Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-13845, in the name of Christina McKelvie, on halting welfare reform. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes with strong concern what it sees as the continuing austerity being forced on the whole of the UK by the UK Government, with the main focus on reforming welfare provision, which it considers detrimentally affects disabled, unemployed and young people; notes calls for a limitation on the use of sanctions, timing people out, the use of the “bedroom tax” for disabled people and repeated assessments of those deemed unfit for work; believes that, throughout the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency and across Scotland, disabled people are being punished by welfare reform, and notes the view that, until a system is introduced that supports carers and disabled people, welfare reform should be brought to an end.
13:15
I thank all my colleagues across the chamber who signed the motion to allow it to be debated, and I pay tribute to the work of, and say thank you to, HIV Scotland, the National AIDS Trust, the Scottish Association for Mental Health, the disability benefits consortium and Pat Onions, who is the inspiration behind the motion.
Last week, my colleague at Westminster Angus Robertson asked the Prime Minister about the suicide of Mr Michael O’Sullivan, who was a 60-year-old disabled father of two. His death followed his work capability assessment. Mr Robertson asked the Prime Minister to publish some 60 investigations by the Department for Work and Pensions, which could expose many more tragic cases of that kind. So far, the Prime Minister has refused to do so. Meanwhile, the coroner has warned that there is a risk of further deaths.
We must keep sight of the fact that welfare reform is costing lives and bringing misery and debt to families, and all in the name of putting the United Kingdom into surplus. Even the Prime Minister’s own back benchers are questioning his approach. Although the chancellor has suddenly decided that the House of Lords is profoundly undemocratic—that is what you say when the vote is not in your favour—even the notables, geriatrics and Tory donors are rejecting Mr Osborne’s plans and calling for a rethink.
Last week, the Tory MP for South Cambridgeshire, Heidi Allen, suggested in her maiden speech that ministers were losing sight of the difficulties of working people in their “single-minded determination” to achieve a surplus. She said that reform is not a “spreadsheet”, and she feared that the way her Government is going about the whole process is all wrong.
The Conservative Johnny Mercer urged the chancellor to do “something—anything” to ease the “harshest effects” of the cuts on vulnerable people. He said:
“my duty ... and indeed our duty is to shout for our most vulnerable”.—[Official Report, House of Commons, 20 October 2015; Vol 600, c 882.]
On Sunday, we were told that three unnamed Cabinet members have expressed their concerns about George Osborne’s planned cuts to working tax credits. We can see the mess that that has created this week.
Ruth Davidson has also expressed her anxieties. She has said:
“we can’t have people suffering on the way ... the government needs to look again at it.”
When there is that kind of rebellion in the governing party at Westminster, it most certainly needs to look again at its proposals.
The Scottish National Party Government is shouting out for the most vulnerable, but Westminster is not listening. Going by Prime Minister’s questions today, I think that it is still not listening.
There can be no trade-off between people’s lives and the national debt. Are we all going to sit around and say, “Oh, well, collateral damage”? I abhor that term. Are people who happen to have a disability, whether that is mental or physical, or who struggle to find employment that they can manage to be punished? Are folk who have been forced into debt and down to the food bank meant to feel that they are the undeserving poor? Honestly, does anyone actually want the so-called welfare reforms? We hear all sorts of dodgy claims by the Westminster Government that cutting benefits is the only way forward. After yesterday’s Welfare Reform Committee meeting, I remain completely unconvinced.
I do not claim to be an economist, but I understand that the more money a national Government pulls out of an economy, the less is available for people to spend. That being so, how can we grow and develop the economy? I am sure that I will be accused of oversimplification, but it seems abundantly clear to me that, if we pull money away from people, we take it out of local spending, so people will have less to spend and the Treasury will receive less in tax. More brutally and more honestly, the Government is literally taking bread out of the mouths of babes, the most disadvantaged, those with the added strain of long-term health problems and those whose quality of life is already compromised.
In my constituency of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, 3,400 families in work, with 5,800 children, will feel the loss of tax credits where it hurts most—in the lives and wellbeing of those children.
