Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Official Report 1003KB pdf

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Housing Support for Young People

The first item of business today is a members’ business debate on motion S5M-04643, in the name of Ben Macpherson, on United Kingdom Government restrictions for 18 to 21-year-olds accessing financial support for housing. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament expresses concern at its understanding that 18 to 21-year-olds in Edinburgh and across Scotland will face restrictions in accessing financial support for housing from 1 April 2017; notes the calls on the UK Government to reconsider what it believes is its ill-conceived and harmful plans that will increase the likelihood of young people being made homeless and undermine the preventative approach to homelessness taken by local and national government in Scotland; believes that these changes are being imposed while discussions continue between the UK and Scottish governments on how the policy can be fully mitigated within existing powers; notes its disappointment with the UK Government’s short timescale for change despite assurances that options for Scotland would be considered further, which it believes makes it impossible for full mitigation arrangements to be put in place before this change comes into force; acknowledges the report, The withdrawal of support for housing costs under Universal Credit for young people: more pain for little gain?, from the homelessness charity Crisis, and Sheffield Hallam University, which suggests that many of those affected are “likely to be made more vulnerable, less secure and less able to rebuild their relationship with their parents or to keep or find a job than they were before”; notes the research of Heriot-Watt University, which estimates that, if more than 140 young people are made homeless, the policy will cost the UK Government more than the estimated and supposed savings, and believes that not all young people have the option of living with their parents and, for those who may be in a desperate or difficult situation and facing homelessness, housing support can provide stability, security and enable them to lead independent and fulfilling lives.

13:15  

I thank the Presiding Officer for securing debate time on the important issue of UK Government restrictions for 18 to 21-year-olds accessing financial support for housing.

How we as a country support our young people is fundamental to the prosperity of our society and the strength of our economy. How we nurture the contributions of younger generations will shape the values of our future, the character of our nation, the strength of our commerce and the prospects of our collective wellbeing. That is why we must seek to support and encourage all our young people in their adolescence and on their journey into adulthood.

The UK Government’s decision to abolish access to financial support for housing for 18 to 21-year-olds from 1 April this year is a backward step. It is a detrimental measure that will negatively affect the future of the young people who are affected and the future of our country. Although, at present, the policy applies only to new universal credit claims from single jobseekers in the five areas of Scotland where universal credit has been fully rolled out, in the years ahead, the policy will affect all new claimants in Scotland as the UK Government rolls out universal credit across our country by April 2018. Very soon, therefore, the policy will negatively affect 18 to 21-year-olds across Scotland, in urban and rural areas.

The Tories envisage that the young adults who are affected by the policy will be able to return to their parental home or enter employment, but that will not always be possible or beneficial. As Shelter Scotland has stated, this Tory policy will remove an important “safety net” for young adults.

Although I acknowledge that the UK legislation includes certain exemptions from the policy, the overall policy intent of the cut to support for young people remains both nonsensical and punitive. The young people that it will affect will undoubtedly be impaired as a result, and there is no guarantee that the exemptions in new paragraphs 4B and 4C of schedule 4 to the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 will be administered accurately or appropriately in practice. What will the costs of assessment be? Will all young people have the necessary wherewithal to seek exemptions and advocacy services? How will vulnerability be proved?

As the homelessness charity Crisis has stated,

“Vulnerability is a dynamic, not a fixed, state. It is affected by many factors which make someone’s life more or less difficult over time. Any system of exemptions is going to find it extremely difficult to keep pace with changes in circumstances: young people may have to move in and out of work or training; their relationships with their parents can fluctuate and be prone to sporadic crises or reconciliations; their emotional state and mental health may be fragile. Tracking all of this over time will not only be difficult—it will also be very expensive to administer.”

I am grateful to Mr Macpherson for giving way. Is he giving his speech in favour of the proposition that the Scottish Government should exercise its powers under section 28 of the Scotland Act 2016 to create a new benefit to support unemployed 18 to 21-year-olds in pursuit of housing?

I will come on to forward actions in due course.

I have no doubt that some Conservative members of the Scottish Parliament will maintain that the effects of their party’s policy will be negligible, but they should tell that to the several hundred young people who will be affected in Scotland this year, the estimated 1,000 young people who will be affected each year after that and the estimated 11,000 who will be affected each year across the UK—all for a measly supposed cost saving to the Treasury of 0.4 per cent of the total annual spend on housing benefit. What is more, given the history of welfare reform, I predict that the number of those who are affected will rise.

