The Tories’ refusal to implement a Real Living Wage in the Autumn Statement has deprived full time workers over the age of 23 of around £1,365 this year.
The SNP has accused the UK government of depriving some households of well-deserved income, during a particularly challenging year, over their refusal to pay the Real Living Wage.
David Linden MP, the party’s Social Justice spokesperson, labelled the UK government’s rebrand of the National Minimum Wage to the National Living Wage (NLW) a ‘con-trick’ that has entrenched poverty across the country.
The UK government mandated NLW, set at £10.42 outside of London, lags behind the independently calculated Real Living Wage (RLW) of £10.90 an hour (increased in October to £12 with a deadline for compliant employers to increase salaries by May 1st 2024), meaning a worker on 40 hours a week earning the NLW earns £77 less a month than if they were paid the RLW.
Despite lacking full powers over employment law, the SNP Scottish Government has introduced a range of measures to ensure people earn at least the Real Living Wage and is a fundamental part of its National Economic Transformation Strategy.
Commenting, David Linden MP said:
“This past year has been a particularly challenging one, with rising costs affecting everything from energy bills to mortgages, grocery inflation, and now, gifts and the price of a Christmas meal.
“A Real Living Wage would’ve gone a long way to ensuring folk have more money in their pockets this winter.
“Instead, the Tories’ National Living Wage con-trick has deprived workers of well deserved, liveable, pay for years, and has cost someone who works 40 hours a week £1365 this year.
“Rebranding the minimum wage to sound like a Real Living Wage doesn’t make it so.
“The Tories have always had it in their power to legislate to ensure workers are paid what they are due – instead they’ve shortchanged them and levelled countless attacks on their abilities to organise and strike for better conditions.
“Westminster is not an institution that takes workers’ pay or conditions seriously.
“In contrast, Scotland under the SNP has made significant strides to ensure workers are paid the Real Living Wage, and with the full powers of independence we can make sure everyone is, and enshrine worker’s rights in a written constitution.”
