Chamber and committees

As I said, the UK Government cutting the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit could reduce the number of children who are eligible for the Scottish child payment by around an estimated 2,000. For some families, the universal credit cut will be enough to remove their entitlement to the Scottish child payment. However, the problem is that we rely on top-up powers to deliver those payments. We do not have any other legislative basis to allow us to do so. I call on the UK Government not to cut the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit. We want people to remain eligible for the Scottish child payment. However, because that payment is delivered through the top-up powers, we are constrained in what we can do for those families.

I find it astonishing that a Tory MSP would come to the chamber to demand that the Scottish Government double the Scottish child payment this year—[Interruption.]

—in the very month that his Government is going to remove £20 a week—[Interruption.]

The Scottish Government is proud of our record on delivering, since 2007, more than 102,000 affordable homes, nearly 71,000 of which were for social rent, including more than 16,000 council homes. As the programme for government makes clear, we are committed to delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, of which 70 per cent will be available for social rent and 10 per cent will be in our remote, rural and island communities.

Delivering on that ambitious affordable homes target would support a total investment package of around £18 billion and up to 15,000 jobs each year. In the four years to 2020, we delivered over 75 per cent more affordable homes per head of population than in both England and Wales, and over nine times more social rented properties per head of population than in England.

The Scottish Government’s social enterprise strategy, which was launched in 2016, sets out a wide-ranging, ambitious and long-term programme to develop the potential of Scotland’s social enterprise sector. The latest social enterprise action plan was published on 24 March this year and covers the period from 2021 to 2024.

I think that I might have touched a raw nerve.

Every time a Tory MSP comes to the chamber and utters the words “child poverty”, I will remind them of what their Government is about to do this very month in cutting £20 a week from some of the most vulnerable families. They should get their own house in order before coming here and demanding that we do anything. It is an absolute disgrace and a total brass neck.

As I said in my initial answer, good progress has been made in delivering rural housing. I talked about the 4,800 affordable homes that have been delivered in that time. However, Liz Smith will be aware of some of the particular challenges in remote and rural Scotland, such as land availability, community capacity to bring forward proposals and ensuring that those proposals can get from pre-development to the development stage. Those are complex matters, which is why, in recognition that we need to do more, we have committed to developing a rural and remote housing plan that is dedicated to the needs of rural and remote Scotland.

That consultation will talk to communities the length and breadth of Scotland to make sure that we can get it right in every community, even for small-scale developments. That is, of course, backed up by the additional resources that we have made available.

I see the 10 per cent target as a minimum and, through the rural and remote housing plan, we will get a better sense and more evidence of what the housing need is. I want to take a more strategic approach to looking at housing needs in remote and rural Scotland. We have been relying on community organisations and community responses for proposals, and that can be sometimes quite difficult, because of the complexities. We want to assist communities to analyse and agree housing needs and priorities, and then work with them and local authorities and social landlords to work up plans to deal with those shortages.

I agree that the Scottish child payment has been acclaimed as a game changer in the fight against child poverty and is projected to lift thousands of children out of poverty. The member outlined how that is impacting positively on Glasgow families. However, that policy is being completely undermined by the UK Government’s regressive £20 cut to universal credit, which will be the biggest overnight cut to welfare in 70 years. Some 60,000 families across Scotland, including some 20,000 children could be pushed into poverty.

We have urged the UK Government to reverse its plans on numerous occasions, most recently in conjunction with the Welsh and Northern Irish Governments.

Violence against women and girls is one of the most devastating and fundamental violations of human rights and is totally unacceptable. Rather than establishing a commission to tackle it, we are committed to delivering against the equally safe strategy and continuing our collaborative work with a wide range of partners in the sector via the equally safe joint strategic board.

We have also tasked the independent working group on misogyny and criminal justice in Scotland with evaluating how the Scottish criminal justice system deals with misogyny, including by looking at whether there are gaps in the law.