scottish labour women's manifesto

A Scotland of Opportunity for W

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A SCOTLAND OF OPPORTUNITY FOR WOMEN

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FOREWORD We believe that Scotland succeeds when everyone has the opportunity to achieve their potential. Scottish Labour has always been at the forefront for the struggle for womens equality, its an intrinsic part of our history and our values. Weve made huge progress in the past decades but we know that more must be done.

In Scotland, too many women face a lifetime of working for low pay with limited opportunities to improve their skills, too many women see their male colleagues better paid for doing the same job, and just 36% of public board members in Scotland are women.

In the past five years women have been hit hardest by Tory cuts, with women bearing 85% of the impact of tax and benefit changes.

And the SNPs plans for full fiscal autonomy would lead to Scotland facing a black hole of 7.6 billion of spending cuts and tax rises that would fall disproportionately on women in Scotland.

Building a fairer economy that works for women and men, and families across Scotland is our priority. The past five years havent been good enough, we know we can do better than this and women all across Scotland know we can do better than this.

We want a fairer Scotland. Thats why we will tackle the scandal of low pay, restore the value of the minimum wage and ban exploitative zero hours contracts all of which disproportionately affect women.

A domestic violence incident is recorded every 10 minutes in Scotland. Violence against women and girls is too prevalent in our communities. Scottish Labour first introduced domestic abuse courts in Scotland to ensure offenders are brought to justice but we must do more to make sure that all women feel safer in their homes and in the street.

Until every girl or young woman in Scotland can enter any profession without thinking her gender will act as a barrier, we will still have work to do. There is so much gender inequality in Scottish society. Scotland deserves better.

Scottish Labour has a better plan, our manifesto sets out how together we can create a better future for women in Scotland.

Jim Murphy Kezia Dugdale Margaret Curran


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Introduction

Scottish Labour has a proud record on womens rights. From introducing tax credits, childcare, extending paid maternity leave and leading the way on all-women shortlists to the Equality Act, we have a history of advancing the cause of Scottish women. But we cannot rest until there is full equality.

What Labour has achieved for women:

Introduced the minimum wage

Secured maternity leave and maternity pay

Introduced paid paternity leave

Championed womens reproductive rights

Created the Equality and Human Rights Commission

Introduced domestic abuse courts in Scotland

Introduced the Equality Act

Despite this progress, women all across Scotland are still facing significant challenges at home, in the workplace and in public life.

For the past five years it is women who have suffered the most from the Tories cuts, bearing 85% of the impact of tax and benefit changes. Stagnating wages and rising insecurity have fuelled a cost of

living crisis that has hit women hard, with families 1,600 worse off since David Cameron became Prime Minister.

The SNPs plans for full fiscal autonomy will see Scotland facing a 7.6 billion black hole in spending cuts and increased taxes and it is women in work and in retirement across Scotland that will be most affected.

60% of the recipients of the state pension in Scotland are women. A 1billion cut from state pensions in Scotland would see women pensioners paying the price.

Tax credits protect people on low incomes and they lift people out of poverty. They are one of the last Labour Governments greatest legacies. Labour will protect tax credits, with increases in line with inflation, supporting hard working families.

The SNPs plans for full fiscal autonomy would mean a cut of 806 a year to tax credits. Thats 15 a week for every family. Women cant afford these cuts.

Scottish Labour has a better plan to help women in Scotland succeed. We will tackle low pay by increasing the minimum wage and promote the living age and we will guarantee a job for young women out of work for more than a year.

We will also take action to address deep rooted inequality, with mandatory pay reporting, quotas to ensure 50:50 on our public boards and a new 2.3 million fund for womens aid centres across Scotland.