However, even if the estimates are correct and the exemptions work perfectly, the whole ethos of the policy is wrong-headed. Not only does it stem from a misguided and cynical world view and false assertions about the motivations and circumstances of young people in our communities, but this Tory policy has real potential to contradict the stated aims of UK Government welfare reform—namely, to encourage claimants off benefits and into work. That is because, rather than subsidising young people to leave home for “a life on benefits”, as the Tory 2015 manifesto mistakenly asserts, housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-old jobseekers can in fact provide the platform necessary for individuals to move into employment, especially if they are transitioning out of homelessness, as Shelter Scotland has powerfully argued. In other words, the UK Government’s policy not only discriminates against young people but creates barriers to work and diminishes the ability of affected individuals to move forward. It is therefore against the UK Government’s principles of welfare reform and universal credit.

The policy creates difficulties for young people in moving into the private rented sector—we already have reports of PRS landlords avoiding younger tenants as a result of it. It also puts social housing tenants at risk of losing their tenancies. The catch-22 is that, in some cases, the policy will prevent access to a tenancy at all because, to make a claim for universal credit housing costs, an individual must have a tenancy agreement but, to access a tenancy, the individual must provide evidence that they will be able to access help with housing costs if they are not in work. The policy makes no sense.

Although the proposed UK Government initiative of a youth obligation might aid employment support, it will not make housing affordable for those who are affected. Not only is the UK Government’s policy unnecessary and discriminatory against young people, but Scotland does not want it. The Scottish National Party manifesto in 2016 committed to opposing the cuts, and the SNP forms the Scottish Government, so the UK Government should honour the democratic wishes of the Scottish people and facilitate the abolition of the policy in Scotland.

The UK Government’s decision to implement the policy by changing the eligibility criteria in universal credit rather than the calculation means that the Scottish Government cannot use its power under the Scotland Act 2016 to mitigate the changes in a straightforward way. The refusal of the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to enable a geographic exemption for Scotland is an act of preference rather than necessity. Let me be clear: the UK Government can exempt Scotland from the policy if it wants to—all it needs to do is write it down in statute. I encourage the Scottish Government to keep pursuing a geographic exemption with the UK Government. Scottish Conservatives must face up to the fact that that would be a much more expedient process than introducing a new Scottish benefit to plaster over bad Tory UK Government policy.

The policy is not really about reducing expenditure or the number of claimants; instead, this cut by the Tories is about pandering to false assertions about young people and their housing choices and lifestyles. As well as senselessly harming the individuals who are affected, the cuts will put more and more pressure on local services. Ruth Davidson said at the weekend that she wants to talk about Scotland’s young people. Unfortunately, she is not here today but, in a spirit of good faith, I would like to pass on a message to her via her Conservative colleagues who are present. The cuts to financial support for 18 to 21-year-olds will distress and derail the young people who are affected; diminish the prospects for young people to fulfil their potential and flourish; and negatively impact on the society in which young people in Scotland will grow up. Depressingly, the policy panders to cynical and judgmental assertions about young people’s motivations—assertions that politicians should challenge rather than legitimise.

I call on the Tories in the UK Government to abandon the wrong-headed policy of restricting access to financial support for 18 to 21-year-olds. I urge the Scottish Government to keep standing up for Scotland’s young people, to keep opposing the restrictions and to keep pursuing the sustainable removal of the restrictions and of the cuts and hardship that they will cause. The housing system is already stacked against young people, and this Tory policy does not help.

13:23  

Before I start, let it be recorded in the Official Report that there is not a single Labour member of the Scottish Parliament in the chamber to debate this matter, nor is there any Liberal Democrat MSP—there are Green, Conservative and SNP MSPs only.

I turn to the substance of the issue that Ben Macpherson has brought to the chamber. First of all, it is important to understand the scope of the regulations. One thing that Ben Macpherson failed to say in his impassioned speech was that the policy applies not to all 18 to 21-year-olds but only to unemployed 18 to 21-year-olds. It applies only to unemployed 18 to 21-year-olds who are making new claims for universal credit. It applies only to single UC claimants; it does not apply to anyone who is married. Before we go any further, it is important that members understand just how narrow the scope of the regulations is. The policy also applies only—Ben Macpherson said this—where universal credit full service has been rolled out, which is currently only five areas in Scotland, although that will grow in time.

