Chamber and committees

I rise to support the Scottish Government motion. It is extremely important that we take a moment to reflect on the fact that, in the four short years since the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 was passed—including in the face of a pandemic, when priorities rightly shifted—our Government has taken on the major feat of disentangling a complex benefits system. We must remember that this is a system so complex that, only a fortnight ago, the UK chancellor advised us that “computer says no” to uprating benefits more than once a year, because the antiquated system was simply an insurmountable obstacle to doing it in any other way; and that, although today he has been dragged kicking and screaming to agree an inflationary uplift to benefits, that will not happen until—surprise, surprise—next year.

Not only have we disentangled a complex and onerous system that had bits of paper warehoused all across the UK; we now find that our new Social Security Scotland agency is delivering 12 benefits, of which seven are entirely new and available only in Scotland—a feat that Audit Scotland has rightly described as

“a significant achievement ... in challenging circumstances”.

Those new Scotland-only payments, including the game-changing Scottish child payment, are payments that third sector partners across the rest of the UK are desperate to see replicated in their own countries. Sadly, the political will at the UK level is more interested in capping benefits than in investing in its people, while our Government chooses to mitigate the hated benefit cap that plunges predominantly women and children into abject poverty in ideological, austerity-created welfare warfare, which also involved women being told that a third child would be supported only if conceived as a result of rape.

UK-wide, that system plunged 400,000 children into poverty overnight, by removing the £20 universal credit uplift. That is shameful. I wonder whether any member on the Tory benches has made representation to their UK Government colleagues to reverse those callous welfare cuts. Analyses show that doing so would lift an estimated 70,000 people in Scotland, including 30,000 children, out of poverty by 2024.

Contrast that with our approach in this place, which decided that our agency was to be built with fairness, dignity and respect at its heart, and core principles that include seeing social security as an investment in the people of Scotland and as a human right that is essential to the realisation of other human rights and will contribute to the reduction of poverty across our country.

Right back at the beginning of that first new public service to be created since devolution, I remember, as part of my work as the community wellbeing spokesperson of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, being moved to tears as I heard from those who were involved with the experience panels about how much trauma was invoked by a brown envelope through the door. As someone who was previously in receipt of the said brown envelopes and who also supported many folk to navigate the often complex and cruel world in which brown envelopes become the stuff of nightmares, I was relieved to see such a level of engagement with lived experience shaping the way in which our new agency operates.

Does Carol Mochan appreciate the fact that we know that about 77 per cent of eligible children—or maybe even more than that now—are in receipt of the Scottish child payment? Has Labour undertaken analysis of the fact that, if we further increase the Scottish child payment, at some point in time that will have a knock-on effect on eligibility for universal credit from the DWP? That is a worrying factor for families throughout the country.

The member will recognise that my constituency and Ayrshire have definitely not been afforded a just transition over the years. Does the member welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has committed £3 million to community wealth building as part of the Ayrshire growth deal? That will build on the work that has already been done. Over the past decade, East Ayrshire Council has put all its money into ensuring that local producers are supported when procuring school meals.

The minister mentioned Audit Scotland’s report, which I also welcome. It highlights the Scottish Government’s significant achievement in the scale and pace of delivering those benefits. Will the minister provide more detail on what the Audit Scotland report says about the experiences of people who engage with the new Social Security Scotland system?

What can the Scottish Government do to ensure that local democracy is upheld and supported in the light of the absurd constitutional position that Scotland finds itself in within the devolved settlement, which sees our will thwarted, specifically on the basis that the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill sought to strengthen local government by incorporating the European charter into Scots law, that the bill was passed unanimously in the Parliament and that it was supported by the Scottish Government and local government through COSLA’s community wellbeing board, as well as leaders’ decisions in the previous council term?

Thank you very much for that, Kirsty McKechnie. I have seen cases in which tax credit debt, which is sometimes from years ago, is in the thousands of pounds. A family can never get out of that debt, particularly when they cannot find the historical information to try to defend their position or change the outcome.

Betty Stone would like to respond, and then we will hear briefly from Kirsty McKechnie.

I will take two final questions before we stop for a wee pause, from Paul McLennan and then Foysol Choudhury.

That would be helpful.

We will move on to our fourth theme, which is about the role that the social security system plays in relation to debt. I will bring in my colleague Emma Roddick, who is online.

Pam Duncan-Glancy has a supplementary question.