So much for making work pay. Here are families desperately struggling to make ends meet, often in low-paid jobs or on zero-hours contracts, and they are being told that the Government sees fits to take more money out of their pockets to the tune of around £1,000 a year on average. For many families, the figure is twice that.
The people who suffer most are the least able to get heard. The bankers, the public school politicians and the affluent aristocracy are readily and regularly given a voice. Those at the bottom of the pecking order get little but abuse.
Pat Onions is a constituent of Lanarkshire. Her ceasefire campaign calls for an emergency halt to sanctions, timing out and distressing repeated assessments for sick and disabled people. The evidence shows that, despite the Government’s claims, sick and disabled people in the work-related activity group are not finding employment. So what is the Government’s reaction? It is to punish them some more, harass them and blame them for the predicament in which they find themselves. They are attacked as benefit scroungers, lazy, not trying or being too picky.
Work that has been done to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace for those with disabilities is a great achievement, but it is not enough. Some people have conditions that mean that, even with reasonable adjustments, they cannot compete as effectively as fit people in the ruthlessly competitive open job market. We need to discuss the extra costs that more major changes will bring to an employer, but no one discusses sheltered working arrangements, quotas or subsidies to help.
I have already met many constituents who are suffering a major drop in their income under the changes to disability living allowance. Many have lost that benefit and others will find it extremely difficult to attain personal independence payments.
As a result of the UK Government’s 2010 decision to reduce the DLA budget by 20 per cent, very few of those people will get PIP. If PIP is not halted, those people will lose all their vital support. It makes no sense to implement that change, which the Scottish Government is on record as having repeatedly opposed. Fixing the damage would cost as much in health and social care terms as the roll-out.
In Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse there are 840 people of working age who receive the lower rate of DLA and who will not qualify for PIP. The impact on those individuals, their carers, who will no longer qualify for carers allowance, their families and their communities could be catastrophic.
We have our Parliament with its limited powers, but the issue is that Westminster just does not seem to listen. The introduction of English votes for English laws diminishes our power massively. It turns our MPs into second-class elected representatives and it smacks very much of a revenge attack. It is, however, just one example of the means by which Westminster will continue to determine our future in Scotland. We must counter that, for the sake of all those silenced voices suffering the cruelty of Conservative policies, despite the fact that that Government has only one MP in Scotland—and he is not in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.
Along with Pat Onions and all the others, I say call a halt to welfare reform and call a halt now.
13:23
I hate the term “welfare” when it is used in the context in which it is being used here today. One dictionary definition of welfare is
“the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity ... of a person, group or organization”.
None of those is a fitting description of what people on benefits are experiencing at present. I prefer the term “social security”, which is defined as
“a government program that provides economic assistance to persons faced with unemployment, disability, or agedness.”
Social security has been at the heart of our welfare state—a series of policies that have, since its creation, helped to civilise our society with the principle of a safety net through which no one would fall.
That safety net is now full of large gaping holes. That is the inevitable and deliberate consequence of an adherence to neoliberal economics and doctrine, whereby progressive taxes on wealth have shrunk as regressive taxes have increased, with the poor now paying 47 per cent of their income in tax while the rich pay only 35 per cent, and where the wages at the bottom have fallen while the wealth of those at the top has soared.
Pensions have been cut, payday loan use has spiralled and food banks have become an almost accepted part of our culture. What a damning indictment that is. All the while, corporate welfare, through bank bailouts, tax cuts, tax allowances, quantitative easing, European Union subsidies, privatisation and tax avoidance, dishes out eye-watering sums of money to the biggest and most profitable corporations.
Who is paying the price for the global banking crash? Is it the investment bankers, the hedge fund managers or the gamblers in the City? Of course not. It is the people who always pay—the people on low pay, the people in insecure jobs and the people who rely on our social security system. It is the same here as it is in Ireland, Spain, Greece, the United States and elsewhere.