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I Our plan for a better future for women in Scotland

Women at work:

Scottish Labour will:

Require companies with over 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap

Ban exploitative zero hour contracts

Increase the minimum wage to 8 by 2019

Promote the living wage

Guarantee a paid job for every 18-24 year old woman out of work for more than a year and for every women over the age of 25 and out of work for over two years

Devolve and review employment tribunals in Scotland to ensure women have proper access to justice

Give 1,600 every 18-19 year old women not in college, university or in an apprenticeship, to invest in themselves or start up a business

Equality in public life:


Legislate for public boards to have 50% women representatives

Appoint a cabinet minister for women

Ensure that 50% of the cabinet team in the Scottish Parliament continue to be women

More support for families:


Freeze energy prices and make energy companies pass on savings to customers

Double paid paternity leave from two weeks to four

Increase paternity pay from 140 to more than 260 a week

Recruit 1000 more nurses and 500 more GPs in Scotland to support our NHS

Invest an additional 800 million in Scotlands public services

End the need for food-banks through our 175 million Anti-Poverty Fund

Abolish the Bedroom Tax

Tackling violence against women and girls


Invest over 2 million in Womens Aid centres

Ensure that we have a justice system that works for victims of rape

End the detention of asylum seekers who are pregnant and victims of sexual abuse or trafficking

Implement the recommendations of the Angiolini report on womens offending

Focus on community based alternatives to custody such as community justice centres


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1. Women at Work

Too often women find themselves trading off decent pay and progression opportunities for the chance of flexibility at work leaving many women in Scotland trapped in poor quality and often low paid jobs.

Since 2010 the Tories cuts to benefits, tax and pensions have adversely affected women, with women bearing 85% of the impact. There are more women than ever before on exploitative, insecure, zero hour contracts and hundreds of thousands of women across Scotland are being paid less than the living wage.

In Scotland today:

People are 1,600 worse off a year since David Cameron took office.

Women are paid, on average, 95.60 less per week than men for the same job

264,000 women in Scotland earn less than the living wage

An estimated 35,000 women are on insecure zero hours contracts

The introduction of the minimum wage is one of Labours proudest achievements and lifted the pay of millions of women, across the UK. But we need to go further to improve the working life of women in Scotland.

Scottish Labour has a clear plan to tackle low pay. We will raise the National Minimum Wage to more than 8 by

2019 and with our Make Work Pay contracts we will give a tax rebate for firms who sign up to become Living Wage employers.

We will tackle the gender pay gap by making large companies with more than 250 workers publish their hourly pay gap in their annual report and we will go further to tackle discrimination in the workplace, strengthening the law on maternity discrimination to make it harder for employers to dismiss female employees while on maternity leave.

More fathers want to play an active role in their childrens lives and families want to spend more time together with a new baby. So we will double the current two weeks of paternity leave to four and increase the amount of paternity pay from 140 to more than 260 a week. Many grandparents want to be more involved in caring for their grandchildren, and we will support them in doing so.

Flexibility matters to working families and being able to access childcare that fits parents working lives. We will consult widely on ensuring the reality of an affordable, flexible and accessible childcare system for working families in Scotland. And we will invest in the skills of our childcare workforce, transforming it into a more valued profession, staffed with qualified childcare practitioners and support employers to pay the Living Wage.

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We are capable of so much more as a nation than a zero hours culture where hardworking women wait for a text message in the morning to find out if they have any work that day. Day after day, month after month, women on zero-hour contracts are committed to their firms, we think that commitment should go both ways. Scottish Labour will ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, giving a regular contract to those who work regular hours. We will introduce a new right to a contract with fixed minimum hours for those on zero-hours contracts who are actually working regular hours.

Scottish Labour wants to create a Scotland of opportunity for women. We know the scarring effect of long-term unemployment and the impact long periods out of work can have on life chances. Through our Scottish Job Guarantee, paid for by increased taxes on bankers bonuses, we will offer a real, paid job and training, to every 18 to 24 year old woman who has been claiming Jobseekers Allowance for more than a year and every woman aged over 25 who have been out of work for more than two years.

