The Scottish Government intends to stand up for the people of Scotland in the face of the UK Government’s cuts. Perhaps, when is considering what is said today, Adam Tomkins will reflect on what he would like us to cut from our current budget, since he would like us to use those powers. We will continue to press the UK Government to ensure that the changes are made.
The UK Government scrapped its own child poverty targets, so it is particularly disturbing that the welfare cuts have hit families hard. In particular, larger families and lone parents are badly affected. In its first year of implementation, the two-child limit alone reduced the incomes of about 3,800 families in Scotland by up to £2,780 per year. That situation will worsen year on year.
The welfare changes that have been introduced by successive UK Governments since 2010 are set to increase child poverty in Scotland by about 8 per cent. While we try to lift people out of poverty, the Conservative Government is determined to push more families into poverty, thereby making it more challenging to meet the ambitions of the Scottish Government and Parliament on child poverty. In the face of the welfare changes, and without having full powers over welfare, employment and the living wage, we are fighting poverty with one hand tied behind our back.
All that is compounded by the systematic failure of the UK Government’s universal credit programme. When I visited Prospect Community Housing Ltd in Wester Hailes last week, tenants spoke to me about their fear about the roll-out of universal credit. One tenant spoke about how he already could not afford to heat his home and buy food, so he relies on food banks and uses a candle to light his flat in the evenings. Presiding Officer, how has it come to this?
Convention of Scottish Local Authorities evidence shows that rent arrears for people who are in receipt of universal credit in full-service areas are two and a half times higher than the average arrears for people on housing benefit. Furthermore, new figures that came out today from the Trussell Trust show that there has been a 15 per cent increase in food-bank use in Scotland in just six months, compared to this time last year. Benefit-payment delays and the five-week wait are key reasons for that increase. That is against a backdrop of an average increase of 52 per cent in food-bank use in areas that have had universal credit in place for a year or more. [Interruption.]
I know that this might be difficult for Adam Tomkins to hear, but he would do well to listen to the Trussell Trust instead of carping from the sidelines during the debate.
The fact that universal credit is causing avoidable and unnecessary harm is beyond doubt. The long list of the failings of universal credit means that the situation is set to get bleaker.
The minimum in-built five-week wait for a first payment causes much of the harm. The National Audit Office found that a fifth of all clients are not paid their full universal credit entitlement on time, and that about 13 per cent did not receive any payment at all. The Department for Work and Pensions does not expect the situation to improve significantly. If universal credit is supposed to mirror the world of work, it should be paid on time and in full.
The minimum income floor for self-employed people, which makes unreasonable assumptions about the amount of money that a person must earn while on universal credit, is a clear disincentive to people who might be considering self-employment.
As I have mentioned, the two-child cap policy and the rape clause are completely unacceptable, deeply harmful and fundamental violations of human rights—despite what members of the Conservative Party might think. In June, it was revealed by the DWP that 190 women across the UK had had to fill in an eight-page form to prove that their child was conceived as a result of rape, in order that they could receive the financial support to which their child was entitled. That is a disgrace. The two-child limit must be scrapped with immediate effect, and the abhorrent rape clause with it.
In addition, evidence shows that the UK Government’s punitive approach to benefit sanctions and conditionality is not only ineffective but is having a damaging effect on the health and wellbeing of people, as well as pushing them into poverty.
During another recent visit, I was told about the case of a man who had phoned his local citizens advice bureau to arrange to get a food parcel. The man had been sanctioned after missing an appointment at his jobcentre, which was several miles away in a different town, and he could not afford the fares to go there. The client had mental health issues and the CAB was aware that he had gone without eating for days at a time and had received food parcels in the past. He also wanted to know whether he would be able to get some toilet paper and cleaning products at the food bank. The CAB marked his case as “starvation while waiting for universal credit”. It is simply beyond comprehension that our welfare system, which is supposed to be a safety net, has become so punitive that it is driving people to destitution.