Is the Tory party not relishing ripping apart that safety net, claiming that it has to do it to balance the books? It pays Atos, Ingeus, Working Links and other agencies billions through the failing work programme or via the brutal work capability assessments. It implements a sanctions regime that is regularly cruel and often absurd. The Tories have created a horrendous and horrible culture around the benefits system that is humiliating and degrading for claimants and, as we heard yesterday at the Welfare Reform Committee, miserable and demoralising for the staff who work in that system.
Things are going to get worse. Christina McKelvie has referred to the shambles over tax credits, but there is also the roll-out of universal credit. Without doubt, the worst and most ill-judged decision of them all is the payment of housing benefit to tenants rather than to landlords. As a former housing officer, I can think of no worse policy that the Tories could have come up with. It is as if they sat around a table and said, “Let’s come up with a plan to get as many people evicted as possible.” Thankfully, we will be able to do something different in Scotland.
Then there is the move to personal independence payments, which is designed to take millions of pounds’ worth of disability benefits from disabled people. No one would disagree that the social security system needs to be reformed. It is complex, bureaucratic and, at times, indecipherable, but any reform needs to make it simpler, fairer and more humane, and a service that helps people rather than humiliates them.
Any of us could experience periods of unemployment. Any of us could experience mental health issues or a disability. I am sure that none of us would want to go through the system that we see at the moment.
13:28
I, too, thank Christina McKelvie for bringing this important motion to Parliament today.
Given that we live in such a prosperous country, I am concerned that we are being confronted with more cuts to welfare benefits. I welcome this opportunity to highlight the devastating impacts of austerity on our communities, whether it is on families, adults or children. Today, I join Christina McKelvie in rejecting the austerity agenda set out by the Westminster Government. That agenda traps people in in-work poverty, while targeting the most vulnerable members of our society.
New statistics indicate that the welfare reforms will push more than 6 million people across the UK into in-work poverty. On specific entitlements, 105,000 disabled people in Scotland are in danger of losing their benefits, while tax credit reforms are predicted to reduce the incomes of up to 280,000 Scottish families. Overall, austerity measures are predicted to cost Scotland’s economy £1.5 billion annually. A study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has demonstrated that growing inequalities caused by benefit cuts are a severe obstacle to economic growth.
With those numbers in mind, we must acknowledge the multifaceted effects of welfare cuts. Besides deepening social inequality, the UK Government’s austerity plans show little respect and dignity for those affected. Counteracting Westminster’s direction, the Scottish Government is strongly opposed to austerity and has taken its own initiative to reduce the worst effects on individuals. In fact, reducing inequality and creating a fairer society lie at the heart of the Scottish Government’s policies.
The Scottish Government’s efforts include fully mitigating the bedroom tax in Scotland, enabling additional support through the Scottish welfare fund and community care grants, and establishing the Scottish independent living fund to help more than 2,800 disabled people across Scotland. I welcome those endeavours to ease the burden on people who are less fortunate.
Welfare cuts are not just about numbers, statistics and political bargaining; they affect real people, including many unemployed, disabled and young people. Nothing reflects that better than the sharp increase in the use of food banks across Scotland. The Trussell Trust has reported that 117,689 people visited its Scottish food banks in 2014-15. Between 2012-13 and 2013-14, that organisation noted a 398 per cent increase in use. When it launched an inquiry among food bank users, the Trussell Trust found that one of the most common reasons for accessing the service was reduction in users’ welfare entitlements.
Besides talking about those national trends, I want to use this opportunity to mention some examples from my Kirkcaldy constituency. Kirkcaldy Foodbank was launched in 2013. It works as an independent, community-based organisation, and it relies on donations and the help of volunteers. Nonetheless, its commitment to support local residents is invaluable. Over a period of 12 months starting in December 2013, it prepared emergency food packages for 4,685 individuals. This past September, it prepared 240 food parcels that served 3,807 meals.
Growing demand shows how essential those services are. Thus I want to commend all voluntary staff members of Kirkcaldy Foodbank, who invest much of their time and effort into ensuring that both adults and children do not have to go to bed hungry at night.
