Seòmar agus comataidhean

We continue to invite people to come forward with expressions of interest. If the market is not there, the market is not there. However, the commercial position of the airport is strong. A note of interest came earlier this year, which was not followed through for the reasons that have been set out. Before Covid, there was a strong expression of interest that, were it not for the advent of Covid, probably would have seen the business return to the private sector. That demonstrates that, in my mind, I do not need to have a particular concern, as Mr Smyth seems to have, about the long-term future of the airport.

We will continue to take seriously any expressions of interest that come forward and ensure that we are able to maximise the return from an economic and financial perspective and in value for the local area. We will obviously be pragmatic in seeking to achieve as much as possible without hindering a process that can see the airport’s return to the private sector.

That is the status quo, and we do not need to shift from that. As I have said, we are not a distressed seller. The airport is in a good position, and it has good plans to continue to grow. I am not concerned at the position that we have with regard to Glasgow Prestwick airport.

That is where the consideration of the hard financial position and the wider value would come into play. I hope that Mr Fraser understands that there might need to be pragmatism in that regard, depending on what the bid looked like and on the wider factors that it took into account, such as—on Mr Smyth’s point—the wider investment that the bidder might seek to make in Glasgow Prestwick airport. However, that would be subject to discussion on a case-by-case basis. I underline that we would obviously look to realise the maximum return possible to the public purse.

You heard pretty clearly from the leadership team in your earlier session that its focus is on growing the business and ensuring that profitability continues to spiral upwards, which makes it inherently marketable to the private sector. That focus makes the airport a good asset for the Scottish Government, ensuring a return for the public purse. The strategy of making the airport a strong and commercially viable business is also conducive to moving it back into the private sector.

It is an important commitment. Shirley-Anne Somerville touched on the heavy lifting that has already been done on the social security side, and through various measures that we have taken across Government, to reduce child poverty. We are pleased that 90,000 children in Scotland have been taken out of poverty. That has been done in large part through the Scottish child payment, but it has also been done through other measures, including our work on employability and our work to drive up fair work practices. We constantly evaluate our employability programmes to ensure that they are tailored as effectively as possible, and the transition from the previous to the new is about ensuring that we can respond to local need.

With regard to the 12,000 target, the SPICe briefing sets out the number of people who have already been taken through and supported; I think that approaching 11,000 people have been supported across the two programmes and, as I have already said, a quarter are moving into employment, with a further quarter moving to positive destinations, including further education or training.

That said, how we tailor our approach for those with long-term health conditions and disabilities and, indeed, parents is an important consideration for us. After all, they are target groups for reaching our child poverty targets, so we want to ensure that our approach is as effective as possible. We are also ensuring that the data that we collect is as wide ranging as possible so that we can monitor the programmes’ effectiveness.

All of that demonstrates that addressing child poverty is not just a matter for the social security system alone and that we must look at wider interventions, which is why we have come forward with these programmes. It also shows how incumbent it is on us to scrutinise other drivers of poverty that come from outwith Scotland and decisions that are taken on our behalf at UK Government level. We have already heard about the incredible impact on families across Scotland of the social security cap and the two-child limit, and we are trying to mitigate the difficulties that are posed by those measures. It would be much better for us to have responsibility at source for such decisions and changes so that we could meet our targets.

The First Minister set tackling child poverty as one of his areas of priority for Government in his prospectus. Earlier in the summer, he held a round-table session on tackling child poverty with representatives from all parties. He has tasked us, as cabinet secretaries and ministers, to go away and hold our own tackling child poverty round-table meetings with our stakeholder networks. I had a session with employers and others in my portfolio responsibility to consider areas that we could work together on—areas in which the Government could do more or in which our stakeholders could do more, with our support—with a view to taking that back to a follow-up session that the First Minister will lead.

We want to ensure that we have coherence across Government, and that tackling child poverty is a driving priority for all of us, whether it is a direct responsibility, as it is for Shirley-Anne Somerville, or we have additional responsibilities in our portfolios that are linked to ensuring that we tackle child poverty.

Yes, we are working with parents to ensure that they get access to further skills or training that will take them further into the labour market, but Katy Clark is right to point to our other policies for bringing up people’s incomes. Compared with everywhere else in the UK, we in Scotland have the highest percentage of workers being paid at least the real living wage—the figure is currently 91 per cent—but we are not resting on those laurels. We are working with the living wage campaign, the Poverty Alliance and others to ensure that that continues to ramp up, and we are also working with our public sector partners to ensure that, as we did on 1 July, we introduce conditionality to our public sector procurement funding so that the real living wage is paid and there is access to greater worker voice.

Alongside our employability programmes, we are taking other actions to ensure that, where we can under the devolved settlement—because, obviously, we do not have full responsibility for or powers over employment law—we drive up people’s pay.

I think that that question is for me. We have a challenge in that because, as I said previously, employment law is a reserved area of responsibility. We welcome the fact that the UK Government came forward with the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023, which helps to ensure greater consistency in working conditions. Before the legislation, the Scottish Government had been pushing for that for some time through conditionality in our contracts, whereby we were looking for people to offer fair work and flexible working from day 1 of employment. That is now a requestable right under the act.

However, we want that to go further, and we continue to impress on the UK Government the need to do that, not least because of the change in working practices that has accelerated since Covid. For example, Mr Dornan is able to join us remotely, which is really good, because we are able to hear from him when, in other circumstances, we might not have been able to. It is the same for other people who have challenging personal situations that mean that they might not be able to attend work in person but are able to contribute remotely. For instance, they might have childcare or other caring responsibilities that mean that they need or would like to work compressed or more flexible hours.

Therefore, we very much understand the need for greater flexibility in working arrangements. Since I came into post, and through the summer, as was the case under previous ministers, we have been working with employers on how we can do more to encourage that flexibility. However, ultimately, the responsibility to legislate on that lies with the UK Government and not us. We are very committed to ensuring that we have as flexible a working environment as possible across Scotland.

We have already brought forward conditionality in public procurement; I spoke in response to Katy Clark about some of the practical aspects of that, such as paying the real living wage and offering workers a greater voice. We keep our conditionality regime under review to ensure that we are being as proportionate as possible while driving the strongest possible outcomes.

We have provided significant funding to the likes of Flexibility Works and others to help to ensure that businesses are aware of not only the benefits of providing flexible workplaces but the practical things that they can do to support their employees in that process. I am happy to bring in Aidan Grisewood to add anything further or anything that I have missed.

Finally, I highlight to Mr Dornan that the programme for government committed us to piloting a four-day working week in the public sector. It is not necessarily a policy commitment—it is not about whether that is the right or wrong area to pursue, but it is important that we pilot that and get information as to how supportive or otherwise that is for people and how it works practically. We will come forward in due course with more detail on how that will operate.