Labour challenge SNP to back social care plans

Scottish Labour have challenged the SNP to back their ambitious plans to invest in social care, as new analysis shows 39,000 care workers would get a pay rise under their plans.

As a result of the comprehensive spending review last month there are Barnett health consequentials of around £400 million.

Scottish Labour has called for the majority of this to be invested in social care to relieve the long term pressures on our NHS.

Scottish Labour would also introduce a living wage for care workers. This would not only boost the pay of care workers but improve the standard of care people receive through increased productivity and better staff retention rates.

Independent analysis from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre has shown that Labour’s living wage plan would boost the pay packets of 39,000 care workers.

Scottish Labour Equality Spokesperson Neil Findlay MSP said:

“How we face the challenges of social care in the next decade will define how successful our NHS is as a whole.

Scottish Labour believes it is time to start investing in social care to relieve the pressure on our hospitals, and allowing people the dignity of care in their own home.

We’d start by paying the living wage to care workers so the whole workforce is professionalised. We want to raise standards so care is a viable career for people, not just another job.

Investing in social care means a long term investment in our NHS rather than the sticking plaster approach from eight years of SNP government. Today they can back Labour’s plan for a long term approach which will build a health service fit for the challenges of the 2040s, not the 1940s.”

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13 thoughts on “Labour challenge SNP to back social care plans

  1. Except Labour’s “living wage” proposals are less than the SNPs.
    Labour want to make the living wage 8.00 per hour by 2020 the SNP propose 8.70 which Labour opposes.
    And its this level of duplicity which will guarantee labour remain in opposition both in Scotland and Westminster.

    1. Not true. Those were the figures proposed by the two parties for the Minimum Wage, not the Living Wage. The two things are different. The level of the Living Wage is set independently by the Living Wage Foundation. Unfortunately the Tories have moved to rename the Minimum Wage as the “National Living Wage”, but set it at a lower level than the actual Living Wage. So it’s important to understand the differences here.

      Labour’s proposal is to pay the independently set Living Wage to care workers. So your argument that the SNP argued for higher is false. The minimum wage is already enforced by law.

      1. Duncan Labours “Living wage” proposal is 7.45 per hour which is even less than the minimum wage proposal they themselves propose.
        Why would the Scottish Government support a proposal to give less per hour than their own 8.70 minimum wage proposal and then have the audacity to call it a living wage?

        1. Why must you be so wilfully dishonest, Mike?

          Labour hasn’t made any Living Wage proposal. As I already said, the Living Wage is set by the independent Living Wage Foundation.

          You need to learn to stop just saying “Laaabour baaad” to everything, and start checking your facts.

          1. Once again, and as the BBC piece points out, The minimum wage is currently £6.31. The (independently set) Living Wage is currently £7.65. The SNP proposal to increase the minimum wage to to £8.70 by 2020 is irrelevant as a) the SNP didn’t win the UK election so aren’t forming the UK government, and b) it isn’t 2020, it’s 2015!

            Labour’s proposal is an increase for care workers from £6.31 to £7.65. That is what the SNP opposed.

  2. In other words Labour want to propose a living wage of 7.45 per hour which isn’t compulsory while deposing the SNP proposal of making the minimum wage 8.70 per hour which is compulsory.
    Its clear as day which party has the lowest paid workers best interests at heart.

    1. Sigh. The minimum wage is currently £6.31. The (independently set) Living Wage is currently £7.65. The SNP proposal to increase the minimum wage to to £8.70 by 2020 is irrelevant as a) the SNP didn’t win the UK election so aren’t forming the UK government, and b) it isn’t 2020, it’s 2015!

      Labour’s proposal is an increase for care workers from £6.31 to £7.65. That is what the SNP opposed.

      1. But Duncan if the COMPULSORY minimum wage is set at 8.00 or 8.70 what would be the point of a non compulsory living wage of 7.65?
        And if a living wage is non compulsory why would any corporation or company adopt it?

  3. So to sum up Labours continuing fetish to play with the ludicrous and unsound we have their latest piece of stupidity.

    They call on the Scottish Government to support the idea of a non compulsory “Living wage” of 7.65 per hour while simultaneously proposing a compulsory minimum wage of 8.00 per hour while further opposing the SNP proposal of a minimum wage of 8.70 per hour.

    This they hope will appeal to ordinary working voters rather than corporate CEOs or board members because realistically there are more ordinary workers on a minimum wage than there are CEOs and Corporate board members in Scotland.

    I look forward to your further spin on this one Duncan.

    1. The minimum wage is currently £6.31, and the Living Wage is currently £7.65. Despite your idiotic attempts to misrepresent, Labour is rightly calling for care workers to get an increase of £1.34 per hour. The SNP oppose this, and you try to pretend they are actually offering more. But they aren’t. The SNP’s UK election manifesto promised an £8.70 minimum wage by 2020, not in 2015. And the SNP didn’t win the UK election so aren’t delivering their manifesto pledges anyway.

      The SNP are opposing a £1.34 increase in care workers’ wages. That’s the bottom line.

      1. Duncan, you’re wasting your breath. I think they do an online course run by ‘Wings’ or similar, that teaches them to pick up a tiny thread of a conversation and run with it, come what may, and regardless of whether they’ve missed the whole point or not.

        Okay, so for all those who assert that the SNP are just dying to give social care workers £8.70 an hour, why would they not want to give them £7.45 an hour just now, you know, to tide them over until the mega bucks come rolling in? Incremental increases in pay are far easier on the budget than a huge rise all at once – and I’m certain the workers themselves would happily accept just over a pound an hour more right now, instead of waiting for the SNP to dole out the riches in, say, another four years time.

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