As we are facing further tax credit cuts, more people are at risk of falling beneath the poverty line. Low-income families with children are the most likely to suffer. In Kirkcaldy, approximately one in five children grows up in poverty. While cognisant of that number, we also have to be alert to the fact that it can rise further. Giving each child the best possible start in life is truly important in creating a fair and equal society, but I am concerned that growing up in poverty will cause many obstacles to that goal.
In addition to the increasing number of families and children affected by austerity, the way that welfare cuts are being implemented is problematic. An example that highlights some of the discriminatory practices that are used against welfare seekers was brought to me by one of my constituents. He was sanctioned for six weeks because he missed one day of his triage course, even though he informed the office that he would not be there due to his father’s funeral.
Before I conclude, allow me to make one more important point. As an economically developed country, we carry a social responsibility to our citizens—a responsibility to treat all individuals with dignity and respect, a responsibility to support those unable to work, and a responsibility to provide families with a basic income that does not make them reliant on food banks.
Austerity impedes us from taking up that responsibility. Therefore I support the motion to halt welfare reform.
13:33
It is traditional in these debates to congratulate members on having been able to bring forward a subject for debate. I would like to do that and to go a stage further by paying tribute to Christina McKelvie for the persistence with which she has brought this issue before this Parliament. It is important that we address it and address it regularly, and her work—particularly in members’ debates—is worthy of note.
However, the issue that we discuss today is one on which Christina McKelvie and I will, I am afraid, probably disagree now and into the future. The necessity for welfare reform was identified some time ago. In fact, the right time to reform welfare is at the peak of the economic cycle rather than at the bottom of it or during a recovery phase, which we are now in.
For that reason it was perfectly right that Frank Field, a minister in the last Labour Government, brought forward his initial proposals for welfare reform in 2007. I would suggest that, if the Labour Party had had the courage of its convictions and had taken that programme forward back then, we might be in a better position today than we are. Nevertheless we are where we are, and we have to deal with it.
There are a couple of points that it is fair to raise during the course of this debate. The first relates to the issue of disability benefits. Criticisms are being made about the transfer from disability living allowance to PIP, and the 20 per cent cut in expenditure that is expected under that budget heading is regularly brought up.
We must remember that, although the change in entitlement to PIP will result in a 20 per cent reduction in the number of those who are entitled to claim, those people will not lose their benefits; they will be entitled to the same benefits as those who are looking for work at the moment and they will receive the same assistance to find work. Also, they should be the 20 per cent who are most able to make that transition. It is appropriate for the Government to attempt to help those people back into the workforce in the way that it plans to do.
The other issue that is important to raise—it has already been raised by Neil Findlay and others—is about the activity this week, particularly in the House of Lords, relating to working tax credits. The policy of reducing working tax credits and replacing them with higher wages in the workplace and other measures of support, including childcare support, is a sound policy and one that we should all aspire to make work.
The problem, which has been pointed out by many within the Conservative Party—most notably by Ruth Davidson, who has taken the opportunity to raise the matter with the chancellor—is that, if we are going to make that transition, we have to make sure that people have the extra money in their pockets before we take the support away.
The proposals appeared to indicate that the support was going to be taken away first and then ultimately the higher wages and the better support measures for childcare and other aspects would kick in. That is simply unacceptable as a process. It is necessary for us to get things in the right order.
Does Mr Johnstone therefore agree that the action of the House of Lords the other evening was absolutely right?
I agree that it was the mechanism that was available to us to take forward the matter in a way that was better for us all. However, it is interesting that the decision by members of the Conservative Party, including Ruth Davidson, to take action to further that objective and the measures that were taken by members of the Labour Party to make changes were ultimately extremely effective in obtaining the outcome that we wanted in the short term. The actions of the Scottish National Party have been an example of how the SNP’s position can be disadvantageous and ineffective; the alternative routes have proved to be rather more effective in this instance.
I hope that we can come to a conclusion—and I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion. It is vital that, as we go forward, we understand that the reform of welfare is necessary; that it is our duty to ensure that we reduce dependency on the state wherever we can; and that we deliver real independence for all those who are able to take it up.
