Chamber and committees

Mr Hepburn suggests that powers should be either in the hands of the Conservative Government or here. I disagree—I think that, within the devolved settlement, it is right that we control the elements of social security that we are making progress on. It is clear to me that the Tories will not be around forever, because change is coming with a Labour Government that will fundamentally reform social security in this country, invest in the economic growth that we need to fund public services and make the changes that we need.

In a moment.

Forty per cent of claimants who are in receipt of universal credit are in work, so we know that we need to make fundamental changes to work in this country in order to support people. That is what a Labour Government offers. We offer a real living wage, an end to fire and rehire, an end to zero-hours contracts and investment in workers’ rights from day 1. That will be a substantial change to the prospects of many people in this country, and it will put money in their pockets and lift them out of poverty, just as we did when we were last in government. [Interruption.] Mr Hepburn from a sedentary position says that that is the past, as though it were a small moment, but a million children were lifted out of poverty, which has fundamentally changed the lives of people in this country, and that is what is important.

Mr Hepburn knows my position on the two-child cap. It is a heinous policy that needs to be changed. [Interruption.]

It is interesting that Ms Haughey has brought up the matter of pensions. We do not have any detail from the Scottish Government on pensions in an independent Scotland. She wants to have a debate about pensions right now, but the SNP does not have a paper on pensions, it does not know how it is going to pay for them, and it does not know about the currency. What a Labour Government will quite clearly do is fundamentally reform the social contract—as we did when we were last in government, to take a million pensioners out of poverty—to make things fairer and better. That is what Labour Governments do.

I am conscious that I have been generous with interventions and that time is getting on, so I will draw my contribution to a close.

The change that Scotland needs is not another self-indulgent fantasy paper to make SNP ministers and back benchers feel good—I am sure that it feels great to be in the Parliament, talking about that. The reality is that people need help right now. We have been clear throughout that a UK Labour Government will provide change in the form of the fundamental reform of the social contract that is required.

More than that, it is about supporting people into work as a route out of poverty; ensuring that people have good, high-quality jobs, a living wage and trade union rights; and ending zero-hours contracts and insecure work. That is the change that a Labour Government offers. We did not see anything in the paper about routes into work and about jobs, and we did not hear anything about them in the cabinet secretary’s contribution. All that we heard was more of the same.

The reality is that we need to see change, and we can have change faster with a Labour Government. That is what we need, not more debates about a fantasy independence prospectus that may never come to pass.

I move amendment S6M-12203.2, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:

“acknowledges that the people of Scotland would be best served by a social security system that embeds dignity, fairness and respect and provides a safety net for all in a strong and growing economy; notes Scotland’s devolved social security benefits; acknowledges that delays in processing adult and child disability assessments have left disabled people stuck in limbo and out of pocket during the worst cost of living crisis in decades; notes that the Scottish Government’s decision to cut affordable housing budgets by 27 per cent in the face of a housing emergency has been labelled as baffling by organisations like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; acknowledges that cutting vital funding for affordable housing and employability schemes harms the eradication of the causes of poverty; notes that between 2017 and 2021, 12 per cent of people have remained in persistent poverty after housing costs, and recognises that the paper, Building a New Scotland: Social security in an independent Scotland, is the latest in a series of theoretical future plans by the Scottish Government, which has already been too distracted to focus on the here and now and make the devolution of social security work for the people of Scotland.”

Will Collette Stevenson take an intervention?

I ask Mr Mason to reflect on my speech, in which I spoke about the need for fundamental reform of universal credit. Surely he agrees that the 40 per cent of people on universal credit who are in work deserve a real living wage and an end to precarious in-work poverty. Surely he agrees that the Labour Party’s policies on that are worth supporting.

The cabinet secretary referred to the collective failure of past Tory and Labour Governments. She has heard me talk in the chamber about the callous approach that has been taken by the Conservatives, but will she acknowledge that, in the time of the previous Labour Government, 1 million children were lifted out of poverty because of the action that was taken by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in reforming the social contract?

I am very clear that a fundamental reform of universal credit means reform of all parts of the system. That includes the heinous and challenging policies that we see across the piece. However, on the point about economic growth, we need to ensure that we have the money to reform our public services fundamentally and that they work better for everyone.

Clare Haughey rose—

In the debate, when I explained in quite clear terms how a million children were lifted out of poverty by the previous Labour Government, the minister dismissed that as though it was not actually that important. He called it history, and he did not seem to care about the difference that Labour Governments make. A Labour Government will deliver a fundamental reform of universal credit in order to ensure that children are lifted out of poverty, because that is what Labour Governments do when they are in power.

This is at least the third debate that we have had on social security in the past 12 months. As always, I will begin with a note of consensus. As in previous debates, the Scottish Labour Party recognises the impact that social security has in supporting people across Scotland, particularly the Scottish child payment, which we have supported since its introduction, and the binding poverty targets that were agreed by the Parliament.

We would also reflect that our aspiration for social security in Scotland should be one that is based on dignity, fairness and respect. Indeed, the changes that the previous UK Labour Government made to the social contract, including to social security across the UK, led to 1 million children and 1 million pensioners being lifted out of poverty. The principles of dignity, fairness and respect were very much at the heart of that.

However, we must recognise that, in lodging a motion that does not recognise the significant challenges in Social Security Scotland, presents no detail on what might be done to fix the issues and, in many ways, ignores the lived experience of thousands of Scots facing the blunt end of poverty, this Government seems to be more interested in self-praise and political posturing than it is in debating solutions.

Let me be clear: we on the Labour benches will always call out the failings of the current UK Conservative Government, its crashing of and failure to grow the economy, the failure to make work pay and, bluntly, its failure to tackle poverty and show compassion to the most vulnerable people in our society. It has failed working people and should be voted out of office as soon as possible, so that a Labour Government can go about the work of reform, making work pay and reforming social security to be a proper safety net for those who need it.