Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Official Report 1124KB pdf

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Challenge Poverty Week 2023

I encourage members who are leaving the chamber to do so as quickly and quietly as possible. The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-10526, in the name of Collette Stevenson, on challenge poverty week 2023. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I invite members who wish to participate to press their request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible, and I invite Collette Stevenson to open the debate by speaking for around seven minutes.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament recognises Challenge Poverty Week 2023, which is coordinated by the Poverty Alliance, Scotland’s anti-poverty network, and which runs from 2 to 8 October; notes that activities, events and actions will take place across Scotland to highlight the realities of, and solutions to, poverty, as well as increasing public support for tackling poverty; understands that the week emphasises the importance of a number of key policy asks, to help to unlock people from the grip of poverty, including the role of communities, access to food and adequate incomes; believes that over one million people in Scotland, including 250,000 children, are living in the grip of poverty and that the ongoing cost of living crisis continues to pull even more into hardship; notes the view that governments, politicians, civil society and communities all have a role to play in solving poverty; understands that particular groups of people, including low-paid women, lone parents, disabled people and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are disproportionately experiencing poverty; notes the view that poverty in Scotland can be solved by utilising all levers to boost incomes and reduce the impact of the cost of living crisis; further notes the view that people in Scotland support action to end poverty and believe in compassion and social justice; celebrates the work undertaken by organisations and communities across Scotland to stem what it sees as the rising tide of poverty, and notes the view that people across Scotland, including all MSPs, should attend and support events and activities in their areas to mark Challenge Poverty Week 2023.

18:24  

I am grateful to members across the chamber for supporting my motion. There are many things that I want to touch on in my speech, and I accept the challenge of doing so in seven minutes.

First, I pay tribute to the Poverty Alliance, which plays an important role as Scotland’s anti-poverty network, alongside many other organisations, community groups and activists. With the current cost of living crisis, we are all acutely aware of the increased difficulties that people across the country face. Challenge poverty week 2023 gave us the opportunity to acknowledge that and recognise that, for many, the crisis is compounding their hardship. The realities of poverty were highlighted and solutions were put forward. This year’s calls included ensuring that people have adequate incomes and that no one goes hungry.

Around 250,000 children are living in poverty in Scotland. I know that everyone here is united in supporting the Scottish Government’s national mission to tackle poverty. Under the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, Scotland is the only part of the United Kingdom with statutory income targets for tackling child poverty, with bold targets for 2030 and interim targets that are to be met this financial year. As convener of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I want us to review the 2017 act when data for this year are available, and to ensure that we learn the right lessons in order to meet those 2030 targets. Of course, much has changed since 2017—Brexit, Covid and Liz Truss’s economic vandalism have all added to the pain that is felt by people across the UK.

Those crises might affect the targets, but the Scottish Government has worked hard to support people through them, with a wide-ranging package of measures to build a fairer Scotland. A crucial part of that is the Scottish child payment, which charities have hailed as a game changer. That payment of £25 per eligible child per week is a lifeline for many families, and it will help more than 300,000 children this year. In addition, the Scottish National Party Government is widening access to free school meals, boosting social security spending by £1 billion, expanding free childcare and continuing to mitigate the worst of Westminster’s policies. Such actions are expected to lift 90,000 children out of poverty this year alone.

However, with one hand tied behind its back, there is only so much that this Parliament can do. Imagine the fairer country that we could build if this Parliament had the full economic and fiscal powers that are required to tackle poverty and inequalities. Instead, we are left with Westminster austerity and toxic Tory policies, such as the rape clause, which hamper our efforts to tackle poverty. Sadly, the Labour Party is offering nothing other than a continuation of those cruel policies.

The First Minister’s three key missions are tackling poverty, building a fair, green and growing economy, and delivering effective public services. Those three areas are interlinked. As Alfie Stirling from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently said,

“Business investment may be the lifeblood of a growing economy, but social security and public services provide the heartbeat.”

Social security is important in order to support people when they need it and, equally, in the fight against poverty. I am glad that, with recent but limited powers, we have built a new Scottish social security system that is based on fairness, dignity and respect.

