Hansard

I am sure that that was the case. He was probably in Mr Stevenson’s class at school. However, Mr Stevenson makes a valid point.

From all that emerged the post-war consensus, in which Governments of whichever persuasion accepted the need for a decent social security system—until the dark cloud of Thatcherism cast its ugly shadow over our society. From then until now, the debate, and the tone of the debate, around social security has become steeped in a negative culture of blame and division, setting worker against worker, the able-bodied against the disabled, the young against the old and the host community against immigrants. It has created a system that treats people with suspicion instead of compassion and which increasingly stigmatises people using language such as “scroungers”, “shirkers” and the “feckless”.

I agree absolutely with the cabinet secretary: any of us at any point in our lives could find our world turned upside down by a debilitating illness or physical disability, by the arrival of a child or a parent who is in need of round-the-clock care or by an extended period of unemployment. We should all say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

With devolution of social security, we have a real opportunity to do things differently. On the Welfare Reform Committee, there has been a great deal of consensus among Labour and SNP members—we will, as always, leave the Tories out of this, although I note that Mr Lamont did, at least, remain silent most of the time.

We agree with the Government that

“social security is an investment in the people of Scotland ... that respect for the dignity of individuals”

should be

“at the heart of everything that we do ... that our processes and services”

should be

“evidence based and designed with the people ... that Governments of whichever persuasion should strive for continuous improvement in policy, processes and systems, and put the user experience first”

and that services should be

“efficient and ... give value for money.”

I hope that there is nothing controversial there.

In creating strong foundations for a new welfare system, we all want them to be robust. However, what we build on top of those foundations and how any new system is funded are more important. We want a system that is publicly run and accountable to Parliament, not one that is hived off to the private sector or an agency elsewhere that can be blamed if things go wrong. We want a system that helps people to participate in our society and to get back into work when and if they are able to do so.

We want child poverty to be at the centre of our system. Tragically, one in four children is affected by poverty—220,000 of our fellow citizens. None of us can wash our hands of that collective shame.

On Monday, the Labour leader Kezia Dugdale set out how our proposals will offer children who are leaving care and going into higher education a full grant, which will give them the best opportunity to complete their studies and move on in life. After months of campaigning, we have won the argument for paying care workers the living wage. Scottish National Party members voted against that half a dozen times, but let us put that in the past and celebrate the fact that, like our bedroom tax member’s bill, our campaigning has again paid dividends.

The next stage is to secure a better deal for carers by raising the level of carers allowance to match the level of jobseekers allowance, which would be worth about an extra £600 a year to carers. Labour has made that a firm commitment. We will also more than double the level of maternity grant that is made available to new mums, and would provide £1,030 to help mums with the cost of a new baby.

We cannot do any of that if we do not have a plan to address austerity, and I still have to find the Government’s plan for addressing austerity. We can do it because we have come up with a range of funded options incorporating income tax changes, initially to the basic rate then to the higher rate, a refusal to implement Osborne’s tax cuts for the top 15 per cent of earners by maintaining the threshold, and rejecting the SNP’s tax giveaway to the wealthiest through abolition of air passenger duty.

Our tax plans, combined with the commitment to tackle child poverty and the gross inequality in our society, are at the heart of our plans for a Scotland in which everyone has opportunity, in which everyone is valued and in which everyone is looked after. I look forward to continuing the debate on the future of our social security system and am sure that we will hear more on that from members during the debate.

I move amendment S4M-15758.2, to insert at end:

“; believes that, given that 220,000 children in Scotland are affected by child poverty, the devolution of social security should see addressing child poverty become the Scottish Government’s number one priority, developing a range of policies across government to address such glaring inequality in society, and further believes that such a strategy can only be delivered by using the new financial powers of the Parliament to increase the revenues available to the Scottish Government”.