SNP plan to force f irms to pay at least £7.65 an hour

EVERY company in Scotland would be forced to pay at least £7.65 an hour to all staff under radical proposals by the SNP.

Plans have been launched to scrap the current minimum wage of £6.50 per hour and replace it with the higher ‘living wage’ set at £7.65.

The move is designed to help introduce ‘genuine pay equality’ north of the Border, but making it a statutory scheme could put pressure on many businesses and industry chiefs warn it could make some unviable, resulting in closures and job losses.

On Thursday John Mason, Nationalist MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, will table a Scottish parliament motion that the living wage be imposed on all businesses. The power to legislate on the minimum wage is reserved to Westminster but the SNP is campaigning for it to be devolved to Scotland. The Scottish Government has already introduced the living wage for all public sector workers, funded by taxpayers.

Mr Mason’s motion states that the present minimum wage is ‘too low to counterbalance the ever-increasing cost of living’ and that as the living wage is voluntary, it does not benefit all workers.

‘The only way to ensure genuine pay equality is achieved would be to make the living wage a statutory scheme for all employers,’ he said.

Colin Borland, of the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland, said: ‘The living wage is something we all aspire to... but there are questions with affordability in some sectors.’