The policy is also one in respect of which there is a large number of exemptions, which have been—in the words of the Scottish Government—co-produced with a range of stakeholders who have been working with the Department for Work and Pensions to develop the policy. The policy will not apply to anyone who is responsible for a child, so it will not apply to a parent, carer or guardian. It will not apply to anyone who is in temporary accommodation. It will not apply to anyone who was a care leaver before the age of 18. It will not apply to any victim of domestic violence, and it will not apply to anyone who is unable to return home because of a risk to physical or mental health. Those exemptions ensure that the most vulnerable will continue to have the housing support that they need. The policy will affect only those who have no barriers to work and who are able to return safely to their parental home; that is its justification.

The policy removes what was formerly a perverse incentive for young adults to leave the family home and pass the cost of doing so on to the taxpayer. The policy is about stopping young people slipping straight into a life on benefits—the underlying rationale for it is quite the opposite of the one that Ben Macpherson sought to portray.

Moreover, people who are affected by the policy will be helped by a new youth obligation within the framework of universal credit—a form of intensive employment support, backed by apprenticeships, traineeships and work placements. That is exactly the sort of employment support that I would have thought that all members of this Parliament, whatever their party, would want to support.

Ben Macpherson’s motion talks about the UK Government’s “short timescale” for the introduction of the policy. That is an aspect of the motion that I do not understand. David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, first raised the issue as a policy in 2012. It was in the successful Conservative Party manifesto in 2015, as Mr Macpherson said, and it was formally introduced in the summer budget of that year. That was two years ago.

I know that Mr Macpherson supports a Government here that is moving as slowly as it is possible to move in the context of the progress of the devolution of welfare, but the announcement of a policy in 2012, its being made formal in 2015 and its introduction with effect from April 2017 does not constitute a “short timescale”.

Will the member give way?

I am happy to do so, if I have time.

I can give you a little time.

I am grateful. Does Mr Tomkins acknowledge that the regulations were laid only a month before the implementation of the policy?

I acknowledge that the regulations were signalled months and months in advance, in the summer budget of 2015. A policy’s announcement in 2012, its becoming formal policy in 2015 and its implementation in 2017 should be regarded as a sensible pace of progress on the part of the Government.

My final point is about the power to create new benefits. The reason why the UK Government could not act under section 11(4) of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, as the Scottish Government wanted it to do, is that the secretary of state has legal advice that it is impossible—it is legally inept—for him to act under that power. The only power under which he could act to introduce the regulations is the power to change the eligibility.

I fully accept that that means that the top-up power cannot be used in this instance. That is why we who sat around the Smith commission table agreed on not just a top-up power but a power to create new benefits in devolved areas. That power is in section 28 of the Scotland Act 2016. This is a devolved area—we are talking about housing—and if the Scottish Government wants to introduce a new benefit under section 28, it has all the powers that it needs to do so.

You must come to a close, please.

It seems to me that if the Scottish Government wants to introduce a new benefit, it need look no further than Ben Macpherson’s speech for the justification for doing so.

I may have to be a bit tighter on the following speeches. I call Maree Todd, to be followed by Andy Wightman.

13:29  

I thank Ben Macpherson for securing this important members’ business debate.

Yesterday in the Parliament, we debated the impact of welfare reforms on disabled people, and a couple of weeks ago we debated the callous rape clause policy. We have already heard some members in the chamber defend the, frankly, indefensible. Here we are again, discussing another ill-conceived and harmful Tory policy that we know will have a detrimental impact on the most vulnerable people in our society.

Homeless charities, including Shelter, Crisis and Centrepoint, have been very clear in voicing their concerns. Cutting housing benefit to 18 to 21-year-olds risks increasing the number of rough sleepers. Why would the UK Conservative Government introduce cuts that are known to have that effect, when it also knows that homelessness is on the rise in England for the sixth year running? Does that not undermine the Government commitment to reducing homelessness?

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions claimed—and Adam Tomkins has repeated—that the move is intended to

“make sure that 18 to 21-year-olds do not slip straight into a life on benefits”.

