MSP urges ministers to pressure Prestwork Airport to pay the living wage

MSPs on Holyrood's Rural Economy Committee said ministers should intervene in the pay dispute at the publicly-owned airport.

However, Mr Brown said the facility was run at arms-length from the government despite receiving almost £40 million of taxpayers' cash in loans to date.

Staff unions rejected a pay deal below the government's public-sector pay policy last month.

Meanwhile, the airport does not pay the voluntary real living wage of £8.75 an hour, promoted by the Living Wage Foundation campaign group and paid to public-sector workers.

Labour's Colin Smyth said: 'The government are the main shareholder in Prestwick Airport and this is a government-owned company that doesn't pay the living wage, and surely that's wrong?

'You mentioned the fact that it's an arms-length company, but you're on public record, rightly in my view, criticising the UK Government for failing to intervene on the proposed RBS bank closures, and the point you made in Parliament was the fact the UK Government is the main shareholder in RBS.

'So, why isn't the Scottish Government intervening to make sure staff at Prestwick are being paid the living wage?'

Green MSP John Finnie asked if ministers had 'leverage' because of public investment.

'There has to be a moral responsibility,' he said. 'Is there an opportunity to revisit this, commercially removed or not?'

Mr Brown told the committee: 'When we say the words that the airport operates commercially removed from the government, there has to be some meaning to that.

'There has to be the basis on which the airport is able to take those decisions, but the airport also has to be aware of the Scottish Government's position on the living wage.

'My understanding is that they currently pay the (statutory) national living wage and it is their intention to move to the living wage.'

Mr Brown said he understood the airport intended to move to the real living wage by 2020.

Prestwick was taken into public ownership in 2013, with the government buying it for £1 to save it from closure.

It has continued to be loss-making but Mr Brown insisted it is moving in the right direction'.

He told MSPs a loan of up to £7.9 million has been allocated for 2018/19, with potential for further loans in future years.

'We have not set a time limit on the return to profitability, or for the repayment of the loan support provided, but we have said that is what we intend to achieve,' he said.