Poverty
The next item of business is a debate on motion S1M-3570, in the name of Kenneth Gibson, on poverty. The debate was already tight and we are now six minutes late in starting it. I advise members that I will be strict on timings and that I might not be able to call all members who wish to speak. I call Kenneth Gibson to speak to and move his motion.
One complaint that is voiced about the Executive relates to the absence of independent analysis of what it delivers. The Executive is often judge and jury on its own performance. Today, I will focus on independent analysis, which is provided in the report "Poverty in Scotland 2002: People, places and policies", which was published by the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, the Scottish poverty information unit and others. The main finding of the report is that around one third of Scottish children still live in poverty. The report also concluded that the Scottish Executive is limited in addressing employment policy and social security matters, which are the main areas of social policy and are reserved to Westminster.
As we know, in an independent Scotland, the Scottish Parliament would have full control over tax and benefits, which would allow Scotland to collect and target resources for the benefit of the population and would open the way to real social justice for all Scots. Does any member doubt that Westminster's hold on important reserved matters such as employment policy and social security holds back Scotland's potential? If Scotland had control over such powers, would invalidity benefit and benefit for single parents have been cut or—as a Liberal Democrat member of Parliament recently discovered—would secret plans to cut benefits for 650,000 working single parents throughout the United Kingdom have been introduced? I doubt it.
Unfortunately, devolution has led to little real change in social policy, which is influenced overwhelmingly by UK control. At the very least, attention must be refocused on the nature of policy co-ordination and Scotland's interaction with Westminster during policy development. The research from the devolution and constitutional change unit concluded that civil servants find it hard to discuss reserved matters. The report stated:
"Policy seems to be very reliant on Westminster".
The Scottish Parliament has no direct control over the most obvious anti-poverty measures, despite the valiant efforts of the Scottish Executive. Yesterday, while taking evidence on the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Bill at the Social Justice Committee, I asked representatives of the Big Issue in Scotland, Shelter Scotland and the Scottish Council for Single Homeless whether restoration of benefits for 16 and 17-year-olds would make a difference to the prevention of homelessness. The answer was a resounding yes, but the Executive has no powers to act. Does any member believe that the Executive would not restore those benefits, if it had the power to do so? Unfortunately, London says no.
What is the true picture of poverty in Scotland? Around a quarter of Scots, including 30 per cent of children, live in low-income households that are below the 60 per cent median income threshold. That is higher than the UK average and, in 2001, the figure increased by 1 per cent from the previous year, as thousands more families slid into poverty. In November 2001, the total number of people on income support was 668,000, which includes claimants, their partners and dependants. The percentage of the Scottish population who received income support was 13.1 per cent, which is above the UK average of 11.7 per cent. That figure is higher than in 1997, when new Labour came to power.
Thirty-four per cent of Scottish households now claim income-related benefits, in contrast to just more than one quarter in the UK. A higher proportion of households in Scotland receive housing and council tax benefit than in the UK. As has been stated, we would disregard those benefits in calculating working families tax credits, as advocated by One Plus and others.
It is significant that, in the UK, the number of people who are economically inactive is five times greater than the number of unemployed people. Economic inactivity is often described as hidden unemployment. It is high among groups that are vulnerable in the labour market such as older people, lone parents, people with disabilities and those who live in disadvantaged areas including the post-industrial communities of west central Scotland.
Lone parents are disproportionately represented among those who face poverty. They are twice as likely as couples with children to be poor. More than a quarter of all pensioners live in households where the income is half the average income. A great percentage of households with disabled people are in the lower income bands; more than two thirds of such households have incomes of less than £10,000.
Fourteen per cent of Scottish 16 to 19-year-olds are not in employment, training or education. The proportion has remained virtually constant since 1992. Roughly a quarter of the new deal entrants in Scotland have no qualifications.
New Labour has published a consultation document on new ways of measuring child poverty. Indeed, that is typical of new Labour: if it fails to meet a target, it re-defines it. Last Thursday, in answer to a question from my colleague Linda Fabiani, the First Minister spoke of "absolute poverty". He was attempting to change the Executive's definitions—no doubt embarrassed at having the highest relative poverty in western Europe.
The member will recognise that the definition of absolute poverty has been used in the social justice annual report since the beginning. The member will also recognise that the level of absolute poverty for children has fallen sharply from 34 per cent to 21 per cent, which is 13 per cent lower. Does he welcome that—yes or no?
That is because the Executive changed the definition of absolute poverty.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. Across the European Union, the definition that is recognised is that of relative poverty. I am getting a feeling of déjà vu—this reminds me of the argument on waiting times. Let us deal with the issue rather than seek redefinitions.
Any redefinition of poverty that produces dramatic changes in the figures would erode public trust. The redrawing of the statistical definition of poverty reminds the SNP of the Tories' continual remeasuring of unemployment when they were in power. The Social Market Foundation has commented:
"Any attempt to adopt this measure would result in allegations that the Government is ‘manipulating' the figures".
The Social Market Foundation is not the Executive; it is an independent group, which has also set out:
"Any good measure of poverty must satisfy the requirements of being simple, intuitive, consistent, useful, robust, objective, appropriately relative and comparable."
In the Scottish Executive's annual report "Social Justice …a Scotland where everyone matters", it sets out:
"Above all we wish to make child poverty a thing of the past within a generation."
That is not desperately ambitious when the statement is compared with the situation in other countries, but it is a start. However, child poverty levels in Scotland remain virtually unchanged. The Child Poverty Action Group states:
"The role of the Scottish Executive and Parliament is limited in addressing employment matters, especially income measures such as the national minimum wage and Working Families Tax Credit since these are reserved issues to Westminster."
Will the member take an intervention?
I am sorry. I am afraid that I have fallen a bit behind. If I have time, I will let the member in.
The Westminster Government has failed to tackle the minimum wage for those aged 16 and 17 years. The Scottish Low Pay Unit has consistently argued against a separate minimum wage for young workers. It has said:
"There has never been any justification for paying workers doing the same job different rates simply on the grounds of age."
Does the minister not agree?
Low wages and the problems of the working poor remain the major features of poverty throughout Scotland today. The introduction of the national minimum wage is a step in the right direction, but much remains to be done. I highlight in particular: scrapping the youth development rate; linking future increases to movement in average earnings; improving the enforcement of the minimum wage; and setting up an independent operating mechanism.
For many people with disabilities, work is unobtainable. Claiming benefits such as disability living allowance and attendance allowance is an enduring challenge for them and their representatives. The working families tax credit increases the number of people who are entitled to benefit, but they are often drawn into marginal rates of taxation and the poverty trap.
The 2000-01 family resources survey found that more than one third of children below the poverty line did not receive income support or working families tax credit. Across the United Kingdom, another report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies found:
"Some 1.5 million children in poverty are in families that do not receive the benefits that are the Government's principal instrument for tackling child poverty. This puts almost two in every five poor children out of reach of increases in means-tested benefits making child poverty targets significantly harder to reach."
The new Labour Government has been slow to make inroads in addressing another key policy aim, which is ending pensioner poverty. The introduction of a minimum income guarantee and the new pension credit scheme that is planned for 2003 will increase pensioner's reliance on means-tested benefits, while the basic state pension continues to be tied to the retail prices index. The National Pensions Convention said that the minimum income guarantee
"coupled with the new Pension Credit proposals to take into account the amount of individual savings, will result in 5.5 million pensioners (half the pensioner population) facing some form of means-testing by 2003."
