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I take John Scott’s point about the financial constraints on our councils, but he really must ponder why they have those financial constraints. We have had one quarter—about 26 per cent—of our capital budget constrained, and we have to pass that on to local authorities.
Questions and Answers
Date answered:
10 December 2009
However, its impacts are greatly reduced by the UK Government’s welfare policies, including the inadequacy of the universal credit system. Those policies are part of a United Kingdom regime that is a significant drain on the Scottish budget.
We have again called for the abolition of the two-child limit, the benefit cap, the young parent penalty in universal credit and the bedroom tax. We are doing what we can to mitigate the effect of those damaging policies, but we cannot mitigate everything.
The instrument is subject to negative procedure and amends the Council Tax Reduction (Scotland) Regulations 2021 to increase the maximum amount that may be disregarded in respect of childcare costs for the recipients of universal credit when calculating their income for the purposes of the council tax reduction scheme.
I am not sure why there was groaning from some members on the Conservative benches when, to her credit, Kaukab Stewart was raising such an important issue.
British Sign Language (National Qualification) (PE1867) Item 2 is consideration of continued petitions, the first of which is PE1867, lodged by Scott Macmillan and calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to encourage the Scottish Qualifications Authority to establish a national qualification in British Sign Language at Scottish credit and qualifications framework level 2.
Of course, the United Kingdom Government could use its powers to tackle child poverty and the cost of living crisis by—just to name a few measures—introducing a £25-a-week uplift for universal credit and means-tested legacy benefits and by ending the benefit cap and the two-child limit.
We have repeatedly called on the UK Government to urgently review the various failings of the universal credit system, such as the two-child limit and the rape clause, which is abhorrent and would have no place in an independent Scotland’s social security system.