The Tories talk about people choosing a life of benefits and choosing to claim housing allowances, but that fundamentally misses the point that, for many people, there is no choice.

The idea that removing entitlement to housing benefit will drive all young people to “earn or learn”, to use David Cameron’s words, misunderstands many of the people who rely on that part of the social security system. The policy fails to take into account the reality of many young people’s lives. The option of living with parents is not a luxury that is open to everyone. I represent a part of the country where youngsters rarely live with their parents beyond school age. Many of us in the Highlands and Islands leave home for work or study at a young age; I was only 17 when I left home, but my family was still able to support me.

These cuts will affect people who find themselves in desperately difficult situations through no fault of their own. For those who leave home abruptly—be it because of an abusive relationship or their sexual or gender identity—social housing is their sanctuary and their sanity. It provides them with much-needed stability.

Does Maree Todd not accept that, as I said a few moments ago, there is an exemption for anybody who is at risk of mental or physical harm in the parental home? The policy will not apply to exactly the category of people that she spoke about.

I ask Adam Tomkins: as with the rape clause, how would they prove that? There is no reply.

The policy does not even make sound economic sense. Recent research by Heriot-Watt University found that, once the cost of vital exemptions and the cost to other public services are taken into account, the policy will save a maximum of £3.3 million. It will take only 140 extra young people to become homeless before the policy costs more than it saves. If the UK Government wants to cut the welfare bill, it should address the root cause of the problem and make building homes that people can afford more of a priority.

I am sure that members are aware that universal credit has already been rolled out in Highland, causing huge hardship. Among the concerns that I have heard from constituents who work in housing is that, because 18 to 21-year-olds will seek ways to secure accommodation under the exemptions, this policy will increase pressure on charitable housing associations, local authorities, general practitioners and care providers, all of whom are already working under extreme duress.

I hear that it has always been difficult to get private landlords to take on young people, but this system will, without doubt, put paid to that—that is what constituents who work in housing tell me. Private landlords simply will not take the risk.

The Scottish Government has made it clear that it opposes these cuts. The Scottish welfare fund will mitigate that for now, but the bottom line is that it should not have to.

13:34  

I thank Ben Macpherson for bringing this debate to the chamber. It is important to stress at the outset that this withdrawal of support for young people is part of a wider failure in housing policy to ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing for all. That has led, for example, to the rapid growth in the private rented sector—not a sector of choice for young people, but a sector of necessity.

According to the UK Government’s figures, the housing benefit bill is set to reach £25 billion this year. To my mind, that is the price of failure in the housing market. It is also against a historic shift in public support from housing supply to housing demand—a shift from investment in housing to spending to support demand, which is a regressive move that has led to rising house prices, rising rents and growing inequality. As Maree Todd pointed out—it is also mentioned in Ben Macpherson’s motion—the policy could easily end up costing the Government more money than it is designed to save.

Young people can be forgiven for thinking that housing policy has not only neglected them but is actively working against their interests. As Mhairi Black noted in her maiden speech in the House of Commons:

“In this Budget the Chancellor also abolished any housing benefit for anyone below the age of 21. So we are now in the ridiculous situation whereby because I am an MP, I am not only the youngest, but I am also the only 20-year-old in the whole of the UK that the Chancellor is prepared to help with housing.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 14 July 2015; Vol 598, c 776.]

That is a rather sad pass to come to. Housing in the private rented sector and in the owner-occupied sector is too expensive, and house prices have soared over the past three decades, exacerbating the growing inequality between a property-owning class and a landless class.

Many of the powers to tackle that—to reduce rents and house prices—lie with the Scottish Parliament. We have the power to design an effective system of housing taxation but we have failed to do so. We have the power to capture land values for the public good but we have not done so. We also have the power to repeal planning legislation that rewards landowners for the granting of planning permission but we have failed to do so. Therefore, although I welcome the Government’s commitment to build 35,000 affordable homes, I disagree that those homes will be affordable by any definition that is recognised by young people.

That is the background against which the withdrawal of benefits has taken place. The Scottish Government has now announced that it will provide any affected 18 to 21-year-olds with funding from the Scottish welfare fund on an interim basis. That is welcome, but I ask the minister whether any additional resource will be made available to the fund to meet the extra demand, as opposed to its being met from an existing, already very overstretched, budget. The cost of mitigation is likely to be around £6.5 million over the next three years.