Life expectancy is a clear indicator of poverty, and the gap between life expectancy in Drumchapel in Glasgow and in neighbouring Bearsden is eight years. Children in Glasgow's Easterhouse, in the minister's constituency, are five times more likely to die before their first birthday than the United Kingdom average. Children from poor families have lower expectations about their future and are more likely to have lower esteem, play truant and leave school at 16. Individuals who leave school with low levels of educational attainment are at higher risk of experiencing social exclusion as adults and have significantly lower lifetime earnings.
Homelessness in Scotland is now at a record level. As Mel Young, a director of the Big Issue, has stated:
"It would be much better if benefits were devolved to Scotland as part of an integrated anti-poverty strategy."
Mike Aaronson, director general of the charity Save the Children, decried the Government's lack of ambition and said:
"even if the government meets its current 10-year target this would still leave the UK with the highest child poverty rate in Europe."
Of course, the rate in Scotland is higher than the UK rate. As today's edition of The Scotsman states in response to the third report of the Scottish household survey:
"The findings present a worrying picture of a widening social and economic divide between the country's haves and have-nots".
That is today, after five and a half years of Labour Government.
Across Europe, from the Basque country to Bavaria, devolved Parliaments have greater tools than Scotland has with which to tackle poverty. Obtaining such powers would be progress, but if we are to reduce poverty to Swedish or Finnish levels and beyond, we need the powers of those Parliaments. For that, we need independence.
I move,
That the Parliament deplores the fact that a quarter of all Scots and a third of all Scottish children live in poverty; accepts that any measure of poverty must satisfy the requirements of being relative and comparable, noting that the Scottish Executive appears to place less emphasis on reducing the incidence of poverty than changing its definition; is aware that the Scottish Executive is limited in its ability to eliminate poverty due to the inadequacy of the powers devolved to Scotland, and believes that the most effective way to tackle poverty in Scotland is to ensure that all powers over tax and spending decisions are transferred from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament.
I am pleased to respond to the SNP's debate. I want to talk about what we are doing to tackle poverty, the real changes that we have made to people's lives, and the challenges that still lie ahead.
I want to talk about the realities of poverty, unlike the SNP, which has nothing to offer Scotland's poor but empty rhetoric about independence. The myth of independence will not close the opportunity gap, which still stops too many of our children realising their potential.
Will the minister tell me whether levels of child poverty in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, France and Spain are lower than in Scotland? If so, does she believe that that might have something to do with the fact that they are independent countries with complete control over their own economy?
There are two main points to make about that.
Just answer the question.
I am sorry. I know that Lloyd Quinan wants simplistic answers like his simplistic analysis, but sometimes it takes more than one sentence to explain something to him. He will just have to bear with me.
If the minister does not know the answer, she should admit it.
Order.
Please, let me try to answer the question. There are two main points to make about that. First, Lloyd Quinan compared European countries with our figures, but the figures are out of date. He was not comparing like with like, because the figures do not factor in the changes brought in by this Labour Government. Secondly, it seems to me that we have the best arrangements possible in Scotland, because we have a strongly performing Labour Government at Westminster that has tackled unemployment and produced economic stability and growth. That has given us a country of rising prosperity, which has allowed us to tackle the issues.
The minister has not answered the question.
I have answered the question. The constitutional arrangements that we have are delivering for Scotland.
Will the minister give way?
Please bear with me—I have just taken an intervention. [Interruption.]
Order. The minister is not giving way.
The myth of independence will not give our pensioners the quality of life that they deserve. I understand that the SNP's central, and apparently only, plank of policy is that it wants the powers, but the fundamental question that it has yet to answer is what it would do with them. The myth of independence will not help lone parents into work, but our policies will.
Working with the UK Government, we are building a Scotland in which people can live in safe, secure communities, a Scotland that offers rights for all, and a Scotland in which poverty no longer destroys lives and stifles ambition. Since 1997, we have made huge strides in our fight against poverty. The percentage of children living in poverty dropped by four points between 1996-97 and 2000-01, and the percentage of children living in absolute poverty has gone down from 34 per cent to 21 per cent. Even the SNP would have to admit that that is a remarkable achievement.
I clarify for the record that it is a well-established fact in the field of poverty that absolute poverty must be measured. We need to measure the real changes in people's living circumstances. However, we must also measure relative poverty. It is quite legitimate to say that the poorest people have a stake in this country's rising prosperity. The SNP has failed to grasp that we are living in a country with rising prosperity, which is why the figures on relative poverty stand as they are.
We have also made real progress on pensioner poverty. For example, the percentage of pensioners living in relative poverty has dropped by five points to 23 per cent, and the percentage of pensioners living in absolute poverty has dropped by 15 points to 13 per cent.
Although those statistics are encouraging, we can—and will—do better. Although we have achieved much, we have also learned much, and those lessons will inform our policies for the future. We know that we cannot defeat poverty overnight, just as we understand that a single indicator cannot tell the whole story.
Poverty is not just about income measurement, important though that is. In order to tackle poverty, we must ensure that our schools deliver for all our children; that the health service delivers; and that people have the skills to earn a decent wage. We want everyone to live in a decent home in a safe neighbourhood and we want all Scots to enjoy a rich cultural life.
We have already made a real and lasting difference to people's lives. Since April 2001, more than 10,000 pensioners have received free central heating. That is not a myth—that is a fact. Over the next 10 years, £1.6 billion will be spent on Glasgow's housing to ensure that 80,000 tenants have the warm, dry homes that they deserve. Again, that is not a myth—that is a fact. Furthermore, we have provided £10 million for refuges to ensure that women and children fleeing domestic abuse have safe havens. That is not a myth—that is a fact.
We have learned that the challenge presented by the relative poverty figures is to narrow the gap so that everyone can have a fair share of Scotland's prosperity. The Scottish budget that we published recently concentrates our resources on closing the opportunity gap. Let me tell the chamber what the Executive is doing. Cathy Jamieson will invest an additional £31 million to ensure that sure start Scotland continues its excellent record in supporting the most vulnerable families. Malcolm Chisholm has committed an extra £40 million over the next three years to improve treatment for heart disease and strokes, which are the diseases that stalk our disadvantaged communities. Moreover, I recently announced £20 million of new money to help people into work. That money will provide more and better child care. Too many people are poor because they have no job, no skills for jobs, or no affordable child care to keep jobs.
We have done much to change that situation. In the mid-1980s, there were more than 70,000 unemployed people in Glasgow; now there are 17,000. However, there are more than 30,000 employment vacancies in the city and we need to address the opportunity gap for communities right across Scotland. The chamber should believe me when I say that we will do so, because we believe in hard facts and policies that deliver, not in myths that offer people nothing, not even hope.
On Monday I will publish our third social justice annual report, which will outline our progress on our 29 social justice milestones and which, as I promised in the chamber last month, will also contain robust poverty figures for children and for pensioners.
Although we have made a lot of progress since devolution in our fight against poverty, we have still got a long way to go. There are no easy or simple solutions to tackling poverty, and anyone who colludes with that sentiment is being dishonest with the people of Scotland.
Defeating poverty is the hardest job that faces any Government, but we have had the courage to take on the challenge. I am confident that we have the policies in place to achieve our ambition of a better Scotland for all, and the Administration is united in its determination to ensure that social justice is at the heart of all that we deliver.
I do not underestimate the challenges that we have set ourselves and we can never be complacent about our efforts to tackle poverty. Sometimes we will miss a target, and sometimes an approach will have to change; however, such setbacks will not stop me or this Administration making the real and lasting changes that are needed to build a better Scotland for all. We must never forget that practical action and realistic policies, not nationalist myths, change people's lives for good and for ever.
