Meeting of the Parliament 07 February 2024
We have indeed spoken about that in the past in the chamber. I recognise Willie Rennie’s continued interest in the area. As he and I have discussed in the past, work has been done to ensure that people who are eligible know about their eligibility and are encouraged to apply and take benefit from that. I will be happy to provide him with further information through the education team in due course.
Although Scottish Government benefits have already been introduced and clients have transferred from the Department for Work and Pensions, the number of children and adults taking part and being invested in through Social Security Scotland and our investment in social security will rise to 2 million. That is a huge achievement and one of which we should all be proud, regardless of our political standpoint. For example, next year alone, we will invest £614 million in new benefits and payments that are available in Scotland only and that offer unparalleled support that is not available elsewhere in the UK.
Those seven Scotland-only benefits include our Scottish child payment, which, last month, Chris Birt of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation called
“a vindication of the power and potential of the Scottish Parliament.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 9 January 2024; c 10.]
It is also a vindication of the Parliament’s unanimous decision in 2018 to enshrine in law the essential principle that social security is a basic human right. I agree absolutely with Professor Stephen Sinclair of Glasgow Caledonian University, who said that it is “extraordinary” that social security across the UK is not founded on that principle.
In keeping with that principle, and thanks to the difficult but essential spending decisions that this Government has made, the Scottish child payment will, from April, be paid at £26.70 a week for 329,000 children. It is estimated that 50,000 children will be lifted out of relative poverty in 2023-24, reducing child poverty levels by five percentage points. Modelling estimates that 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty this year as a result of this Government’s policies, with poverty levels nine percentage points lower than they would otherwise have been.
The Scottish child payment is just one part of our five family payments package, which, from 1 April this year, could be worth more than £10,000 by the time an eligible child turns six. That compares with less than £2,000 for eligible families in England and Wales. That package, of course, includes the best start grant and best start foods, for which we are widening eligibility later this month.
The five family payments package is part of a £3 billion investment next year in policies that tackle poverty and protect people from harm as much as possible during a cost of living crisis. That investment includes funding for childcare, providing free bus travel for more than 2 million people and offering free school meals to all children in primaries 1 to 5.
Our disability payments are also delivering for the people of Scotland, with the latest figures showing that almost £400 million has been paid out for child disability payment to more than 72,000 children. In delivering our commitment and reopening the independent living fund to new entrants, we are also further supporting disabled people who need it most, with an extra £9 million in investment next year.
Disabled people have told us that they found the DWP system humiliating, dehumanising and bewilderingly complex, so we have listened and acted. We are building our disability benefits in partnership with disabled people to be better, fairer and easier to apply for. In Scotland, disabled people no longer have to gather multiple pieces of evidence to detail every aspect of their disability just to get the benefits that they are entitled to. They no longer have to suffer the indignity of having their disability tested by private sector contractors. We have listened to families on carers as well.