However, although social security has a role to play, it is by no means the only tool. Regardless of social security status, those people who are in work are not immune from the risk of poverty. Indeed, the Poverty Alliance has pointed out the stark statistics that more than 10 per cent of workers in Scotland are locked in persistent low pay and that nearly three quarters of those workers are women.

Last week, I spoke at an event celebrating SSE’s 10th anniversary as a living wage employer. We had an interesting discussion about the benefits—not only for social justice but to the business—of paying staff a fair wage for a fair day’s work. Unfortunately, with employment law reserved to Westminster, we are reliant on employers choosing to adopt it. I am glad that so many organisations are doing so. East Kilbride is home to more than 60 living wage employers.

This year, the living wage is 48p per hour higher than the minimum wage for people who are aged over 22. For someone in that age bracket, who is working a 37-hour week, that translates to an extra £923 over the year. However, one of the unfair aspects of the UK minimum wage policy is that it includes age inequality by default. For someone aged 21 or 22, the loss rises to nearly £1,400 if they are on the minimum wage rather than the living wage, and for someone aged 18 to 20, that loss rises to a staggering £6,500. This morning, the new living wage rate was announced at £12 per hour—£1 more than the minimum wage—so that inequality will only get worse.

Poverty at the end of life is another issue that we must challenge. The Marie Curie Foundation found that two thirds of people with a terminal illness rely on benefits, so it is vital that we ensure sufficient support for people in that situation and their carers.

I pay tribute to all of Scotland’s anti-poverty campaigners. I commend the Poverty Alliance for another successful challenge poverty week, which is an initiative that it launched 10 years ago. I will certainly continue to challenge poverty and to work for a fairer Scotland. I look forward to hearing contributions from all of my colleagues.

18:31  

I begin by giving my apologies to those in the chamber, as I have to leave the debate early this evening.

I congratulate Collette Stevenson on bringing this important debate to the chamber. After all, as legislators and representatives of the people who elected us, challenging poverty should be a collective moral imperative. Like Collette, I could have talked about many things this evening, such as the two-child cap, which remains an abhorrent UK policy that continues to drive children into poverty. According to the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, 15,000 children a year have been pushed into poverty by that policy.

I could also talk about the alarming new study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that was published today, which shows that around 3.8 million people in the UK experience destitution. That number is up 61 per cent since 2019 and has more than doubled since 2017. Destitution is increasing more slowly in Scotland thanks to the bold policies that we have, such as the Scottish child payment, but we remain limited in what we can do in this Parliament without all the powers of an independent country. I am confident that my colleagues will cover some of those areas this evening, but I will focus on an extant injustice that has been raised by a number of my constituents: historical energy debt. I do not mean their historical energy debt; I mean debt that comes with a prepayment meter.

I have spoken to a number of people who have taken up tenancies, whether in social housing, council houses or new properties, who, if they did not get a new top-up card in the prepayment meter, could carry the debt of the previous tenant and the previous owner, and the standing charges from when it was last used. Even if people supply meter readings, the standing charge debt can accrue and be put on to their system. That is leaving some of the most vulnerable people in my constituency absolutely devastated. They cannot heat their homes or look after their budgets, because they are being lumped with up to £271—which is the highest amount that I have heard about so far—of someone else’s debt. That is morally repugnant. Although we could say that it is a Westminster issue and that it needs legislation, what are the energy companies doing to right that wrong? It is an absolute disgrace.

That is just one of the problems with prepayment metres that we know about. Quite often, there can also be an increased or a more expensive tariff. In addition, people who are struggling and trying to manage their energy use can fall victim to self-disconnection. In this century, with all the weather problems that we have in Scotland, why are we talking about self-disconnection? It makes no sense whatsoever. I cannot understand why that term is still being used in this country.