I move amendment S1M-3570.2, to leave out from "deplores" to end and insert:
"supports the Scottish Executive's plans to tackle poverty as set out in Closing the Opportunity Gap: Scottish Budget 2003-2006; agrees that the definition of poverty extends beyond low income to include lack of opportunity in aspects of people's lives such as jobs, health, education, transport and housing, and welcomes the progress that the Executive is making in tackling poverty in the broadest sense, in order to close the opportunity gap for the most disadvantaged people and communities, both urban and rural, across Scotland."
I thank Kenny Gibson and the SNP for choosing to debate such an extremely important subject. However, after seeing the motion, I had to pity them. Once again, the SNP has turned a debate on an important issue into yet another constitutional question. The motion is less to do with alleviating poverty than with the SNP's endless attempts to split up the UK and the fact that its approach is identical to that of Scottish Labour. It is the same old song from the SNP.
The debate should be not about the constitution, but about Parliament finding the best way of helping vulnerable people in Scotland.
It is true that much material poverty has been alleviated, but as a matter of urgency, we must tackle 21st century forms of poverty caused by the fragility of families and communities, poor public order and failing public services. I do not doubt for a second the commitment of the Scottish Government to find an end to poverty in Scotland and Margaret Curran's enthusiasm on the subject was obvious for all to see. However, I question the policies that the Government chooses to deal with the problem. The policies treat the problem as though it can be solved simply by throwing money at it. It is far more complex than that.
Last week, in common with her current theme, the member said that the old tax-and-spend approach has not worked and will never work. Will she please explain which spending she would cut?
It is not a question of cutting spending; it is a question of targeting—one of the minister's favourite words.
The solution to poverty must start with the need to create wealth. That is the best means of raising people out of poverty.
The Scottish dependency culture is serious and worrying—more than one in five Scots of working age receive some form—
Will the member take an intervention?
I have just taken one and my time is limited, but I am feeling generous.
I have listened carefully to the member's comments about poverty not being solved by throwing money at the problem. Do I take it, therefore, that the member agrees with the UK Labour Government, which reduces lone parent and invalidity benefits and offers 75p a week to pensioners?
No, I agree that targeting would be more effective. If we targeted benefits more effectively, we would be doing something to assist people.
Far from taking pride in the figures—as many people on the left want to do—we should be ashamed that one in five Scots of working age receives benefit, and we should instigate policies to bring down the figures. That involves policies focused on wealth creation to provide economic opportunity and security for everyone. We need bottom-up solutions to improve everyone's economic situation and a total rejection of the top-down policies advocated by other parties in the chamber, which do nothing to help the economic plight of the poor—they simply pull less vulnerable people in society backwards.
Scots do not want Government hand-outs; they want to be able to lift themselves out of the poverty trap. They will be able to do that if we concentrate on reducing the burdens of ever-increasing taxes and red tape and if we concentrate on spending more on infrastructure to help all businesses. As a consequence, we will increase levels of employment.
I am not saying that investment in our public services is not needed—of course it is. However, if it is not accompanied by reform of those public services, an opportunity will be lost.
Let us take education as an example. Improving standards in our schools is crucial in providing opportunity for all, yet education is in desperate need of reform. It desperately needs a rejection of the comprehensive, one-size-fits-all policy that has failed too many of our school pupils, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds whom the policy was designed to help. Even Tony Blair has recognised that.
The Scottish Government can throw millions into education and come up with as many initiatives, strategies and gimmicks as it likes, but we must realise that, if we do not promote choice and diversity, vulnerable children will never be able to grasp the opportunity that a good education offers them and rid themselves and their families of ball-and-chain dependency on the state.
Free-market economic policies succeed in a framework of public order and in a society where people have the safety net of stable families, strong communities and high-quality public services—such as education and health, of which we will speak more later. As my colleague Bill Aitken will attest, social justice can take place only in the broader framework of civil justice. We must recapture the confidence of the nation by putting community policemen back on the beat and punishing criminals more adequately for their crimes.
With wealth-creating policies, educational opportunities, strong law and order, first-class public services and stronger families and communities, people will have the ability to lift themselves out of the dependency culture that currently smothers them. If all those interdependent reforms are not carried out, the problems will not go away.
I move amendment S1M-3570.1, to leave out from deplores to end and insert:
"recognises that poverty and vulnerability are still too widespread in 21st century Scotland, despite the fact that much material poverty has been alleviated, and believes that tackling modern forms of vulnerability requires policies that create wealth and provide economic opportunity and security for all, which can only happen within a framework of public order in which people have the security of strong families, communities and high quality public services."
We heard from Kenny Gibson a reasonable academic analysis, with lots of figures, of some of the issues that he was considering. I welcome Linda Fabiani back after her absence through illness yesterday.
The issue of poverty, and child poverty in particular, is one of huge importance to the lives of individuals and to the health of society in general. The success of public policy in tackling poverty is not measured in terms of the moral fervour of the individual politicians who rant about it, and I have to say that the main ranter is absent from our ranks today.
This morning's SNP motion is, I would suggest, ill timed, unambitious and extremely narrow in focus. It is ill timed because, as the minister said, the social justice annual report is due out on Monday and will give some definition and up-to-date figures on the debate. The main SNP contention is that poverty in Scotland exists because we have, to use a phrase trumpeted all over the papers today, an English legislative programme for an English Parliament. The magic answer—or, in policy terms, the meagre answer—is, as always, independence.
Given that Scotland is richer in natural resources than most of its neighbours, including Ireland, Denmark and Finland, will the minister explain why we beat them all hands down on poverty? Does not that suggest UK mismanagement over quite a long period?
I thank Dr Ewing for promoting me to the ranks of the ministerial body, but I do not think that her point is well made. If we examine the figures for poverty in Scotland—I shall come to the details in due course—we see that Scotland benefits from the union. There are arguments about the policies that we should be pursuing, but the detailed issues are not answered by independence.
There is obviously a case to be made for independence. There is a case for it making sense to have benefit issues and other Government spending dealt with in a unified way. In fairness, Kenny Gibson touched on that. However, there is not much of a case to be made for granting all tax powers to this Parliament. Even Andrew Wilson cannot disguise the reality that, as a third of Scottish households claim benefit, compared with a quarter of households in England, Scotland requires more resources from the UK Treasury to deal with the results of poverty.
The argument that control in Scotland of all the levers of power would help to fight poverty can be made only if we are going to do something substantially better and different with that control. The SNP does not have any concrete proposals for different policies to tackle poverty. Its only concrete tax proposal is to cut the rate of fuel tax, which would cost money and obviously would not help pensioners, single parents or children in poverty.
No, I am wrong. In fact, Scotland's party—the champions of Scotland—does have another proposal: it would review the benefits system. Well, gee whiz. How excited can we get about that sort of thing? Is that really what will make the difference?
I am not a great fan of targets, many of which are difficult to pin down in real terms or are affected by extraneous factors that are largely outwith the control of government, but it is clear on any measure that the Executive is making significant progress. The central heating scheme and the energy conservation measures that we have put in place increasingly are helping low-income families. Free personal care and the concessionary travel scheme will make a big difference to older people. Other measures, from the student finance settlement to the important provision of nursery places for three and four-year-olds, are also vital.
The central requirement—and the one that makes the biggest difference—is giving more people, particularly young people, the opportunity of income-creating employment. Liberal Democrats also argue and campaign for a more progressive use of the tax and benefits system—for a higher rate of tax on incomes over £100,000 a year and the abolition of taxation on incomes under £10,000 a year, for example. We argue for substantial real-terms pension rises, the restoration of benefits for 16 and 17-year-olds and the restoration of a proper level of benefits for under-25s.
