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It is probably useful to put on record that the Scottish Government is developing a national service specification for drug and alcohol treatment in Scotland, alongside guidance that has been informed by the UK-wide clinical guidance for alcohol treatment. That will aim to provide clarity on the types of treatment that should be available. The national specification will set out the types of treatment and recovery service that should be available across Scotland. It will also provide impetus for improved joint working between the public sector, third sector partners and everyone who needs to collaborate in order to improve outcomes for the individuals who are affected. That will apply in custody in prisons, as well as in our hospitals and primary care.

The Scottish Government welcomes the introduction of the bill. I am positive about the part that we are discussing today in particular, which is a real step forward. We need to spend time working with the sector to bottom out whether people in Scotland would prefer the arrangement to be voluntary or to have a statutory underpinning. However, I am absolutely delighted that the legislative consent motion will give us both options—it does not mean that we will have to introduce one option over the other. We have done a great deal of work towards the voluntary arrangement—as I said, we are nearly there—and I do not want to lose the progress that we have made, but I absolutely want to have both options, and that is why I am recommending approval.

There is a great deal of on-going work on fair work in the social care sector. We have overseen a significant increase in investment in social care, and specific workstreams of activity are well under way to progress actions to improve fair work in the adult social care sector. The workstreams are being taken forward in partnership with key stakeholders through the fair work in social care group.

Workstream 1 has enabled a minimum rate of pay of at least the real living wage for workers who are delivering direct care and commissioned social care services, as well as enabling annual uplifts to be delivered quickly into workers’ salaries.

Workstream 2 has developed a framework of proposed minimum terms and conditions, reflecting fair work principles and initial priority areas to be progressed. Due to budget constraints, we are currently unable to implement those proposed minimum standards.

Workstream 3 has developed an effective voice framework. The first phase of that delivery programme has been rolled out through a volunteer cohort of organisations from across the sector in Scotland. That will undergo a comprehensive evaluation before progressing to national deployment.

Through workstream 4, progress has been made on voluntary sectoral bargaining with key stakeholders. That work is complex, as there are more than 1,000 employers in the social care sector. Once developed and introduced, it will help to underpin improvements in pay and terms and conditions across the social care workforce.

Largely, people can raise issues with the Care Inspectorate, and there are protections in place, so those discussions are confidential. The identity of the person who raises concerns does not have to be in the public domain.

That troubleshooting mechanism was introduced because there were significant delays between our putting the money into the system for the uplift to the real living wage and people actually receiving the real living wage. That mechanism appears to have largely sorted the issue.

The issue of geography is always challenging. In the Highlands, we have always been quite keen on virtual options for meeting, because the distances involved are vast, but that has become much more of a factor since the pandemic, and now people can go online to gather together, work together and network virtually in a way that was not commonplace a few years ago. Therefore, issues of geography should not prevent union membership.

On the hostility towards unions, it is important that we remind people of the benefits of union membership. That includes reminding employers of the benefits that their organisations will realise if their workforce has union representation, an effective voice and better terms, conditions and pay.

We have worked really hard to work in partnership with the sector, despite the low unionisation level, which exists for all sorts of reasons. However, we are pretty keen on unionisation in the sector. I see union membership and increasing unionisation of the workforce as being strongly beneficial to the workers and to the sector as a whole.

The group has quite broad representation. Martin Reid might want to talk a little more about it.

I will add a little more detail. One thing to be aware of about unionisation levels across the sector—which we are keen to increase, because we see that as a means of improving the pay and terms and conditions for the workforce—is that, as well as being relatively low, with around 20 per cent of the workforce unionised, union membership is concentrated in local government employees. Do not misunderstand me: we are keen to listen to and work with unions, but a large part of the workforce is not represented by the unions, so we need to ensure that we capture the voice of that workforce.

Another thing that has disrupted progress, in a good way, during the past few months is the issue that I am here to talk about today—the Employment Rights Bill, which we have had to take time to examine. We have been working on that through a voluntary arrangement in Scotland. The Employment Rights Bill is going through the UK Parliament because what it covers is largely reserved. We have had to take time to take stock and have a look at that proposal, which we broadly welcome, which is why I am here today.

The reason for focusing on commissioned services is that there are already arrangements in place for local authority employment.

We can probably furnish you with some costs. I have spoken before about the on-going costs of the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which we think will cost social care in Scotland between £84 million and £100 million a year, every year, from now on. We are trying to regularly update people and help them to understand the situation, because some of the figures are enormous. We will gather some costings together and provide them to the committee.