LAST WEEK I had the pleasure of speaking at a public meeting in Hillhead Library about the Living Wage, organised by the hard-working Labour MP for Glasgow North, Ann McKechin.

 

The campaign for a Living Wage was first established in England by local community activists.

It is an hourly rate of pay set independently of government and uprated annually.

The figure is calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK.

As a member of the Labour Party I passionately believe in the right and the responsibility to work, if you can.

I also strongly believe that a hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay.

That is why in 2009 Glasgow City Council became the first council in Scotland to become a Living Wage employer, years before the government in Edinburgh caught up.

We have consistently championed the Glasgow Living Wage since, together with our trade union colleagues.

I was delighted when in 2013 every council in Scotland agreed to pay the Glasgow Living Wage as a minimum and I am proud that there are now 162 Glasgow Living Wage employers, ensuring a decent level of pay for almost 65,000 employees in the city.

This number increases month after month, and over the next couple of weeks I will be writing to every business in the city encouraging them to sign-up as Glasgow Living Wage employers.

When we announced the council budget for the forthcoming financial year I confirmed that the Glasgow Living Wage will rise to £7.85 per hour from April 2015.

I am also delighted that Ed Miliband has committed to actively promoting the Living Wage across the whole of the UK if Labour wins the general election in May, and Labour has made a specific manifesto promise to increase the minimum wage to £8 per hour during the next parliamentary term.

Together with Jim Murphy's promise to use a UK-wide Mansion Tax on millionaire homes to fund an extra 1,000 nurses in Scotland, and Labour's plan to pay for apprenticeship and job opportunties for all our young people by taxing bankers bonuses, there are many powerful reasons for voting Labour in May's general election.

Another compelling reason for voting Labour is to get rid of the Tories.

We all know that the political party with the most MPs forms the government.

Across Britain as a whole only Labour or the Tories can be the largest party.

That means that any seat that Labour loses to the SNP makes it more likely that the Tories will emerge with the most MPs and so get back into Downing Street by the back door.

That would be a dreadful and unintended outcome of voting SNP in the general election in May that Glasgow and Scotland cannot risk.