On such measures, Liberal Democrats have many differences with the Labour Government—and, from time to time, with our Executive—but those differences pale into relative insignificance beside our differences with the Conservatives. Even yet, I am not sure that the Conservatives realise just how much their party is distrusted and hated for the way in which the Major and Thatcher Governments destroyed the employment and life prospects of a generation. My own city, Glasgow, and much of west central Scotland are still paying the price of chronic underinvestment in public services and the blighting of whole communities that Conservative Governments presided over. Chronicled in detail in all the newspapers today are the low rates of house ownership, the high benefit—
Will Mr Brown give way?
No. I am in the final minute of my speech.
He does not want to hear the truth.
The newspapers chronicle high benefit dependence, poor health, high unemployment and all the other stigmata of an underperforming society.
We in the Parliament are trying to clear up the resultant mess. The whole chamber knows in its heart of hearts that enormous strides have been taken throughout the public sector, the voluntary and independent sector and the private sector to increase opportunities, build skills and job readiness, provide child care and tackle underlying problems relating to health and insecurity, which undermine and sabotage opportunity. There is much more to do, but the Executive has made considerable steps along the road and I have considerable pleasure in supporting the Executive's amendment.
We now move to open debate. Colin Campbell will be followed by Trish Godman. Members have four minutes.
I hope that no representatives from any independent nations are present or likely to read tomorrow the Official Report of today's meeting. Apparently, their nations are a myth—they will find that a difficult concept to understand, given their success with social security.
I have said previously that I joined the SNP in 1976, when I was in full employment. I joined because Britain was not working for many people in Scotland; it is still not working for many people in Scotland. Is it not politics for the Executive to sit in the chamber and propose brilliant solutions to problems that have been derived from the British disease?
I will address the problem of pensioner poverty. Among the anomalies of the pensioners' situation is the fact that women are entitled to pensions at 60, whereas men are entitled to pensions at 65. The age of entitlement is likely to be made uniform, but in an upwards direction.
Unfortunately, pensions in Europe are often paid at an older age than they are in the UK, but Europe presents the UK with other interesting comparisons. In France and Germany, pensions represent 11 per cent of gross domestic product. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's estimates, the average for the richest 21 nations is 7.4 per cent of GDP; if Scotland were independent, it would be in the top ten of those nations. In the UK, the figure is a shameful 4.3 per cent of GDP, rising to 5.5 per cent if we include tax credits. That is a disgrace for a nation that was among the first in the world to introduce old-age pensions for its senior citizens. One would hope that the inevitability of progress would push the UK above the OECD average at some point in future. Unfortunately, predictions in the June 2001 "OECD Economic Outlook" suggested that by 2050—when I shall be 112, if I am very lucky, and some members will be in their 80s and 90s—the proportion of GDP, including tax credits, will still be only 6.5 per cent. That is the future and it does not look good.
I will now deal with the present. Some 20 per cent of pensioners in Scotland are below the 60 per cent median income threshold, which defines poverty. If we use the European definition of poverty, which is 50 per cent of the median, 25 per cent of our pensioners live in poverty. Some 41 per cent of single pensioners receive a net income that is less than £6,000 a year—that is not a good amount—whereas only 26 per cent of other single people have an income of less than £6,000 a year. Some 13 per cent of single pensioner households have an income of less than £4,000. The publication, "Scottish Economic Statistics 2002", says that the average household income in the UK is £296 a week. Pensioners' incomes are 17 per cent of that amount and could fall as low as 7 per cent by 2050 if policies are not changed.
What are the solutions? A longer working life or inducing people to contribute to private pension schemes are options that seem inevitable. Help the Aged, which has issued a document on the matter, makes the point that pensions should the subject of intelligent, long-term planning rather than expedient, quick political fixes to get parties through elections. No one can argue with that.
We can discuss poverty in the Parliament as often as we like, but it has been said that pensions are a reserved issue. If we want to produce a complete package for our elderly people, fundamental decisions on all social security matters should be taken in Scotland. The unionist British parties may be afraid of that, but the SNP is not.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. The member's time is almost up.
Irrespective of where decisions are made, poverty is a blight that discourages the young, who still have the youthful optimism and resilience that will enable some of them to rise above it. To the old and frail, poverty is a last punishment for a life lived. We all have a duty to eradicate it. The Executive is not doing well enough.
We should all be committed to fighting poverty at all levels and to ending child poverty within a generation. No one would disagree with that premise.
The nationalist dream fantasy of an independent Scotland in which everyone is prosperous and lives happily ever after is as remote as it is fantastical and does little to help those living in poverty. As for the Tories, throughout the lifetime of their party, and even now in their twilight years, they have taken the disgusting view that the deserving and the undeserving poor will always be with us.
We recognise that there is a long way to go before we can achieve the aim of ending child poverty, but what have we achieved so far? As the minister said, between 1996-97 and 2000-01 the proportion of children living in low-income households fell from 34 per cent to 21 per cent. To maintain that downward trend, we must continue to examine social exclusion more widely. Factors such as access to jobs, transport, local services and good-quality housing all have a major impact on people's lives, particularly those of children.
I agree with the sentiments that were expressed by Danny Philips, who is head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland:
"we must all support the pledge to end child poverty by the Scottish Executive. It is simply unacceptable that in a rich nation such as Scotland so many children go without and enter the cycle of poverty into adulthood."
Labour's partnership with the Westminster Government has allowed real benefits to be delivered to the poorest in our society through increases in child benefit, the working families tax credit, the minimum wage and the minimum income guarantee for pensioners. In Scotland, our programmes that are aimed at tackling fuel poverty, such as the central heating programme and the warm deal, are producing real results and warmer, more energy-efficient homes that are better places in which to live and grow up. That is another prime example of social justice in action.
Education is one of the most effective ways out of poverty. By 2006, we will reduce by 10 per cent the gap in average attendance levels between schools that serve areas of high deprivation and those that serve areas of low deprivation. By 2008, we will reduce that gap by a further 10 per cent.
Three of the 30 children in Port Glasgow High School who have 100 per cent attendance are visiting me in the Parliament today. When I first spoke to those children, some of them told me that they were having difficulties attending daily. After an innovative programme in the school and with the commitment of the staff and the kids themselves, they have turned things round and are keen to participate in all levels of school activities.
Will the member give way?
No, I will not.
We are using our devolved powers to address the root causes of poverty. We can see that clearly in the continuing downward trend. As the minister and I have said, the proportion of children living in low-income households has fallen from 34 per cent to 21 per cent since 1996. We must continue to invest in education and child care and to work towards employment for all, but poverty must be considered as an issue that is wider than income. Labour's improvements to housing, health care and transport services are all designed to benefit the poor.
It will be a long, hard slog to diminish poverty, but people in poverty are being misled badly by those who offer the panacea of constitutional change as the means of combating that evil. We need policies of redistribution both at Westminster and in the Scottish Parliament to tackle the evil of poverty in honest, practical ways.
We have heard some definitions of poverty today, but we have also heard about the poverty of ambition and of practical ideas in the SNP and in the combined ranks of the Labour party. In simple terms, we must consider not the independence that the SNP talks about but the independence and respect that individuals in Scotland should have. Such independence is concerned with the choice and opportunity that people should have in their lives.
For example, after five and a half years of a Labour Government, ability in the three Rs among children who leave school is still declining, but we have not heard about that from the minister this morning, or from anyone else on the Executive benches.
