Chamber and committees

Marie McNair is making a passionate speech. She referred to a family who were in work and in receipt of universal credit. Would she agree that we need a new deal for working people, that we need to increase wages to a living wage and that we need to ensure that people’s rights at work are protected so that they can afford things in order to ensure that they have good quality of life? Does she agree with that policy?

The First Minister will note that our amendment recognises that there is, of course, a UK context to what we are debating today. Through policy interventions at a UK level, we must do everything that we can to eradicate child poverty. I remind the First Minister that that is what the previous Labour Government did in this country through our interventions to reform the welfare state, ensure that child benefits were paid and ensure that there was a national minimum wage—I know that he was a member of the Westminster Parliament when that ground-breaking legislation was passed. All those measures from 1997 to 2010 are at the heart of what Labour Governments do, which is why we are so committed to reforming the social contract once again.

Before the First Minister’s intervention, I was making the point that in-work poverty is of huge concern to me and other Labour members. We must do more to support people who find themselves working in a job while feeling insecure, not being well paid, not having their rights at work protected and being reliant on food banks and food parcels, which is something that the First Minister rightly spoke about in his speech.

That is why we have set out quite clearly that we need a new deal for working people. We need to increase wages in order to provide a real living wage, ban the use of exploitative zero-hours contracts and end fire-and-rehire practices, alongside providing from day 1 other rights that are vital to ensuring that people can feel secure when going to work and can bring home a wage that will support them and lift children out of poverty. As I have said, that work will sit alongside action to fundamentally reform the universal credit system in order to make it work far better than it does currently.

It is clear that we need to reflect on all the efforts and interventions that are required to reduce child poverty. I ask the Scottish Government to reflect on what was said in the Poverty and Inequality Commission’s report and to consider its own decision making, which has created a number of challenges, not least in supporting people into work. I have raised in the chamber previously my concerns about reductions to the parental employability support fund, the removal of the parental transition fund and the slowed-down roll-out of the fair work agenda, given that we need to grow the support that is available.

I point to the cross-party work of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, which has looked at a number of important pilots and innovative pieces of work across Scotland on those issues. For example, I highlight the work of Fife Gingerbread—which will be known to the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice—to support employers and to support people back into work. Such organisations are vital, and we must do all that we can to support those sorts of interventions.

I call on the Government to look at what it can do to support more local initiatives at local authority level, because we must ensure that we work across all spheres of government. The First Minister spoke about the relationship between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, but we must also recognise the relationship between the Scottish Government and local government, given the particular challenges that have resulted from cuts to local government funding during the period in which the First Minister has been a member of the Government.

I will begin to draw my remarks to a conclusion. We all want action to reduce child poverty—there is a degree of consensus in the chamber about that. However, the Government must reflect on the fact that, in the 17 years in which it has been in power and has had the levers of power in Scotland, child poverty has sat at the same level—it is 24 per cent, which is the same as in 2007; indeed, on many measures it has gone up.

An incoming UK Labour Government will focus on ensuring that we make the changes that we have to make so that people who are in work do not experience the same levels of poverty, and to fundamentally reform the social contract in this country. That is clearly the action that we would take and would want to take. We will work constructively with any Government and anyone who shares that vision and ideal to ensure that we take significant action to reduce child poverty and take steps towards eradicating it, because that is the right thing to do.

I move, amendment S6M-13566.2, to leave out from first “eradicating” to end and insert:

“child poverty should be a national mission for the Scottish Government, but deeply regrets that after 17 years of a Scottish National Party (SNP) administration, child poverty levels, after housing costs, have remained static, and that the most recent child poverty single-year statistics estimate that the number of children in Scotland living in poverty has now increased in 2022-23 to 260,000; acknowledges that the Poverty and Inequality Commission’s Scrutiny Report, published last week, provided a damning assessment of the SNP administration’s progress on tackling child poverty across a number of areas, noting that progress from the Scottish Government 'is slow or not evident at all'; disagrees with the Scottish Government’s decisions to slash the affordable housing budget, freeze the Scottish Welfare Fund, abandon parental employability schemes and decimate the Fuel Insecurity Fund, all of which act as barriers to prevent more children in Scotland falling into poverty; recognises that SNP inaction has been coupled with 14 years of dire economic mismanagement under the UK Conservative administration, which has led to increased child poverty rates across the UK; condemns the fact that, despite professing to tackle child poverty under successive First Ministers, child poverty is increasing, and the Scottish Government is now set to miss its interim reduction targets and its own legally-binding child poverty targets in 2030; urges the Scottish Government to heed the advice of its own expert advisors and take immediate and decisive action to reduce poverty across Scotland in the face of a decade of SNP inaction and failure, and welcomes the Labour Party’s plan to introduce a New Deal for Working People to deliver a real Living Wage, review Universal Credit and build a fairer social security system, tackle the cost of living crisis with a publicly owned clean energy company that would help to pay to keep bills down, paid for with a proper windfall tax on record oil and gas profits, deliver affordable public transport and housing support, end problem debt, and provide help and support for families and households across Scotland.”

I thank my colleague Neil Bibby for lodging the motion and securing the debate, and for his eloquent opening speech, in which he laid out in detail the challenges that exist and warmly paid tribute to all who have been involved in the campaigns to protect the services.

I say to Rona Mackay—I would have said this earlier, had she accepted my intervention—that, although she made a valiant attempt to defend the Government’s position, it is disappointing that there is no local knowledge of the matter from members on the Government benches. The local SNP members for Paisley, Renfrewshire North and West and Renfrewshire South are not in the chamber this evening to contribute or to hear the debate, and that is very regrettable indeed.

