2. Ms Rozanne Foyer

MS ROZANNE FOYER (affirmed).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Mr Tariq: Ms Foyer, thank you for your assistance to the Inquiry to date. There are a few preliminary matters I want to talk about before we get to your evidence. Could you please keep your voice up and speak into the microphone so that the stenographer can hear you for the purpose of the transcript. If any of my questions are unclear, please say so and I will rephrase and ask the question again.

The Scottish Trades Union Congress, the STUC, has provided the Inquiry with a witness statement that’s dated 6 July 2023. The statement is at INQ000103536.

Can we please have this onscreen.

This is a corporate statement that’s been submitted on behalf of the STUC, and you were the author of this statement; is that correct?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: That is correct.

Counsel Inquiry: If we turn to the final page, which is page 33, there is a signature that is hidden behind the personal data, but it would be your signature on this statement; is that correct?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, that’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Are the contents of this statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, they are.

Counsel Inquiry: I now want to turn to the STUC’s role during the pandemic.

You are the general secretary of the STUC; is that right?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, I am.

Counsel Inquiry: The STUC is a national lobbying, campaigning and co-ordinating body for trade unions in Scotland; is that correct?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: That is correct.

Counsel Inquiry: It represents over 540,000 members in Scotland; is that correct?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, that’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: The organisation’s campaigning and lobbying continued during the pandemic and covered a whole range of workers’ rights, issues and interests; is that correct?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, it is.

Counsel Inquiry: I want to discuss the issue of the Scottish Government’s engagement with the STUC during the pandemic.

Is it right that the STUC frequently had meetings with the Scottish Government throughout the pandemic?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, we had a forum of engagement and we met the Scottish Government twice weekly, specifically to bring the views and concerns of trade unions to the table. That reduced to once weekly and then, towards the end of the pandemic, to monthly meetings. But we had other meetings outwith those meetings with specific government ministers on a range of key issues.

Counsel Inquiry: You personally attended a large number of these meetings; is that right?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, I would say the vast majority of those meetings.

Counsel Inquiry: In general terms, what is the STUC’s position on the Scottish Government’s engagement with the STUC during the pandemic? For example, did you find that the Scottish Government was willing to listen to your concerns raised on behalf of your members?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yeah, I would say that in general terms I would describe the engagement that we had as intense and constructive. There was an established relationship there already. The Scottish Government do see trade unions as a key social partner, and they have a collaborative working approach, so we had an established relationship there already, but that relationship intensified during the pandemic because I think the Scottish Government recognised that we could be very helpful in giving them a real picture of what was happening in workplaces, and particularly in workplaces where key workers were working, delivering essential services across the economy.

Counsel Inquiry: I want to explore a little bit more about the engagement. Within the STUC’s witness statement, you identify areas where you felt that there was insufficient engagement by the Scottish Government with the STUC. One example is the return of people to office working. Your position is that the Scottish Government consulted fully with the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, but had limited engagement with the STUC about that issue.

Was this around the time that the lockdown restrictions were being eased in early summer 2020?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, that was one of a number of examples where we were not shy in letting the Scottish Government know that we were unhappy not to be engaged. There are several examples of this that you will find throughout our evidence, in the minutes of the meetings that we provided. So although the engagement and access was there, we did have issues fairly frequently about late engagement or the order of engagement.

We always have an ethos as trade unionists that there should be nothing about us without us, and that workers’ voices are very important, and that’s actually part of Scottish Government’s Fair Work Framework.

So we’re not shy in letting the government know what we feel we have been not consulted fully enough.

Counsel Inquiry: I want to just focus on that issue that I raised, which is return of people to office working. This is as we were easing out of the first lockdown in early summer 2020. At the time the Scottish Government’s strategy was to ease restrictions more gradually than the UK Government, and we’ve heard evidence in Module 2 that the UK Government was keen to get workers back into offices and into workplaces. What views did the STUC have on the Scottish Government’s position on the return of workers to offices and workplaces at that time?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Well, we were cautious about it, we had clear safety concerns, and we had a set of criteria that we’d laid out, that we’d communicated with government, that we felt should be met, around areas like testing and making sure that proper safety guidance was in place in the workplaces that would be returning, and we worked to produce workplace level public safety guidance for a range of key sectors.