Lots of jobs are being created on the consumer side in service industries, but those jobs are not long term or sustainable. We must have long-term jobs in manufacturing, in the oil and gas industries and in the fishing industry. Some members were in Fraserburgh this week and in Peterhead last night. Hundreds of people in those towns are desperately worried about the decline in, and possible collapse of, the fishing industry. However, for every pound that is raised by fishermen landing something on the quayside, another £10 is raised in the support industries—and that does not include what people spend in the shops, the cinemas and the pubs.
I also want to talk about rural poverty, such as we have seen in agriculture. Contrary to Mr Rumbles's intervention in a previous debate, farmers do not make a reasonable living. The sum of £6,000 was mentioned in relation to pensioners' income, but many farmers do not have that much money to feed their families. They have had to pay off labour and those people are looking for work. We need a long-term solution that will ensure that people have choice and opportunity.
Ministers talk a lot about health. They have thrown millions of pounds of health spending into a black hole, because that funding has no focus, no format and no meaningful infrastructure. Rather than throw all that money at health in general terms, they should put the money into earlier intervention so that, for example, children who are deaf are identified before they go to school and can be given opportunities to listen and learn. We are talking about money that comes from the same pot.
The SNP has lots of theories, which we hear regularly, but SNP members brought nothing new to the debate; instead, we hear the old grind about how the system would be fine if they ran it. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, Robert Brown made only one valid comment, which concerned increasing opportunities for employment.
It is a bit rich for the Conservatives to expect us to take lessons from them. Does Mr Davidson acknowledge the fact that, when the Tories came to power in 1979, 9 per cent of the population was in poverty—that is, in households with an income below 50 per cent of the average income—and that, by the time that the Tories left power, a quarter of the entire population was living in poverty?
Mr Rumbles takes us back to the issue of definitions. That is not forward looking. For the past three and a half years, the Liberal Democrats have been responsible for everything that Labour has pushed through because, without Liberal Democrat votes, Labour could not do a thing. As far as I am concerned, Mike Rumbles is an apologist for the Executive.
What about benefits advice? We do not want a dependency culture in which the state does everything. Why not release the voluntary sector and empower our communities to help themselves? They could do it better, cheaper and in a more focused way without all the overriding—
Will the member take an intervention?
Am I allowed to do so, Presiding Officer?
No. There is a long queue of members who want to participate in the debate.
I am awfully sorry. I would have allowed the minister to intervene earlier.
Today, we have heard nothing about giving people choice and opportunity, especially in the rural areas, on the coastal strips and in the vast estates on the fringes of towns where all that people have left is their dependency. That leads to health problems and despair, and despair leads to abuse, addiction and God knows what else. I have heard nothing from the minister that proves that the Executive has got its act together.
I call Lloyd Quinan, to be followed by Wendy Alexander.
That will be interesting.
I begin by quoting some figures from Capability Scotland, which refer specifically to people with disabilities and families who live with people who have disabilities. More than 80 per cent of those who were polled in Capability Scotland's 1 in 4 poll are caring for a disabled child and are unemployed. One in five families with a disabled child lives on less than £200 a week, and state benefits are the main source of income for more than 40 per cent of those families.
It is important that, in any debate, we recognise the fact that certain cluster areas and certain sections of our society appear to have been overlooked in the so-called drive against poverty. I therefore hope that the Scottish Executive will accept the recommendations that
"the Scottish Executive undertakes an economic analysis of the investment required to ensure that programmes aimed at lifting children out of poverty also reach disabled children and children living with a disabled parent";
that
"more is done to eradicate poverty and provide security for families living with disability where employment is not an option",
which is the case in many instances; that
"all mainstream programmes and targeted initiatives have a specific focus on disabled children and young people, with clear targets";
and that
"the distribution of funding for government initiatives should be based on need and on family circumstance and not simply on geographical location"
as it unfortunately is at the moment.
I hope that the minister can give us a positive reply on those issues.
Another issue is the hidden poverty of opportunity that affects many families with disabled children and many families with someone who is autistic. Deprivation exists not just in such families' right to opportunity, but in our opportunity to benefit from their input to society. The average lifetime cost for someone with autism is approximately £1.7 million, in addition to standard life costs. Whatever the reasons, there has been a large increase in the identification at least of people with autism. It is essential that we understand clearly that the £1.7 million per autistic child and adult must be found from Scotland's budget.
I was at a meeting last night with 11 pensioners who have adult children with autism. Those pensioners have to live on the standard pension. They are being driven into poverty in their twilight years, having contributed to and made possible us being here. To be frank, their poverty situation is unacceptable and must be addressed.
The Parliament had a great opportunity to tackle poverty and promote early intervention, but, unfortunately, certain members chose not to support the School Meals (Scotland) Bill, which would have made a significant intervention in poverty. Mr McMahon may smile, but I do not think that too many people in his constituency smiled at his behaviour on the day that the School Meals (Scotland) Bill fell.
We are about to enter a war. Britain loves wars, but wars cost money. We cannot tackle poverty unless we have the money to do so. If Labour members believe that dropping ordinance on poor people in other parts of the world is a way to eradicate poverty, they are sadly mistaken. We should be providing for our own people instead of playing imperial games. If Labour members could waken up to that simple fact, people in Scotland would not be living in poverty.
I will start my speech where Kenny Gibson started his, by saying that if one is a decent person at all, one knows that both absolute poverty and relative poverty matter. Absolute poverty means being denied the right to buy the basic necessities of life. As Jackie Baillie said, there has been a 13 per cent fall in absolute child poverty in the past four years; the rate is down by a third, which is a real achievement.
Relative poverty also matters, of course. The definition of the basic necessities of life changes over time, and our view of those necessities is different from the view in our parents' and grandparents' eras. On relative poverty, probably the biggest challenge for progressive Governments all over the world is how we, with the levers at our hands, narrow the income differentials in a world where employers want to pay the rich more and more and pay the poorest less and less.
Will the member give way?
No. I do not have time for interventions.
As politicians with tax powers in our hands, what is our responsibility for narrowing the growing wage differentials? After 20 years of Tory rule, we know where the Tories stand. Year after year, they cut taxes for the rich and cut benefits for the poor, reinforcing the income differentials.
Will the member give way?
No. I do not have time for interventions.
Labour has done the opposite, thereby undermining global forces. For example, Labour has provided lower taxes for the poorest, the national minimum wage, the child tax credit, the working families tax credit, and the national minimum income guarantee. All those measures are about narrowing the differentials between the rich and the poor.
The real question is: where does Scotland's principal Opposition party—which called today's debate—stand? Would the SNP, with the powers at its disposal, widen the differentials, as the Tories did, or narrow them, as Labour is doing? A clue is provided by the fact that not many of the SNP's economics spokespeople are present today. A second clue is provided by the colour of Linda Fabiani's jumper and Nicola Sturgeon's outfit. Today we have on display the red faction of the SNP—the people who are fulsome in their support for the poverty lobby. However, the people with their hands on the policy levers are the blue faction, which has a totally different agenda.
At the saltire debate in the summer, Jim Mather, the SNP's finance spokesperson, said that as a point of principle he wanted the total tax take in Scotland to be lower than the tax take in the rest of the United Kingdom. We heard Winnie Ewing say how rich Scotland is. Whatever inequalities exist in Scotland, the SNP wants the rich in Scotland to pay less. That is at the heart of the SNP's stance.