The issue of welfare reform will remain a central debate in this and other Parliaments, but it is one that we cannot afford not to address. We need to make welfare deliver. We need to make welfare less significant as time goes on because we need to get people back into the workforce, back into the workplace and back into a position where they have more control over their own lives. That is what I aspire to under the heading of welfare reform.
13:38
I thank Christina McKelvie for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is an important issue to her, and it is an important issue for most of us in our constituency work.
As most members know, I am the convener of the cross-party group on multiple sclerosis. Recently the MS Society Scotland brought out a report entitled “MS: Enough—make welfare make sense”, because more and more people with MS have been struggling either to access benefits or to retain what benefits they have.
One of the issues with MS in particular is that most people are diagnosed in their 20s and 30s, during the peak of their working lives, so they go from being a professional person who is able to do everything that they want, including working and paying their bills, to someone who has to rely on the state because of their medical condition.
One of the problems with the welfare reform legislation is that it does not take into account the nature of long-term disabilities and conditions. It is as if the UK Government’s aim is just to get people off a spreadsheet because it needs to do something else. That is the problem that we are seeing and the picture that is being painted in our constituencies. It is not good enough for us to go down that route.
The MS Society highlights in its report that 11,000 people in Scotland have MS, which it describes as a “lifelong condition” with “no cure”. The society has asked for welfare to make sense, and it argues that MS must be at the heart of the work of shaping the welfare system, which I believe should be true for any long-term condition.
The whole idea of welfare is that we support people in their time of need. If we are going to do that as a society, we must acknowledge that those who are disabled or have long-term conditions are the very people we want to help.
I believe that the system at present is wrong, which is why I support Christina McKelvie’s motion. The MS Society reports that, of those with MS,
“65% agreed that without disability benefits they would be unable to afford essential items such as food and heating and 85% agreed that, without disability benefits, their independence would be negatively impacted.”
It also found that
“91% found the process of claiming disability benefits stressful.”
The irony of that last point is that, for someone with a condition such as MS, the pressure of going through the system could trigger another attack, which might actually lead them to qualify for PIP one day.
There is also an issue with the way in which the system decides whether or not a person is eligible. In applying for PIP, for example, someone may be asked to walk 20m. If they have MS they could probably do so, but they will then be in their bed for the next 24 hours because of the chronic fatigue that will follow. Those practical points must be taken into consideration, because we are talking about people—the people we serve.
It is difficult enough to live with MS without having to deal with Westminster’s so-called reforms. Morna Simpkins, the director of the MS Society in Scotland, said:
“It is simply not good enough that people in Scotland who have MS are being forced to make difficult choices between heating their homes and attending hospital appointments.”
That is the situation in which the Tories have put many people who are dealing with long-term conditions, and it is not what welfare should be about.
It is not good enough for Alex Johnstone to say:
“we are where we are”.
We are dealing with people’s lives, and the quality of those lives is important. For that reason, I follow Christina McKelvie’s call for Westminster to halt these so-called reforms now.
13:42
I, too, thank Christina McKelvie for bringing to the chamber the issue of welfare reform, which all those who have spoken in the debate agree is an important issue that we should keep revisiting.
Today’s debate has given members an opportunity to reflect on the consequences of the continuing austerity programme that is being forced on the whole of the UK by the UK Government. The programme will mean the removal of £12 billion from welfare expenditure each year by 2019-20, with cuts of approximately £1 billion being made in Scotland.
The draconian cuts that are being undertaken by the UK Government are the reason why the Scottish Government continues to do what it can, with the limited resources that we have, to mitigate the impact of welfare reform and to help those who are affected.
It is clear that we in Scotland have a very different ideological position from that of the UK Government on the importance of social security. I agree with Neil Findlay that we should talk about welfare as social security. We see social security as an inclusive safety net that almost all of us will use at some point in our lives, and I find it difficult to imagine a Government of any persuasion in this Parliament introducing some of the UK measures on social security.
We know that individuals and families in Scotland are bearing the brunt of the reforms, and the Scottish Government’s analysis shows that the impact is being felt by the most vulnerable people in our society. Christina McKelvie and George Adam have highlighted some of the groups of people who are being badly affected by the reforms.
