SCOTLAND has the lowest percentage of workers in Britain taking home less than the real living wage, official figures revealed today.

Office for National Statistics data confirmed 14.4 per cent of employees are paid less than the voluntary minimum, set at £9.50 per hour in 2021, compared to 17.2 per cent in England. 

Scotland accounts for around a quarter of real living wage employers, despite only accounting for 8 per cent of the population in Britain. 

Linlithgow MSP Fiona Hyslop said she is encouraged to see the country leading the way, but slammed Westminster for “shamefully failing” to act on living standards.

The SNP parliamentarian said the Tories had “tried to cheat the system with a pretend ‘national living wage’ — which falls below the independently set real living wage. 

“People should be paid enough to live on — that must be a basic principle of any civilised nation.”