Meeting of the Parliament 26 June 2019
As others have done, I thank Keith Brown for securing this important and timely debate.
As I set out in my statement of 27 November 2018, the Scottish Government was pleased that the special rapporteur spent two days of his UK visit in Scotland. He heard directly from people who are affected by poverty and met Scottish ministers, parliamentarians, Government officials and representatives of civil society. He got lived experience from the mouths of people who are directly bearing the brunt of Tory austerity—not anecdote but the realities of what is happening in Scotland and across the UK.
We welcome the special rapporteur’s final report. It is a devastating analysis of the UK Government’s austerity measures. It describes the policies that have been pursued since 2010 as
“retrogressive measures in clear violation of the country’s human rights obligations.”
It clearly shows that there must be a change in direction.
We previously estimated that, in Scotland alone, due to the UK Government’s welfare reforms, £3.7 billion would be cut from annual social security spending by 2020-21. To put that into context, £3.7 billion is the equivalent to three times our annual police budget or the entire annual budget of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian. However, the UK Government refuses to fix the problems that its welfare cuts have caused, which have been articulated today. To use the phrase that we have heard in similar debates in the past, it refuses to test and learn. The continued assault on welfare and continued benefit cuts make it feel as if we in the Scottish Government are fighting poverty with one hand tied behind our backs.
Michelle Ballantyne said that today’s debate and Professor Alston’s report are a missed opportunity to talk rationally about poverty, but it is the contrary. Professor Alston’s work shone an independent spotlight on the politically motivated and ideologically driven attack on the most vulnerable people.
The special rapporteur noted that the devolved Administration is spending considerable resources to protect people from the worst impacts, but that those efforts are simply not sustainable. How can they be, when what is being taken out of social security spending is the equivalent of the NHS budgets for Glasgow and Lothian? In 2019-20, we will continue to invest more than £125 million to mitigate the worst impacts of the change and to protect people on low incomes.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission welcomed “positive policies”, such as our mitigation of the bedroom tax. As a result, we have shielded the most vulnerable people. The reductions in household incomes in Scotland due to the impact of tax, social security and public spending decisions is lower than in England and Wales but, ultimately, there is still a reduction. We cannot shield people entirely, and the money that we spend is money that we would much rather invest in lifting families out of poverty.