We also need to have more focus on the issues facing older women. This generation of older women are better educated, and living longer than their mothers. But many of them are facing barriers to employment and

discrimination at work. Scottish Labours Older Womens Commission will make recommendations in the next twelve months about how we best support older women in work.


Raise the National Minimum Wage to more than 8 by 2019

Promote the Living Wage

Strengthen the law on maternity discrimination and double paternity leave

Consult on unpaid parental leave being shared with grandparents

Ban the use of exploitative zero hour contracts

Introduce a lower 10p starting rate of tax, benefitting more than 24 million people on middle and lower incomes

Guarantee a paid job for all young women who have been out of work for a year and for every woman over the age of 25 out of work for over two years. Women and the NHS:

1. Women at Work


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2. Women and the NHS

The NHS is there for every woman in Scotland, at every point in their lives, when we experience joy at the birth of a child or the heartbreak of the death of a loved one the NHS is always with us.

Our health service is the envied around the world, but under the SNP our NHS is facing a crisis. Across Scotland, too many patients are waiting for hours in our Accident and Emergency departments. Last year, the number of young people in Scotland waiting more than a year to be treated by mental health services increased 10-fold in a year rising from 20 in December 2013 to 226 in December 2014.

Our dedicated NHS workers care for patients as if they were their own family. But there simply arent enough of them to cope. Twice as many women than men work in the NHS in Scotland and women are more likely to be in supportive medical roles than men.

We need a health service that works for women, that can diagnose illnesses earlier, that can focus on prevention as well a cure and a health service that is able to support people with mental illness.

In Scotland today:

Its been over 2000 days since the SNP met its NHS waiting time targets

Twice as many women than men work in the NHS in Scotland

Half of Scotlands health boards failed to meet cancer waiting times target

100 million of public money has been spent on sending patients for private treatments

1 in 4 Scots suffer mental illness every year

Scottish Labour has a plan to invest a billion pounds more in our Scottish NHS. We will introduce a mansion tax on homes worth over 2million, the vast majority of which are in London and the South East, and we will also tax tobacco companies and make sure hedge funds pay fair taxes. This will provide an additional 1billion investment for the Scottish NHS over the next 5 years. With this additional funding we will recruit an extra 1,000 nurses for the NHS and 500 extra GPs, helping to get a grip on the SNP's NHS crisis.

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Invest 1 billion in our NHS

Recruit 1000 more nurses

Recruit 500 GPs

Create a new Mental Health Fund worth 200 million to invest in Scotlands mental health services focusing on children and prevention and early intervention.

Create a 200 million Cancer Fund to reduce cancer waiting times and ensure patients have access to the best drugs and treatments available.


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A domestic violence incident is recorded every 10 minutes in Scotland and two women a week are killed by a current or former male partner. Violence against women and girls is too prevalent in our communities.

In Scotland today:

At least 1 in 5 women in Scotland will experience domestic violence in their lifetime

1 in 3 teenage girls in a relationship suffer an unwanted sexual act

Women face discrimination and sexism at work everyday

Scottish Labour will work to make sure that all women feel safer in their homes and in the street. We will create a Womens Aid specific fund of over 2 million to ensure the doors of local womens aid centres are able to remain open for victims of domestic abuse.

There were 1,690 reported rapes in Scotland in 2013/14, up from 1,372 the previous year and 1 in 3 teenage girls in a relationship suffer an unwanted sexual act.

Scottish Labour will ensure that we have a justice system that works for victims of rape, supporting women to come forward and training police officers in dealing with the issue sensitively and without judgment. We will introduce specific domestic abuse courts within Scotlands sheriff courts.

In a study of young peoples attitudes in Scotland, 1 in 5 young men believed that women often provoke violence'. We will deliver a Scotland wide education campaign reaching every household in the country, which challenges victim-blaming attitudes.

Labour is the party of social justice and we believe that together we can build the fairest nation on earth. We will enforce immigration rules humanely and effectively and end the indefinite detention of people in the asylum and immigration system, ending detention for pregnant women and those who have been the victims of sexual abuse or trafficking.

