THE BIG INTERVIEW We have to take risks ... there’s a big job to do
Labour leader Richard Leonard talks about his vision for the party and Scotland’s future
are being brought up in overcrowded housing, in households where working people are being paid less than a living wage.
“For the first time, the future for young people could be worse than for the previous generation.
“They’re forced into the private rented sector, which needs much better regulation, and more and more young people are going into work on zerohour contracts and short-term working, so they’re really disadvantaged.”
Calling the past decade “an era of austerity”, he continued: “People’s living standards have got worse. We’re developing a programme which looks at how, on day one of taking power, we would address those questions.
“We have an obligation to provide shelter and a safe, decent home, decent job, public services, schools for our kids and care services for our elderly.
“It’s a very good thing that people are living longer so we need to plan as a society and think big when it comes to social care.
“Part of my task as leader is to make it appeal to everybody to take up those issues of social injustice. We can’t just wish it to change and as a society that might mean we need a fairer system of taxation, but we do need to have a fundamental look at the kind of public services we’re going to need in 10 and 20 years’ time.”
He said of his time as leader to date: “We’ve got into a situation where the Scottish Government has understood that its budget agenda can’t stand still – we’ve got them at least to acknowledge that there needs to be more progressive taxation, and that there are powers they can use by calling for things like an industrial strategy.
“Our achievements have been to push the SNP government in the direction which we think they should be, but on the whole their response has been fairly timid. I firmly believe we can’t keep on the way that we are, just managing things a bit differently or tinkering round the edges – the people of Scotland demand real change.”
Mr Leonard was a prominent trade union leader and is a former chair of the party, but was not well known by voters ahead of his election.
In 2016 he stood in Airdrie & Shotts, finishing runner-up to Alex Neil, but entered Holyrood as a regional MSP after party members placed him first on their regional list.
Of his rise to party prominence he added: “I’ve never hidden from the fact I wasn’t hugely well-known when I was elected leader, but I’m getting recognised more and people’s response has been very positive.
“I’m learning and building all the time, and it’s those small things like when people come up to you on the train, giving encouragement and saying, ‘what you’re doing is right’ that give me confidence we’re going in the right direction.”