Perhaps this is the biggest problem. I got the £400 grant from the United Kingdom Government to help with energy costs—everyone in this room probably did—but take-up for people on prepayment meters is minuscule. In some cases, it is about 60 per cent. Those people are not accessing the vouchers, because it is assumed that they have a mobile phone to which the voucher can be sent and that they have digital access. Why should the most vulnerable people in our society have to jump through hoops to get a benefit that we in this room all get? Energy companies could be doing so much more to help people on prepayment meters and to right that injustice. There is a moral imperative on them to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

18:36  

I, too, thank Collette Stevenson for securing the debate. Challenge poverty week was launched in 2013 by the Poverty Alliance with the aim of highlighting the injustice of poverty in Scotland and with a desire to find solutions based on compassion and collective action. I congratulate all those who helped to organise, and took part in, this year’s challenge poverty week, with more than 400 events taking place between 2 and 8 October.

Challenge poverty week is important. It is important that we recognise that the Poverty Alliance has been pushing the Parliament on such issues, and its strong advocacy has helped to make the Government and the Parliament act in many areas. That is why there is continued strong cross-party consensus on the objectives of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. That legislation, which was passed unanimously by the Parliament, sets a target to substantially reduce child poverty rates in Scotland, and, collectively, we must continue to focus on delivering the outcomes that are set out in the 2017 act.

In the time that I have today, I want to concentrate on three key sections of our society that need more focused and targeted support. Poverty levels among Scotland’s ethnic minority communities remain disproportionately higher than those among the general population. It is estimated that the poverty rate stands at 48 per cent among mixed, black and other ethnic minority groups and at 49 per cent among Asian ethnic minority groups in our society. Clearly, specific factors are having a negative impact on the minority ethnic groups that experience higher levels of poverty. We need more focused action on removing the barriers that exist for those groups that are furthest removed from accessing welfare and support. In the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, we have heard that a key factor continues to be language barriers.

There are also higher poverty rates among lone-parent families—92 per cent of which involve single women—with a single source of income. Almost 40 per cent of children in relative poverty in Scotland live in a lone-parent family, so it stands to reason that we need to look at what targeted support can be provided to them. When we consider future increases in targeted support such as the child payment, I hope that the Parliament and the Government will consider how targeted support could be provided to those specific groups. In many previous committee sessions, those asks have been made, and there is the opportunity for us to look at that.

Collette Stevenson mentioned unpaid carers, and I hope that that group will be given more targeted support in the future. I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has listened to some of the concerns that I and others have outlined. In relation to people undertaking a caring role, once the person who is being cared for dies, the guillotine comes down on payments, which has an impact on many people, so I welcome the fact that the Government has committed to extending the carer support payment for a further six months after a person who is being cared for dies.

There is a lot more that we could do. For example, I hope that we can have a conversation about the additional support that people might need in order to get them back into the workplace or society.

I welcome challenge poverty week 2023. Above all, I hope that this year, once again, presents the opportunity for us all to rededicate ourselves to delivering the policy outcomes to which we are all committed and to working as a Parliament and with the Government to lift people out of poverty.

18:39  

I thank Collette Stevenson for securing this important debate. I know that I am not alone when I say that I did not get into politics to make things worse; I got into politics to try to make things better for people, and I believe that we should all challenge poverty at every opportunity. During last year’s challenge poverty week, I organised two cost of living surgeries to raise awareness of the support and advice that are freely available to people who were worried about rising bills. Since then, I have organised another seven such surgeries and I have another lined up for next month.

As an MSP, I have always strived to be as accessible as possible to my constituents. Having those surgeries outwith my office and in local town centres was key to their success. There was existing footfall in the Oak Mall shopping centre in Greenock, and I also had a surgery in the Inverclyde Community Development Trust’s offices in Port Glasgow. People stopped to engage with the advice agencies that were in attendance, such as Advice Direct Scotland and Home Energy Scotland, among other local partners. Social Security Scotland is now one of the key agencies that I invite to the cost of living surgeries, which have become a regular feature of my parliamentary duties. I do it because I want to ensure that my constituents receive all the assistance to which they are entitled and to try to reduce poverty in my constituency.

The Scottish child payment, which is a benefit that is unique to Scotland, is worth £25 per week per eligible child. As of 30 June this year, the payment was benefiting 316,000 children and it is estimated to have lifted 50,000 children out of relative poverty. That shows that the Scottish National Party Government is committed to using the powers at its disposal to try to tackle poverty in Scotland, and it demonstrates that Scotland can take a different approach to welfare reform. Just think about how much further we could go in the Parliament if we had more powers, or with independence. The reality is that the UK Government has presided over a cost of living crisis that is hitting our economy harder than is the case in our European neighbours. Research shows, time and again, that Brexit is one of the driving factors behind that, and that policy is now, sadly, supported by the Labour Party.

