has resulted in benefits in improved attachment and better parenting skills. It has raised the self-esteem of the young women involved and had a wider effect on their families. Some have younger brothers and sisters who have seen a benefit in their family after teenage mums went through the programme, so there is a wider benefit to society. I was also delighted to hear that through the programme, a number of young women have been supported to breastfeed. That demographic has a low uptake of breastfeeding, but the babies gain a huge and significant benefit.

There is an undeniable correlation between deprivation and teenage pregnancy. Dundee is often mentioned very negatively in that light, but there has been significant progress. Over the past decade, Dundee has seen a 58% drop in teenage conception rates. That is credited to the close working of schools and the local health board and the valuable work of family-nurse partnerships. It is also credited to education. Dundee has a young mums’ unit, which keeps young women in full-time education, meaning that they do not lose out on their education—that vital piece of the jigsaw in moving out of deprivation.

The hon. Members for Telford and for Strangford mentioned the impact of sexual health and relationships education. The House of Commons Library research mentions in relation to England that it is unclear what obligation there will be for schools in England to provide sexual health and relationships education should the Government’s full academisation plans go through. The SNP sees the value in that education and urges the Government to clarify whether new academies will have an obligation to provide sex education in schools. It would be utterly unacceptable for schools to offer no sex education whatever.

The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned prevention and young men, who have an important role. It is not just up to young women; young men have a serious role in teenage pregnancy.

[Jim Shannon]

A significant role.

[Alison Thewliss]

A very significant role. If young men and young women together are not educated about sexual health and relationship more widely, we are missing an opportunity to impart important lessons about consent and respect. Leaving it to chance is hugely damaging, as we can see with the ongoing investigations in Parliament into harassment in schools and the higher education sector.

Sexual health and relationships education is very much part of the curriculum in Scotland. My son is five. His primary 1 class has just been learning about human bodies. We should not be daunted by these issues as parents or politicians, because serious issues such as consent can be taught at a young age. It can be as simple as stopping tickling a child when they say no. That is consent, and we need to think about these things more widely.

In Scotland, we updated our national guidance on relationships, sexual health and parenthood education in December 2014. That guidance puts into practice the commitment made in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 that the Scottish Government would actively promote the rights and wellbeing of children and young people. Education in schools should equip children and young people with information to help them keep themselves safe. Giving children and young people the knowledge and understanding of healthy, respectful and loving relationships and the opportunity to explore issues in a safe environment protects them from harm and promotes tolerance. Young people have the right to comprehensive, accurate and evidence-based information to help them make positive, healthy and responsible choices in their relationships.

Dr Alasdair Allan, our Minister for Learning, Science and Scotland’s Languages, said at the end of 2014:

“The issues covered by RSHP can be seen as the building blocks to how pupils look after themselves and engage with people for the rest of their lives. These classes allow pupils to think about their development and the importance of healthy living surrounded by their peers who will have similar experiences to them…The guidance recognises the professionalism of teachers, the expertise they bring to making lessons age appropriate and an invaluable addition to discussions that parents are likely already having with their children at home.”

Finally, I come back to my point about poverty and deprivation and the correlation with teenage pregnancy. In its most recent statistics, which are from 2013, the Information Services Division notes:

“There is a strong correlation between deprivation and teenage pregnancy. In the under 20 age group, a teenage female living in the most deprived area is 4.8 times as likely to experience a pregnancy as someone living in the least deprived area and nearly 12 times as likely to deliver their baby.”

The UK Government’s welfare cuts and sanctions are increasing poverty—that is the context in which this debate exists—and will not help the teen pregnancy rate. In particular, I draw Members’ attention to how young people aged 18 to 21 will lose access to housing benefits from next year. Centrepoint and Shelter have expressed concerns about the impact that will have on young people. One exception to that policy is where people of that age are parents. When the Government begin to make policies that take age and particular things into account and certain groups lose out, that will have a consequence. My concern is that by excluding that group from housing benefit, the Government perhaps encourage young people in particularly desperate circumstances to make huge life decisions for the wrong reasons, and that would be a seriously retrograde step.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Alison Thewliss]

I would like to end my speech as I began. In our deliberations about teenage pregnancy we should not stigmatise, and in responding to the debate on behalf of the SNP I hope I have not done so. It has certainly not been my intention. We must do all we can to support young people, teenage mums and dads and their babies, and to invest in their future.

National Living Wage

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for securing this debate and the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) for speaking very well in her place.