I declare an interest, as I was an employee of Enable Scotland until I was elected to Parliament in 2021. I mention that not only because it is right to do so but because, in preparing for the debate, I have been thinking about many of the experiences that I had when I was working there and supporting people who have learning disabilities and their families. All too often, it is the most vulnerable people in society who have borne the brunt of decisions such as the one that we are debating today.

In the case of the campaign to save Milldale and Mirin day centres, like my colleagues Neil Bibby and Russell Findlay, I had the opportunity to spend time with many of the parents and carers and, indeed, with service users. The meeting that I attended, in Renfrewshire carers centre, was on a Monday morning. I am sure that everyone will know that a Monday morning meeting can often take a while to get going, but that was absolutely not the case in this situation. They are a fiercely passionate, dedicated and inspiring group of people, who are making the case for their children to have choice and control over the lives that they lead.

The group wanted to speak to me about that because, as we have heard reflected already, they felt that although we often talk in council chambers or in Parliament about choice and control and people having the freedom to choose how they live their lives, the reality is often very different and is driven by financial decisions—and by the cuts agenda, which is under way across Renfrewshire. They spoke to me with righteous anger about their feeling that there had been a lack of consultation with people who have learning disabilities and their families during the process. Many of them felt that their views had been disregarded. I think that it was Russell Findlay who said that they felt that lip service had been paid to their views.

What is clear tonight is the tenacity of campaigners across Renfrewshire who have a stake in the services or who either attend them or have a family member who does. It is their tenacity that is making decision makers sit up, think again and take stock. Everybody who has spoken tonight and has signed the motion is standing beside them—not least my colleague Neil Bibby, as can be seen by all the work that he has done in the campaign.

All of that is about a wider issue as well. Too many people with learning disabilities or physical disabilities and their carers say that everything in their life is a battle and has to be fought for, and that nothing is ever straightforward. The motion rightly points to the other experiences of those at Montrose care home and at the Quarriers Renfrewshire head injury service. Many of the people in the gallery would have similar experiences of everything being a battle. We have to acknowledge that.

We must also acknowledge that the decisions that we make and that are made in HSCPs are directly impacting on people’s lives. We know from what we have heard already and from the motion that it is not always in the hands of local decision makers to be free to make the choices that they want to make, because of the cuts that are passed down to them by the Scottish Government and the £14.7 million black hole that has been created by underfunding in Renfrewshire.

We must stand with the families and listen to what they have to say. We must also listen to the people who use the services. I call on the Government, in its response to the debate, to tell us how it will support and stand with those families in Renfrewshire to ensure that those vital services can be protected for the future. [Applause.]

Will the member take an intervention?

Will the member give way?

I find it very disappointing that the minister has chosen to politicise the issue in the context of the general election in the way that she has done. She mentioned the national care service. Will the national care service as proposed bring a single penny of extra money into front-line health and social care? Does she recognise that there is a serious challenge in supporting and recruiting staff to care jobs, and that her constant refusal to commit to £15 an hour for care workers—a rate which is outlined and supported by the trade unions, including the GMB, and by the Labour Party—is having a real detrimental impact that is adding to the current pressures?

Will the member take an intervention?

As we have already heard, there is no issue that we debate in this chamber that is more important than the work to tackle child poverty; all parliamentarians desire to reduce the levels of child poverty.

I heard what the First Minister said about the desire for consensus in the middle of an election campaign. There will be many debates on the approach that we take to child poverty, but it is important that we start this afternoon with a degree of consensus and that we look to see where we can find common ground.

Back in 2017, every member of this Parliament committed to binding targets to reduce child poverty by 2030. Watching those debates back, I think that that was Parliament at its best: we decided that we should set a target and aspire to do all that we can to meet it. Of course, many actions have been taken that the Scottish Labour Party has supported. The Scottish child payment is an example of that.

Currently, the Social Justice and Social Security Committee is really getting into the detail of the impact of the Scottish child payment across Scotland and the difference that it is making. In that evidence, we have had a lot of qualitative data on the impact that it is making and have heard about many positive experiences, but we need further quantitative data on the scale of the impact.

I recognise that the Government is doing modelling, but it often says that the child payment lifts children out of poverty, whereas I think that the data shows that it keeps children out of poverty. It is clear that we need to have that additional data, and I hope that the cabinet secretary will reflect on that in her summing up.

It is important that we reflect on how we measure the Government’s progress towards the 2030 targets. Last week, the Poverty and Inequality Commission published its annual scrutiny report on the progress that the Government is making. We should be concerned by what is in that report, and I will share with members some of that. It said:

“In view of recent statistics and the scale and effects of actions taken over the last year, the Commission’s opinion is that it is unlikely that the interim targets will be met. Furthermore, without immediate and significant action, the Scottish Government will not meet the 2030 targets.”

It also said:

“Limited progress has been made ... Progress in other areas is slow or not evident at all ... The Scottish Government’s next progress report cannot just point to actions already taken nor propose more small-scale tests of change”,

and that

“such a fall, while not impossible, appears improbable.”

It is clear that the Poverty and Inequality Commission exists to mark the Government’s homework and to provide that level of scrutiny. Those calls on the Government to act further are clearly concerning.

Will the member take an intervention?

I hear what the cabinet secretary says about the framework document and more detail. The charter is a foundational document, and we would not want to see a sense that improving those times is not foundational to Social Security Scotland, but I caution that we have to be aware that it could be read like that. It would therefore be useful if the cabinet secretary said what detail will go into the charter measurement framework about waiting times, call times and those sorts of issues.