The UK Government’s continued pursuit of austerity, which was started by Labour when it was last in power and which is now going full steam ahead with the Tories, is making people’s lives harder, not easier. The waiting time for universal credit is still far too long and continues to drive people to food banks. When people eventually receive a universal credit payment, it does not cover all the basics. I regularly visit Inverclyde Foodbank and I support the Trussell Trust’s guaranteed essentials campaign, which is calling for the basic rate of universal credit to at least cover the cost of essentials such as food, household bills and travel costs. That is because around 90 per cent of low-income households receiving universal credit are going without at least one essential, such as food, a warm home or toiletries.

That shows that the UK Government’s policies are contributing to poverty, which is in stark contrast to the efforts of this Parliament and the Government here in Scotland. We are attempting to tackle poverty in Scotland with one hand tied behind our back. Sadly, with Labour now signed up to the two-child cap, which is working against efforts to lift children out of poverty, it is abundantly clear that we cannot trust the Westminster parties with looking after those who are most in need.

In the run-up to challenge poverty week, I was asked by the Poverty Alliance to write a blog post about my work on challenging poverty. I gave some background on the cost of living surgeries that I mentioned, but one key point that I stressed and that I want to stress again to everyone listening is: if you need help, please ask. MSPs and their staff across the country deal with difficult situations daily, and there are certainly folk there who can help.

I am conscious of time, so I will end there, Presiding Officer.

18:44  

I thank Collette Stevenson for bringing this debate to Parliament, and I pay tribute to the Poverty Alliance and all those organisations that are leading in the fight against poverty. Because poverty is not simply a lack of wealth; it is a lack of power as well, which can lead to acquiescence, and that is why we must all challenge poverty at every opportunity.

Do we not have a responsibility? Do we not owe a debt to the elderly who built this society but who now find themselves living in fear and in deprivation? Do we not have an obligation to all of those children being brought up in abject poverty to take action? Does that duty not extend to the 80,000 children in Scotland who are punished by the two-child cap?

The two-child cap is an immoral, cowardly assault by the Tory Government on defenceless people, on children in the deepest poverty. It is built on the grotesque fiction that there is a deserving and an undeserving poor, and that a woman will undergo nine months of pregnancy and a family will invest 18 years in raising a child simply so that they can pick up more welfare payments for an extra £15 a week. It is nothing short of obscene.

So, to the Scottish Government, my message is this. We cannot set legally binding targets in this Parliament to eliminate child poverty and then break our own laws with impunity.

But to my own party, I also have a simple message. If not us, who? If not now, when? This is no time for a truce with poverty, especially child poverty. We must overcome those irresponsible voices who talk of economy, or worse, those who speak of the money markets. We must understand that people are the assets on our balance sheet.

Throughout most of my adult life, there has always been a debate about a cap on social security spending. Why is there never a debate about a cap on military security spending? There is always a debate about what we can afford to give to the very poorest in our society, but there is never a debate about how much we subsidise the very richest in our society. We are told time and time again that welfare spending is wasteful, but what is really wasteful is writing these kids off. Tackling child poverty is an investment, but more, it speaks to our common humanity; to the value of human dignity and social justice.

We know that two out of three of those children in Scotland living in poverty are in families where at least one adult is in work. They have got a job, but it is a low-paid and insecure jobs.

We receive reports about thousands of children in Scotland in this day and age admitted to hospital for malnutrition, and the number is rising. Last year, it doubled, but there is no shortage of food; it is just that there are serious problems with its distribution. And we know where this leads. Children who are suffering today from malnutrition will almost certainly face health problems throughout their lives, their life expectancy shortened. So we do not need simply piecemeal reform—we need a fundamental transformation in the established relations of power.