A Westminster Work and Pensions Committee report that was published today recommends that the DWP
“work with experts to develop a programme of voluntary employment support”
for disabled people. That is exactly the approach that we are now taking in Scotland in our main devolved employability programme. Today’s committee report highlights once again the failings in the whole conditionality and sanctions regime, which is why it needs urgently to be reviewed.
Next year will see the managed migration phase of universal credit begin to be rolled out. It will require people who are claiming working tax credits to make a new claim for universal credit or risk losing their benefit entitlements. In addition, by the UK Government’s own estimate, a third of those who are due to switch to universal credit during managed migration will be people with disabilities or long-term health conditions. Given what we know about the state of universal credit so far, that is extremely concerning.
Before Conservative members rise to defend the changes that were announced in the budget, I ask them whether they really know what those changes mean in practice. Many of the changes will not come into force for years. The repayment period for advances will increase by six months, but not until October 2021, which is three years away. The two-week run-on in legacy benefits will not be in place until July 2020, which is 21 months away. Universal credit needs to be fixed now, not to have the smallest of sticking plasters applied over the next couple of years.
The increases to work allowances for people with children and people with disabilities are welcome as far as they go, but they undo only half of the 2015 cuts.
Devastatingly for many households, the benefits freeze remains in place. It has led to a reduction in spending of about £190 million in the current financial year. To have increases in the cost of living with no increase in the level of benefits that people rely on is unfair and illogical. So much for the end of austerity.
The Scottish Government is using the limited powers that we have to try to make delivery of universal credit better suited to those who need to claim it. Since October 2017, our universal credit Scottish choices have meant that people have had the options to receive their universal credit award twice monthly, and to have the housing costs element in their award paid directly to their landlord, whether they are in the private or social rented sector. Take-up has been high, with about 32,000 people, or almost 50 per cent, taking up one or both of those options. That provides us with good evidence that people want more flexibility and adaptability in how they receive the support that they are entitled to, which adds weight to the argument that further changes to the DWP benefit system are needed.
Scotland is also committed to introducing split payments to provide an independent income to all universal credit claimants, and to promote equality in the social security system. We continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders and people who are in receipt of universal credit in order to help us to develop the policy on how payments should be split. We will make an announcement on that in due course.
I know that there will be calls from some people—we have heard them already today—for the Scottish Government to do more to mitigate the cuts that are coming from Westminster. This year, we are spending £125 million on welfare mitigation alone. However, we cannot get ourselves into a position where the UK Government continues to slash and burn its way through our welfare state while the Scottish Government is expected to take money from other budgets to somehow paper over the cracks of that crumbling system. This Parliament, which most of us campaigned long and hard for, is here to do so much more than just pick up the pieces from failed Westminster Tory austerity policies.
I therefore once again urge the UK Government to listen to the evidence, to make the necessary changes to universal credit, to reverse the cuts that it is inflicting and to help us to raise people out of poverty.
I move,
That the Parliament welcomes the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights to the UK and in particular to Scotland this week as part of his visit to investigate the link between poverty and the realisation of human rights in the UK; condemns the unacceptable damage that the UK Government’s welfare reform policies are causing across Scotland, and the subsequent negative impact on poverty levels; agrees that Universal Credit is causing debt and hardship across Scotland’s communities and calls on the UK Government to immediately halt the roll-out of this; notes the conclusions of the Scottish Government’s 2018 welfare reform report, which highlights that the UK Government’s welfare cuts will lead to a £3.7 billion fall in social security spending in Scotland in 2020-21, including a £370 million reduction due to the benefit freeze; further notes that the appalling two-child limit has already reduced the income of 3,800 families in Scotland and this number is set to grow year on year and will result in a £92 million cut for families by 2020-21; raises concerns that UK Government tax and welfare changes since 2010 are estimated to increase the number of children living in relative poverty in Scotland by 8%; believes that the UK Government failed in its autumn Budget to support the poorest in society by lifting the current benefit freeze and addressing the fundamental flaws in Universal Credit, and welcomes the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensuring that dignity, fairness and respect are at the heart of Scotland’s new social security system.
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