Hansard

Twenty years ago, when this Parliament was reconvened, it was because the people of Scotland wanted their own Parliament to make their own decisions on the priorities of the Scottish people. Reducing child poverty is a clear example of where we can do that.

When the UK Government decided to remove the child poverty remit from the Social Mobility Commission and abandon its child poverty targets, this Government did not agree. We withdrew from the commission and introduced the Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill to set new statutory targets for reduction of child poverty. The bill was passed unanimously and was followed by the first tackling child poverty delivery plan. That is devolution in action, and that is where, collectively, we can make a difference.

Today, I have published a first-year progress report on that delivery plan that shows that we have been working hard to build the foundations for transformational change. The most recent poverty statistics, for 2017-18, show that almost a quarter of children in Scotland live in relative poverty. Those figures, though lower than the UK figures, are totally unacceptable. They predate the delivery plan, but the challenge that we face is clear and this Government is determined to tackle it.

Our progress report shows that, after the first year, 48 of the 58 actions in the plan are already in progress or are being delivered. For example, we launched our new devolved employability service, fair start Scotland, in April last year. Job outcomes are encouraging, and service users are positive about their experience. Our programmes do not penalise people through sanctioning benefits, which is a real divergence from the UK Government’s work programme.

The progress report also demonstrates the great package of support that this Government provides for families throughout childhood—from birth to school and beyond—all of which helps to reduce costs for families. One example of that is the fact that, in partnership with local government, we have set the national minimum school clothing grant at an increased level of £100 from the start of this academic year and backed it with joint annual investment of £12 million.

In November, we launched our new financial health check service through Scotland’s network of citizens advice bureaux. That service provides families with the help that they need to maximise their incomes and beat the poverty premium.

Since the publication of the delivery plan, through our new social security system, we are now delivering new benefits to low-income households.

All three elements of the best start grant are now open to families across Scotland, backed by £21 million this year. The unprecedented number of applications that we have received shows that, if we take away barriers, remove stigma and encourage people to apply, people will take up the benefits that are on offer.

On Monday, the third carers allowance supplement was paid to increase financial support for carers, meaning that £452.40 a year more is going to each carer here than goes to carers outwith Scotland.

The Poverty and Inequality Commission has welcomed the activity that is under way and has advised us that our investment must match the scale of our ambition. We agree. The progress report provides a first estimate of our direct spend on low-income families—£527 million in 2018-19 alone.

Of course, that is not the whole story. That estimate does not include the social contract that delivers the universal services that we all enjoy and from which our society benefits. A multibillion-pound package of additional investment is in place in key areas to help all children and parents, whether or not they are on low incomes, to realise their full potential.

As a Government, we are proud of what we have achieved, and we will keep on delivering. Over the next year, we will build on a number of key areas—for example, progressing the delivery of our massive investment in universal early learning and childcare, which will save families £4,500 per child, on average. On Monday, I launched a new £3 million fund to support the delivery of accessible and affordable community-based childcare and experiences for school-age children. By the end of the year, we will launch our new programme of parental employment support to help parents to return to work and progress in their careers.

The Government is taking action in challenging times. This week, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights is at the UN to set out the damage that is being caused by the United Kingdom Government’s policies. His reports make for shocking reading. Professor Philip Alston has said that the social security safety net is “being systematically dismantled”, he has called out the two-child limit for the despicable policy that it is, and he has railed against the four-year benefit freeze. Those disastrous UK Government policies, which are driving increases in child poverty, are rightly described by the rapporteur as

“punitive, mean-spirited and often callous”.

The Scottish Government does not have the powers to reverse or scrap UK reserved policies. We have previously estimated that welfare cuts since 2010 would amount to £3.7 billion annually by 2020-21. Professor Alston has said that it is “unsustainable” for devolved Administrations to mitigate everything, and I agree. For those who do not want such policies, instead of being content with mitigation, why not join me in calling for full powers over areas such as employment and social security, so that we do not have to tackle disadvantage with one hand tied behind our backs?

Our commitment to work towards introducing an income supplement for low-income families in the lifetime of the delivery plan is a flagship policy that is designed to shift the curve of child poverty. Over the past year, the Scottish Government has undertaken a thorough assessment of a range of options, in line with the original two tests that were set out in the delivery plan. In line with the first test, we looked at how to target families who need the additional income most to lift children out of poverty. That analysis of costs and impacts has been published today. In line with the second test, we considered how to ensure that there is a robust and viable delivery route that protects the safe and secure transfer of the devolved benefits. Those analyses are brought together in a position paper, which has also been published today.

A year ago today, the First Minister appointed me as the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government and Shirley-Anne Somerville as the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People. She gave both of us the responsibility for tackling poverty, and we have worked closely together on the income supplement policy. Reducing poverty and achieving a fairer Scotland are why we came into politics. We do not want to live in a country in which we have to mitigate against the policies of another Government; in which children go hungry because their families have had to wait months for their first universal credit payment; in which 85 per cent of benefit spending remains under the control of another Government; and in which we cannot change the minimum wage to tackle in-work poverty. The majority in this Parliament do not want that either.