The Chancellor announced the national living wage with great triumphalism, but as with so many aspects of Government policy, it was quickly exposed as nothing more than smoke and mirrors. As we heard earlier, it is not a living wage but a rebadging of the minimum wage. The real living wage is independently determined by the Living Wage Foundation and currently set at £8.25 an hour. If a person cannot live off it, it is not a living wage. The Government and the Minister should apologise to the Living Wage Foundation, to the many trade unions and employers that have legitimately taken up the real living wage and to the many campaigners who have fought for it over the years. It is a gross insult to those campaigners to appropriate their term, and it is bound to lead to misleading job adverts. It is not a real living wage if it is not an actual living wage for everybody.

It is also not a living wage if someone happens to be under 25. The Chancellor said:

“Britain deserves a pay rise and Britain is getting a pay rise.”—[Official Report, 8 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 337.]

Interestingly, under-25s are clearly not “Britain”, because they are not entitled to the higher rate of the minimum wage. Their fair day’s work is not receiving a fair day’s pay. Since the minimum wage’s inception, it has contained an in-built aspect of age discrimination. It has been Scottish National party policy for some years to equalise the minimum wage—I was convener of the youth wing when my colleagues raised it in the party. I am proud to raise that point today, along with the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I have heard it said that younger workers lack experience, but the minimum wage is not based on experience; it is based on age. A person can start on a minimum wage job at 16 and work in it for nine years before they are legally entitled to this new pretendy living wage, which a 25-year-old would get on their first day at work. They could walk in the door and get the higher living wage.

As we heard from the hon. Member for Halifax, this new minimum wage has also exacerbated the differential in the wages paid to younger workers in this country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) said, the most pronounced effect has been on apprentices. There are 54,000 apprentices in the UK who are not entitled to this living wage. They might have families and various other needs to meet, and they deserve fair pay as well. They cannot be expected to live off nothing. Discrimination of that sort is opposed in all other parts of society. This long-standing, state-endorsed age discrimination must end, and I call on the Government to take action. If they will not, I would like them to devolve employment law to the Scottish Government, who are making tremendous progress in promoting the uptake of the real living wage in Scotland.

The need to equalise the minimum wage has increased significance for younger workers on zero-hours contracts. I had a constituent in my surgery a few weeks ago who worked in a bar in Glasgow city centre. One day, she received a phone call from her employer saying that there was no need for her to come into work that evening because her services were no longer required. After getting over the shock of her sudden dismissal, she researched her options. Citizens Advice and ACAS both said she had no rights in her circumstances as a zero-hours worker. She suspects but cannot prove that she was let go because she was over 25 whereas her colleagues were under 25. I have heard the same thing anecdotally from friends who are over 25 and have seen their hours cut. They are now finding it difficult to make ends meet and to find another job in their sector.

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Lady is making some very good points, including about the potential for discrimination at the age of 25. Would she be interested to hear from the Minister, as I would, what steps the Government might take to ensure that that does not happen?

[Alison Thewliss]

I would be interested, but I would be more interested to hear what we can do to equalise the wage so that unscrupulous employers are not tempted to discriminate in the first place. The Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training, Roseanna Cunningham, posted on her Twitter feed a photograph of a sign in a shop window advertising for a waitress but saying that applicants had to be under 24. That is illegal, but it is encouraged by the differential in the living wage. Particular attention needs to be paid to under-25s on zero-hours contracts, who are doubly discriminated against.

I wrote to the Minister asking who was enforcing the minimum wage. I had received figures in a parliamentary answer suggesting that a great number of people were not earning the wages to which they were entitled. There are 1,718,000 over-21s earning less than £6.50 an hour, 78,000 under-18s earning less than £3.87 an hour and, as I mentioned earlier, 54,000 apprentices earning less than £3.30 an hour. Despite those figures, which show that hundreds of thousands of people are not earning the wages to which they are entitled, according to the Minister’s letter there have been only nine successful prosecutions of employers since 2007. That is because the people affected are in a position of weakness, as they might lose their job if they complain. We have to do an awful lot more. His letter mentioned that the Government were taking on more staff and investigating more, but only nine prosecutions is absolutely woeful given the scale of the problem.

There is another way of dealing with this. The Scottish Government have worked with employers—it is not necessarily about imposing a real living wage on employers, because as the Scottish Government acknowledge, that might be difficult for small employers—and as a result 56,000 employees now earn the real £8.25 an hour living wage. In my constituency, they include employees of large organisations such as Barclays and SSE; small organisations such as An Clachan café, the Good Spirits Co and Locavore; organisations that provide services, such as Southside Housing Association and Glasgow Association for Mental Health; Glasgow Caledonian University; and supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl. If they are all able to do it, there is no reason why other employers cannot work towards it as well.

