Meeting of the Parliament 18 March 2015
I very much identify with the tenor of the independent and Green motion. It is ironic that we are having this debate on budget day. Members can call me cynical, but I suspect that the gap between the rich and the poor will get even greater. I say to Neil Findlay that it is regrettable that, under Labour Governments over the years, I have also seen the gap between rich and poor getting greater.
No one in work should need to apply to the benefits system to enable them to meet the level of the living wage. In principle that is wrong, and in practice it means that the state—you and I—are subsidising employers, which is just plain wrong. I congratulate the SNP Government, which is paying all Scottish Government employees across central Government, its agencies and the national health service the living wage—the living wage, not the statutory minimum wage. Of course, our powers in this Parliament are so limited that we can apply only elastoplast and not the invasive surgery that is needed, as Neil Findlay said, to deal with the cancer of poverty, both in work and out of work.
In the Midlothian part of my constituency, 15.6 per cent of those who are in work earn less than £7 an hour. That figure comes from “Addressing Child Poverty in Midlothian: Action Plan 2012–17”. Average weekly earnings for Midlothian residents, both male and female, are currently significantly less than both the Scottish and British averages, and for women the picture is worse.
The picture in the Borders is even worse than in Midlothian. In the Borders, 19.7 per cent of workers earn less than £7 per hour, because although employment rates are high in the Borders, there is a lack of well-paid work, both historically and currently—and, even then, as we all know, work is not a route out of poverty. There are even more barriers for people entering employment—for example, if they have a disability or are carers. Indeed, in terms of the lowest pay, Scottish Borders Council ranks 28th out of the 32 local authorities.
Those are the facts and statistics, but people are more than statistics. They are individuals trapped in low-paid jobs and zero-hours contracts, driven to apply to the state for financial assistance.
As for the benefits system, people must almost have a degree in mathematics to make a claim. There are 42 pages on the HM Revenue & Customs website as a guide to the working tax credit and the child tax credit. Applicants certainly need stamina—or perhaps desperation will get them there. Even if they do claim and receive payment, it can all go skew-whiff, and months or years later the tax man could come knocking at their door looking to claw back some so-called overpayment.
Added to the stress of being underpaid, and hence undervalued—which is key—people’s problems are compounded by a benefits system that will grind them down even further. I take issue with Annabel Goldie’s claim that the example given by Alison Johnstone is only one illustration. Such instances are too commonplace.
Still, people can always be referred to the local food bank, although having to get provisions has nothing to do with poverty and benefits cuts, according to David Mundell, our only Tory MP in Scotland. He refutes the evidence from MSPs, academics, charities and religious organisations of a link between welfare reform and the use of food banks, as brought out in a report by Holyrood’s Welfare Reform Committee. There we have it: in Scotland, poverty, both in work and out of work, has nothing to do with Westminster’s policies. We have David Mundell’s word for that.