Let me conclude with the words of John Smith, who on his election as leader of the Labour Party said this:

“It is not just people who live in poverty who gain from our commitment to social justice and fairness. We all live in the same society. It is a poorer society if it is diminished by unemployment, homelessness and poverty.”

His words call out to us down the ages. They require to be heeded and they demand to be acted upon.

18:49  

I am grateful to my colleague Collette Stevenson for bringing the debate to the chamber.

I was elected to this place just two and a half years ago and have engaged in many debates about poverty, but I am struggling. I am struggling because time and time again, we come here to discuss poverty, its effects and the impact that it has on health, wellbeing, educational attainment—I could go on. Time and time again, the Scottish Government implements mechanisms to alleviate that poverty in targeted areas, such as the Scottish child payment, which has been praised by many as a game changer, and yet, time and time again, those efforts are undermined by a UK Government that has been hellbent on reducing welfare and access to welfare for more than 13 years. A person who needs support in Scotland simultaneously has one hand giving it, while another, from 400 miles down the road, snatches it away.

If we reflect on the 24 years of this still-young Parliament, we can see that this place has flexed its ambition for our country with the creation of Social Security Scotland. It is not a silver bullet—no organisation is—but it demonstrates a clear intent to treat people who need support with the dignity and respect that they deserve. We should contrast Social Security Scotland with the Department for Work and Pensions, which, over the past decade and a bit, has contracted private companies to assess benefit claimants to make sure that they are not scamming the system. People with lifelong degenerative disabilities are still required to present to an assessor frequently. If they do not, they face being sanctioned and losing the support that they need simply to get by.

Even with welfare benefits, getting by is a struggle. The Tories’ benefit cap is set at roughly £14,750 per year for a single adult living outside London. In contrast, the real living wage is the minimum income that it is calculated that a person needs in order to be able to afford life’s basics. The new rate announced today of £12 per hour works out at a take-home pay of around £18,900 per year, after income tax and national insurance.

We cannot have a Tory welfare system that is difficult to navigate—in the hope that people just give up—and makes inadequate payments. The Tories have not even ensured that work pays, either. George Osborne introduced the national living wage as the legal minimum amount that a worker can be paid, but it was nothing but a con—a rebranded minimum wage. Outside London, it amounts to more than £1.50 per hour less than the real living wage, which works out at £2,730 per year less for a full-time worker on 35 hours per week. Is it any wonder that the number of people in the UK who use Trussell Trust food banks has increased from around 26,000 in 2010, when the Tories came into power, to almost 3 million in 2023?

It is time for a different kind of politics. Sadly, we have had no indication that that will come from Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which will not even reverse the two-child benefit cap and rape clause, which loses families more than £3,000 per year.

While many welfare streams remain under Westminster control, I urge all parties to look to Scotland and the ethos of our devolved social security system. People need and deserve dignity and respect. Work should pay. There should be no more con tricks—a living wage should be exactly that.

During challenge poverty week, I encourage colleagues to engage with the events so that we are reminded of how important it is to alleviate and eradicate poverty.

18:53  

I thank Collette Stevenson for bringing this important debate to the chamber.

As deputy convener of the cross-party group on poverty, I welcome the opportunity to support challenge poverty week and to raise awareness of the issue of poverty and the interlinked impact that poverty can have on all aspects of people’s lives.

As the motion outlines, poverty has many roots. There are links between discrimination of all kinds and poverty. As a society, we must challenge poverty and discrimination. We must break any stigma about poverty to ensure that people who need assistance are supported. That includes their receiving any financial assistance to which they are entitled.

We should move away from the idea that poverty is solely the cause of individual choices. All of us in society have a responsibility to help to tackle poverty, not least to our children. The fact that there are 250,000 children in poverty in Scotland today should shame us all, and we know that when someone is born into poverty, they are more likely to die in poverty.

For rural and island Scotland, the challenges of geography can impact poverty. Before the announcement last year of the UK Government’s energy payment support scheme to cover part of the cost of energy bills, Shetland Islands Council predicted that 96 per cent of households in the isles would find themselves in fuel poverty. That meant that only islanders earning £104,000 a year would not be classed as being in fuel poverty.