Demand for Scottish welfare fund support rises considerably when universal credit is fully rolled out, as we have seen in Musselburgh. The Social Security Committee heard evidence that the pressure on East Lothian Council’s fund there is unsustainable. The full universal credit service will roll out and the housing cost restrictions will come into play for more and more 18 to 21-year-olds at the same time as there will be a range of other increasing demands for the fund. I hope that ministers have thought about how that will be handled.

Although I have a great deal of sympathy for the position that the Scottish Government has been forced into by the unwillingness of the UK Government to create a better mechanism for mitigating the cut, I stress that doing that through the Scottish welfare fund should be only a temporary measure. It is meeting a statutory entitlement—albeit a de facto one at present—through what is effectively a discretionary fund, and that is not a good precedent to set.

Fundamentally, we in this Parliament need to focus on eliminating the necessity for providing housing support by solving the underlying structural problems in the housing market. The powers over most of those are already devolved to the Parliament, and we should use them.

13:38  

Normally we that say it is a pleasure to take part in a debate, but I take no pleasure in taking part in the debate today—just as I did not take any pleasure in taking part in the debate on food banks last week or in discussing yesterday the impact that cuts to social security have had on those with a disability. Nevertheless, here we are again. Although I do not take pleasure in speaking in today’s debate, I am glad at least to have the opportunity to do so and to highlight yet another Tory policy that will have a devastating impact on a number of young people in our country. To that end, I very much thank Ben Macpherson for lodging his motion and securing the debate.

No matter which way we look at the policy, it is poorly thought out, does not make sense and—as we have heard—has the potential to cost more money than it saves. Although there are exemptions to the policy, they do not go far enough. As Shelter highlighted in its briefing, the impacts “could be catastrophic”.

The draft regulations were laid only one month before the intended implementation date, which did not give organisations and local authorities enough time to prepare for the impact, in spite of what Adam Tomkins would like to admit today.

Although the Scottish Government has committed to mitigating the policy for an interim period through the Scottish welfare fund, the UK Government has refused to delay the policy’s implementation while discussions between the two Governments take place or, as Ben Macpherson highlighted, to give a geographical exemption to Scotland. The Scottish Government estimates that 760 people will be affected by the policy and will not meet the exemptions criteria, so they will have to apply to the Scottish welfare fund. Universal credit is expected to be rolled out from November this year to March 2018 in Aberdeenshire and Angus, the area that I represent, and it is estimated that 23 people in Angus will be affected, while 20 will be affected in Aberdeenshire. That is 43 people too many and 43 people whom we cannot let fall through the net.

The policy will also cost more than it saves if it results in an increase in homelessness. Maree Todd made a vital point that we should remember: only 140 young people need to become homeless for the costs of the policy to outweigh any potential savings identified. The latest cuts to housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds are simply part of a wider attack that the Tories have launched against young people across the UK. Thankfully, under the Scottish Government, there has been some protection in Scotland against the worst effects of the policy.

We can look at the overall picture of what the Tories have done for young people since they came to power. They have denied young people aged 16 and 17 the right to vote that exists in Scotland. That means that young people here who had the chance to have a say in the council elections two weeks ago are now in the bizarre position of not being able to vote in the general election five weeks later; and no doubt the result of that election will punish their generation for another generation to come. Further, a young person in the UK can do the same job as someone older than them but not be entitled to the same pay because of their age—they are not entitled to the living wage.

Young people also have to pay tuition fees to attend university. As of autumn this year, they can be charged up to £9,250 to attend university in England, with degree debt in England the highest in the English-speaking world. Those who graduate do so with an average debt of around £44,000 and those from the poorest backgrounds can expect to graduate with in excess of £50,000-worth of debt because the Tories, while increasing tuition fees, also saw fit to scrap the education maintenance allowance, which 620,000 young people were dependent on.

The amount of debt that is taken on by students in England has more than doubled in the past 10 years because of a Tory policy that is burdening an entire generation and forcing them to begin their lives saddled with debt. The housing benefit policy is the latest in a long line of Tory policies that are ill-conceived and will ultimately cause harm. The policy is nothing more than another assault on young people, which we in Scotland are again forced to mitigate. The picture for young people in the UK is pretty bleak and I urge all young people to remember all the points that have been raised about that when they walk into the polling booth on 8 June.

