Andrew Wilson: Everyone will benefit if we fix gender pay gap

With the case for the UK and Britain’s moral vision imploding by the hour I believe the conditions are ripening to unite a substantial majority of people behind a positive, exciting and honest prospectus for a better society and economy.

In the Sustainable Growth Commission study, we looked to the most successful small economies in the world for ideas and instruction on good governance and policies for growth and inclusion. In the country of noisy argument virtually every idea anyone comes up with gets shouted at. Amazingly critics took aim at New Zealand which, along with Denmark and Finland, were the countries we took most insight from.

All three countries were in the top 10 in the world in this week’s publication of the PwC’s Women in Work index. It is a must-read for all economic and social policymakers and endorses some of the key findings of our own report.

The index measures gender pay gaps, female workforce participation gaps and other such data, and ranks countries’ success. The prize from progress is huge; if every country in the OECD matched the female employment rates of the best then GDP (all the wages and all the profits) could be boosted by $6 trillion, and for the UK alone around $260 billion.

READ MORE: Scotland top for workplace gender diversity in the UK

Scotland ranks number one of the UK regions and countries but we shouldn’t rest there. Rather we should use that as a springboard to drive up the table towards Iceland, Sweden and New Zealand at the top. Nine of the top 10 are small advanced economies that we should aspire to emulate.

All political parties should unite behind the goal of getting Scotland to the top of the Women in Work index league table. Then work can begin on how, and this will take partnership and long-term strategic effort.

As PwC’s economists write: “While governments are responsible for shaping a policy environment that supports gender equality and diversity in the workplace, it is up to organisations and employers to put this into practice”.

They have five core recommend-ations: 1, Align diversity with your business strategy; 2, Drive accountability from the top; 3, set realistic objectives and plan to achieve them; 4, Use data – what gets measured gets done; 5, Be honest – tell it as it is.

All of that appeals to me very much. Scotland’s policymakers can work in partnership across public, private and third sectors, with employers and trade unions, to get this in harmony to the benefit of all.

Recommendation 13 of the Sustainable Growth Commission was for a Commission on Gender Pay Equality. Recommendation 15 was for a longer-term participation and inclusion strategy driven by just the partnership PwC calls for. These should be combined into a new Scottish Commission for a Gender Equal Economy reporting through the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy to the First Minister.

Imaginative appointments to lead and drive the work of such a commission would need to help businesses and all employers align their interests to these goals.

This way a win-win for society can be created. Close the gender participation and pay gaps sustainably and the economy will be larger and more firmly founded. Tax revenues will be far higher from a far larger base and calls on expenditure to pay for symptoms of exclusion lower. Investment will be needed and choices made to support childcare and encourage men to play a fairer role domestically. Both are necessary parts of civilisation and growth. But a joined-up long-term cross-partisan strategy to emulate the best performing small advanced economies and societies in the world? Well that is precisely what independence for Scotland should be all about.

Scottish pound from day one could cost us dear

WHEN asked to take on the wide-ranging brief of the Sustainable Growth Commission’s remit, its 14 members always knew that the most difficult question to answer was on currency.

This is because it is a hugely complex topic which traverses economics, politics and identity.

There is a good reason that when Ireland became independent they took the approach they did. There is also a good reason 19 European countries have chosen to pool monetary sovereignty in the Eurozone.

READ MORE: Revealed: The SNP WILL propose a new currency for an independent Scotland

And good reason behind nine EU members choosing to not be part of the Eurozone.

These are the choices that come with independence but crucially are always about creating the circumstances and stability that allows us to secure jobs and investment and therefore economic growth and social cohesion. The ends matter so much more than the means.

Currency policies are complex.

Bulgaria chooses to peg to the Euro while Denmark manages its currency in a band to the Euro.

In Denmark’s case there is implicit support from the European Central Bank for this which discourages market speculation to challenge it.

However, Denmark still holds around $70 billion in currency reserves compared to the UK at $164bn with Scotland’s share of that around $13bn or less than a fifth of Denmark’s level and around half of Bulgaria’s. We could borrow to build that up which wouldn’t add to net debt because the borrowed money would be on our balance sheet as an asset, at least until we had to trade its value to defend our currency. But borrowing such vast sums, with added currency risk on top of deficit funding we would inherit from the UK, before we had properly established ourselves, would be very expensive indeed.

This would cost taxpayers and public services now and saddle future generations with the most expensive interest we will ever have to pay.

Hence our tests to guide the timing. Most economists the world over would agree that at the right time and for the right reasons a country should either have its own currency or purposefully pool its sovereignty as Euro members do.

But to promise to do this in haste without having established ourselves and got the economy and trade motoring and the public finances stable and sustainable, could risk jobs, stability, growth and public services. In other words, get the timing wrong and it could take us longer to create the progressive society we seek.

In our first report to the First Minister in January 2017 we signalled that we were trying to make it work that we could move at an earlier stage to establish a Scottish pound and pegging it to sterling for an initial period of years.

However, when we subjected that strategy to scrutiny from the best economic and central banking experts we could find in the world, we realised it could cost us both economically and politically.

Remember the points I make above are before we even consider the implications for wages, pensions, mortgages and the like from changing the value of the currency.

So, after more than a year of thought, debate, scrutiny and evidence we decided upon the recommendations we have offered in our report to the party published in May 2018. Each part of the report joins up in its thinking.

I believe we all want to get to the same place. Our route-map is intended to offer a clear, honest and rigorous approach that will time the move when it is in the interests of jobs and public services and the economy. Not before.