Across the world, Governments must choose. It is a mistake to say that lower taxes drive growth. Lower taxes mean greater inequality. A reduction in total tax does not guarantee growth—it guarantees greater inequality for the poorest. That is the dishonesty at the heart of the SNP. There are red and blue factions in the SNP. Before devolution, the party thought that no one would notice that, but in this Parliament it is increasingly being found out.
Poor John Swinney, who is not present, spends his entire life trying to be a member of the blue faction and the red faction at the same time. In the Tories' famous phrase, that is not working. In the coalition, we know where we stand. I want for Scotland an American spirit of enterprise, but I do not that want to be bought at the price of European solidarity. I ask SNP members to do Scotland's poor the credit of saying that their finance spokesman, Jim Mather, was wrong. Enterprise and growth matter, but they do not need to be bought at the price of Scotland's poor.
As other members have said, there is a direct relationship between this debate on poverty and the previous debate on crime. Where people survive on low incomes—"survive" is the appropriate word—with a poor diet, bad housing, depressing neighbourhoods, failing schools, inadequate public transport, few jobs, and little or no community support—in other words, where people live without hope—there are more likely to be social problems such as alcohol and drug misuse, truancy, and petty and violent crime.
In a memorable phrase, Margaret Curran said:
"No one wants to live in a Scotland where a family's potential is determined, not by their abilities, but by their postcode."
I hope that those were the minister's own words. She will remember as well as I do that when the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, of which she was then convener, undertook its inquiry into drug misuse in deprived communities, one of the most powerful statistics that it uncovered was that the highest rates of admissions for drug misuse were in the most deprived postcode areas. The data are set out in an annexe to the committee's report.
A similar point could be made about truancy. Today's truants are invariably to be found among tomorrow's young offenders and problematic drug users.
David Davidson touched on the fact that deprivation is a national issue. It is a rural as well as an urban problem. In many ways, Ferguson Park in Blairgowrie suffers from as much deprivation as Ferguslie Park in Paisley.
Poverty is the ultimate cross-cutting issue. One of the keys to tackling poverty is improving housing. That is why I have great respect for the Executive's policy on stock transfer, which will release massive resources for improving housing. Of course, the SNP opposed that policy. It is interesting that Mr Gibson, who was rather more ambivalent about stock transfer than some of his colleagues, slipped down the SNP parliamentary candidates list for Glasgow as a result, with Sandra White topping the list—a bizarre result by any reckoning. That is evidence of the SNP's divisions and splits. The SNP opposed stock transfer, which is a key to addressing poverty in Scotland, although some members, such as Mr Gibson, who listens occasionally to his constituents, were more ambivalent.
On the environment and improving neighbourhoods, there is room for improving and widening social inclusion partnerships, which have not been mentioned today. I have seen how effective they can be in my region, for example in the south-east of Alloa.
On education, there has been a range of Executive initiatives, such as local management of schools, the McCrone settlement and homework clubs. Of course more has to be done and we have to find ways of getting the best teachers into schools in the most deprived areas.
Health has not yet been covered in the debate. I have seen the effectiveness of health and well-being centres to improve nutrition and diet in the most deprived parts of Stirling, Inverkeithing and Cowdenbeath. Executive policy in support of those centres is addressing an issue that has been little touched on in the debate, but which is very important.
Further education colleges should be far closer to the communities that they are there to serve and should be sensitive to the needs of those communities, particularly in relation to training and jobs. We need to see drop-in youth facilities like the Corner in Dundee and Off-the-Record in Stirling, in far more of our communities.
Pensioners have rightly been mentioned in the context of national concessionary travel, the warm deal and pensioners forums. We have to listen far more to pensioners forums and to their voice.
The SNP today was long on statistics, but short on solutions. As for fresh ideas—forget it, there were not even stale ones. As for new policies—forget it, there were not even recycled ones. For every diagnosis, the only SNP cure is independence. If the SNP thinks that it will make any inroads at the next Scottish Parliament elections as the party of independence—and lazy thinking—it can think again.
How will I follow cyclone Wendy and ranting Raffan? I will do my very best.
I shall be honest and say that I think that everyone will agree that, as we have often said before, Scotland is a rich country. It is rich in resources, it has wealth in its people and it is a wealthy country. We should all agree that not everyone shares in that wealth; that is what the SNP is most concerned about.
The so-called Labour Executive sits and pontificates, but the Labour Government in the past five years has put forward more of Thatcher's policies than the Tories ever did. Labour is an absolute disgrace to the people of Scotland and it tries to lecture the SNP on what we should be doing. Scotland needs independence and I shall go on to explain why.
Will the member give way?
Sorry, but Ms Alexander has had her turn and she did not take any interventions.
Pensioner poverty has been mentioned in the debate. As the convener of the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on older people, age and ageing, I feel that it is right that I bring the issue to the attention of the Parliament. We have all heard about poverty throughout Scotland, but I would like to concentrate on pensioner poverty.
Research shows that older people are more likely to live in poverty. We must make the point that, unlike many others, pensioners have few opportunities to increase their income without state help. Members have said that we are in a marvellous position in the union. I ask members, and urge them to ask their constituents, whether they could live on £75 a week—I very much doubt that they could. Some members say that the union is a marvellous place, but do they know that 17,200 pensioners are forced to claim income support? I do not call that a good price to pay for the union and members should acknowledge that.
Hugh Henry mentioned fuel poverty last week at question time. Some 58 per cent of Scottish pensioners have to spend 10 per cent of their income on ensuring that their house is heated adequately. When Hugh Henry answered a question on the central heating installation scheme, he said:
"Some 7,000 households are waiting for heating systems … However, there is a limit to the number of available heating engineers and to the number of heating systems that we can install."—[Official Report, 7 Nov 2002; c 15094.]
That demonstrates some ambition from the Labour party.
I think that Margaret Curran was a member of the Social Justice Committee at the same time as me, when we took evidence about the situation in Europe. When I asked one of the witnesses whether people in other European countries ever died of hypothermia, they said that they did, but not in their own homes. It is terrible to admit that, in Scotland, people die of hypothermia in their own homes. We should examine that situation carefully. We should be ashamed of the fact that members are claiming that poverty does not exist. The Executive is trying to mix the figures.
I remind the Labour party that it was dragged, kicking and screaming, into supporting free personal care. The Executive bowed to Westminster when it was asked to give back £40 million in attendance allowances. It is a terrible indictment that the Executive bowed to Westminster and gave back the money.
Doubts are emerging about how the Executive will meet its commitment to implement its proposals on free personal care. In parts of Scotland, some councils are even talking about introducing means testing, because they do not have the necessary funding.
The free travel scheme has been described as a shambles. Why did the Executive not take on board the SNP's proposal for a national travel scheme such as the scheme that has been implemented in Wales? If the Executive had done that, it would not be in the mess that it is in now.
The Executive is supposed to be a Government. It must show real commitment by providing the resources that the older people in Scotland need to take them out of poverty. The Executive must stop spinning. Let us have some substance instead.
I will take it as a given that all members of the Parliament, irrespective of their political allegiance, are committed to reducing and eventually eliminating child poverty. Having listened to the speeches of the Conservatives, I realise that I am taking charitable interpretation to its extreme.
When we deal with difficult problems, we need to develop complicated solutions. We need solutions that stretch across every aspect of the Executive's work. We must also be honest with ourselves and with those who suffer disadvantage about time scales and about the complexity of the issues that are involved. There will be no quick fixes to child poverty.
No responsible political party should raise expectations by offering short-term money showers that miss the fundamental, underlying causes of poverty, which can pass from generation to generation.