13:42  

It is strange that we have debates on welfare in this Parliament that regard changes to the welfare system as bolts from the blue that are last-minute, nasty Tory broadsides designed to catch out the needy. [Interruption.] I thought that some members would like that one.

That is the narrative, but it is entirely wrong. We need to have more considered discussions on such issues in this Parliament.

Before I turn to the issue at hand, raised by Ben Macpherson, who omits to say in his motion that the change concerned applies only to job seekers, I will establish some facts. The removal from last month of entitlement to the housing element of universal credit from young people aged 18 to 21, with some exceptions, was first trailed by David Cameron in 2012 and announced by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, in his summer 2015 budget. Therefore, we have known for nearly two years that this removal of entitlement was definitely going to happen.

The policy’s stated rationale is to

“ensure young people in the benefits system face the same choices as young people who work and who may not be able to afford to leave home.”

David Cameron said in 2014:

“I want us to end the idea that aged 18 you leave school, go and leave home, claim unemployment benefit and claim housing benefit. We should not be offering that choice to young people. We should be saying to people you should be earning or learning.”

Those are laudable aims, because nobody benefits long term from a life on benefits.

Of course, there will be exemptions from the policy, as there should be. The regulations specify the categories of young people who will be exempt, including those who might not be able to return home to live with their parents, certain claimants who have been in work for six months prior to making a claim and young people who are parents. Those in temporary accommodation are also exempt.

Nobody who is currently in receipt of payments will lose out; this relates only to new entrants into the system. The aim is to ensure that young people do not slip straight from school into a life on benefits. If any member thinks that that would be a positive destination, they should stick their hand up now—nobody has done so.

Young adults who are affected by the policy will be expected to return to the parental home or to enter employment. The UK Government envisages that the new youth obligation will help young people into work, as Adam Tomkins mentioned. In the first year, about a thousand people will be affected UK-wide and only a few hundred will be affected in Scotland.

Earlier, I called for a considered discussion, which means all of us retreating from knee-jerk, partisan positions of the sort that are espoused by the Ben Macphersons of this world—I see Ben Macpherson smiling, which is good.

I want homelessness to be reduced or even eradicated.

Will the member take an intervention?

No, I will not.

As the Scottish Conservatives’ housing spokesman, I feel passionately about the issue. As a party, we signed up to Shelter’s call for a national homelessness strategy earlier this year. The SNP is the only major party not to have done so, so SNP members should not lecture us on homelessness.

I am involved in the Local Government and Communities Committee’s inquiry into homelessness. The causes of homelessness are complex and there are no easy solutions.

I was at a conference this week in Glasgow that was organised by Crisis, which was formed 50 years ago by the Conservative MP lain Macleod. It behoves us all to retreat from the kind of hysterical language that is used in the motion and to deal with the subject in a serious and considered way, so that organisations such as Crisis do not exist in another 50 years.

I call Jeane Freeman to respond to the debate. We have a bit of time, so I could give extra time for interventions.

13:47  

I thank Ben Macpherson for bringing the motion for debate. I am happy for the opportunity to close the debate on behalf of the Government.

Like Mr Tomkins—on what will probably be our only point of agreement in the debate—I record my disappointment that neither Labour nor Liberal Democrat colleagues chose to join us for what is an important discussion. That was it, Mr Tomkins—it will not get any better than that.

The Scottish Government shares many of the concerns that have been raised by members today about the removal of support for housing costs from 18 to 21-year-olds. In the manifesto on which we were elected to be the Government in Scotland, we made it clear that we wished to retain housing benefit for those in that age group and who are affected by the UK Government’s policy—I will come to that in a moment. I assure Mr Macpherson that we will continue to pursue the manifesto commitment on which we were elected and, in particular, to pursue the UK Government on its requirement to honour the Smith agreement, as we do.

