Chamber and committees

Good morning. What are your views on the levy being an accommodation levy and not a visitor levy, because many visitors—day trippers, wild campers, some motorhome drivers and cruise-ship passengers—will not have to pay anything? David Weston touched on that. Would you like to expand on your previous comments?

A key mission of the Verity house agreement is to tackle poverty and relieve the effects of rising costs on household finances. Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the council tax freeze will be implemented in a way that honours that Verity house mission and assists Scottish local government in combating the United Kingdom cost of living crisis?

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.

As you said, the Scottish Government has expanded eligibility for some benefits such as adult disability payment and Scottish carers assistance without the requisite funding from the UK Government. Does funding that additional expenditure put continued pressure on the Scottish Government? You have touched on the subject—can you expand on that a wee bit?

Good morning, panel. I will direct my questions to Bill Scott.

What are your views on how the social security budget is funded? There is obviously an increased take-up of the benefits that have transferred over to the Scottish Government. How welcome is that? Do you feel that there will be pressure on the Scottish Government in the future?

Good morning, Mr Neil. It is great to see you—thank you for your time. You will accept that a number of factors have impacted on the project over the past few years, and, obviously, there are the current economic challenges. There are challenges for infrastructure projects across various countries, given inflation and so on. The Scottish Government has no ability to borrow to raise capital. If you were still in the Government, how would you seek to proceed in these circumstances? I would appreciate your wisdom.

No. In the interests of time, I will pass back to you.

What discussions has Labour had with Rape Crisis Scotland about how we can make the rape clause fairer?

I rise to speak in support of the Scottish Government’s motion, which is in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville. The two-child policy, with its abhorrent rape clause, is one of the most disgusting welfare policies to emerge from Westminster. It is designed to set families up to fail and to deny children the most basic levels of subsistence and support to help them to thrive.

The perverse rationing of subsistence for children has no part in a decent society, yet the two main political parties that want to govern at Westminster are planning to keep that approach as part of their welfare state. The policy not only lacks compassion, but fails miserably at achieving the aims that the UK Government set out. It was asserted that its implementation would provide incentives for people to find more work and would influence decisions about having children. However, a three-year research project that was funded by the Nuffield Foundation looked at the two-child limit and the benefit cap and it found no evidence that either policy has met its behavioural aims. It found that, in some cases, they have had the opposite effect.

In fact, the research has gathered swathes of evidence demonstrating that the benefit cap and the two-child limit are causing extreme hardship to affected families. It is a cruel policy that has been widely condemned by anti-poverty campaigners. John Dickie of the Child Poverty Action Group describes it as a

“cruel tax on siblings”.

He is clear on its punishing impacts, saying:

“we wouldn’t deny a third child NHS care or an education—how is it right to deny children much-needed support because of the brothers or sisters they have?”

The two-child limit is one of the most brutal policies of our times. All that it does is to push more than 1 million children into poverty or deeper poverty. It is time for all Westminster party leaders to commit to removing the two-child limit before more children are harmed. The End Child Poverty coalition has described the two-child policy as one of the biggest drivers of child poverty. If that is not enough for people to want to scrap it, what about the rape clause, which is one of the most dreadful pieces of social policy ever imagined? Labour used to call it “immoral and outrageous”. Astonishingly, it now talks about making it fairer.

Engender has said that forced disclosure of sexual violence to gain access to social security

“will re-traumatise individual women who have survived rape by forcing them to disclose sexual violence at a time and in a context not of their own choosing, on pain of deeper impoverishment”

and that

“Forced disclosure of sexual violence can exacerbate post-traumatic stress disorder and increase a sense of shame and isolation.”

However, instead of having a commitment to scrap the policy at Westminster, we are told that it is here to stay regardless of which party forms the next UK Government.

If the two-child policy was not bad enough, there are families in the UK that are hit by the double whammy of that policy and the benefit cap.

In Scotland, fortunately, we are doing everything that we can to mitigate the benefit cap and other cruel UK policies. We are making available nearly £84 million in discretionary housing payments, with £69.7 million to mitigate the bedroom tax, £6.2 million for the benefit cap and another £7.9 million to mitigate other UK welfare cuts. We have also increased the Scottish child payment to £25 a week and expanded eligibility, with investment of £405 million, helping more than 300,000 children across the country. It is not that long ago that other political parties were asking to set just a fiver.

We are seeing a race to the bottom between the Tories and Labour on UK welfare policy. Their tough rhetoric increases stigma, and their social policy agenda gives little hope to the families in greatest need.

The proof will be in the pudding.

The Institute for Public Policy Research points out that UK policy sees social security in narrow terms and uses

“harmful rhetoric and ill-informed stereotypes.”

It also says that

“conditions have enabled the UK to maintain one of the least generous rates of income replacement across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.”

The two-child policy contrasts heavily with the dignity, fairness and respect approach that is driving us forward in Scotland. To name just a few important differences in approach, I note that there is no two-child policy for the Scottish child payment; there is no abhorrent rape clause; there are no private sector medical assessments, which cause much pain and humiliation; and there is no sanctions regime, which has caused the cruel deaths of many.

It is clear that there is no desire from any of the political parties that aspire to govern at Westminster to bring about change that will provide a safety net for when life chances require it, or to show compassion and a belief that no child should be left in poverty. It is clear that change will come only when Scotland is independent.