It is simply not good enough to claim that independence is the magic wand that can cure all ailments. Although the SNP offers independence as a cure-all, it never provides any specifics; milk and honey are all that is ever forthcoming. That is a distortion at the best of times. In relation to child poverty, it is a cynical distortion. Children in Scotland need our help, not our slogans.
The cycle of poverty and despair will be broken when opportunity and genuine choices are a reality, rather than the subject of rhetoric. Let us take the opportunity to discuss a vital issue in a way that provides hope and in a way that defines the determination of the Parliament and the nation to address the long-term needs of disadvantaged children. We must not indulge in short-term sloganising to obtain some perceived political advantage.
The best way to do that is to analyse where we are now. As has been said, in absolute terms, there has been a marked decline in the proportion of children who live in low-income households. The proportion fell from 34 per cent in 1996-97 to 21 per cent in 2000-01—a 40 per cent decrease. That is a fact. If it does not suit some people to recognise that fact, they should think long and hard about their objectivity. Five years is a short time in which to assess properly initiatives that, by their very nature, will impact in the medium to long term.
Although there are more people from disadvantaged backgrounds in work than ever before, we must acknowledge that not enough of those people are from families that have been without work in the long term.
Will the member take an intervention?
Not at the moment. There is still insufficient progression for those who enter the labour market on low wages. However, it cannot be denied that opportunities to break the cycle of poverty and despair are being created.
Sure start Scotland has been provided with £31 million of additional resources, more than 125,000 parents benefit from tax credits and 18,000 lone parents are in work as a result of the new deal. An additional £24 million will be provided for the child care strategy over the next three years. Seventy-seven thousand lone parents are in receipt of the working families tax credit. In a three-year period, social inclusion partnerships have benefited from an investment of more than £250 million, which is helping to enable and empower communities throughout Scotland.
More than 50 per cent of Scottish students are in further or higher education. Critically, we have introduced education maintenance allowances that allow even more disadvantaged young Scots to grasp educational opportunity. Those are the beacons that can lead to the breaking of the cycle of poverty and despair, the creation of opportunity and the nurturing of aspiration among more confident young Scots. It is wrong to dismiss or diminish them by demonstrating the lack of vision that typifies the blinkered pursuit of independence.
This has been an important debate on an issue of great importance to the people of Scotland. However, I found it somewhat disappointing. Did we get from the Opposition parties, especially the SNP, policies that we could contrast with the Executive's policies and against which we could measure them? No. Kenny Gibson talked about the "valiant efforts" of the Scottish Executive. The impression that I got from Kenny Gibson was that the solution to improving poverty levels in Scotland was independence. However, he had no idea what he would do if he ever got independence.
If Mr Rumbles had listened to the speech—
I am not giving way to Mr Gibson, as he would not give way to me.
If Mr Rumbles had listened, he would have heard that—
Order. Mr Gibson, sit down, please.
To listen to Kenny Gibson, one would think that we were living in some sort of colony or satrapy. We are an independent nation in the United Kingdom and we have MPs fighting our corner in Westminster.
Margaret Curran gave us good statistics, which were emphasised by Jackie Baillie and Wendy Alexander. We heard that absolute poverty levels have fallen from 34 per cent to 21 per cent and that 10,000 pensioners now receive free central heating. That is evidence of practical action on the part of the Scottish Executive on the sort of issues that we need to address.
Lyndsay McIntosh made an abysmal speech on behalf of the Tories. I mean no personal slight against her, but I must say that I found what she was saying outrageous. She gave me the impression that the Tories' message is, "You're on your own—don't expect any help from us."
David Davidson's speech was amusing. I have never been called an apologist for the Executive before and that was an interesting accusation. At any rate, it is a bit rich of the Conservatives to attack other people on the issue of poverty. I know that these figures relate only to relative poverty but, when the Tories came into power, 9 per cent of households had less than 50 per cent of the average income and, when they left power, a quarter of the population was at that level.
Mr Rumbles fails to recognise the fact that we turned the economy around, which gave the Labour party many opportunities when it came to power. In doing so, we created schemes that gave people access to education. Most of us in this room got state support for our education.
I rarely agree with David Davidson, but I will do so today: the Conservatives turned the economy around, but not in the way that he has in mind. They caused devastation in the economy, which is why they were kicked out after 18 long years. The statistic that I quoted tells me everything about the Tory attitude, which is, "I'm all right, Jack, don't bother us."
Having dealt with the Tories' abysmal record, I want to be more positive. For the Liberal Democrats, taxation is one of the most important factors in achieving social justice. For example, Liberal Democrats are committed to reforming the national taxation system to make it more progressive by introducing an income tax rate of 50p in the pound for those who earn more than £100,000 a year. More important, we would abolish taxation on earnings below £10,000. We would lift a lot of people out of the poverty trap by not taxing them.
There is a lot more that I would have said, but I am running out of time. For example, I wanted to talk about how we would give pensioners a much better deal by ending the misery of means testing.
A lot of positive ideas on how we tackle poverty—especially child poverty—could have come out of the debate. The Opposition has realised that what the Executive is doing is good. The main carping criticism from the SNP is, "If we wave the magic wand of independence, we will do everything better." The Tories have nothing better to offer.
The debate is the second that I have summed up this morning. The last one was a good debate, but this one was, frankly, appalling. Although I do not doubt the intentions of those who have contributed, it is seriously disturbing that so many people think that the answer to the problem is to throw money at it. In the one good non-Conservative speech, Tom McCabe acknowledged that. He was correct to say that there are no quick fixes. If we are to improve matters effectively and permanently, we must realise that short-term expedients are not the answer.
We must begin to see the big picture. As Lyndsay McIntosh said eloquently, our priorities must be wealth creation and the injection of entrepreneurial thinking into policy formulation. In progressive, go-ahead economies, all policies are drawn up on the basis of what will create jobs and increase job prospects. Under the Scottish Executive, all policies are equality proofed. That says it all.
With all due respect to Kenny Gibson, the motion in his name will not provide any solution. An independent Scotland may be the answer for him and his SNP colleagues. However, as I have listened over the past three years, I have lost count of their megamillion spending commitments. I can only conclude that their policies would have dire economic consequences. Those policies would not reduce poverty; they would increase it. In time, they would make Scotland a country fit only for social workers and their clients. That is what we would be reduced to.
What does the Executive bring to the process? Everyone knows that the best way to help people is to help them to help themselves. How does the Executive's education policy, for example, achieve that? In the Labour party down south, the penny has dropped that a comprehensive education system that does not work and which denies opportunity to some of our poorest youngsters to better themselves is simply not adequate. The United Kingdom Labour party has realised that that system is not working, but Scottish Labour remains in a time warp. Emerging from her own personal TARDIS, Trish Godman's only solution was that we should consider the redistribution of wealth. That is the application of 1960s solutions to 21st century problems.
Does Bill Aitken acknowledge the independent research that Professor Lindsay Paterson of the University of Edinburgh carried out, which indicates that the attainment levels of comprehensively educated children and those educated in the private sector are the same? Will he recommend that children should be in the comprehensive sector?
I suggest to Jackie Baillie that her argument is not with me. It is more relevant when she addresses it to Tony Blair and the Department for Education and Skills. Clearly, those down south are not at all satisfied with the comprehensive system. They appear to be imposing and introducing solutions that Jackie Baillie and her colleagues do not have the political courage to impose.
I will move on. Failures in the national health service impact most devastatingly on the poorer sections of the community. No matter how the Executive arranges or doctors the figures, the inescapable fact is that the situation is worse now than it was when the Conservatives left power. On whom does that impact most? The poor.
