Chamber and committees

No, thank you—I have a lot to cover.

I take issue with the narrative that we have heard this afternoon—that universal credit has been a total failure and is a stick to beat the UK Government with. That is far from the truth. Universal credit has provided opportunity to people; the reality is that it is vastly superior to what it replaced—many work coaches will say exactly that.

No longer are people saddled with a benefits system that makes claimants poorer for choosing to take on more work. No longer are claimants faced with a confusing patchwork quilt of benefits that can be paid. Universal credit has brought simplicity to the benefits system, as well as a tapered system that gradually decreases payments for claimants.

Those factors must be taken into account; they helped employment to rise to record levels in the months that led up to the pandemic. It is precisely because of those aspects that people have gone into work—[Interruption.] No, thank you. I have no doubt that universal credit, along with new schemes such as kickstart and the young persons guarantee, will play an important part in the process, but—[Interruption.] Presiding Officer, if I want to take an intervention, I will say so, but I want to continue.

As well as having helped people into work, universal credit has been shown to be resilient. In the pandemic’s opening months, the system had an additional 2 million new claimants in comparison with the previous months. The system was nearly at breaking point, but it did not break—it continued and ensured that individuals received the support that they required. [Interruption.] Not at the moment.

We all know that universal credit needs to be delivered at this time because many people need support. The uplift of £20 a week was followed by a further layer of support throughout this unprecedented time. I was pleased when the six-month extension to the uplift was confirmed in the March budget, following calls from Conservative MSPs for that.

However, it would be remiss of me not to mention, as many colleagues have, the cost of continuing the uplift. Members of other parties tell us that the funding problem is a non-issue, but I am sorry—it is not a non-issue. In the chamber less than a week ago, the SNP social security minister refused to say whether he would permanently double the carers allowance supplement, and the reason for that was that budget considerations were being taken into account.

In 2018, the First Minister pledged to invest in and expand housing first by supporting 800 people over a three-year period but, as of 31 July, only 540 people had received support through the pathfinder programme. What is the Scottish Government doing to speed up the roll-out across Scotland?

The minister rightly applauds himself, but we have been waiting decades for information and processes to come forward. [Interruption.] I want to continue my speech.

For Scotland’s unpaid carers, too, the SNP is failing to properly capitalise on the welfare powers that it already has. We have proposed a raft of measures to improve the carers allowance, such as ensuring that those in receipt of the benefit continue to receive it for six months after bereavement. That would provide carers with much more time to readjust compared—[Interruption.]—I have a lot to cover, and I would like to make some progress.

We would also like to see the current means test replaced with a tapered system that would gradually reduce entitlement to the carers allowance, and we believe that entitlement should be extended to carers who are in full-time education, who are less able to support themselves through part-time work compared with other students. All those measures are within the gift of the Government, and it can choose to move towards them if it wishes.

There have been many contributions to this afternoon’s debate, and I would like to highlight some of them. The minister, Ben Macpherson, talked about the challenges, which are many and varied. However, progress needs to be made—he is well aware of that.

Miles Briggs talked about young carers, of whom there are 45,000 in Scotland. We need to ensure that they are protected and supported as much as they can be and that they can receive healthcare so that they are able to support the vulnerable people whom they are caring for.

As always, Pam Duncan-Glancy made a strong contribution. She made some very strong points about carers often having no choice but to do what they are doing. They step up, stand up and support.

Willie Rennie spoke about the uncertainty that carers experience. It is a valid point that it will take time for services for carers to be completely reinstated as they were before the pandemic. We will be watching to see what happens with regard to that.

Rachael Hamilton talked about respite for carers of individuals with autism and the support that they require to ensure that they and their families can get by.

Jeremy Balfour spoke about providing for an extension of the extra payment in the bill and about scrutiny. Those, too, are vital points, because we must understand what we are attempting to do and what implications it will have for people in the caring sector.

The bill is an example of the Parliament working in exactly the way that it was intended to. It is about devolved Scottish welfare powers that are supported by—and, indeed, made possible by—the broad financial shoulders of the United Kingdom. Therefore, the Scottish Conservatives will, of course, support the general principles of the bill at decision time. It shows, once again, the progress that can be made through the work of both Parliaments.

Like many of my colleagues, I am still lobbying and having discussions with our colleagues at Westminster. Personally, I have some real sympathy with that proposal, so I will continue to lobby and to make that view heard by members of our other Parliament.

Given all of that, it is clear that the decision to provide additional financial support to our unpaid carers is not only justified but necessary. It is perhaps disappointing that the Scottish Government did not see fit to carry out more consultation on how best to provide that additional support. Nevertheless, it is reassuring that care sector stakeholders welcome it, as was heard in evidence to the committee.

Although my Scottish Conservative colleagues and I welcome the doubling of the carers allowance supplement, that only makes it more disappointing that the SNP’s delivery of devolved benefits in other areas has left much to be desired. Only last week in this chamber, I highlighted the fact that it will take the SNP Government nine years to take full responsibility of the welfare powers that were devolved to it in 2016.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful for the opportunity to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives.

It has been said that unpaid carers are the backbone of our social care system. I whole-heartedly agree with that statement, and I also pay tribute to young carers.

The doubling of the carers allowance supplement in December will provide a meaningful financial boost to many who have suffered financially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout the debate, we have heard in detail about the benefits that the legislation will bring for unpaid carers across Scotland, who have endured significant financial burdens over the past 18 months.