So there were some areas where we had concerns that things were moving too quickly, but I think overall we were quite critical of the approach being taken at the time by the UK Government, which we felt in some ways was undermining the more cautious approach of the Scottish Government, and that mixed signalling could be quite confusing to the public in Scotland. So, you know, we had times where the Scottish Government were saying that only certain types of workplace should be coming back, and there was a very gradual loosening of the restrictions, keeping a very close eye on the numbers of cases and those levels, and at the same time we had announcements coming out of the UK Government, you know, that the Eat Out to Help Out scheme and other things that were taking place where, you know, Boris Johnson made announcements about all non-essential workplaces, people should get back to work and get back into city centres. So there was a lot of differences there that we were really concerned about.

But overall, although we had some – I mean, I think I put out a press release in July 2020 criticising Scottish Government for relaxing the 2-metre distancing down to 1 metre, so we were critical where we felt things were going too fast, but overall we were very engaged with that approach and we felt we were able to influence a more cautious approach by the Scottish Government to opening up.

Counsel Inquiry: There’s a few questions, follow-up questions that I have. Going back to particularly the issue around return of workers back into offices and work spaces, you say that the Scottish Government had consulted fully with the Chambers of Commerce, but there was limited engagement with the STUC. Can you explain whose interests the Chambers of Commerce represents?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: So the Chambers of Commerce is a business representative organisation, it represents all sorts of different businesses and employers, and there were a number of – I’m not sure to – the very specific reference you’re making, but there were a number of occasions where if we felt that communication had happened, you know, with employers first and there had been a document produced, for example, and we weren’t in the room to put the view of workers in those sectors across, we would have taken issue with that. Because, you know, the order of consultation is quite important. It’s important that views are taken on in an open way, and often some – the best way to deal with issues like that can be through tripartite discussions at times with the government.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, we are discussing the period around the easing of the first lockdown, and within the STUC’s statement you say that there was many occasions where the STUC raised, and I think you say, “serious concerns” and had heated and robust exchanges with the Scottish Government, and one of those areas that you’ve identified in the statement is the easing of the first lockdown.

I think what I’ve seen is that the STUC had set out a criteria, and I think you’ve touched upon this in your oral evidence, that the STUC wanted to be met before we would come out of the first lockdown, and that included things such as capacity to supply PPE to non-essential workplaces, the continuation of the job retention scheme and other supports for those who could not work, and the STUC’s position, as far as I understand it from the statement, is that it does not consider that there was sufficient measures in place to lift the first lockdown.

What were the key measures that STUC considers were missing at the time the Scottish Government lifted the first national lockdown?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: There were concerns that we had in relation to the provision of PPE. We had asked for surety that – we felt there would be a much higher demand across different employment groups for PPE if more people were coming back into the workplace and we felt that this needed to be made clear to us that that provision was in place because we had real concerns. Having seen the experience of workers who were in essential services, key workers who hadn’t been able to access PPE during the first lockdown, what we didn’t want to happen was that supply would be diverted in any way away from frontline services, given that the rest of the economy was opening up and there would be demands for PPE.

Other areas that we were concerned about was just making sure that there was appropriate safety guidance in place that had been worked on and put in place for different sectors of the economy for workplaces that were returning to work, and we had concerns that employers were not following that guidance, and that, you know, they were not putting appropriate safety measures in place, based on some of the feedback that we’d received.

Counsel Inquiry: So these measures, is it my understanding that these measures were not put in place sufficiently to STUC’s satisfaction at the time that Scotland came out of the first national lockdown?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, there was definitely gaps that we could see, but equally there were some areas that had been met, so there was a good sort of track – testing regime in place and a track and trace regime that they had put in place. So these things were things that we welcomed but we were also raising concerns.

Another area that we were still very concerned about was the ability of workers to isolate and we felt that there was a real gap in provision across the economy, because the UK Government’s statutory sick pay was not adequate to allow workers in low paid jobs to isolate if they were, you know, told by the track and trace people that they had been, you know, in contact with someone with symptoms. So that was something that we had a real concern about, and I think we actually – there is a document within the evidence where we wrote to the First Minister, welcoming some parts of what had been done, but raising some of the concerns that we had.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you think that the Scottish Government properly listened to the STUC’s concerns prior to announcing the roadmap for the lifting of the first lockdown?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: I think they did listen, I think they engaged. I don’t think we always got everything we wanted but I think that there was a respectful engagement, in most cases, with the trade unions.

I think to some extent issues like statutory sick pay were not in their gift to resolve, that was an issue the UK Government needed to resolve, and I am aware that the Scottish Government did write to UK Government ministers seeking funds to address some of those issues, and, you know, seeking for them to address some of those issues. So the – I think they definitely did listen; that doesn’t mean they always acted. And I think that’s just the nature of things, isn’t it?

