Meeting of the Parliament 18 March 2015
I am sorry. I am pushed for time.
The further increases announced by the chancellor today will mean even more money being kept by the earner. That is real help.
The UK Government has reduced the cost of energy bills. That is also real help. The cost of transport, which is a major area of spend for working people on low incomes, has been lowered, with fuel duty 20p a litre lower than it would have been under the previous Government’s plans, and a further fuel duty cut has been announced today.
We can do more in this Parliament. We can make social housing work better to support people; we can support further education, which has been so drastically cut in recent years, to improve skills and enhance job opportunities and choice; and we can provide help and advice to people who are underemployed. Those are sustainable ways of reducing poverty.
All of that depends on the framework of a productive economic plan that supports growth and investment and creates jobs. I am delighted to say that that is exactly what we have at present in the UK.
I move amendment S4M-12678.1, to leave out from “notes” to end and insert:
“acknowledges that increasing employment, growing the economy and creating opportunity remains the most sustainable way of moving people out of poverty; recognises the opportunities and positive outcomes associated with regular employment for those who can work; welcomes the drop in unemployment and rise in employment under the UK Government; believes that the additional 187,000 new jobs created in Scotland since 2010 have been effective in providing more families with the security of a regular wage; notes the phased increases in the income tax personal allowance since 2010, which by next year will have enhanced incomes by reducing the tax bills for 2.32 million people in Scotland and will have taken 261,000 of the lowest paid out of paying income tax altogether; appreciates the increase in the national minimum wage that was recently announced by the UK Government in line with the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission, which is likely to be the largest real-terms increase since 2007, and acknowledges that such improvements can only be sustained by a responsible macroeconomic policy.”
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