Chamber and committees

Oh my God! Have we lost everybody?

I will try again. I was hoping that Tony Cain could comment on the progress that has been made with the “Ending Homelessness Together” action plan and the implementation of councils’ rapid rehousing action plans.

Good morning and welcome, to everybody on the panel. Before I get started, I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests and declare that I am still a serving councillor on East Ayrshire Council.

I will explore some issues under theme 1, which is, as the convener said, about tenants’ rights, homelessness and housing quality. I direct my first question to Ellinore Folkesson of Living Rent. Do you agree that tenants’ rights need to be improved, and what would you like to see in the Scottish Government’s forthcoming rented sector strategy? If anybody wants to come in after Ellinore, I ask them to type R in the chat box.

I understand that Ellinore Folkesson from Living Rent is now on the call. Ellinore, what tenants’ rights need to be improved, and what would you like to see in the Scottish Government’s forthcoming rented sector strategy for the protection of tenants?

She is not quite there yet. We will come back to you, Ellinore. Sorry about that.

My next question is take a sort of health check. What progress is being made with the ending homelessness together action plan and the implementation of councils’ rapid rehousing action plans? I direct my question to Tony Cain first.

I am after a health check—that is, your sense—of how we are progressing with the “Ending Homelessness Together” action plan and the implementation of councils’ rapid rehousing action plans. [Interruption.]

I think that we might need to suspend the meeting.

I will hand back to the convener, because my time is up.

We have had a significant number of responses to our call for views. I want to explore a couple of views that have come in in relation to Highland and Argyll and Bute. In her submission to us, Margaret Davidson, who is the leader of Highland Council stated:

“we are strongly of the view that the changes proposed by Boundaries Scotland fails to recognise the specific Highland context, particularly in relation to parity, sparsity, rurality and deprivation and, if implemented, would result in a significant democratic deficit for the Highlands.”

A number of respondents from Islay expressed concerns about their island becoming part of the new, islands-only Islay, Jura and Colonsay ward. For example, Islay community council stated:

“We believe that the recommendation to reduce our Councillors to two and to restrict boundaries to island only would narrow our horizons, risk exclusion from important issues that affect us all and reduce the collective strength of our voice within Argyll & Bute Council.”

Will you respond to those comments, Deputy First Minister?

Having previously relied on working tax credits to help to feed and clothe my child—despite being in work—the thought of suddenly losing £20 per week and any potential passported assistance fills me with fear. That fear will be striking at the heart of thousands of my constituents across Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, and many folk will be lying awake at night trying to figure out where they are going to make cuts to the family budget.

Make no mistake, Presiding Officer—I am talking not about putting a bottle of wine back on the shelf but about being in work and deciding whether a child can get new shoes or trousers, as they have kicked the toes out of their trainers and their jeans are at half mast; deciding whether the heating can be turned on as winter starts to bite; and deciding whether fresh food can be bought or whether it will be, “Let’s see what I can make this week from the tinned food from the food bank.”

I can remember having to save in order to afford £1 for the toddlers group, and it breaks my heart to think of other parents having to make that awful decision—not being able to afford the luxury of a toddlers group that will provide social opportunities for both them and their wee yin. The mental wellbeing impact will be felt severely.

Before I go any further, I put on record that years of savage cuts to social security by successive UK Tory chancellors—some of whom are now changing their minds on the matter—show us that universal credit was never enough, even before the pandemic struck. Removing a much-needed and welcome lifeline as we head into a winter beset with increased fuel and food costs, looming increases to national insurance and the end of the furlough scheme will be absolutely “catastrophic”. Those are the words of the UK Government’s own internal advisers.

If we add to that the bedroom tax, the child cap and the abhorrent rape clause, it almost feels as though to be poor is to be punished. Please remember that 45 per cent of universal credit claimants do not even receive their full entitlement, because they have to pay back a never-ending cycle of debt at source.

As a former Scottish Women’s Aid worker, I want to focus on some key figures. Women are overrepresented in low-paid precarious work with zero-hours contracts. Research by the think tank Autonomy found that some 98 per cent of workers in the UK who take home poverty wages in jobs with high coronavirus exposure are women.

According to Save the Children, more than two thirds of the families that it helped with emergency grants in the past 16 months were one-parent families, 96 per cent of which were led by single mums. Two thirds of those families were in receipt of universal credit.

As we have heard, according to estimates, withdrawing the uplift will move about 60,000 people into poverty, including 20,000 children. It will reduce spending on universal credit and tax credits in Scotland by £460 million by 2023. That is £460 million that will not circulate in our local economies, because—make no mistake—that money goes out as fast as it comes in.

Many of the mums who will face this cut next week will also be worrying themselves sick with the fear of having their children taken from them. That is a real worry that many charities hear from women who fear that their inability to feed and clothe their children will result in social work intervention.

I will finish on the fact that approximately 40 per cent of universal credit recipients are in work. I am sure that I was not the only one who could not believe my ears when, last week, South Scotland Conservative MSP Sharon Dowey implied that the cut to universal credit will be the best way to get people back into work. She repeated that today. Her colleague Alexander Stewart, however, assured us that the Conservatives are doing all that they can to lobby their Westminster counterparts to keep the lifeline. Which is it? Scotland is watching.

The Scottish Government intends to introduce a community wealth building bill during the current session of Parliament to enable more local communities and people to own, have a stake in, access and benefit from the wealth that our economy generates. I want to explore a couple of issues with the panel. What more could the Scottish Government do to encourage councils to deliver a strong return on investment for their local economies—for example, through reforms to procurement?

What input, if any, have you and your organisations had in developing community wealth building approaches? I would like Paul O’Brien to start, because I am very much aware of APSE’s report on new municipalism—it is hard to say that word. Angus Hardie can perhaps then speak about how we ensure that communities can play a full role in that agenda.

I welcome the representatives from Boundaries Scotland.

Boundaries Scotland recommended that North West Sutherland and Wester Ross should have fewer councillors. Why was that recommendation made, given the size of those areas? What impact might that have on the depopulation trends that we have seen over the past few decades? Will those trends be exacerbated by the recommendation? I direct those questions to Ronnie Hinds, as the chair of Boundaries Scotland.