Chamber and committees

I welcome the opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents in the debate. This is an important debate at a time when many people are struggling to cope with the effects of the cost of living emergency.

The Westminster Government’s crashing of the economy has made what is already a difficult and challenging time for many people much worse, with inflation out of control, mortgages spiralling and the cost of fuel making people choose between heating and eating. I am worried about the emerging situation of people having to borrow to pay for essentials. That is not borrowing to invest in the value of their properties or, for example, to buy a car to allow them to take up employment; it is borrowing to enable them to eat, heat, clothe themselves and pay rent.

Inside Housing recently reported that more than half of social housing residents have used credit to cover essential household costs. That is a vicious circle for many, and it is simply unsustainable. The Scottish Government is doing much within its powers and budgets. The Scottish child payment is set at five times the amount that other political parties called for. The council tax reduction scheme is more generous than its equivalents in other parts of the UK. The mitigation of the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, the rent freeze, the moratorium on evictions, the £20 million fuel insecurity fund and millions more in discretionary housing payments help families to sustain their tenancies. At the heart of that approach is a new social security system that is founded on dignity, fairness and respect.

Contrast that with the Westminster system—from Governments of all political colours—that enshrined and promoted stigma, including the private sector medical assessments that caused so much misery and pain, and the sanctions regime that is used to horribly deny already inadequate subsistence levels. On the issue of debt, it is a system that has been devised to ensure that claimants need to get into debt to avoid going without. The five-week wait for universal credit does just that: it forces people to take an advance and then pay it back, meaning that they have less money in future months. CPAG’s evidence to the committee on the real impact of that approach is heartbreaking and fully captures a Westminster benefits system that is, frankly, setting people up to fail. It cited the case of a young homeless woman. The DWP is deducting £63.30 per month from her benefit to recover an advance payment. There are two other deductions, of £8.95 and £8.96, which leaves her with just £56.02 per week to live on, which is senseless.

I am therefore not surprised to read a report from the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Population Health that concludes that 20,000 excess deaths in Scotland are likely to have been caused by Westminster-imposed austerity. Yet we are still pleading with Westminster to uprate benefits in line with inflation. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has pointed out that food prices have risen faster than at any point over the past three decades. It also asserts that only ever uprating benefits by the level of earnings will leave this UK Government responsible for the biggest permanent real-terms cut to the basic rate of benefit in a single year. At the very least, Westminster should uprate benefits by inflation and get support to people who are in the greatest need.

The burden of debt will hit people very soon, with the onset of the Christmas period, which I know that many of my constituents are approaching with dread. There is a great demand on family budgets at this time. I welcome the Scottish Government’s doubling of the bridging payment, which will give some assistance.

However, it is appalling that the Westminster Christmas bonus is still set at £10. The Tories introduced such payments in 1972. Is it not astonishing that they are still set at £10 today? The Tories failed to uprate it in Government, and the Liberals and Labour did not rush to remedy the situation either. It is estimated that the Christmas bonus would be worth well in excess of £100 had it kept pace with inflation. During the cost of living emergency I call on the Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats to join with me in demanding that the bonus be uprated by the rate of inflation and recalculated to the value that would be necessary to compensate people for the failures of the past 50 years.

I will conclude with my usual mention of and tribute to the many food banks, support groups, advice agencies, housing associations and council services in my constituency. I am on their side, and I thank them for everything that they do.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its commitment to universal free prescriptions on the national health service. (S6O-01427)

The minister agrees with me that free prescriptions are a significant investment in improving health, especially when prescriptions cost £9.35 in England, during a cost of living crisis. People should not be deterred from accessing the vital treatment and medicine that they need. Does the minister share my astonishment that the leader of the Scottish Labour Party refused to back the suggestion that the abolition of prescription charges should be Labour Party policy when he was invited to do so by the First Minister in Parliament last week?

Good morning, witnesses. It is great to see you all. I will cover the eviction moratorium. I pose my first question to our witnesses from Living Rent and Crisis. To what extent is the proposed eviction moratorium needed to protect tenants from the current cost crisis?