We know that families and households across Scotland are being pushed to the very limits of their finances. Since the start of the cost of living crisis, constituents have contacted me with concerns about their energy bills and their inability to pay them. I recognise the points that Clare Adamson was making about prepayment meters. In the 21st century, as with any utility and necessity, the cost of energy should not exacerbate or be a cause of poverty.

Shetland’s location as the windiest part of the UK and the most northerly island group means that we often keep heating on for longer throughout the year. Islanders recognise the irony of living in and around such an energy-rich environment. Fuel poverty levels remain stubbornly high in island and rural areas. A few weeks ago, I questioned the Scottish Government about its plans for this winter. The UK Government’s intervention on energy costs last year showed that there can be policy solutions, and policies that may not be directly aimed at reducing poverty can have that added outcome. A programme of Scottish Government support for home insulation would be one way to improve energy efficiency, thereby reducing household energy costs and helping to tackle fuel poverty.

Transport in rural areas is another example of the geographic impact on poverty levels. Lack of sufficient public transport can be a block to accessing services. Health services are just one example, but transport challenges also affect employment opportunities, including childcare, shift work and the ability to secure jobs further afield from home. As the motion suggests, that all has a disproportionate impact on certain sectors of society.

I kept my speech focused on the impact of geography on poverty, but island, rural, urban and inner-city areas all have their own stories when it comes to poverty, and geography is one small fragment of the bigger picture. We must identify and dismantle the stigma surrounding poverty. We can dream of a world without poverty, a world where Government policies support those who need them, a world without demonisation of those who are being supported by benefits, and a world where no newborn is more likely to be born into poverty than any other.

The Liberal reforms early in the last century began the model of state policies that intervene to mitigate poverty. The Scottish Government’s competence over social benefits is an opportunity in the early years of this century to tackle our ever-evolving understanding of poverty.

18:57  

I congratulate Collette Stevenson on securing this important debate. I, too, thank the Poverty Alliance for its tireless and passionate campaign to end poverty.

Poverty robs people of choices and the chance to lead fulfilling and dignified lives. It basically strips the joy right out of our lives. Sadly, more than 1 million Scots are grappling with poverty, and almost half of those people are living in deep poverty. Others, who could never have imagined struggling with poverty just a few short years ago, now find themselves having to make unimaginable choices between eating, heating and keeping clean. No one should have to compromise their dignity in a country as affluent and resource rich as ours. The inequality that prevails across the UK is nothing short of scandalous, as we have already heard.

The Scottish Women’s Budget Group 2023 report, “Experiences of rising costs across Scotland”, highlights that women are often the shock absorber of poverty in their households, with women commonly cutting back on life’s essentials in order to better provide for their children. A fifth of women surveyed were skipping meals, and just under half were not replacing clothes and shoes. One woman said that the changes that she had made personally did not apply to the children, and that they do not go without healthy meals and showers.

However, despite those selfless acts, women cannot break the relentless cycle of poverty, and the associated mental stresses often have far-reaching consequences. Poverty rates are higher among lone parents, too, and 92 per cent of those parents are women.

When someone has a single source of income, limited job flexibility and childcare costs, and is confronted with Westminster’s cruel two-child benefit policy in a universal credit system that is described as an “insufficient means of livelihood”, the pressures of being the sole provider are often crippling and isolating. That holds particularly true for mums and parents under 25 years old—Collette Stevenson referred to this earlier—who also lose out on £75 of universal credit per month just because of their age. One young single mother said:

“I don’t understand how someone over 25 gets more for being in exactly the same situation that I am.”

I find it hard to disagree with her.

This year, one of the Poverty Alliance’s calls is for fair and sustainable funding for third sector organisations. We know the significant contribution that our third sector makes to support our most vulnerable communities, with many of them also actively targeting the gendered nature of poverty and the structural inequalities that undermine women.

I spoke recently to One Parent Families Scotland, which provides vital support to lone parents and children in Lanarkshire, where I live, and across Scotland. It offers a telephone helpline that is highly valued by communities. However, the organisation told me that calls for advice are increasingly becoming emergency crisis calls, as more and more families reach a cliff edge. Its resources are being spread even thinner.

