THE SNP have forced the Labour Party to vote on devolving employment law to the Scottish Parliament after Ian Murray and Anas Sarwar appeared to contradict one another on the subject.
Last week, shadow Scottish secretary Murray told the Daily Record he was not supportive of devolving more power to Holyrood.
When asked if he believed a UK Government led by the Labour Party should consider further devolution, he said: “Not personally, no.
“I think we’ve got to try and make it work better. Government need to use the powers that it’s got. I don’t think a discussion about devolution should be about individual powers anymore.
“I think it should be about what’s currently used and how Holyrood can become much better”.
He then said he believed MSPs already had the means to incentivise higher wages.
However, Murray’s comments appear to contradict those made by Anas Sarwar back in February.
The leader of Scottish Labour told The Daily Record that he believed in entrenching policies such as scrapping anti-trade union laws and outlawing zero-hours contracts, which “can be done through devolution”.
On Tuesday, the SNP group at Westminster introduced a ten minute rule bill to the House of Commons, which forced Labour to vote on whether or not they support devolution of employment law.
It was introduced by SNP MP David Linden who said previous failures to devolve such power to Scotland had left workers vulnerable attacks on their rights by the Tories.
He added: "People in Scotland will be appalled that the Labour Party is, yet again, acting as a roadblock to devolution of vital employment powers to the Scottish Parliament. It's shameful they would rather leave power in the hands of Westminster than Scotland's national parliament.
"By working hand-in-glove with the Tories to block devolution, Sir Keir Starmer's party have prevented the Scottish Parliament from introducing progressive measures like a real living wage, made the cost of living crisis worse, and left Scottish workers vulnerable to the Tory assault on workers' rights.
"It's increasingly clear that independence is the only way to protect and extend workers' rights and ensure Scotland has the powers to build a fairer and wealthier future."
It comes after the general secretary of the Scottish trades union congress (STUC) Roz Foyer said that “Scotland needs the devolution of employment law to outlaw, once and for all, the use of zero hours contracts, giving workers security, certainty and workplace rights from day one of their employment".
The bill was rejected in the House of Commons with 22 voting in favour and 33 voting against.