However, although we do not yet have all the powers that we need, we are not content to sit blithely by and allow the children of Scotland to bear the brunt of Tory austerity. Our ambitions require bold action. We must use the powers that we have to deliver on our commitment to tackle poverty, and I am delighted to confirm that we will use our new social security powers to introduce a new benefit to tackle child poverty. The new financial support will be delivered by Social Security Scotland and will be called the Scottish child payment. By the end of 2022, the payment will be for all eligible children under the age of 16. The payment will be made monthly and uprated annually in line with inflation, and all children in eligible families will be entitled to the support. There will be no cap on the number of children for that or for any other social security policy in Scotland.

The payment will be based on qualifying benefits including universal credit, jobseekers allowance and child tax credits. However, as universal credit is not due to be fully rolled out until 2023 at the earliest, many families will still be in receipt of legacy benefits. That would make automation of the service, which is always complex and time consuming, particularly challenging. Therefore, in order to deliver the new payment, Social Security Scotland will manage an application-based process. As with all benefits that are delivered by us, we will work hard to get maximum take-up.

Although we will introduce the Scottish child payment by the end of 2022—at a time when we are delivering a suite of complex devolved benefits—we have listened to the voices of front-line poverty campaigners, including people with lived experience who are facing the impact of United Kingdom Government welfare cuts now, and we have looked carefully at what is deliverable within a shorter timescale, considered the effects on other aspects of our social security programme and sought an approach that will have the biggest impact on children living in poverty.

I am delighted to announce that the outcome of that work is that we will introduce the Scottish child payment for all eligible children under six by the end of this Parliamentary session—which is much, much earlier than our original commitment. The approach on which we have decided is informed by these two facts: almost 60 per cent of all children in poverty live in a family with at least one child under the age of six, and we know that making a difference in the early years of a child’s life has the biggest impact on long-term outcomes.

We must shift the curve on child poverty, and the provision of direct support to parents can do just that. I announce today that our new Scottish child payment will be £10 a week. For a two-child family, the additional financial support of over £1,000 a year will make a major difference.

The Scottish child payment is a significant turning point in our action to tackle child poverty, which will benefit hundreds of thousands of children. The decisions that we have taken to enable early delivery from next year will benefit 140,000 households with 170,000 children through a substantial investment in families in Scotland. When the policy is fully rolled out, by the end of 2022, 410,000 children—more than a third of Scottish children—will be eligible for the payment.

We expect the Scottish child payment to lift 30,000 children out of relative poverty altogether and to reduce the relative poverty rate by three percentage points, as well as increasing the family incomes of many tens of thousands of families. The payment will help to prevent poverty among families who are on insecure incomes just above the poverty threshold, who face UK Government welfare cuts, and it will help children who are at risk of material deprivation—they are another of our targets.

A payment that prevents deprivation and protects people who need our support is something that this Government and this Parliament can and should be proud of. The Scottish Government is today making a conscious and deliberate decision to prioritise action to tackle child poverty for the remainder of this parliamentary session and beyond. However, doing what we know is right, and doing so early, means tough decisions and choices. Tackling child poverty will be central to the budget and spending review in the coming months, and there will be implications for the delivery of other aspects of our social security programme.

In its recent report “Social security: Implementing the devolved powers”, Audit Scotland noted:

“it is difficult to see how the programme could progress more quickly.”

It is therefore clear that we will need to make the necessary space to deliver the new payment early and successfully. It is important to be open with the Parliament from the outset. We have already carried out extensive work to ensure that we can deliver the payment. We are aware that we will need to actively manage the delivery of the payment within a highly complex and challenging existing programme. Over the summer, officials will carry out further formal assessment of the challenges and develop a clear plan for how to mitigate them. The work will include consideration of issues that relate to information technology systems, staffing, supplier management and our enabling services.

I can say now that we absolutely will deliver disability assistance for working-age people—our replacement for the personal independence payment—in early 2021, as we outlined to the Parliament in February. We are on track to deliver our first disability benefit—disability assistance for children and young people—next summer, as announced. However, our expectation is that the launch of our new claims service for disability assistance for older people, which is the devolved form of the Department for Work and Pensions attendance allowance, might need to take place in 2021 rather than in 2020, as was originally planned. There might also be an impact on the launch date for new claims for Scottish carers allowance, which might need to move back a few months, to early 2022, and there could be an impact on the date on which we expect to complete the transfer of benefits cases from the DWP to Social Security Scotland.

Today, the Scottish Government has responded to an initiated question on our plan’s implications for social security delivery. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People will update Parliament with more detail in the autumn, following completion of the impact assessment. We are having to make difficult decisions, but we are making them for the right reasons. After all, the risk of not delivering on the ambition of the payment is that we will not shift the curve on child poverty in the way that we know we have to. That is why, given the commitment across the Parliament to tackling child poverty and the collective agreement on the targets that have been set, the support of all members is crucial in enabling the early introduction of the payment.

Our progress report sets out the first year of action and the clear steps that we have taken towards making genuine reductions in child poverty. Those actions demonstrate our commitment to eradicating child poverty and offer a glimpse of what is possible when we have the powers and the will to act. On its own, the Scottish child payment stands to be one of the most progressive policy proposals since devolution. It will be backed by significant investment, and Scotland will be the only part of the UK that is making such a serious commitment to reducing—and ultimately eradicating—child poverty. The plan to introduce a Scottish child payment of £10 a week is bold and ambitious—and it will reduce child poverty, which is vital. Tackling such poverty head on is the only way in which we can make Scotland the best place in which to grow up.