Chamber and committees

That concludes our consideration of this agenda item. I thank the Deputy First Minister for attending despite being ill. We wish him a speedy recovery. I also thank all the supporting officials for attending.

The committee’s next meeting will be on 21 April, when we will consider our stage 1 report on the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill in private.

That concludes the public part of our meeting.

The committee received a submission from Dr Andrew Tickell and Professor Alison Britton, both from Glasgow Caledonian University, who concluded:

“the main provisions of Part 1 of this Bill are generally in keeping with the law already applying in England and Wales”.

However, there was one concern regarding the power to modify or amend the enactment, which I think is known as a Henry VIII power. How do the public health powers in the bill compare with the equivalent powers in England and Wales? Why was it thought necessary to include the Henry VIII provision?

I congratulate Kaukab Stewart on securing the debate and welcome the opportunity to speak in it.

As we have heard, a recent paper by University of Glasgow researchers notes that the cruel and heartless benefit sanctions imposed by the UK Government have a significant impact internationally on the labour market and have negative widespread social effects. What is more, they do the exact opposite of what they are intended to do, in that they result in unemployment and economic inactivity as people are forced into low-quality jobs that they are not matched to.

I want to highlight the work of Dr David Webster of the University of Glasgow, whose research on the labour market contributes to the work of the Child Poverty Action Group. His most recent publication in February states that

“the rapid rise in UC sanctions which was noted in ... November 2021 ... has continued.”

Last month, in the unelected House of Lords, the junior DWP minister Baroness Stedman-Scott was adamant when she said:

“we are not having tougher sanctions.” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 February 2022; Vol 818, c 1011.]

However, that is simply not true. In November, there were nearly 50,000 claimants serving a universal credit sanction, well above the pre-pandemic peak of 36,780—and, yes, I did say “pre-pandemic peak”.

As we look forward from Covid and aim to build a fairer society for everyone, the Conservative Government is increasing cruel and ineffective sanctions—and we should be in no doubt that they do not work. The UK Government has announced the new way to work initiative, which has the noble ambition of getting half a million people into work by June. How is it going to do that? It will use the threat of sanctions to force claimants to look for work more quickly outside their chosen sectors and to widen their search into fields where they have no experience after just four weeks. According to Dr Webster,

“It is bound to increase the number of sanctions”

handed out by the DWP and will result in

“worse matches between people and jobs, damaging earnings, morale and productivity”.

That is exactly what we do not need right now. We often talk about evidence-based approaches to policy—well, there is the evidence.

Of course, the UK Government is not interested in the evidence. In his research, Dr Webster found that

“Under Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey, the DWP appears to have adopted a comprehensive policy of blocking information on the effects of benefit sanctions.”

That raises the question: what do they have to hide? Dr Webster is not the only one to think that. The chair of the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, Stephen Timms MP, has said:

“This emerging pattern of obstruction suggests that a culture of secrecy is entrenched in DWP.”

The UK Government’s ignorance results in people having to make choices between heating their homes and feeding their children. That, unfortunately, is Great Britain in 2022. It is the real experience of people who are being hit hard by the cost of living crisis, which the Conservatives have no intention of doing anything meaningful about.

That ignorance is forcing people into the arms of food banks in my constituency. The volunteers at food banks do a fantastic job, but they should not be needed in 21st century Britain—although, of course, Jacob Rees-Mogg thinks that food banks are “rather uplifting”. Kind, compassionate and caring conservatism that is not.

Although I am glad that we are getting a chance to debate the matter, members should be under no illusion: Boris Johnson does not care what we have to say. He does not even care what his own MSPs have to say. What is the way out of this mess for the people of Scotland? I know what it is. It is most certainly not Boris’s benefit-sanction Britain. It is that Scotland becomes an independent country with full powers showing more compassion to people who need it.

I have been contacted by many constituents who are looking to host refugees fleeing Ukraine. How is the Scottish Government co-ordinating with local authorities to ensure that refugees and hosts are given proper support?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Time is of the essence, as energy prices are going up tomorrow, and people are trying to submit their meter readings to their companies. However, all the energy companies’ websites have crashed today and are currently down. Can the Scottish Government intervene to ask them to extend the process for a few days?

We have a technical issue.

Thank you for those answers.

I want to bring in the other witnesses with my next question, which is on the connecting Scotland programme, the joint digital strategy between the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that seeks to ensure that nobody is left behind and that people have access to the internet.

Let me give you an example. Several months ago, a constituent got in touch with me about digital exclusion. Unfortunately, she suffered a stroke seven years ago and is now registered blind. She likes to be self-reliant and pays privately for care, but she was becoming increasingly frustrated by being told to do everything online. When she wanted to do some shopping, when she tried to phone the council or when she wanted to book something, she was told to do it online instead, but, when she got in touch with me, she had no access to a computer or the internet. We have since been able to get her a talking laptop.

How do we ensure that people such as my constituent, who might not be on the radar of the council or social services, are not excluded and left behind? What can local authorities and other public bodies do to counter digital exclusion in the move to digital delivery? Are the affected bodies organised in the best way to achieve that, and do they have the necessary capacity and skills?

I know that that is a lot of questions in one. I will bring in Mairi Millar first.

We have lost you. We have a bit of a technical issue.

I think that Renfrewshire has been very proactive on this, and perhaps other local authorities can learn lessons from it.

As members have no more questions, I thank the witnesses for their evidence and their time this morning. If you want to provide the committee with any further evidence, you can do so in writing. The clerks will be happy to liaise with you on that.

At the committee’s next meeting, on 31 March, we will conclude our evidence taking on the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1 with the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery. We will also consider the outcome of the next ministerial statement on Covid-19.

That concludes the public part of this morning’s meeting. We now move in private for the next agenda item.