I am certainly proud that eradicating child poverty is a core commitment of Scotland’s programme for government and that our Scottish child payment is a world first—a game changer, as we have heard. However, we must still strive to support our invaluable third sector in every way that we can, despite the financial challenges that our Government and the Parliament face.

19:01  

I congratulate Collette Stevenson on securing this important debate on challenge poverty week. Tackling poverty and inequality is the single biggest challenge that we face in Scotland, and it requires continued, urgent and sustained action.

In Scotland, we are introducing a fairer social security system—one in which the stigma and conditionality of the Department for Work and Pensions system play no part. There is no two-child limit, which is favoured by the two parties that aspire to govern at Westminster. Instead, we have a Scottish child payment that was increased to £25 and is described by the Child Poverty Action Group as

“an absolute game-changer in the fight to end child poverty”.

I am the first to acknowledge that more can be done, and I welcome that we will review the level of the payment in future budgets.

In my home town of Clydebank and across my constituency, the residents do more than challenge poverty for just one week in the year—they do it every day. Faifley food share provides a food pantry for residents that is run by a small team of volunteers. Dalmuir Barclay church community pantry runs a food pantry, drop-in cafe, clothing drives, indoor bowling and three craft groups. Old Kilpatrick Food Parcels offers a free food pantry, chatty cafes for residents to have a warm meal and a chat with others, movie nights for kids and so much more. The kindness and warmth of those groups and their dedication to help others and challenge poverty is unmatched. The generosity of the whole Clydebank and Milngavie community, who come together to support those who are struggling, is a lifeline. I am grateful for what those groups do, but it should not have to be this way.

The existence of food banks in the 21st century is an outrage. Unfortunately, Westminster policies—policies that have inflicted decades of austerity and dreadful cuts to social security—have made them essential for many. The Trussell Trust, which is the organisation that runs around two thirds of the food banks in the UK, went from giving out around 61,000 food parcels in 2010 to giving out 2.5 million in 2020.

In 2022, David Cameron tweeted that he had been volunteering at his local food bank for the past two years. That is truly the starkest of ironies, given that food bank usage went up by 2,612 per cent while he was Prime Minister. That is not something to be proud of. In the face of the current Westminster cost of living crisis, we need action from the UK Government that will challenge poverty. We need the £20 universal credit uplift to be reinstated and increased, the abhorrent two-child cap and the rape clause to be abolished, and the energy bill rebate to be reintroduced to ensure that no one has to decide between heating and eating.

A report last year from Aberlour Children’s Charity found that families that are in receipt of universal credit are having their monthly income reduced by, on average, £80 to cover debts such as universal credit advances. At such a difficult time for families, surely the Westminster Government should suspend those deductions and not reduce an already inadequate level of support.

I am thankful for the work that the local food pantries do in my constituency, but we should all fight for a Scotland where they are not needed. No one should ever be unable to afford the essentials. We want a just and equal Scotland, and I truly believe that we can achieve some of that with cross-party support. However, we need a UK Government to act. With the current Tory Government or with the Labour Party, which will keep the two-child policy, we will never see a truly equal and poverty-free Scotland; only with the control of our own affairs will we see that.

19:05  

I thank the members who have stayed for tonight’s important debate, and I thank Collette Stevenson for bringing it forward. She is a strong voice for social justice in the Parliament and outwith it, and I always find her contributions well informed and insightful.

I enjoy it when we can take a cross-party look at issues such as challenging poverty, which could and should be a unanimous effort in which we mainly agree with each other. I welcome the comments from Miles Briggs about the need to consider intersecting inequalities, and his shout-out for some Scottish Government policies, which saves me a job.

Challenge poverty week is an important event in our calendars, or it should be. I have been glad to hear of MSPs from across the chamber making use of the raised focus and awareness to shine a spotlight on issues or to have best practice in their constituencies.

I will highlight Stuart McMillan’s contribution, because he talked about taking a different approach and holding cost of living surgeries in town halls and other places that people go to for other reasons. This morning, when I was in front of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, Maggie Chapman and I discussed the idea of so-called hard-to-reach groups. She described them as “easy to ignore”. What Stuart McMillan has done—he is not alone in this, but I congratulate him on his efforts—is to go where people are already, rather than ask them to come to him. He brings support organisations to people rather than signpost and hope for the best.