The Scottish Government, through their Scottish business pledge, have moved dramatically towards getting more people on to the real living wage, and it has been a hugely successful scheme. They first ask employers to pledge to pay the real living wage, and employers then have to meet two of eight further elements of the pledge, which can include ending exploitative zero-hours contracts and investing in young workers. They must also work towards achieving all nine elements. It has been a very successful scheme, so I suggest that the UK Government take a leaf out of the Scottish Government’s book.

Faulty Electrical Imports

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this important debate. I pay tribute to the staff at Electrical Safety First—in particular, Wayne Mackay for the briefing that he gave all of us. I will do all I can to share it with members of the public, because it contains a lot of interesting information about electrical products that they would not necessarily know from comparing two items.

I also pay tribute to the Scottish fire and rescue service, which works with Electrical Safety First and does lots of community outreach work, including home fire safety visits to inform people about the risks in their own home and to draw attention to such items. They are free to members of the public in Scotland and are well worth doing. I pay tribute to the many trading standards officers around the country who work incredibly hard to highlight these issues. In Glasgow, a lot of work is going on in the Scottish Anti Illicit Trade Group and the Scottish National Markets Group. Glasgow’s scientific services department does much testing of these items, which is really important.

There has been an interesting change in the way that such items reach us over the years. Previously, we might have picked them up in a market or a small shop, but since the legislation was introduced in 1994 there has been a move to online shopping. At about that time, eBay and Amazon were founded. We could not have predicted the increase in the volume of online shopping and the way that trend changed over time. A lot of hon. Members have talked about that. When people buy things online, it is difficult to ascertain their quality and legitimacy. The legislation is ripe for review. We must address those issues, because those changes to the market could not have been anticipated in 1994 when the legislation was introduced. The work that has been done to highlight these various issues is very important. The hon. Member for Swansea East talked about monitoring these issues and the sale of such items, and I support her call for action. The Government must do something about this.

Although it is important that we all raise public awareness in our communities, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, that is not enough. We can raise awareness as much as we like, but without the legitimacy of legislation to crack down on traders on popular websites such as Amazon and eBay, we will be stuck. Nothing will help our consumers more than legislation. If illegitimate sellers suffer no penalty for what they are doing, they will continue to do it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) said that it was important to have a full investigation of trading standards throughout the UK to see where there are gaps and to ensure that people are protected equally around the country.

Another interesting issue is that of retro items, older electrical goods that people want to have in their homes but might fall foul of the legislation—perhaps they were made just before 1994, or are much older. Such items are being sold and kept in homes, although people might not realise the potential difficulties because of the safety standards that are not present.

[Jim Shannon]

Some of the advertising on eBay and Google advertises a genuine product. However, an Apple product cannot be genuine if it is only £2.89—let’s be honest. Perhaps the Government need to look at the advertising as well.

[Alison Thewliss]

The advertising issue is significant. During the speeches, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and I were looking online at such advertising, and the products are all described as genuine. People should not be fooled into thinking that “genuine” means genuine in such cases, because they simply cannot be so.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) spoke passionately about the history of manufacturing in the country and in his constituency, with particular reference to the Hoover factory. That is a critical point: when we employed people locally in the UK to produce the goods, we all had a stake—we knew, or we could trace the supply chain back to, the people in the factories. Everyone had an interest in ensuring that the products or their components were safe and legitimate, because everyone knew who would be buying the end product. Producing locally has an impact—people know who will buy the products, and we can all feel more secure when we have a stake in their production.

[Margaret Ferrier]

I pay tribute to the people in my constituency, in Cambuslang, where we had a Hoover factory that started in 1946. As my hon. Friend said, people have a personal pride in what they produce. As soon as the manufacturing left the UK and went abroad, we had no safeguards as to quality. It is a bit like the steel industry today: we do not know what the quality of the steel coming into the UK is. More than 2,000 people in my constituency worked in the Hoover factory—I pay tribute to them. In fact, I thought that the word for a vacuum cleaner was a hoover, because it was so well known.

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. A side issue is the unknown conditions in which those items are produced; we do not know the standards for the factories that staff are employed in and, often, stories in the media show factories to be a kind of sweatshop. People employed in such conditions do not have the same stake in ensuring a quality product at the end of the day. They are being exploited as much as consumers in this country are being exploited.

The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned the must-have items, and that they drive demand is an important point. People are persuaded to buy cheap and cut corners in order to meet the demand and to make their consumer choice.

We also need to think a bit more about the points about price, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West said. There is a cost involved in buying any product, but it seems that many of the big, legitimate companies retailing electrical goods know that too and they are putting a premium on many of their products; they are making a significant profit on these items and, as a result, people choose the cheaper route. The big retailers need to be a bit more responsible about their marketing and the price points they choose.