3. Women and Social Justice 3


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Scottish Labour believes that when mothers are imprisoned, the impact is wider than an individual. Children and families suffer. We will implement the recommendations of the Angiolini report on women's offending. Where appropriate, we will focus on community based alternatives to custody such as community justice centres, ensuring perpetrators are held to account, that justice is served, but importantly, that rehabilitation is not sacrificed and families do not suffer.


Invest over 2 million in Womens Aid centres

Ensure that we have a justice system that works for victims of rape

End the detention of asylum seekers who are pregnant and victims of sexual abuse or trafficking

Implement the recommendations of the Angiolini report on women's offending

Focus on community based alternatives to custody such as community justice centres

3. Women and Social Justice


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The next Scottish Labour government will do whatever it takes to give the next generation of women in Scotland a better chance in life.

Under the SNP and the Tories, young women in particular have been left behind; stuck in low pay and locked out of training and education opportunities.

Fewer young women study science, engineering or technology than young men and they are less likely to be in modern apprenticeships.

In Scotland today:

1 in 4 young people under the age of 30 are more likely to be in financial hardship

62,000 young people under 25 are unemployed

Of the 25,000 apprenticeships in the last year, only 60 were training in engineering

264,000 women in Scotland earn less than the living wage.

Scottish Labour will make sure that every young woman in Scotland can access opportunities to help them succeed in life. Under Labour, university tuition will remain free and we will increase grants for students from low income families by 1,000.

We will give every apprentice free bus travel and through our Future Fund we will provide 1,600 for 18 and 19 year olds who dont have an apprenticeship, and dont go to college or university, to invest in themselves or start a business.

Across Scotland, we have lost 140,000 college students; the majority of these have been part-time students, which are more likely to be taken up by young women, especially those with caring responsibilities. We are committed to re-investing in our colleges and are committed to putting into reverse the SNPs cuts to colleges.

4. Women of the Next Generation 4


Increase bursaries by 1,000 for students from low income families.

Give 1,600 to 18 and 19 year olds who are not at university, college or in an apprenticeship, to invest in themselves or start-up a business

Guarantee a paid job for all young women at risk of long term unemployment

Give free bus travel for apprentices to help them get to work and to support more women to take up apprenticeships.

Invest in FE college and skills development for women


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5. Equality in Public Life 5

Labour is the party of devolution; we delivered the Scottish Parliament and we were the first political party to introduce all-women shortlists almost 20 years ago to increase the number of female elected representatives. And today, we are the party with the highest number of women in the UK and Scottish Parliament.

In Scotland today:

Only half of those eligible to vote, took part in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections

Across the UK, over 9 million women did not vote in the 2010 elections

36% of public board members in Scotland are women

We want the UK and Scottish Parliament to look more like our country. We are proud of our record in strengthening the representation of women and other under-represented groups in politics and public life. We remain committed to achieving a better balance in our Parliaments, including through the use of all-women shortlists and we will continue to work towards our goal of a 50:50 Scottish Parliament.

Just 36% of public board members in Scotland are women. We believe that more women should be at the top decision making tables and that more women in the top positions in business and in public life will strengthen Scottish society.

The next Scottish Labour government will use new powers new powers being devolved to Scotland through the Smith Agreement to deliver equality for women in law.

Institutions that have so much influence over Scottish public life should reflect the country we live in. With so few women on the boards of Scotlands public bodies today, they dont represent the communities they seek to serve. That needs to change and Scottish Labour will make that happen.


Legislate for public boards to have 50% women representatives

Appoint a cabinet minister for women

Ensure that 50% of the cabinet team in the Scottish Parliament are women

Encourage more women entrepreneurs through Labours British Investment Bank


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6747_15 Promoted by Brian Roy, Scottish General Secretary, on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party both at 290 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4RE.

scottish labour women's manifesto

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