Events such as challenge poverty week should allow us to scrutinise our efforts to help constituents—as any MSP of any party or none should surely wish to do—and to pick up on best practice such as Stuart McMillan’s. As Beatrice Wishart put it, we all have a responsibility to end poverty. I was glad to be able to visit Tagsa Uibhist during challenge poverty week to discuss food poverty and the extra challenges that island communities face in accessing affordable and appropriate food, and to get into the issues that Beatrice Wishart described.

Although energy is, of course, reserved, we have reacted to the increased cost of living in the islands through a range of measures, including tripling the fuel insecurity fund, which I know is supporting various efforts in island communities across Scotland. I also know that colleagues across Government used challenge poverty week similarly. The First Minister met anti-poverty summit attendees with lived experience of poverty, supported by the Poverty Alliance, continuing the focus that he has placed on the issue since taking office.

That is not to say that the Scottish Government wants to challenge poverty only one week a year. Tackling poverty is one of our three interdependent and defining missions, alongside growing a green wellbeing economy and improving public services. It runs through everything that we do, and all ministers are determined to do their bit in their portfolios to create the fairer Scotland that I think we all want. Last year and this, the Scottish Government has allocated almost £3 billion to support policies that tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the on-going cost of living crisis. Modelling estimates that, this year, 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty as a result of the Scottish Government’s policies, with poverty levels 9 percentage points lower than they would have been otherwise. That includes lifting an estimated 50,000 children out of relative poverty through the Scottish child payment.

We have transformed social security provision in Scotland—I cannot overstate that. I remember being genuinely overwhelmed with emotion when I visited Social Security Scotland in Dundee for the first time and heard just how different the application process for disability benefits is and how strong the support for applicants is. On Marie McNair’s point, we are the first nation in the UK to publish a plan to end the need for food banks. We are doing things differently here, and it is making a difference.

Clare Adamson referred to the recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report. I want to be clear that the fact that destitution has risen less in Scotland than it has in the rest of the UK is not a matter to celebrate. I cannot bring myself to take joy in a lower rise in destitution than in other countries, especially when we know that, with more powers, more fiscal flexibility or different UK Government decisions, the trend could be going the right way: down.

We want to end destitution in Scotland. It is welcome that our policies, within our limited powers, are having an impact on destitution being allowed to continue, but we want to do more than mitigate; we want to lead on eradicating poverty. Scotland has the opportunity to join our neighbours in the European Union as an independent nation that is fairer, wealthier and happier. Scotland simply cannot afford to be shackled to a Westminster system that is driving more children into poverty, overseeing one of the highest levels of income inequality in Europe and not only failing to react to but creating situations that force people into destitution.

Kaukab Stewart was right to point out that every time the Scottish Government takes a step and makes an investment to tackle poverty, we seem to contend with yet another policy change, such as a welfare cap, a cut or some other contradictory action down south that makes our job harder or even removes money from the same household budgets that we are trying to top up. Sadly, as Stuart McMillan pointed out, it looks like that is set to continue, no matter who occupies Downing Street. UK Labour has signed itself right up to some of the most punitive and cruel Tory policies, such as the two-child limit, which can only serve to further entrench child poverty.

I was glad to hear Richard Leonard’s eloquent take-down of the two-child cap. He was right to highlight the decisions that happen here. Politicians and Governments get to choose our priorities and what we want to spend money on. The Scottish Government has made the investment that he described, through the introduction of the Scottish child payment and increases to it. I genuinely pay tribute to him, as he is the first Scottish Labour member that I have heard in a debate such as this one unequivocally calling on his UK party colleagues to take action on the issue. I can only hope that they listen, because I would much rather see UK Labour commit to helping us lift children out of poverty than have to keep bringing up this disappointment in debates with Scottish Labour.

Although, sadly, it is clear that too many people still suffer poverty, we are making a difference while fighting against the tide. Just imagine what we could do with the full powers of independence.

Meeting closed at 19:12.