Meeting of the Parliament 26 November 2015
I start by thanking the Welfare Reform Committee for its wide-ranging and authoritative report on the impact on women of welfare reform. It strikes me that, if the UK Government had shown the same attention to the impact of its reforms, it might not have been so gleeful and gung-ho in pursuing the deep cuts to social security that will be felt by mothers, grandmothers, carers, low-paid workers, lone parents, victims of domestic abuse, refugee women, women suffering mental health problems, disabled women and of course children. All of that potential damage, often with multiple impacts on women, has been covered forensically and compassionately by the report’s authors. It is a damning indictment of the welfare policies of the UK Government and its lack of regard for women who need social security to support their families.
Of course, that is not the whole story, as two important developments have emerged since the committee’s good work. Just the day after the report was published, in July, the Chancellor of the Exchequer returned to the House of Commons with his emergency budget and announced £34 billion of additional cuts. The House of Commons library estimated that 70 per cent of those cuts will fall on women. We have yet to see whether the spending review that was announced yesterday will ameliorate or exacerbate this unfair targeting of women. Instead of using his new mandate to reduce the structural inequalities that have held many women back, the chancellor has made the decision to reinforce them. The Tory cry, “We’re all in this together” has never seemed so hollow, and it will not be recognised by women throughout the United Kingdom.
Fearing those cuts, the women of Scotland have been given some hope in other developments since the chancellor deepened his welfare cuts. The emergence of the Scotland Bill as a considerable transfer of powers from Westminster to Holyrood gives all of us who oppose these unfair welfare cuts an opportunity to do something about them. The top-up powers over welfare and the devolution of income tax mean that we can now match our rhetoric with action and design a fairer social security system that protects women.
Yes, the Scottish Government already has considerable influence over issues relating to equality, and the Welfare Reform Committee rightly points out several areas that need to be improved here and now. To his credit, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights has given the committee a very full response on behalf of the Scottish Government, which details some of the actions that are being taken to support women who are adversely affected by welfare reform. However, the real prize will be how the next Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament use the new powers over welfare to correct the wrong-headed approach by the Tory Government for the women of Scotland.
A good start would be for the Scottish Government to follow the Welfare Reform Committee’s suggestion and call a high-level summit on women’s social security. That suggestion is supported by Engender, Scottish Women’s Aid, the Scottish Refugee Council and Close the Gap. It would allow us to determine what strategic action is needed to redress the gender impact of welfare reform and public spending cuts. I hope that the minister will address that suggestion in her closing remarks.
As the report outlines, there is much work to do and the situation continues to escalate. Yesterday, the chancellor performed a spectacular and welcome U-turn on tax credits that will mean many working people being spared these unfair cuts. He also spared the blushes of the SNP members, who, when we debated the matter in the chamber two weeks ago, failed miserably to show any real appetite for reversing the proposed tax credit cuts when the powers over them come to Scotland.