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of listening but not necessarily acting on some of the approaches advocated by the STUC around this time, what were the consequences of the Scottish Government not following the STUC’s approach at the time of lifting of the first national lockdown for your members, what were the consequences for them?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Well, there were grave consequences potentially for our members. We had seen that – you know, you can tell from the figures around Covid, around the deaths, that there is definitely a link with death rates to the sort of work that people carried out, and that people who were in involved in certain occupations were in more danger from the virus, and I think that we’d seen people in really frontline services on very low pay really in the eye of the storm, and not receiving proper PPE, safety measures not being in place at the beginning. So we were very cautious and very aware of the fear of our members about getting up and going to work every day, and the idea that that was going to affect more workers who perhaps weren’t delivering essential services. We had real concerns that there weren’t appropriate safety measures in place, and that they could come under pressure to cut corners from unscrupulous employers. So there was a real caution there on our part.

Our approach was very much safety first, that no worker should have their life put at risk in order to keep the economy going. You know, workers are not expendable.

Counsel Inquiry: One of the areas where we’ve seen kind of the theme of that in the evidence is that you raised concerns with the Scottish Government in relation to aviation workers, and the STUC has produced a note of a meeting it had with representatives of the Scottish Government on 10 July 2020.

That note can be found at INQ000107203.

I don’t intend to bring up that note, but it’s a meeting that was attended by you, the Scottish Government’s Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills, Jamie Hepburn, and the Minister for Older People and Equalities, Christina McKelvie, amongst others.

In relation to aviation workers, the note says:

“RF [and that’s you] underlined the urgency in this area and of the real desperation for some deep and meaningful discussions with the Scottish Government and employers but reiterated the disappointment in learning that discussions between the Scottish Government and employers had already been held without Union involvement.”

So this is a note from July 2020 and it touches upon a theme that you’ve already addressed, which is sometimes the order of engagement wasn’t correct.

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of the time period, this was a period when Scotland was coming out of the lockdown more slowly than in England. Do you recall around that time what the concerns were of aviation workers?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes. There was a real concern about, frankly, a collapse in the industry and that – you know, many of these workers – aviation had virtually, you know, closed down, it was in a very precarious position, so there was a real concern that, you know, those jobs would be required in the re-opening of the economy, they were vital jobs when things went back to normal; however, the companies involved in delivering those very important services were in real trouble and there was a potential retention issue that could happen in that sector.

Our – we were – we very much welcomed the fact that the Scottish Government were looking at this, it was something our members had raised, but what we objected to was that they were perhaps going and speaking to employers, some employers who did not take very seriously worker voice or recognise trade unions, and part of the agreed approach of the Scottish Government is to take a fair work approach to any public funding or support that they give, and a big component of the fair work approach is to respect worker voice. So the point we were making was that we really needed workers’ voices to be in that room with discussions about what was needed.

Actually that came good in the end because what we ended up with was that the STUC did end up in the room with employers in that sector and with the Scottish Government leading discussions about investment in a skills package to upskill workers in that sector, and that actually helped resolve some of the issues that we saw when the economy re-opened.

You’ll be aware that in some parts of the UK there was real difficulty with finding baggage handlers, et cetera, to re-open the airports. That wasn’t quite so much of an issue in Scotland. I think some of the work that was done there actually helped further down the line.

Counsel Inquiry: The time period of this meeting and you raising your concerns is interesting, because it’s July 2020, and we know that there’s some evidence that the second wave of infection in Scotland was caused by holidaymakers returning from continental Europe, in particular Spain. Did workers in the aviation industry raise concerns with the STUC about the number of people that were wanting to go abroad in summer 2020 and possibly bringing back the virus and how this would expose workers to the virus or implicate them in outbreaks in Scotland?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: The workers in the aviation sector were primarily concerned with the guide – following health and safety guidance for them while they were in the workplace. We didn’t have concerns so much raised around them not wishing to be in the workplace at that point.

I think the overriding concern for a lot of workers in that sector was that there was about to be a complete collapse in, you know, their jobs. So there was a lot of concern about the security of their jobs at that point, and I think that underlines the issue that we’re dealing with here, that, you know, we have people who – you know, it’s important to be able to have money and not be in financial constraints and to have a job. So there was – a campaigning approach that we had was that we were campaigning to save lives but also to save jobs.

