Chamber and committees

Increasing eligibility for best start food payments will mean that around another 20,000 people will access that benefit when the income thresholds are removed, in February. However, as always, the programme for government has to deal with the consequences of damaging Westminster decisions.

Since 2017, the Tories’ cruel two-child benefit cap has cost families in Scotland £340 million, and the Scottish Government’s mitigation of cruel and incompetent UK Government policies has made a real difference. Indeed, an estimated 90,000 children have been lifted out of poverty as a result. The two-child policy and its rape clause deny children the basics and humiliate and traumatise women. It is no wonder that the Scottish Association of Social Work describes it as inhumane. Recently, we witnessed the sad spectacle of one of the lapsed Corbynistas trying to airbrush it out of debate, but we will not allow that, especially not when debating child poverty.

The rape clause is abhorrent—it is disgusting, it is cruel and it is Labour policy. That is an extremely sad state of affairs and evidence that nothing much will change in the area of welfare policy if Labour replaces the Tories. After all, Labour has U-turned on many previous pledges to reverse Tory policies. Previously, we had new Labour, but Labour is now behaving like new Tories. It is now planning to keep universal credit, abandoning its previous pledge to scrap it, but it does not seem keen on the First Minister’s call for Westminster to use its reserved powers and introduce an essentials guarantee to the value of universal credit, a move supported by the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Universal credit is flawed and its design is keeping many families in poverty. Aberlour Child Care Trust has highlighted work by Professor Morag Treanor of Heriot-Watt University, which sets out the scale of the DWP direct benefit deductions from low-income households. The DWP makes at least one deduction to the monthly allowance of more than half of those in receipt of universal credit to cover their debts to public bodies, and it makes multiple deductions to more than a quarter of those people. Overall monthly income is reduced on average by £80 to cover those debts. I back Aberlour’s calls for a moratorium on those deductions, to help give struggling households a chance. I hope that its call can get support across this Parliament.

The Resolution Foundation has said that this Westminster

“parliamentary term is on track to be by far the worst for living standards since the 1950s.”

It cannot go on. A more just and compassionate path must be taken. Given the abject failure to achieve that by all political parties that aspire to govern at Westminster, it is clear that only with the full powers of an independent Scotland will that path come to fruition.

I congratulate Bob Doris on securing this important members’ business debate.

Child poverty is holding back too many in Scotland, so we must do everything that we can, within our powers and resources, to reverse that position. I welcome measures that were set out in the programme for government and its focus on tackling poverty. Some £405 million will be invested in the Scottish child payment this year, helping more than 300,000 children across the country. We know that that is a lifeline for many families, especially during the Westminster-imposed cost of living crisis. It is now paid at £25 a week for eligible children, and we need to seriously consider how it can be increased in future budgets. The expansion of universal free school meal provision for all pupils in primaries 6 and 7 will also help many families with the cost of the school day.

I have quite a lot to cover. Will I get the time back, Presiding Officer?

Obviously, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport offers a concessionary rail travel scheme.

Do you want to come in, Paul?

It is estimated that a third of the population is entitled to free bus travel, which is provided to older and young people and to disabled people. Do you think those are the right groups to focus on? I put that question to Paul White first.

Mick, do you have any comments?

To ask the Scottish Government when it anticipates it will receive the Scottish Law Commission’s findings and recommendations arising from its consultation on damages for personal injury. (S6O-02482)

The Scottish Law Commission’s recommendations will cover the issue of the time bar on some routes to compensation for people who seek damages for exposure to asbestos. Will the minister make representations to the SLC to request that its report be published as soon as possible? Will she commit to taking early action on the report’s recommendations? Finally, will the minister meet me and representatives of the Clydebank Asbestos Group to hear their testimony about how the current injustice is impacting on the group’s members?

Councillors would very much welcome that. As I mentioned, I was a councillor previously, so I get it.

We heard that some councils are unhappy with the current funding formula. Will the fiscal framework and related work address those concerns?

As has been mentioned, one of the new deal’s stated priorities is tackling poverty. Some people feel that the current funding formula does not recognise or give enough weight to poverty and deprivation levels. Will you consider that issue?

I direct members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I was a councillor in West Dunbartonshire until 2022.