I want to go back to John Kerr. You said that you support the eviction moratorium. Are there circumstances in which an eviction should be allowed? If there are, what are they?

Thanks. I asked what the impact would be on landlords of an eviction moratorium. Do you want to add more to that?

Good morning. Most of my questions have been covered, so I will further explore the conversations that you have had with the social housing sector since the announcement of emergency legislation. Do you have anything to add?

I direct my final question to John Blackwood. What is the likely impact of an eviction moratorium on landlords? Do you have evidence on eviction moratoriums from anywhere that would be of interest to the committee?

I take on board Mr Balfour’s point, and we will consider everything. However, maybe the member should look at carers allowance, which his Government could have upgraded but did not. We will take no lessons from the Tory party.

The cost of living crisis is caused not just by increasing costs but by decades of intentional reductions in social security support. Surely it is obvious to all that that needs to change.

The UK Government explained its U-turn by saying that the policy was a distraction, but it was not a distraction—it was a disgrace. That budget plan chooses to reinstate bankers’ bonuses but not the £20 uplift to universal credit, and it continues the austerity and welfare cuts that are leaving so many behind. There is no commitment to increase the benefits by inflation; I hope that what the member said earlier will happen, but we will see. There is no commitment to scrap the five-week waiting time for universal credit, to abolish the two-child policy—with its abhorrent, disgusting rape clause—or to U-turn on plans to increase benefit sanctions instead of filling bankers’ pockets. It is a missed opportunity to provide the help that people need to get through this crisis, and that will not be forgotten.

In Scotland, our focus is different. Although 85 per cent of the social security budget remains under Westminster control, we are working to maximise our interventions. We are building a system led by dignity, fairness and respect—no unjust sanction regime and no pointless private sector assessments.

The Scottish child payment is being increased to £25 per week, and eligibility is being extended to under-16s. Taken together, the Scottish Government’s five family payments are worth more than £10,000 by the time the first child reaches six and about £9,700 for subsequent children. There is no restrictive two-child policy here.

We continue to mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax and, now, the benefit cap, when we could be investing those resources elsewhere in our social security budget. We have introduced the Scottish carers allowance supplement, righting a wrong that was continued by Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat Governments at Westminster. And we move at pace to roll out all disability benefits and further support to carers.

Those interventions, along with the rent freeze, the evictions moratorium and other support such as the Scottish welfare fund, are essential from a Government that gets the priorities right, and we should continue to look at what else can be done with our budgets and powers. But it is absolutely obvious that this Parliament needs the full powers of independence to cut out the cause of this crisis at its core—an arrogant Westminster Government with no compassion and no understanding of its impact on our constituents.

I thank my colleague Elena Whitham for securing the debate. It is much needed and I congratulate the Poverty Alliance and all anti-poverty campaigners across the country for promoting the event. I also take the opportunity to thank the many support groups, food banks and advice agencies in my constituency. I praise them all, including the Dalmuir community food pantry, the Recycle Room, Old Kilpatrick Food Parcels, Faifley food share, East Dunbartonshire Foodbank, West Dunbartonshire Community Foodshare, Clydebank Asbestos Group, the Big Disability Group, the East and West Dunbartonshire citizens advice bureaux and both councils’ advice staff. As a constituency MSP, I see what those organisations do to provide much-needed help and support and I am firmly on their side.

The debate is timely, given the scale of the challenge that faces many of our constituents. Just yesterday, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in Scotland published its report “Poverty in Scotland 2022”. The report states that

“Nearly one in five households on low incomes in Scotland have gone hungry and cold this year, even before we enter the winter months”.

The report says this about the UK Government:

“their wilful abandonment of low-income households in last month’s budget is outrageous. Meaning without further intervention by them the situation described in this report will be worsened from an already terrible position by the oncoming winter.”

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation correctly asserts:

“This cost of living crisis is not just caused by increasing costs. The incomes of low-income households have been intentionally reduced by a decade of reductions in social security support”.

Surely it is obvious to all that that needs to change. But also, yesterday, we instead got a speech from the chancellor that shows he has no shame. His speech made little reference to the screeching U-turn, and there was no hint of apology.