Counsel Inquiry: You touched earlier upon the issue of funding between the Scottish Government and the UK Government, and the STUC’s position in its statement is that there was frustration that some actions that the Scottish Government agreed with the STUC as being essential could not be implemented by the Scottish Government due to the limits of devolution or a lack of funding or financial support from the UK Government. Can you provide examples of key actions that the STUC agreed with the Scottish Government but which could not be implemented because of devolution or the funding arrangements?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yeah, I think that the statutory sick pay example is actually one of the most important ones, and I think there’s – there is an issue around, you know, Scottish Government through devolution has a responsibility to deliver health, you know, local government, education, all these essential services that were very crucial during the pandemic, but they don’t have the budget control. So there had been, you know, a decade of austerity cuts taking place there, and similarly we had a situation with – you know, we were in control of public safety, they were issuing guidance to the people of Scotland, saying that, you know, if you’re tracked and traced as being in contact with someone that had the virus you need to isolate for so many days, but if people are materially unable to follow that guidance because it would cause them severe financial hardship, then we have a situation where the UK Government’s policy was undermining the Scottish Government’s devolved policy and responsibilities.

So, you know, at the end of the day there’s nothing the Scottish Government can do to change statutory sick pay or those sorts of arrangements, they don’t have the budgets to undertake that scale of policy. So we had a situation where – you know, we know Scottish Government wrote to UK Government, they agreed with us that something should be done to improve statutory sick pay, but we didn’t get any shift on that, unfortunately.

Counsel Inquiry: That’s an area that the Inquiry will explore in more detail with other witnesses, but did you ever have the impression that the Scottish Government could have done more on some of the matters that you were pushing but it was easier to attribute blame to the UK Government for not being able to take some of these actions forwards?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: I – I often get that impression, in all sorts of areas. The STUC is very active in pushing the Scottish Government just generally to use all of its devolved powers, particularly its fiscal powers, in terms of more progressive taxation, to allow them the budgets to do more, but I also have to acknowledge that it’s difficult to do that and that the powers they have fiscally are limited and, you know, you – it’s very hard for the Scottish Government to overcome ten years of austerity and budget cuts to public services. It’s very hard for the Scottish Government to go beyond their devolved responsibilities.

One thing I think the Scottish Government did do when we raised particular concerns about workers in the care sector, because you had a sort of perfect storm, I think, in the care sector where you had workers on very low pay who were, crucially, in touch with some of the most vulnerable people when it came to the virus, and providing personal care to them, whether it was in their homes or in care homes, and these workers in many cases did not have access to appropriate levels of sick pay. The Scottish Government did very early on create a fund from their own budget, I think it was launched in June, a social care fund that allowed social care workers, whether they be agency workers or working in the private, voluntary or public sector, to access sick pay to cover their pay in order to allow them to isolate. So that was one example of where I feel they did act. And they had limited ability because of budgetary constraints to do that, but that was the only – it was almost like they picked the most important area they could, knowing their constraints, when actually what we needed was that to be happening right across all workers for them to be able to isolate properly.

Counsel Inquiry: My question was around specific areas or actions that you agreed with the Scottish Government where you felt – or you had the impression that maybe the Scottish Government didn’t push the matter forward and it was easier to attribute blame to the UK Government. Is there anything of that nature during the Scottish Government’s decision-making in the pandemic that you can point to?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: I don’t think that there’s anything I would specifically point to and say, you know, no, that was complete nonsense, that they were saying this would be difficult to enact. I think where they – I think I could see there was reasonable reasons, budgetary constraints or otherwise, why in some cases they weren’t able to do things, and I don’t think that they were making that up. I think it was the reality – the political reality of the way devolution works, that there were certain things they weren’t able to do that we were calling to happen.

So I’m not sure I could point to anything that really stuck out as being something where I thought they were being disingenuous in saying that they were constrained. I think the constraints were very real.

Counsel Inquiry: I’m now coming towards the final topic, which is I just want to touch upon in terms of impact on minorities. Is it correct that the STUC carried out surveys in respect of the impact of the pandemic on minorities such as ethnic minorities and disabled workers?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, it is.

Counsel Inquiry: Generally, what did these surveys show about the impact of the Scottish Government’s decision-making on minority groups?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Well, one of the concerning things that our surveys showed was that there was a disproportionate impact on people from BAME communities, who tended more often to be working in roles that would place them in greater exposure to the virus, so sort of low paid roles within, you know, health, social care and areas like that.

The other issue that became clear was that for a lot of disabled workers there were serious issues emerging, both in terms of not enough provision in the re-opening of the economy to workers who might have specific needs and be shielding, but also things like a lot of people losing their reasonable adjustments that they had in the workplace when they were shifted to home working, and adequate provision not following them into their home working at times.