I absolutely refute the notion, which we have heard from Conservative colleagues, that a life on benefits is somehow a choice that young people consciously, deliberately and willingly make at the age of 18, as all the evidence points in the other direction. If any Tory member took the time and trouble to talk to young people who are affected, they would know that those young people—like young people the length and breadth of Scotland—have ability and talent but face many challenges. They want to be able to live an independent life, which, in my world, a Government should assist them to do, not actively try to prevent them from doing.

What a contradictory policy we have here—a policy under which the DWP will not allow an individual support to sustain their current tenancy, but if that individual then becomes homeless and, under our legislation, is protected with temporary accommodation, they get that support back. There is no sense in that in terms of either logic or cost.

Will the member take an intervention?

In a moment.

I cannot understand what the point of the policy is. Mr Tomkins said that we should remember the narrow scope of the policy and the long list of exemptions. I remember both, and I am forced to wonder what the point of the policy is.

Adam Tomkins rose—

Just a second.

Is the policy based on the notion not that the benefit system is there for all of us in times of need and is something that we all collectively contribute to—something that is part of a social contract between Government and people, like the national health service—which is this Government’s view, but, rather, is something from which we should ensure that scroungers, the workshy and those who want to live off the state, and of whom we must be suspicious, get as little as possible, and so we must curtail their benefit? Is that the ideology? I think so—is that right, Mr Tomkins?

Does the minister think that the taxpayer should pay the rent of an unemployed 18 to 21-year-old? If she does, when will she use her powers under section 28 of the Scotland Act 1998 to introduce such a benefit into Scots law?

I do not accept for one second the binary notion that there is one bunch of taxpayers who are working hard, contributing and gaining little while looking after, shoring up and, in some charitable way, looking after another lot of people who are scroungers and workshy. I do not buy into that notion at all. If Mr Tomkins had listened for one moment to yesterday’s debate on disability, he would understand that it is that very fundamental ideological difference between us that produces people who feel stigmatised, vulnerable and afraid to go and ask for what they are entitled to.

Should the taxpayer pay the rent or not?

I am getting to that. I go back to my point, which is that social security is an investment that we make, collectively, in ourselves and each other.

Will you answer my question?

Neither you nor I, Mr Tomkins, know the day when we might need that financial support, so I do not accept what the member says. On the point about when we will deal with the matter in Scotland, let me say this: do not come here and quote legal advice when there is no reason at all why the UK Government could not have introduced the changes that it seeks in a manner that would have allowed us to retain the benefit for those 18 to 21-year-olds.

The two Governments, both with manifesto commitments, came at the matter from opposing sides. We were prepared to honour and respect the UK Government’s democratic right; unfortunately, it did not do that for us. As Mr Wightman said, we have been forced into using an interim, not person-centred, unnecessarily bureaucratic solution called the Scottish welfare fund. I give Mr Wightman an assurance that there will be additional funds to support that, because we are determined that, while we argue with the UK Government about its approach and the intransigence with which it has dealt with us, we will not see any young person in Scotland suffer.

I can also assure members that, unlike the UK Government, we do not walk away when do not get our own way; we stay and come up with alternatives. We suggested other person-centred solutions, only to be met with a Westminster version of what has just been shown—contempt, ignorance and a failure to recognise the democratic mandate of this Parliament and this Government to do the job that we are here to do. We will keep going with the argument and we have put mitigation in place, but let me be clear: the current UK Government’s position in relation to 18 to 21-year-olds is not acceptable.

I am grateful to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and officials for the work that they have done to ensure that we have an interim solution. Draft guidance has been written and will be consulted on in the coming weeks. After the election in June, we will continue to engage with whichever UK Government is there to pursue this and other specific areas around the benefit cap, in relation to which the current UK Government continues to set its face against the democratic powers of this Parliament and this Government to pursue its agenda.

We will use the powers that we have at our disposal. As we use the Scottish welfare fund, we will make sure that we learn the lessons that we need to learn. If we cannot enact our manifesto commitment through universal credit, we will consider the alternatives, which might include using our powers for a new benefit.

I am certain that whatever long-term solution we come up with will be less adequate than our being able simply to use the flexibilities in universal credit and the UK Government accepting the better, more person-centred approach of allowing the Scottish Government to meet its manifesto commitment and retain the policy for 18 to 21-year-olds—rather than continuing to penalise and stigmatise young people in our country, whom we should be giving the best possible start.

13:56 Meeting suspended.  

14:00 On resuming—