Wage Call For Scotland's Poorest

A wage of £10 an hour should be introduced by 2020 to end in-work poverty, that's according to the Scottish Greens.

The call comes ahead of a Holyrood debate.

The party wants workers and apprentices to receive the rate. The apprenticeship wage is currently only £2.73 an hour for those in their first year, which means that some young people up to the age of 25 are working 30 hours a week for a monthly wage packet of just £327.60.

Green MSPs also want the Holyrood Chamber to back moves such as a tax to redistribute the wealth of the richest one per cent in society.

Scottish Green MSP Patrick Harvie, a member of Holyrood's economy committee, said: "Hundreds of thousands of working age adults in Scotland are living in poverty. They have been let down by an economic policy pursued by successive governments, wrongly assuming that if we make the rich richer some of that money will trickle down.

"At the same time we've seen the welfare system being used to subsidise poverty wages when we should be putting real money in people's pockets for them to live decent lives. It's simply unacceptable that someone in their mid-twenties can be in an apprenticeship earning less than £3 an hour. What sort of message does this send about the value we place on our young people?

"By making sure everyone's wage meets their basic needs we can get to grips with the inequality that is doing so much damage in our country."