Chamber and committees

We touched briefly on the role of the Mental Welfare Commission in some of those spaces; the Scottish Human Rights Commission has given evidence; and we have spoken more broadly about the need for that intersectionality as well as the need not to become too siloed but to work across that space. Is there a sense that those organisations need more resource or input from people who have a disability, is there more that we can do in the broader landscape without a commissioner or is it a bit of a mix of all those things? Going back to Jenny Miller’s original point, I think that, across the board, we need to improve what is on offer and what we are moving through. Do any members of the panel have a view on that?

PAMIS raised concerns in its evidence that the Disability Commissioner (Scotland) Bill could jeopardise the LDAN bill, or its success. Do you share that view or do you not see that risk?

Good morning. I will expand on the theme of potential duplication and related issues. I am conscious that there is a proposal for a bill on learning disabilities, autism and neurodivergence. Related to that, there is a question about whether there should be a commissioner in that space. Many of the organisations that are represented here today support those proposals, although some have raised different views and concerns.

My first question is on the growing landscape of commissioners, which Jenny Miller touched on in one of her previous responses. I am keen to understand whether you are concerned that that landscape will begin to fragment within the wider disability sphere. Seeing as I mentioned her, I will start with Jenny.

Would anyone like to give a broader view on the possibility of there being too many commissioners in the landscape?

Before I ask my questions, convener, I will just say that it was remiss of me earlier not to declare or draw attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests as having been employed by Enable Scotland until 2021.

I am keen to expand on the previous discussion. Obviously, your organisations have been across the detail of or have been involved in the campaign for a learning disabilities, autism and neurodivergence bill and, potentially, the establishment of a commissioner as part of that process. Building on what has been said about the interaction of commissioners, what are your views on how a disability commissioner and a potential LDAN commissioner might interact? Do you have concerns about siloed working, which I think has been referred to, or about things becoming so broad that we do not have the specialism that is required?

I do not know who wants to respond to that large question. Suzi?

Would Eddie McConnell like to add something?

I am glad that the Deputy First Minister is taking the work of the Poverty and Inequality Commission seriously. When I asked her about the issue when she was deputising for the First Minister last week, I do not think that I got such a detailed response. Indeed, she affirmed again that those poverty targets will be met. I am keen to hear about how exactly they will be met, given the scale of the criticism.

On the substantive point that the Deputy First Minister makes in relation to the Government’s motion, of course we must ensure that we look at our social security system and that we have a fundamental review and reform it, because we know that it is not working. That is laid out in our amendment. I have commented on universal credit in this chamber on a number of occasions. That system that is not functioning well and is not supporting people, particularly those who are in work and who need that safety net.

If Labour has the duty and honour of forming the next UK Government, we must review and reform the whole universal credit system, because it is not working. It is clear that we will need to look closely at what we will inherit, because we know that the Conservatives will leave us with a very challenging set of circumstances. I will speak more about that as I progress through my speech.

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.]