Sanctions hit young people hardest. The group that is most likely to be affected by the benefit cap is lone parents. Disabled people, as we have heard, are particularly affected by the bedroom tax, and many face losing some or all their disability benefits due to reassessment in the move from disability living allowance to PIP.
Alex Johnstone said that the 20 per cent who will lose their benefit can get into work. I suggest that he applies the same theory to that as he applied to working tax credits, which is that we should see whether people can get into work and support them into work before we actually take away their lifeline of benefit. That applies across the board.
The point that I was trying to make was that those who are no longer entitled to disability benefits will of course continue to be entitled to other out-of-work benefits, so they will not lose their support entirely.
That is semantics. People might not lose their support entirely, but they will lose a considerable part of the income that they require to make ends meet at the moment if they lose their PIP, which is additional to any other benefits that they get. I really do not accept Alex Johnstone’s point on that.
As David Torrance made clear, we are talking about people—people who come to our surgeries and who live in our communities. We know that many of those people are turning to advice agencies for help in their time of need. The Scottish Government is doing what it can to help those who are affected, including investing £23 million across the three years to 2016 to provide advice and support services to mitigate the impact of welfare reforms.
The Smith commission gives Scotland opportunities in relation to social security, although only around 14 per cent of social security spending will be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Powers over disability benefits and the carers allowance will provide opportunities to have a more joined-up system, and we have already started to indicate how we plan to use those powers to better support people in Scotland. The First Minister has already announced that if the SNP Government continues, we will increase carers allowance in line with jobseekers allowance.
Neil Findlay talked about universal credit and some of the changes to it. The Smith commission will give us flexibility on the frequency of payments to the claimant and on the payment of the housing costs element directly to social landlords. I certainly agree with Neil Findlay on that point, because tenants tell us that they would like their payments made directly to the landlord.
The Scotland Bill as it stands, however, fails to deliver a coherent set of powers that will allow us to tackle long-standing and entrenched issues.
The minister mentioned that 14 per cent of benefits will be devolved. The state pension makes up almost 50 per cent of benefits. I do not think that the minister is asking for that to be devolved, but could she clarify that?
As Neil Findlay will know, in our white paper on an independent Scotland, we asked for all social security powers for Scotland, including powers over the state pension—obviously, we would have those. However, we have been clear that, unless we get all the levers of the economy and the power to raise all our own finance, we will not ask for the state pension to be devolved. We will do what is best for Scotland in the current environment. We are making progress in some key areas, but we need to ensure that the wider fiscal framework is in place and we will not accept a deal that is not fair for Scotland.
The Smith commission was clear on how it expected employment support to be devolved. It said that all the employment programmes that are currently contracted by the DWP for the unemployed should be devolved. That includes but is not limited to the contracts to deliver the work programme and the work choice programme. Smith also called for a new governance mechanism to be established that integrates the reserved functions of Jobcentre Plus in Scotland. As with the proposals for welfare devolution, we are concerned that the Scotland Bill does not deliver Smith’s proposals on employment support.
The limitations of the Scotland Bill will not deter the Government, and we remain engaged in a discussion about how to create a fairer Scotland. Conversations, meetings and events have been taking place across the country about the type of country that we want Scotland to be. That is not a traditional consultation. The process is designed to encourage and to add to the conversation that is already going on throughout Scotland about how we create that better and fairer place to live and work.
Instead of doing things to communities, the Scottish Government is determined that we will do things in partnership with communities, which I believe is vital. A stocktaking paper has been published that provides an update on what we have learned throughout the process so far, and we plan to introduce a social security bill in the first year of the new session of Parliament.
The true costs of the UK Government’s austerity programme are being felt especially by those who are least able to carry the burden, so it is entirely right that we demand that the UK Government abandon its plans. The Scottish Government welcomes Christina McKelvie’s motion, which has given me the opportunity to reiterate our opposition to the UK Government’s continued austerity programme.
13:50 Meeting suspended.