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To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made on agreeing the scope of the Fiscal Framework review, scheduled for 2022, with the UK Government. S6O-00142
In the light of that, will the Scottish Government consider giving further direction to, or developing a framework for, local authorities to ensure that that discretionary funding goes into the bank accounts of those who have fallen through the cracks and need it the most?
The five-week wait for the first payment is unacceptable and has been shown to lead to increased debt, hardship and food bank usage. The Work and Pensions Committee found that, at the peak of universal credit applications earlier this year, more than 200,000 people across the UK faced a wait that was longer than five weeks.
That is in addition to the direct support that we have given to FareShare and other organisations, so that they can make food available. We did not ever want to see food banks being used in Scotland: we wanted to get rid of food insecurity before the pandemic, but it continues.
However, many businesses—for example, family-run hotel businesses that have been built up over decades—with rateable values in excess of the threshold frankly do not want to take out a loan and work for the bank for another 20 years, into their own advancing years.
There will be £220 million of fresh seed funding for the Scottish national investment bank, contributing to our commitment to invest £2 billion over 10 years, and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland will receive £26.5 million of funding.
(S5O-04104) Work is under way on drafting the bill, and we plan to publish it as part of the legislative programme that is set out in the programme for government for this parliamentary year. We know that food bank use has soared in the past decade and that the Government cannot rely on donations and people’s good will to feed the poorest people.