Multiple organisations, including Carers Scotland, Carers Trust Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland, have detailed the extent to which individuals suffered during the periods of lockdown. Research by Carers Scotland has shown that 80 per cent of Scottish carers reported that the needs of those they care for have increased during the pandemic, and half of carers say that that has had a major impact on their health and wellbeing. The fact that so many carers have faced additional hardship is only made worse by the fact that they have had to endure the pandemic and provide care during that time. As we have heard, Carers Scotland estimates that, across Scotland, the number of carers has increased by 400,000 during the pandemic.

Many people across my region participated in Age Scotland’s big survey of older people, which revealed that more than half of older people had reported that the pandemic had made them lonely. One third felt that their mental health had deteriorated, one third felt that they were seen as a burden to society, and a staggering 71 per cent reported having been targeted by phone scammers. Those figures make for grim reading and are a reminder of how marginalised older people feel in our society. What further action will the Scottish Government take to make sure that those trends are reversed?

I am delighted to take part in this debate on supporting a fairer and more equal society. As a Scottish Conservative, I believe in the principle of equality of opportunity. We have a role to play in ensuring that what people achieve in life is determined not by where they come from, who their parents are or where they went to school but by their drive and determination to succeed. To achieve that, we need to tackle the root causes of poverty in Scotland, but the SNP’s record on tackling poverty is, quite frankly, shocking.

Nearly one in five Scots—which is over a million people—is living in relative poverty after their housing costs are taken into account, and that statistic rises to nearly one in four children across Scotland. Those rates have been gradually rising for the past decade. In the previous parliamentary session, the First Minister claimed that education was her number 1 priority. [Interruption.] I want to make progress. I will take an intervention later.

The First Minister has, in fact, presided over a stubbornly wide attainment gap, which has shown that pupils from more deprived areas are not managing to succeed, and there are no signs of that gap closing across many different measures. The usual excuse for that failing that we hear from the members on the nationalist benches is that they do not have the necessary powers to tackle poverty, but we all know that that is simply not the case.

Despite a range of new welfare powers being devolved in 2016, the SNP has said that it will not be able to successfully implement them until 2025—nine years later. Members should remember that the SNP is also the party that said that it could set up an independent Scotland in just 18 months.

In one case, the social security minister simply had to hand back responsibility for a benefit to the Department for Work and Pensions to avoid “unnecessary duplication”. Even SNP ministers now seem to see the benefits of having some welfare powers on a UK-wide basis.

The proposals put forward by the cobbled-together coalition of nationalists and Greens are even worse, being ill thought out and unaffordable. The new coalition has suggested that it will seek to introduce a universal basic income, but that scheme will simply give with one hand and take with the other. According to documents released under freedom of information by the Scottish Government, the scheme could cost the economy £58 billion a year. The policy appears to have been put forward to appease hardline supporters in the coalition of chaos rather than to target support to those people who need it most.

Another poor suggestion is the introduction of rent controls, which simply do not work and are not supported by economists across the political spectrum. Capping rents will make renting out properties a less attractive prospect for landlords and will lead to a reduction in the supply that is required. We have heard of similar proposals being introduced in Sweden, and people in Stockholm are waiting up to nine years to get a rent control problem resolved. That is yet another flashy policy from a party that is not looking at the real problems but only working towards its goal.

It has been mentioned many times in the debate that the SNP wants the full powers of independence. Unlike the coalition of chaos, the Scottish Conservatives have a real, workable solution to tackle the root causes of poverty and give everyone a chance to succeed. We will deliver the biggest programme of social housing building since the Scottish Parliament reconvened in 1999. We want to assist the construction sector to get back to pre-2007 levels of house building. Instead of introducing debating society proposals such as rent controls, we would address high rents and ensure that supply and demand of houses allowed people to rent and buy.

We would also provide funds for councils, which are delivering many of the front-line services on which the poorest people in our society rely. They have had to deal with swingeing cuts from this chamber and this Government over the past few decades. SNP and Green budgets have done that to councils again and again. We would ensure that increases to the Scottish Government’s budget were passed directly to councils through the funding formula that we would set in place. That would ensure that councils could continue to deliver vital public services.

However, it is important to point out that there are some areas where we are in agreement. [Interruption.]

We were the first party to announce plans to expand free school meals to include all primary school pupils, and I am pleased that the Scottish Government has since adopted that policy. We also pledged in our recent election manifesto to double the Scottish child payment. Again, I am glad to see that the Scottish Government is proposing to do the same, but we would like it to happen much more quickly, within the next financial year.

The Scottish Conservatives are committed to tackling the root causes of poverty to ensure that there are equal opportunities for everyone in Scotland. The nationalist coalition is too fixated on holding another referendum on independence to give this important issue the attention that it deserves. We will continue to hold this Government to account for its failings, which have been seen across Scotland for years. I support the amendment in the name of Miles Briggs.

Under the current coronavirus legislation, regulations do not have to be proactively put before the Scottish Parliament if the Scottish ministers consider that they need to be made urgently. Does the minister agree that it is not acceptable to enact, or approve without a vote, regulations that affect everyone’s lives? Will he rule out the inclusion of provisions in that regard in any legislation under the temporary coronavirus powers?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to ensuring that any legislation it introduces to support the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic does not seek to allow regulations to be made or changed without being subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure. (S6O-00070)