Liberal law and order policies have the effect of reducing significantly the quality of life of those in our peripheral schemes. However, the Liberal Democrats pander to Labour and support those policies.
I am sorry. I am in my last minute.
The solutions to poverty are complex and there are no quick fixes. The poor were once defined by someone even more cynical than I as likely to be with us always. It need not be so, but it will continue to be so until a more positive approach is taken to improving our economy and the prospects of the poor.
That was actually from the Bible.
I am wondering how to respond to much of the debate. It is hardly worth commenting on the Tories; how can we take seriously a party that impoverished so many so quickly in so much of the country? We should charitably recognise, however, that the Conservatives now have their own poverty problems to deal with: a poverty of ideas, a poverty of principles and a poverty of leadership. Iain Duncan Smith and the Tories seem to be more intent on preparation for the pantomime season than on being a serious political party.
Today's speeches from the Conservatives reflected their complete detachment from the real world. They have failed to recognise what happened during their years in power, and they have failed to see some of the things that have been done since they were removed from power.
It is a bit rich for David Davidson to sneer about benefits advice and call for an end to the dependency culture. In fact, the biggest increase in the number of welfare rights and advice staff took place during the Tory years, when hard-pressed Labour councils had to use scarce resources to give advice to the poorest people in our country because of the neglect on the part of the Conservatives.
We have had a lot of briefings over the past week on the subject of poverty. Why is it that report after report and briefing after briefing discuss the vast number of people who do not know how to claim the benefits that are there? Labour has now been in power for a third of the time that we were in power.
The evidence shows that, during the years of Conservative government and since then, the local authorities that have invested in advice staff have successfully generated millions of pounds for people in their communities. That is something that I commend. Clearly, we have nothing to learn from the Tories and they have nothing to offer.
SNP members sounded as if they were discussing a submission to the political equivalent of a fantasy football league, rather than a serious welfare plan for a modern state. Let us consider the SNP's priorities. Rather than lift the people of Scotland out of poverty, it wants to spend money on an ambassador to Afghanistan and a consul for Cameroon. It wants to pay for separation and divorce before moving on to tackle poverty. It wants to dismantle the UK benefits system, although it will not tell us what it will introduce in its place and how much that will cost.
The minister has mentioned the benefits system. Does he think that the money that pensioners get—£75.50 a week—is adequate? Would he not like to change that, as the SNP would?
Sandra White says that the SNP wants to change that, but we keep waiting to hear what measures the SNP will introduce. Its members tell us nothing. We know that the SNP will dismantle the working families tax credit, which is delivering £2,400 a year to the poorest families and helping 125,000 families in Scotland. It would dismantle the UK housing benefit system, but we do not know what it would replace it with. The SNP will abolish UK disability benefits, but it does not tell us what it will replace them with.
Will the minister give way on that point?
No, thanks. The SNP does not tell us what the minimum wage in Scotland will be, and that probably explains why not one nationalist MP turned up to the vote on that in the House of Commons. We just hear whinge, whinge, moan, moan—no details of the financial support that would be available to help Scotland's poor or of how money would be spent.
Unlike the political fantasists, we are delivering progress. We heard today that the proportion of children in low-income households, according to an absolute measure, has fallen from 34 per cent in 1996-97 to 21 per cent in 2000-01, which is a 40 per cent fall. That is real progress for real people.
In contrast with Sandra White's cheap, mean moan about central heating, we have delivered for 10,000 people and we will deliver for the rest; we have introduced free local bus travel and people are benefiting from that; we have introduced nursery places for three and four-year-olds; we have helped the poorest students; we have introduced educational maintenance allowances to help pupils from the poorest families to stay on at school; we have expanded child care; we have the minimum income guarantee; we have a child tax credit; we have the working families tax credit—and that is before we go on to talk about what we are doing in health, education and enterprise and lifelong learning to target poverty. Unlike SNP members, who want divorce, separation and disaster, by ripping us out of the UK, we are delivering real progress for Scotland's poor.
I will try hard to stick to the truth and not to myth, which we have heard so much of in the debate. Kenneth Gibson began his speech by giving some facts about poverty, which are worth repeating. Around a quarter of individuals in Scotland live in low-income households, which is higher than the average for Great Britain. In November 2001, the total number of people in Scotland on income support was 668,000 which, as a percentage, is above the Great British average. The proportion of the Scottish population aged 16 or over claiming income support is above the Great British average. Around a third of Scottish households claim income-related benefits, in contrast to just over a quarter of Great British households. In 1999-2000, Scottish lone-parent households had the lowest income, at £204 a week, which is again below the Great British average.
The Labour party tells us that being part of the union is best for Scotland. I want to know how it works that out, because I cannot do so. The minister talked about the myth of independence, but it ain't no myth. Belgium, Norway, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland are not myths and they have less child poverty than Scotland has. The minister did not answer Lloyd Quinan's question on that issue. Lloyd was right to say that those independent countries—which are not myths or dream fantasies—have less child poverty than Scotland has.
The real myth is that the unionist Labour party is committed to poverty eradication. The Labour party came to power in the UK in 1997. It is claimed that Labour was committed to poverty eradication, but how did sticking to Tory spending plans and cutting single-parent and disability benefit amount to poverty eradication? The Liberal Democrats at UK level now say that there is a move to reduce the lone-parent working tax credit by 19 per cent. If that is true, how will that contribute to eradicating poverty levels?
Robert Brown outlined various initiatives that the Parliament has agreed to. Some of them have been good and have received cross-party support although, as Sandra White said, some Labour members had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support those initiatives. However, those measures will not make substantial inroads into the eradication of poverty because they are no more than tinkering around the edges; they treat the symptoms, not the disease. The only way in which we can treat the disease of poverty is by taking responsibility for it.
It is sad that some Conservative members think so little of the people of this country that they believe that, without England to shore us up, we would be a nation of social workers and their clients, which was Bill Aitken's comment. It is disgraceful that Bill Aitken has that view of the Scottish people whom he was elected to support.
Different kinds of poverty have been mentioned. The Executive used to measure poverty in relative terms, but it suddenly decided to change to an absolute measure. Wendy Alexander described absolute poverty as not having the ability to get
"the basic necessities of life."
It is pathetic that in the third millennium we measure poverty against the ability to get the absolute necessities of life. I want more than that for the people in this country, as do the other SNP members. We want honesty in the measurements. We should not change from a relative to an absolute mark of poverty. If the absolute mark remains the same, inflation alone will mean that the Executive is beating poverty. The concept of absolute poverty is a ridiculous concept—to use it is cheating and it is not on.
We then got havering Hugh Henry, who is terrified of the people of Scotland taking matters into their own hands and going for independence. One thing, however, that fascinates me about Hugh Henry—indeed, it fascinates me about the rest of the Labour members—is their assumption that, when this country gets independence, which it will, it is the SNP that will be in power. It never crosses the minds of the Labour members that Labour would be in power in an independent Scotland. All that we get is a repeat of the question, "What would you do when Scotland is independent?" It seems that the Labour members have accepted that there will be no place for them in an independent Scotland.
I will tell the chamber what the SNP will do when Scotland becomes independent. We will take on board that the people of Scotland are capable and willing to take their own decisions. The Scottish National Party is the only party in Scotland that has faith in people taking their own decisions. It is the SNP that will be in power, working towards a fairer solution for Scotland.
I have noticed that the coalition partners have been using a bit of a slogan today—"Much done, much more to do," which seems to be an admission of failure. I ask myself whether that is to be their slogan for the next election. I say to the coalition parties that if that is their slogan, I much prefer ours. Let us release our potential.