And also a lot of our surveys showed, you know, higher rates of mental health, you know, people experiencing poor mental health, a higher rate of anxiety, I would say, among people from groups such as disabled workers or the BAME community.

Counsel Inquiry: Did you raise these concerns with the Scottish Government at the time, and if so –

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – did the Scottish Government properly engage with you on these concerns, and did you see that then being actioned in the Scottish Government’s decision-making?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: So in – quite early on our Black Workers’ Committee wrote a letter to the First Minister, an open letter, raising a number of these issues, and asking the Scottish Government to put more priority into collecting data relating to black and minority ethnic communities and the impacts of the virus on them, and that’s something that they did take steps to try to rectify and start to work on.

Some of the issues that we were raising were very systemic, though, and related to the fact that people from these communities are more likely to be in lower paid roles, more precarious roles, and areas that were more likely to be disproportionately impacted by the virus.

Counsel Inquiry: I now want to conclude by asking you about potential lessons learnt by the STUC about the Scottish Government’s decision-making during the pandemic. Do you believe that the Scottish Government’s decision-making in relation to the concerns of workers, including engagement with the STUC, could be improved in a future pandemic situation? If your answer is yes, how?

Ms Rozanne Foyer: So I think that definitely there could be improvements in decision-making.

I think that what we’ve seen is that cuts to essential services, that that prolonged period of cuts and that austerity that was implemented by the Scottish Government – it may have been caused by the UK Government but it was certainly followed and implemented by the Scottish Government – it left services with no resilience and very ill equipped to meet the needs of the pandemic at a time of crisis.

I think that PPE reserves are something that, you know, must be taken into account in the future.

I think that, you know, we need to overhaul and adequately fund our whole health and social care, particularly the social care side, of our public services, and that’s ongoing work that we are now engaged in with the Scottish Government. And I think that there were key lessons about enforcement agencies.

So, for example, the Health and Safety Executive, which is a UK body, I feel did not engage appropriately with the workplace guidance, safety guidance that was issued by the Scottish Government under its public health responsibilities, and I think that was a missed opportunity to disseminate this information effectively to employers and workers. What tended to happen was it was union reps in areas that were well organised that were using these tools, but what about areas where there isn’t a trade union?

So that was something I think we need to think about and think about, you know, how our devolution works and the responsibilities of Scottish Government.

And I also think that given the public health data shows that, you know, there is a clear link between worker occupation groupings and the likelihood to contract and indeed have fatal consequences with this virus, that we need to start looking at Covid as being an industrial injury and see it through that lens. So I think a lesson that we need to learn for the future is that, you know, for the people who suffered long-term consequences such as death or Long Covid and their families, this should be treated as an industrial injury in the same way as, you know, people who have asbestos-related injuries or long-term health conditions are treated.

Counsel Inquiry: The final question from me is just giving you an opportunity to say if there’s anything further that you want to add to your evidence.

Ms Rozanne Foyer: Yes, thank you.

I would just want to say that for the STUC the people whose story most deserves to be heard in this Inquiry is the key workers who put themselves and their families at risk to provide essential services at a time of real crisis. Many of those workers were on poverty pay rates, the majority were women, and disproportionately they came from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, and the sad reality is that too many of those workers lost their lives protecting us. But I don’t think we protected them enough.

Our testimony to the Inquiry makes clear that years of brutal austerity has fundamentally altered our public services, with lethal consequences. Workers across our economy, especially in health and social care, were really dangerously exposed to the virus through a deadly combination of understaffing, PPE shortages, and poor pandemic planning from central government, with a Health and Safety Executive that was hamstrung by budget cuts and with limits on devolution. And the Scottish Government were unable to effectively legislate on employment and health and safety matters, and working people were really caught in the crossfire of that, and I think there were grave results of that.

So I think lessons really do need to be learned. I welcome this Inquiry and I welcome our opportunity to contribute to it. Governments can’t repeat the same mistakes that led to, unfortunately, some very unnecessary and tragic deaths of many workers throughout our country.

Mr Tariq: Ms Foyer, thank you for your evidence.

There’s no further questions, my Lady, from me.

Lady Hallett: No, I have no further questions.

Thank you very much indeed, Ms Foyer, very grateful to you.

(The witness withdrew)

Lady Hallett: We’ll break now, because I think we need to make arrangements for the next witness. So I shall return at 11.30.

Mr Tariq: I’m obliged.

(11.13 am)

(A short break)

(11.30 am)

Lady Hallett: Ms Arlidge.

Ms Arlidge: My Lady, may I please call Dr Jim Elder-Woodward OBE.