Chamber and committees

First—as, I think, Miles Briggs acknowledged—I note that the Scottish child payment is a game-changing policy in the fight against child poverty. As I said, our manifesto commits us to doubling the payment to £80 per month by the end of this parliamentary session, which has been widely welcomed.

We recognise the need for urgent action. We will double the payment as soon as is practicable. We are considering the timetable for the increase, taking account of the impact on child poverty as well as legislative, financial and delivery considerations, and I will make an announcement in due course. I recognise that there is an appetite to go as quickly as possible.

Miles Briggs asked about children in temporary accommodation. He will be aware of the enormous efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure that people could be in safe accommodation. I do not want anyone to live in unsuitable temporary accommodation, so it is a top priority for me to try to resolve the situation.

Miles Briggs also alluded to regional variations; the issue is more difficult to tackle in some areas than it is in others. I want to engage with local authorities and housing associations in each area, to consider what more we can do.

The 100,000 affordable homes that we have delivered are important, as is the commitment to building 100,000 more affordable homes, 70 per cent of which will be for social rent. That will make a big impact, but there is more to be done.

Although around 15 per cent of social security spend is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and it is our job to make the most of that spend in tackling child poverty, 85 per cent of the spend is not devolved and remains at Westminster, including key income-replacement benefits such as universal credit. I have already outlined the damaging effect of withdrawing the £20 uplift in universal credit. Of course, the benefit cap and the senseless two-child limit just add to the issues and problems.

With full powers over social security, we could deliver a system that is fit for purpose, that treats people with dignity and respect and that tackles and reduces poverty. Similarly, if we had employment powers, we could make the real living wage mandatory, outlaw unfair fire-and-rehire tactics and ban the inappropriate and exploitative use of zero-hours contracts. Those are just a few ideas about what we could do if we had powers in this place over those matters.

I apologise to Jeremy Balfour for not hearing him properly the first time.

My immediate response to Jeremy Balfour’s question is that it will be tough. In our report, which I hope everyone looks at, I have laid out the extensive actions that the Government has taken. However, in my statement, I also said clearly that all those actions and all the investment, even taken together, will not be enough. That is why we have committed to redouble our efforts across the Government and to look at everything that we do through a child poverty lens to see whether it works to reduce child poverty. That will be crucial.

I also make the point to Jeremy Balfour that although we could end up with all that work being on the right trajectory to hit those targets, we could be prevented from hitting them because of the actions of the UK Government—for example, in reducing the £20 universal credit uplift. I implore him and his colleagues to make representations on that to the UK Government, because it would be a travesty if the Scottish Government makes progress towards meeting those targets but is held back by UK Government welfare policy.

Maggie Chapman makes a very important point about awareness of the Scottish child payment. She may be aware that, from the start, Social Security Scotland has promoted awareness of entitlement, which is perhaps a bit different from the position taken by the Department for Work and Pensions.

It is very much Social Security Scotland’s job to promote awareness of entitlement. However, that is not just Social Security Scotland’s job; it is everyone’s job. It is the job of health visitors, teachers, social care staff and general practitioners who come into contact with families who they think may be eligible to make sure that awareness is heightened. For example, one important project involves the co-location of benefit advisers in GP surgeries. We should miss no opportunity to make sure that families are aware of their entitlement to not just the Scottish child payment but all the other benefits that they may be able to claim.

Patrick Harvie will be aware that I have been in the job for a matter of weeks. I am, of course, keen to meet tenant representatives and organisations that support tenants. As I said, invitations to meetings will shortly be issued to representatives of both those groups. I want to look at how we engage with tenant groups more widely.

The resilience group provides a forum for open discussion of issues in the private rented sector. Citizens Advice Scotland and Shelter Scotland, which provide crucial advice and support directly to tenants across Scotland daily, are members of the group and are well placed to raise the issues and challenges that renters face. We always keep such issues under review, and I am keen to meet as many tenant organisations as I can.

Collectively, local authorities in the north-east of Scotland will have £51.4 million more to spend on vital day-to-day services in 2021-22 compared with the previous year and have been allocated more than £218 million to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic through the local government finance settlement, over and above their regular grant payments. Aberdeenshire Council will receive its fair share of a further £137 million, which is currently undistributed. The council will also receive its fair share of the 2021-22 funding that has been discussed and agreed with COSLA since the announcement of the settlement.

Alexander Burnett may wish to have a look at the United Kingdom Parliament Public Accounts Committee’s report on local government finance, which has just been published. The report states:

“Typical council tax bills will rise by an average of 4.3% across England in 2021–22, meaning that local people could be paying more for less.”

Perhaps the member should reflect on the fact that the Tories do one thing in government but complain here about local government funding in another place.

Using the latest available forecasts based on take-up assumptions for the payment that were published by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in January 2021, Scottish Government analysis estimates that the number of families receiving the under-sixes payment in Renfrewshire North and West could be around 1,200 this financial year 2021-22.

The Scottish Government is committed to rolling out the payment to under-16s by the end of 2022, subject to the Department for Work and Pensions providing us with the data that we need to do so. In 2023-24, the first full financial year of the payment for under-16s, the number of families receiving the under-16s payment in Renfrewshire North and West could be around 2,100.

Our national planning framework 4 position statement indicates our policy aim of facilitating significant expansion of green infrastructure, which includes that within housing developments. That is further supported by the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, whereby local authorities will have a duty to prepare open space strategies, helping to ensure that places are greener and healthier.

The member raises important questions about rogue factors and the impact that they can have on shared green spaces. The best that I can do is to write to the member, setting out some of the detail of how we might take those issues forward. I will ensure that officials do that in the next few days.

We engaged with residents, local authorities and tourism representatives from across Scotland, including island communities, as part of our 2019 and 2020 public consultations. In 2019, we also commissioned independent research on the impact on communities of short-term lets. Five case-study areas were selected, which covered a mixture of rural, urban and island areas; Skye was the island case-study area. An island communities impact assessment was carried out in 2020 and published in December 2020, as part of our consultation report.