My hon. Friend also spoke passionately about the history of electrical items. It is absolutely true that electricity has always involved risks; the difference now is that we ought to have legislation in place to control them. In our era, we understand the risks—in particular, with physics teachers up and down the country, we understand a lot more about how electricity works, as well as its accompanying risks. We need to be a lot more careful about how we control electrical products in this country.

I am glad to welcome the contribution made by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is a former firefighter of 23 years’ service. I served on the board of the Strathclyde fire and rescue service, which does a great deal of outreach work as well and would echo what he said about house fires. Firemen do not want to have to rescue people from house fires resulting from something that could have been prevented far further down the line.

There have been two serious house fires in Glasgow in the past week, and the people affected are very much in my thoughts and those of my colleagues in Glasgow. I do not yet know the cause of the house fires, but if there is a way to protect people and prevent house fires—as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) said, they cause so much damage—given both the human and the financial cost, there is work that we must do.

On the matter being devolved to Scotland, work going on shows that there is a will in Scotland to tackle the issue of counterfeit goods. A lot of good practice is happening in Scotland, but we are mindful of the ports around the country—we are on an island and can control, to some degree, what comes in through our ports. I would like to see greater investment in that. As we see from media reports, when things are stopped in port, they can be taken out of the market altogether.

One other point to throw in is that people are now importers of goods themselves. They can get around the ports and so on by ordering things from abroad. A constituent of mine even ordered a Taser over the internet and had it delivered to his house—to be clear, he immediately took it to the police. If people can order something such as that, ordering a plug charger or something is pretty easy. I want to see more control over what we can order ourselves and over what can be imported.

Again, I thank the hon. Member for Swansea East for securing the debate.

Student Maintenance Grants

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank Labour Members for securing this debate. We in the SNP believe in the principle of free education, and we stand in solidarity with students in England against the principle of scrapping grants. I did have a lot more to say in the debate, but I shall be as brief as I can.

Other Members have referred to their own circumstances, and I shall do so, too. I moved from home in 2000 to go the University of Aberdeen. I graduated in 2004, having taken out a student loan. I started paying it back to a significant extent only on coming to this place in May. I pay back £400 a month. That is my obligation, so I pay it. If, however, I had left university with a debt of £53,000, and assuming I could start to pay it back right away at £400 a month, it would take me 11 years to do so—11 years in a very well paid job. The expectation that some people may not pay their loan debt back at all makes a mockery of the whole process. If a loan is not expected to be paid back, what is the point of giving people loans in the first place? It seems ludicrous. We are bringing up a generation that expects to be in debt, and society should guard against that.

In Scotland, we will try our hardest to make sure that education remains free and that grants are available, but this Government are putting our budget under increasing pressure by their actions. We do not know—they have not told us—what the impact of these decisions taken today will be on the Scottish budget. This has been designated as EVEL, but it clearly has an impact on students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland who are studying at Scottish universities. What will the impact on those institutions be? What consultation has the Minister had with universities in my constituency, such as the University of Strathclyde, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Glasgow School of Art and Glasgow Caledonian University? He is not even paying attention; he is chewing his pen.

What conversations has the Minister had with my colleagues in Scotland about this measure? What impact will it have on members of larger families, and what impact will it have on Muslim students? The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) has raised that issue before. Some Muslim students cannot take out loans, and other students may not wish to do so either, for different reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) mentioned cuts in the disabled students allowance. What impact will the added loan burden have on them?

Conservative Members have asked, “What about people who do not go to university? How do they benefit?” They benefit from the common good. Glasgow Caledonian University is a university for the common good. People in Scotland know that university graduates will become the doctors who treat them in hospitals, and the lawyers who represent them. They will become the well-qualified people who pay us back through taxation to help the common good of our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Joseph Johnson)]

Yes, I do agree. Science and innovation are among the UK’s greatest strengths, and the example my hon. Friend gives—I believe he is referring to the drug discovery firm Summit plc—is a good example of the way public investment in R and D crowds in additional private investment. Every £1 the public invests in R and D crowds in an additional £1.36 of investment on average.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

T4. Scottish Renewables announced yesterday that the sudden early withdrawal of the renewables obligation has already hit investment in projects, deeply concerning the sector. What assessment has the Minister made of the further impact the Government’s stance could have on the future viability of institutions such as the Green Investment Bank and the innovation they fund?

[The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)]

There are a few questions in there, and forgive me if I did not catch all of them, but I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady to give her a full set of answers. On the renewables obligation, we are very aware of the burden it places on a lot of our industries, but, as I explained in a previous answer, if we move it from one sector, we have to find somewhere else for it to go, and it will either fall on the individual consumer or another part of business. It is not as simple as it appears at first blush.